Warnings : Yaoi, angst/sap, limey over-tones, OOC, language, Duo POV, and some really lame attempts to sound technical.
Thanks to Christy, the beta reading Goddess, and Kracken for comments and suggestions. Thanks guys!

Feed-back is a dream I have.
And I don't own anything in this series, either.

Traditions

Christmas. You know, I’ve never really believed in it. Never really gave much credence to that whole religion thing at all. That always surprises people when they figure it out, and I suppose it’s my own damn fault for wearing that ridiculous priest’s outfit through the war. But nobody had ever stopped to ask me what the point to that had been; they just jumped to the conclusion that it was all about God and the church.

Well, I suppose it had been about the church, just not in the way people thought.

Come on; you think my whole life and belief system had been based on that short period of time that I’d been at the Maxwell church? You think that listening to Father’s sermons every Sunday was enough to make me forget the real life’s lessons that I’d learned on the street? You think that even if it had, that I wouldn’t have just as quickly forgotten the lessons of the church in the light of what happened? In the light of watching Father and Sister Helen die for those very beliefs? Unaided by any God other the one I knew far better than theirs?

That priest’s outfit had been nothing more than a reminder to me. Some kind of twisted homage to the man who had, however briefly, been the closest thing to a father I’d ever had.

It had all been about revenge. It had taken me a long damn time to figure out that Father and Sister would have been totally appalled at the very notion that I was fighting in their name. Would have been shamed by most of the things I had done to try and balance their deaths. I’d stopped wearing those clothes then… and fought for other reasons.

They would probably be just as dismayed that I do not celebrate Christmas.

Oh, I suppose I do, in that faithless way that most of the world uses the date as an excuse. But I don’t keep the day with anything like the joy I could remember in Sister Helen’s eyes that one lone Christmas when I had celebrated the season.

We got oranges. Each one of us orphans. I will never forget that as long as I live. Will never forget the wonder of learning how to peel the thing, and finding the sweet meat of it inside. Of eating each piece with slow deliberation. It had been the first thing I’d done, when I’d gotten the chance, on falling to Earth at the beginning of Operation Meteor; bought an orange. I remember feeling vaguely disappointed that it hadn’t tasted quite the same.

In the years since the war, if I had a Christmas tradition, it was sending gifts to the kids at the orphanage. I sent them books and candy, and saw to it that they knew the taste of oranges, but at Christmas I did my best to find something special for each of them, something that could be wrapped in shiny paper and tagged with their names. Something for them alone.

This year was just being… exceptionally tough. This year for the first time, I was going to have to ship the gifts to L2 and would not even get to see them open them. We won’t even talk about the guilt I was feeling over the shipping costs. Especially since I’d waited so long and was going to have to pay courier prices to get them there in time. Heero hadn’t so much as batted an eye when I’d told him about my little ‘tradition’. Had, in fact, been rather helpful in the boxing and wrapping department. He, apparently, wasn’t much of one for Christmas either, and claimed to enjoy the shopping and wrapping as something he’d not done a lot of.

I’m not sure, but I rather suspected he was just staying close because the whole damn endeavor was depressing the hell out of me, and that always worries him. I tried not to let it get to me, but I apparently wasn’t completely able to cover up the sting of it.

While I’d not actually spent Christmas day on L2 since the war, I had over the years, usually managed to make a trip out that way within a week or two of the big day. Arranging to deliver my gifts myself, and getting to see the kids as they opened them. Octavia always made quite the fuss over ‘opening things early’, but would never have seriously dreamed of depriving me of their laughter and bright smiles. Of their hugs and sweet voiced ‘thank yous’.

I was going to miss that, and it truly was going to be a deprivation. As we had shopped and hunted for just the right gifts, in my mind’s eye I’d been anticipating the reactions and it was difficult to have to face the harsher reality of seeing only the face of some bored and over-worked postal worker.

Though, between the afore-mentioned shopping, a full-time job, and the work we’d had facing us moving in to the house, I usually managed not to dwell on it overly much. Was just too damn tired at the end of the day to dwell on much of anything.

But I was down to my last day, and if I didn’t have the package in the mail the next morning, it wasn’t going to make it on time. And while I’d been a week or two early before… I’d never been late. The line between anticipation and disappointment is a fine one, and I didn’t want my kids to cross it. I’d made the trip myself often enough that I recognized the boundaries.

I had my seven packages, fairly sure of the first six and nervous about the seventh. I didn’t even know the new kid, the redhead I’d seen on the recording of Davey’s recital. An e-mail to Octavia had verified that the kid truly was one of ‘mine’ and that his name was Mark. Other than that, I knew only that he had a liking for trucks. All I could do was hope the Tonka-200 with all the accessories would be to his liking.

Everything had finally been purchased, wrapped, tagged and fussed over until it looked like it had come straight from the North Pole. I was down to trying to get it all in the shipping box suitably packed so that I was sure nothing would be damaged or crushed in transit.

‘You do realize that you’ve repacked that box six times, don’t you,’ a teasing voice informed me and I looked up to find Heero leaning in the dining room doorway watching me.

‘If you’ve counted that high,’ I groused, ‘you’ve been watching too damn long.’

He snorted his amusement, but didn’t move to help me. I thought it a little odd, and gave him my raised eyebrow look. His mirth faded but he just kept standing there.

I dumped another handful of packing peanuts into the box, but it didn’t seem to help and I sighed. I expected Heero to comment, but he maintained his silence, watching me with an odd look on his face. He seemed to be chewing on something more than my fastidious packing should warrant.

I pulled three of the gifts out of the packing box, shifting things yet again, trying to get them in there just right. His eyes on me seemed rather intense.

‘Spit it out, Yuy,’ I told him, not looking up. ‘Speak plainly… remember?’

He sighed and shifted against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. I had a sudden pang, and stopped what I was doing to look up at him. ‘You… aren’t mad at me over this… are you?’

I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have faked the look of surprise that came over him then and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. ‘Not at all,’ he told me firmly, straightening and coming to stand behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. His voice took on that teasing tone again. ‘Just… how do you say we need to talk, without actually saying we need to talk?’

I chuckled at the joke, but couldn’t help turning to look at him, just to make sure that it was a joke.

‘How about saying kiss me, you fool, first… just to take the sting out of it?’ I quipped, never having figured out a better way to deliver that line.

He snorted softly, his smile warming. ‘You’re nobody’s fool… but kiss me anyway.’

So I did, and when I was done, he tugged at my braid gently, inclining his head in the direction of the living room. ‘Can you take a break?’

I nodded, not at all sure about this, and followed him out of the room. He seemed to want to stay in contact with me, keeping a hand on mine as we went. It took me a bit to realize that he thought whatever we were getting ready to talk about was seriously going to upset me. It didn’t do much to calm my sudden case of nerves. I thought back over the last couple of days, trying to think of something I’d done wrong, but came up fairly empty. I couldn’t possibly have pissed off Relena again; I hadn’t seen her in weeks. I had diligently been taking my iron tablets and was sure I hadn’t skipped a meal since that whole ‘passing out’ thing. Hair in the drain? No… I was very careful about that. And Heero sure as hell didn’t care if I left the toilet seat up or not.

He took us to the couch and when we sat, he took my hand and held it kind of tight. Shit, I was seriously starting to wonder what in the hell I’d done.

‘I didn’t mean to drink the last of the milk!’ I blurted finally, when he still didn’t seem to know how to start.

He chuckled and gave his head a rueful shake. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he sighed, running his free hand through his hair in his frustrated gesture. ‘I’ve been thinking about something all week, trying to make up my mind if it’s a good idea or a bad idea…’ He hesitated, looking at me with the strangest, almost imploring look on his face. ‘I don’t know how to ask.’

I raised an eyebrow and shifted a little until I could throw a leg over his, offering the more intimate touch in encouragement. His hand dropped to cup the calf of my leg and he smiled, squeezing gently. ‘Just spit it out, husband-mine,’ I told him. ‘If it’s a bad idea, I’ll tell you.’

His eyes looked almost pained for a moment and he sighed, keeping his hand wrapped around my leg. ‘Hear me out before you decide?’ he pressed.

I couldn’t help the bark of laughter. ‘I’d be delighted to hear you out if you’d just freakin’ say something!’

He quirked a little grin and had the decency to look embarrassed. ‘I’ve been watching you,’ he finally began. ‘These last few weeks, and it’s killing me to see you so… unhappy.’

I felt myself flushing and ducked my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I try not to let it get to me…’

‘Quit it,’ he told me, voice gentle and fingers kneading at my calf. ‘You don’t ever need to apologize for how you feel. I just… want to fix this. If I can.’

I started to open my mouth to tell him there was no fixing what was wrong. Started to tell him that I would be alright after the stupid season was over and I stopped thinking about the kids and the gifts… but then it kind of dawned on me what he was saying and I just sat with my mouth hanging open, staring at him.

‘Let me take you to L2 for Christmas,’ he said, voice wavering and unsure.

Such a simple phrase, to damn near stop my heart in my chest.

Go to L2 for Christmas…

To get to see the kids again.

Take a commercial shuttle and…

Sweet Jesus… freefall again.

Just go to L2…

Space.

Like a normal person…

Total vacuum.

‘Oh God,’ someone said, and the tone of voice was lost somewhere between terror and longing.

‘Never mind,’ Heero was suddenly saying, and his hand on my leg was almost painfully tight. ‘Forget it… it was a bad idea. I’m sorry…’

‘No,’ I managed. ‘I just have to… think about it. I… I’m not sure I can…’

His eyes seemed to brighten when he realized I hadn’t immediately rejected the offer. ‘I’ll be with you every minute. It won’t cost us anything but accommodations on L2, Preventors agents accumulate travel credit, and I’ve never used any of mine. I still have vacation, and the mechanics department gets several days off for Christmas, so the time isn’t a problem. We can…’

I think I was only half hearing him, my little inner pack of hamsters running around swapping conflicting banners, and I wasn’t at all sure what to focus my attention on.

I could almost feel the freedom of free-fall again. Could feel the icy cold. Could imagine the voices of the kids, clamoring for my attention. Could hear my own panting breath, sucking hard for air that wasn’t there.

The Holy Grail, in case no one ever told you, is full to the brim with a damn bitter poison.

‘Duo?’ Heero’s voice came to me, sounding tight and strained.

The hamsters scattered and I awoke to my surroundings with a start, realizing that I was almost grinding the bones in his hand together. I let go with a startled gasp. ‘Shit… I’m sorry Heero!’

He wouldn’t let me pull too far away, reaching to capture my arms and holding on. I could see he was unsure of himself. Could see he wasn’t certain if he’d done a good thing or a bad thing.

I wasn’t sure what to tell him… I didn’t know either.

He was searching my face intently and softly said, ‘Let this be my gift to you. We can do it together, I’m sure of it.’

‘God…’ I whispered, head lost in memories of that trip to L3. ‘I don’t know Heero… I’m not so sure…’

‘Only if you want this,’ he soothed. ‘It’s totally up to you. I just… wanted to take that heartache out of your eyes. I hate seeing you so miserable.’

I ducked my head again, chagrined that I’d been letting it show so much. I’d thought I was covering it up better. ‘I… have to think about it, love,’ I told him.

‘Of course,’ he said, reaching to brush fingertips along my cheek until I raised my eyes. Then he kissed me in tender apology.

‘Leave the wrapping go until the morning, and come to bed?’ he asked when he pulled away.

I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to do that, with my head so packed full of thoughts that it felt like it might explode, but I didn’t want him thinking he’d upset me. Well, upset me more than he was obviously aware he had. So I nodded and gave him a smile that I hoped qualified as something more than wan. ‘All right… I just need to lock up,’ I told him and he let me go do it.

‘Come up when you’re done?’ he asked, and there was something in his eyes that told me he knew it would take me more than the usual few minutes.

I smiled for him. ‘Of course,’ I echoed and watched him go up the stairs.

Whoa. I really had not seen that coming. Hell, I hadn’t even known that he got anything like a ‘travel credit’. I was completely done with my nightly ‘lock-down’ ritual before I got passed the ‘whoa’ stage. So I took a minute to perch on the counter in my back room and stare out into the darkness of our back yard.

Christmas on L2. I kept saying it to myself, but I couldn’t quite get my head around it. A commercial flight, with tickets and everything. I wouldn’t have to pilot, but I couldn’t make up my mind if that was a selling point or part of the anxiety. I’m a control freak, have I ever mentioned that?

But… getting to see the kids. My God, that sounded so sweet. The last time I’d seen them, the visit had been so short and I’d barely been able to play with them at all. I’d been so exhausted from the stupid expo that I’d had a moment of panic that I was going to pass-out in the middle of Octavia’s living room. Wouldn’t that have just made the woman scream?

But… Space travel. My stomach tightened just thinking about it. If I tried to think it through, tried to imagine what it would take to get us there… I found myself almost panting for breath, just sitting in my studio. The thoughts swirling almost too fast to catalog. Launch. Space. Hard vacuum. Biting cold. Horrid solitude.

But… Heero would be with me. I wouldn’t have to try and do it alone. That was what just about killed me on the L3 run, wasn’t it? That solitude? There would be people on a regular flight. Lots of people, and Heero there to hold my hand. But then… maybe that was part of the apprehension over the whole thing… imagining Heero seeing me like I’d been on that disastrous last job.

But… Hell, I could do the ‘but’ thing all night. There were too many buts that just led to the should haves that led to the could haves that led to the would haves that led back around to the buts. I was chasing hamster tails.

I figured I’d better get my ass upstairs when I realized I’d been staring out the window for over an hour.

I could see Heero was awake when I walked into the bedroom, but he didn’t speak. Just watched quietly while I undressed and then held back the blanket in invitation. I crawled in beside him and settled against his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ I told him simply.

‘I understand,’ he assured me, his fingers coming to sift almost absently through the fine hairs at my temple.

There didn’t seem to be much else to say and we were quiet, but I could tell he wasn’t going to sleep, and I’m sure he could tell the same of me. Eventually I couldn’t keep from turning in towards him, settling my arm across his chest. His fingers left off playing with my hair and began lightly tracing up and down my forearm.

There was nothing suggestive in any of his caresses, just a need to be touching. A need to hold. But then his fingers found that wide, taut scar, the one from the trip to L3, and didn’t move away from it.

‘I love you,’ he said suddenly, breaking the quiet and catching me completely by surprise.

‘I know,’ I replied, feeling his fingers trace that scar. ‘Forever,’ I told him, feeling something in the air that I wasn’t sure I was happy about.

‘Are you considering it?’ he asked gently and there was no doubt what ‘it’ was.

‘Yeah,’ I replied, repressing a shiver at the admission. ‘I am. I’m just not sure I can.’

‘Then,’ he said, very softly, his fingertips caressing that stark, white scar. ‘I need to know about this.’

I’m kind of ashamed to admit that my ‘flight’ instincts kicked into high gear and before I had a chance to think about it, I found myself sitting up, preparing to… to… I’m not really sure what.

I’m not real good with emotional confrontation, in case you haven’t noticed.

‘Please don’t,’ he whispered, but he didn’t grab at me, and maybe that’s what let me sit there and not take off for parts unknown. Though, being buck-ass naked, I suppose I wouldn’t have gone far.

When I didn’t continue my evasive maneuvers, the hand that I had obviously thrown off, came to stroke gently along my spine and it crossed my mind that he was trying to judge just how tense I was. Perhaps choosing his next words based on what he found.

‘You know,’ he said, voice hesitant. ‘You did promise me that we would talk about it after I was released from the hospital. I… think this qualifies.’

I couldn’t help a soft snort. ‘Trying to impress me with your endless patience?’

I felt the mattress dip as he shifted, and he sat up to slip an arm around my waist, whispering close to my ear, ‘You’re a hard man to impress. I’ll do it any way I can manage it.’

I couldn’t help the blush, but it didn’t matter, because the bedroom was dark anyway. ‘Don’t start with me, asshole,’ I grumbled. ‘If you were any more damn impressive, I’d have to have you bronzed.’

He chuckled and drew me back down to lie with him, pulling me into the curve of his arm to rest on his shoulder again. He didn’t speak immediately, but began to rain tiny kisses across my forehead and down the side of my face. He knows damn well I can’t stay upset with him over anything when he does that. ‘Talk to me,’ he sighed in between those tender touches.

I gusted a sigh and felt him shiver as my breath washed across his chest. ‘Heero… you know what happened…’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘Not really,’ he said, voice almost an admonishment. ‘We never seriously talked about that trip.’

‘There isn’t much to tell,’ I grumbled, remembering it already and wishing I could stop the mental images.

‘Nothing to tell?’ he chided. ‘Is that why you flinch whenever anyone mentions L3 in conversation?’

I refused to shiver; I’d be damned if I’d lend credence to his argument. I didn’t know what to say to him. I suppose there wasn’t much point in trying to argue about it. But… I really didn’t want to talk about it either. I mean… nothing like inadvertently almost committing suicide to make you feel like a real ass.

‘Duo-love,’ he sighed when I didn’t speak. ‘If we’re going to try this… I need to know what happened. I need to know everything. How can I help you, if I don’t understand what you’re going through?’

‘Mission parameters?’ I teased and he snorted.

‘I suppose if you want to think of it that way,’ he muttered, but didn’t sound like he was all that thrilled with the comparison.

I sighed and brought my hand up to rest in the center of his chest in open apology. ‘It’s hard, Heero,’ I told him.

‘I know,’ he whispered, something in his voice telling me he truly did understand what he was asking.

Not a lot of things as difficult as telling the person who is the most important thing in the world to you, just what a defective, raving lunatic you really are.

I sighed and I mulled it over and I tried to decide just what angle to come at the tale. ‘You understand that it was a complete accident, don’t you?’ I finally blurted, and his fingers came to find the scar again.

‘I…’ he hesitated and I had to look up at him, ‘trust you,’ he finally said, making me understand that he hadn’t been sure. When he’d first seen it.

‘I did not set out to kill myself,’ I stated, surprised at how vehement my voice sounded. ‘I was just so… heart-sick when I realized I’d forgotten…’ Forgotten Solo’s day. Forgotten Solo. I’d been so guilt-ridden and felt so sick… but I’d only meant to make the small little scar like all the others, to tally the years since he’d been gone. Had simply intended to make up for my slip.

‘That’s what I need to know,’ Heero told me softly, gracing the center of my forehead with a lingering kiss. ‘What you were feeling…’

I had to get out from under that gaze of his and found myself sitting up again, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them. ‘I don’t keep a lot of days, Heero,’ I told the footboard, feeling the heat of his hand as it hovered over my back, trying to decide whether to touch or not. ‘There aren’t a lot of dates that mean a damn thing.’ He was quiet, waiting for me to get it spit out. Waiting for me to figure out how to impart in mere words the moment when I’d had the truth written on the wall for me. In my own blood. In a lovely little pictograph that I still hadn’t quite figured out. I sighed heavily, picking over a thousand words and discarding them all. His hand finally settled against me, sliding soothingly up and down my back.

How to say… I panicked; I completely lost my nerve.

How to say… I tried to face it down… and lost.

How to say… The thing I crave the most, makes me shake in terror.

How to say… I don’t really remember what the hell I did to my arm.

How to say… I got myself out there and wasn’t sure I could get myself back.

How to say… How in the Hell to say… I’m not sure I can do this.

I was aware that his hand stopped moving over my skin; that it had stilled, feeling warm and solid against me. Then I was aware of him close beside me again, sitting up and gathering me into his arms.

‘You can do it because you won’t be alone this time,’ he whispered huskily next to my ear, and his arms around me were very damn tight. ‘But we don’t have to try it. I only offered because I thought it might help. If you don’t want to…’

‘I do want to,’ I told him, hiding my face from my own words in the crook of his shoulder. ‘I want to see the kids… I just… I don’t know…’

He stroked a comforting hand over my hair and I was aware of a faint rocking motion. I closed my eyes and burrowed into it. ‘I know,’ he assured me. ‘I know, love.’

I managed to get my arms wrapped around his waist and sighed, a sound that came out more dejected than I had meant for it to.

‘I feel like I’ve made things worse,’ he said so softly I almost missed it. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you so.’

I snorted and squeezed him tight. ‘Maybe we just need to invent a teleportation device?’ I teased, trying to make things better.

He chuckled faintly, his heart not really in it. ‘I’ll get right on that.’

I guess my heart really wasn’t in it either, because I just couldn’t come up with a retort and the teasing fell flat.

He drew me back down to the bed, but didn’t really let me go, holding on unyieldingly. I could feel him struggling with words that kept dying stillborn on his tongue.

‘Spit it out, lover,’ I finally grumbled, not liking the tension in him.

He kind of sighed an aborted little sigh and said, ‘I don’t want to say I told you so, but… that was what I was so afraid of… right from the start. I could sense it in you; that fear of being alone. I was terrified of you going off on that trip.’

‘I know,’ I said, after a minute of blushing furiously and not finding anything more profound to impart. There was no more answer than that; he’d been right to be afraid.

‘Do you…’ he began hesitantly. ‘Do you think it would have been so bad if… if it hadn’t been for the timing?’

If I hadn’t taken that job and launched my ship into the jaws of all my terrors right on the heels of forgetting about Solo’s anniversary?

I had to think about that one. Had to worry at it like a sore tooth, and he waited for me. Though his arms held me so that I couldn’t have gotten up if I’d wanted to. I wasn’t sure he was doing it consciously.

‘I don’t know,’ I finally had to confess. ‘I wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have done what I did… but the rest of it? Yeah… I think so.’ I ran it through my head without the blood. Without the blubbering hysterics. The launch. The silence. The cold. The little voice in the back of my head begging for mercy I hadn’t been able to grant.

I shivered… very hard. He held me, but held his tongue as well.

‘The accident… with the knife, was… nothing,’ I found myself telling him. ‘Almost inconsequential compared to the rest. I would still have come back and done what I ended up doing.’

Selling the ship. Leaving the trade. Calling it quits.

Having the nervous breakdown.

He didn’t know what to say to comfort after a line like that. Or maybe he was just suddenly regretting his offer to take a sufferer of ‘Free-fall fever’ into deep space.

‘I’ll always wish that you’d waited,’ he said at length, and it had been so long, the sound of his voice surprised me.

‘Wouldn’t have mattered,’ I assured him. ‘It’s… only gotten worse.’ The closest I could come to telling him how much the idea of going back out there tore at me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed against my hair. ‘I didn’t mean to make you… think about it so much.’

‘It’s all right,’ I soothed with a mirthless chuckle. ‘The season is doing that.’

Which was the honest truth. I’m not sure why, maybe just thinking about the kids and L2, but something was making the accident… the big one… not that trip to L3, loom in my mind a lot lately. Seemed I found myself seeking patches of sunlight, needing to soak in the heat. Found myself not wanting to be alone. Found myself running from silences. Found myself remembering.

We stopped talking about it then, curling together as close as we could get. He held me in the circle of his arms; his leg tucked between my thighs, close, but not quite close enough. ‘I’m here,’ he whispered against my skin and I eventually fell asleep listening to the sound of his steady heartbeat.

And of course there were nightmares. I’d had little doubt that there would be.

I can’t think about the past so much, especially so late at night, without attracting the attention of my ghosts and fears.

It was a disjointed thing; the part I remember most was the bleeding that I couldn’t get stopped no matter what I did. Blood was spattered everywhere… all through the corridors of my ship, and wherever it pooled, a face looked back at me with sad, accusing eyes.

In the dream, I eventually grew too weak to fight the bleeding and fell… unable to move. Shadows flickered around me and it began to grow very cold.

And then the ship fell silent. That absence of sound is a thing that will chill the soul of any spacer. A ship is damn near a living presence; they are never silent. Not while they are in space. A silent ship is a dead ship.

I felt my Lady Demon die and I felt myself beginning to die with her, unable to catch my breath. Unable to find air to draw into burning lungs.

And through it all, a child’s voice, crying out in terror and panic. Begging not to be made to go… promising to do better… promising to be good.

It was the feel of Heero slapping my face that brought me gasping back to reality.

I think he was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear over the sound of my own sickening panting. Over the sound of my own blood thundering in my ears.

I clutched at him, made him cover me, made him give me his weight and his reality. I remembered my hands and released him in a moment of fearful clarity, but lost the moment and couldn’t stop myself from grabbing onto him again.

‘…here… I’m here… I’m right here…’ his litany began to come through to me, and though they were nonsense words, they were an unbelievable comfort. For a little bit, we just hung on.

I made my decision in that dark moment. I’ve always had a kind of… creed, when it comes to my fears. A sort of rule for dealing with things.

When you find something that scares you spitless, you take hold of it firmly by both ears and you kiss that motherfucker right between the eyes.

‘We’re going,’ I rasped out, and I remember thinking that it might have sounded more impressive if I hadn’t been shaking like a leaf.

If Heero understood, he didn’t say. If he didn’t understand… he didn’t say that either. Just bent down and claimed my lips in a kiss designed to make me stop thinking about accidents. Stop thinking about the dark and the cold. Stop thinking.

Just brought us together and loved me back to sleep.

I was surprised when I woke in the morning, to find him awake before me. It’s not a thing that happens often. But when I opened my eyes, it was to find myself still in the shelter of his arms with his warm, loving gaze on my face.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Good morning.’

‘Morning,’ I mumbled and thought about why he would be up so early. ‘You… didn’t stay awake all night, did you?’

He kissed me gently, a mere brush of his lips, but refrained from replying. Which, of course, was reply enough.

‘Heero,’ I grumbled, frowning up at him. ‘You didn’t need to…’

‘Hush,’ he admonished, a damn bemused little smile on his face. ‘Is it any more than you’ve done for me?’

I blinked at him, understanding that he was talking about his stay in the hospital. For a heartbeat I was angry with Trowa, sure that he had told Heero I hadn’t actually been sleeping those nights that I’d sat next to him. But then realized that Trowa wouldn’t have done that to me; he’d as much as promised me not to.

There was a faint snort of a laugh. ‘My brain did engage after they took me off the pain medication,’ he murmured, and gave me a look of such warm gratitude that I felt the defensiveness just melting away.

I worried a couple of phrases around on my tongue, but couldn’t quite settle on what to say. I knew him well enough to know there was no point in arguing with him over his lying awake half the damn night guarding my sleep. And since I wasn’t doing too hot in the conversational department, he chose to completely change the subject anyway.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked suddenly, and all his mirth was completely gone, his eyes watching me intently.

I sighed. ‘Totally without-a-doubt, sure?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have a freakin’ clue. But… I think I have to.’

It wasn’t an answer that seemed to please him.

‘I just… want to try again,’ I told him, trying to ease the frown from his brow. ‘I don’t like feeling this… crippled. I don’t like feeling like this fear is ruling my life. Can you understand that?’

He studied my face for a moment, before reaching to sweep his fingertips through my hair. ‘I think so,’ he admitted, though it seemed a grudging thing. Then he smiled wistfully. ‘I just feel bad… I didn’t want my Christmas gift to give you nightmares.’

‘Christmas gift?’ I blurted, before I had a chance to think about it. ‘But I…’

He grinned at me then, like the damn Cheshire cat. I wanted to be annoyed; I had not known that we were going to ‘do’ Christmas. I had not thought that we were exchanging gifts. What in the hell did you get for the guy that was trying to grant you a piece of your life back? How did you measure up, when your lover handed you the stars?

He bent and kissed the end of my nose. ‘Yeah,’ he said, sounding like he was warming to the idea. ‘I guess all the shopping put me in the right frame of mind.’ His kiss moved to ghost across my cheek and he made me shiver when he whispered against my skin; ‘Not that I need an excuse to give the man I love gifts.’

It was a pretty good thing it was a Saturday, or we would have been late to work.

Much later, spooned at my back, he whispered softly. ‘I want this to truly be a gift. I want you to let me handle everything… I want you to let me be here for you.’ There was the faintest hesitation before he asked, ‘Please?’

I wasn’t at all sure if that would make it easier to do this thing, or not. Having the planning and the arrangements to make, might have actually given me something to focus on, something to keep my mind occupied. But, at the same time, if I left it all up to Heero and just trusted him to get me where I needed to be… I might be able to completely put the whole trip out of my mind. Might be able to fool myself into pretending it wasn’t going to happen.

I really can’t tell you which of those theories was the more attractive.

‘All right,’ I told him anyway, and it won me a heart-felt smile and a tender kiss.

We hadn’t been expecting company, so it was damn near a miracle that we were actually out of bed when the doorbell rang promptly at nine.

I went and opened the door without looking first, an action that only registered when I heard the exasperated sigh of my somewhat paranoid partner. I tossed him a sheepish smile, shrugging an apology, and let Wufei and Sally in. If you ask me, Heero really needs to get over his soldiering days just a little bit.

‘What brings you two out so early?’ I smiled at our guests as I stepped aside to let them in, choosing to ignore Heero’s faint mutterings.

Wufei, lugging something rather large under one arm, grinned at me. ‘We got tired of waiting for you two to get around to having your house warming party.’

I think I blinked at him, suddenly leery of what he was carrying. House warming party? It had never occurred to me.

‘We haven’t even gotten everything unpacked yet,’ Heero chuckled at him, gesturing them on into the house. I took that to mean he wasn’t at all surprised by the assumption. Which I suppose probably meant that there actually was going to be one in my future.

Why do these things always take me by surprise? I trailed after them, listening to Heero and Wufei bantering back and forth but trying to imagine my house full of all of Heero’s Preventors friends. I decided to file that away under ‘things to let Heero take care of’ after I got a mental image of Zechs sprawled out on my sofa. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would just get forgotten.

I stopped my daydreaming when Sally touched my arm. ‘It’s a lovely house, Duo,’ she smiled at me. ‘And so quiet way out here.’

I returned the smile, putting aside my thoughts for later. ‘Thank you, M’lady,’ I told her with a sketchy little bow and she chuckled at me.

I like Sally; she’s not a giggler or a simperer. And she knows the business end of a Beretta from the butt. While she has been known to annoy me from time to time, at least I damn well understand her. Which is more than I can say for a lot of women in the part of my world that interconnects with Heero’s. Spacer women are more… direct than grounders. Hell; spacer men are more direct than their grounder counter-parts. I don’t know… she’s just so much easier to deal with than the likes of Relena or Noin. Even Commander Une. I judge most of my women friends by the same yardstick; would Toria like them? I think Toria and Sally would get along just fine. But then… Toria liked Relena now that I think about it, so maybe I needed a new yardstick?

‘You know I have to see this ‘incredible paint job’ before we leave, don’t you?’ she grinned at me and then chuckled when I blushed.

‘It’s nothing special,’ I muttered and Wufei actually snorted.

‘Nothing special,’ he stage-muttered with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and shared this weird indulgent look with Heero.

We had reached the living room seating area and the bundle under Wufei’s arm was deposited on our coffee table. Then Wufei and Heero’s respective butts were deposited on the sofa.

‘Well,’ Sally fairly purred, taking my arm and steering me over to the sofa opposite them. ‘If it’s no big deal, perhaps I could convince you to do a couple of little jobs for me?’

There was a tiny little, shocked gasp from Wufei, and I looked up to catch a somewhat scandalized look on his face. Hiding a weird pained expression.

You know… that thing I said about women being hard to understand? Forget it.

‘Sally…’ he growled warningly, like he was reprimanded a wayward child for asking their host why his house was so messy. Sally gave him this arched eyebrow look, a kind of quiet ‘what the hell did you just say?’ look. Just daring him to finish that sentence.

I had the eerie feeling that I was about to see the two of them launch into a very ugly fight.

‘I don’t know,’ Heero interjected blandly. ‘The carpet layers were of the opinion that paint job upstairs would be worth a couple of thousand from a home decorator. We could use the money, Duo.’

I turned wide eyes in his direction, shocked as all hell at the implication that I would actually charge that kind of money from a friend. ‘Heero!’ I blurted. ‘Don’t be an ass… I wouldn’t charge…’ Then I realized he was teasing and I just shut my mouth on the rest of it.

He chuckled openly when he saw realization dawn on my face. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that he had just sidestepped whatever argument Wufei and Sally had been about to have. He’d done it so deftly; that I found myself wondering if it was something he did very often.

‘So what did you bring us?’ Heero asked wryly, turning his amusement in Wufei’s direction. ‘Some recycled gift you got last year and didn’t like?’

Wufei, the hint of a blush on his high cheekbones, replied with feigned indignation. ‘I’ll have you know that I do not recycle gifts.’ Then he turned his gaze in Sally’s direction. ‘Just because this… woman would have given you a used present, does not mean that I am so crass.’

I had to blink at them for a second. Though the words seemed strong, the tone was completely different, and I realized that their moment was over. I wondered if Heero had understood it any better than I had.

Sally sniffed disdainfully, her irritation already gone. ‘I think it would have made an absolutely perfect house-warming gift.’

Wufei snorted explosively and Heero looked at him quizzically. ‘Dare I ask?’ he murmured to his partner.

Wufei rolled his eyes. ‘She was going to bequest that damn devil-cat to the two of you.’

Heero actually managed to look alarmed, and I don’t think he was faking it. ‘Perfect?’ he asked in disbelief, looking across at Sally.

For her part, she held her ground, giving the two of them a somewhat haughty glare. ‘He is not a ‘devil-cat’. He just has a lot of personality. I think a place like this where he could go outside would be just what he needs.’

‘What he needs is an exorcism,’ Wufei muttered, trying to hide a grin.

The look of horror on Heero’s face was somewhat priceless, and I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Sounds like you were looking for the perfect gift for the cat… not us,’ I told Sally and she sighed in defeat.

‘I thought that you, at least, would be on my side,’ she grumbled, and punched me lightly in the bicep. ‘Traitor.’

‘My therapist says I have to start with plants before I move up to pets,’ I told her in a conspiratorial voice and she laughed out loud. I like Sally’s laugh… she laughs like she means it.

‘So are you going to open the damn thing or not?’ Wufei suddenly prodded, and I could see a light of anticipation in his eyes.

Heero looked across at me, seeming to assume that I would do the unwrapping, and I wanted to squirm being the center of attention all of a sudden.

‘Well,’ I murmured, joking lamely. ‘I guess… as long as you swear there aren’t any cats in there…’

Wufei chuckled, his eyes sparkling strangely. There was nothing to be done but to unwrap our housewarming gift.

The paper came away easily, having been barely wrapped around an ungainly bundle of what felt like sticks. It took me a second to recognize what I revealed and I’m afraid I exercised my gaping fish impression. I looked up into Wufei’s dark eyes and found an obvious fondness there that set my face to flaming. ‘God ‘Fei,’ I blurted. ‘You shouldn’t have done this… it’s too much money!’

It was an artist’s easel. Solid damn black walnut from the look of it. I’d priced the things when we’d moved in, just because I’d never had a studio before, but had decided that I’d lived that long without one and I could live a little longer. And I’d only looked at the simple metal or beechwood ones. I’d never even seen one made of walnut before. It was one of the fancy French sketchbox designs too.

Wufei was just looking at me, with this weird-ass pleased smile on this face. I felt another pair of eyes on me and glanced to find Heero watching me with a similar smile. I realized suddenly that he’d known what was in that package before it had even come through our front door.

‘Seems like it’s more of a gift for Duo than a house-warming present,’ he observed drolly, but his warm gaze never left mine.

‘I thought so too,’ Sally interjected with a putout kind of sigh and fished something out of her coat pocket. She handed it across to Heero, and I could tell from the perplexed looks, that both he and Wufei had been caught by surprise by her move.

Heero took the small rectangular package from her with a rueful quirk of his lips and delicately picked the paper off it.

I recognized it immediately as some sort of framed picture and could only wonder what in the hell it was as Heero’s little grin grew into something that I could only describe as loving. ‘Thank you,’ he fairly breathed, and I was surprised that he seemed to be directing the comment more to Wufei than Sally.

Wufei, sitting beside him, leaned over to see the picture and grinned widely, looking up at Sally in surprise.

‘Well, you dork,’ she said affectionately. ‘You couldn’t give Duo something without giving Heero something as well.’

Wufei’s smile drifted a touch toward sheepish, and he gave her a slight incline of his head. An acknowledgment that she’d done good.

She gave him a scornful little sniff in return, as if to tell him she hardly needed him to tell her what she already knew, but managed to look pleased all the same.

Heero’s eyes lifted to find mine, and I was almost reluctant to take the picture from him when he handed it across.

It was of me, in case you hadn’t guessed. And I felt myself flushing to the roots of my hair as I realized it was of my near-naked self sprawled all over Wufei’s coffee-table, playing with his cat. ‘Wufei..’ I began indignantly, but he only grinned at me unrepentantly.

‘I told you I kept your ass out of the frame,’ he smirked.

‘That’s almost worse,’ I glared at him. ‘It looks like I’m buck naked!’

Sally laughed outright and Heero took the picture back from me while I glared at her as well. ‘Come on, M’lord,’ she teased, in a very unsubtle change of subject. ‘Take me up and show me the ‘ivy so detailed it looks real’.’

She’d caught me already off balance, and the blush just would not go away. I mumbled something that sounded vaguely affirmative and rose to lead the way up the stairs. Heero was already bent over his picture again, smiling at it in a way that was making me damned uncomfortable in front of Sally and Wufei.

Half way up the stairs I had to repress a groan when I heard Wufei start relating the story of just how he had taken that particular picture.

‘Get over it, Duo,’ Sally chuckled, not bothering to turn to look at me as she made her way up the stairs ahead of me. ‘It’s a sweet picture… the cat is very photogenic.’

‘To your right, just past the bathroom,’ I told her, ignoring the comment, and then followed her into the bedroom.

I got to see her gasp with delight and it kind of made me forget my discomfort over this whole visit.

‘Oh my God, Duo,’ she exclaimed, turning around in the center of the room to take it all in. ‘It’s every bit as beautiful as Wufei said it was!’ The look on her face told me she’d had doubts. Then she tossed me a quirk of a grin. ‘I’ve been hearing about this room for weeks on end. Frankly… I thought he was exaggerating the hell out of it.’

I wandered past her and stood by the window, hoping the morning light would hide some of my blush. ‘Well… Wufei seems to be easily impressed when it comes to artwork.’

She turned away from her scrutiny of the room and looked at me hard, one hand planted on her hip and her head cocked to the side. ‘Bullshit, if you don’t mind my saying so. Chang Wufei is not easily impressed by anything. This is damned remarkable work.’

So much for hiding the blush. I think the little flames licking off the tops of my ears gave me away. ‘He just seems to have this thing for artwork,’ I muttered, and turned to look out the window. I felt her move up beside me, but she didn’t touch me, just stood looking out the bedroom window with me.

‘That’s because he wants to be able to do what you do very, very badly… and can’t,’ she told me in a soft voice that was so full of tenderness for the man sitting downstairs that it was almost uncomfortable. I turned and glanced at her, but she was looking out at my yard. ‘There are things in his head that he just aches to put down on paper, and though he is many, many things… an artist is not one of them.’

‘Oh,’ I said brightly and saw her lips curve in a smile that was almost not there.

‘His photography helped,’ she explained simply. ‘Giving him a sort of… creative outlet… but it’s not the same.’

It put that irritating habit of his, of snapping pictures of every damn thing that moved, into a slightly different perspective and I found myself feeling a little guilty for feeling that irritation.

‘I don’t suppose you can understand,’ she said then. ‘Just try to imagine seeing those things in your head that make you create beauty like…’ she raised her hand to brush over the leaves around the window. I could almost see them moving under her fingers, ‘this, and not being able to… to get it out. Not being able to give life to the images.’

I ducked my head, and found my fingers tucking themselves into my jeans pockets. ‘I’m not so damn great,’ I grumbled, and turned to walk back out into the room. ‘I don’t understand why everybody thinks this is so… special. I just dab paint on the walls… big deal.’

She turned to lean on the windowsill and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘You really are exasperating,’ she opined to the room at large, giving her head a rueful little shake.

‘What?’ I groused and had to work to keep the deep-seated irritation out of my voice. ‘Look… I am not an artist. I’m a damn mechanic. I have had no training… no schooling. Hell; that easel downstairs is the first one I’ve ever owned. I don’t know shit about art theory or art history. I don’t know a thing about technique, or…’

She chose that moment to throw back her head and demonstrate that laugh that I normally liked so well. It wasn’t so damn attractive when it was directed at me.

‘What?’ I snapped, turning to look at her. She straightened and walked over to stand squarely in front of me, looking searchingly into my eyes.

‘You think that’s what makes an artist?’ she asked gently. ‘Wufei has studied until his ears bled. He knows more about art history and theory and all that crap, than the old masters. Do you think that makes it possible for him to draw the fields of L5? Do you think that lets him breathe life into the images in his head?’ She reached up and patted my cheek in a very maternal way and then spoiled it by saying, ‘You are such an ass sometimes.’

I gaped at her for a moment before I managed to stutter out, ‘Well, why the hell hasn’t he ever asked me? You know I’d draw any damn thing he wants!’

Her grin was a little sad. ‘Because, of all those things that Chang Wufei is… proud is one of them.’

We just stood and looked at each other for a moment, then she walked away. I waited until I heard her on the stairs before I gusted the heavy sigh. It was enough to make me think about giving up drawing all together.

Francis had to help me resist the urge to just throw myself down on the bed and groan, ‘Do over!’

It was the sound of Sally’s amusement drifting up from downstairs that moved me to follow after her. Maybe I’d get lucky and it was something besides my discomfiture that was making her laugh for a change.

It turned out to be Heero and Wufei putting my easel together and setting it up. Sally had apparently rescued Heero from a rather detailed history lesson on the sketchbox easel design.

‘…only fair,’ I caught Sally chuckling. ‘I’ve been listening to it for the last week, ever since he finally got his hands on the thing.’

‘It is not a ‘thing’, woman,’ Wufei glared at her with an arched eyebrow. ‘It is…

‘A finely crafted piece of artist’s equipment,’ Sally finished for him. ‘I know… I know… I’ve heard it somewhere before.’

Heero chuckled at the look she graced Wufei with, and cocked his head to study the equipment in question. ‘Why is the thing made that way, anyway? What’s the point to that box?’

Wufei ran his hands over the wood almost lovingly. ‘It’s designed to be portable, for when you need to take it on location. It breaks down and everything fits inside this…’

‘Location?’ Heero asked quizzically, and if I could have seen his face from my spot on the stairs, I might have been able to tell if he were merely baiting Wufei or not.

‘Yuy!’ Wufei exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. ‘You live with an artist now; you have to understand that sometimes he will need to go where his subjects are! Not everything happens in the studio! He may…’

Sally couldn’t contain her laughter anymore, and as soon as she broke, Heero let out with a little chuckle as well, and Wufei just shut up and glared at them.

I decided it was time for me to make my reentrance and stop the conversation before things got even more surreal.

‘Hey!’ I called, resuming my steps. ‘You put it together without me!’ I was rather taken by surprise by the stricken look that came over Wufei, and quickly added, ‘now you’re going to have to show me how it works,’ before he had a chance to start sputtering apologies.

For whatever unknown reason, things had been much better between us, but there were still some issues. Most of them involving my teasing Wufei in any way, shape or form that resembled a reprimand.

He was more than happy to tear the thing down and put it back together for me, and I couldn’t help telling him again that I thought he’d spent too much. The more I looked at the thing, the more I suspected it was a piece of custom work. But I couldn’t get too upset with him; his eyes fairly glowed as he showed me all the little niceties, the little compartments and the brass detailing. He was just so damn pleased with himself that I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell him it was five times the easel I would ever need.

Nothing would do, of course, when he was done, than we go and set it up in my studio. He helped me arrange it carefully where I’d had it imagined sitting, nodding sagely and talking about the light quality on that side of the room. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I set it there for absolutely no concrete reason what-so-ever. It was a totally random choice.

When it was in place, he looked at me expectantly until the heat began to rise up my neck and I asked, ‘What?’

‘Aren’t you going to set up a canvas?’ he asked, with that damn glow on his face again and I felt almost stupid having to tell him the truth.

‘Uh… Fei,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t own any.’ My canvas, up until then, had usually been the inside of some ship.

I thought his face was going to split with his bright smile. Behind us, Sally snorted in disgust and I turned that way. ‘So you were right,’ she told him. ‘Get over yourself.’

‘I did help move them,’ Wufei told her smugly and turned to leave the room.

I didn’t need her to explain to me that he’d bought me canvases to go with the thing, though she did. With a lot of eye rolling and open chuckling. I’m not sure if at my open-mouthed discomfort, or Wufei’s almost childlike delight.

‘And I thought Quatre liked to give gifts,’ I murmured, praying that the canvases were the end of it. If he had a set of custom paintbrushes or something out there in his car as well, we were going to have to have a talk. A nice, long talk.

He was back in short order, with a bundle of canvases under his arm. A rather large bundle, I thought. He had apparently lost his freaking mind while he’d been gone, because he immediately began spouting gibberish in some foreign language that I didn’t understand. Edge wrapped. Irish portrait linen. PH balance. Galvanized staples.

I tried so damn hard not to do my gawp-mouthed fish imitation. I really did. I’m pretty sure if Trowa had been there, he’d have taken pity on me and steered them all away from me while I managed to get my head around the part where I should be grateful and not just embarrassed. I was still struggling with how much he had to have damn well spent. I don’t know shit about canvases, but I was pretty sure from the way he was talking that the ones in front of me were not the average, run-of-the-mill, starving artist type. And there were probably a dozen of them! Trowa would have distracted them while a couple of my hamsters moved in and supplied me with the appropriate lines, but Heero has never been one to run interference for me when it comes to this sort of situation.

I figured out how flustered I looked when Heero actually did pull a Trowa move, coming up behind me and laying a hand on my shoulder before speaking. Much later I would figure out that he’d used the contact to judge my level of tension, and must have found it to be pretty high.

‘Sally,’ he chuckled, his fingers giving me a little squeeze. ‘I think you need to get Chang out of the house more often; he’s spending too much time in those on-line art shops.’

‘You see?’ She countered. ‘That cat wouldn’t have been such an awful idea, now would it? At least I would have given it too you without the three hour history lesson!’

Wufei seemed to sense something in their sudden joint attack and the near fanatical light in his eyes dimmed to something a little easier to deal with. He turned to Sally with that disdainful little smirk he has and said, ‘It would take more than three hours to relate the history of that devil-spawn cat and the list of what he has destroyed.’

‘Silly boy,’ Sally purred. ‘Like I would tell them that!’

Both Heero’s hands were settled on my shoulders, and he was kneading at tight muscles ever so slightly, being careful to avoid that place that was still a little tender. Just pointing out to me how uptight I was, I think. I made a conscious effort to relax, though it didn’t help matters much when I glanced back at the easel only to find it aswarm with agog little hamsters, pointing out to each other the fancy details and passing banners back and forth guessing at how much it all cost.

I imagined that as soon as the shock of the whole thing wore off, I’d be getting a visit from guilt beast as well.

Sally had said something I’d missed, and Wufei chuckled evilly. ‘You should have named it ‘Killer’ or ‘Satan’, not ‘Fluffy.’

‘There’s your problem, Sally,’ I interjected, making an effort to set my embarrassment aside. ‘You have to stop naming them with girly names… they’re just rebelling against the stereotype.’

It won me a more solid squeeze of Heero’s hands in open encouragement, and a sharp laugh from Wufei. It also got me a glare from Sally. ‘Yuck it up, Maxwell,’ she smirked at me. ‘Christmas is coming.’

If Heero felt me stiffen again at that implication, he didn’t give me any sign. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he told her sternly.

‘Continue to mock me and find out,’ she smiled at him benignly.

Maybe Wufei just didn’t want to take sides between his partner and his girlfriend over the whole cat issue, because he suddenly seemed to decide they’d been there long enough. ‘If you still want to indulge your ridiculous holiday traditions and go murder an innocent pine tree, we need to get going.’

Sally sighed in mock exasperation, turning to glare at him, both Heero and cat forgotten in light of this new topic. ‘You certainly know how to kill the holiday mood.’

‘Did I not agree to help you in your desecration of the poor tree’s corpse?’ he asked in wide-eyed innocence.

‘Chang!’ she warned, but her eyes spoke more of amusement than irritation.

Then somehow, and quite suddenly, Heero had left my side and was escorting Sally off to get their coats. I found myself completely alone with Chang Wufei for the first time in a long damn time. I tried not to be angry with them. Tried to see it as a courtesy and not a manipulation. I could hear them commiserating with each other as they went down the hall about that ‘exasperating man’.

Wufei seemed rather taken by surprise as well, and for a moment I thought he would simply follow them out of the room, but then he seemed to suddenly understand their exit and he turned to look at me again, a strange little almost-shy smile tugging at his lips. ‘I am sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, Duo,’ he said.

I ducked my head and didn’t meet his eyes. ‘You just shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble…’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘It is never any trouble to give gifts,’ he told me solemnly, a hint of some strong emotion behind the almost formal words. ‘Especially not to friends.’

The line made my eyes flick up to look at the side of his face, despite the fact that the black eye was long faded and gone. ‘It’s just so much, Fei!’ I found myself blurting, and immediately felt my face flame.

His smile then, was some kind of bastard mix of indulgent and amused, and before I knew what was happening, he’d taken the few steps necessary, and pulled me into a tight hug. ‘Never enough, Duo Maxwell,’ he whispered next to my ear. ‘Never enough.’

It had been a long damn time since I’d found myself where I found myself then, and I’m still not sure if it was the feeling of having my best friend back, or his words that made the tiny chill run up my spine. ‘Thank you,’ I finally managed to tell him. What I should have been telling him all along. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘You are very welcome, my friend,’ he replied in a tone of voice that was very like a caress. There was a moment, then; a very odd moment that should have been uncomfortable but somehow wasn’t.

It crossed my mind to offer him my meager talents in whatever it was he wanted to see on canvas so badly. But I was afraid that he would think Sally put me up to it, and I understood somehow that when the time came for that gift… it had to be a pure offering. There couldn’t be any taint of… obligation to it. No cloud over the motivation. I opened my mouth, the proposal on the tip of my tongue… and then closed it again.

He too, seemed about to speak of something, but then thought better of it.

‘Those two are entirely too quiet for my taste,’ he finally ventured, drawing away. ‘I think we’d better figure out what they’re up to before we find ourselves involved in another of the woman’s insane holiday traditions.’

‘What’s this ‘we’ shit, Kemosabe?’ I quipped. ‘She’s your girlfriend.’

He turned to give me that raised eyebrow look as we made our way down the hall, and snorted softly. ‘Be careful, Maxwell,’ he muttered. ‘Last year she tried to organize a Preventor’s caroling group.’

‘It would have been good for morale!’ Sally called out from the living room and Wufei flashed me a bright grin.

‘Uncanny hearing, that woman,’ he snickered. ‘Until you’re actually trying to talk to her.’

‘You know,’ we heard her address Heero. ‘I was just thinking that a second Christmas tree for the bedroom would be really nice.’

Heero murmured something in reply that I didn’t catch, not that it really mattered, because the conversation was between Sally and Wufei.

‘I give!’ Wufei called, and when we reached the living room, she was wearing her coat and a rather smug grin.

‘I thought you might,’ she said demurely, holding his coat out to him.

He went to take it from her and something passed between them, some communication, and Sally smiled at him affectionately.

Wufei shrugged into his coat, and turned to give us a long-suffering sigh. ‘We really have to get going; I’ll be lucky if she manages to find ‘the perfect tree’ before nightfall.’

They left the house, bantering in that vein and we stood in the doorway and watched them as they walked down the front steps and made their way to Wufei’s car. He opened the passenger door for her, ever the gentleman, and something was said. The teasing seemed to fall away, and Sally looked up at him, a dazzling smile breaking across her face. His expression went kind of soft and oddly tender, and she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. I got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach about what had made her so happy for him, and that was when we decided we were intruding and quietly shut the door.

Heero was still carrying his little framed picture, and when the door was closed on the scene in our yard, he turned me around and planted a kiss firmly in the center of my forehead. ‘I am truly and deeply sorry,’ he told me solemnly, though the glint in his eyes said otherwise.

‘For what?’ I asked in confusion.

‘For telling Wufei that I would love to have more pictures of you,’ he informed me, moving off before the urge to deck him quite had a chance to take root.

‘Heero!’ I groaned. ‘You might as well have painted a target in the middle of my chest!’

He was heading for the stairs, and turned to glance back at me, smiling warmly. ‘I know,’ was all he said.

I groaned again, imagining Wufei stalking me like some kind of damn wild animal in the months to come. ‘Asshole,’ I muttered, but if he heard me, he didn’t respond.

Outside, I finally heard Wufei’s car start and I listened to them pull away. When Heero didn’t immediately reappear, I found myself wandering back toward the backroom. Toward my studio.

The easel, with its unbelievably stark white canvas, seemed… very large. Almost accusing in its blankness. I went and stood in front of it and tried to imagine applying paint to the pristine surface. The things that I paint and draw usually move behind my eyes when I look at the face of whatever I am preparing to work on. But the new canvas seemed so… blank. So perfectly… white. Nothing moved across it, and when I tried to imagine swiping a brush there, it seemed… almost sacrilegious.

Well, this was sure as hell going to be a change of pace.

While the mere presence of the easel seemed to dominate the room, the canvas felt so… limited. I wondered how in the world you could scale your mental landscapes down to such a small area. Yeah, I know that sounds like a contradiction… get over it.

‘The picture of the artist at work,’ a warm voice almost purred, and Heero moved to circle my waist with his arms, settling his chin on my shoulder to scrutinize the canvas with me.

I tried not to jump; amazed for the millionth time at how he could just suddenly appear at my side without my knowing he was near. ‘I don’t think staring at it constitutes ‘work’,’ I chuckled.

‘So… the picture of the artist in the throes of creative… preliminary… stuff,’ he teased, turning his head to nuzzle lightly at my ear.

I snorted and let my head drop back against his shoulder. ‘Stuff? That being the technical term?’

He murmured something neutral and dropped the thread. ‘So… just what do you see there?’ he prompted, sounding genuinely interested.

‘Uhmm… a snow storm?’ I ventured and he chuckled. ‘I wasn’t really thinking about painting,’ I relented, when he didn’t respond, telling me he was still waiting for me to seriously answer his original question. ‘I just can’t believe he did this, Heero. Do you realize how much he must have spent? I think this thing was custom made, I’ve never…’

His laugh then was a little bit… rueful. ‘I probably know as much about where it came from and what it cost as Wufei does, love,’ he informed me. ‘I’ve been hearing about it ever since he decided he wanted to get it for you.’

I straightened and turned to face him. ‘Heero, you shouldn’t have let him…’

He cut me off with a sigh. ‘Like anyone can stop Chang Wufei from doing what he damn well pleases,’ he chided, but then his expression grew serious and he reached to brush his fingers along my cheek. ‘Besides, concentrating on it helped him… get past the guilt of… what we did. He’s been tearing himself apart over that. Don’t begrudge him this… little excess.’

I looked away from him, turning my eyes back to Wufei’s gift. One of the hamsters had left a little price tag tied to the thing with a whole lot of damn zeros on it. I resisted the urge to reach out and take it off. I sighed, trying to see past the overindulgence to the thought behind it. All I got was a vision of Wufei’s face, his eyes bright and shining with hope, looking at me with open affection. I sighed and the little price tag finally faded away.

‘He can be… such an idiot, sometimes,’ I said, reaching to run my fingers along the rich, dark wood. ‘I forgave him months ago; he knew that. He didn’t need to do this.’

Heero chuckled, his hands dropping to catch me by the belt loops and pull me close. ‘He just needed to forgive himself,’ he said softly. ‘Now give me a kiss, I need to get going.’

‘Going?’ I echoed, and noticed for the first time that he’d changed to go out.

His lips quirked in that little half smile he has. ‘I have a lot of arrangements to see to, if we’re going to make L2 before Christmas.’

I blinked at him for a second while my Spacer’s brain translated ‘arrangements’ from refueling and flight plans, to tickets and hotel accommodations. Then I gave him his kiss and he was gone, leaving me with reassurances that he’d be a while.

The house seemed… very large, and very quiet, with only me in it.

You thought I was over that? Not entirely. It’s not as bad as it was, by a long damn shot, but I still feel it. It’s not the choking pressure it once was, but it’s still there. More of an itch now. If someone were to ask me, I wouldn’t say I was afraid to be alone anymore, but I wouldn’t be able to say I was comfortable with it, either.

Which, I suppose, is kind of ironic coming from a guy who used to spend all his time alone and not think all that much of it. Oh, I was lonely all right, back then. But there’s a difference between ‘alone’ and ‘lonely’. You can be lonely in the middle of a crowded room. They might stem from the same root word, but they’re two entirely different things.

I have not been alone all that often since the accident. For a long time, it was a conscious effort on the part of the entire world, as near as I could tell. Me included. But time had faded the shaking anxiety attacks and really, there just weren’t any major visible signs that it still gave me a twinge now and again. So Heero had relaxed his diligence and I occasionally got left to my own devices. There is always this strange moment of… relaxing. Some odd, old part of my brain that breathes a sigh of relief and melts into that thing called ‘solitude’ that used to be the heart of my existence.

It usually lasts about four point five minutes. Then the silence rolls up like a wave on the beach and smacks me in the face with icy cold water. Not… a tidal wave anymore; just enough to let me know that it’s there. Just enough to let me know that I’m not quite altogether normal. Yet. Have to keep remembering to add that ‘yet’.

This time was no different, and within five minutes of Heero leaving, I had my music on and the stereo jacked up so I could hear it just about anywhere in the house. Could I have gotten by without it? Yeah… I’d have been a little twitchy by the end of the day, but I could have. Was I ashamed to admit that I’d just rather not? Yeah… that too.

I spent a bit of time straightening up, putting the breakfast dishes away, things like that. There didn’t seem to be much point in finishing the care package for the kids; it would all have to be repacked into our luggage now anyway.

That gave me a pang of… something. Made me stop and think about what I’d agreed to do. About… what was going to happen. Not a thing I needed to be dwelling on there in that empty house.

I went to find more busy work and ended up back in the studio, staring at the blank canvas again. I tried to make shadows move across the blankness of it, but nothing much happened. I thought about trying to paint something for Wufei, but really… there was obviously something in his heart that needed to come out, and I wouldn’t be able to figure out what that was without hearing his voice. Listening to him tell me about this image that seemed to be haunting him. I wondered about it. I wondered how soon I would dare approach him over it. Now that I knew about his dream of painting something from his past, I kind of itched to ask him about it, but I was truly afraid he would think I was offering out of a sense of obligation over the gifts. Best to wait and see if opportunity would come knocking. You don’t always have to go hunt the little bugger down; sometimes it really did come knocking on its own.

That got me to thinking about gifts and I had to gnaw on that for a little bit. I suppose I should have discussed the whole holiday thing with Heero. I had made an assumption based on stupid ideas and the time I’d been around the guys during the war. I suppose the fact that they hadn’t taken the time out between lobbing bombs and wrecking havoc, to celebrate, shouldn’t have made me presume that they didn’t now.

I felt crappy enough over the fact that I had nothing for Heero, when he was preparing to try and give me a Christmas trip to the colonies that was not going to be a picnic for him. But… did that little comment of Sally’s mean what I thought it meant? Did the guys exchange gifts? Hell; more than the guys? It would be too much to hope that if they had exchanged up until now, that they’d leave me out of it. No way would a one of them ignore me if they were buying for Heero.

But… if that were the case, wouldn’t I have noticed Heero shopping? He’d said he wanted to help me with the presents for the kids because it was something he didn’t get to do all that often. That kind of implied that he hadn’t been trading with the guys up until now. So, that should mean I was off the hook… right?

Well, except for Heero.

What do you give the man who went across a solar system to save your life? What do you buy for the man who spent a month practically spoon-feeding you? Held you while you shook, lost in memory? Called you back from the nightmares? Put your jigsaw puzzle heart back together and taught you how to make love?

A gold-watch just didn’t seem to cut it.

He was out there, making preparations to take me to L2 for Christmas. Preparations for a trip that could very well turn into a nightmare for him. God only knew how I’d react to deep space after all this time. It was a two-day trip without the scenic route we’d taken last time. He might very well end up spending the voyage with his off-his-nut lover wrapped around his neck like a python.

Not to mention the fact that it wasn’t going to be any big thrill for him once we actually got there. He didn’t know Octavia or any of the kids; he was probably going to be uncomfortable as all hell the whole time we were there.

It’s probably a good thing that Heero wasn’t home, was already out making the arrangements, because I’d damn near talked myself out of the trip just standing there in my back room thinking about it.

I sighed out loud; blinking at the canvas I’d been unintentionally staring at, and ran a hand through my bangs. How in the hell had I ended up dwelling on the damn trip, when I distinctly remember thinking that I shouldn’t think about the damn trip?

In the other room, my music that I had stupidly set for random play segued neatly into ‘Closer to Believing’ and I damn near went to shut it the hell off.

‘Don’t believe it till you’ve held it, life is seldom what it seems’

I almost snickered at the line. No… life is very damn seldom what it seems. And every time I thought I had a handle on it, it seemed to shift beneath my feet.

‘So be closer to believing, though your world is torn apart, for a moment changes all things…’

I did laugh out loud at that one, though there was very little mirth in it. Yeah… a moment is all it fucking takes. And I couldn’t help but remember my ‘moment’ out there between the stars. I’ll always wonder just what it was that hit that cable and stranded me there in the middle of no-damn where. I kind of hoped it was a big stinking rock, because it would just feel a little bit too personal if it had been some little chunk of nothing.

‘…You are windblown, but you are mine.’

And that made me shiver, hearing Heero’s voice in my head. I could almost feel him behind me, slipping his arms around me so strong and warm, and all of a sudden there were images moving across that blank expanse of white in front of me and I knew what I had to give to Heero. The thing he’d asked me for with his throat so tight with repressed emotion and his eyes alight with memory.

The painting he’d asked me for the day we’d moved out of his apartment.

I went to get my paints.

The song in the other room changed, but the melancholy mood was already set and I didn’t fight it. After all… isn’t that what Heero’d asked for? What did you think I was contemplating all those hours staring out the window at nothing? My life. My accident. My confusion. My… newfound frailty.

It was a struggle, at first, fighting to fit the constraints of the canvas. It seemed so damn small to hold the pictures in my head. I wanted to make sweeping brush strokes and paint out all the frustration and the depression that had been swirling around me so much lately. I wanted to give life to large-as-life thoughts… but kept running into the edge of the world. But as the idea began to take shape, as the shadows danced across the surface in front of me and I chased them down to give them the color that made them real, it seemed to get easier. The canvas didn’t seem quite so small and I fell into the flow of the creation. Fell into memory.

I hadn’t painted like that in a long time. Not since my ship. The job I’d done in the bedroom wasn’t the same. It’s the difference between… a handshake and making love. The difference between a glass of tap water and a goblet of three hundred year old scotch. Suffice it to say that it just wasn’t the same thing.

And not having done it in so long, I got lost in the passion. I got drunk on the scotch. I did the thing where I forgot everything but the image. The rest of the house could have burned down and I wouldn’t have noticed. Nothing mattered but capturing that picture and it might have been more intense because it was for Heero. I’d never really painted for him before. And this was supposed to be his gift. Some part of my heart wanted it to be perfect. Some small part that wasn’t completely subverted by the art.

It was… a very long time. When I blinked back to the real world, that was my first vague thought, spawned by the quality of the light. Damn; it’s late.

The next thought wasn’t quite so vague and came bursting out of my mouth in explosive consternation. ‘Shit!’

What I was facing was not my little rectangle of ‘Irish linen’, but the wall of the studio, and the picture before me was not twenty by twenty-four, but damn near life-sized. ‘Son of a bitch!’ I growled, just because the first expletive hadn’t really felt strong enough. I could not damn well believe that I’d just painted all over the stupid wall like a little kid left alone with a box of markers. Heero was going to kill me.

It came to me of a sudden, that we still had cans leftover of house paint and that I could fix this in a matter of minutes. I whirled around, franticly trying to remember where we’d stored the half empty cans, almost dropping my pallet, muttering curses under my breath… and found Heero curled in the corner of the old sofa watching me intently.

Oh crap.

‘Heero?’ I blurted, trying to keep the rise out of my voice. ‘I am so sorry… I’ll go get the house paint and fix this right now! I don’t know what happened… I…’

His expression did this very odd little dance, and he rose from where he’d been sitting to come and take the pallet away from me before I dumped it on the floor. ‘Don’t you dare touch it,’ he breathed, setting the paint and brush aside. Then he moved past me to go stand in front of my little brain dump. I watched him in confusion for a moment; surely he couldn’t be pleased with me painting on the damn walls? This wasn’t a ship, for God’s sake… it was a house!

He was quiet, just standing there studying the mural, and I began to get uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tried again. ‘I didn’t mean…’

‘Don’t be,’ he almost whispered, sounding almost reverent. ‘Why do you think I insisted this room be painted white in the first place?’

I blinked at his back for a moment and then turned to look at the canvas still sitting on the easel. There was the ghost of the window frame blocked in and nothing more. I’d obviously abandoned it for the more familiar surface quite early.

‘You,’ I stammered, ‘meant for me to do that?’

He did turn to look at me then, holding out his hand and asking me to come join him. ‘I had hoped,’ he smiled and wrapped me up in a tight embrace when I came to stand with him. ‘I wanted this room to be… yours. And I’d hoped you’d feel comfortable enough here to fill it with your visions.’

He turned back to look at the wall, his arm around me and squeezing tight. I turned with him, head resting on his shoulder and we just looked for a bit.

I’d done his request one better. We were both in the picture. I was standing more or less where he’d wanted me, though the window was a lot bigger than it’d been in reality. But Heero was there with me, standing behind me, his arms around me. My support and my ground. My anchor and my center. I was leaning into him and we were looking out the window together.

It wasn’t any damn apartment parking lot out there. Wasn’t even a regular old sky. It was kind of like one of those ‘find the hidden objects’ pictures; only the objects weren’t really hidden.

The window opened onto a star field of rich milky color, and peppered across it was… a lot of damn shit. All those things I’d thought about all those times of staring out through that glass.

My Lady Demon was there, and Deathscythe, and the Londonderry. All things that looked perfectly at home in that sea of bright stars. There was the debris from the asteroid belt, from the wreck of that other salvage ship, dancing attendance on my little fleet. But there were other things too. There was Solo’s face, formed from the stars, blended in so well that I almost didn’t see it. There was a flame, feeding on God only knows what, flickering at the fringes of those memories. There was a man in a great-coat striding purposefully through the blowing stars that were almost like the snow I remembered from that night. Shards of a stained glass window. A wandering butterfly. Then I saw Heero’s face, not far from Solo’s. And Wufei’s. Quatre and Trowa as well; all made from the pure, clean light of the stars.

I had a feeling we could stand there looking at it for the next hour and not see it all. I marveled at the damn thing and couldn’t help wondering, ‘what the hell time is it?’

‘Almost midnight,’ Heero told me, voice hushed and darn near awed.

‘Damn,’ I muttered and suddenly felt very tired. Over twelve hours. God; I hadn’t done anything like that in ages. I felt… oddly drained. The arm around me seemed suddenly supportive without really changing position. ‘Uh… Merry Christmas?’ I murmured against Heero’s collarbone.

He just didn’t seem to know what to say, I felt him swallow almost convulsively and he turned to kiss the top of my head. ‘Thank you,’ he finally managed, voice raspy and thick.

I fidgeted under the press of the obvious depth of his emotion. It seemed strange to me. I couldn’t help feel my gift to him was nothing compared to what he was preparing to do on my behalf. Watching him struggle for words, feeling the almost palpable heat of his reaction was making me very uncomfortable.

‘Oh Duo,’ he whispered finally, and turned to take me fully into his arms, dusting kisses across my skin.

I held him, not understanding how overwhelmed he seemed to be. ‘Heero…’ I ventured, ‘it’s not…’

‘Shhhh,’ he breathed against the hollow of my throat. ‘It is. It’s wonderful and beautiful and you painted it for me.’ That seemed to be the sticky point somehow; the thing that was making his arms almost too tight, his voice unwieldy. ‘Just for me.’

I didn’t know quite what to say to him. Wasn’t sure how to respond, and when that rain of tiny kisses swept across my face again, I nudged upward until he met my questing lips. It turned rather demanding rather quickly.

He broke away, almost panting, and blurted, ‘God, I need you!’ We made it no farther than the couch right there in the room. I ended up throwing away two paint brushes the next day and I thought I’d never get the palette cleaned up, because I never did get back to put things away.

Morning found us still on the couch in my studio, and I don’t mind admitting that I woke up disoriented as all hell and surprised for the second day in a row to find Heero awake before me.

He’d gotten up at some point in the night to fetch the afghan from the living room, and we were cocooned in it together, wrapped up tight to fit on the couch. The sight that greeted me, when I blinked open gummy eyelids, was Heero, propped up slightly against the arm of the sofa, his one arm hooked around me to make sure I didn’t fall, and gazing across the room at the new mural on the wall. His expression, in the early morning light, was soft and open and spoke to me of great contentment.

‘Good morning,’ he told me, without looking down, somehow feeling that awareness had stolen over me again.

‘Morning,’ I croaked, stifling a yawn. ‘God… what did I do, pass out on you last night?’

His gaze, with some effort, left the painting and looked down at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You were much too tired for that; I should have realized.’

I couldn’t help a tiny grin. ‘You didn’t hear me complaining, did you?’

He bent to kiss me, an oddly gentle touch. ‘I never hear you complain,’ he said.

I tried to stifle the snort of derision… I really did. ‘My, aren’t we full of shit this morning?’ I teased, but it didn’t seem to shake him from his weird mood.

‘You’re such a romantic,’ he complained, smiling at me, and pressed his lips to the bridge of my nose. ‘Stop trying to spoil my moment.’

‘Your moment?’ I queried and raised an eyebrow.

‘My moment,’ he confirmed, and kissed my temple, just at the corner of my eye. ‘I’ve never been given anything like this before, and you are going to let me enjoy the feeling and not start with that damn self-deprecating crap.’

And of course, the majority of the things that wanted to tumble from my lips fell smack-dab in the middle of that category, so I just shut up. He grinned at me and turned his gaze back to the wall.

‘So many things inside that head of yours,’ he murmured.

‘Yeah,’ I grumbled uncomfortably. ‘It gets kind of crowded sometimes.’

He ignored me, his hand leaving my waist now that I was awake enough to make sure I didn’t roll off the couch, and sought my hand. Sought my scars.

‘When I asked for this,’ he said, a far-away look in his eyes. ‘I never even realized I was asking a question.’

‘Well,’ I had to tell him, feeling the beginnings of a faint blush. ‘I didn’t exactly know I was answering it.’

‘That… amazes me,’ he confessed. ‘The way it… takes you over. I’ve never seen you like that before. I called to you, but it was like you didn’t even really hear me.’

The blush got beyond the faint stirrings stage and I stammered out, ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to ignore you.’

He smiled softly, almost sheepishly, still looking at his picture. ‘Well, I didn’t try very hard to get your attention, once I realized where you were. I… was afraid of spoiling it.’

I blinked up at him, suddenly realizing something that should probably have occurred to me earlier. ‘Just when did you get home?’

He did look back at me then, and smiled lovingly. ‘Around six.’

Heat flooded up through me again and I stared up at him, wide-eyed. ‘You didn’t sit here that whole time, did you?’

‘It’s not like it was a chore,’ he whispered, his fingers letting go of my hand to come and trace over my face. ‘You’re damn beautiful when you’re painting. So intense… so focused. I could have watched you all night.’

I managed to combine my carp imitation with my spontaneous combustion parlor trick and he ended up laughing at me in pure delight.

‘I’m not…’ I muttered, but he stopped me with a look.

‘You are,’ he said simply, kissing the end of my nose. Then he turned back to look at the mural again, clearly closing the topic. I sighed, but held my tongue, just lying and watching him look.

Then I saw his expression go a little pensive and his arm snaked around my waist again, almost unconsciously.

‘Ask,’ I commanded, and caught him enough by surprise that I got to see his own tiny blush.

It was his turn to sigh and his arm pulled me close. ‘Duo… that man…’

‘Jensen?’ I supplied. ‘The guy from that mobile doll factory?’

He nodded, his eyes growing hard and his expression turning damn fierce for a moment. ‘He weighs on your thoughts… a lot sometimes. He… I mean… he didn’t…’

Heero Yuy, floundering for words, is a thing that could turn a rabid Rottweiler to mush. I stretched up and kissed his cheek. ‘He never so much as got my shirt unbuttoned,’ I reassured. ‘But… the man was a rapist and a murderer. It just kind of got to me… knowing what he’d intended. I don’t really know why; I guess I’d just never come that close before.’ Despite myself, I found memory supplying me with details and I shivered.

Heero was looking damn disturbed and couldn’t have held me any closer. ‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘It’s all right, love, he never really hurt me,’ I told him, and had to snort softly when Heero’s hand came to gently touch the side of my face where Jensen had damn near cleaned my clock. ‘You know what I mean,’ I had to justify. ‘He didn’t come anywhere close to doing what he’d taken me in to that factory to do. He was just… a damn big man. I hate to admit it… but he scared me.’ I found the encounter replaying in my head and fought down another shiver. Fought down the bile that rose in my throat whenever I let myself remember too much. ‘I just… I just…’

‘What?’ Heero pressed, when I stumbled to a halt, having already said more than I’d intended to.

I sighed and tried on a grin. ‘Nothing. It’s stupid.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, voice very intense. ‘Please?’

He was leaning over me, staring into my eyes and I found my mouth opening of its own accord. ‘I wanted my first kiss to be with you… not on behalf of some damn mission. Not from some damned…’ I hardly recognized the voice as my own, and stopped when I heard it starting to strain.

We just stared at each other for a long minute and then he gently gathered me in, turning me to face him and holding me tight. ‘Oh God, Duo,’ he whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have let you go… I should have aborted the whole damn mission… I…’

‘Hush,’ I chided. ‘Long ago and far away. Doesn’t matter now. It’s all over and done.’

‘It does matter as long as that bastard lives in your memory,’ he said fiercely, and I could feel his agitation in his elevated heartbeat. He drew back a little to look down at me, his expression a strange mix of furious and pained. ‘You had nightmares about him… right after,’ he told me softly.

I smiled up at him, able to answer the disquiet in his eyes. ‘But you came and chased him away.’

He started and looked at me long and hard. ‘You… knew?’

I stretched and kissed him lightly. ‘I thought you were a dream. Until much, much later.’

The furious part won out for a second and he suddenly blurted, ‘I’ve never wanted to kill another human being as much as I wanted to kill that son of a bitch.’

‘Well he’s quite good and dead,’ I told him, trying to lighten things back up. Trying to take away the look on his face. I pushed up to prop on an elbow, trusting Heero’s grip to keep me on the couch. ‘Now I think it’s time we forgot about him.’

His anger did fade then, but was quickly replaced by concern. ‘You’re trembling,’ he observed, suddenly fearful. ‘Damn it… I’m so stupid; you didn’t eat yesterday at all, did you?’

I opened my mouth to protest, but it was pretty pointless because he was already in motion. Before I could mutter a ‘what the fuck’, he was off the couch and I was firmly tucked in and had been informed to stay the hell put until he came back. It hardly seemed worth the effort of arguing. So I stretched and yawned and stayed the hell put.

He didn’t even take the time to hunt up his clothes, padding off stark naked for the kitchen and I could only pray he wasn’t intending on frying bacon. Ouch.

He rather amazes me how totally unself-conscious he is about his nudity. At least around me. But then, I suppose if I had a body like a damn Greek sculpture, I wouldn’t be all that self-conscious either.

I honestly had intended to wait where he’d left me, but after a bit of lying there, with all those old memories stirred up, I knew I was on the verge of replaying the feel of Jensen’s tongue invading my mouth, of his breath hot on my face and I shivered and scrambled after Heero, the afghan wrapped around my shoulders.

I did have to admit that I was feeling just a touch bit wobbly, but could tell it was nothing a decent meal wouldn’t fix, and just wished Heero would stop making a federal case out of things.

Heero frowned at me when I slid into a chair at the kitchen table, and I grinned at him. ‘Didn’t think I’d miss the opportunity to watch you cooking in the nude, did you?’ I quipped, but I could tell from his expression that something in my voice gave me away. He paused in what he was doing to pour me a glass of juice and bring me my bottle of iron tablets. He bent while he was next to me and kissed me gently on top of the head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply and then went back to work.

Heero is… a damn fine looking man. It will never cease to amaze me that he wants me out of all the billion people he could have at a snap of his fingers. And while I love to see him aroused and wanting me… there’s something about seeing him like he was then, that just warms me all over. He’s not thinking about anything but the job at hand, and not excited in any way. Just moving about, completely comfortable in his own skin. I kind of envy that sometimes.

It didn’t take him long before he had a couple of omelets on the table along with a bowl of fresh fruit, and he topped off my glass of juice before sitting down to join me.

I let the afghan drop from my shoulders and pool around my waist, and dug in, suddenly very damn hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before and I could see in Heero’s eyes that there was a lecture coming on. He’s been very damn touchy about the subject since the day I passed out at work. I was quick to start a conversation before he had a chance to chastise me about it. It’s not like I did it on purpose.

‘So,’ I ventured. ‘You were gone quite a while yesterday.’

He grudgingly allowed himself to be led onto the new topic, but I could tell I’d damn well better eat whatever he put in front of me or we’d end up right back where we started.

‘I managed to get all the arrangements made,’ he informed me, a touch of self-satisfaction in his voice. ‘We’re booked on a shuttle day after tomorrow and I have reservations on L2…’

I think he said some more. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that he probably said some more. But I hadn’t been thinking about it too hard when I’d led us down this conversational path. I stopped hearing anything much after the word ‘shuttle’. I’d let that word get inside my head and all manner of things were waking up and looking around and firmly asking, ‘What the fuck?’

I didn’t need that little boy who lived in the back of my head to take notice and start in already. I had no doubt he’d go to work on my nerves the first second he could, and I didn’t much want to get it going already. Shuttle. Such a simple little word to mean so damn much. My mouth was suddenly dry as dust and I reached for my glass of juice with a hand that was not altogether steady.

Heero caught it in his own and held it. I looked up to meet his concerned gaze and gave him a rather wan, lop-sided smile. ‘We’ll do better if we don’t talk about it,’ I had to tell him. It was no more than the truth and he might as well figure that out right damn now. This wasn’t going to be a cakewalk and as much as I hated looking like a moron in front of him, he needed to realize that from the start.

He looked kind of sad for a minute, and seemed to be working with something he wanted to say, but wasn’t sure how. Guilt was nibbling his way up the back of my leg, working toward a good chunk out of my ass, I’m sure. I started thinking about what I was probably preparing to put Heero through and it suddenly didn’t seem like such a damn good idea.

‘We should call this off,’ I blurted.

He blinked at me in surprise. ‘What?’ was all he could manage.

‘This is a really bad idea, Heero,’ I told him, and wished I could get my hand away from him. There was a rising something or other in my chest that I suspected was going to want to take off here in a minute for some quality time alone with a little thing I like to refer to as ‘emotional fallout’.

But he surprised me. ‘This isn’t like you. I thought you said you were sure?’

I sighed, gave a half-hearted tug of my hand that only made him hold on tighter, and said, ‘This is so fucking unfair to you… I don’t think…’

‘Enough of that,’ he scolded. ‘What’s this all about? The other night, when you made up your mind, I think I would have had to hog-tie you to keep you from going. Why the doubts?’

‘I wasn’t thinking about…you,’ I had to tell him, staring down at my plate. ‘I don’t know that I can ask you to go through this, just because I got a wild hair…’

He tugged on my hand until my gaze flicked up to meet his. ‘You aren’t asking me for anything. As I recall, this was all my idea.’

I frowned and looked away, studying the intricate layers of egg and cheese in my omelet. ‘Well, it’s hardly going to be a picnic for you; you don’t even know the kids or Octavia. It’s all about me and that’s not fair.’

I could hear the gentle amusement in his voice and had to look back up to see the expression that went with it. ‘Who says it’s all about you? It’s about my loving you and wanting to make you happy. I want to do this, Duo-love, and if all your doubts are for my sake… then they don’t count.’

The only thing I could manage was a very quiet, ‘O…ok.’ I hated that I caved to him that easily. Hated that I was allowing him to win the argument only because it was what I really wanted in the first place. Sort of.

We finished breakfast in relative quiet and then spent most of the rest of the day making general preparations for a trip I was pretending we weren’t making. Laundry needed to be done anyway, right? If Heero was taking some of it and putting it in a suitcase currently sitting open in the guest bedroom, instead of in the dresser where it belonged, well; who said that had to have anything to do with a trip?

And if Heero called Trowa, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. If he chose to ask him to fetch our mail for the next few days, what did that have to do with anything?

I do denial fairly damn well, don’t you think? It’s really something of an unappreciated art form.

Look; it’s like this… there was absolutely nothing I could do about the trip and how I might or might not react to it. Two days is not enough time to go through a thorough psych evaluation, or take up Zen meditation. So why think about something that is going to twist your gut into macramé knots for no reason? It’s not denial so much as… scheduling.

I just wished my methods of avoiding internal conflict with the voices in my head didn’t worry Heero so damn much. I figured out pretty quick where the triggers lay, and simply avoided them. It kind of got to me to see the open suitcase, so I just steered clear of the guest room. It made me twitch to say ‘the trip’, so if it became absolutely necessary to refer to it, I simply used the term ‘day after tomorrow’.

These were all things that seemed to bother Heero no end. So as the day wore on he started to… hover. Ever noticed how I react to that? Apparently, he hasn’t. We were feeding each other’s anxieties and by the end of the day, were both a little on edge.

It was fairly late, when I found him in the dining room, carefully packing the kid’s presents into the extra suitcase. It… made me feel very odd.

‘Heero,’ I admonished. ‘You don’t need to do that, I can get it.’

‘It’s all right, I don’t mind’ he said, and the ‘poor baby’ look he gave me made the heat flare in my face. He was doing that sheltering thing again, and it made me feel like a pathetic loser.

‘They’re my gifts,’ I heard pop out of my mouth, rather harshly. ‘I can get them.’

He kind of froze, looking up at me with this strange, fearful look in his eyes. It was that look he gets when he’s unsure of my reaction to something, but is fairly certain it’s not going to be good. Not going to be… entirely rational. I hate that look about as much as I hate anything in this world. Lovely feeling to know your lover doubts your sanity sometimes.

‘Fine,’ I growled, though he’d never spoken, and whirled away, feeling like an idiot and not knowing what to do about it. I’ve never really known how to wipe that look out of his eyes. ‘I’m taking the trash out… go ahead and finish.’

I knew it came out kind of pissed off sounding, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Any more than I could help slamming the cabinet doors when I got the garbage bag out to replace the one I damn near tore getting it pulled out of the kitchen trashcan. Heero wisely chose to stay in the dining room while I stormed around the house emptying trashcans into the bag. By the time I’d gotten the ones upstairs, I’d cooled off enough that I felt like a raving lunatic and wasn’t stomping quite so much. I felt so stupid, in fact, that when I went back downstairs, I took my trash bag out the back door and walked clear around the house rather than have to pass the room where I’d left Heero.

I don’t even remember dumping the garbage bag on the curb.

I found myself sitting on the front steps of the house, the cold seeping up through my butt, staring at the stars and wondering if I really had lost my mind.

That had been totally uncalled for. What the hell difference did it make which one of us packed the stupid presents in the stupid suitcase? It obviously didn’t, except for that part where Heero thought it would upset me. So it hadn’t really had a damn thing to do with packing? Maybe it had more to do with the idea of Heero trying to protect me from a suitcase? Or maybe the twisted reality that maybe I needed to be protected from something as asinine as… packing for a trip to L2.

I thought it almost ruthlessly, dredging the fact up and tossing it on the table for all the little aspects of myself to see. Fuck you, stupid self. We’re going to L2 and if you don’t like it, you can just damn well lump it.

God… it was no damn wonder Heero thought I needed to be watched like a hawk. I dropped my head into my hands and sighed heavily. I really was something of an… unorthodox individual.

I heard the front door open quietly, and hesitant footsteps on the porch. The cold wood creaking under his feet, he took a couple of steps and then stopped, unsure of his reception, I imagine.

‘I’m sorry,’ I called softly and heard him close the distance. He settled on the step behind me and the afghan was draped around my shoulders.

‘It’s all right,’ he told me. ‘I understand.’

‘Never done stress well,’ I said, trying for teasing and failing.

He spooned in behind me, pulling me back until I was leaning against him, his thighs were warm on either side of me, his arms came to wrap around my shoulders. One of us sighed. ‘I understand,’ he repeated, and dropped a kiss on the back of my head. ‘You warned me,’ he said, voice just a bit wry.

I sighed again, chest feeling tight and lungs aching for a deep breath. ‘I feel like such an ass,’ I confessed.

His arms tightened and he brought his hand down to take mine, but instead of just holding it, he raised it to the center of my chest. I was surprised he remembered to curl it so that the back of my knuckles was pressed there, his fingers entwined with mine.

‘Duo-love,’ he said gently. ‘Do you feel your own heartbeat?’

I didn’t really need the hand on my chest to feel it; I’d been feeling it in the ache of my own throat for hours.

‘It’s been beating like a trip-hammer all day,’ he told me, voice soft and almost tentative. ‘You’re on an adrenaline overload. I never meant to put you under this kind of strain. I… I don’t know that we can manage this with you in this state.’

I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or disappointment. ‘It’s all right, Heero… I told you I wasn’t sure I wanted to put you through this in the first place. We should just cancel the whole thing.’

He leaned down to rest his head against mine and sighed again. Rather heavily. He was quiet for a little bit before he ventured, ‘No… I think you’re right that you need to do this. I don’t want to call the trip off, I just… just want you to do something for me.’

I could tell from the tone of his voice that I wasn’t going to like whatever he had in mind. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t sure I could deny him anything he asked of me. And I was kind of afraid of what he was going to ask. I just waited, and he finally went on, taking my silence for the question it was.

‘I went down to the clinic yesterday and I got them to give me some tranquilizers.’ He felt me stiffen in his embrace and was quick to add, ‘Just to help you calm down. They aren’t meant to knock you out completely… just to help settle your nerves.’

I hoped there wasn’t enough starlight for him to see how beet red I was. How damn mortifying. I didn’t know what to think of the fact that he’d thought to do that. Didn’t know what to think of the fact that he’d obviously had no trouble getting what sounded like a prescription drug from the doctor at the clinic. For the first time, I wondered just what in the hell kind of information was in my personnel file at Preventors headquarters.

He seemed… encouraged by my continued silence and bulled forward. ‘Love, if you’re this uptight now… what is it going to be like Tuesday morning?’

He was still holding our linked hands to the center of my chest, and we both felt the lurch my heart made. There was just no denying the facts, and I gave a defeated little nod. I heard him sigh in sheer relief and he seemed to curl over me just a bit more.

‘I swear to you that I’ll be with you every step of the way,’ he whispered next to my ear, sounding like he was taking an oath.

I wasn’t sure how to tell him that that prospect unnerved me at the same time it offered me the strength to do this in the first place. I don’t know that I could make this trip at all if Heero wasn’t with me, but the idea of him seeing me like… like I’d been on that trip to L3 was enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and disappear.

‘Why do you put up with me?’ I marveled, looking up at the stars that called to both my dreams and my nightmares.

‘Because you’re everything I ever needed,’ he murmured, nibbling gently on the top of my ear. ‘Everything I ever wanted.’

I snorted softly. ‘Romantic tripe.’

‘Just the truth,’ he smiled and nuzzled against my hair.

‘You need to get out more… date around,’ I teased, but feeling the edge of something odd loaming in front of me.

‘I’m a married man,’ he informed me haughtily.

I felt a shiver wanting to start and knew the joking was done. ‘Tell me?’ I demanded, but when it came out of my mouth it was barely a sigh.

But he heard me anyway, and I found myself hauled up into his lap, turned and wrapped tight in his arms. ‘I love you, Duo Maxwell. You know that.’

I nodded against his shoulder and let the afghan fall away so that I could wrap my arms around his neck. ‘Heero… I haven’t… I mean I…’ I stopped floundering and drew back to look at him. ‘Thank you,’ I finally managed.

He smiled, leaning in to bury his face against my chest. ‘You’re welcome. Now let’s go inside… it’s cold out here.’

He tried to rise to his feet still holding me, but couldn’t quite manage to keep his balance under my weight. This seemed to please him no end for some strange reason. I stood, instead, and offered him a hand up. He took it, not letting go once we were on our feet, and bringing the afghan with him, led me back into the house.

I managed not to wake him with my nightmares that night.

Monday morning came entirely too soon. Not for the least, because it brought with it a change of evasive tactics. Not ‘day after tomorrow’ anymore; but ‘tomorrow’. God I wasn’t sure I was ready for this whole damn thing.

Heero somehow was aware that I’d had another bad night. I suppose I didn’t look all that great; I’d not gotten a hell of a lot of rest. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ he asked, sounding almost hurt.

‘One of us has to get some damn sleep,’ I grinned at him, having concluded somewhere in the deep of the night that I was going to have to make more of an effort to get my shit together or this was never going to work. I didn’t give him time to make any more objections, but went off to shower the sour stench of nightmare-sweat off.

I was a little surprised that he let it go, just going down to make breakfast and giving me a little space.

I was just as glad; it had been the drifting corpses dream, and that one always leaves me feeling just a little bit crawly for awhile. Kind of jumpy.

Breakfast was another overblown affair of these weird muffin things Heero had found, that had raisins and all manner of other ‘good for you’ things in them, sausage, fresh fruit, and juice. As far as I was concerned, it was enough for a family of five with leftovers for their dog.

This new quirk of Heero’s; cooking when I was upset, was already getting old. I managed a muffin and some of the fruit, and though I could tell he wasn’t thrilled, he let it go.

It was actually a bit of a relief to get to work. I am something of a master of… thought organization. Things can be quite nicely set aside to be dealt with when the time comes. Unless something, like Heero’s constant looks of concern, dredges up the thoughts I don’t want to think about and throws them in my face.

Griff and Giles and the rest of the guys had no idea that my impending holidays were going to be comprised primarily of my worst nightmare. So our conversations were about engines and tools, or their own holiday plans with their families.

Though I have to confess that I spent a little bit of time dwelling on the fact that those discussions weren’t making me squirm and want to be somewhere else, like they used to. Hearing other people talk about huge family Christmas celebrations when you’ll be going home to your empty ship to eat ration bars with your ghosts, your paintings and your teddy bear… used to be a tiny bit depressing.

Made me wonder what Heero used to do for the holidays. Made me wonder if he’d been as lonely. Then it made me wonder if he’d spent any of those Christmases with… anybody special, and I had to find something else to think about. Thought organization at its finest.

So I concentrated most of the morning on the running banter that sprang up when Dave admitted that he hadn’t gotten his wife’s gift yet and began lamenting how picked over everything was. He was given no quarter, especially from Giles who was quick to point out that he’d had his wife’s present for over a month.

‘Well, it ain’t so damn easy,’ Dave grumbled. ‘She won’t tell me what in the hell she wants! I’m supposed to be a damn mind reader?’

Giles and a couple of the other guys snorted their derision, sharing a knowing look and a roll of their eyes.

‘She’s telling you, moron,’ Giles chuckled. ‘You just ain’t listening.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ Dave groused, stopping work on the tune-up he was doing to glare past me at Giles.

‘Women don’t just come out and say I want so-and-so, you dip,’ Giles jeered, grinning over the hood of the car he was working on. ‘They drop hints. You have to listen.’

‘It’d be a damn site easier if women were more like men,’ Dave said, throwing a wrench into his toolbox in disgust. ‘If I damn well want something for Christmas, I ask for it!’

Somebody further down the line mumbled something that didn’t make it far enough for me to hear, but it garnered a handful of derisive chuckles and Dave whirled around to glare at the source. ‘That ain’t what I meant, and you assholes know it!’ he snapped, and I could tell he was starting to get a little irritated with all the teasing. ‘I just meant that men are easier to understand.’ Then he suddenly turned back around, looking at me and blurted, ‘Ain’t that right, Duo? I’ll bet Yuy isn’t making you fucking guess what he wants for Christmas!’

I was rather glad, at that moment, that my head was inside the engine compartment, because I felt my face burn until I was surprised ash wasn’t drifting down from it onto my work area. The whole damn garage went as silent as a tomb and it seemed the world was holding its collective breath. So into that silence, without ever looking up, I tossed a bold laugh and told him, ‘I don’t do Christmas, and listening to you guys bitch about it just confirms my choice. Sounds like a damn pain in the ass.’

Dave never missed a beat, seeming oblivious to the tension around him. ‘Well you’re no damn help!’

It sounded like the whole place remembered to breathe at the same time. I continued to stolidly remove bolts and just tried to get my face to stop burning. Beside me, Dave rummaged after a different wrench, muttering to himself for a second before blurting, ‘Well if you guys are so damn smart; you tell me what in the hell to get her!’

That fired off a round of suggestions that I won’t repeat, and the guys were off on a new tangent, for which I was very grateful.

Damn. Don’t get me wrong, I was vaguely aware that the place was vaguely aware that Heero and I were together, but it was something that had never just been brought out in the open before. That had been… vaguely weird. And damned embarrassing.

But shit-fire, it sure as hell gave me something else to think about.

I was rather proud of the fact that I wasn’t doing too bad by the time the lunch hour rolled around. Until I put my tools away, closed up my tool box and glanced up to find Trowa Barton standing by the front garage door.

He didn’t look any happier to be there than I was to see him. No damn doubt why he was darkening my doorway.

He gave me a sheepish little grin and cocked his head toward the diner up the street. I rolled my eyes, shook my head and made myself walk over to him.

‘Cluck,’ I said, as I came abreast of him.

He only raised an eyebrow questioningly, opening the door to let us out onto the street.

‘Mother-hen,’ I clarified, stopping on the sidewalk to look up at him. ‘So… when exactly did you get the call from Heero?’

He chuckled and ducked his head. ‘Actually, Wufei called me after spending the morning watching Heero nurse his ulcer.’

I felt my face flame and turned away, jamming my hands into my pockets. ‘So they thought that you could… what? Talk me out of it? Cure my phobias? What?’

He sighed, hearing the hint of irritation in my voice. ‘Give you somebody to talk to?’

I started walking, heading across the street intending on taking him over to the Andover deli. Damned if I was going to have this conversation in the diner across the way with half the Preventors organization in attendance. Trowa fell into step beside me without question.

‘Nothing personal, Trowa,’ I had to tell him. ‘But this is kind of annoying; I just spent the last couple of hours putting this whole thing out of my mind.’

He gave this tight little chuckle and I could feel him looking at my profile until we had to fall into single file for a few minutes to wind our way through a narrow part of the alley. ‘I think that’s what’s worrying Heero so much, Duo… your ‘I’ll worry about it tomorrow’ way of dealing with things.’

‘It worked for Scarlet O’Hara,’ I mumbled and won a snort of a laugh before he got it cut off.

He didn’t have an immediate reply and then we had to cross the next street over and our concentration went to dodging cars for a minute. When we hit the next sidewalk he blew out a breath and quipped, ‘Are we there yet?’

I laughed, glancing up at him and led the way into the next alley. ‘Almost.’

‘This place better be worth it,’ he muttered as he followed after me yet again.

‘The foods ok,’ I informed him. ‘But the bigger attraction is the fact that I don’t have to spend my lunch hour with fifty co-workers.’

That garnered a derisive snort. ‘You are a somewhat anti-social person, Duo Maxwell.’

‘You’ve just been around Quatre too long,’ I grinned back over my shoulder. ‘Your idea of ‘social’ has expanded quite a bit.’

He took a playful swing at my head, but I anticipated it and danced lightly out of the way.

Then we were out of the alley and he came to walk beside me again. ‘Welcome to the Andover deli,’ I grinned up at him and opened the door with a flourish, the little bell tinkling merrily.

He grunted, his eyes sweeping over the place for a second before stepping inside. He moved out of the way, and followed my lead to the counter.

We let the conversation lag while we made our sandwiches and got our drinks. I didn’t bother getting anything too complicated; I had a funny feeling that I wasn’t going to be all that hungry by the time Trowa was done with me.

We settled ourselves at a table by the front window, my favorite spot, and he couldn’t seem to help grinning at me as he sat down. ‘Could you not act like having lunch with me is akin to… waiting for your execution?’

I looked up from unwrapping my sandwich and quirked a grin. ‘Sorry… but we both know what you’re here to talk about and I can’t say I’m thrilled.’

His grin faltered and he gave me a look that was kind of… resigned. ‘I can’t say I’m all that thrilled either.’

‘Then how about we just spend the lunch hour talking about… cars or something?’ I ventured, and wasn’t really kidding.

He didn’t take it as teasing either, meeting my eyes with a very serious look and sighing softly. ‘Don’t tempt me.’ We just stared at each other for a minute and then he glanced back down at his lunch. ‘Why don’t we just eat first?’

So we did, and I was just as glad, because I knew Heero would ask me later if I’d had lunch. He’d asked every day since the stupid passing out thing, and it wasn’t overly pretty on those days when I had to tell him I hadn’t.

Anticipating the fact that lunch was probably going to end up feeling like a lump in my gut before the afternoon was over, I’d only gotten the small sandwich and finished several minutes before Trowa. I found my fingers nervously folding and unfolding my empty sandwich paper.

Watching him finish those last couple of bites, it suddenly came to me that this couldn’t be any more pleasant for him than it was for me. I’m sure the guys had asked him to come talk to me because they felt we had a ‘common ground’. That, of all of them, Trowa could best understand what I was going through. But damn; did they not understand that this sort of thing had to be just as hard for him? That they were asking him to dredge up his own ghosts and memories?

‘This is so fucking unfair,’ I blurted and he looked up at me sharply, eyes going wide. ‘Not you,’ I amended. ‘Them.’

His expression cleared and he gave me a funny little, almost grateful look. But then he sighed again. ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind if it helps you at all.’

The sandwich paper was shrinking under my fingers, as I folded and folded again. ‘But it doesn’t really help me to sit and talk about it,’ I told him. ‘I just don’t get what they expect you to do over a damn lunch hour.’

His answering grin was a little self-deprecating. ‘I’m… not sure I know.’

He sipped his drink for a second and I continued to crease paper. My mind kept bypassing the real reason he was here and kept getting hung up on the part where Heero and Wufei had asked him to come. ‘You know,’ I told him before I realized I was going to, ‘they make me feel like some sort of psycho nut case who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown or something. Like they think I’m going to… to go postal.’

He leaned forward then, settling his arms on the table and looking at me intently. ‘Are you trying to tell me this trip isn’t… bothering you? Heero says you’re having nightmares again.’

The heat crept into my cheeks and I sighed. Guess I should be glad we’d gotten as far into the conversation as we had before the damn blushing started. ‘No, I’m not trying to deny anything,’ I told him. ‘But I don’t understand why they don’t trust me to handle it.’ I looked down at my hands and found my sandwich paper transformed into an ungainly bird; stained with a spot of ketchup, one wing looking pretty bedraggled. I snorted softly and tossed it onto the tray with the rest of the trash. ‘I don’t understand why a simple holiday trip is turning into… such a high-profile, federal case.’

‘They’re just…’ he hesitated, seeming to come to a decision and changed the comment; still looking at me with those piercing green eyes of his. ‘We’re just worried about you, Duo. We’ve always been… something of a support system for each other, it’s very hard for us to see you hurting and not try to give you some of that support too. I know you don’t always feel like you’re a part of our group, but you are. You always have been, and you always will be.’

I could truly not have turned any brighter red. ‘Nothing to worry about…’ I muttered defensively, and since my sandwich paper had been sacrificed to the Gods of Nerves, I started in fidgeting with my drink cup.

He snorted softly, not even deigning to reply to that comment, just giving me that raised eyebrow look that said, try again.

I took a sip of my drink but it didn’t do much for the tightness in my throat. ‘Look, Trowa… I just deal with things a little differently than you guys do. I don’t see the point in trying to beat a dead horse until it gets back up. Yeah… I still have issues with space travel. We all know why. How is talking about it going to help? I just have a tendency to take the bull by the horns in situations like this.’ I shrugged helplessly, not sure how to better explain it.

He couldn’t contain a sharp laugh, and we both had to glance around, as a few people looked our way. ‘More like by the short hairs,’ he said under his breath, and grinned at me. I just gave him a rueful look, letting him know that the conversational ball was still in his court; that smart-ass remarks didn’t count. He gave his head a little shake and sighed, dropping his eyes to his own drink. He started to speak and then stopped; his fingers going up to sift through his hair before he tried again. ‘What are you feeling about this whole thing?’ he finally blurted, and looked damned unhappy about what had just popped out of his mouth.

I repressed a groan and sat back, hands resting on the edge of the table and still fiddling with my cup. Trowa never has been much of a one for mincing words. Maybe not as bad as Wufei, but pretty blunt sometimes, all the same. What was I feeling? I wanted to ask him how in the hell I should know. I wanted to tell him I was fine. I wanted to tell him I was scared. I wanted to go the hell back to work.

‘I don’t know, man,’ I said instead. ‘Haven’t really slowed down enough to analysis it.’

There was a grunt from his direction, but I didn’t take my eyes off my drink to see the expression that went along with it, so I’m not real sure if it was an irritated grunt or an amused one. ‘And just when are you planning on taking the time to feel?’ he asked softly.

I sighed. I turned the cup between my fingers eighty degrees to the right and then back to the left. I sighed again. ‘It’s not exactly in the schedule,’ I finally confessed.

His own sigh was rather explosive, and I could feel him trying to will me to look up at him. ‘Duo…’ he began in that gentle as all hell voice, but stopped when he saw the little frown creep across my face.

‘Please don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of wild animal about to bolt,’ I asked him, probably a little tersely. ‘I really hate that.’

He was quiet for so long that I finally did look up at him. He seemed to be working with an uncomfortable, kind of sheepish look. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured and I could tell he really hadn’t realized.

‘S’ok,’ I told him. ‘You don’t do it near as much as the other guys do.’

His expression cleared and he leaned forward a little further, putting us more on an eye level. He seemed to pick over his next words very carefully. ‘Duo… you have to realize that your somewhat… unique way of dealing with… stressful situations is what is giving Heero gray hairs?’

I didn’t throw my hands in the air, ok? I thought about it real hard, but I didn’t do it. ‘I don’t know what he wants, Tro!’ I grumbled, having to make an effort to keep my voice down. ‘He says he doesn’t want me all… uptight about it, but every time I manage to go five minutes without thinking about the whole damn thing, he starts in wanting me to fucking talk about it!’

Trowa gave me a somewhat sympathetic smile but just shook his head slightly. ‘He just wants you to deal with your fears.’

I felt my face warming again and dropped my gaze back to the cup in my hands. The one with the large dent in the side. Wonder where that had come from? I realized that I had straightened and didn’t even remember doing it. ‘I’m going, aren’t I?’ I growled. ‘Isn’t that dealing with it?’

‘That didn’t work so well last time, Duo,’ he said quietly.

I gaped at him, torn between suicide by blush and just storming out of the café. ‘There were extenuating circumstances last time,’ I told him flatly, hoping my tone of voice conveyed the fact that I would not welcome him questioning me any further down that avenue.

Our eyes were locked and there seemed to be a tiny little battle going on that I didn’t half understand. He looked down first, but I couldn’t say which one of us won.

‘I just…’ he began, hesitating and trying again. ‘I don’t know…’ but broke off a second time, looking frustrated.

‘Spit it out Trowa,’ I prodded. ‘My lunch hour’s almost over.’

He looked up at me, almost imploringly. ‘It’s no damn wonder you drive Heero to distraction,’ he quipped, trying on a smile but quickly losing it. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and serious as a funeral. ‘It just took me a lot of sessions with Dr. Webster, before I could even think about putting on a vacuum suit without almost wetting myself.’ He was the one blushing furiously now, but he refused to drop his gaze. ‘It took awhile, after that… accident for all my memories to come back, but once they did, it was months before I got through a night without waking up in a cold sweat. Don’t fault me for worrying about my baby brother. Don’t blame me… us for caring.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw George and Francis hiding behind the salt and pepper shakers, quietly taking odds on which of the two of us was going to spontaneously combust first. My money was on me; absolutely no doubt.

My mind chose to home in on the fact that my therapist and Trowa’s were the same person. I had not known that. It made sense, I suppose, when I thought about it… Heero had to have gotten a reference from somewhere. It wouldn’t be like him to just pick the first shrink he found in the phone book. I wanted to keep thinking about that, and ignore the rest of it, but the look on his face wouldn’t let me.

‘I’m not blaming anybody,’ I reassured him. ‘I’m just trying to do this the only way I know how.’

‘Denial?’ he asked almost affectionately.

‘I prefer to think of it as a time management issue,’ I grinned. ‘I have my nervous breakdown penciled in for approximately one o’clock tomorrow.’

It was, perhaps, not the joke to have made.

He looked… pained, and he was chewing on something he couldn’t quite get spit out. I cut in while he was still working at it. ‘Don’t, man; just let it be. What good does it do me to dwell on it for days on end? If I can put it out of my mind and just go on… why not? It’s not going to be a cakewalk; I know that. But why talk about it, and think about it, and just get all worked up now?’

‘Because,’ he said earnestly, ‘you may think you’ve put it aside, but it’s still in there… eating away at you. The fact that your nightmares are back again should tell you that.’

His use of the words ‘nightmare’ and ‘again’ in the same sentence so much was starting to bug me.

‘Well I’ve sure as hell never known what magic spell to use to get rid of nightmares,’ I groused, feeling defensive as hell. ‘Mind sharing your secret?’

‘Talking it out,’ he said simply, and too late I saw the road he’d led me down.

I sighed heavily and began clearing up my lunch trash and piling it on the tray. ‘Talking has never done much for me,’ I said, not looking at him. ‘I need more direct action.’

‘What got you through those dreams when Heero was in the hospital?’ he asked, seeming to almost pounce on me since I’d given him the damn opening.

‘I returned that stupid journal to Captain Camden’s widow,’ I stated emphatically.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Or was it getting to talk things through with the woman?’ I opened my mouth to retort, but then stopped, unsure. He didn’t wait for me to deny or confirm, but pushed ahead. ‘I’m just saying that you may think you understand yourself, that you may think you understand how your mind works, but sometimes it helps to… see things through someone else’s eyes.’

I finished clearing the table and glanced up at him. ‘I need to get back,’ I said and got to watch him grin.

‘You’re impossible,’ he sighed.

‘So I’ve been told,’ I replied and rose to go dump the trash. He waited for me by the door and we walked back out onto the street.

He raised a quizzical eyebrow when I stopped at the soda machine next to the alley entrance, but didn’t comment. I bought my drink and we started the walk back. He didn’t speak until we’d crossed Broadway. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told me, while we were still side-by-side, before we passed a parked car in the alley and he had to drop back.

‘For what?’ I asked.

‘Giving you indigestion for lunch,’ he teased and I gave him the smile he was looking for.

‘That’s ok,’ I told him. ‘I imagine it wasn’t much of a treat for you either.’

He followed me around the car, walking silent as a cat behind me, but didn’t answer me for almost half a block.

‘I’m not going to try and tell you it didn’t stir up a few thoughts I’d rather not be thinking,’ he said softly, totally dropping the light tone we’d achieved. ‘But if anything I said gets through to you, it’ll have been more than worth it.’

I managed not to stop and look back at him. My mouth tried to come up with something witty, but failed. I just kept walking.

When we emerged across from the Preventors building, he fell into step beside me again, and wasn’t even trying to hide the strange little smile.

I was just ready to step off the curb when I realized he’d started to slow his steps. When I hesitated, he stopped altogether. ‘Car’s over there,’ he nodded in the general direction, and I glanced to see his car parked just down the way. We’d come to our parting of the ways.

I cocked my head and looked up at him; his eyes did look a little haunted… a little troubled. Before I had a chance to think about it too hard, I blurted, ‘You know when they ask you to do crap like this, its ok to say no.’

There was an awkward moment while he just stood and looked at me, but then he grinned rather broadly. ‘As well as you know that when we make offers of support, it’s ok for you to say yes.’

Caught me quite flat-footed, the asshole. I blushed darkly and his grin turned into a chuckle. He sobered though, and suddenly reached out, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, squeezing gently and giving me a little shake, making sure I met his gaze. ‘Remember your breathing lessons. Remember your safe place. Don’t shut Heero out trying to be strong. Try to have a good time, at least while you’re on L2, and if there’s anything you need at all… all you have to do is ask.’

‘You’re not going to hug me or anything… are you?’ I gaped up at him and he let go, snorting softly and giving a rueful little shake of his head.

‘Impossible,’ he murmured, and turned to head for his car.

I stood and watched him go for a second, before thinking to call after him. ‘Thanks, Trowa… I think.’

He tossed me a wave and climbed behind the wheel. I turned and finished the walk across the street. It took a little bit of Frances’ patented ‘repress’ help to keep from looking up where I knew Heero’s office window was. I was afraid if I saw him standing there I’d flip him off.

The first thing I did when I got to my toolbox was use some of that soda to wash down a couple of aspirin, making a mental note to get a new bottle, I’d almost gone through the one I had. Tension headaches were just becoming a part of my day. Wonder what Heero had planned for dinner, sushi-bar with my therapist? Or was he sitting in his office at that very moment researching foods that were good for stress? The only damn thing I could think of that was supposed to be good for that was green tea. I sure as hell hoped that wouldn’t end up being the main course.

Though I suppose, from what Trowa said, Wufei was as much to blame for my little lunch conversation as Heero was. But Wufei was… forbidden ground. Our relationship was just starting to resemble what it once had been, and while I might get irritated with his rather high-handed interference, I would not reprimand the man for love nor money. No way in hell was I going to risk him tucking tail and crawling back into his little guilt shell. Not even over his attempt to turn Trowa Barton into an impromptu lunch-hour psychiatrist.

But seriously; I wish I knew what they thought that whole damn thing was going to accomplish. Just what in the hell did they want from me? Just what did they think was going to change with my twisted little phobia-ridden psyche before… Tuesday?

Maybe it was the simple fact that the conversations ebbing and flowing around me had dwindled, but try as I might, I couldn’t achieve that state of forgetfulness again. Could not banish thoughts of what I would be facing tomorrow.

Simple anxiety was a very large part of it. I was a little afraid that old saying about getting back on the horse was going to turn out to be very true. Out there in the asteroid belt, the horse had not only thrown me, it had picked me up, tossed me around, wallowed me flat and shit on my corpse. On that trip to L3, I’d tried to mount up again, and gotten royally kicked in the head. At that point, I’d called it quits and had not even thought since about stepping aboard so much as a helicopter.

Now here I was, as I’d told Trowa, taking the bull by the horns. Again. I didn’t have a clue how I was going to react. Hell… I might not even be able to make myself walk aboard the damn shuttle, much less sit through launch.

But as much as anything else, I was terrified of looking like a flaming idiot in front of Heero. The memory of sitting in the middle of my Demon’s bathroom, crying hysterically with my arm gashed to the bone was… painfully fresh. If I’d had anything at all to be thankful for on that trip, other than not dying, it was not having any witnesses.

Utter humiliation and I don’t make good dance partners.

So by the time it rolled around to the end of the shift, I was tied right back up into a nice little Gordian knot of tension.

The garage had been gradually losing employees all afternoon. The next day was the beginning of the Christmas break and nobody really cared if guys were slipping out early or not. So I didn’t feel too bad about cleaning up a little before the hour so that I could walk up and wait for Heero by the car. He was still bringing the stupid thing down to the back of the garage to pick me up, and I honestly didn’t want him coming in there. I was a little irritated with him, trying to fight it, and not sure how successful I was being. I was afraid if he didn’t wait for the privacy of the drive home, to ask how lunch had gone, I just might kill him.

I was sitting on the hood, doing my best to convince myself that a huge fight the day before we ended up confined to a dinky little shuttle cabin together, was probably a bad idea, when I saw him come out of the stairwell and start toward me.

Several things passed across his face when he saw me sitting there; a frown of almost annoyance, followed by a look of concern, which quickly changed to an expression of resigned understanding.

He unlocked the car without speaking and we climbed in. I had opted to give ‘pleasant’ a go, and didn’t give him the chance to start talking. ‘I don’t really feel like green tea for dinner; can you swing by the market so I can run in long enough to pick up some meat? I think I’m going to fix steaks if you don’t care.’ I could see him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye while he started the car and pulled out, but I just kept going. ‘Maybe just steaks and a salad. I think there’s still some lettuce in the crisper and some carrots if we didn’t eat them all. I suppose while I’m there, I should get some candy…’

‘Duo,’ he said, voice trying to wedge itself into the middle of my ramblings. It wasn’t all that loud though, and I chose to ignore the tone.

‘… for the kids. I usually bring them candy after all, and what’s Christmas without candy? Octavia isn’t all that thrilled…’

‘Duo,’ he said again, a little louder, a little more forcefully. Telling me we were going to talk about what I really didn’t want to talk about, and pleasant went right out the window.

‘What?’ I barked out, before I realized it was coming and found myself glaring at him, daring him to start with me, because I suddenly found that I was rather spoiling for a fight.

‘I’m sorry,’ was the next thing out of his mouth, which wasn’t going to do much for escalating this into the knockdown, drag-out argument I was itching for.

‘Well, you fucking should be,’ was the best I could manage. ‘For which damn part?’

‘I should have stopped Wufei when I realized he was planning on calling Trowa,’ was the reply, but then he glanced across at me uncertainly. ‘You are mad at me because of Trowa showing up for lunch?’

‘Damn straight!’ I growled. ‘What the hell was the idea of putting him through that?’

I swear to God, Heero almost forgot he was driving for a minute, turning to blink at me in puzzlement, before jerking his head back around and focusing on the job at hand again. ‘What?’ he asked, sounding confused.

‘You guys think it’s easy for him?’ I glared, keeping half an eye on traffic in case his attention should wander again. ‘Just because he did the damn therapy stint? You think you aren’t making him dredge shit up out of his head he’d rather not have to think about? And for what? Because it sure as hell doesn’t do anything for me!’

There was almost complete silence in that car for the next mile. Heero looked a little… taken aback. I imagine I just looked like I was working with a real bad case of constipation.

He stopped at the market without me having to say anything else about it. He even waited in the car while I made the quick trip in.

I got the steaks and the candy, and then picked up some damn mushrooms for the stupid salad. I hate the things and would just have to pick them out later, but Heero liked them. Stop laughing at me. That’s how you know when love is real. When you do nice things for the other person even when you feel like ripping their heads off and spitting down their necks.

It’s a twisted little reality and you can just bite me if you don’t understand it. I was pissed off at Heero for the hand he’d had in my wonderful lunch hour. But I was also well aware of the fact that I was feeling just a touch irrational. Stress will do that to you. So I might be over-reacting a little bit; I wasn’t entirely sure. Hence the mushrooms; a tiny apology without having to actually admit that I might be… over-reacting.

By the time I got back to the car, he’d obviously worked out what he wanted to say and delivered his lines before I could start in again. ‘I am very sorry; I should have realized. Wufei felt that Trowa might be able to offer an understanding ear, I should have known better. I should have stopped them and I apologize.’

When he’d said his piece, he shut the hell up and gave me the space to think about it. Not that I really needed a lot of time. Like I said; I’d figured out somewhere between the soup aisle and produce that I might need to back off a little.

‘I don’t suppose you’re up for going out, getting drunk and picking a fight with five or six really big guys?’ I asked as I settled my sack of groceries on the floor of the car between my feet and fastened my seat belt.

‘What?’ Heero burst out, turning to look at me so sharply it’s a wonder he didn’t give himself whiplash.

I sighed theatrically. ‘Didn’t think so,’ I muttered.

‘Please tell me you’re kidding,’ he asked, eyes a little wide.

‘Mostly,’ I replied agreeably. ‘But you have to admit it’s a great stress reliever.’

He had to chew on that the entire time he was starting the car and leaving the parking lot.

He tried two or three times to say something, before finally simply holding his hand out. He looked a little relieved when I settled my hand in his, and he pulled our twined fingers down to lie in his lap.

The quiet then was a little more… companionable.

When we got home he tried to take over the chore of dinner making, until I glared at him. ‘I need to be doing something, Heero. Just sitting around only makes it worse.’

We compromised by agreeing to do it together. He broiled the steaks while I made the salad, though he had to come and give me a little kiss when he saw me slicing the mushrooms. Told you he’d get it.

We managed to get through the meal on rather banal pleasantries, he’s become more aware of how easy it is to screw with my appetite, and he waited until we were doing up the dishes before he tried to bring up my lunch date.

‘Will I get yelled at if I ask how things went with Trowa?’ he prodded somewhat hesitantly.

I snorted, taking a plate from his hand to dry and put away. I ignored the question he’d asked in favor of the real one. ‘About as well as would be expected for two guys trying to do self-diagnostic psychotherapy in the middle of a deli.’

He was quiet for a moment and then ventured, ‘So… you’re cured?’

The God damn son of a bitch got the full-throated laugh he was aiming for, managing to look slightly flushed, and pleased as hell with himself all at the same time. ‘You’re such an asshole,’ I told him, putting away another plate.

‘I know,’ he murmured, and there was a hint of true apology in it. It made me feel kind of bad.

‘Guess I am too,’ I conceded, and he didn’t even bother to dry his hands before pulling me into his arms. It felt damn good. Despite the slimy feel of dishwater seeping through the back of my shirt.

‘I love you so much,’ he whispered near my ear, making me shiver and tighten the grip I had around his neck.

‘I’m sorry I’m such a pain in the ass,’ I replied just as softly, and we stood like that for a little bit; just holding on.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he finally said, breaking the quiet that had enveloped us.

‘As sure as I can be,’ I sighed. ‘You sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for?’

He turned his head and kissed the side of my neck. ‘I think I’m figuring it out.’

‘Heero…’ I began, and drew back to look at him. Almost, I asked him if he would still respect me when it was all over. But that was making too much of a joke out of something that was eating me alive. And, of course, implied that he respected me now. Something I hoped to some benevolent God was true, but wasn’t always sure of, and could not bring myself to ask. I just couldn’t find the words, and ended up staring at him with no idea how to complete the thought. How to articulate the question.

‘Forever,’ he reassured, somehow understanding anyway, and kissed my forehead in a gesture that I always found calming as hell for some reason.

He let me stand there, wrapped around him until I was ready to let go. Let me be the one to pull away first.

And then it was finishing the dishes and finishing the packing, and all the things that needed doing to prepare for a couple of days away from home. All the things that I’d let go because it had made it too hard not to think about what it all meant.

It was late by the time it was all done, Heero showered first and I found myself wandering around the house checking the latches on the windows until he came out. I’m not sure what he did while I was showering. When we were both done, we packed the bathroom stuff and somehow that seemed terribly final to me. I went off to the bedroom to turn down the covers while Heero sat the last of the luggage by the front door. Anxiety was making a dull ache in my throat.

I was undressing when Heero came to join me, luggage deposited and lights turned out in the rest of the house. He flipped off the overhead light as he came into the room, leaving us with only the warm glow of the bedside lamp.

‘Need some help?’ he asked, voice a husky purr as he came to wrap his arms around me from behind, taking over the task of unbuttoning my polo shirt.

I hummed a quiet affirmative, and raised my arms to facilitate his pulling it over my head once the buttons were freed. The shirt went I’m not sure where, and then his hands were sliding over my stomach, making my breath hiss and my muscles tighten. His questing fingers found the button on my jeans and tugged it free. I could feel his… interest pressed firmly against me. I let my head fall back against his shoulder as he eased my zipper down. I was just starting to lean into him, when he suddenly stepped away and before I half had a chance to react, my pants and underwear were nothing but a memory.

‘On the bed… now,’ he growled, and gave me a playful swat on the ass as I stepped away to comply.

‘Watch it, Yuy,’ I grumbled and sprawled out to watch as he undressed.

I got to see where my shirt had gone when his joined it in a pile by the door, and then he was crawling up to join me on the bed. ‘Roll over,’ he commanded, hovering over me. I gave him a raised eyebrow, but he refused to answer, only waiting, so I complied to that too, and rolled over as instructed.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when he merely straddled my thighs, settling his hands on my shoulders, but I was. I grunted softly. ‘I thought you were interested in… other things.’

He leaned down and brushed his lips between my shoulder blades, whispering against my skin, ‘Time enough for that when you’ve relaxed enough that I don’t feel like I’m making love to a chunk of steel.’

His words made me feel the tension I hadn’t really registered in my own muscles, and I tried to loosen up but couldn’t seem to manage it.

‘Just let me,’ he said, dropping another kiss to my back, and then he set to work.

He started gently, merely stroking his hands over my skin. When he began to apply a bit of pressure, it was almost painful. I did my best to work with him, he let me hear his own measured breathing and I tried to match him, tried to concentrate on that simple job. Tried to block out the other thoughts. Thoughts of tomorrow. Thoughts of what was to come. Thoughts of where I was going and what I had to try and make myself do.

Thoughts of what had been.

‘Breath with me, love,’ Heero chided gently and brought me back to our room with him.

‘Sorry,’ I murmured, but he didn’t say more, just gently and thoroughly doing his best to reduce me to putty.

It… wasn’t an easy task, and there was more than one embarrassed apology as I forced my thoughts back to what he was doing, away from what I wasn’t supposed to be dwelling on.

When he finally rolled me over, I was probably as relaxed as I’d been all day, but I’m not sure that was saying much. He gave me a sad little smile, leaning down to kiss me softly. ‘You’re so very good at that,’ I sighed as he brushed his lips along my jaw-line. ‘Sometimes I’d swear you’ve had training.’

He raised his head to look down at me with a strange little amused look on his face. ‘I have,’ he informed me. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘What?’ I asked, confused. It had been a totally random comment and I certainly hadn’t been serious.

He chuckled at my expression and his eyes went all tender as he reached to brush my hair from my eyes. ‘When you were first in the hospital. I took training classes with your therapists.’

All I could manage was a wide-eyed, ‘Oh.’ He only smiled and dipped his head back to what he’d been doing.

He nibbled and teased, stroked and suckled, doing all the things that would normally have me writhing and bucking beneath him. But while I could feel the evidence of his own arousal pressed against my thigh, it became painfully obvious fairly quickly that my own was pretty much… non-existent.

I tried to concentrate on the moment, tried to block out all the rest, but… my body just wouldn’t cooperate. That’s not exactly a thing a guy can hide.

Heero stopped when I started to tense up again, fighting against my own lack of response. Fighting against a severe case of humiliation. ‘It’s all right,’ he soothed, lying down beside me and pulling me into his arms. Just lying with me. ‘I should have realized. It’s all right.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I muttered, feeling my face turn a here-to-fore unknown shade of red. Somewhere in the back of my head I thought I heard the faint sound of laughing hamsters.

‘Nothing to be sorry for, love,’ he scolded. ‘It’s not important; I guess it was kind of thoughtless of me. I hoped… it would help you sleep. Would help you relax.’

‘I feel like a moron,’ I grumbled, doing my best to hide my face against his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘Stop apologizing,’ he commanded, giving me a firm squeeze. ‘I should have thought about how much stress you’re under.’

‘I just… feel like I’m teasing you somehow,’ I managed to tell him and it sort of came to me that I didn’t really need to let that happen. Didn’t really need to participate in order to offer him some sort of release. Curling my hand closed, I reached to stroke my knuckles down his side and over his hip. He shivered and sighed softly. Emboldened, I slid my hand further down his thigh and he turned to kiss me gently on the forehead.

‘Don’t, love,’ he said quietly, but there was a ring of firmness in his voice.

I froze, and his hand reached down to catch mine, bringing our twined fingers to lie in the middle of his chest. ‘What’s wrong?’ I stammered.

‘Our love-making is just that,’ he told me, voice so serious that I dared a peek up at him. He was staring up at the ceiling, not looking at me, so I watched him as he spoke. ‘Making love between the two of us. How could I take pleasure from it if I knew there wasn’t any pleasure in it for you?’ He drew me in close against his side and his voice got a little fierce. ‘I won’t have you… servicing me like… like…’ he hesitated and did look at me then, I had thought to avert my eyes, not really ready to meet that gaze, but I found I couldn’t. He cupped my cheek and smiled lovingly. ‘When you’re in my arms, I always want it to be mutual. I don’t ever want what we have between us reduced to just having sex. I want it to always be making love.’

I felt the foot of the bed dip as guilt beast joined us. I sighed and burrowed deeper into his arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, not able to stop myself. He snorted softly.

‘Stop apologizing and go to sleep,’ he chuckled and drew the blankets up around us.

I could feel guilt trying to worm his way under the covers, poking his damn cold nose into our pocket of warmth. I shivered hard and blurted, ‘I love you,’ since he didn’t want me saying I’m sorry anymore.

Heero wrapped me up close and told me, ‘It’s going to be all right,’ in a tone of voice that made it seem like it could be.

It was, of course, a very long time before I dozed off, but I am something of a master at faking it, and convinced Heero enough that he fell asleep himself before too terribly long. The trick is not to lie perfectly still. People don’t really sleep like logs; they roll around and shift when things get uncomfortable. And the breathing. A lot of it is the breathing.

I would have gotten up and gone to find something to do after the first hour, but I knew Heero was set on a hair trigger and would wake the instant I tried to leave the bed. So I just counted ivy leaves for awhile until it dawned on me that I could see those leaves in order to count them because Heero had left the light on for me. I glanced at it, but it was on his side of the bed and I couldn’t have reached it without waking him. Half my brain thought it was a sweet gesture, while the other half was a little embarrassed that he realized the dark bothered me when I was particularly off balance.

Not that I’m freakin’ afraid of the damn dark, but if it’s too deep, too dark, I find a part of my psyche starts doubting where I am. Starts doubting that I’d made it out of the asteroid belt. I still sometimes woke up expecting to find myself there… still floating.

I wondered how I was going to be in the morning. I wondered if I was going to be able to sleep at all. I wondered how it would feel to go out to the space port again. Wondered how I’d handle it if I ran into anybody I knew from the old days. Wondered how it would feel to go through launch again, especially with someone else’s hands on the yoke. Wondered a million damn things until I think I’d counted every ivy leaf in that room. Until I’d knotted myself back up to a state of physical discomfort.

It took a solid, concentrated effort to get my mind shut off enough to finally sleep. I managed to get my head to thinking past the trip, and about the kids. Then I started course calculations, carefully matching my breathing to Heero’s. The last numbers I remember seeing on the clock were 4:16. It was a very damn long night.

And then it was Tuesday. No more evasive thinking. No more ignoring it. The bull was waiting and I could only hope I didn’t end up impaled on those horns.

Heero is a sweetheart. I love him with all my heart. He tries so damn hard sometimes it’s almost painful. But of all the things he could have chosen to do that morning, deciding to get up before me to fry some bacon for breakfast was not the best choice he has ever made.

I roused jerkily from sleep, feeling vaguely anxious about some dream that was fading even as I blinked open gritty eyes, and then I was hit with the sickening smell of sizzling pork fat.

I hit the ground running and barely made it to the bathroom before I was spewing whatever was left over from the night before into the toilet.

Puking your guts up is not something you can do quietly. No matter how hard you try. Though, I suppose the running down the hall thing probably gave me away before the violent heaving thing.

Heero came before I was half-finished, I heard him pounding up the stairs and then he was there, sweeping my hair out of the way and offering a supporting hand under my shoulder.

‘Damn,’ I muttered, when I could. ‘That wasn’t on the schedule until after the dock-web disconnect.’

I don’t know when I’ll learn which jokes are appropriate and which ones are going to go over like lead balloons. I really don’t.

He helped me to my feet and waited until I’d washed my face and rinsed my mouth before venturing, very carefully, ‘Are you all done?’

‘Should be,’ I managed, looking down at my feet, not much caring for the intensity of his gaze. ‘I only got sick once last time. Though… I have to tell you I don’t think I’ll be eating much breakfast this morning.’

He was very quiet for a second, and I figured he was probably pretty pissed off about my not eating. I opened my mouth to reassure him that I thought I would be able to take my iron tablets if he’d just give my stomach time to settle, when he spoke.

‘Last time?’ he asked in a deceptively calm tone of voice.

Ooops. My mistake. He was, perhaps, not pissed off so much about the food thing as he was about the inadvertent confession thing. I opted not to reply, kind of hoping to not confess anything more.

‘You… launched your ship while you were…’ he just couldn’t seem to find the words. Or maybe he just couldn’t quite manage to maintain the calm tone.

‘Actually,’ I quipped. ‘I’ve been thinking that L3 trip should probably be relegated to conversational ‘off-limits’ for the next three or four days, you know what I mean?’

I thought, for just a second, he was going to blow a gasket. Or an artery, in his efforts to get his mouth shut on the thirty thousand things trying to come out of it. He finally managed to pare it down to, ‘Are you all right?’

I started to nod, but then thought better of it. ‘Yeah,’ I mumbled. ‘I thought I’d just get a start on the total humiliation. You know… kind of get the ball rolling?’

He was quiet for a long second, and then blew out a breath that was just short of a frustrated groan. ‘This is how you’re going to deal with this all damn day, isn’t it?’ he ground out and it brought my eyes up to look at him. My lover was not a happy camper.

‘Probably,’ I had to agree. ‘It’s how I cope. I’m really sorry. Mad at me?’

He did everything but throw his hands up in the air, but told me in a tone of voice that kind of didn’t match his words. ‘No, but I’m starting to think I’m going to need some of those tranquilizers myself!’ Then he turned and headed back downstairs.

Well, maybe he could enter into the spirit of the thing after all. Or maybe he really was pissed off. I honestly wasn’t sure. I took my upset stomach and my bare ass and went to get dressed.

I fussed around the bedroom for a bit, making the bed and picking up the dirty clothes, giving Heero a chance to calm down. I hate it when I get so flustered that I let things slip out without thinking about it. I particularly hate it when those things are things that should not be shared. I found myself standing in front of my dresser, running my finger along the edge of the frame on Solo’s picture. Maybe unconsciously seeking comfort from a presence that had at one time been the center of my universe.

‘What a load a crap,’ the familiar voice muttered, as Solo’s likeness pressed his nose to the backside of the glass over his portrait.

I snorted. ‘You’re so sentimental.’

‘Center of my universe,’ he mocked, coming out of the picture to stand beside me, where it was easier to poke at me. ‘Yer gonna make me puke next.’

‘Should have known I wasn’t going to get much sympathy from you,’ I sighed, trying not to look too close at what I knew would fade under scrutiny.

He blew a raspberry and planted his hands on his non-existent hips. ‘Since when am I some great momma figure?’

‘I don’t know, King Rat,’ I sighed, reaching to touch the glass of his picture, tracing my fingers along the line of his shoulder. ‘Sometimes you didn’t do so bad in the comfort department. In your own gruff way.’

‘Gruff?’ he chuckled, hopping through my arm to sit on the dresser so he could tower over me. ‘I like it. Hell… I’m not even sure what it means, but I like it.’

‘I miss you,’ I murmured of a sudden and felt a faint, familiar prickle in the backs of my eyes.

‘Ah, hell!’ he yelped and jumped down to stalk away from me. ‘Don’t start that shit! You know I hate that! Go find yer Heero if yer lookin’ for sympathy… you know I ain’t no good at it!’

‘Yeah,’ I sighed, looking right at him so the morning light would make him fade back into memory. ‘But I don’t have to be humiliated in front of you; you’re dead. What do you care if I’m a fucking coward?’

‘Stop feeling so damn sorry for yerself!’ he jeered. ‘You don’t need none a that damn ‘comfort’ crap, what you need is a good kick in the ass!’

‘Maybe a kick in the ass is what I do need,’ I muttered, running my fingers through my bangs.

His laughter was derisive, but he went away. ‘Have a nice trip,’ was his parting shot. ‘Say hi to the old neighborhood fer me.’

‘I’ll do that,’ I whispered. ‘Watch my house while I’m gone.’

He didn’t answer, and I figured I’d better get my ass downstairs before Heero decided that I’d changed my mind about the stupid trip and had just gone back to bed. I gathered the pile of dirty clothes and headed down. I was surprised to meet Heero coming up.

He seemed a little flustered, which I guess was an improvement over irritated, and just stood in the middle of the stairs looking at me. ‘Are you… all right?’

‘Had to make the bed and stuff,’ I temporized. He gave me a very odd look but just reached for the wad of clothes in my arms. I sighed in exasperation. ‘I can get the stupid laundry, Yuy.’

I expected him to argue. Expected him to snipe back, but he just backed down with a quiet little, ‘All right.’ I wondered what had him so off-balance.

He turned on the stairs, heading back down and I followed, trying to decide just how bad this day was going to drag out. Would the morning take an eternity, or be over in a heartbeat?

We went into the kitchen, Heero to the sink while I went through to the basement stairs. There really weren’t enough clothes for a load, so I simply dumped them in the hamper and went back upstairs.

I realized when I got there, what I hadn’t noticed on my way down; that the smell of frying bacon was gone and the room was chilled. I glanced over and saw he had the kitchen window open and there was no sign that anything had been cooking in the room at all. It made me feel bad. He was drying the last of the dishes from his aborted breakfast attempt and I went to stand behind him, resting my chin on his shoulder and hooking my fingers in the belt-loops on his khakis. ‘Can I make a blanket apology now for the pain in the ass I’m likely to be for the next couple of days?’ I asked him gently and won the ghost of a smile, I could see it tugging at his lips out of the corner of my eye.

He gave me that little non-committal grunt that I chose to take as acceptance.

‘Thank you for getting up early to make breakfast for me,’ I ventured, and managed to wring a little snort from him.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, with only a hint of the faded ghost of sourness in his voice. ‘Too bad you couldn’t eat it.’

‘You didn’t just… throw it out, did you?’ I had to ask, the lacks of my youth making me feel guilty over the waste.

‘Not all of it,’ he sighed. ‘I ate some.’

I cringed inwardly. ‘I’m sorry…’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘How about you stop apologizing for everything short of breathing,’ he suddenly blurted.

I blinked and tried to catch the expression on his face in the reflection of the window, but couldn’t quite get the angle. ‘Heero?’ I ventured, drawing back a little so that he could turn around. It took him a second before he did. We just stood there, looking at each other.

‘I don’t like that you’re closing yourself off from me over this,’ he said, voice rather deceptively calm.

‘I’m not closing myself off from you,’ I tried to tell him. ‘It’s just easier not to think about it until I have to.’

‘That isn’t healthy, Duo,’ he said gently. ‘If you’re upset over this trip… if you’re having problems, we need to talk about it.’

‘Why?’ I had to say. ‘It won’t make it any easier when the time comes. If I sit down here in the middle of the kitchen and bawl like a little baby, or kick and scream like a toddler throwing a tantrum… what good does that do?’

‘You need to get it out…’ he was starting to sound frustrated.

It was my turn to sigh, so I did so. ‘You can’t ‘get this out’, Heero. It isn’t going to make the feelings go away. It’ll just make me arrive at the shuttle port with a stuffy nose.’

He got that frustrated look again and his hand made an aborted gesture toward his already tousled looking hair. ‘I don’t understand why you think I would judge you… harshly, over this. Duo… why can’t you see how much I want to be here for you? I wanted to make this trip together. I thought… I could help. I don’t want to just follow along behind, carrying the bags while you try to shoulder this alone.’

My face heated rather nicely and I felt a shiver of almost anger ripple through my gut. ‘Why can’t you guys understand how utterly humiliating this is for me? This… fear is totally irrational. It’s nothing but a damn… psychological roadblock in my head! It’s driving me crazy that I can’t control this! That I can’t get the fuck over it!’

He looked at me, finally reaching out and curling his hands gently around my upper arms. ‘You’ve never let it control you. Why can’t you understand how proud of you we all are?’

‘For what?’ I jeered, pulling back from him. ‘Not actually throwing up in the pilot’s seat?’ This whole conversation had gotten just a touch past the uncomfortable stage.

I thought he would growl at me for a second, but then the almost angry look on his face kind of smoothed over and I could see him backing off and trying another tack. ‘When I was first in the hospital, and I couldn’t even roll over without your help… did you think any less of me?’

I resisted, just barely, the urge to roll my eyes. ‘Don’t be an ass, Yuy… you’d been shot! Of course I didn’t!’

‘Duo,’ he persisted, ever so gently. ‘You’ve been a whole hell of a lot more than shot.’

We did that dork-ass thing where we just stood and stared at each other for a long moment. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I really didn’t.

‘I need to not talk about this anymore,’ I finally told him, and thought for two damn seconds that he was going to shake me until my teeth rattled. Instead, he let go and stormed out of the room.

I opted to get my jacket and go for a walk. I’d been meaning to take a look around the neighborhood anyway.

I’ll spare you the internal monologue. You’ve pretty much heard it all already. It was just a couple of hours of more of the same; my overflowing brain running itself ragged in the same circular pattern, with a little bit of anxiety thrown in over Heero and his frustrating frustration.

It’s a wonder I didn’t have poor little thought hamsters keeling over from exhaustion.

When I got back to the house, I’m not even sure Heero had realized I’d been gone. He had retreated to my studio when he’d fled the kitchen and I found him there still, standing in front of the new mural and just staring.

The room had been yard in its former life. You could tell if you looked at it really close that it wasn’t part of the original house. The lady who used to live in our home, had been something of a gardener from what I could tell, and I imagined sometimes her badgering her husband into having the addition built. I’m positive good old Lester hadn’t done the work himself, I was coming to understand as we ran across things, that the guy had not been the greatest handyman in the world.

The wall that once upon a time would have been the outside of the house had been finished oddly; sectioned off for some unknown reason, and that was where Heero’s Christmas present was painted, in the first section next to the corner. As I stood and watched Heero study the mural with an oddly wistful look on his face, I found myself wondering if there would be other portraits, and just what they would be.

I knew he felt my presence; you don’t sneak up on Heero Yuy, and I’m not crazy enough to try. But he ignored me for a moment and I got to watch him look.

He’s an incredible looking man; and sometimes I have a little trouble getting my head around the fact that I have any claim on him. I wondered what it was that attracted him to me way back when. I wonder why he puts up with all my shit.

He was leaning against the side-wall, arms crossed over his chest and his head cocked slightly as he studied what was in front of him.

While walking, I had decided to call off the trip. Then decided that it wasn’t something I could run from, and called it back on. But then I had started thinking about how unfair it was to put Heero through this, and decided that I should just gird the old loins and do it alone. And of course, had realized pretty quickly how that would go over.

He turned his head and looked at me with a faintly sad look in his eyes and I told the room at large, ‘I don’t know what to do.’

He sighed so softly I couldn’t hear it, could only just see the rise and fall of his chest. He unfolded himself and gave me the hint of a shake of his head. ‘I don’t either,’ was all he said.

We met half way across the room and when I said, ‘Hold me?’ I didn’t have to ask twice. Once I was safe in his arms again, I dared, ‘Do you want to call this off?’

‘Not unless you do,’ he replied.

‘Do you want to… wait here for me?’ I ventured and expected his irritation to flare.

‘No,’ was all he said.

‘If we’re doing this,’ I said then, ‘it’s time to go.’

‘I know,’ he said gently and kissed me. I wondered what he’d found, out among the painted stars.

Then we packed the car, locked the house and took off for the shuttle port.

Heero played the radio for me, so the ride wasn’t made in total silence, because I just wasn’t up to conversation much. Too busy lying through my mental teeth to the voices in my head who were starting to politely inquire where we were going.

Out.

Where?

Just out.

But where?

For a drive.

But… where?

Oh, look at the pretty cloud.

Don’t laugh, it works. Mostly. But only to a point.

I felt my stomach tighten when we hit the access road to the port and Heero joined the line of cars going through the gates.

‘Breathing,’ Heero scolded gently, making me aware of how it had quickened.

I couldn’t really manage any actual breathing exercises sitting there in the car and just settled for stopping all together.

‘Smart ass,’ Heero muttered and I waited while he pulled up to the gate and got his parking token, before replying.

‘There’s just no making you happy,’ I teased, but made more of an effort to push down the anxiety.

We were quiet while he wound his way through the long-term parking lot, but when he’d found a spot and pulled in, he didn’t immediately let me out of the car.

‘Love,’ he asked, face showing me a bit of discomfort. ‘How do you want to handle… us?’

I blinked at him for a second, not sure of his meaning. ‘What?’ I said in bafflement.

He sighed, looking a little more uncomfortable before suddenly telling me, ‘If you need to make this trip sitting in my lap, I don’t damn well care. But I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make things worse for you.’ He was looking at me rather intently. ‘What’s too much?’

I flushed and looked away. I hadn’t really thought about that. I suppose ‘shipping out’ was so engrained in my memory as a solitary thing, that I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to how many people might be aboard the shuttle. I mean, I’d thought about it… but I hadn’t really thought about what it was going to mean.

Public displays. Great… another can of worms. I could appreciate his asking at this stage of the game at the same time I could feel the weight of just one more thing on my shoulders.

‘I don’t know,’ I had to tell him, with a slightly frustrated sigh. ‘I suppose we can just stick with what’s normal. Not cross that line if we can help it. This trip is going to be uncomfortable enough without having a sh…shuttle full of people staring at us.

We both heard me stutter over the word, and I got out of the car before he could comment on it.

It took him a moment to come around and help me unload the luggage out of the trunk. I avoided eye contact and he thankfully took the hint and let it drop. Though I got a gentle squeeze of my elbow while we were still relatively hidden by the shelter of the trunk lid.

We shared out the luggage and began the walk to the terminal.

It’s funny; the public side looks a hell of a lot different than the commercial side. Much more crowded for one thing. The parking area down on the spacer’s end isn’t nearly as large, for another. Not a lot of ship owner’s have cars to worry with. You’d have to have one waiting for you in every port and that’s just not feasible. So walking across that parking lot wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. It felt totally different from making ones way down the access road to the hangers. It almost felt more like going to the mall. Other than a vague unease and a dry mouth, I didn’t feel too bad. I was actually able to look around a little, and the clots of other people were helpfully distracting. It was interesting to see some of the oddball packages people were carting off to some family holiday. The little kid in the back of my head was actually buying into that whole ‘oh, look at that’ thing.

Until the first shuttle launched since we’d pulled onto the grounds and the kid woke up to his surroundings with a sudden snap to attention. I’m afraid I stopped dead in my tracks right in the middle of the damn walkway, staring up with a dawning sense of horror. A noise escaped my mouth that was something like a whimper before I got it snapped shut.

Somebody cursed me for blocking the sidewalk, but I didn’t even see them, I was too busy staring up at that column of blast flare. Too busy scrambling around trying to come up with a lie to placate the panicked voice in my head. Too busy adjusting my mental schedule and trying to decide if I needed to work in another bout of vomiting.

Someone muttered something about ‘damn gawky tourists’, and then somebody else had me by the arm and was steering me off to the side. Incidentally, blocking the sight of that shuttle from my sight.

I blinked Heero into focus and tried to grin but it didn’t even come close and I knew it. I opened my mouth to tell him I couldn’t do it. To ask him to pretty please take me home. ‘They sure are impressive goin’ up, aren’t they?’ was what came out.

His eyes held mine and offered whatever I needed, barring absolutely nothing. I’m almost certain if I’d told him I needed him to kiss me blind right there, he’d have done it. It made me grin and give him a tight little nod.

We rejoined the flow of foot traffic, and when the next launch happened, I was able to keep my eyes on the ground and not stop. I’m sure it was only the press of other people that caused Heero to shift close enough to bump shoulders with me.

I left all the tedium of luggage checking and crap to him. I could not have dealt with it, I don’t think. It was mostly unfamiliar to me; I hadn’t shipped out on a commercial flight in years. Heero did it all the time and moved through the practiced red-tape tango with ease. I just followed along, going where he directed and moving with the flow. It was an indeterminate amount of time before I found us seated in a waiting area. Most of our luggage was gone, given over to the tender mercies of a gang of baggage handlers, except for the single over-night bag that Heero took charge of. I wished he’d let me carry it so that my hands would have something to fiddle with, but had to make do with the end of my braid. A habit I thought I’d long ago given up.

It wasn’t long at all before I noticed that a ship was coming into the station right outside the windows of our waiting area, and I realized that Heero had timed things to get us here at almost the last damn possible moment so that I wouldn’t have to sit and stew in my own juices for an hour.

Beside me, Heero stirred, passing the bag over to sit between my feet instead of his. ‘Be all right for a minute?’ he asked softly and I nodded, not at all sure what he meant. Maybe he forgot to go to the bathroom before we left?

When he rose and walked briskly off, I damn near jumped up and ran after him. It was understanding how pathetic that was, that kept me sitting where I was. I latched onto the strap of the overnight bag, twisting it and turning it in lieu of my hair. I found myself getting anxious that they would call to board before Heero got back.

God… what was wrong with me? You’d think I couldn’t cross the damn street without help.

It only made matters worse when the gate opened and the current passengers began to disembark before he returned. My eyes were completely locked on the spot where he’d disappeared and I really hated myself for the almost physical rush of relief I felt when he came back into view.

I gave him a quizzical look when I saw the bottle of water dangling from his fingers, but then he sat back down and began rummaging through the bag and it all began to make sense. I’d forgotten about the promise I’d made. It was in my head to argue over it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. As much as I didn’t want to take the damn tranquilizers, I didn’t want to disappoint Heero more. And it didn’t help my case much, that when I reached to take the bottle of water from him, my hand wasn’t exactly what I’d call steady.

He pressed two pills into that hand with a hopeful little smile just as they called for boarding. It was all I could do to choke the damn things down. I truly wished I’d not agreed to it, but having promised, I couldn’t make myself argue. He was doing enough for me… it would not kill me to do this one thing for him.

Then he was shouldering our bag and standing up. I tried to follow him, but the commands I sent to my legs got waylaid somewhere and nothing really happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him subtly offer his hand and I took it without hesitation, letting him pull me to my feet. It took some effort to make myself let go and start walking.

I vaguely remember saying something witty to the flirty little flight attendant who did something… professional to our tickets, but I couldn’t have told you what it was. It was Heero’s hand, touching me gently in the small of the back that made me walk into the boarding tunnel. There is a moment of near privacy as you leave the sphere of the ticket lady, before you enter into the sphere of the welcome aboard lady, and Heero took it to lean close and whisper softly, ‘I’m right here.’

It was a stupid ass thing to say and I should probably have been irritated with him over the implication that I was giving serious thought to turning tail and running away. Except for the fact that on some level I probably was thinking about turning tail and running away. So instead of the annoyed growl I should have given him, I settled on a grateful smile.

Then I had to turn some part of my attention to the welcome aboard lady while she checked our seating and directed us to the right place. Not that I was paying the slightest bit of heed to those directions, I trusted Heero to know where to take us, but it still took some effort to produce the smile and the nod.

He led me down the aisle, but then hesitated when we got there. ‘Window or inside seat?’ he asked me, and I had to think about it. Which was worse, being able to see out, or being where someone might see me if I decided to go into some kind of apoplexic fit? I ended up deciding that I probably couldn’t affect my comfort level much one way or the other with one seat difference, and opted for a little less humiliation factor. There were three seats and I took the one by the window, as far from the world as I could get, and Heero sat next to me, settling our bag into the seat next to the aisle just as though he were positive no one would be sitting there.

The shuttle was not crowded, thank God. I guess there just isn’t a lot of draw to L2 for the holiday crowd. And I will always wonder if Heero’d done some finagling with the shuttle service computer system. Or maybe he’d just bribed someone, because somehow we had ended up with a pair of seats near the back of the main cabin with nobody very close to us at all. It would have taken some neck craning for anybody on that flight to get a really good, solid look at us. Not for the first time in the last week, I wished that there weren’t laws about where you had to ride-out launch. I would much have preferred to be locked away in our cabin, no matter how small the thing would turn out to be, rather than out here with all the other passengers, such as they were.

I sat staring out the window, watching the little slice of the field that I could see, and wondered if any of the tow trucks I saw out there were being driven by anybody I knew.

After a moment, I felt Heero curl his fingers around my wrist and I looked at him, he was frowning faintly and I realized he was taking my pulse.

I didn’t need to see the trace of concern in his eyes to know that it was elevated as hell. The faint buzz in my ears and the dull ache in my throat told me that my body had spit as much adrenaline into my system as it could manage, and was struggling valiantly to produce more.

‘Aren’t you feeling any effects of the medication yet?’ he asked, and I wondered if he’d try to give me another dose if I told him no. I had to stop and think about it, drawing my attention inward and taking an inventory.

When I thought about it, I did feel a little… odd. Kind of shaky. I knew if I were to stand back up, my legs would feel rubbery and weak.

‘Kinda wobbly,’ I reported back, and his frowned deepened. ‘I just took the damn things, Heero,’ I told him, feeling like a damn lab rat. ‘Give it time.’

‘The doctor said ten to thirty minutes,’ he informed me, and I realized he was still holding my wrist.

‘It’s barely been ten,’ I grumbled and pulled on my hand when I heard the flight attendant approaching our area.

‘I’ll need you to secure that bag, sir,’ she told Heero politely, and accepted his tight nod as compliance, because she didn’t hang around to make him do it, simply gave us the little ‘thanks for flying with us, we’ll be launching in fifteen minutes’ speech.

I could see the gears going around in Heero’s head and suddenly realized that he was so concerned over the damn drugs because he was afraid he’d misjudged the optimal time to administer the things. I resisted the urge to chuckle at him. ‘Hey,’ I asked him instead. ‘Is the rest of the bottle of water in the bag?’

He fished it out without further prompting, seeming glad to have some request he could fulfill for me. I took it and damn near drained it before I realized I was going to. My mouth felt like it had been lined in sand. I thanked him and handed the empty bottle back for him to stow with the rest of the gear, you don’t want stuff like that lying around loose during a… while you’re… well, you know.

I went back to staring out the window, not sure if I was glad I couldn’t see any more than I could between the wing and the terminal section or not. On the one hand there was less to see to trigger… thoughts. On the other, there was less to see to distract me from… thoughts.

We hadn’t dressed up for the trip or anything, but I had put on a button-down shirt instead of a t-shirt and I was rather glad when I felt myself beginning to sweat and it instantly chilled on my skin in the circulated air of the cabin. I’d had the sleeves rolled up and I reached to roll them down without looking.

‘Cold?’ Heero asked, and I turned to give him a sheepish little grin, feeling badly for how much I must be ignoring him.

I swallowed, finding it difficult, and wished we had another bottle of water. ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him and he looked a little confused.

‘For being cold?’ he asked wryly and I did snort softly that time.

‘For being a silent lump,’ I explained.

‘It’s all right; I understand,’ he told me and dared to reach out and brush his fingers along the side of my face. I found my eyes closing and I leaned into it, so he let the caress linger a little longer. ‘I brought your sweatshirt if you need it,’ he told me and I had to smile. I didn’t have to say anything for him to murmur, ‘I know how you get.’

I opened my eyes again and straightened a little bit, his hand dropped away and I found I missed the heat of it. ‘Yeah,’ I said, feeling the hint of a shiver wanting to take hold of the base of my spine. I let it run its course while he was turned away digging the thing from the bag that I was beginning to suspect had been very carefully packed.

I let him help me put it on without thinking about it, liking the touch of his hands as he tugged it down and straightened the collar.

‘Better?’ he asked and I nodded. That made my head feel funny though, so I quit pretty quickly. He had that look in his eyes that makes me think of mother tigers and I couldn’t help giving him a grin that was probably a little goofy. It felt a little goofy anyway.

‘I love you,’ I blurted and then just sat blinking at him, rather appalled that I’d said that right out loud in a public place like this.

His expression danced between warmed and surprised; I don’t think he could believe I’d said it either. He leaned over and whispered next to my ear, ‘Forever, love.’

I had to put some serious concentration into not letting my head fall to rest on his shoulder once he’d brought it so close.

He straightened, but his fingers were on my wrist again. He didn’t seem overly happy with what he found. ‘Duo,’ he ventured after a moment. ‘How are you feeling?’

I had to close my eyes in order to force my attention inward again to figure it out. I felt… really kind of weird. I think it was safe to say the damn drugs had kicked in, and in that moment a thread of unease made its way through my gut and later I would very distinctly remember thinking that those tranquilizers had been a bad idea.

‘Weird,’ I told him, because he was waiting on a status. ‘Kind of… shaky. A little bit dizzy. My mouth is dry as the damn Sahara. I dunno, Heero… to be honest, it’s screwing with my concentration. I feel kind of… scattered.’

And I did. When I really stopped to make myself aware of it, I just didn’t feel so damn good.

When I blinked my eyes back open, it was to find Heero looking at me in a way that let me know he wasn’t entirely pleased with the report.

Then the waitress… no, that wasn’t right… the flight attendant came around again because Heero hadn’t stowed our bag yet. He apologized profusely, muttering something about needing something out of it, and quickly put it away. This time, she stood over him until she’d seen the job done right. I vaguely remember trying to smile at her pleasantly but I’m not sure I did, because she kept glancing my way with a strange look on her face.

Then she went away and I was so relieved to have Heero sitting back beside me, that I reached out and took hold of his hand. He smiled fit to make the sun come up and squeezed my fingers.

But then that same flight attendant’s voice was on the loudspeaker and we were being given the up-right speech. I heard the hatch seal shut and could feel as the loading ramp kicked free and began to retract. I think I made a tiny little sound, because the hand wrapped around my own tightened and a second one joined it.

My tongue worked until it came unglued from the roof of my mouth and I meant to tell Heero to abort the mission. I meant to tell him not to make me do this. I opened my mouth intending to say stop, but what came out was, ‘Well… this time tomorrow we’ll be on L2.’

We were at that point in the schedule, after all, where all parties concerned had to face up to what we were doing and get the hell over it. I glanced at the back of the seat in front of us to make sure there was a barf bag within easy reach.

In the back of my somewhat overcrowded head, something uncoiled and the kid woke up and that damn screaming started.

L2? Shuttle? You tricked me!

I drew in a deep, shuddering breath and tried to ignore what were really only my own thoughts anyway. But then I heard the hideously familiar metal-on-metal sound of a tow truck attaching to the shuttle and the kid let out with a wail, understanding that he’d got the news too late to do anything about it.

‘Oh God,’ came out of my mouth before I could stop it and I had a mind-bending moment of sheer terror thinking that the voice of the scared little boy might manage to gain control.

‘I’m right here,’ Heero whispered low and gentle, just as we jerked into motion. Some part of my mind got the feel of the hands driving the tow truck and I knew it wasn’t Dusty. I couldn’t make up my mind if that made things better or worse.

I endured the haul out to the launch ramp without managing to rip the stuffing out of the armrest, or break any of Heero’s bones. Though I have a feeling if it had been anyone but Heero Yuy sitting next to me they’d have been in some serious pain. I don’t think I could have let go if I’d wanted to. Nor could I focus enough attention to ease the grip; it was taking too much of my concentration to keep the terror bottled up behind my teeth.

I realized I was trembling like a new-born foal only when Heero began to whisper to me and I could vaguely hear the strain in his voice. Could feel his worry. ‘It’s ok baby, I’m with you all the way. I won’t let go.’

My heart was trip-hammering in my chest so hard it hurt. My throat felt swollen and pained, evidence of bodily systems on overdrive. All my awareness was simply on not letting that little screaming voice come out of my mouth. Had to keep it in my head.

No! Please no! I wasn’t bad… I’ll be good, please don’t make me…

We slowed and stopped and I knew the tow truck out there was lining us up on the ramp. The driver gave the truck a little backward kick, to loose the grapples and I knew in an instant it was Cortaine behind the wheel. It was a weird thought that gave me pause, throwing me back to a time in my life when I would have been the one in the pilot’s seat.

I turned to Heero with a look that I’m sure was far, far from reassuring and told him in a wobbly voice, ‘That line? I’m gonna cross all over it unless you tell me not to.’

And you know damn well he didn’t tell me not to, just opened his arms and reached for me. It wasn’t possible to do much with us both buckled into our seats, but I twisted myself around like a pretzel and buried my face in his shoulder and clung onto him like some damn leach. The g-forces of launch were not going to be pleasant in that position, but I was pretty sure without the contact, I was going to be screaming for them to stop the damn ship any second.

‘I’ve got you,’ Heero told me, his arm around my shoulders and squeezing tight enough to bruise. ‘You’re not alone… I’m right here.’

Why do nonsense words comfort so much? I don’t know… maybe they just give you something else to think about. Maybe it’s just white noise. All I know is the little boy in my head was hanging on his every word much like I was hanging onto his shirt. Hands fisted tight on the thankfully stretchy fabric and eyes squeezed tight shut.

‘I… can’t do this,’ I told him, utterly appalled at my own mouth.

He was quiet for a minute and then his hand came to the side of my head, pressing me firmly against his shoulder. I felt him kiss the top of my head. ‘It’s too late.’

And it was. I knew it was, because the final countdown had started and once you hit the thirty second mark, God couldn’t stop a shuttle launch. The kid screamed so loud and so hard, that a guttural moan escaped my defenses.

I felt the thrum of the engaging chain and whimpered Heero’s name. On some level wondering how I had thought I could do this without him. Wondering how I had done it alone the last time.

On another level though, I was aware that things were… different. I was more scattered and out of control. My concentration was blown to hell and I just felt confused and off-balance. So damn disoriented. I couldn’t focus on any of the things that might have helped me get my shit together. And I sure as hell couldn’t work up enough anger to bull my way forward the way I had last time.

It was Heero’s gentle, siren voice that got me through that launch. Holding my scattered psyche together with the sheer power of his nonsense words. Weaving something solid for me to hang onto when everything else I reached for failed me.

‘…going to be fine. I’m here with you, I’ll always be right here. You can do this…’

When the harsh crush of launch force hit us, the pain of it pressing down on my twisted body made it impossible to speak. Made it impossible to scream. I was very glad for that… because I think I might have, otherwise.

Despite my eyes being shut tight, I could feel the play of launch-flare across my face, taunting me and trying to get me to look. I burrowed harder into Heero and felt his hand leave my shoulder for a moment. Felt him fighting the pull of the g-forces, and somehow he managed to reach the button that closed the window shield. The light stopped dancing across me and Heero’s hand came back to curl around me.

It was a lift-off that felt like it would go on forever. And I suddenly knew what Hell would be like when I finally got there. There would be no trotting over to help old Sisyphus with that rock on the hill. No, Duo Maxwell’s own private Hell would be the launch that never ended.

For the first time since the very early days of my Gundam training, I fell into that near-faint that gets the newbies. If it hadn’t been such a fucking relief… I would have been mortified.

I wasn’t completely unaware, just somehow removed from the pain and the stress. I think the kid in my head did faint. Or finally just went into a catatonic state. Heero’s voice got a little scared sounding when my hands stopped clutching and I went limp, but I couldn’t make myself come back to the unpleasantness of it all. I was just drifting in a place that was somehow soothing in its… blankness.

I completely missed that moment of leaving the atmosphere.

I’m a little ashamed to admit that it took Heero’s tone going from ‘a little scared’ to ‘almost frantic’ before I forced myself to come back from the hazy gray place and tried to reassure him that I wasn’t dead. Or whatever he thought.

It took a bit of blinking to get him to come into watery focus and the look I found on his face was nothing short of scared shitless.

‘Duo?’ he asked me, voice all tight and low. ‘God, Duo… are you all right?’

I just stared at him for a minute, trying to process the paleness of his face and the wide, shocked look to his eyes. He reached to cup my cheek when he saw me registering his presence again. When I remembered how speech worked, I croaked, ‘Cabin?’ and hoped to God he understood how important that was.

I needed out of there. I needed a bolt-hole. A place to run to and lick my wounds. A place I could try and get my head together and figure out what in the hell was wrong with me.

‘Ok, baby,’ Heero whispered and used unsteady hands to smooth over my face as though cleaning me up. I closed my eyes again and trusted him to get me the hell out of there.

I heard him unbuckle and stand to retrieve our bag from the compartment overhead. I felt him undo my own seatbelt and roused enough to try to stand. ‘Not just yet, hang on a minute,’ he told me.

Then the unthinkable happened. He left my side. Left my line of sight, and that rather made it through the cotton batting I seemed to be wrapped in.

There was some part of my brain that understood I was not alone; I could hear the murmur of other voices in the cabin, and when I put some effort into it, I could even pick Heero’s out, talking to the flight attendant in a slightly terse manner.

But there was another part of my brain… the five-year-old part, that was on the verge of shouting for him; that felt the squeeze of memory in aching lungs. That was suddenly so very cold that I was visibly shaking by the time he came back.

I was not so far gone that I didn’t see understanding dawn in his eyes the minute he saw me. That I didn’t see the guilt well up in him. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for him and I decided that I would be mortified later. After I felt his touch and knew he was real.

He pulled me to my unsteady feet, murmuring soft apologies to me and using his body to block me from the sight of the other passengers. God only knows what in the hell he’d told the attendant, in that moment he could have told her I was drunk for all I cared, as long as it got me where I wanted to go; someplace private. Someplace safe from prying eyes and listening ears. Someplace where I could finish the job of falling apart without interruption.

I wobbled and I staggered and I barely managed to keep my feet under me with the help of Heero’s hands on my arms. I let him guide me and we quickly left behind the sound of the other passengers. So many things were pulling at me, twisting my perceptions. The thrum of engines. The hollow, metal sound of boot heels on metal deck plates. The faint recycled tang of the air.

By the time he got me to the cabin, he was practically carrying me and I wouldn’t have cared if he’d pulled me into a broom closet, as long as we were away from the humiliation of witnesses and he stayed with me.

I realized I’d been apologizing in an endless litany when the door slid shut behind us and he took me by the arms and gave me a little shake.

‘Stop it, Duo!’ he commanded, looking intently into my eyes. ‘It’s all right… it’s my fault. We should have tested the tranquilizers before now. I should have given you just one, until we saw how you reacted to them. It’s not your fault.’

I blinked at him, trying to fathom what he was saying, my brain trying to piece together something I already knew, but couldn’t seem to keep in the forefront of my mind. ‘This sucks,’ was the best I could manage.

He gave me a shaky little laugh, a burst of tension, and then he was hugging me tight. ‘The pills were too strong. I’m sorry… they weren’t supposed to do this to you.’

I suppose it should have been in me somewhere to be angry with him; I’d never wanted the damn pills in the first place. I wouldn’t be this fucked up if I hadn’t taken them. And quite possibly, much later, I would be angry. Once my head was cleared enough to get past all the things that were swirling in my mind. Once his solid presence helped me redefine reality. ‘It’s cold, Heero. It’s so cold…’

I would say that I just gave over to his care and let him take charge, but it honestly wasn’t what you could call a conscious decision. Hell… my brain had abdicated somewhere around the time the hatch sealed and there just wasn’t much choice about who took the lead here. Left to my own devices, I’m not sure I could have done more than sink to the ground where I stood.

I could feel the crush of vacuum all around us, pressing on the outside of the ship like the tightening fist of a very angry God. I could feel the cold seeping through the walls, creeping inward like a fog of ice-frosted breath. Could feel the air growing stale even as we stood there. If I’d had a hamster left that wasn’t drugged or just plain hiding, they would have come out to tell me how much trouble we were in when I began to gasp for breath.

Heero doesn’t need hamsters.

‘Duo-love,’ he told me, even as he was flinging our bag onto the bed. ‘You need to calm down. Come on… listen to me; just breathe… it’s all right.’

I was only vaguely aware of him pressing me down to sit on the bed. It barely registered as he pulled off my boots and then he wrapped us both in a cocoon of blankets.

He took me to my safe place.

I don’t know when he lost his shirt or his shoes, but when he laid me down across his chest, it was bare skin he cradled me to.

‘Listen to my heart, baby,’ he whispered against my hair. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. Just concentrate on me. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.’

I wondered if Trowa had been talking to him. I wondered if Heero had gotten ‘calm the mad mechanic’ lessons before we left. But I didn’t wonder for very long because it was taking all of my attention to try and do as he said; I was having a hell of a hard time remembering where I was supposed to be.

‘The air’s so stale,’ I told him, totally at random.

‘No it isn’t,’ he soothed and stroked his hands over my hair and my back. ‘Stop panting, we’re fine. You’re safe with me.’

I tried hard to do as he said, tried hard to concentrate on the steady sound of his heart against my cheek, but kept getting distracted by the sounds of things I hadn’t heard in a very long time. Sounds of a ship in flight. So familiar, but so very different from the pulse of almost-life that had been my home for so long. Pain welled up in my chest as I remembered another heartbeat; the heart of my ship gone silent.

‘I didn’t mean to kill my Demon-girl, Heero,’ I confessed, and tried to look up at him, but things were all watery and hard to see again.

‘I know,’ was all he said, arms going tighter around me. ‘I know… it’s all right.’

Somewhere behind the panic that was trying so hard to run away with my head, I felt badly that I was obviously scaring him so much. Felt bad that I couldn’t seem to get my wits about me, or shut my damn mouth up.

‘I’m so sorry I’m such an asshole,’ I told him, feeling my voice wobble dangerously and Heero made a tiny little sound of distress.

‘Shhh… You’re not an asshole,’ he said, kissing my forehead and stroking my cheek.

Something… the fear of what was out there coming for me, maybe… was winding up tight in my gut, making it hard for me to remember where I was and why. I clutched at Heero’s arms and listened, utterly appalled, as the kid got control enough to beg, ‘You won’t leave me, will you? Please… don’t leave me alone again.’

‘I’m right here,’ He told me, voice sounding terribly strained. ‘Shhhh… please don’t cry. I won’t leave you, not for a second. Hush… it’s all right…’

I was very confused and raised my head to look at him, suddenly afraid of slipping into that place I didn’t want to be. ‘I… made it out, right Heero? I’m not… there, am I?’

‘God no,’ he breathed, voice fierce and firm. ‘You’re with me, we got you out. Everything is fine. I’ve got you… I’ve got you now, and everything is all right.’

While he talked, his hands were doing something, I heard things rustling and crackling and then his fingers were worming their way under the neck of my sweatshirt. He smoothed his fingertips over the back of my neck in an odd manner, murmuring soft apologies. I couldn’t figure it out, but settled my head back on his chest, seeking the sound of him again. ‘Tell me?’ I heard myself ask, needing to have that anchor, needing something to hang onto because it seemed I could hear the whispering movement of the Londonderry dead very close at hand.

‘I love you,’ he said, drawing me close and raining kisses down on the top of my head. ‘Always. I’m here with you and you’re safe with me. Forever.’

And suddenly I just couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open. Just couldn’t seem to focus at all. I remember being vaguely confused about how that could happen. I remember wondering if Heero had done something. Then I don’t remember much of anything at all.

As disjointed and weird as my memories are of the launch and the time right after, what’s in my head concerning the rest of that day and our night aboard ship is just a strange conglomeration of very few and far between flashes of awareness. Strung out as though they had no relationship with each other at all.

I remember coughing myself into semi-wakefulness and asking for water. And I remember some liquid being trickled into my mouth, but the two things don’t seem to be related.

I remember waking to the feel of Heero shifting and having a full-fledged panic attack that he was going to leave me alone in that helpless state. I seem to recall a lot of murmured reassurances after that.

I very distinctly remember opening my eyes to see Heero looking at me with an almost alarmed air and saying, ‘You have never been a burden to me, Duo. Never.’

I remember hearing my night music.

I remember hearing Heero talking softly and realizing he was reading to me.

Later, I would figure out that he’d drugged me. Heero Yuy is nothing if not thorough, and he always has a plan two. Apparently, he’d gotten more than just a bottle of tranquilizers from the clinic. He’d gotten some ‘knock a horse on its ass’ sedative patches too. Though I don’t think his original strategy had been for plan two to be a remedy for plan one.

I should probably have been pretty furious, but under the circumstances, some part of me had to admit it was probably for the best. With all of my defenses stripped away by the damn tranqs, I would quite possibly have just had a heart attack and freakin’ died if I’d had to suffer through the whole damn trip in the state I’d been in. Or something.

This understanding didn’t make the whole thing any less humiliating. And while I’m not going to say I was jumping-for-joy happy with how it all came out, I can’t really say I woke up blaming Heero for the mess. He hadn’t slipped me the pills; he’d asked me. I had agreed against my better judgment. I guess there had been a couple of bad decisions all around.

When I did finally come out from under the influence of all the crap in my system, I was still curled like a catatonic puppy all over Heero’s chest, still listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat. Feeling the reassuring presence of his hands stroking over my back and my arms. Still bundled up in sweatshirt and jeans, in every blanket the cabin had to offer.

Waking was one of those pasty, groggy, stiff and confusing affairs. I was first aware that something not very good had happened to me. Then I was aware that the body I was resting on was uncomfortably hot and slick with sweat. Thirst came next, and finally an overwhelming sense of how utterly pathetic a human being I am.

I raised my head and found Heero’s eyes on me. He looked… damned tired.

‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Somewhere between road kill and pond scum,’ I quipped, and tried to lever off him.

He caught at me and I found myself resisting. ‘Take it easy,’ he told me. ‘You’ve been out a long time.’

And that, of course, begged the question, ‘How long?’

He looked a little bit sheepish, but had to tell me, ‘We have a few hours before we dock.’

‘Shit!’ I blurted and pushed harder until he let me sit up. My head exploded, my stomach churned and I must have swayed, because he followed me up to a sitting position, catching at my arm. ‘I’m ok,’ I told him, not sure if my head found its way into my hands, or if my hands came up to clutch at my head. I might have made a small sound of protest against my entire week.

‘Here,’ he told me, slipping a supportive arm around me. ‘Just lean on me.’

I dropped my hands and straightened, trying to give him a grin, but feeling my face flaming for all it was worth. ‘I believe I’ve been leaning on you all damn night. I’m ok now.’

‘Duo…’ he protested, but then didn’t seem to know what else to say; only reaching to stroke his knuckles down the side of my face.

‘Can we just agree that those tranquilizers were the worst idea we’ve had in a long time and leave it at that?’ I grinned and touched his own cheek with my fingertips, watching carefully so I didn’t hurt. I couldn’t maintain the expression though, not in the face of his obvious upset and dropped both gaze and fingers. ‘Heero, I am so very sorry…’

That upset flared into anger so suddenly all I could do was blink at him. ‘Don’t you do this to me!’ he snapped, grabbing me by the shoulders. ‘Don’t you dare fucking do this to me!’ I couldn’t help it; I flinched. Then I got to watch the frustration almost visibly drain out of him in a sudden rush of guilt.

‘Heero?’ I gasped; afraid for a whole new reason. ‘What…?’

I could see him tamping down on himself. Could see him wrestling his emotions into check. I was struck again by just how tired he looked. ‘Don’t shut me out, Duo,’ he told me wearily. ‘Last night… for the first time since the hospital, you let me see what was inside you; shared your fears with me. Don’t do this to me… I can’t take it again.’

I did that carp imitation that I keep swearing I’m going to give up, because I’ve seen how damn stupid it looks. But there just doesn’t seem to be another expression that fits that kind of moment. ‘I… I barely remember anything about last night, Heero,’ I had to tell him. ‘What are you saying?’

I flashed back on that time when I figured out that I must have suffered with a severe case of ‘confess your soul’ right after the accident. To this day I don’t know what all I said, other than the fact that it had left little doubt in anybody’s mind that I loved Heero beyond human ken, and left Heero with so much understanding of the workings of my head that I’d spent months suspecting him of having powers of mental telepathy.

He looked… pained. ‘I’m saying that you lay in my arms last night like you actually needed me. I’m saying that you let me care for you and watch over you without all the damn… defensiveness.’

‘You mean I fucking fell apart like… like some kind of raving lunatic,’ I grumbled, plucking at the blankets and trying to evade the intense look he was giving me.

‘I mean,’ he said gently. ‘That a mistake I made cost you your ability to cope with an extremely stressful situation, but instead of being angry with me, you… you sought me out. You let me help you without all this… bullshit between us.’

I dared a glance up at the expletive, but only Heero Yuy can us the word bullshit without really being angry. He tried to catch that glance and hold it, but I couldn’t. ‘Heero… I feel like a flaming idiot. I’m so sick of being so… damn fragile. So stinking weak.’ In front of me, just inches from my knee, the old sensei hamster appeared. He didn’t have a banner. He didn’t have a sign. He didn’t need them, he only glared long and hard and in the face of his pissed off visage, my mouth opened and I whispered. ‘Why can’t you understand how scared I am of you getting tired of supporting me? Why can’t you understand how awful it is to be this… feeble in front of the one human being in all the universe who means more to me than… anything?’

Sensei nodded once and vanished from sight, the damn old bastard. It was probably just as well; he’d have gotten crushed when Heero gathered me into his lap anyway.

‘And why can’t you understand that I don’t see you as weak; I don’t see you as fragile,’ he whispered against my hair, voice all twisted up tight. ‘You are the strongest person I know. I love that it’s me you turn to when you’re in need. I love you, and I want to be here for you.’

I didn’t know what to say to him, and just settled in his arms for a bit, trying to think it through. Trying to stop letting my embarrassment rule my mouth and my attitude.

There were just too many layers to what I was feeling; I wasn’t sure where my concentration should be.

There was the embarrassment, of course. Overlaying the discomfort of my drug-induced hangover. All on top of the lingering feeling of being trapped in a flimsy bubble that could pop at any moment, leaving us stranded in the cold blackness of space.

When I didn’t speak, he leaned to nestle his face against my shoulder and said softly, ‘You trust me with your body… you trust me with your heart… why can’t you trust me with your fears?’

I let my head rest against his. ‘Heero,’ I heard myself saying. ‘This nightmare is nothing compared with the fear I have of you being… ashamed of me.’

I couldn’t quite believe that had come out of my mouth. It was too close to asking for something I didn’t want to have to ask for. Putting something on the table that I hadn’t thought I was ready to. He lifted his head, forcing me to raise mine, and there was a solemnity to his expression that made me blush.

‘Long before you had my love,’ he told me, looking me square in the eyes. ‘You had my respect.’

It hit me like a damn blow. I made a sound as my lungs got confused about whether they were supposed to be sucking air in or gasping it out. All I could do was stare at him, searching for the lie… and not finding it. Why did it make so much difference hearing him actually say it? Why did the words mean so much more than any action he’d ever made? I don’t know, but it shook me more than the first time he’d told me he loved me.

You have to understand something about love. Real, true, I’m gonna be with you forever, love… it can’t exist without respect. Sure, you can care for a person, can even be fond of them, but you can not truly, deep down in the soul, love someone you do not respect. And I guess it just didn’t seem like there was very much about me lately, to admire.

In that moment… all I wanted was for him to lay me down and take that much vaunted control from me. Wanted to surrender to the heat of the fire he seems to feel for me. Needed to feel that heat spreading through me. But somehow, it seemed neither the time nor the place. I shivered and he wrapped his arms tighter around my waist, drawing me close, mistaking it for a chill.

I couldn’t find the words to tell him what that had meant to me. There just weren’t any words, so I held him tight as hell for a minute and then muttered, ‘We have to be getting cleaned up.’

He snorted softly, and kissed the hollow of my throat. ‘I can see I need to spend more time telling you just what an incredible man you are.’

I groaned theatrically, letting him lead us gently away from what was starting to become uncomfortable. ‘You aren’t going to start that crap again, are you?’

‘Every day until you believe me,’ he said simply, keeping the tone light despite the fact that I knew he wasn’t really teasing.

When I got up to make my wobbly way into the head, he let me go alone, though I could feel his eyes on me. He didn’t speak about how unsteady I was anymore than he commented on my leaving the door open. When I’d finished washing up as much as I could in a sink, and redone my hair, I came out to dress in clean clothes while he took his turn in the tiny bathroom. He didn’t close the door either.

When I went to dress, I found a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt waiting for me on the corner of the otherwise trashed bed. I took a minute for the first time to really look at the mess we’d made and was surprised by some of the things he’d thought to pack. My little MP3 player was there and I remembered hearing my music when I saw it. A copy of Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’ was lying next to it and the sight made me remember something I couldn’t quite pin down. There were empty protein drink bottles and the torn wrapper from the patch Heero had used on me. That made me reach to the back of my neck, where I remembered Heero doing something, and I pulled the spent, useless thing off. There was a strange tingle in the air and I turned to find Heero watching me, waiting for me to blow up about it, I think. I went without a word and threw it away in the disposal slot. I’d already decided there was just no point getting upset about the whole thing. It was done. Though… the damn tranquilizers were going down the toilet at the first opportunity.

I was dressed and pretty much had the mess cleaned up by the time he finished in the head, but I found I needed to sit on the side of the bed when I was done. He came and sat beside me, pulling the duffle bag over and fishing around until he found a ration bar, a protein drink and my iron tablets.

I took them, because I knew I needed them, but gave him the raised eyebrow look. ‘If there’s another ration bar in there… you haven’t eaten either.’

He frowned in theatric distaste, but dutifully dredged up another one. I shared the warm protein drink with him and we finished our strange breakfast just before the ship’s bell chimed for strap down; we were getting ready to dock. I was wound so tight the sound made me flinch.

A warm hand settled on my shoulder and Heero softly said, ‘It’s all right, baby.’

I frowned at the hated pet name and gave him a half-hearted glare. ‘Could you refrain from calling me that?’ I grumbled. ‘You know I hate it.’

He blinked in what appeared to be genuine surprise for a second, but then only managed to look amused. ‘That’s right,’ he chuckled with an odd look in his eyes, ‘you do.’ I was left feeling like I’d missed something.

Then it was time to go. He shouldered our bag, and with a last look around, led the way to the cabin door.

Docking does not speak to my nightmares the way launch does. Launch is going out into that thing that almost claimed my life in the slowest possible way. Docking is leaving that thing. Ground-bounders don’t get that. They don’t understand the difference between a space station and a space ship. They can’t understand the unfailing faith the colony-born have in our stations. They’re both out there in space, they say, why is a station any better than a simple ship? Hell, folks… the Earth is out there in space too when you get right down to it. Nothing more than a glorified open-face colony, just natural instead of man-made. It’s a mind-set as much as anything, I suppose, but it’s a mind-set that I thankfully possessed, or this trip wouldn’t have been possible at all.

As we made our way down the corridor toward the main cabin, the distant murmur of other voices suddenly made me think, and I glanced across at Heero. ‘What, exactly, did you tell the attendant to explain our… sudden need to be elsewhere, yesterday?’

‘I had not intended on telling her anything,’ he scowled in remembrance. ‘But she had noticed that you… didn’t look well. So I told her you ate something that didn’t agree with you.’

‘Oh,’ I muttered, suddenly wondering what in the hell the other passengers and crew thought about our total absence for the entire trip. People have a tendency to mingle aboard the longer flights. The cabins aren’t much bigger than a closet and there’s nothing in them to entice you to want to stay in one for more time than it takes to sleep. Besides the main cabin, there is usually a more casual lounge and I’m sure that’s where most of our fellow passengers had spent the trip.

Heero gave me an understanding smile and said, ‘The hell with them.’

I just had time to snort my opinion, and then we were there. As I had feared, every eye in the place that was in a position to see us, turned our way, and the undercurrent of conversation we’d been hearing, hit a low point. I flushed darkly and just aimed for our seats, wishing this whole nightmare was over.

But then Heero did that thing with his expression that makes large men tremble and small men run, and we suddenly weren’t the center of attention anymore.

I couldn’t get my ass in my seat fast enough. This time, Heero stowed our bag without being told to. I think he’d hoped to avoid the flight attendant coming over, but she came anyway, leaning down to smile at us.

‘Feeling better Mr. Maxwell?’ she asked solicitously and I wanted to groan. Either she’d done her homework and looked our names up in the system, or I’d been recognized. She totally missed Heero’s sudden narrow-eyed assessment, and I knew she’d just kicked him in his proverbial Preventors’ nuts.

Though I wasn’t much feeling up to witty chit-chat, I made the effort because I knew Heero wouldn’t. He was too busy making sure she didn’t have some nefarious purpose shoved up her sleeve. ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I smiled at her. ‘Though those dinky little bathrooms just aren’t designed for long term occupation, are they?’

She laughed at my lame joke, dimpling in delight, and flushing lightly. I knew without a doubt she’d figured out that I was that ‘guy from the magazine cover’. I thought I was going to have to throw myself bodily across Heero to keep him from taking her ass down, when she reached abruptly into her suit-jacket pocket.

It only took a heartbeat for his expression to change from ready to kill, to amused though, when she blurted, ‘Would it be too forward for me to ask for your autograph, Mr. Maxwell?’

I think I turned fifteen different shades of red but managed to sputter something that must have been acceptable, because she giggled at me and held out her autograph book and a pen. I dutifully took it and scrawled my signature in it as quick as I could. At a glance, between the shakes I had and the embarrassment of the whole thing, I wasn’t sure if the damn thing was even legible. I figured she knew me from the expo, so without much thought, I underscored the signature with a quick, simple sketch of a broadsword, and handed the book back to her. I thought she was going to kill herself thanking me, clutching the book to her chest and blushing like a damn school girl. It was a toss up which of us was the brighter shade of red.

But then duty called and she finally went the hell away. I managed to hold in the heavy sigh until I was pretty sure she was out of earshot. ‘Well,’ I muttered, feeling like a total ass. ‘That was… different.’

‘You handled it very well,’ Heero said, somehow keeping the laughter out of his voice. ‘The little embellishment to the autograph was a nice touch.’

I glared at him. ‘Nice to be a source of amusement for you,’ I groused and he did chuckle at me then.

‘Well,’ he murmured, leaning a little toward me so that he could lower his voice even further. ‘It’s kind of an odd feeling to find that I’m married to a celebrity.’

Nothing coherent would come out of my mouth and he straightened, grinning at me fondly. When it was pretty plain that I wasn’t going to manage a snappy come-back, he relented and said, ‘It’s not that big of a deal… it happens all the time when I travel with Relena.’

‘That might be because she’s the Vice Foreign Minister of the entire freaking Earth Sphere,’ I pointed out. ‘Not a…’ and there I had to falter. I’d started to say ‘salvage man’, but realized that wasn’t right. I floundered for a second and shouldn’t have, because Heero leapt into the silence.

‘Ex-Gundam pilot? War hero?’ he supplied, that damned smile on his face again. ‘Hands down crowd favorite at the last Gravity-expo? Cover boy for the most sought after issue of the ‘Rising Times’?’

‘Asshole,’ I informed him, and I would have glared him into silence, but you just can’t do that and combust at the same time. I settled on turning away from him, but that left me looking out the port, which was not the best idea I’d had all day.

Oh yeah… that was where that nagging oppressive feeling was coming from. Must have slipped my mind.

A hand closed on my wrist and I forced my eyes back to Heero, smiling as best I could. ‘What?’ I asked brightly.

His brow creased in a tiny frown and he murmured. ‘Your breathing just went shallow and your pulse rate went up; that’s what.’

I sighed, not quite sure what to do with his bluntness. ‘I forgot where I was for a second, ok?’ I muttered.

He blinked at me, his fingers sliding off my wrist to simply take my hand, and he gave it a little squeeze. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told me softly.

‘For what?’ I asked, puzzled.

It took him a second to work it out, and I just sat and watched him pick over his words. ‘For the drugs,’ he finally sighed. ‘I should have trusted you. I just wanted to… ease things for you.’

His way of admitting that I was handling things a hundred and ten percent better on my own than I had under the influence of his ‘just to calm your nerves’ tranquilizers. If I were a real shit, I would have said ‘I told you so’, but I’m not. Not really. At least, not most of the time. So I ended up not saying anything at all, which, I suppose wasn’t much better than just saying it. He sighed softly, gave my hand a last squeeze and let go.

‘S’ok,’ I relented. ‘It’s over now anyway.’

Then I made myself turn back to the port.

I consciously pushed down the apprehension that came with thinking about how close the press of vacuum was, and tried to concentrate on how close the stars were.

The stars. My beautiful stars. I don’t fear everything about space travel. There are things that I miss so much, my heart aches for it sometimes. The sight of the stars from a shuttle or ship is one of those things. We’ve talked before about how different the stars look from out here, haven’t we? Have I mentioned how many more of them there seem to be? No matter where you go on Earth, you just don’t get the view you do from a colony. From out here, there seems to be an endless sea of crystal bright stars. It makes you think of many things. At least… it always made me think of many things. Profound things. Stupid things. Things that made me laugh. Things that made me weep. Sometimes made me remember people who I would never be able to share those wonders with.

The universe and I had a long and bitter-sweet love affair. I had loved her passionately, though she’d been a cold mistress sometimes. And, I suppose, in the end she had betrayed me in the harshest of ways.

I turned back to Heero, thinking about the people I could have wished had lived to share these sights with me, and told him in a voice that came out wistful despite my best intentions, ‘It really is beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, but there was an odd look on his face and I had the vague feeling we weren’t talking about the same thing. But the final warning chime sounded then, and there wasn’t room for more talking.

I found myself focusing on the feel of the shuttle, assessing the hands of the pilot through the movements of his ship, and grunted after only a few moments. ‘Newbie,’ I said to no one in particular and when I glanced at Heero, found him nodding faintly, as we felt the slight over-compensation of the jets. If you have much experience at all, you shouldn’t have to use the jets near as much as this guy was.

I noticed while I was looking that way, Heero’s hand resting carefully within my reach. An offer, if I wanted it, and I ended up reaching for him for the simple pleasure of his fingers curling around mine, and not so much that I needed it. He smiled warmly and we sat through the docking procedure like that. I was struck, again, with an almost grateful feeling that the shuttle was no more crowded than it was.

I’ll spare you the mundane details of disembarking. Nobody wants to hear the minute particulars of luggage collecting, cab flagging, and hotel check in. Suffice it to say that we docked without incident, found a cab without too much trouble, and our room was more than adequate for our needs.

Though, I swear to God, we both began visibly drooping the minute our feet touched station deck-plates. The removal of that constant main-line adrenaline feed, I suppose. Believe what you like; there’s very little in this life that will wear you down quite like emotional overload. I can only imagine how Heero was feeling, but by the time we were standing in the lobby of what turned out to be a damn nice hotel for L2, I was about ready to drop right where I stood. We accomplished check-in without too much fuss, and dragged our sorry asses to the elevator bank.

‘Food or sleep?’ Heero asked, as we stood waiting for a car to arrive.

I glanced at him, understanding how tired he was when I realized that I’d managed to get two of our three bags to carry, something that he hadn’t let happen once so far this trip, and told him, ‘Sleep.’

It might have been my imagination, but he looked faintly relieved. I wondered if he’d gotten any rest at all aboard the shuttle.

The room was not Peacecraft-mansion opulent, but it was damn nice. Under different circumstances, I would have given Heero a hard time about the money he must have spent. We certainly didn’t need a room with a king-sized bed, a television the size of Kansas, and a sitting area to boot.

I took the moment to put out the do not disturb sign while he dumped the suitcase he’d been carrying, locking and chaining the door behind me.

I settled the bags I’d been carrying and then turned on him. ‘Ok Yuy,’ I told him firmly. ‘Bed; now.’ He tried for a wicked grin, but couldn’t get it past affectionate. I chuckled at him, shaking my head, and moved in to divest him of his clothes.

‘Sorry,’ he murmured, letting me handle buckles and snaps, while he watched, looking like he’d forgotten how such things worked.

‘Knock it off,’ I commanded, pulling his t-shirt over his head. ‘You wouldn’t be so exhausted if you hadn’t stayed up the whole way here taking care of me.’

‘You wouldn’t have needed me so badly if I hadn’t screwed up,’ he mumbled, and the fact that he’d said that right out loud told me more than anything just how drained he was.

I pulled back the bed-clothes and he climbed obediently into bed. ‘You coming?’ he asked, crawling over to make a place for me and I had to grin at the boneless way he sprawled out.

‘Yeah, gorgeous,’ he chuckled at him. ‘But I think I’ll shower first.’

‘You ok?’ he had to ask, though his voice already sounded unwieldy.

‘I’m fine,’ I reassured him. ‘Now go to sleep.’

He was gone off to la-la land before I got out of the shower. Hell; I’m pretty sure he was most of the way there before I got in.

If I have a choice, I prefer not to braid my hair fresh from washing it; it just stays wet for freakin’ ever. So when I came out of the bathroom, I dug into the duffle bag for a clean pair of underwear, intent on sitting up for a bit, maybe reading until my hair got past the drippy stage. But one look at Heero, sleeping so dead to the world and I knew I wouldn’t have the concentration to get much reading done.

Heero has something of a hair trigger, and does not usually sleep all that soundly. He sleeps… on guard, if that makes sense. I think it’s a conscious thing, and I think that’s part of why it drives him crazy that I can usually come and go out of bed without bothering him. Mucks with his soldiering instincts. He habitually sleeps in a compact, kind of curled up position, on his side. Unless he’s curled around me, but that’s another story.

So the picture he presented to me that evening, sprawled out like a big, lazy cat, was a rare thing. A rare and wonderful thing. Though somewhere inside I knew it was a blatant sign of the emotional roller-coaster ride I’d obviously put him through. I was caught half-way between guilt that his state of fatigue was partly my fault, and joy that some part of him trusted me to be on guard.

I was more than delighted, when I went hunting for that clean pair of underwear, to find one of my sketch pads at the bottom of the bag; Heero does his best to think of everything. I was quick to pull it and my pencils out. I filled pages with him. With the sweep of an out-flung arm. With the shadowed hollow of a collarbone. With the fall of that silky, dark hair against the stark white sheets. I shifted around the room, catching him from different angles, almost feverish to capture the sight. I sketched the beauty of his strength in gentle repose until I was near weeping with wanting him. Until my brain finally processed that this rush of emotion was my own exhaustion catching up to me.

It ended up being several hours before I joined him in sleep.

If there were dreams, I don’t remember them.

We slept through the evening and all through the night. Longer than I can ever recall sleeping at a stretch when I wasn’t in the throes of recuperating from one thing or another. I woke feeling much better. There was a slight headache, perhaps from too much sleep, and a vague shaky feeling that I recognized as my body demanding sustenance. But the feeling that all the drugs were finally, one hundred percent out of my system, more than balanced that.

Heero had sought me out in his sleep and I woke with his arm lying lax over my waist, his breath warm against my shoulder. My need from the night before reawoke, coiling hot and heavy in my gut. God, I wanted him. I wanted him to wake and pull me close. I wanted the brush of his breath across my skin to turn to warm kisses. I wanted to be borne down under his weight. Wanted him to fill me with his heat and his passion. Wanted him to hold my release at his command.

But I could feel my own emotional… instability. I knew if I tried to take from him what I needed, I would very likely come apart at the seams. I could feel the crumbling edge of my own control and knew that I couldn’t bear to give in to the vulnerability that he would bring to me. I was too bruised. Too frayed. I couldn’t let myself unravel here of all the damn places. I needed the security of our home, to let go that much. Needed the safety of someplace familiar.

But… dear God, I wanted him.

I shivered and it woke him, his arm tensing around me, pulling me tight against his chest, and damned if I didn’t shiver again.

‘S’alright,’ he murmured, soothing before he was even completely awake. His frame of mind telling him I must be having a nightmare. ‘I’m here, love… it’s all right.’

‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Bad dream?’ he asked gently, his other arm sliding under me so that my head was pillowed on his shoulder.

I couldn’t quite contain a shudder, and just went with the flow of his theory. Who was I to argue, after all? ‘Yeah… I guess.’

‘It’s ok,’ he told me, hugging me close. ‘Want to talk about it?’

‘No…’ I evaded. ‘Let it fade.’

‘All right, love,’ he agreed and he just held me for a minute before asking, ‘How are you feeling this morning?’

That was safer ground and I decided to follow him onto it. ‘Better. Not so… muzzy, I guess. Though I’m starting to get kind of hungry.’

As I’d hoped, the comment stirred him in a direction that was very off the track. Or at least off the track that I was on. Or something. You know what I mean.

‘You’ve barely had anything since we left home,’ he pointed out. ‘Of course, you’re hungry. Do you feel up to going out, or shall I call room service?’

I snorted, and had to grin. ‘I think I can manage to take my poor, weak self out for breakfast, Yuy.’

‘Yes, but if we stayed in, I could… hand feed you,’ he rumbled in his sexy voice. The one that should be outlawed.

I’m sure my own voice raised two or three octaves as I stammered, ‘I thought food sex grossed you out?’ The mental images he was giving me were damn near enough to make me stop worrying about love-making being more than I could handle.

But he was already crawling out of bed, a wicked grin on his face and other things obviously on his mind. ‘I don’t think feeding you constitutes food sex. Now I’m going to get my shower so we can go get you fed.’

I was somewhat relieved when he disappeared into the bathroom. I waited until I heard the water running before I climbed out of bed and dressed. I noticed he left the bathroom door open again, and it made me feel odd. It had taken him a long time to get to the point where he didn’t think much about leaving me alone after the accident. I sure as hell hoped we hadn’t set things back to the way they had been six months ago. While I won’t try to deny to myself that it didn’t bother me on some level, I knew it was something I had to overcome. I’m not sure Heero would give me the space for that, if he really realized. He is nothing if not protective… in case you haven’t noticed.

Somewhere in the back of my head I heard the voice of Neo, the grizzled old galactic hitch-hiker, ‘I couldn't stand to be in a room by myself for almost a year.’

Well, I’d done him one better, I supposed. I could manage it… if the music was loud enough.

I stood by the window, looking out on the streets of L2, rebraiding my hair and thinking about the conversation I’d had with that man. Kind of just getting my equilibrium back. By the time Heero came out and got dressed, I had achieved a state of composure that didn’t feel like it would be thrown off as soon as I took a deep breath.

Heero took his dressing cue from my attire and we ended up in simple jeans and t-shirts, though his was a plain black one, while mine said ‘Keep watching… it gets worse’. I’d slipped it in the suitcase when he hadn’t been looking, anticipating a moment when I might need an unspoken apology. I didn’t quite have the nerve to look right at him when he first spotted it, but I was rewarded with a dark chuckle all the same.

He came and hooked an arm around my neck, pulling me in to plant a kiss on the side of my head, grinning at me openly. ‘It can only get better from here, love.’

I grimaced at him, swatting him on the arm. ‘Damn it, Yuy!’ I growled. ‘Never challenge the power of worse!’

He laughed and gave me a bit of a squeeze before turning away to get out the other suitcase.

We unpacked the gifts and loaded them into a couple of shopping bags we’d brought for that express purpose, then finally headed downstairs for breakfast. I had to make a point of picking up one of the sacks before Heero could take them both. I sighed. He sighed. But we managed not to let it turn into a fight.

‘I’m fine,’ I told him as we got onto the elevator.

‘You haven’t eaten in over thirty hours,’ he informed me. ‘I’m just… concerned.’

I snorted. ‘I ate aboard the shuttle.’

He raised a derisive eyebrow, something you have to see to understand. ‘I don’t think one ration bar in thirty hours quite cuts it.’

‘And just how much have you eaten?’ I queried smugly.

It was his turn to snort. ‘I was able to eat breakfast Tuesday morning.’

‘So you’re a couple of slices of bacon up on me,’ I grinned. ‘Big deal.’

‘Duo…’ he began, but I cut him off.

‘Look; we’re on our way to eat,’ I sighed. ‘I can’t do anything else about it until we get down to the dining room, ok?’

He looked a little sheepish for a second but then must have decided I was right, because he altered the subject completely. ‘Do you want to go on over to the home right after breakfast?’

I glanced at my watch just as the elevator doors opened on the lobby. ‘It’s not really all that early, I don’t see why not.’

He let me lead the way and I followed the signs advertising ‘The Courtyard’ restaurant. It was just off the main lobby and didn’t seem to be crowded at all. I couldn’t help wishing we’d left the hotel and gone somewhere else though; the place didn’t look like it got a lot of mechanics. There were white linens on all the tables and the man who came to see us to our seats was wearing a nicer tux than the one Heero owned. I felt terribly out of place, though Heero didn’t even blink. I imagined the place was nothing compared to the kinds of restaurants he’d been to in the company of the likes of Relena ‘never had pizza before’ Peacecraft, but I suspected he wasn’t usually wearing denim. It may have been my imagination, but the waiter seemed a little disdainful.

I managed to find something that sounded like it might be just fresh fruit under an assumed name, and ordered that with some pastry sounding thing. I settled quietly with my glass of water, figuring the guy would throw me out if I did something so crass as to ask for a soda.

When Mr. Uptight had taken our order without, quite theatrically, writing anything down, he went away and Heero and I resumed our conversation.

‘Are you sure you want to go over there with me, Heero?’ I had to ask, thinking about how damn bored he was likely to be.

He gave me a perplexed little frown and said, ‘Of course I…’ but then he hesitated. ‘Unless… you’d rather I didn’t?’

‘Dork,’ I chided. ‘You know it’s not that. I just don’t know what in the hell you’re going to do for a couple of hours while I play Santa Claus.’

He smiled, something clearing from his eyes. ‘Well, according to what Relena reported to me, those children of yours are pretty rough. Maybe I just need to go along and guard your back.’

It kind of flustered me to think that her Highness had been talking about me and that little walk she and I took together. I wondered what she’d said about the kids, but was a little afraid to ask.

Then my bowl of fruit arrived and we shut up while the waiter set it in front of me. I muttered a distracted ‘thank you,’ and gave the bowl a dubious once over. I recognized three of the five varieties. God… couldn’t we have just found a McDonalds? Surely there was one on L2 somewhere.

Heero watched me poke cautiously at the green stuff and said, ‘Kiwi,’ with a small smile on his face.

‘Pardon?’ I asked, looked up to meet his amused gaze and he chuckled softly. I’d have probably been pissed off if there hadn’t been so damn much open affection in it.

‘The green pieces are kiwi fruit,’ he clarified, and somehow left me feeling like I should be picking hayseeds out of my hair. I felt myself beginning to blush and tried to stop. I speared a piece of something vaguely orange and held it out for his inspection. ‘Kumquat,’ he identified. ‘It can be a little tart.’

The pineapple, pears and peaches, I could readily identify, so I bent to eating. I decided that kumquat was not something I would go out of my way to look for in my grocery produce section, but the kiwi wasn’t half bad.

Heero had ordered a dish that had sounded like something you cleaned out of the bottom of your refrigerator, but actually turned out to involve eggs and meat. Despite the glaring looks of disapproval from the waiter guy, we had a fairly pleasant breakfast trading tidbits of this and that off each others plates. Though I’m fairly certain Heero had ordered his meal with the plan of feeding half of it to me, which was probably just as well, because my pastry thing turned out to be… not. I’m still not sure what the hell it was, but I hope to never run across another one.

When I finally swore to him that I could not eat another bite, he left off trying to get me to ‘taste’ everything within a five foot radius and asked, ‘Do you just want to sit for a little while?’

I couldn’t help the nasty little smirk. ‘Breakfast conversation under the watchful eye of Mr. Anal, over there? I don’t think so.’

Heero chuckled and made some motion that brought said Anal-waiter to our table. The bill was requested and I think the man couldn’t get us dealt with fast enough. It was painfully obvious that he wanted us out of his restaurant. I’ll always wonder if it was the way we were dressed, or if we had been too obviously ‘together’. Or something else entirely. I never did know, and I vowed while Heero was still settling up the bill that I wouldn’t partake another meal in his domain during our stay if I could help it. I didn’t care if I had to walk six blocks to find someplace else. I got some satisfaction out of the fact that Heero didn’t tip the guy.

Standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, my bags of gifts in our hands and waiting for a cab, it finally started to sink in just where we were going. I was going to get to see the kids. We were going to be there to see them open their presents.

‘Crap!’ I blurted, on a sudden thought. ‘I forgot the candy!’

‘It’s in the bottom of the bag,’ Heero informed me, managing not to sound smug at all.

I grinned widely. ‘You remember everything, don’t you?’

‘I try,’ he deadpanned and I laughed.

‘You know,’ I had to tell him, thinking ahead to the greeting we were likely to get. ‘Kids will freakin’ say anything. Don’t let them think they’ve managed to shock you or they’ll be all over you.’

Heero quirked that little half grin and looked at me askance. ‘Don’t let ‘em smell the fear?’

I laughed in delight. ‘Exactly!’

He shook his head and might have said something else, but a cab finally pulled up and we moved to commandeer it.

I gave the driver the address once we were settled, and checked our packages one more time. ‘I sure hope nothing got damaged,’ I muttered, shifting things and looking through the sack.

‘You really didn’t buy anything all that fragile, Duo,’ Heero said in the strangest tone of voice.

‘Yeah, but think how bad it would suck to be the kid with the broken gift!’ I huffed, and looked up to find him smiling at me.

‘Well, I suppose we could open them all, check them, and then rewrap them before we get there,’ he said, managing to sound quite serious and reasonable.

‘You are mocking me,’ I accused in somewhat theatric horror. ‘Outright mocking me.’

‘I suppose I am,’ he agreed, still with that weird-ass little smile on his face.

‘What?’ I grumbled, feeling kind of uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

‘Nothing,’ he smiled. ‘It’s just… this was more the expression I was hoping my Christmas gift was going to give you. It’s nice to get to see it.’

I flushed, eyes darting toward the cab driver for a second, but he appeared to be paying no attention. ‘What?’ I prodded. ‘This is preferable to my puking on your shoes?’

He actually chuckled. ‘Very much so,’ was all he said.

There wasn’t much I could answer to that, so I opted to ignore the comment. ‘You know… the kids don’t know my last name,’ I told him on a sudden thought. I always kind of forgot about that. I’d been ‘Mr. Duo’, with no one around to refute that fact, for so long that it just sort of slipped my mind. ‘I’d rather not let them know.’

I expected a confused frown or a question. I couldn’t help remembering how Relena had taken the news. Thinking about her reaction made me feel a touch defensive.

But he surprised me when he only said, ‘Sometimes it’s best to just keep the past and the present separate.’

I couldn’t help grinning at him. He got it. I should have known he would.

Then the cab was pulling up in front of the home and there was no more time for warnings of any kind. We both reached for our wallets, but Heero insisted, informing me that it was my Christmas present and he was taking care of everything. When put in that context, it was kind of hard to argue. I suppose I could always slip some money into his wallet later.

We climbed out and I let Heero get both bags, not so much to make him happy, as to have my hands free. We were barely on the sidewalk before I heard the shouting start in the house. ‘It’s Mr. Duo! It’s Mr. Duo!’

It’s funny; I had kind of thought Heero’s presence would intimidate the little buggers a little bit, but there was no hesitation at all as the front door slammed open and they came running out. I heard the door hit the wall and knew that someone was going to get a talking to. It was Zinia at the front of the pack, and I had to grin. Damn fearless, that one, trouble on two legs. She never even slowed down, hitting the edge of the porch and leaping at me like a flying squirrel. Little monster had grown an inch or so, as well, and I thought for a moment she was going to take us both over backward. I had to turn my catch into a neat little spin to take the oomph out of her momentum. I spun us clear around so that we ended up facing back the way we started while she giggled manically.

‘Mr. Duo’s here!’ she hollered somewhat unnecessarily and then leaned out so far that I had to adjust my stance to keep her from overbalancing us. She gave Heero the once over, then straightened to cup my ear and whispered a little bit too loud ‘Who’s that?’ It rather gave me a jolt of déjà vu.

‘This is Heero,’ I told her with a mock glare. ‘And Heero is a ‘he’, not a ‘that’.’

Sarah had come off the porch in a more traditional manner and came to hang on my pants leg while she peeked around me at Heero. There was something in her expression that I wasn’t too sure about, so I ignored it for the moment. Devon and Ethan had arrived with Sarah and were standing solemnly waiting for some of my attention. I noticed that the new kid was hanging back on the porch, standing next to Davey with a kind of puzzled look on his face. Davey, of course, was much too mature to come running outside to greet anybody. That just wasn’t cool, though he was smiling.

‘Do you think you horribly uncouth monsters can manage a polite hello?’ I asked, rolling my eyes heavenward in a gesture that was so borrowed from Octavia it wasn’t even funny. Though the kids all laughed uproariously.

‘Hello, Mr. Heero,’ they managed after they stopped appreciating my skills as a mimic.

Heero only nodded, looking somewhat lost and somewhat bemused and maybe just a little bit nervous.

I grinned at him ferally and mouthed, ‘Don’t let ‘em smell the fear,’ and he smiled at me warmly, looking only a little reassured.

Then there was the sound of Octavia coming through the house, hollering as she came, though I was sure she’d hung back and waited until the greeting part was over before she interrupted. The woman may be big, but there is nothing about her that is slow. ‘Zinia Lynn Spencer, you get yourself on this porch this instant and shut this door! I’m not raising a pack of wild animals, though the good Lord knows sometimes it seems that way! And get down off that poor man before you throw his back out!’

I traded a look with the child in question and we murmured, ‘busted’ together. She giggled some more, not all that worried about the ranting and I set her on her feet.

‘Yes, ma’am!’ she called and raced back up on the porch to shut the door despite the fact that Octavia was standing in it.

‘Do not encourage that child, Mister Duo,’ she scolded me, hands on hips and glare in place. ‘And come in the house; we’re in the winter cycle and I can’t afford to heat all of L2!’

The kids scrambled for the house and I frowned, noticing suddenly, a certain MIA. I glanced around, just to make sure I hadn’t missed her, and then turned to look up at Octavia. I was just opening my mouth to ask after Allison when I got a quick shake of her head. I subsided, though my curiosity was killing me. I would have expected some sort of kid’s game or surprise from her, if I hadn’t seen the somewhat unhappy look on Octavia’s face.

When I turned to take one of the bags from Heero, I was surprised as hell to find Sarah had abandoned my side and was now attached to Heero’s. Holding the handle of one of the shopping bags with him, and looking up with such a look of open adoration, that I had to grin at him. He caught my eye with a slightly confused look and I had to resist the urge to tell him she had his scent and knew he was afraid.

I tapped her on the head with a knuckle just to get her attention, grinning down at her broadly. ‘You going to stand there all day, munchkin, or are you going to show us into the house?’

She grinned back and bounced off up the steps. ‘I think she likes you,’ I whispered to Heero, and then led him up to the porch. I introduced him a little more formally to Octavia and she greeted him warmly, as always, but I could tell from the look in her eye that she knew exactly who he was. I rather suspected she’d recognized Relena on my last visit too, though we hadn’t ever spoken of it.

After Heero had been politely greeted, I got my bear hug, and Octavia opined that I might finally have enough meat on my bones to survive a bad head cold. I thought I heard Heero snort softly, but I wasn’t sure.

The kids were still clustered around us and I was just starting to wonder how in the world I was going to find out what was going on, when Octavia turned on them with that long-suffering heavenward roll of her eyes. ‘This door will not close itself with the lot of you standing in it! Take these sacks for these kindly gentlemen and take them into the front room.’

There was a moment where it looked like they might be thinking about climbing all over Heero to get at the sacks, so I quickly divested him of them, handing them off to Davey and the new kid before the mobbing could happen. Heero looked relieved.

I noticed the new kid puff up a little bit with a touch of importance, then they all crowded through the doorway, still not quite having that single file thing down.

‘So what gives, Octavia?’ I asked, keeping my voice low, once all the kids were gone.

I expected her to roll her eyes and tell me some story about children, and God not having enough patience for them. I didn’t expect her to get a look like she was going to cry.

‘Octavia?’ I prompted, suddenly afraid that something truly dire had happened. I felt Heero step in a little closer and I glanced to him, sharing a confused look.

‘I probably should have e-mailed you,’ Octavia finally said, sighing heavily and looking tired of a sudden. ‘We had a new neighbor move in up the block about two months ago. He has dogs. You know how Allison is about animals.’ She sighed again, and I knew how upset she was when her hand came out of her apron pocket with the little handkerchief she always carries but never uses.

I thought my damn heart was going to stop in my chest. It was all I could do not to grab the woman and shake her. ‘Octavia! What the hell happened?’

I felt Heero touch the small of my back and I tried to calm down.

‘One of the misbegotten beasts got out and attacked her,’ she told me, voice grim and angry. ‘Thank the Lord Mr. Henry from across the street was out and he pulled the animal off.’

‘Is she… all right?’ I asked, barely able to get my voice above a whisper.

‘She’s fine,’ Octavia told me, reaching to pat my cheek. ‘But… she doesn’t want to see you. She’s afraid you’ll think she’s ugly now and won’t like her any more.’

‘What?’ I blurted, totally flabbergasted. ‘Why on Earth…’ And then it kind of dawned on me what she had to be saying. ‘How… bad is it?’

‘Bad enough when you’re seven years old,’ Octavia said, not unkindly. ‘But… all things considered, it could be a lot worse.’

I nodded, finding my fingers running through my bangs. ‘Where is she?’ I finally asked.

‘Hiding in the hall closet,’ was the reply, and I had to shake my head. Not so far away that anything might be missed, but in the safe cover of darkness. It made me think of my own closet at home and some of the urges it gave me on solitary evenings, when Heero wasn’t home.

I turned to look at Heero, doing my best to impart to him how sorry I was for my imminent abandonment. ‘Heero, I have to…’

But he just smiled, the touch of his fingers on my back becoming a nudge. ‘Of course you do. Go on… I’ll be fine.’

Octavia smiled at me and it was like all her cares just melted away. I realized that she wouldn’t have asked me to go try talking to our little runaway, but had been hoping like hell that I’d volunteer.

‘Don’t let them eat him alive, Mrs. Octavia,’ I warned her and she laughed good naturedly. I was a little taken aback by her obvious faith in my ability to get through to a heart-broken seven year old.

We went into the house, Octavia leading Heero off to the sitting room while I wandered in the general direction of the closet door. I could see it cracked open just a tiny bit and I imagined the poor kid sitting in there in the dark, trying to see without being seen.

I went over and threw myself down on the floor, sitting to lean against the wall beside the door. From where I sat, I could see Heero settling himself on the couch in the sitting room. His butt no more than touched the cushion than Sarah had plopped herself down beside him, looking up expectantly. Heero gave her a nervous glance before turning his attention to something Octavia was saying. He nodded and I could see him say, ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ to whatever she’d said. He felt my gaze and glanced my way, giving me a reassuring smile before he turned to listen to something Sarah said to him.

I’m sure this trip was not at all what he’d imagined it would be.

‘Hey pixie,’ I said to the closet door and heard a faint stirring from within, but got no reply. ‘Aren’t you even going to come out and say hello?’

I knew it wasn’t going to be that darn easy, but I didn’t know where else to start. I was at something of a loss here. I really was.

‘I didn’t think I was going to make it this year,’ I told nobody in particular. ‘It’s been a pretty rough couple of months. Did Octavia tell you I had to sell my ship? I’m not a pilot anymore, so I don’t get around as much as I used to. I’m a mechanic now, so I had to buy shuttle tickets. It was kind of weird coming all this way with somebody else doing the flying.’

I’m not real sure just what I thought I would accomplish with my stupid monologue, but I just wasn’t sure how one addressed a closet. I felt eyes on me and glanced Heero’s way, but it wasn’t him. In fact, I didn’t see anybody looking my way. I decided I should keep talking.

‘I hope everybody likes what I got them,’ I told the watching presence conspiratorially. ‘I wasn’t sure what to get the new kid. Mark’s his name, right? It felt kind of funny getting presents for a kid I’d never met.’ I chuckled softly in remembrance. ‘But then… I guess I bought for you that first year before we met. I don’t think I did very well… Octavia told me you liked dolls.’ I put a faint sneer into that last word, but even that old joke didn’t get me a response.

I sighed softly and just sat for a second watching Heero. He was obviously relating some story to Octavia at her prompting, but he somehow seemed to have the rapt attention of the kids as well. I put forth the effort to pick out enough words to realize he was telling them what he did for a living. I almost laughed at him. Sarah was on a down-hill ride headed straight for a severe case of hero worship, and he had Ethan and Devon at his feet already. Though, looking at him, you’d have almost never guessed from the expression on his face that there was even a kid in the same room with him.

‘You know,’ I blurted to the closet door. ‘I have a house now. Of my very own, and I have a refrigerator and I was kinda hoping I might get a picture from you before I had to leave today. The kitchen really needs brightening up.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door shift just a tiny fraction of an inch, and I might have seen the light glint off a wide, bright eye, but I wasn’t sure.

‘I’m kind of mad at Mrs. Octavia,’ I dared, sounding unhappy even to my own ears. ‘She didn’t even e-mail me about what happened. Not a single word.’

I let that hang there for a minute, and was just about ready to try a different tact, when I heard a tiny little hiccough. ‘I told her not to,’ came to me so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.

‘Why not?’ I asked, just as softly, leaning a little toward that cracked open door.

It took a minute, but she finally sniffled. ‘I didn’t want you to see me.’

I went for the shocked gasp and deliberately misunderstood. ‘You didn’t want to see me? But why; don’t you like me anymore?’

The sniffle resolved itself into a little gulp and she was quick to tell me, ‘I like you! I don’t want you to see me!’

‘But why not, munchkin?’ I asked her gently, almost holding my breath. It took her a long couple of minutes and I waited her out. Not prompting, not moving past the question, just waiting. I looked and found Heero watching me, his eyes offering sympathy.

‘Cause I’m ugly now,’ the answer finally came, and it was such a mournful little sound that I felt tears pricking at the back of my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut.

‘Why do you think you’re ugly?’ I queried, doing my best to keep my voice steady.

I’ve mentioned how much trouble I have with kids in pain, haven’t I? I’m sure it’s come up. I… apparently have this nurturing instinct a mile wide when it comes to little kids. I blame it on Solo, though I’m sure he’d laugh at me for the notion. I wanted nothing in the world as much as I wanted to gather that little girl into my arms, but knew we weren’t quite there yet.

‘The bad doggie bit me,’ she told me, disembodied voice managing to hold a world of hurt and betrayal.

‘That wouldn’t make you ugly, sweetie,’ I told her in open confusion. ‘That would just make you hurt.’

I heard a funny little sound that might have been exasperation, or might have been disbelief. It took her a long time to answer again, but she finally whispered, ‘He bit my face.’

I thought my heart was breaking right freakin’ in half. ‘Ouch,’ I managed. ‘Bet that hurt! Did you get stitches?’

She was losing a bit of the hesitation and giving in to some of her frustration that I just wasn’t getting it. The closet door opened another half inch and she blurted in an almost angry voice, ‘I got scars, Mr. Duo!’

I gave it a second to sink in, and then directed wide eyes on the dark opening her voice was emanating from. ‘You mean… scars make you ugly?’ I asked in all innocence and some dawning horror.

She didn’t answer me, though I suspect she was nodding vigorously; I thought I detected movement. I looked down at my own hands and simply said, ‘Oh… I didn’t know.’ Then I balled my fingers up and shoved my hands up under my arms. ‘Oh,’ I said again and turned a somewhat upset look in her direction. ‘Maybe you better make room in there for me.’

I could see the shine of her eyes now, and she blinked owlishly at me. ‘What?’ she asked, her turn to be confused.

‘I’ve got scars too,’ I informed her in a low voice, as though I didn’t want anybody to hear me. ‘Lots of them.’

‘You do?’ she asked, voice finally holding a hint of her normal curiosity.

I nodded and pulled my hands back out, opening them a bit and peering down at them. ‘Yeah… pretty bad ones.’ I looked back into the dark. ‘Does… that make me ugly?’

She’s a tender-hearted little thing. Always has been, and I hoped this incident wouldn’t steal that from her. She couldn’t handle the sad little twist I put in my voice and finally launched herself out of the dark and wrapped her arms around my neck. It wasn’t lost on me that she put her face out of my line of sight.

‘Oh no, Mr. Duo!’ she blurted. ‘You’re handsome!’

I got to do that gathering thing then, feeling a little bit of the hurt receding. ‘Well,’ I pressed, doing my best to sound confused. ‘I don’t understand why your scar makes you ugly, but mine doesn’t make me ugly.’

She gave out with another one of those little hiccoughs and eased off the hug, sitting back some, but keeping her head down. ‘Cause I’m a girl. Girls aren’t supposed to have scars.’

‘I think you’re pretty,’ I told her gently.

‘You haven’t seen it,’ she said, voice making it just a bit past petulant.

‘Well, why don’t you show it to me and let me decide,’ I asked, all reasonableness.

She bit her lip and worried at that one, finally asking, ‘But what if you don’t like me anymore?’

I snorted. ‘I think I’d be a pretty not nice person if I didn’t like you just because of what you looked like.’ I held my hand out, palm up and let her see. They looked fairly bad at that time with the still faintly pink stripes from the cookout fiasco on top of the old scars. ‘Do you think I’m ugly?’ I asked softly.

She studied them, I’ll give her that. Even reached to touch once. I think it was stalling more than anything, and then she finally raised her head and looked right at me. The hope in her eyes was enough to make a serial killer repent and find God.

It was, as Octavia had said, not good. Especially when you’re a little seven year old girl with your whole life ahead of you. I studied her in turn, looking closely before reaching to push her hair around. ‘Where is it?’ I asked in all innocence and got to see her blink at me. She turned her head to the light and I gave a little ‘Oh,’ that reeked of ‘now I see!’

‘Nope,’ I declared, after a second of looking. ‘Doesn’t make you ugly at all.’

I got a tiny little grin, tinged with a bit of doubt and I grinned back.

‘Now there’s my pretty girl!’ I beamed at her. ‘I don’t even see it when you smile!’

She snorted in a very unlady-like manner and then burst into tears.

So I gathered again, settled her on my lap and let her cry it out until the shoulder of my t-shirt was a sodden mess.

After a bit, she sat up, rubbing at her nose and had to ask, ‘You really don’t think I’m ugly, Mr. Duo?’

‘Of course not,’ I told her firmly, looking her over again. Her blond hair, that had hung to the middle of her back, had been cut off to just below her jaw line since the last time I’d visited. I had to wonder if it didn’t have something to do with the attack as well. She had loved her hair, and I felt a pang of sympathy for her over its loss.

‘You know,’ I told her, turning her head this way and that as I looked at her. ‘With that new hair-cut, you look a little bit like a cat.’ The child loves animals, ok? I knew she’d like the comparison. I grinned at her. ‘Guess that makes you my little Allie-cat!’

She giggled and gave me another hug.

‘Now, how about you go blow your nose and we go in the other room before Zinia has a cow wanting her Christmas present?’

She nodded and climbed almost reluctantly off my lap to run off to the kitchen. I heaved a sigh and let my head fall back against the wall, then reached out and gently pushed the closet door closed.

After a moment, I felt someone’s regard and opened my eyes to meet Heero’s gaze. I gave him a wan little smile of reassurance and he gave me a look that told me he wished he could come and do his own gathering. I smiled wider at the notion, and it seemed to ease his mind a bit.

I waited for Allison to come back from the kitchen, so she wouldn’t have to go into the sitting room by herself and when she did, I threw out an arm and groaned theatrically, ‘I’m an old man, Allie-cat; help me off the floor!’

She grinned and grabbed my arm, pulling for all she was worth, and of course only managing to pull me over sideways. Her snickering brought Ethan and Devon running and they were quick to join in the game, pulling and shoving until their laughter brought Zinia and I surrendered to their greater number.

‘I give!’ I cried as they swarmed over me, making me feel like I’d been mobbed by a pack of ferocious ferrets. ‘Mercy!’

‘No rough-housing in the house!’ Octavia hollered at us from the other room and I joined in the chorus of contrite voices.

‘Yes, Ma’am!’

The kids snickered at me gleefully. Then I let them pull me to my feet and we went in to join the others. Though I noticed Allison stuck close beside me.

Davey and Mark were sitting together, ‘guarding’ the gifts and Sarah was still planted firmly at Heero’s side. The poor guy looked like he just didn’t know what in the hell to do with her. The kids scattered to the floor as we went into the room and I scooped Sarah up to hang her upside down while she squealed at me. ‘Traitor!’ I accused. ‘You didn’t come and rescue me! They mobbed me! They wallowed me! And where were you?’

She squirmed until I put her down, but then she promptly climbed back on the couch next to Heero. He gave me a look that held a hint of pleading in it. I had no doubt that he’d never spent this much time in the company of a child before. And I was even surer that he’d never had one get so fixated on him.

‘You don’t love me anymore,’ I sniffled at her and she giggled hysterically. ‘Threw me over for the first pretty face you saw!’ The child just would not be swayed. It took two ‘woe is me’s’ and an ‘I am crushed’, before she finally came and gave me a hug.

‘God only knows why these children think they rate any Christmas presents,’ Octavia intoned with one of those long-suffering sighs, never looking up from her knitting. ‘Been telling them all month all they were going to get was coal and they should be darn happy to get it, too!’

There were a couple of giggles, though some of them didn’t sound all that sure of themselves. But that’s the idea, I suppose, to make them sweat a little. Heightens the anticipation. Works just fine as long as there’s always a follow through. Doesn’t work so good when the lump of coal thing was the actual truth.

I sat myself down on the couch beside Heero, relinquishing his right side to Sarah simply because there’s no fighting some things. Allison came to sit on the floor at the end of the couch, kind of out of the way, but still close beside me. I decided that getting her in the same room with everyone else was good enough for now and let it go.

Then it was time to hand around the gifts and I delegated it to Davey, who took the job very seriously, carefully unpacking everything from the sacks and setting them in a pile before sorting through to find Sarah’s first, since she’s the youngest.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mark counting the packages and coming up with a number he obviously hadn’t expected. He glanced our way and then carefully counted again. Something like an uncertain smile dancing across his face before being replaced with the slightly guarded expression he’d been wearing since I’d first laid eyes on him.

Sarah slid off the couch, finally getting more than two feet away from Heero, to take the traditional spot in the center of the floor to open her gift.

She’s a meticulous little thing and carefully peeled back each piece of tape, unsealing every seam until she could lift the gold paper away in one piece. Then she took a moment to fold it up before going further. The boys were about ready to scream by the time she got to the actual gift.

I poked at Allison’s arm and made her sit up to lean over where I could whisper in her ear, ‘Tell me if I did good, ok?’

She nodded solemnly, and turned back to watch as Sarah finally lifted the lid off the box. If Octavia hadn’t led me astray twice, Sarah really did like dolls. I certainly hoped so, because the one in the box she was opening hadn’t been cheap.

Allison, by the way, hadn’t wanted a doll, she’d wanted one of those artist’s mannequins. And before you ask, yes, I got her one for her birthday. Darn thing hadn’t cost a quarter what the doll had, but she’d been thrilled no end. The doll had ended up in the ‘community toy chest’ and I’d never seen it again.

From the look on Sarah’s face, I’d done all right, and Allison poked me on the arm to get my attention, nodding vigorously to confirm it.

It was a Japanese doll, complete with a kimono, plus a set of ‘play clothes’ to change it into. It was one of those historical things that came with a set of books about the exploits of said doll, and a bunch of accessories.

Sarah can really be a somber little thing, bright as a new penny, but sometimes just a bit too serious. Not that she doesn’t have a mischievous side… it’s just not as pronounced as Zinia’s or the boys. She’s very careful with her things and she didn’t disappoint me when she carefully tucked the doll back in the box before running over give me a big hug and a ‘thank you.’

‘Well,’ I grinned at her. ‘Maybe I am still your favorite.’

But it was Heero’s lap she climbed into with the first of her ‘Kohana’ books. Heero gave me a look that spoke to me of guilt and I realized that he was worried I was going to get my feelings hurt over Sarah’s obvious infatuation. I laughed out loud and elbowed him in the ribs, the kids looking at me like I was nuts.

‘What’s so funny Mr. Duo?’ Ethan asked in confusion.

‘Watching you monsters squirm, waiting your turn,’ I told him without missing a beat and that served to make Davey start hunting for the next present, but Zinia already had it found and didn’t wait for him to give it to her, snatching it out of the pile and retreating to the center of the old, worn rug.

There wasn’t any meticulousness or neatness or patience to her unwrapping. The paper flew in great handfuls in all directions and I thought the kid was going to rip the box open with her teeth.

There was a squeal from Zinia, a ‘Cool!’ from Devon, and a stone-cold ‘What have you done?’ from Octavia. I ducked my head.

‘Forgive me, Ma’am,’ I murmured as Zinia pulled out the little recorder/karaoke machine. What can I say? The child likes to sing. I figure I should encourage whatever talents they have how ever I can. Besides… I don’t have to live with it.

She hauled it over and threw herself in my lap, demanding to be shown how it worked. The thing was little more than a MP3 player with a microphone, though you could record as well. The music was all contained in the box, so you didn’t have tons of CDs lying around, though it had over a hundred selections. She was enthralled with punching through the song titles, listening to about two seconds worth of music before flipping to the next one. I thought she’d never get to the one I’d spent a month hunting for. She laughed in delight when the first notes of the song she’d sung for me the last time I’d been to visit, began to play. She had to hop off the couch and sing along and listening to her, I had no doubt that if the child really did find a dragon while out walking; she would not hesitate to bring it home any more than the kid in the song.

Even Heero chuckled a little at the chorus.

I spared Octavia a glance, but she only gave me a faint little smile over her reading glasses and I knew I wasn’t in any huge trouble. Zinia actually has a decent singing voice, which is good, because she does it with gusto.

Octavia let her finish the song before insisting that she stop ‘hogging the spotlight’ and let some other ‘poor child’ have their turn at gift unwrapping.

Davey was ready this time, not that Allison would have run over to snatch her gift up, but he already had it located and was holding it in his lap when she made her quiet way over to fetch it.

I could see she was not altogether comfortable in the center of the room, under everybody’s watchful eye, and it tugged at my heart watching her keep her head tilted so her hair covered the side of her face. Six months ago, she would not have thought a thing about taking the traditional spot. I slid off the couch and stretched out on the floor on my belly. It drew first Devon and then Ethan to come and sit on my back and make jokes about me making a good couch. It took some of the focus away from Allison though and she bent to opening her present. She’s not as painstaking about it as Sarah, but not near as wild as Zinia. I’d picked the paper I wrapped her gift in, knowing that pieces of it would become something else someday.

If there is an art box out there more complete, I couldn’t find it. It was a huge thing, made out of wood, that hinged open with tray after tray of water colors and acrylic paints. Colored pencils, markers and paint brushes of every imaginable type. The bottom of the box was made to hold sketchpads and I’d made sure it was full of real ones, not those cheap kiddy ones that were nothing more than newsprint.

Allison is not a squealer. Not really. I guess all kids are on some level, but when you really get it right with Allison, you get more of this kind of watery, wide eyed look that tells you everything you need to know.

‘Better than a doll?’ I grinned at her and all she could do was nod until I thought her head was going to come off her shoulders. After she finally tore her eyes off it and gave me one of those break-your-neck hugs, she hauled it back to her spot by the end of the couch and seemed to forget the rest of the world was even there.

Devon took that as his cue, and scrambled over to Davey, looking expectant. I saw that Davey had delegated some of the handing-out chores to the new kid, and it was Mark who handed the bright red package up to Devon.

Devon didn’t have any problems with being the center of attention, throwing himself down bonelessly on the rug and tearing into his package with relish. Though he is a little older than Zinia and seemed to understand that throwing the paper around the room was only going to result in his having to clean it up later. So, while he tore… he didn’t throw.

I only hoped that his circus fixation was still in place, he’d already been through archeology, fire-fighting, the marines and gardening as his chosen future professions. Most of his decisions along those lines only lasted for a couple of months.

His present was two-fold and I gnawed my lip, hoping that he wasn’t disappointed in the first half before he got to the second half. But I needn’t have feared, he was thrilled with the set of action figures that came complete with circus cars and animals. You could assemble the set into a traveling train, or tear it down and reform it into a three ring circus. It was actually kind of cool. I rather liked the set of lions, myself. It had taken me forever to chase down all the individual pieces, but damned if I hadn’t gotten the complete set.

Then he got to the envelope in the bottom of the box and looked at me quizzically. I only grinned, waiting for him to open it. I could tell he wasn’t all that sure what he was looking at, so I unseated Ethan to sit up and scoot closer to explain it.

‘I happen to know a guy who has connections,’ I winked at him. ‘He used to belong to a circus that just so happens to tour the colonies every year. They’ll be on L2 next month.’ I could see from the sparkle in his eyes that he was starting to see where this might be leading, but he waited patiently for me to finish explaining. ‘These,’ I told him, pulling out the first set of tickets. ‘Are gate passes for you and… oh, seven of your closest friends.’ Then I pulled out the other piece of paper that Trowa and I had made ourselves, unfolded it and showed it to Devon. It really did look quite impressive. ‘This is your private tour pass to the behind the scenes stuff.’

You’d have thought I’d given him the Hope diamond; the kid could not have been more impressed. He looked like I’d just told him I personally knew the Vice Foreign minister or something. I’d have to remember to tell Trowa that knowing an ex-tight rope walker was better than knowing the rich and famous in some circles.

‘Wow,’ he managed and then he gave me a hug, something I hadn’t gotten from Devon in over a year, ever since he’d decided he was ‘too old for girly stuff like that’.

‘The lady’s name is Catherine,’ I informed him, when he let go of my neck. ‘And you monsters be nice to her. She’s a knife thrower.’

They looked suitably impressed. I heard a sigh and glanced up to find Octavia looking at me like I’d lost my mind. I only grinned at her, totally unrepentant. She was afraid I was feeding an obsession that wasn’t the best thing the kid could decide to do with his life. What she didn’t know, is that Catherine Bloom wouldn’t pull the punches. She’d see to it the kids had one hell of a good time. Something they’d probably never forget, but she’d also see that they saw some of the… less attractive aspects of circus life. You never see the fact that all those fancy, glittery, beautiful performers have to take their turns at the scut jobs right next to everybody else. Sure, Catherine got to wear the pretty outfits and stand in center ring, but after all the crowds were gone, she was out back with everyone else, hauling water to the animals and tearing down tents.

And, well, if after that Devon still wanted to join the circus… who am I to decide on a kid’s dream for them?

I think Devon embarrassed himself a little, with the hug, and he retreated with his prize to Davey and Mark, wanting to reestablish himself as one of the ‘big boys’. He showed them his tickets and again, I got that strange look from Mark as the things were counted.

With the boys off my back, I climbed back up to the couch beside Heero, feeling a little bit guilty about ignoring him, but when I looked that way, he had his head bent over Sarah’s new book with her, and they were talking softly together. I glanced at what they were reading and found that the back of the book had a couple of pages of kanji characters and Heero was reading them to her. I smiled at the picture they made, but he didn’t see.

Ethan looked like he was going to bust a gut waiting for some sort of sign from me that it was ok for him to go fetch his present, and I kind of sighed, hoping this was going to work out all right. ‘Get your package and come here, Ethan-buddy,’ I told him and he dutifully darted over to take the green and silver box from Davey. It rattled alarmingly as he turned with it, and he looked up at me with wide-eyes. I only grinned. ‘Nothing broken, kid, it’s supposed to sound like that.’

He came to stand in front of me, looking just a tiny bit confused and I settled my hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eye. ‘How old are you now?’ I asked.

‘Eight,’ was the reply and I nodded sagely.

‘So you’re a pretty big kid now,’ I observed, looking him over. ‘You know a thing or two about patience?’

He got a look on his face that told me he wasn’t sure he liked the direction this conversation was taking, but he held his tongue, only nodding a little.

‘Ok,’ I sighed, hoping for the best. ‘Here’s the deal, kiddo. You got the biggest present of all, so I’m going to have to ask you to share, if that’s all right?’

He looked dubiously at the box in his hands, obviously not the biggest box by a long damn shot, but managed not to point that out. He gave me another little nod and it made my heart swell with pride. ‘That’s my boy,’ I murmured and let him sit down to open the package. I found myself gnawing my lip again; it had taken me quite a while to decide just how to present this. An elbow found its way into my ribs and I glanced at Heero to get a little smile and a reassuring nod.

Ethan isn’t a paper saver, though he’s not a thrower either. He tears with precision, balling it up as he goes and he quickly had the cobbled together box uncovered. He gave me a quick glance, as though wondering if he could trust me, and then pulled the lid off. He blinked in surprise at the pile of chain that greeted him. He looked even more confused, but dug his hands into it, pulling it out until it was spread across his lap and he found the swing seat attached to the other end. He kind of giggled, thinking God only knows what, and then found the envelope. I watched his eyes go wide as he read the ‘certificate’ inside that entitled one ‘Ethan James Callahan’ to a jungle gym of his choice, erected to his specifications in the back yard (within reason).

‘You need to give the little envelope to Mrs. Octavia,’ I told him when he’d stopped gapping a little bit. He ran it and his certificate over to show the woman and I wondered if she was going to throttle me before the day was over.

‘Lord have mercy,’ was all she said, giving Ethan his certificate back before pulling out the work order papers and receipts. It was all there, bought and paid for, installation arrangements made. I grinned at her. She rolled her eyes. I figured if the kid wanted to climb, I’d give him something relatively safe to climb on, instead of a tree or the damn house. When Octavia didn’t think I was looking, I thought I saw a pleased little smile.

Ethan almost went straight to sit with Devon, but then detoured long enough to give me a hug and tell me ‘thanks.’ Devon looked a little more at ease, since the slightly older Ethan had hugged me too.

I noticed Davey and Mark talking softly and looked that way to see Davey trying to give Mark his present. But Mark seemed unsure about the whole thing, not quite reaching to take it.

‘We do it by age,’ Devon informed him in a stage whisper. ‘And you’re next oldest.’

The poor new kid looked nervous as hell, his blush looking blotchy on his pale skin. He was nine, according to what Octavia had told me, and I had to wonder how he’d come to be here. A recent thing, or was this just another stop in a long line of foster homes?

He made my chest hurt with his guarded expression and his hesitation. He reminded me too much of kids from my past, kids with that same distrustful look. That same tendency to duck their heads and look at you out of the corners of their eyes.

I climbed back down on the floor, stretching out near the boys. Devon and Ethan were putting the circus train together and I picked up a lion to put it in the cage car.

‘Hope you like it,’ I told Mark without looking his way. ‘Octavia’s been known to steer me wrong before.’

Devon handed me the other lion and I settled it next to its cage-mate.

‘Like the time she told you I wanted a stuffed dragon,’ Davey snickered and I cast him a small wink. The kid was my little den-mother; and he’d gotten rather good with the kids. He understood Mark’s discomfort and was trying to help me.

‘How was I supposed to know that ‘Dragon’ is a line of clothing?’ grumbled Octavia from behind her knitting. ‘And am I never going to hear the end of that?’

Davey and I shared a look and then chorused, ‘Nope.’

The kids all snickered at the old joke. I dug though the pile of train parts until I found the top to the lion car and told Mark, ‘You have to be pretty specific when you tell Mrs. Octavia things.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Davey just set the brightly wrapped package in the kid’s lap. His hands came up reflexively to hold it, but he still seemed unsure of himself. He stole a glance at me, and I saw his hand rise to his mouth as he gnawed absently on a fingernail. Across the room Octavia cleared her throat meaningfully. The hand dropped away from Mark’s teeth like a stone.

Looked like nail biting was a real bad habit for him; most of his nails where clear back into the quick.

‘If you want,’ I told him quietly, finally looking straight at him. ‘You can open it later, when nobody’s around.’

He looked relieved, clutched the blue and silver box to his chest and kind of scooted backward, nodding his liking of that idea.

I turned my attention to Davey and grinned. ‘Guess that makes it your turn, unless you want to wait too.’

He just quirked me a cock-eyed grin and reached for the last package in the pile. I was nervous again, hoping he’d like it. You never know with kids, how deep their obsessions really run. A year ago, Devon was getting grounded every other weekend for digging holes in the backyard, but you couldn’t convince the kid he wasn’t going to excavate the next ‘big find’ and become famous in the archeological circle. Never mind he was on a colony. Then one day he woke up and started doing cartwheels and talking about clowns. I was pretty sure Davey’s music obsession was going to last, but you just never knew.

He opened the package carefully, though he wadded the paper up, not saving it. I watched his face as he lifted the lid off the box and found the stack of music books. Every one I could find for violin. He grinned, glancing my way, his look asking if he should dig further and I rolled my eyes in Octavia’s patented gesture. ‘I’ve spoiled the lot of you,’ I intoned, and he pulled the books out of the box. The envelope fell out when he did.

I had a sudden pang, thinking about next year and how I was going to live up to this kind of Christmas again. I’d saved back a good chunk of the money from selling my personal vacuum suit, with this day in mind. Though I would never have believed just how said day was going to end up. There were a lot of expensive presents here, and though I’d told Ethan that his was the biggest, despite everything, it wasn’t the most expensive.

I watched Davey slip the paper out of the envelope and his eyes go a little wide in shock. He looked up at me and I watched him tear up. The kid’s fourteen now; I expected him to find an excuse to leave the room or something, but he just sat there, clutching the receipt for his new violin with the tears standing in his eyes. Staring at me like he couldn’t believe what he’d read. As if to confirm that notion, he looked back down to reread what was in his hands.

‘One of my very own?’ he breathed.

‘Yep,’ I confirmed, grinning at the poor kid. ‘I had my personal violin expert review your performance and he said you were darn near flawless. I figure that rates your own instrument instead of a rental.’

The tears spilled over then, but he just flat didn’t care, leaning over to throw an arm around my neck. ‘Thank you, Duo,’ he whispered. ‘I promise I won’t let you down.’

‘You earned it,’ I told him, feeling a little choked up myself. Kid was really growing up so damn fast. He was my war baby, one of the only kids old enough to remember much of anything about that time, and he’d always hold a special place in my heart because of that. He was becoming quite the little man.

We dug out the candy then, a bag full of little red and white candy canes. I got a disapproving grunt from Octavia, but I noticed she didn’t turn it down when Ethan took her one. We spent a little bit of time putting hooks through the wrappers and hanging them on the tree. Sarah even abandoned Heero for that task, and I was a little surprised when he joined us by the tree for a moment, lifting Sarah so she could hang one up near the top of the tree, where the ‘Angel could have it if she got hungry’.

He and I shared a chuckle and a look that made me feel kind of funny, but then he went back to the couch and left me to my kids.

Decorating, even in this half-assed way, gave me a twinge of melancholy for a moment, as I remembered the only other Christmas tree I’d ever helped decorate, but I pushed those memories aside, just as I always did in this place. They could be too overwhelming if you didn’t. Too many land-mines in a house full of orphans the day before Christmas eve.

Somewhere in there, I noticed that Mark disappeared completely. I noticed his package disappeared with him.

The rush of gift giving past, the kids sat down to play with their new toys and it was time for the next part of my visit.

‘So,’ I said as I plopped myself down on the floor at Octavia’s feet and grinned up at her. ‘What do you have for me, Mrs. Octavia, Ma’am?’

She gave me a look that bordered on sly and murmured, ‘Quite a bit, since you were so worn out last time from your alien abduction that you were no good to anybody.’

I grinned and ignored her fishing for further information. ‘So where is this lengthy list?’

She, of course, had it handy and pulled it out to hand over. I whistled softly, reading down its length. ‘Damn; is there anything around here that isn’t broken?’

‘Language, Mister Duo,’ she admonished sternly and I grinned up at her.

‘No way I’m going to get through half of this,’ I had to tell her. ‘You want to prioritize?’

She snorted, looking at me rather disdainfully. ‘It’s written in order of priority,’ she said, her tone only implying the ‘of course’.

I felt a presence over my right shoulder and looked up to find Heero standing there, leaning down to see what I was looking at. I felt a twinge of unease and had to tell him, ‘I usually do a couple of odd jobs while I’m here. You don’t mind, do you?’

He only shrugged. ‘It’s your trip,’ he reassured, then smiled. ‘Want some help?’

I grinned widely and had to resist the sudden urge to give him a kiss. ‘That would be great.’

So we spent the next three hours doing jobs that should only have taken about half that time, but we had help of our own. Sarah was back to tailing Heero around, her new doll tucked under one arm, and Devon and Ethan seemed to be glued to my hip.

Over the years, I’ve done everything in that place from plumbing to wiring. Carpentry to small appliance repair. What I did usually wasn’t much, but I knew it saved Octavia a bundle not having to take things in to the shop.

It was damn gratifying that with Heero’s help, we managed everything on that list. Starting with the broken hinge on the back screen door and ending with fixing the toaster. Nothing huge, but all necessary.

A couple of times, as I crossed paths with Heero as we worked on separate jobs, I had to take a moment to watch him as he patiently explained to Sarah just what he was doing and why. Sometimes, actually letting her do some small thing like taking out a screw. It was… a strange image of Heero. Unexpected, and all the more precious because of it. I started to figure out part of her obsession when, the third time I happened to be in the same room as they were, I heard him teaching her the Japanese names for the tools he was using to fix a loose chair rung.

Allison had settled in beside the couch, and resisted my few efforts to draw her out. But she only seemed absorbed in her new art supplies, so I left her alone.

At one point, I found myself alone in the kitchen, tightening a leaky pipe fitting under the sink. Devon and Ethan had momentarily been lured off by the sounds of Heero hammering a loose floor board back into place at the top of the stairs and had abandoned me as having a boring job.

I hadn’t been left alone long, before I felt a presence in the room. I glanced up to find Mark lurking around the doorway and wondered if he’d been hovering for the last hour, waiting for an opportunity.

‘Hey kiddo,’ I called, without appearing to look at him. ‘Could you hold this flashlight for a minute? My helpers ran out on me.’

He came over, squatting down beside me and took the proffered light, holding it unerringly where I was working. ‘Thanks,’ I murmured and just went back to tightening.

He was quiet for a long time, just holding the light while I grunted and fought with the stubborn pipe, but then finally blurted. ‘I don’t have to hug you or nothin’… do I?’

I snickered lightly, but just kept working. ‘Nope. Completely optional.’

The light wavered minutely while he nodded. ‘Uhm… thanks,’ he said after another minute.

‘You’re welcome,’ I replied and grinned as I finally felt the wrench turn that quarter inch I was looking for. ‘I think I got it!’ I crowed. ‘How about turning the water on and let’s see if this sucker still leaks?’

I took the flashlight back from him and he jumped up to turn on the tap, squatting back down to watch the pipes not leak with me. We shared a grin and then he went back to hunt Davey up.

It was a start.

I was pretty relieved when we finally got to the end of that list. I’d wanted to get as much done as we could, God only knew when I’d make it back again, but the honest truth was… I was getting kind of tired. None of the jobs had been huge, labor intensive tasks, but there had been a lot of tedious ones. On top of a couple of rough days; I was more than ready to be done.

Heero finished about the same time I did, so I didn’t have to hunt him up, Sarah hauled him back to the sitting room the instant they finished their last job, trying to get him to read her more of her new books. I moved to intervene; the kid had to be driving him crazy, but he surprised me by telling her no in a gentle but firm way, not even caving when she tried whining a little.

It made me feel odd. Kind of proud of him, if that makes any sense.

Then it was time for the goodbye part. The boys had recovered their macho, grown-up status, and refrained from joining in when the girls came to hug me goodbye. Sarah hugged Heero too, the only one who would, and actually got weepy. I had a moment of panic, I was usually pretty good with keeping the leave-taking light hearted and hadn’t had one of those horrible crying scenes in a long time, but Heero said something to her and she settled right down.

At the last minute, Allison darted out and handed me a rolled up piece of her new art paper, tied not so neatly with the ribbon from her present. I was admonished to save it for Christmas day, and I swore that I would.

There was the general uproar and giggling, but we eventually managed to obtain the front porch, which is three-quarters of the battle.

Octavia followed us outside, which was unusual, flapping her apron and telling the kids to, ‘Stop gawking like a bunch of baby chickens!’ and to ‘Go figure out where this horrid eye-sore of a playground is going to go!’

The kids got excited about it and ran dutifully off, not doubting for a second that they’d just been excluded from some adult conversation.

Octavia shook her head and sighed in that put-upon way she has, before turning on me. ‘You certainly didn’t spare the expense this year,’ she observed drolly.

I ducked my head and had to confess, ‘Well… I hope I didn’t over-do it, because it was kind of a one-time thing.’

I was surprised when she didn’t mock me, but only looked a little disappointed.

‘What is it you need, Octavia?’ I asked her bluntly and got to watch the woman’s cheeks color slightly for the first time in our acquaintance.

She gave me a little grin, hands going into her apron pockets. ‘I’m that transparent, am I?’ she laughed.

‘Only to me, cause I’m your favorite,’ I teased. ‘Now out with it.’

She hesitated for another second, before shaking her head. ‘It was silly of me to hope that you’d suddenly come in to a fortune. I should have known you’d have been sending more if you had. It’s just… the doctor said some cosmetic surgery could be done for Allison, but…’

‘Insurance won’t pay for ‘cosmetic’,’ Heero finished for her, and Octavia nodded.

It made me angry, on some far away level. Angry that anyone could deny that little girl something like that. But, really, I’m a product of the L2 system; ‘Life ain’t fair’ is our motto. While it made me angry, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t dealt with a million times before, so it wasn’t an anger that would really come clear.

Octavia went ahead and gave us a few more of the details, because we asked, and I tried to be shocked at the price tag put on a child’s piece of mind, but couldn’t really. I hadn’t paid that much for my car.

But then Octavia swept it all away with her dismissive ‘what can you do but deal?’ smile, thanked us profusely for all we’d done, and sent us on our way.

When our feet finally hit the sidewalk, it crossed my mind that it had been a damn long day.

‘What now?’ Heero asked me, sounding a touch uncertain, and I blinked my way out of my reverie.

‘We won’t be able to catch a cab this far out,’ I explained. ‘But it’s only a couple of blocks to the main drag, we can find one there.’

He nodded and took a step in the proper direction, but I suddenly found I couldn’t move. I just stood staring at him, a little appalled at what was stirring in my head.

‘Duo?’ he questioned softly, something about my expression causing his brow to furrow.

‘Walk with me first?’ I found myself asking and he nodded. It still took me a second to turn my steps in the other direction.

Don’t ask me what in the hell possessed me, on top of everything else, to think to take Heero down to the Maxwell church memorial. Some strange, masochistic tendency that felt the week needed something to cap it? Some residual guilt that I’d taken Relena there, but not Heero? Some fear that we might not ever make it here again? Maybe the damn thing had some siren call that only I could hear. I don’t know. I really just do not know.

‘Sarah really seemed to take a shine to you,’ I observed after a moment, mostly so he wouldn’t ask me where we were going. I still had a faint hope that I might just walk on by the thing in the end.

Heero grunted and glanced side-long at me. ‘It didn’t bother you, did it?’

I snorted. ‘Not in the least.’ Then I gave him a quirk of a grin. ‘I actually felt kind of bad for not being able to rescue you.’

His expression did something odd then, I’m not sure I could have said what, and it took him a second to tell me, ‘It was all right… I didn’t really mind.’

I studied his expression, as much of it as he was letting show, until I thought I had it identified. ‘You ok?’ I asked him gently.

His eyes lifted from studying the side-walk and he looked across at me. Maybe seeing understanding. He nodded tightly and we walked a half a block in silence before he said, ‘I felt kind of bad… I think I reminded her of her father. She seems to just barely remember him.’

I nodded. ‘I wondered if it wasn’t something like that, when she got so fascinated with you at first sight. She’s usually pretty shy.’

‘Half way through fixing the toaster,’ he said. ‘She suddenly told me he was Japanese. I think… the doll and books you got her were a good idea.’ I could see him working something around in his head and he suddenly said. ‘I think we should make a point of bringing her things that will help her understand her heritage better.’ He stole a glance at me, and I’d swear his cheeks were flushed.

I grinned at him, and wished I could reach out and take his hand. ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ was all I said.

He grunted, and then we were there. I stopped walking, but didn’t say anything.

It didn’t really take him long to figure out where we were and why. You can’t exactly miss the damn memorial. If you ask me, it’s something of an eyesore. I think they could have put up a rock about half the size of the stupid thing they’d used, and it would have been fine. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the fact that I knew how much Sister Helen would have been bothered by the thing, but I doubt I could warm up to anything that might have gotten erected on the site. See? I can fess up to my own prejudices.

Heero was quiet, looking at me and looking at the empty lot and looking at the damn rock and then looking at me again.

I struggled for a minute with what to say; This is the site of the massacre that took the only family I ever really knew? But that wasn’t right, because I’d had Solo and he’d been lost in a whole different kind of massacre. That list of names is the start of my list of dead. People who lost their lives at my hand? Not really right. Exactly. And damn melodramatic sounding anyway. Even if it was how I felt. This is where I made the biggest mistake of my life? That probably fit better, but just didn’t quite want to pass my lips.

Hell… let’s be honest; nothing really wanted to pass my lips. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wasn’t even sure why I’d brought him here.

They say that every major disaster ends with somebody saying, ‘Well… it seemed like a good idea at the time.’

This suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea.

Heero moved closer to the stone with its sad little plaque and I was struck with how different his movements were from Relena’s. She’d been half angry with me, had almost read the thing with a stubborn, irritated air. Heero seemed to radiate… respect. Somehow understood, where she hadn’t, that we trod in a graveyard. I had that same, sudden, cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that I remembered from the other times I’d been here. I don’t make it a habit to come and rub salt in old wounds.

I’ve only done it three times now. Once, out of some twisted sense of duty. Once, in a fit of ‘fuck you’ irritation that Relena dared say it wasn’t so. And now… wonder what this trip was driven by?

Heero stood and I watched him read the thing, his fingers lifting with an odd hesitancy to brush across the cold metal surface of the etching of the church… of the line about the fourteen children dead in the fire. He looked at the lot again and I wondered if he could see it. It made me sad sometimes, to think that I was probably the only person left who really remembered the place. I found myself aching to take his hand and run up the front steps of the church to introduce him to Father and Sister. I wanted to take him downstairs into the dormitory and show him the first bed I’d ever slept in. Wanted to show him the loose brick I’d found in the wall down there, where I’d kept my tiny stash of treasures. Things a kid collects; a polished bit of stone, a penny smashed under the tracks of a tank of the ‘peace keeping force’, the pocket-knife with the broken blade that Solo had given to me. Treasures lost to time.

It made me shiver to see Heero looking up where the stained glass window would have been. I didn’t follow his gaze, I kept my eyes on him; afraid I’d see the flames again… afraid I’d see that window explode again. Because always, right after that, came the sounds and the smells.

Then Heero turned away from the things he probably wasn’t really seeing, away from the rock with its matte-silver plaque, and toward me. When he opened his arms, I didn’t hesitate to step into them. His embrace was fierce and possessive. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured in my ear, seeming to understand the cost to my heart in coming here. Seeming to understand that for all its strangeness, this too was a gift, albeit not an especially attractive one.

I wanted to ask him if he had any questions, but that was too much like what I’d said to Relena in this place and I didn’t want to cheapen the moment, if that makes any sense at all. I wanted to give Heero better than that.

Neither of us is overly comfortable with these sorts of public displays, but I couldn’t work up the energy to care enough to draw away from the comfort he had to offer. So we stood there probably a bit longer than we should have, until he finally drew away enough to look at me and say, ‘Let’s go find that cab and go back to our room, all right?’

He didn’t completely let me go until I’d nodded and stepped away. Then we resumed our walk toward the main street.

It seemed strange to come down to the thing for no more than the five or ten minutes we’d stood there. I felt like I was cheating somehow. Avoiding something. But really, the heart of the matter was in me, not sitting on some slab of concrete out in the middle of an empty lot. I didn’t need to stand in the cold in order to remember that night.

It somehow seemed that the time had come to share the damn, dark images with Heero, though I doubted my ability to do so. I doubted my reasoning for doing so. I doubted my right to inflict them on him.

But I had no doubt what-so-ever that I wasn’t going to stand at the base of that damn memorial, in front of God and everybody and try to tell Heero anything.

There are some ‘bad ideas’ that even I can see coming a mile away.

He let me retreat into my silence again, not pressing, just getting us where a cab could be found, and then getting us back to our hotel.

He didn’t poke at me until we were in the lobby, on our way to the elevator banks. ‘Do you want to go in to dinner first?’ he asked me gently.

I had to work not to blurt out something profane. ‘I really don’t think I’m in a frame of mind to deal with Mr. Anal-waiter, Heero. I’m kind of afraid I might just bite the man’s head off.’

I was a little surprised when Heero smiled. ‘Might do you some good.’

I had to laugh, but wasn’t convinced to brave it. Though, I suppose the guy couldn’t possible still be working as late as it was. ‘If you don’t mind… I think I’d just as soon do room service.’

‘That’s fine,’ he told me; sounding as though he’d half expected it, and didn’t seem to mind.

When the elevator doors closed on us, standing side by side, I couldn’t quite help leaning my head over to rest against his shoulder. ‘So,’ I murmured. ‘Having a good time so far?’

He laughed; sounding genuinely pleased, and rubbed his head against mine. ‘Of course. I’m with you, aren’t I?’

I had to lift my head in order for the effect of the rolled eyes to come across. ‘You can be so cheesy sometimes.’

‘It’s the company I keep,’ he told me, and I had some trouble deciding what his tone of voice implied. I was saved from having to reply, when the elevator doors opened.

There was no one in the hall but a maid at the very far end, and I was relieved, when Heero opened the door, to see she’d already done our room. I wasn’t looking for company or small talk. I think I’d have probably just told her to leave fresh towels and skip the rest of it.

I started across the room while Heero chained the door, but suddenly found my wrist trapped in his strong hand. I turned and looked at him, and he quirked an odd little grin. ‘I have needed to kiss you for the past three hours, so damn bad…’

It was almost a relief not to have to be the one to confess first. So we just did that for a little while, standing in the middle of the damn room. Teeth and tongues and lips and not a lot of breathing. In a way that should have had us ripping at clothes, but somehow didn’t. It was… gentle, and reassuring. It was… anchoring and the feeling of coming home. But somehow didn’t make us want more than that.

I honestly don’t think the mood would have allowed for more than that.

When we finally drew apart, Heero rested his forehead against mine and softly asked. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah,’ I told him, because it was mostly true. ‘How about you?’

It took him a minute to reply, so I knew he was being honest when he said, ‘I hadn’t anticipated…’ but then he floundered, not sure how to word it.

‘How emotionally draining a pack of kids can be?’ I supplied, taking a stab in the dark. He drew back to look at me rather sharply and I was pretty sure I’d hit it fairly close. To my knowledge, Heero’s never dealt with kids before. Especially not orphaned ones.

‘Yeah,’ he said after a quiet moment of regarding me. ‘Does it…?’

I grinned. ‘Every damn time and only gets worse as you get to know them.’

It got me pulled back into his arms, and I felt him draw a shuddering breath.

Oh come on, you think it’s easy walking away from a place like that? No, those kids aren’t miserable; they aren’t living in squalor or eating out of trash cans. Octavia is a better guardian than you’re going to find anywhere; firm but fair, and mellow enough not to bat an eye over a lot of damn shit. But… the big damn but here, folks. That’s not what those kids wanted. They wanted a family and a home of their own. They wanted to belong, and not to a place referred to as ‘The Children’s Home’ in whispered voices behind their backs. They wanted last names to match with the people they lived with. They wanted somebody to be there when the school had the Mother’s day banquet, or put on the Father’s day play.

No, it’s not easy to walk away from that. Even when you know you aren’t the right answer to what they want. Even when you were one of them once, and knew better than anyone what it felt like to sit with your face pressed to the glass, on the outside looking in. Even when they squealed your name and ran to meet you and some part of your heart wondered what it would be like if those shouts of ‘Mr. Duo!’ were ‘Daddy!’ instead. Even when you knew better… it still cut deep.

And that damn memorial is just the other side of the same stupid coin. I said I’d only been to visit it twice before that day, but I lied… I didn’t walk down the street to look at the God damn thing, but in my head I visited it every time I made the trip to L2. Every time I came to see the kids.

I wonder if that’s why I’m always so depressed at the holidays?

‘You’re chilled,’ Heero finally ventured, and it was a little surprising for him to be the one leading us away from a topic for a change. I wondered just how much it was bothering him. ‘Why don’t we order dinner and then make use of that massive bathtub in there?’

‘Sounds nice,’ I murmured. ‘I am kind of cold.’

I let him do the ordering while I went and got the bath ready. The tub was one of those designed for… what we planned on doing with it; sharing. It appeared to be some sort of whirlpool thing, with a contoured bottom to facilitate lounging without sliding. The faucets were even conveniently located on the side so you could lay back without bashing your head on them, but still reach them without having to move. Decadence at its absolute best. I put everything near at hand and ran the water good and hot, even found some bath salts and figured, what the hell? Wasn’t likely we’d have this kind of opportunity again for awhile.

I was actually kind of surprised that a hotel this damn nice existed on L2. I tried to dredge up what would have been in this neighborhood all those years ago, but couldn’t really remember. Not even sure I’d been around here before. L2 isn’t any smaller than any other colony… just a little bit poorer.

I meant to wait for Heero and dinner, but the lure of the hot water was too enticing and I gave in to the urge. I was chilled and tired, achy and worn out; it just looked too damn comforting to ignore.

I think Heero might actually have woken me up when he brought dinner in. He smiled warmly at my, what must have been, sloe-eyed look, set the tray on the counter and undressed. I couldn’t see what was on the plate, but I was surprised as hell when he opened what proved to be a bottle of wine and poured a couple of glasses. There was a kind of ledge near at hand that seemed to be just for this sort of thing and Heero put the glasses there, setting the bottle down within reach. He brought our plate and stepped into the tub. I spread my legs to make a spot for him to sit in front of me, and was pleased when he took it, settling against me.

He made a tiny little sound of pleasure as the water swirled around us. ‘That feels good,’ he murmured. ‘And it smells nice… what is it?’

I managed to roll my head in the direction of the jar and blinked until I could read the label. ‘Neptune’s Treasures brine salt.’

He snorted in appreciation of the sound of it, then tried to twist around where he could feed me. It was awkward as hell, and we almost ended up with a forkful of noodles in the water.

‘How about you hold the plate, and I’ll wield the silverware?’ I suggested, and that seemed to work much better. We ended up eating our dinner that way, though I can barely report what in the hell it was we ate. Food; I know that much. I was too tired to care, and too caught up in the feel of Heero resting against me to notice.

When we finished, he sat up to lean over and put the plate out of the way, retrieving our glasses so we could reach them without getting up again. I was left with an unpleasant cool spot where his back had been, and frowned slightly at the loss. I felt almost groggy between the full stomach and the heat of the water.

‘Com’back,’ I murmured, and got chuckled at. He hesitated, looking at me for a long moment. ‘What?’ I grumbled.

‘Trying to decide if you look relaxed or exhausted,’ he said, before settling back against me.

It was nice. I liked holding him, though he seldom let me; usually being the one who supplied the support and the comfort. It was good to have him leaning on me. Good to have his head resting against my shoulder. ‘About half and half,’ I confessed and watched him sip at his glass of wine.

I wondered what had possessed him; we seldom drink alcohol of any kind. Or at least, he didn’t, and I hadn’t since coming to live with him. To be honest, I had been a little afraid of it for a long damn time; it had seemed a thing that could have been very easy to let turn into a crutch during those first dark days. I gingerly picked my glass up and took a tiny sip, feeling oddly edgy. I was reassured when I did not immediately feel compelled to drain the thing.

‘You had a lot to deal with today,’ he said gently, tilting his glass to and fro, watching the wine sway and swirl.

‘I guess,’ I said non-committally, but then felt bad when I heard him sigh very softly. ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him. ‘I’m not trying to be evasive. I just… there’s so much…’

‘I know,’ he told me, turning to stretch and kiss me just under the chin. ‘I never dreamed this trip was going to be so… hard.’

‘Are you sorry we came?’ I had to ask.

He reached blindly with his right arm and caught at my shoulder, squeezing me tight for a second. ‘No. I think you needed this, as rough as it’s been. I only regret the mistakes I’ve made… But I’m not sorry I brought you… back here.’

Back here. Back… home? No, not ever. L2 might be the place where I’d been born, might be the place where a couple of good sized chunks of my soul were buried, but it had never been home. Home is the place you feel safe. Home is the place that nurtures you and cares for you. L2 had never been that.

Then he surprised me. ‘Are you sorry we came?’

‘No,’ I answered promptly, not having to think about it, and then said something else before I had a chance to think about it either. ‘But I’m damn glad you’ve been with me.’

There was a moment of silence while he… seemed to soak the words in, and I sat in appalled wonder at the tears gathering in the back of my throat.

He sought my hand, underneath the water, and clasped it tight. ‘I’m damn glad I was here,’ he replied and sounded as though his throat might be a little tight too. Maybe it was the brine salt.

I sipped at my wine until the feeling passed and I felt like I could speak again. ‘I wanted to thank you, for helping me with the chores. I know it wasn’t exactly what you thought today was going to be like…’

‘You don’t need to thank me,’ he interrupted. ‘I was glad to do it. It was… different.’

I chuckled. ‘Was it… ok that I couldn’t get Sarah to leave you alone all day?’

It took him a second to answer, and I wondered about it until I heard his tone of voice. ‘It was fine. I… kind of liked it. I just… I’ve never…’ he was floundering so bad it was painful.

‘I know, love,’ I told him. ‘They make you hurt inside wanting to fix the universe for them.’

He sighed, a tiny little frustrated sound and finally blurted. ‘We could give her so much.’

I kissed the top of his head. ‘Not what she needs. Not what she has a chance at, where she is.’

‘I know,’ he whispered.

‘But it still hurts,’ I agreed and set my glass down to wrap my arm around him. ‘I know too. What they need is ‘normal’, and we aren’t exactly that.’

He heaved a shuddering sigh and shook his head in agreement. We were quiet for a little bit until he murmured, voice kind of far away, ‘I remember wanting normal.’

I snorted mirthlessly. ‘I remember praying for it.’

‘Somehow, I can’t imagine you praying for anything,’ he chuckled, but it was a strained sound.

‘Back before I figured out it was best not to draw the attention of deities and devils,’ I said with a sigh, leaning my head back against the wall. ‘I loved Sister Helen quite unconditionally and it was hard not to have faith in what she had faith in.’

It was probably a kind of melodramatic thing to have said, but it seemed to fit the mood somehow and just slipped out of my mouth. I imagined the words hanging in the air like bubbles before sinking down into the water. I shivered as they popped on the surface.

Heero set his wine glass down long enough to turn the hot water on again.

‘And did you have faith?’ he asked gently, when he had heated the water back to a temperature that suited him.

I sighed, thinking about that one. ‘It’s funny, but even at the height of my efforts to please Father and Sister… I don’t think I ever really did. Their bible told stories of a kind and loving God, and I’d never been a witness to anything like that.’

He grunted, picking his glass back up.

‘Do you believe in God, Heero?’ I found myself asking and wasn’t even sure why.

He was quiet for a long time, swirling his wine and looking at I could only guess what. ‘Not really,’ he finally confessed. ‘Though… I can remember being jealous of you, when we first met.’

‘Jealous of what?’ I exclaimed, wondering for a moment if I’d heard him right.

He chuckled and turned his head a little to nuzzle against me. ‘With your priest’s collar and gold cross… I thought you’d found a God who could forgive you what we did.’

I couldn’t help laughing, though it died quickly when he didn’t really join me. ‘Back then, those things were my reminders of why I was fighting.’

‘For God?’ he asked quizzically.

‘For revenge,’ I told him, and was shocked as hell at the thread of bitter anger that welled up in my voice. I wouldn’t have thought it, after all these years.

He twisted far enough to glance up at me, but I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, still lying back to stare up at the ceiling.

‘I fought to take revenge against those I blamed for the massacre,’ I whispered to nobody in particular. ‘So I didn’t have to blame myself.’

It got real damn quiet in that bathroom then. I think Heero was just flat afraid to say anything for fear of breaking the mood and I just didn’t know where to start. We’d finally gotten around to that place I’d known we were heading for all damn day. Hell… I suppose I’d known on some level that we were headed here from the moment he’d asked to me to make this trip.

Somebody sighed.

‘We… don’t have to do this,’ he ventured, surprising me again.

‘I know,’ I told him, but neither of us moved.

I didn’t know how to tell him it was too late; the memories had already reared their ugly heads and were dancing through their individual parts in my mind. If I closed my eyes, I knew I’d see flames. Or the angry faces of men who seemed to tower over me.

I shivered so hard that a bit of wine slopped out of my glass. I brought my gaze down from the ceiling to watch it bleed away in the water. Heero took the glass from me and set it aside, next to his own. He started to turn in the curve of my arm and I knew he meant to reverse our positions, meant to bring me into his embrace, but I stilled him.

‘Stay?’ I asked, liking the feel of him where he was. Not wanting to have to meet his eyes. He settled back, but found both my hands and pulled my arms around him. I squeezed him tight and buried my face against his hair for a minute.

‘You know,’ I said on a sudden memory. ‘I always expected Relena’s pacifist ideals to get her killed before the damn war ended. I never bought into that shit. I mean… it only works if the other guy is the pacifist.’

Heero kind of snickered, though he tried to stifle it and it made me grin for a second before I got to the other half of that thought. ‘Father Maxwell was a dyed in the wool, card-carrying pacifist and he held to it right through getting beaten to death.’ I was taken with the sudden urge to lean down and kiss Heero’s shoulder and did so, though he tasted heavily of brine salt. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this shit?’ I whispered.

‘Every word you’re willing to share,’ he whispered back. ‘As long as you want to share it.’ And since my lips were so close, he tilted and twisted until he brought our mouths together in a gesture that put all the support and love he could muster into it.

‘We’re going to look like prunes when we get out of here,’ I told him, breaking away to rest my head against his.

‘You ready to get out?’ he asked.

‘Not quite,’ I told him, not sure I could maintain the mood if we moved. He let me have my hand back long enough for me to pick up my wine glass and take a drink. I was a little surprised to see how much of it was gone, and after a moment, reached for the bottle to refill it.

‘You know,’ I said when the memories had played that far. ‘It’s funny what sticks in your head. Funny what you remember. Their leader… I guess he was their leader… had the most ridiculous mustache I’d ever seen. It was black and came clear down to his jaw-line. I very distinctly remember looking at him when they forced their way into the church and thinking, ‘that looks stupid’. Isn’t that dumb? They were dragging in men with bullet holes in them, they were taking over the church… and I noticed the damn guy’s facial hair.’

‘Sometimes,’ Heero ventured, ‘the mind will focus on something mundane in an effort to block out something more frightening.’

I snorted and raised my glass to regard the room through the red liquid, trying not to draw parallels. ‘That’s the really stupid part,’ I told him at length. ‘I wasn’t scared. I was furious. God, I had balls like a brass monkey back then… still thought I could overcome anything. Hadn’t been smacked down enough yet, I guess.’

He didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and so just stayed quiet, just turned his head to press his face against the side of my neck.

I heaved a sigh and took another sip of wine that turned into a gulp quite despite my intentions. ‘They were just so… full of themselves. So damn self-righteous and convinced their cause was right,’ I told him and wasn’t able to keep the rumble of anger out of my voice. It kind of surprised me, after all these years, that I could still get so mad thinking about it. Would have thought that how it all came out would have taught me that anger hadn’t been the proper reaction.

Piss-your-pants terrified should have been the proper reaction.

It took me a long lot of years to figure that out.

Heero didn’t speak, but reached past me to get the bottle of wine and topped off both our glasses.

‘Trying to get me drunk, Yuy?’ I questioned lightly and expected him to laugh, but he didn’t.

‘You told me once that you’d have to be drunk to tell me this story.’

I just sat staring at the wall for a minute, remembering that conversation and had to admit, ‘Guess I did. It’ll take a hell of a lot more than a bottle of wine to get me drunk though.’

‘Me too,’ he chuckled. ‘But it’s the thought that counts, right?’

I chuckled with him and then took another sip. It felt cool going down again, the wine in the bottle staying chilled longer in the steamy room, than what had been in the glass. It made me realize that I was finally warm again. At least… on the outside.

‘Ever wonder why they bother with seasonal changes on the colonies?’ I asked the room and was a little surprised when Heero bothered to answer me.

‘I think it was just something that people needed way back in the beginning, and now it’s simple tradition.’

I thought about that, and knew he was right. Man, going off into the scary, scary sky to live, had needed the comfort of the familiar. Had needed a piece of what he was leaving behind. Comfort. Safety. Security. Weren’t those all things that the human animal sought? Weren’t those the things that had been ripped out from under me that night? Before I’d half learned to believe in them?

I had to set my glass aside to wrap Heero up close in my arms. He didn’t protest, only holding on tight. He’s the heart of whatever security I have now. My soul’s home, I’d told him once, and as stupid and hackneyed as it sounded… it was true. When I thought about that solid church, made of brick and stone, and remembered how easily it had vanished… Heero seemed a damn fragile thing.

He turned in my arms, as best he could, and kissed me hard then. Though I don’t know how he knew how badly I needed it. Maybe it was the trembling. Maybe it was the grasping.

‘I’m here,’ he murmured.

‘Forever… right?’ I had to ask.

‘Forever, love,’ he reassured, and then just let me sit and hold on to him for a little bit.

When I could make my arms loosen a little, I reached for my glass again, making myself take little sips, just taking the moment.

‘Father Maxwell wasn’t a young man,’ I said, starting down a different track. Trying a different angle. ‘I can remember thinking that; the first time I met him. Thinking that he was the oldest person I’d ever seen. I don’t know that he really was… but he looked old. Maybe it was living on L2… made everyone age faster. I think that was why it shocked me so much, when that rebel hit him with his… with his damn rifle. Knocked him out… I thought he was dead, at first. I just couldn’t get over those guys picking on an old man. Would have thought I’d have been upset that they’d hit a priest, for cryin’ out loud, but it was his age that got to me. That they’d hit an old man like that… like hitting somebody’s grandfather…’

‘Duo,’ Heero said, ever so gently, and I felt his fingers touch the back of my hand. ‘Broken glass in the water would be a bad idea.’

I blinked at were he was looking and saw my hand clenched tight on the delicate wine glass. Distantly, I heard Kurt’s voice yelling, ‘Duo! Hands!’ And I made myself let go. Heero took the glass away from me and set it aside again.

‘I need to get out now,’ I told him, no longer happy with the touches we were managing in this awkward position, in the confines of the hard tub.

‘All right,’ was all he said, rising out of the water and stepping from the tub. He turned and reached for my hand when he was on solid ground and pulled me out too. We were quiet while we toweled each other off, Heero wrapping me up in the terrycloth bathrobe supplied by the hotel and sending me off to the sitting room while he finished in the bathroom.

The dinner dishes he set out in the hall, though later I would notice that he kept the wine and the glasses. He drained the tub and hung the towels, putting on his own robe before coming to find me where I stood looking out the window.

‘You have a fascination with windows, love,’ he teased, coming to stand behind me and wrapping me in his arms.

‘Just trying to remember what was here in A.C. 187,’ I told him, and then on a sudden thought. ‘Heero… where were you in ‘87?’

There was a hesitation that made me turn my head and the look I found on his face made me regret the question. ‘It’s all right,’ I blurted. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

His face softened again and he smiled at me, brushing a kiss against my temple. ‘It’s not that I mind,’ he told me. ‘It’s just… I was a lot of places back then. Was probably traveling.’

That closed off look he’d had on his face made me afraid to ask more. I wanted to; wanted to put his life in perspective with mine, but for a split second he’d had that stone-cold expression on his face that I hadn’t seen in a long damn time, and it shook me to the core. I must have gotten a little bit more than quiet.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, and kissed the side of my face again.

‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ I apologized and my voice sounded subdued even to me.

He turned me around, and his gaze was intense. ‘Duo,’ he breathed. ‘Don’t… I’m sorry, I wasn’t reacting to you… I was reacting to my own thoughts.’

I ducked my head and tried on a sheepish little grin. ‘You’re scary when you look like that.’

It was meant to be funny, meant to break the tension, but you would have thought I’d slapped him. ‘I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me,’ he said, voice verging on strained.

‘I’m not,’ I soothed and embraced him almost fiercely. ‘Not ever.’

‘Come lie with me?’ he asked and I nodded against his shoulder, more than happy to retreat to the familiar. Retreat to his warmth and the feel of his strength. Retreat to my safe place.

He was done with letting me hold him, and the place he made for us with propped up pillows and a cocoon of blankets, wine within easy reach, was a place where he meant to shelter me. Meant to cradle me against him.

I think I was ready for that part.

We lost the robes and crawled into bed; he settled against the pillows and settled me against him. I lay with my head resting on his chest, the way I had so many times during the long months of my recovery. Finding warmth and comfort in Heero’s presence. He made a small sound of contentment.

‘We can’t ever get fat,’ I teased him. ‘We won’t fit together the way we do now.’

He chuckled lightly and ran a hand down my back. ‘Somehow, I don’t think we ever have to worry about that.’

I burrowed closer, taken with the urge to bring my lips to his body, but I knew it for the evasive thought it was, and let it go.

I let the sound of his heartbeat fill my consciousness and held very still in the little circle of peace we made, hoping to hide from the rest of the memories. Hoping they wouldn’t find me here. But it seemed a vain hope, even in this… place of peace.

‘This is supposed to be a peaceful place!’ Echoed through my head and I wondered when that little kid who lived in there had gone from being such a hard-headed, tough as nails little snot, to the whimpering thing he was now.

Or maybe that was me. Maybe the kid was the tough one, and I was the pathetic one.

And as if the echoes weren’t enough, Heero didn’t seem to be quite ready to stop listening. ‘More wine?’ he asked, ever so cautiously. I couldn’t help snorting.

‘You haven’t heard enough?’ I said, ignoring his offer for the real question behind it.

‘I’m greedy,’ he told me, and his arms cradled me close, just like I knew they would. ‘You smell good,’ he murmured against my hair. ‘Like the sea.’

I shivered hard, the damn comment coming at just the wrong moment, kicking memory back into high gear and it fairly took my breath away.

Sister Helen had hated it when I fought.

‘Duo… What… did they say to you?’

‘They said… They said I smelled like a sewer.’

And then had come the hug. You know, it was the first real hug I’d ever been given in my short life. I like to think there was a mother at one point, who might have cuddled me at least once… before she died, or abandoned me, or whatever in the hell happened to her. But that hug from Sister Helen was the first one in living memory. I remember being shocked. I remember feeling… good. I remember her telling me,

‘See, you’re not smelly at all.’

I hadn’t even known how to hug back.

I breathed a shuddering sigh, trying to remember the Sister Helen of the hugs, the one who always looked slightly shocked at my declarations, even as Father Maxwell laughed at my odd notions. Trying not to remember the other one. The one with the blood. The one lying in the rubble. The one who asked God to bless me with her dying breath, even as it became apparent to me that if there truly was a God, he just flat did not like me very much.

‘She had blond hair,’ I told him, giving it up for lost and letting that memory, of the only time I’d ever seen her hair, come flooding through. ‘I had not known that. The year I spent at the church… I always thought that nuns were bald. I thought they had to shave their heads and that’s why they wore those weird habit things. To hide their heads. But she had… beautiful, long blond hair… or it would have been… if it hadn’t been all matted with… dirt… and blood…’ I staggered to a halt and just concentrated on breathing.

‘Talk to me,’ Heero whispered, sounding almost afraid of speaking.

‘I’m just trying to get through this without the damn tears,’ I told him.

There was a long minute before he quietly said, ‘If you can get through this without the tears, then maybe you aren’t reaching quite far enough?’

There was some part of me that thought that was kind of a shitty thing to say. And a part of me that understood he was probably right. It was probably cheating to dance around the edges of the story so damn much. But, God… I was just so tired of it. Just so tired in general. It’d been a rough week.

‘There’s gonna be nightmares,’ I had to tell him.

‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘But I’ll be here.’

So I had to dig a little deeper. Had to fess up to that last little bit. And yeah… he got his damn tears.

‘… my damn fault…’

‘… just a child…’

‘…got so angry… just wanted them to leave us alone…’

‘…of course you did…’

‘…gave ‘em what they wanted... Broke onto the base…’

‘…oh dear God…’

‘…don’t know how I got out alive…stole the damn mobile suit… but I was too late… too late…’

‘… oh my baby…’

‘… the church was leveled. Just… gone. Sister… Father… All of them…’

‘… It’s all right… just let it go… I’m here.’

And I did; despite my best efforts. Despite the resolve I’d had at the beginning of the tale not to let it get to me. Though I managed not to do the hysterical sobbing thing, for which I was grateful. Low key; that’s me all the way.

We were quiet for a very long time after I finished leaking all over him, though I knew he was still awake because he kept stroking his hand over my braid.

‘You know,’ I had to tell him, though I felt stupid saying it. It seemed so… clichéd somehow. But it was important. Important to me, if not to anybody else. ‘I’ve never told that to anybody.’

The catch in his breath told me it might have been important to him as well. Maybe just a little.

We drank a little more wine after that, but I think we were both just too tired for much more talking. I, at least, was all talked out. Tired of the topic, tired of the emotional turmoil, just tired in general. At length, we turned out the lights, Heero spooned at my back and we settled down for sleep. It rather predictably eluded me for quite awhile, though I felt Heero’s breathing level out fairly quickly. A sure sign of how exhausted he was.

I felt kind of bad for the ride I’d had him on the last few days, and not for the first time, wondered at his willingness to shoulder all my crap. Wondered what he saw in me that had won me that fierce love of his.

Though, and this may sound kind of weird, but it wasn’t just my memories that kept me awake that night, but my wondering about what Heero had been doing while my life was being turned upside down. Wondering just what it was that he wasn’t sharing with me, at a time when he was asking me to peel away all the masks and camouflage to reveal the dirty secrets underneath. Wondering about that look that had come over him.

I fell asleep trying not to feel hurt, trying to convince myself that he’d get to it in his own time.

Gave me a whole different set of dreams than the ones I’d been expecting though.

We’d not thought to pull the blinds the night before, and the first glow of the day-cycle woke me long before I was ready to be awake. For the first time in days, I was awake before Heero though, and I found that I kind of needed it. Thinking back on the previous evening, I was overcome with a fit of embarrassment. Hadn’t this just turned into a rather humiliating couple of days? I slipped silently from bed and went to cover the windows before the light woke Heero too. Then I stood there and watched him sleep for a few minutes before deciding that I should probably wash the brine salt out of my hair. I hadn’t gotten my braid soaked through, but I hadn’t been able to entirely keep the tail end from slipping into the water more than once.

The bathroom really is a poster-child for self-indulgence. Besides the whirl-pool bath, there’s a shower stall, and that was where I took myself that morning while Heero slept. And if there were the ghosts of other hands on mine as I unbound my braid, I paid them no mind, because I knew whose they were.

The trouble with stirring up old memories is that they have a way of staying stirred up for awhile.

I knew, at some point when the mental images of how pathetic I must have looked last night faded a little, I would probably be glad that I’d told Heero about that time in my life. That I’d finally gotten around to confessing my sins to another living being. But between me and that feeling of relief was a wall constructed of my feelings of weakness and embarrassment and I was pretty sure that would have to fade first before I could convince myself that any of this had been a good idea.

I was standing in the middle of the bathroom after my shower, combing the water out of my hair, when the bathroom door opened, and I glanced up to find Heero standing there. Still tousled from sleep, wearing only his underwear, he leaned in the doorway and just watched me.

‘Morning,’ I mumbled, feeling a full-body blush coming on at his intense scrutiny.

‘Good morning,’ he replied, and just kept standing there.

‘I… didn’t mean to wake you,’ I ventured, wishing he’d stop staring, and I got a tiny little frown from him. I put the comb aside and reached to separate my hair for braiding, suddenly taken with the urge to finish what I was doing in a hurry.

He pushed off from the door and walked across the bathroom to join me, gently pushing my hands away and taking my hair into his. He just held it for a second, then leaned to kiss the back of my shoulder before beginning the task of braiding. ‘You amaze me,’ he said softly as his hands worked.

I think I was supposed to say something, but I didn’t know what it should be and just stayed quiet.

‘So much going on inside you,’ he whispered, his fingers deftly weaving. ‘So many demons… so many memories…’

‘I…’ I began, still not entirely sure what I should say, but he stilled me.

‘Hush,’ he sighed, his fingers stopping for a moment while he leaned in again and gently kissed the back of my neck, making me shiver.

Then he straightened and I felt the tug of his braiding on my hair again. ‘So strong,’ he said then, letting that amazement he’d spoken of, come into his voice. ‘You’ve been through so much… but you never let it break you.’ He’d reached the end of the braid, and he slipped it into my numb fingers, squeezing his hand around mine to make me hold it. He kissed my shoulder again, whispering next to my ear, ‘You are amazing.’

Then he left the room and left me alone.

Well damn. How does he always do that?

I knew it had been designed to help me get over the discomfort of the morning. Knew his words had been carefully weighed and thought through, but they were no less a comfort for all that. The mere notion that Heero might not be utterly appalled at my bawling like a babe, yet again, was something of a balm.

While I was thinking about it, I dug the bottle of tranquilizers out of the bag of bathroom paraphernalia and flushed the damn things away. Wasn’t taking a chance that Heero would try that stunt again, though I think he’d learned his lesson. I wasn’t a total shit, though; I left him his package of la-la land patches, just in case of an emergency.

Then I finished my brush and floss routine and ventured out into the other room.

Heero really did seem to be understanding my skittishness, and had refrained from dressing completely, until I had remedied my buck naked state. Nothing makes you feel quite as vulnerable as being the only unclothed person in a room

‘If you’re done with the bathroom things,’ he told me while I rummaged for clothes. ‘I’ll pack them up when I get done.’

I grunted an affirmative and he went on into the bathroom, letting me have a minute to get dressed. I hoped this uncomfortable feeling went away soon; I didn’t like this weird sensation of not feeling at home in my own skin.

I pretty much decided that morning, that if I ever got around to telling him about Solo and the kids… it was going to be a good long time in the future.

Our shuttle didn’t depart until mid-morning, so we had plenty of time to clean up and pack. Heero let me be for about a half an hour before he came and planted himself in front of me, wearing an odd little bemused smile. ‘You look sun burned,’ he observed wryly, and only escalated the state.

I ducked my head and blew out a breath, feeling my bangs stir. ‘I think it’s a permanent condition.’

He snorted and reached for me and I took the opportunity to hide my face against his shoulder. ‘You have nothing to be embarrassed about,’ he told me gently. ‘Especially not with me.’

I heaved another sigh, and felt him kiss the back of my head. ‘Oh yeah… hysterical weeping is just what every guy in the world wants to admit to.’

I could feel him smiling, don’t ask me how, but I could. But he said, tightening his hold, ‘If you had told me about… that night, without ‘weeping’, love, I’d be worried about you. Besides… if you can’t cry in front of your husband, who can you cry in front of?’

I had to lift my head to look at him so he could see the sardonic irony, and the raised eyebrow. He had the decency to duck his head and blush just a tiny bit, but had to give me a cheeky little grin anyway. ‘It’s an injustice,’ I muttered and won a laugh.

‘Forgive me?’ he whispered, all husky voiced.

I heaved a theatric sigh and told him, ‘of course.’

Then he gave me my good morning kiss, and by the time he drew away, things were feeling a little less uncomfortable.

With all the presents gone, our bigger suitcase was completely empty, so we simply packed the slightly smaller one in it, and only had the two bags to deal with.

I was concentrating entirely on the packing/check out thing, keeping my mind off that whole shuttle/launch thing, and didn’t immediately realize that Heero was heading us into ‘The Courtyard’ again until it was almost too late.

‘Uh, Heero,’ I stammered, hesitating just outside the doorway. ‘Do you think we could find somewhere else to eat breakfast?’

Heero stopped walking and looked back at me quizzically. ‘Are you telling me you’re going to let that man run you off?’

I gave him a half-hearted glare, but resumed walking because the conversation was obviously only going to turn into a scene if I tried to continue it. ‘Apparently not,’ I grumbled.

My favorite waiter was, indeed, on duty again, and took his own sweet time coming to show us to our table, despite the fact that the place wasn’t all that busy. And then he tried to give us the table right behind the kitchen door. I had to roll my eyes, and gave Heero an ‘I told you so’, look behind the guy’s back, but Heero apparently wasn’t in the mood for Mr. Rude this morning either.

‘I believe we’ll take that table over there,’ Heero said stonily and got an exasperated little sound out of the guy. Heero didn’t wait for any sort of acknowledgment though, simply leading the way to a better table and setting down the bag he was carrying. I settled the other bag beside it and took the seat opposite him. It wasn’t like seventy percent of the tables weren’t open anyway.

I thought the guy was going to rupture a blood vessel, and I was sure I could hear his teeth grinding, but he went off to fetch menus and the water pitcher.

When he came back, he didn’t bother to hand the menus out, simply put them down on the table, and barely managed to get the water poured without spilling it.

On a better day, I might have risen to the occasion and needled the guy just for the fucking hell of it, but I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with his brand of prejudiced stupidity on top of the rest of my week. And it wasn’t helping that I hadn’t wanted to come in here in the first place; it was misdirecting a bit of my irritation in Heero’s direction and that was the last damn thing I wanted.

When the guy stalked off, I picked up a menu with an almost unconscious sigh and tried to find something that I could identify. Mr. Anal-waiter wasn’t the only reason I hadn’t been all that thrilled with coming in the place. I’m kind of a meat and potatoes sort; I like knowing what I’m ordering before it finds its way to my plate and I’m stuck with it.

Heero didn’t seem to be having any trouble, folding his menu and laying it aside after only a minute or so. I fought the blush I felt attacking my cheeks and just gave up, folding my own menu and putting it on top of Heero’s. ‘Can you just order something for me?’ I mumbled and kept my eyes on the water glass in front of me, turning it and watching the condensation form.

There was a moment of quiet that made me glance up at him, and I felt a little better at the guilty look I found on his face. ‘You really didn’t want to eat here, did you?’ he asked. ‘Not just because of… that man?’

‘Well,’ I shrugged, going back to playing with my water glass. ‘Between him and the menu… I can’t say I’d ever recommend this place to any of my friends.’

Heero snorted softly, but tilted his head, looking at me intently. ‘We can leave, it’s not like we’ve ordered yet.’

I shook my head. ‘We’re here now… it would be a waste of time. Just pick me something fairly simple that doesn’t have kumquats in it, ok?’

He chuckled, but it was brief, and I saw him looking around. We’d been sitting here more than long enough to have had our order taken. Heero must have managed to make eye contact with the guy over my shoulder somewhere, because I saw him execute that dark glare of his and Anal-waiter showed up at the table a few minutes later.

‘What can I get for you?’ he asked, staring off somewhere over our heads, obviously pissed as hell.

And that was when I saw Heero reach the end of his patience. ‘What you can get for us is someone to wait on us with at least a modicum of courtesy,’ he snapped, voice as cold as ice but loud enough to carry. ‘Because I am quite done dealing with your attitude problem.’

It was kind of pleasant not to be the one turning fifty shades of red for a change. The guy went stiff as a board and turned to stalk off without another word.

‘Jeez,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Hope the guy doesn’t have a family history of heart trouble.’

Heero stifled a little snort and I couldn’t tell if it was amused or disdainful. ‘He seriously pissed me off,’ was all he said.

It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes before a waitress came from across the room, smiling broadly the whole way. I glanced around for Mr. Rude and didn’t see him.

‘What can I get for you gentlemen?’ she asked when she got to our table and I felt myself relaxing just a little bit for the first time since we’d walked through the doors.

‘Should we move to your section?’ I asked her, returning her smile, and got to watch it turn into a full-fledged grin.

‘That’s all right,’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘It irritates Stuart more to have me coming over here.’

‘In that case,’ I whispered back, ‘if you promise to keep him from poisoning our food, we’ll stay right here.’

She laughed in delight, but then got back down to business. ‘So, what would you boys like this morning?’

I couldn’t help the rueful little smile. ‘How about something in English?’

She grinned at me again and leaned a little closer. ‘What do you usually eat for breakfast, sweetie, and I’ll translate it into high-brow for you.’

I flashed her a full-fledged grin. ‘Something simple? Something with less than ten syllables? Like an omelet or pancakes?’

She winked at me and nodded. ‘Got it… don’t worry; I think I can find you something.’ Then she took Heero’s order and started to walk away, turning at the last minute to tell us, ‘And I promise to keep Stuart away from your food.’

I chuckled at the joke, only I hoped she wasn’t joking, and turned from her retreating back to find Heero looking at me bemusedly.

‘What?’ I asked, feeling odd about the look he was giving me.

‘I don’t know,’ he told me. ‘It was like… watching you wake up or something.’

I snorted and shook my head. ‘I guess I just don’t deal with bigotry very well, first thing in the morning.’

‘No one should have to deal with that,’ he said, his amusement fading back into irritation. ‘At any time of the day.’

‘Life ain’t fair,’ I quoted with a smirk. ‘I suppose you have to draw the asshole card every once in awhile.’

Which, perhaps, wasn’t the thing to have said, because it just started me thinking about Allison again; life being not fair and all that. Across the table from me, I heard Heero let out with an almost exasperated sigh.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, blinking at him in confusion.

‘Duo Maxwell,’ he told me blandly. ‘I can not keep up with you. What in the world is going on in that head of yours now?’

I quirked him a slightly self-deprecating smile and kind of shrugged. ‘Sorry. Maybe I’m just a manic-depressive at heart?’

He snorted, but only gave me a questioning look, letting me know he was still waiting for an answer.

So I told him, ‘It just made me think of Allison, is all. Unfairness to the extreme, I guess.’

His expression changed to one of understanding, and I know he would have reached for my hand if we’d been somewhere private. ‘It isn’t… horrible, love. It could have been much worse.’

‘I know,’ I sighed. ‘But that won’t make it any easier for her, growing up into a young lady with that scar on her face. Hell… it might even affect her chances at being adopted. People don’t always look past the physical.’

He gave me an odd look, somewhere between tender and scolding. ‘I thought you said scars don’t make a person ugly? Or were you lying to her?’

I bristled and glared across at him. ‘No, I was not. Not in my eyes, it doesn’t. She’s still Allison.’

‘As much as you’re still Duo,’ he said gently, and he did dare to reach out and brush his fingertips across the back of my hand, the gesture disguised by his picking up his water glass and taking a sip.

There was an almost angry retort on my tongue, but the waitress reappeared then with our breakfast and I bit it back. She settled a plate of eggs in front of me, scrambled with bits of sausage and cheese, with plain old ordinary toast on the side. My irritation was lost when she gave me a broad wink and I had to set it aside to grin widely and thank her profusely.

Heero got whatever he’d gotten the day before, along with the fruit thing that I’d ordered, only mandarin oranges seemed to be the ‘fruit of the day’ instead of kumquats.

He let the subject drop, probably afraid of spoiling my already iffy appetite, and I decided it was a topic I was not going to delve into, and let it drop too.

Stuart-anal made his reappearance somewhere in there, stalking past us as though we didn’t exist, delivering an order to a table not too far away. Francis popped up on the edge of the table to help me resist the urge to stick my tongue out at the man’s back. I glared at the little guy, but then he made up for stifling me, by scampering off to follow the waiter around the room, wearing a little matching tux and mimicking his every move. Had to bite back the laughter all on my own though, since Francis was busy.

Too bad the damn little things are invisible; they were working up quite the little vaudeville act. Bet I could make a fortune if I could just get them an agent. Put me in mind of that singing frog cartoon.

‘You have managed,’ Heero suddenly said, ‘to go from depressed, to pissed off, to amused, in the space of about thirty seconds. What in the hell are you thinking about?’

I swallowed my mouthful of eggs and looked him in the eye. ‘Allison, your smart-ass attitude, and dancing frogs. In that order.’

It took him a second to connect his part with the proper emotion, and he blushed, but then surprised me with, ‘Frogs?’

‘Yeah,’ I confirmed. ‘I was thinking about that old cartoon about the guy who finds the singing frog, only the frog won’t sing in front of anybody else.’

‘Michigan J. Frog,’ Heero supplied drolly and all I could do was blink at him.

‘I don’t believe you know that,’ I had to tell him, and got to watch Heero Yuy look smug.

‘I got tired of not understanding your damn references,’ he informed me, and pushed his bowl of fruit a little toward the middle of the table. ‘Orange?’

I just fucking gaped at him for a minute, stuck mid-way between incredulous and… oddly touched. ‘You researched cartoons for me?’ I finally managed.

My reaction seemed to please him and he smiled. ‘Yeah. I did.’

I ate the offered fruit, and my sharing from his plate seemed to please him even more, because his smile got warmer, making we want to lean across and kiss him. ‘God,’ I muttered. ‘I can not believe we’re having a… a frog and fruit moment here in the middle of this restaurant.’

He snickered, spearing another piece of orange, making an odd gesture with his fork that left me fearing for a moment that he intended to feed it to me, but then popping it into his own mouth.

‘You make it damn hard to stay mad at you,’ I grumbled, feeling like the whole place was watching us flirt with each other.

He gave me a weird little look, a bastard mix of crest-fallen and innocent, and asked me softly, ‘But why are you mad at me?’

I gave him a shake of the head and muttered, ‘I don’t fucking remember.’

He grinned then, completely destroying the hint of innocence, and simply said, ‘Good.’

We finished not long after that, and when Heero settled the bill, I thought our waitress was going to crack her face grinning at the hundred percent tip Heero gave her. I had little doubt that dear Stuart would be made aware of it as well. Revenge can come in many different forms.

But then it was time to gather our bags and make our way to the docks, and there wasn’t any amount of bantering that was going to keep that fact from entering my thoughts anymore.

And Stuart ‘The Rude’ Anal, was suddenly not even a blip on my radar of concerns. I think I’d forgotten his name by the time Heero had the cab hailed.

‘Think they’d let me just pilot the damn thing,’ I blurted when we were settled in the cab and on our way. ‘If I asked nice?’

Heero turned to me, giving me that sardonic raised eyebrow look, and I wandered off on a tangent for a moment, wondering why one raised eyebrow is sardonic, but two is more… incredulous. ‘What?’ he finally asked, bringing me back on topic.

‘It’s like riding the bus,’ I explained. ‘It’s all about control.’

He smiled. ‘Theory’s valid… but I seriously doubt that ‘I’m a control freak’ is going to get you behind the controls of a commercial shuttle.’

The line took me by surprise and I laughed, understanding that he appreciated this time, a little bit better, just what would help me get through this and what would not.

I wondered if he’d found the empty tranquilizer bottle yet, and just kind of hoped it wouldn’t become an issue.

‘Technically,’ I mused. ‘My license hasn’t expired yet. Maybe if you flashed your badge, we could convince them?’

He played my game with me, rolling his eyes and giving me his indulgent sighs. Helped me keep the little kid placated, helping me keep the brooding silences at bay. Verbally sparing with me and keeping my mind occupied.

That’s all it really takes. When you don’t think you can do something, you simply don’t think about it until it’s too late, and you have no choice but to deal with it. It’s the anticipation and the thinking that will kill you. It’s a very simple method for dealing with stressful situations. It has stages. One… denial. Two… teeth gritting. Three… uhm… I think that one’s the emotional collapse part. I’m still working on making it a two step process.

We got through the cab ride joking about pilots and licenses and the probability of my charming my way into the cockpit with autographs.

We got through the walk into the dock area with a conversation speculating on the possibility that Sally really would attempt to give us her killer cat for Christmas or the next convenient holiday.

Check-in was managed with a lengthy argument over who had carried the heavier bag the most, and why it was ludicrous to act like anemia was a condition that rated admission to the ICU.

Boarding just couldn’t be done with any bantering, I totally lost the thread of the conversation about whatever in the hell we’d been talking about, when we walked through that hatch. Heero managed to touch me three times without being obvious and whispered, ‘I’m right here,’ at least twice.

I managed to work up a small smirk in return, which seemed to surprise him.

I swear to God, nobody freakin’ goes to L2 for the holidays. When we settled ourselves in our seats and the flight attendant came around, I realized it was the same one that had been on the trip out; we had to be on the same damn shuttle.

She was delighted to see me, thanking me for the autograph again, and making me suspect that I might be signing more of them before the trip was over. Heero got a reminder to stow our bag before launch.

When she was finally gone, I found I had to take a deep breath and hang onto it for a second, concentrating on settling my heart rate just a little bit. I glanced at Heero and he was watching me with a strange little smile on his face.

‘You doing all right?’ he asked and I smiled in return.

‘Not too bad,’ I told him. ‘A little anxious, but over all… not all that bad.’

He looked a little shamefaced, dropping his eyes for a moment. ‘I’m very sorry about… the trip out. I should have backed off.’

‘Let it go, Heero,’ I said. ‘In the scale of things, I think you’re still way ahead of me. If anybody should be apologizing it’s me. I know I’ve been a hell of a handful the last couple of days.’

He dared reach out to brush his fingers over my cheek, smiling gently. ‘But you’re my handful.’

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at him, but somebody went walking down the aisle then, and he sat up straight again, sighing softly. I understood his frustration.

I dropped my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, taking stock. Heartbeat was up just a little and breathing rate needed to be adjusted again, I was starting to sweat just a bit too, and I knew before long I would be feeling chill. I worked the equivalent of a mental kata for the next few minutes until I lost that strange tight feeling in my throat.

I opened my eyes again to find Heero watching me intently, a strange look in his eyes. Approval? Something akin to it, at least. It made me flush and look away.

‘So you really did research on cartoons just in order to converse with me?’ I opened, and he met my thrust with a gentle parry.

‘I held out hope for a long time that you would pick up some culture from me,’ he informed me haughtily. ‘But your tastes seem to be too ingrained. Slap-stick is obviously more your style.’

‘Slap-stick?’ I asked in wide-eyed indignation. ‘There is nothing slap-stick about Pepe Le Pew! That cartoon has deep meanings about the perceptions of society and what is acceptable romantic behavior.’

I thought he would laugh out loud, but managed to contain it to a smirk. ‘Duo… it’s a show about a horny, near-sighted skunk. There’s nothing deep about it.’

‘Ah,’ I sighed sadly. ‘Like so many others before you, you just don’t get it. It’s a story of forbidden love. Star-crossed lovers, destined to forever hide their relationship. Hiding it in plain sight.’

He actually did snicker that time, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’

Come on, Heero,’ I pounced, ‘Think about it… how else could Penelope ‘accidentally’ end up with a stripe painted down her back every single episode!’

‘Penelope?’ he asked, looking skeptical. ‘The cat has a name? You mean… it’s the same stupid cat?’

‘That’s exactly my point!’ I crowed. ‘Same cat every time. How many places can you just find wet paint? White wet paint, no less. She’s doing it on purpose.’

I know I’ve said it before, but I will say it again… Heero Yuy will surprise the hell out of me right up until the day I die. I could not get my head around the fact that he’d looked this crap up just to be able to understand my one-liners. I would never in a million years have imagined I’d be having this conversation with him, under these or any other circumstances. Made me stop and wonder, for the millionth time, just what I’d done to deserve him.

‘It frightens me a little bit that you’ve thought about it this hard,’ he quipped, quirking me that little half grin of his.

‘A lot of hours out here with not a lot to do,’ I informed him, faltering for a second when I thought about the implications of that statement, but recovering quickly enough that Heero didn’t catch it. ‘You can only spend so much time running diagnostics before you go nuts.’

He reached out and took hold of my hand then, so maybe he did catch it, but said, ‘I suppose that explains the ‘Hell-Bound Beavers’ comics too?’

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed, leaping at the verbal offering. ‘Political satire at it’s best! Do not mock the Beavers unless you have read them! No one should be allowed to enter politics without having a subscription.’

I finally got the full fledged laugh out of him I’d been looking for, and grinned at him unrepentantly while he rolled his eyes. ‘Somehow I can’t see Relena reading a copy of a comic book, especially not that one.’

‘Perhaps that explains her problem?’ I suggested with a smirk. ‘Maybe if we…’

But I totally lost track of the conversation when the flirty flight attendant came on the loudspeaker to tell the passengers to put their seats up and strap down. I half expected her to warn us to keep our arms and legs inside the car until the ride was over.

Joy.

Heero tried; giving my hand a little squeeze and steering gently toward the track I’d been on. ‘You think Relena needs to read more comic books?’

I opened my mouth, waiting for the words to come dancing out and make sense, but I think I only managed to stammer something completely unintelligent about beavers. Or maybe it was hamsters. I’m not sure.

Heero raised our clasped hands and kissed the back of my mine. ‘It’s all right, love,’ he said softly and I nodded.

I had to abandon the verbal sparring in favor of the panic regulation for a couple of minutes, just not able to do both at once. The brain just doesn’t work all that well when you’re struggling not to pant like a marathon runner.

‘So,’ I blurted when I had the attention for it, snatching at the first random thought that surfaced. ‘Do you do this Christmas thing with the guys, or not? Because I’m just confused as hell on that point.’

Heero seemed unsure for a moment, if this was just more joking or if it was a serious question, but after a slight hesitation, he answered me bluntly. ‘I assume you mean exchanging gifts?’

I nodded, not able to articulate much else as I heard the engines flare to life.

‘We’ve never really done anything before,’ Heero told me, voice trying for soothing and calm. ‘But I think your being here is making them think about it.’

‘What?’ I managed, blinking over at him. ‘Why in the hell would I make any difference?’

He smiled affectionately and leaned just a bit closer to tell me, ‘There’s just something about you that makes people want to give you the world.’

I stared at him for a minute, not sure if he was serious or if he was just trying to shock me into forgetting about the sounds of a ship preparing to launch.

‘But…’ I stammered. ‘They can’t… we don’t have anything…’ I was having trouble concentrating past the sounds around me. The sounds that were telling me just what stage of launch we were in.

Obviously, launching from a station is a whole different animal than launching from planet side. You don’t have to struggle to defeat that thing called gravity. So, it isn’t as stressful, it isn’t as flashy, and isn’t heralded by all the smoke and fire and hoopla.

It’s evidenced more by a series of clangs and hisses and the rumble of engines.

So, for the average Joe-tourist, it’s nothing. Almost anti-climactic. For your average student of the fine-art of vacuum-phobia… it’s not so darn easy. Because hoopla or not… you’re still going out into that place that almost ate you alive. You’re still going out where it’s cold and dark and still as death. Going where the fates are terribly amused by that whole ‘pushing your luck’ thing, beckoning with their gnarled little hands for you to come and roll the dice just one more time.

‘We should have gotten a batch of those stupid ‘My Buddies went to L2 and all I got was this stupid shirt’ shirts,’ I exclaimed, happy to have strung two words together, but not so happy about the strange hitch in my voice. ‘Cause we don’t really have time to shop now.’

Then the ship was moving. There was the rumble of the engines and the vibration as the last of the seals fell away, all perfectly normal. And there was an extra sound that told me our pilot was probably still that newbie, as the ship ‘kissed’ the launch guide. It’s a sound that you hear through your bones more than your ears and made me flinch in sympathy. Any self-respecting pilot would be dying of embarrassment right now, as control razed the hell out of them. No pilot worth their salt does that more than once.

I grinned at Heero, knowing he’d recognize the sound as well as I did, and he gave me a rueful little smile in return. ‘Poor bastard,’ he whispered, and there was a strange moment of quiet remembrance.

‘You ever do that?’ I asked, just to keep that quiet at bay.

‘Nope,’ he said with a hint of smugness in his tone. ‘You?’

‘Not even the first time,’ I was able to report, and was kind of glad I could match him. But then I couldn’t quite keep my gaze from flicking toward the view port, and it was no longer dock I saw through there, but the open stars. Crappy launch not withstanding… we were away.

‘Duo?’ Heero questioned softly and I drug my head around to look his way. ‘Still with me?’

I smiled and heaved a sigh that was an effort to slow my breathing again. ‘Where else would I be?’ I teased, but he didn’t laugh at the lame little joke.

‘Sometimes,’ he told me. ‘It seems you’re a million miles away from me.’

I couldn’t help saying, ‘More like 353,535,000 kilometers. Give or take. Calculated from L2 since that’s the closest launch point.’ The pained look that came into his eyes made me instantly regret the words. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured.

‘Don’t apologize for telling me what you’re thinking,’ he scolded lightly. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.’

In the background, we heard the ‘all clear’ chime ring, and the level of conversation around the cabin rose as people began unbuckling. Heero let go of my hand and I missed the warmth of it before his fingers had completely left mine.

‘Come on,’ he told me gently. ‘Let’s get you to the cabin.’

‘Would you mind,’ I asked hesitantly, feeling my way through the idea, ‘if we went down to the lounge for a few minutes? I would absolutely kill for a cold soda.’

Heero’s expression was a study in ephemeral; running the gambit from shocked clear through to something that looked suspiciously like delight, in fifteen seconds flat.

It made me feel warm inside and kind of embarrassed all at the same time.

So we did just that. Leaving our bag in the overhead for the moment, we made the walk down to the lounge area, along with about half the rest of the shuttle’s meager passenger list. The lounge looked very much like your average up-scale trendy bar/lounge anywhere you’d want to go. Small little tables and chairs dotted around the room and a bar along one side. The major differences being that all the furniture was bolted down and nothing behind the bar wasn’t in some sort of lock-down. Oh, and the drinks are served in bulbs and not open glasses. Heero made motions when we first walked into the room of settling me at a table, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sitting there alone, so I went with him to the bar while he ordered our drinks and then we found our way to a table as far from the big view port as we could get. I didn’t argue the point when Heero sat us so that my back was to that port. It helped me not feel the press of vacuum quite so much if I didn’t have it staring me in the face.

I took a long swallow of my drink and sighed in appreciation, then launched immediately into the last topic I could remember talking about. ‘So, are you serious? Do you honestly think that the guys will have Christmas presents for us when we get home?’

Heero took a more moderate sip of his tea before replying, ‘I don’t know. None of them has said a word to me about anything… it just wouldn’t surprise me.’

I gave him a look that I thought expressed my feelings on that, but followed it up with, ‘That would make me feel like a complete ass, if we don’t have something to give them in return,’ just to make sure he got the point.

He smiled, seeming amused by my attitude. ‘You know it wouldn’t matter to any of them.’

‘It would matter to me,’ I grumbled and started really thinking about it. What in the hell would one buy for someone like Quatre Raberba Winner, for instance? The man had everything he could possibly need, and could afford to buy anything he wanted. How do you top that?

‘Well, there’s no saying that there’s anything to worry about,’ he soothed. ‘You were the one who thought about it… they haven’t said a word.’

‘I thought about it, because Sally threatened me,’ I informed him haughtily, but then grimaced. ‘Damn Heero… what in the world could I give to someone like Quatre?’

Heero did that thing he does where he makes me feel like he’s been waiting all day for me to deliver a particular line, just so he could pounce on it. ‘Art,’ he said simply and left me blinking at him. When I didn’t comment, he elaborated. ‘Duo… the sketch you did of Trowa is one of Quatre’s most prized possessions. He spent hours having it matted and framed just so, and the thing is hanging in a place of honor in their bedroom.’

I damn near choked on a mouthful of soda.

I think he would have said more, but there was a sudden boisterous laugh over near the bar, and we both turned that way to see what was going on. It was the pilot and what I took to be our co-pilot, though he looked awfully young, getting drinks and obviously being teased by the bartender over the launch. The Captain, an older man with an easy laugh and shoulders damn near as wide as I was tall, was clapping his second on the shoulder in a damn familiar way. The kid looked uncomfortable as hell, as half the people in the room were openly staring at the three of them, the bartender making jokes about ‘scratching the paint’ and the Captain laughing.

I saw the kid get an embarrassed little frown and mutter low, making sure his voice didn’t carry. I can read lips, have I ever mentioned that?

‘Cut it out, Dad.’

I turned and exchanged a look with Heero, knowing that he would have picked up on it too, if he’d been looking. The funny little smirk told me he had been.

‘Poor damn kid,’ I murmured, and Heero chuckled his agreement. Would have to suck to be in a position where you answered to your own father on the job. But then… I had to wonder about the kind of policy that let that sort of thing happen in the first place.

The Three Caballeros act broke up when the Captain wandered off to mingle with the passengers a little, and I watched his boy drop himself onto a stool at the bar with a roll of his eyes. The bartender seemed to be commiserating with him and I turned back to Heero, giving the poor kid some privacy. ‘You’d think that would be against company policy,’ I said, lowering my voice.

‘It is,’ Heero said, trying to sound affronted, but only managing amused. ‘I’d have to guess that our good Captain is bending the hell out of the rules.’

‘Have to wonder what his angle is?’ I pondered, thinking about it. ‘Just trying to help the kid log some ‘yoke time’, or what?’

Heero opened his mouth to reply, but then hesitated, getting on odd look in his eye. ‘Well… I suppose you can ask him. It looks like he’s headed this way, and I’d dare say you have another fan among the crew.’

I couldn’t help the heavy sigh. ‘Tell me you’re kidding?’ I pleaded, but he wasn’t, and it was suddenly too late.

‘Captain Maxwell?’ a new voice said and I had to cringe. Hadn’t been called that in a long damn time. Despite the fact that I just wanted to run off to the cabin and hide, I couldn’t ignore the weird-ass little thread of… hopefulness running through the kid’s voice.

‘It’s just Mr. Maxwell, now,’ I said, grinning up at him. ‘But yes, I’m Duo Maxwell… how can I help you?’

He grinned back, his cheeks tinted pink and I wasn’t sure if it was from his little ‘blunder’ or if he’d looked like that when he first got here. ‘Hi, I’m Spencer Gray, I’m the… co-pilot. Leslie, the flight attendant, told me you were onboard. I’m a big fan of your work in the expo. Yours and Mr. Brannigan’s. I think you guys are just great!’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered, totally wishing I could crawl under the table. And wishing the table were a bit bigger while I was at it. ‘I’ll pass that along to Hayden.’

His smile widened and I took another long swallow of soda, willing him to go away. ‘It’s probably pretty silly, but I was totally blown away the first year you entered the expo with that Cherokee routine you did and have been following you ever since. I was really glad to see you enter again this last year.’

I raised an eyebrow, surprised as hell. ‘You recognized the tribe?’

He flushed and ducked his head, his grin threatening to take over his face. ‘My family has some Cherokee blood back about ten generations. Hardly enough to count for anything, but it’s made it something of a hobby for me. I could tell you did some extensive research.’

I couldn’t help grinning back at him, as much for the look on his face as his praise. ‘I told Hayden attention to detail pays off in the end.’

The kid laughed a little more than the joke warranted, and he was looking at me with this starry-eyed regard that was making me squirm like crazy. I glanced across at Heero, but knew I’d get no help from that quarter; he’s always had this vague idea that this sort of encounter was ‘good for me’, or something equally lame.

‘I want to be able to enter the expo one of these days,’ Spencer was saying and I turned my attention back to him, feeling my fingers beginning to worry with my soda bulb. ‘That’s the only reason I’ve let my Dad push me into piloting,’ he ducked his head and looked kind of sheepish. ‘I suppose you noticed the launch? That was me.’

‘Well,’ I soothed, feeling like I had to say something. ‘Everybody has trouble on their first couple of launches.’

He sighed a little heavily and I caught him glancing around to see where his father was. ‘That was my fourth launch,’ he confessed and I flat just didn’t know what to say to that. The first thing that popped into my mind wasn’t very polite, so I left it unsaid. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to need me to interject anything at that point, continuing to impart to me more personal information than I’d ever wanted to know. ‘I don’t think piloting is going to be my… forte, but Dad has his heart set on me following in his footsteps. But I can’t complain if it gets me in the trade so I can compete, which is what I really want to do.’

Across from me, Heero got a strange look on his face, and leaned forward to briefly interrupt Spencer’s monologue. ‘I’ll be right back; I’m going to get another tea. You need anything?’

I frowned at him, but he didn’t take the hint, so I just shook my head and he slipped from his seat.

The kid hardly registered Heero’s words, continuing to focus on me to the point that I was starting to sweat and consider feigning another bout of food-poisoning. ‘I was wondering… Leslie said you signed her autograph book for her, would it be too much to ask if you might autograph a copy of my expo program?’

I could feel my face heating up and took another gulp of soda, trying to tame it, mumbling, ‘Sure, I don’t see why not.’

You would have thought I’d announced Christmas was coming twice a year now. It made me feel decidedly weird. ‘Oh! That would be great! I can’t thank you enough, I know you probably get hounded all the time for this kind of thing, but I’m such a big fan, it would mean the world to me!’

‘It’s not really been an issue before this last expo,’ I had to tell him, wishing he’d stop the gushing. ‘We didn’t get a lot of attention before we ended up on the cover of ‘The Rising Times’.’

‘You should have taken first place this year,’ he suddenly declared, looking decidedly unhappy about the fact that we hadn’t.

‘Well,’ I mumbled, trying to look past him to see what was keeping Heero, without actually appearing to. ‘We were lucky we placed at all. Deciding to enter was kind of a last minute decision.’

His eyes got this kind of weird-ass awed look all of a sudden, and I realized the crap I’d just stepped in. What in the hell had possessed me to bring that damn subject up? It occurred to me in that moment, that I should, perhaps, be paying more attention to the conversation. I meant to interject something else, in an attempt to steer him somewhere other than where it looked like we might be heading, but the sudden feel of wetness on my knuckles broke my concentration for that crucial second.

‘Everyone was so surprised to see you two sign-up in the final hour after that horrible accident,’ he said while I forced my hand to unclench from my soda bulb. I thought I would weep when he suddenly sat down in the other chair, the better to have this more intimate conversation. Over his shoulder I could see that Heero had been waylaid in conversation by the Captain, and I tried sending him a little mental SOS for all the good it did me.

‘The Brannigan’s losing their ship?’ I tried. ‘Yeah… that was pretty rough. The ‘Ragged Gypsy’ was a fine ship, and it was a real shame what happened to her. They used the prize money from the expo to finance a…’

I don’t think he was hearing me. While he might have purported himself to be a fan of our act, it was pretty damn obvious he was my fan, which was just freaking me out no end. He cut me off in mid sentence, not all that interested in Hayden’s trials and tribulations. ‘Oh no! I meant your accident! I was just sick when I heard on the news that you’d been stranded out there in the belt.’ He gave an exaggerated little shiver. ‘I thought it was wonderful how your friends mounted that rescue! I could hardly sleep at night that whole time thinking about how awful it must have been for you out there.’

An odd little noise came out of my throat and I covered it with a lame little cough, taking another swallow of what was left of my soda. ‘Yeah, well,’ I managed. ‘I guess you could say it wasn’t the best time I’ve ever had.’

He laughed out loud, face flushed red, and I thought for two damn seconds he was going to reach out and thump me on the shoulder or something. I think I must have looked horror struck, or else Heero finally got my little mental plea for help, because I saw him heading our way, and there was a somewhat steely look in his eyes.

‘…just don’t know how you survived,’ Spencer was saying. ‘It was so impressive how you bounced right back and made it to the expo…’ I was looking right past him, desperately making eye contact with Heero, begging for rescue and I swear, the kid wasn’t even aware of it. A hamster appeared on Heero’s shoulder, I think it was George, wearing a fencer’s mask and carrying a foil with a little sign dangling from it that read ‘Hi-Ho Silver!’ I really didn’t think Heero needed to be spurred on; he’d gotten close enough to hear Spencer and looked decidedly not happy with the young man.

‘Duo,’ he interrupted the steady flow of Spencer’s words without a second’s hesitation. ‘We need to be going.’

I blinked at him stupidly for half a heartbeat, expecting him to give some sort of explanation, but he didn’t even bother, so I turned a smile in the stunned looking co-pilot’s direction. ‘I’ll get that autograph later, man. Maybe I’ll catch you at dinner.’

‘Oh… ok,’ he stammered, and I couldn’t help feeling kind of bad for the kid at the same time that I was practically throwing myself to my feet.

‘Nice talking to you,’ I managed, as I followed Heero out of the lounge. I’d already decided I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time in there, our room might have been cramped, but it was looking damn attractive right about then.

‘Jesus,’ I hissed to Heero as soon as we were in the corridor. ‘I think I have a damn stalker! The kid knows more about my life than my therapist and dentist put together!’

The almost tigerish look I got at that statement made me realize I’d probably just guaranteed that one Mr. Spencer Gray would be getting his background so thoroughly checked it wasn’t even funny. I tried to feel bad about it, but I was still feeling kind of freaked out. I’d never had a ‘biggest fan’ before. I mean… I’m a mechanic. What do I need with a fan club?

We were alone in the corridor and Heero reached out to gently rest a hand in the small of my back, guiding me toward the main cabin where we’d left our over-night bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, voice low. ‘I wouldn’t have left you alone with him if I’d realized how… forward he was going to be.’

‘Forward?’ I muttered under my breath. ‘There’s an understatement for you.’

‘Are you all right?’ he had to ask and I snorted softly.

‘Yeah, I just could have lived without his… topic of conversation.’

The hand on my back rubbed soothingly up and down for a moment. ‘I think we can manage to avoid him the rest of the trip.’

I sighed, wishing it were so. ‘I did promise him a stupid autograph, and I don’t feel right backing out on that.’

Heero smiled at me and shook his head ruefully. ‘Well, I promise not to leave you alone with him next time, how’s that?’

We had reached the main cabin and I waited to answer until he’d fetched our bag down from the overhead compartment. ‘That would be… very welcome,’ I said carefully and Heero chuckled. ‘How did you know to come and rescue me, anyway?’

All the mirth left Heero’s face and he seemed to be studying me intently. ‘You suddenly looked kind of… pale. I thought at first you were maybe feeling sick. Until I got close enough to hear the conversation.’

I snorted, leading the way down the next corridor, heading for our room. ‘I don’t know that that qualified as a conversation.’

‘It was… a little one-sided,’ he opined and I grinned.

‘Well, he wasn’t much interested in anything I had to say about Hayden, that’s for sure,’ I chuckled, shaking my head. ‘That was… decidedly creepy.’

Then we were there and Heero swiped our pass card to let us into the room. It was probably a sad little commentary on my mental state how much of a relief it was when the door slid shut behind us.

Cabins on commercial shuttles are nothing to write home about. I’d been incarcerated in bigger cells during the war. They aren’t meant for anything except to give passengers someplace to sleep. A bed, a bench/table sort of thing and a lavatory that doesn’t even include a shower. I was aiming my body at the bed before the door was even shut, but before I could take a step, Heero had me by the hand and started to pull me into an embrace, but then stopped. ‘You’re all… sticky,’ he said, blinking down at my hand.

I had to laugh, slipping free to look at my fingers. ‘I managed to spill my soda,’ I told him, and it got me an oddly intense look. He knows as well as I do the only way you can ‘spill’ something out of a zero-g drink bulb. He didn’t say anything though, just waited while I went in the little bathroom to wash my hands. When I came out, he’d settled himself on the bed, sitting on the far side, propped up against the wall. I couldn’t help smiling and went to join him, sitting on the side of the bed and lying back to pillow my head in his lap. His hand was instantly there, brushing through those wisps of hair at my temples, stroking over my cheek.

‘Doing all right?’ he asked.

‘Not so bad,’ I told him and tried to make myself relax.

His hand settled in the center of my chest and I quirked him a grin, knowing what he was doing and trying to make it better, because I knew what he was feeling.

‘You’re…’ he began, brow furrowing.

‘Coping,’ I finished with a smile.

His expression did something odd then and his arm was suddenly under my back, raising me up to meet his kiss. It was a gentle thing, demanding nothing, speaking of love, not need. When he drew back, he held me where I was, all my weight supported by his strong, sure arm, and dusted little kisses over my face. ‘You’re being amazing again,’ he murmured, making me snort.

‘You’re being ridiculous again.’

His free hand came to settle on my chest… again. ‘I can feel that… your heart, beating inside you like some terrified bird trying to escape its cage,’ his words didn’t slow his rain of butterfly kisses, only accented them. ‘And I can feel the iron control you have over it, can see you holding it all together. Tell me that’s not something to be impressed with.’

I rolled my eyes and tried to glare at him, but he was too close to see, nibbling gently along my jaw line. ‘More poetic bullshit, Heero?’ I grumbled.

‘Not bullshit,’ he said around my earlobe. ‘Truth.’

I shoved at him with an exasperated explosion of breath. ‘God, you’re so… weird sometimes!’

He laughed, catching at me before I was even entirely free, rolling us over and trapping me underneath him. But then his laugh faded to a wicked grin and he leaned down to bite ever so gently at my nipple, right through the fabric of my t-shirt. I gasped and jerked and moaned all at the same time, finding my hands rushing to cover the offended flesh. I was panting just that damn fast, and my body would have curled into a defensive ball if I’d been able. I was entirely too damn high-strung for that kind of horse-play and ended up staring at him, wide-eyed and not all that sure how one went about saying something like ‘not tonight’.

But then he was off on another tangent, settling his chin on my hands where they were folding across my chest, and looking at me intently. ‘Duo-love… what is it about being out here that gets to you so much?’ I’m pretty sure I just gaped at him for a minute while I considered doing my spontaneous combustion trick. God, talk about a subject change. His expression gentled and he asked, very softly, ‘can you talk about it?’

It kind of rankled and is probably what made it possible for me to blurt, ‘Just the whole ‘pushing your luck’ thing?’

He didn’t get it, frowning slightly and I sighed, wishing my hands were free to rub over my face, but they were busy guarding sensitive body parts. ‘I can just feel it… pressing on the ship, trying to get in, the whole time we’re out here. Like… it knows I cheated it once, and wants a second chance.’

‘It?’ he questioned, frowning at me in apparent confusion.

I heaved a sigh, wanting my hands again real bad. ‘Space? Vacuum? The ghosts of the Londonderry? The God of suffocation? Fate? Nothing that makes coherent sense?’ I was starting to feel trapped there under him and he suddenly seemed to feel something of it; rolling off to lie beside me, head propped up on an elbow so he could look down at me.

‘Sometimes,’ I told him, trying to make it clearer and not really able. ‘I’m just not… entirely sure I’m not still there… and hallucinating all this. I dreamed so many things there…’

I shut up when the pain came into his eyes. He pulled me close to him and kissed me again, but there was no more teasing in it, and I dared let my hands drop away from their defensive posture.

‘So,’ he ventured, sounding hesitant as hell. ‘It isn’t zero gravity that… bothers you?’

I blinked, caught by surprise again. ‘Not… really, though I suppose it can compound… the other things. I kind of miss it sometimes, to be honest.’

He smiled warmly then, seeming pleased with my answer. ‘Would you… like to go spend a little time in free fall?’

‘What?’ I squeaked out, not at all sure what he was saying.

‘I talked to the Captain,’ he told me, a happy little smile dancing around his lips. ‘He’s a very indulgent father. He runs with the cargo hold pressurized, but with the gravity turned off so that Spencer can… practice. I have the Captain’s permission to borrow the room.’

I grinned at him. ‘You’re shitting me!’

That smile broke full force and Heero fished a pass card out of his pocket and waved it in front of my face. ‘I shit you not,’ he dead-panned and I laughed out loud at him.

Then I hesitated, frowning at a sudden thought. ‘We’re not going to run into Spencer down there, are we?’

Heero’s smile became more of a grin then. ‘I checked his schedule with his father, and we should have several hours before that becomes a possibility.’

‘Come on, then, Yuy!’ I grinned and scrambled up, pulling him with me. He seemed… very pleased.

I couldn’t help grinning as we made our way down into the bowels of the shuttle, anticipating one of the things I had missed the most despite all it had done to me during the long haul. I used to fly my ship in null gravity more often than not; under normal conditions it isn’t dangerous as long as you adhere to the recommended time limits and a standard exercise program. It’s not really suggested that you couple it with severe dehydration, hypothermia, and malnutrition though. Your body will take what it needs under severe stress, no matter where it has to get it.

Heero couldn’t seem to keep himself from reaching out and taking my hand, once we’d gotten into sections where it was highly unlikely we were going to run into anyone else.

When we got to the cargo bay doors, he pulled the borrowed swipe card out with a flourish, and I half expected him to bow.

‘What made you think to do this?’ I was moved to ask at the last minute and he gave me a crooked little smile, a little bit of melancholy behind it.

‘I guess I just wanted for some part of this trip to be pleasant for you,’ he told me and it made me feel horribly guilty.

He didn’t wait for the apology that was trying to form, but suddenly gave me a shove through the open doors.

There’s an almost electric tingle when you cross through a null-gravity field, a heat on your skin that isn’t hot. A shiver that raises the hair on your arms, but isn’t cold.

And then I was weightless. Like a million pounds had been lifted off my shoulders. All the normal little aches and pains the human body has just from existing, sort of go away. Stresses you don’t even know are there, because they’ve been there your entire life, just lift away. It was an intense feeling because it had been so long. I made a sound that even I couldn’t have cataloged and didn’t bother trying.

Heero’s push had committed me to a slow, drifting path through the center of the empty cargo bay, and there was nothing I could do to direct myself until I came up against something solid.

I heard a chuckle and saw Heero kick his way into the bay, moving much faster than I was and at a cross path. He came up against the wall to my right before I’d halfway finished my languorous flight, kicking off again and heading right for me. He caught me with an arm and we repelled off each other, me toward the left hand wall, and him toward the ceiling. I finally found purchase and gained control of my own trajectory, laughing at Heero’s look of faint disappointment.

‘You won’t catch me again, Yuy!’ I taunted and watched him come after me.

‘We’ll see,’ was all he said.

After that, when he did catch me, it was because I let him.

It was… glorious. It was freedom on a stick. I don’t understand why it doesn’t fill me with terror like so many other things that used to bring me joy, do now. The scales of justice trying to balance just a tiny bit? Perhaps, simply, that I had loved it too much to start with?

Or maybe my phobia quotient had been filled, so I got to keep this one small thing.

We started out in a strange game of tag, but it turned into something more, something almost… intimate. Something damned nice.

You do not swim in zero gravity. If you try, you will look like a loon flailing about in mid-air and getting nowhere. It’s all about momentum and velocity. People compare the feeling to being under water, but it isn’t the same, you don’t have that resistance. But all the same… I felt like we were two strange, exotic sea creatures in some sort of mating dance. Because that’s what we were doing… dancing. And it sure as hell had never felt like it felt then, when I was dancing with Hayden.

For awhile, I thought it was just me and the strange mood I’d been in the last few days, until Heero snagged me out of the air, anchored to a ceiling handhold and pulled our bodies so tight together there was no denying his arousal.

‘God,’ he growled next to my ear. ‘If zero-g sex wasn’t so damned difficult I’d strip you right here… right now…’

I threw back my head and laughed out loud, grabbing hold of his shoulders for the leverage and grinding us together. ‘They say it’s not impossible, if you can get a third party to help with the anchoring.’

He laughed in turn, trying to keep us together, but the bane of the gravity club came into play; every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and we lost the contact. It’s what makes the while sordid thing next to impossible. It’s what makes it so tantalizing.

There have been songs written about the possibilities.

He kissed me then, like he was trying to turn me wrong-side out, and when he pulled back there was some emotion in his eyes that was so strong it was almost frightening. I saw him want to say something, and then I saw him unsure if he should. I kissed the end of his nose and pushed off, not sure it was something I wanted to hear.

‘Bet we could have done great at the expo,’ I told him, just to get the subject changed before it ever got started. He snorted and came after me.

‘I’m not the type,’ he told me. ‘I wouldn’t like all that attention.’

I laughed as I evaded him, hitting the wall and snagging a handhold. ‘Come on,’ I prodded. ‘Let’s see if we can manage a pass.’

He came up short on the opposite wall and turned to look at me. ‘A pass?’

‘Yeah,’ I called across to him. ‘Like Hayden and I did. The trapeze pass I call it.’

‘Didn’t you tell me that one of you ended up with a broken nose trying to perfect that move?’ he asked, but I could see him adjusting his position.

‘We’re ex-Gundam pilots,’ I teased. ‘Surely we can manage a little zero-gravity trick like that.’

He just grinned at me and it was a little feral. I called the count and we launched. It was the cleanest damn maneuver I’ve ever managed; we passed so close I felt his fingertips graze along my body, from hip all the way to ankle. I shivered and laughed and almost forgot to turn at the wall.

‘Damn!’ I crowed as I turned to face him, clinging to the handhold so I didn’t go kiting off in another direction. ‘We could have been so good together!’

It seemed to please him a very great deal, and I was surprised as hell that he indulged me for the next damn hour, trying some of the moves I’d done with Hayden, even making a couple of them up on the spot. I’d have probably taken advantage of him for longer than that, but the inevitable finally happened and I got kicked. It was an absolutely nothing hit, but it upset Heero enough that he called a halt and came to check on me. He’d only caught me on the shoulder, and though I knew it would bruise later, there was nothing there to see at that point. I think it was my panting and sweating that made him quit as much as anything.

‘I think that’s enough love,’ he scolded.

‘Spoil sport,’ I grumbled good-naturedly, but let him lead me back toward the doors.

‘Hey,’ he grinned at me. ‘You don’t want to still be here when your fan club arrives, do you?’

I grimaced and shook my head. ‘You win… let’s get out of here.’

‘Thought you’d see it that way,’ he said.

He was every bit as sweaty as I was, and I chuckled ruefully as we touched down by the doors preparing to exit into the world of weight again. ‘You know… seeing as we don’t have a cabin with a shower, this might not have been the best idea we’ve ever had.’

He turned a look my way that was totally unrepentant, his grin fading to something gentler. ‘But it was more than worth it,’ he told me.

Then the doors slid open and it was back to the real world. I stifled a groan as gravity settled on our bones again, and had to resist the urge to turn around and go back in. ‘Think we could con the Captain into letting us sleep in there?’ I quipped and got a sharp look from Heero.

‘You used to sleep in zero-g?’ he asked, obviously surprised.

‘It takes some getting used to,’ I sighed in remembrance. ‘But once you get the hang of it, it’s the best sleep you can have. No pressure points, nothing binds. You don’t wake up with body parts asleep. I miss it sometimes.’

He looked at me kind of oddly, something obviously on his mind, but then seemed to think better of saying anything. It made me think about the somewhat evident comparison to my stay aboard the Londonderry and I had to blink. ‘Oh,’ I mumbled. ‘I… suppose you’re right. That would probably bring on some kick-ass nightmares, wouldn’t it?’

There was the ghost of a sigh and I saw the faint disappointment shadowing his eyes, so I flashed him a grin and tried to recover the mood. ‘So… ever tried to take a bath in a sink the size of an ice-bucket?’

‘Not in a lot of years,’ he returned, working with me on that whole mood thing. ‘At least we should have hot water in that ice bucket… instead of melted snow.’

‘You’re more hygienically minded,’ I told him, shivering theatrically. ‘I’m afraid I’d have forgone the bath.’

I managed, in that way, to not let my dark thoughts spoil the afternoon for him. It had been a wonderful gift on his part and I was eternally grateful. Not only had he given me something that I had been missing a great deal, but he had helped me, if only for a few hours, forget where I was. Had let me stop existing on the edge of panic.

I didn’t want to taint the gift with more of my anxiety.

We cleaned up as best we could and changed into fresh clothes before deciding that there was no way around braving the lounge for dinner, unless we just weren’t going to eat. Which he wasn’t likely to let me do, despite the fact that I might have considered it on my own. Though I suppose there was still that promise to Spencer hanging over my head, and had I tried to blow that off, guilt beast would likely have nailed me anyway, so what was the point?

Like I said… no real way around braving the lounge for dinner.

As hard as I tried to maintain my state of almost-forgetfulness, it just couldn’t be done once we were out of the bay and I didn’t have the distraction of the physical activity anymore. Though I did my God damnedest to keep enough of a lid on my unease that Heero wouldn’t notice. Stop laughing; I tried, ok? Isn’t that what counts? And dealing with Mr. Super-sensitive was hardly what I call fair. He was on such fine tuning, I’m pretty sure he could have given you my temperature, pulse and blood-pressure at any given moment.

We had not even made it through the doorway into the lounge before Spencer was descending on us. Or should I say, descending on me. I managed, with Francis’ help, not to sigh heavily. George, however, seemed to have taken a severe dislike to Spencer and was sitting on Heero’s shoulder with a banner unfurled that read ‘Sick ‘em!’ in bold purple letters.

I had a damn surreal moment, watching Heero get this incredible attack-dog expression on his face, wondering if he could somehow see the hamsters, but decided that he just didn’t like Spencer any more than George did.

‘Captain Maxwell!’ Spencer called out as he walked toward us, beaming his ass off and holding a book in his arms like it was something precious. ‘I was afraid I was going to miss you!’

‘Uh… Hi, Spencer,’ I mumbled, wishing the kid would lower his voice; people were staring. ‘And really… you can call me Duo. Everybody does.’ He could call me Helio, if it would make him stop with that ‘Captain’ crap.

The comment made his smile spread even wider, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible. ‘Duo, then,’ he said, having to try it on for size. ‘I brought my copy of the expo souvenir book; you promised you’d autograph it?’

‘Sure thing,’ I told him, finding my voice lowering in an effort to temp him into following suit. Then he handed me the book, opened to a certain page, and I realized that he wasn’t talking this last expo.

Quite despite himself, Heero leaned in to look at the page I was preparing to scrawl my name on. I suppose it wasn’t as bad as the Gladiator thing, but still; I felt kind of stupid looking at the pictures of Hayden and myself all decked out in leather and feathers, beads and war-paint. I blushed furiously the entire time I signed the thing. On a weird impulse, remembering what I’d done for the flight attendant, I blocked in a quick sketch of a feather under my name and handed the book back to Spencer. I could tell from the look on his face that he’d been hoping for something along those lines. I would not have thought a human being could grin that wide and not tear something.

‘Oh thank you, Captain… Duo!’ he gushed, practically clutching the book to his chest. ‘I can’t tell you what this means to me! I’ll bet I’m one of your oldest fans!’ And as if I weren’t uncomfortable enough, things took a decidedly weird turn as the kid reached out and took hold of my arm. ‘You have to come and sit at the Captain’s table! I’m afraid the Captain isn’t eating right now, but it’s a place of honor and…’

He babbled more, as he tried to draw me across the room, but I didn’t really hear it as I realized we were heading for the big table right next to the floor to ceiling view port. I made a strangled little noise but managed to keep the ‘oh shit!’ behind my teeth. But then a very cold, very firm voice said, ‘Thank you, Spencer, but we’ll be fine over there.’

Even Spencer the magpie had sense enough to listen to that voice, his running monologue taking a hitch as he stuttered and turned to look at us, wide-eyed. It made me feel kind of bad. It also made me worry a little bit, that he’d figure it out and we’d end up talking about the damn accident again. So I tried on a little grin. ‘Favorite table,’ I told him with a self-deprecating shrug, following where Heero was leading me. ‘It’s a spacer luck thing.’

He gave out with a surprised little, ‘Oh!’ and then damned if he didn’t follow us. I got confirmation that Heero really didn’t see hamsters though, because he was completely not able to repress the heavy sigh. I seriously thought Heero was going to jump the kid’s shit when he sat down with us, and he probably would have if the first thing out of Spencer’s mouth hadn’t been, ‘I can’t stay long.’

I gave Heero a little smile that begged his indulgence and said to Spencer, ‘Why’s that?’ in a tone that I hoped sounded at least slightly interested.

He leaned across the table and finally lowered his voice. I had begun to think he didn’t know how. ‘Don’t say anything… but it’s my watch.’

I couldn’t help frowning at him. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why do you need to keep that a secret?’

He actually turned completely around and scanned the room, and I could only imagine he was looking for his father. Then he leaned even closer to me and almost whispered. ‘I’m not really part of the crew, but Dad’s co-pilot lets me take his night shift for him, for the experience.’ He couldn’t help another glance over his shoulder and it was no damn wonder; that confession could cost his father more than just his job.

‘You’re not…’ I began in consternation, and got thoroughly shushed.

‘Please don’t say anything,’ he told me, seeming totally confident that he could trust me. ‘We’ve been doing it for a couple of months. Dad says all the flight time will help me pass the tests and get into school.’

I thought my open-mouthed expression would upset him, but I was able to get my face schooled a little bit while he looked sharply at Heero, who had a sudden coughing fit.

‘Well,’ Spencer said then. ‘I have to get going. Thanks again for the autograph Capta…. Duo.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I managed to tell him and then he was gone.

I met Heero’s eyes and couldn’t decide which of the two of us was the more pole-axed looking. ‘You know I have to report this, don’t you?’ he told me and I sighed quite despite myself.

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I really hate to do it… but if you don’t; I will. There’s bending the rules, and then there’s fucking them sideways.’

Heero snorted softly, shaking his head in what I took to be total disbelief. ‘The Captain didn’t sound like an idiot, when I spoke with him this morning. I can’t believe he’d jeopardize his job like this.’

I rubbed a hand over my face, thinking about it. ‘I feel like such a heel… but God, Heero; the kid isn’t even a licensed pilot?’

I think he would have said more, but the lounge attendant came then to ask us if we wanted the chicken or the beef, and by the time she’d left again, the subject had somehow become uncomfortable. I guess I just didn’t much like the idea of ratting out my ‘biggest fan’, at the same time that I was somewhat scandalized by the whole arrangement. I was mildly reminded of my own slightly unorthodox pilot training and the fact that I hadn’t had a license until I’d bought my own ship, but then… I wasn’t still ‘kissing’ the launch spars on my fourth launch either. It crossed my mind that I kind of wished the kid hadn’t been so damn stupid that he’d confessed this to what amounted to a total stranger. Stupid? Or trusting? But didn’t trusting a stranger amount to stupid? Damn the kid.

I blinked the lounge back into focus when a bottle of water was set on the table in front of me and was chagrined to find Heero staring at me with a look on his face that I could only describe as… upset. When the attendant walked away, he picked up his own bottle of water, but just held it, looking at it instead of me and quietly said, ‘If you want me to let this go… I will.’

‘What?’ I choked out, and couldn’t help the gap-mouthed thing I did for a minute. I got to watch him blush to the roots of his hair. I couldn’t get my head around what he’d just offered me. Had Heero Yuy… Heero ‘Mr. CodeOfEthics’ Yuy just offered to ignore such a blatant illegal activity, for my sake? Just like that? Just because I’d mentally wandered off and gotten introspective about reporting it? I couldn’t decide if I should be furious or giddy.

‘You asshole,’ I finally whispered, and when he looked up at me, I grinned and said, ‘I love the hell out of you for that… but don’t you ever, you understand me? Not for something as stupid as the fact that I feel bad for the kid.’

The relieved little smile he gave me then, told me just how much it would have torn him up to have followed through with the promise. He ducked his head again. ‘I’m sorry. I just…’

‘I know,’ I interrupted, and took a sip of my water. ‘But like I said… if you don’t; I will. We can’t just ignore this.’

He nodded and then our dinner arrived, breaking the conversation again. It was typical shuttle fair, I swear to God, I don’t know why they don’t just serve TV dinners; they’d have to taste better. But it was food and we ate it, not lingering over it. I was pretty sure that Spencer would be tied up for quite a while, sitting in the cockpit working cross-word puzzles or whatever he did during his turn on watch, but I didn’t want to chance his coming back. Anymore than I wanted to chance running into the Captain. So we ate quickly in unspoken agreement, and headed back to the cabin. It wasn’t really all that late, but I felt tired enough that I thought I could sleep, if I could manage to relax enough to doze off in the first place.

At least the whole stupid Spencer the not-quite-pilot thing had served to dampen the earlier somewhat romantic mood. I was not at all sure that attempting any sort of… intimate activity out here aboard a shuttle was a great idea, but if Heero had shown any serious interest I don’t think I could have said no. Not after that horse-play in the cargo bay. It would have been too much like blatant cock-teasing.

I was more than a little relieved when we simply stripped to our underwear and climbed into bed together. Though I won’t deny the thought was there in the back of my mind, I just honestly felt too vulnerable to relax enough to enjoy it. Hell… I didn’t think I could relax enough to manage it.

Heero pulled me down to rest against his shoulder, telling me that he wasn’t quite ready for sleep. Our typical sleep position is him spooned at my back, but when he wants to talk, he prefers me facing him.

I was a little nervous about what was on his mind until he told me, ‘This afternoon was… nice.’

I smiled to myself, both pleased and relieved. ‘It was very nice,’ I confirmed. ‘I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you for thinking of it.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, hesitating just a moment before having to tell me, ‘I wish I could have the out-trip to do over. I feel so bad for the mistakes I made.’

‘I thought we decided to forget about that?’ I scolded.

‘I just wanted to apologize,’ he sighed and gave me a little squeeze with the arm that was around me.

‘Again?’ I teased, but then relented. ‘Heero; I understand what you meant to do. I understand that you only wanted to make things easier for me to deal with. I don’t blame you for how it ended up… we both made mistakes, but it’s done and over with. I’d rather forget about it.’

His fingers stroked up and down my arm and he said, ‘Doing that denial thing again?’ voice sounding almost amused.

‘Been talking to Trowa?’ I accused, poking at his ribs.

‘Like I have to talk to Trowa to know that’s how you deal with things,’ he snorted, sounding almost offended, but then his tone turned serious. ‘I just can’t believe how… calm you’re being,’ he told me and there was this strange quality to his voice that I had trouble identifying. ‘I saw on the way out here just what’s in your heart… what’s eating at you, and it amazes me how you’re handling it now. I just…’

I never did get to hear the end of that thought. I suppose he was just going to apologize again, or tell me something he thought I needed to hear even though I’d rather not. I don’t really know.

We all know that there is no sound in space. Sound requires air, or something damn like it, to travel. So, total vacuum equals no sound. There is, however, air inside a space ship. Sound travels quite nicely inside a ship. There is a veritable smorgasbord of sounds within a ship when it is ‘live’.

These sounds speak to anyone who has piloted a ship for more than a couple weeks. You hear them without even hearing them. They tell you things as easily as a heart monitor tells a doctor things about his patient. And they tell you when things are going wrong.

There was a vibration that was the unmistakable result of some kind of impact. Then there was a subtle change in the pulse of the shuttle. I was dragging Heero out of bed before my brain had completely finished registering the first stirrings of ‘wrong’.

‘A hit?’ Heero was asking me, a pilot as much as I, but a lot of years removed.

‘Yeah,’ I confirmed, appalled at how unsteady my voice was. ‘Sounds like.’ Our hands were scrabbling after discarded jeans even while we strained to hear more.

‘Nothing much,’ Heero soothed and I nodded sharply, not really trusting my voice.

I detected the difference in the feel of things even as I was jerking my pants over my hips. ‘A vane, I think,’ I told him.

Heero was just snapping and zipping when a chime began to sound. ‘What’s that tone?’ Heero asked, not being familiar with the codes.

‘It was a vane,’ I confirmed, eyes not seeing anything as I focused all my attention on what I could hear. I was vaguely aware that Heero had hold of me by the upper arms. ‘It’s no big deal this far out…’ But even as I was saying it, I felt the wrongness of the responses. Could feel that the pilot wasn’t following standard procedures, I frowned, not hearing the things I should be hearing and then it came to me.

‘Oh shit,’ I blurted, staring at Heero. ‘Spencer’s at the helm… he doesn’t know…’

We bolted for the door at the same moment.

You can not slam on the brakes on a shuttle, as nice as that prospect would be. But you do have to be able to arrest it’s momentum at certain times. If you take an object and flick it off into the wild blue yonder, the theory is that it will go forever or until it gets sucked into some gravity well. With a small ship, you simply use the maneuvering jets. But with a big ship, that equates to a hell of a lot of extra fuel and a hell of a cut out of the profits. So the bigger shuttles have deceleration vanes used to dump velocity.

When one of these is damaged in-flight, it’s a simple matter to isolate the vane, override the circuit, and remove it from the grid. But you can ‘hear’ when those procedures are being followed and I could tell they weren’t. The mere fact that Spencer had not cut off the ship-wide alarm told me that the kid didn’t have a clue what he should be doing and was panicking. If the vane was damaged badly enough, and it wasn’t isolated, it could overload the entire grid and then we’d be screwed; if you can not dump your velocity, your ship is pretty well doomed to visit the outer fringes of the galaxy, because you just aren’t going to get it stopped.

We were halfway through the main cabin, slowed by having to dodge distraught, confused passengers milling around the corridor, when I felt Spencer making his big mistake.

‘Spencer!’ I shouted, but figured I was probably too far away to be heard. ‘Don’t!’

The kid tried to hit the brake.

Guess he figured, if in doubt… stop. Or at least slow down. He activated the deceleration grid and I heard the ship protest. Felt that damaged piece of the whole fail completely.

The flight attendant wasn’t the one who knew me, and might have tried to stop our mad dash into the cockpit, but she looked as scared as I felt and seemed inclined to let anybody by who looked like they thought they knew what they were doing.

I have no idea what it did to Spencer’s status as ‘my biggest fan’ when I grabbed his ass and bodily removed him from the pilot’s seat, practically throwing him into Heero’s waiting arms. I trusted my partner to keep the kid the hell out of my way.

Shuttle controls do not vary overly much. The big ships just have a lot more in the way of bells, whistles and fancy gages. It was a matter of only a few minutes to abort the hair-brained maneuver our arrant ‘pilot’ had attempted, but it was far too late to stop the damage, though I think I kept the whole damn grid from fusing to the hull.

Behind me, I was aware of raised voices, but had more important things to worry about. I let Heero handle it, keeping an ear tuned to his voice for any hint that he might need me, and let the rest of it wash by.

I was pulling up status reports and telemetry as fast as my fingers could type, scanning screens full of data, looking for telltale red flags and cross-referencing them to the ships schematics. Trying to figure out just how screwed we were.

The idea of overshooting Earth and kiting off into uncharted territory was speaking to me in ways I wasn’t all that thrilled to be listening to.

I was vaguely aware that our good Captain was in the cockpit, and he was not a happy man. Spencer was scared shitless and there was another presence, I assumed it was the ‘real’ co-pilot, but couldn’t be sure. The conversation broke through my concentration when I heard Heero growl darkly, ‘Touch him and I will break your fucking arm.’

My guess that he was talking to the Captain was confirmed when the man snapped, ‘I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I’m the Captain aboard this ship and…’

Spencer broke in then, and I could almost picture him wringing his hands. ‘Dad! Please! Captain Maxwell is trying to help… I think I did something wrong…’

‘Shut up Spencer!’ The Captain barked and I could feel the kid cringing.

Then I became aware of someone climbing into the other chair and I glanced across to see a man sitting there who looked like he’d just seen his career go down the tubes. I’m pretty sure my guess about him being the co-pilot was right.

I quirked the guy a sympathetic half-grin and hit the by-pass that let the co-pilot’s screens mirror the ones at the pilot’s station. Without speaking, I high-lighted the logs that clearly showed what had just happened, and watched the poor guy rub a hand over his face. ‘Shit,’ he muttered almost to himself and gave out with a resigned little sigh.

‘I want the two of you the hell out of my cockpit right now,’ Captain Gray was demanding and seemed to be trying to intimidate Heero into giving ground. I almost laughed.

But then the co-pilot surprised me by turning around and saying, ‘Drop it, Yancy. The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no putting it back now. You owe this man your whole damn deceleration network. We were about five seconds away from a complete system failure.’

‘Shit,’ was the best the Captain could manage. I wasn’t sure if it was over the vane thing or the cat thing. Then he rounded on Spencer.

‘Just what the hell did you do?’ he snapped, his anger looking for a new target.

‘I… I tried to slow us down,’ the kid stammered, and I could see, now that I was turned around, that he was indeed wringing his hands.

‘Spencer!’ Gray bellowed. ‘Are you out of your mind? That’s the last thing you do when you lose a vane! What in the hell were you thinking?’

‘Perhaps,’ Heero suddenly said, voice that icy one that even made me want to shiver, ‘that is why there are regulations against unlicensed personnel sitting watch unattended?’

And damned if that little comment didn’t just leave everybody with nothing much to say.

Into that silence, I decided to insert myself; the disaster had been aborted and this was, after all, not my ship. I climbed out of the pilot’s seat and moved to flank Heero, relinquishing the chair to the ship’s rightful Captain. ‘You lost the number three vane,’ I told the man calmly. ‘But the rest is intact. And you really need to make an announcement to your passengers before somebody has a heart attack.’

Gray looked stricken, maybe realizing how close he’d just come ship-wise. Maybe realizing that he’d done more than that career-wise. Then he blew out a breath and turned to take his station, suddenly seeming to realize that he had a job to do no matter how he’d arrived where he was. It actually made me feel better about leaving things in his hands. I’d begun to think the guy was a total screw-off.

I had a moment’s unease for Spencer’s sake, his father seemed to have a damn volatile temper, but the kid didn’t seem to fear staying in the cockpit with the man, so Heero and I faded towards the door. Behind us, I finally heard Gray and his co-pilot starting to get their heads out of their respective asses.

‘…call up the power level report and…’

‘…course and heading…’

‘…he isolated the number three…’

‘…damn fast work…’

I found Heero’s hand resting on my back and he guided me the hell out of there. The last thing I heard from the cockpit was the Captain telling Spencer to call for the flight attendant. We passed her right outside the door and she gave us a breathless ‘thank you’ as we went by.

I’m pretty sure every passenger onboard was standing around in the main cabin, looking nervous and staring at us as we started to walk through on our way back to our cabin. I was suddenly very damn aware of the fact that neither of us was wearing anything but pairs of jeans.

Something of Heero’s Preventors instincts seemed to kick in and he paused long enough to tell the room at large, ‘The shuttle is in no immediate danger. There was a minor mishap that has been dealt with. The Captain will be making an announcement momentarily.’ That set the room to buzzing, but there seemed to be a lessoning in the tension levels at least. Heero nudged me into motion again and we retreated to our room as fast as we could manage without running.

Heero’s hand never left my back the whole way, and the instant the cabin door slid shut behind us, I was in his arms. It was a mutual thing.

‘Are you all right?’ he needed to know and I gave him a shaky chuckle.

‘Be better if we could finish getting dressed… I’m freezing to death.’

So we dressed and I found I needed my sweatshirt over the t-shirt I started with, and it still didn’t quite quell the shivers. ‘Damn that was close,’ I said after we were sitting side by side on the bed and Heero pulled me in close against him.

‘Your reaction time is still… damned impressive,’ he told me, smiling gently and kissing the side of my head.

I snorted, letting my own arms wrap around his waist. ‘I couldn’t say; those first couple of minutes are kind of a blur.’

We just sat like that for a minute and then I had to sigh. ‘Well, at least we don’t have to feel guilty over turning Captain Gray in, anymore. It’s kind of a moot point; no hiding this mess.’

He sighed softly, but had no real answer to that. Neither Captain Gray, his co-pilot, nor Spencer were ever likely to see the pilot’s chair again after this trip. Out of all of them, I wasn’t sure which one to feel the sorriest for; naïve Spencer who had only wanted to dance, Gray who had only wanted to give his son an edge of experience, or the poor nameless co-pilot, who had only been doing his Captain a favor.

Or maybe the damn passengers who were nothing more than innocent bystanders.

Of which I was one.

Maybe I’d just feel sorry for myself and leave the rest of them to their own devices.

‘Do you fucking believe this?’ I found myself asking Heero, a little surprised at the strained sound of my own voice. ‘Do you think I’ve got some kind of curse on my head or something? This can not be happening.’

He turned more fully toward me, the better to shelter me in his arms. ‘It’s all right. It’s a simple repair; the shuttle’s mechanics should have everything in order before long at all. Spencer was the weak link and he’s been removed completely.’

‘I know,’ I grumbled. ‘But come on… what are the fucking odds? I’m started to feel a little persecuted here.’

He laughed gently, but mostly because I wanted him to. ‘Maybe we should just try to go back to bed?’

I snorted mirthlessly. ‘No way in hell can I go to sleep now.’

He didn’t look all that surprised, but he didn’t look all that happy either. ‘Duo…’ he began but I cut him off.

‘I’m sorry, Heero… maybe once the repairs are done, but that was too much of an adrenaline rush and too damn close to… to things I’d rather not be thinking about.’ My voice kind of cracked on that last and he let go of me long enough to climb across and straddle my lap, wrapping his arms around my shoulders to bring me in against his chest. Gave me the calm, steady sound of his heart and the warmth of his body next to mine.

‘I’m here,’ he told me and I would have been irritated if the bubble of anxiety in my stomach hadn’t been in the process of exploding. As it was, I just put my arms around his waist and shivered hard while my head told the rest of my body what Spencer had just almost done to us, and the whole of me had one of those ‘oh shit’ moments.

Heero just held me while I remembered how to breathe.

‘You know,’ he whispered against the top of my head, when I’d stopped clutching at him so much. ‘I think I’m going to need some kind of keyword to let me know when you’ve had enough. You’ve been too damn good at covering up.’

I drew back and looked up at him, a little taken aback, thinking he was mocking me, but the look on his face was genuine. I realized this had taken him a little bit by surprise. It kind of made me feel good at the same time that it made me nervous. While I was delighted to think that I might have spent part of the day not looking like a raving loon, enough so that Heero had let his guard down a little, it also made me fearful that I might reach for his support and not find it. I was a little appalled at how fast I had come to count on his being there.

‘How about Holy fuck?’ I teased, pleasantly surprised to find my voice almost steady. Almost.

He snorted a little sigh and pulled me close again. ‘Got it,’ he murmured.

‘Do you think,’ I ventured after a minute or three of just being where I was. ‘That we could go back out to the cabin? I really think I’d feel better if I knew what the hell was going on. This is too… isolated.’

He readily agreed, and I had to suspect that he would much rather have stayed where ‘the action was’ himself. Had only come back to the cabin because he felt I needed some privacy. Well, and the clothes thing. But maybe he hadn’t been so taken by surprise by my moment of panic after all. He slipped off my lap and reached for my hand to draw me to my feet.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ he had to ask me and I repressed the urge to blow him a raspberry.

‘Yes, mother-hen,’ I grinned at him. ‘I am fine now. Anxiety attack all done.’

He caught me by the arm as I started to open the door and gave me a look as serious as a funeral. ‘Duo… I need you to be straight with me about how you’re feeling. I was only half joking about the code word; I need to know when you’re getting overwhelmed. I need for you to stop trying so hard to be fine.’

I flushed and looked away. ‘Heero… I don’t know what to tell you. Yes, I’m a little freaked out… but I’m coping, ok? That’s the best I can do.’

‘I’m with you,’ he told me, voice intense and hand tightening on my arm. Trying to impart to me all the reassurances he had to offer.

I leaned in and gently kissed his cheek. ‘And that’s part of the problem, love. As scary as it is to think about being… stranded out here; it’s even worse thinking about you being stranded out here.’

He didn’t have a clue how to answer that, so we just left the cabin.

I don’t know what Captain Gray had chosen to tell his passengers, but it seemed to have gotten mixed reactions, because while some of them had been reassured enough that they’d gone back to their cabins, the ones who had stayed seemed agitated.

The flirty flight attendant had joined the one who was on-duty and they were answering questions and attempting to keep people calm. I struggled for a minute, recalling that Spencer had told me her name and finally dredged it up; Leslie.

When she saw us, she smiled brightly and came straight away to greet me; I thought for a minute she was going to grab my damn arm. I didn’t register that I was retreating from her until I bumped into Heero.

‘Oh, Mr. Maxwell,’ she gushed. ‘You saved us all!’

I repressed a groan and tried to make more of an effort to hold my ground. ‘Uh, really Leslie… I didn’t do anything the Captain wouldn’t have done the minute he got there.’

Using her name was apparently a mistake because she blushed and giggled and actually did reach out to touch my arm, though she didn’t grab it, thank God. ‘But he would have been too late, Spencer said so.’

‘I don’t know about that…’ I began, but she wasn’t hearing me.

‘Spencer said you were there so fast he thought you flew!’ she was beaming at me and I jumped on the only thing I could think of to interrupt the flow of words that weren’t giving me any of the information I was looking for.

‘Is Spencer around?’

‘Oh yes!’ she was happy to report. ‘He’s in the cockpit with the Captain. I’ll tell him you came back.’

‘That would be… very kind,’ I managed and the woman finally let go of my arm and went away. I remembered to breathe again, and behind me Heero chuckled.

‘I think we need wedding rings,’ he whispered near my ear. ‘I’m getting a little tired of other people fawning all over my husband.’

I couldn’t help the sudden nervous laugh, but stifled it quickly when it made everyone left in the room turn to look at me.

‘If it’ll make them leave me alone,’ I whispered back. ‘I’m there.’

Then Spencer was coming out of the cockpit, and I was thankful as all hell that Leslie ended up rejoining the other flight attendant and didn’t come over with him.

The kid, at least, was a little more subdued than he had been so far this trip, but then I imagine he was having to do some heavy thinking about his next career choice. I wondered if he’d figured out that his father might well be up on charges when this was all over.

‘Duo,’ he greeted me, giving me a ragged little smile. ‘Leslie said you were looking for me?’

‘Just wondering how things were going,’ I told him. ‘Have your mechanics started repairs yet? How do things look?’

He sighed and his fingers found his class ring in a nervous gesture I’d not seen him use before, turning it around and around on his hand. ‘Avery just finished suiting up and is on his way out. Would you like to come into the cockpit to watch?’

I couldn’t help glancing at Heero at the news, and saw a frown dancing around his face that told me he’d caught the odd part of that statement too, but I just gave Spencer a smile. ‘If you don’t think your Da… Captain Gray will mind.’

Spencer ducked his head and grinned, a little more like his old self. ‘He’s calmed way down. Come on.’

And just like that, he turned and led the way back toward the cockpit. We passed the flight attendants and Leslie looked… oddly upset, while the other one looked kind of smug and I had to wonder about it, but didn’t figure I’d ever know, so I forgot about it.

Captain Gray had indeed, calmed down, finally having gotten his shit together and taken control of the situation. His co-pilot was no longer in the room and I assumed he was down supervising the repair crew. Though… that ‘Avery’ remark kept nagging at me, insinuating, as it did, that only one person was going out.

Captain Gray spared a glance up as we came into the cabin, and I got to see the big man blush. He turned back to his boards, but cleared his throat and managed, ‘I guess I owe you two an apology. I’m just not used to having my cockpit invaded.’

It was a grudging apology at best, but an apology all the same, and I suppose in his place I’d have been a little territorial too. Though, when I stopped to think about it, there would have been no way in hell anybody would have beat me to my own pilot’s seat under an impact alarm. So I still couldn’t work up to feeling too much sympathy for the man.

‘No apology needed, sir,’ I told him anyway, just to get passed that two dogs pissing at the edges of their territory thing. ‘I guess we were just working on pure engrained instinct. Didn’t mean to… invade.’

He burst out with a scornful little snort. ‘Well… you’re polite, I’ll give you that.’

I was still trying to decipher just what he meant by that when the voice of the co-pilot came over the comm. unit. ‘You still awake up there, Gray?’

‘About damn time, slacker,’ the Captain said and his fingers began moving over his keyboard. ‘You going to give me live feed, or just tell me about it?’

There was a bit of tinny laughter and then one of the overhead screens flickered to life. The view was outside the ship from a suit’s camera. I blinked for a minute, the pieces starting to fall into place in my head, but my conscious mind refusing to believe the picture that was starting to form.

Heero’s hand fell on my shoulder as he leaned a little toward the pilot’s chair. ‘Avery is your co-pilot?’ he asked Gray in a deceptively quiet voice, and when he got a sharp little nod, asked, ‘Where is your ship’s mechanic?’

Spencer, perched on the edge of the co-pilot’s seat, looking as though he were trying to become very small, said, ‘We don’t have one.’

‘What?’ I blurted before Heero had a chance to.

Spencer ducked his head even further and his eyes flicked toward his father, as though he expected to get yelled at, but the good Captain seemed to have decided to fess up to all his sins and told us, ‘It’s how I managed a berth for Spencer.’

It’s rather amazing that Spencer wasn’t wearing a hole in his finger as much as he was turning that ring around and around. I found my eyes just watching him, trying to get my head around what the Captain was saying. He wasn’t telling me… He couldn’t be saying… Nobody is that… Nope. I had to have heard him wrong.

Heero seemed to be having the same problem with comprehension, because he pushed for clarification. ‘Captain Gray, are you telling me this ship has no maintenance crew and you just sent your co-pilot out-ship to do repairs as difficult as changing out a damper vane on his own?’

I could see Gray getting defensive, but I could also feel Heero nearing his idiot tolerance level and realized things were going to get pretty ugly in a minute. I was struggling with something to interject into the conversation, when the speaker crackled to life again. I’d forgotten the co-pilot was on.

‘Don’t worry about it, kid,’ the guy said, voice sounding almost bored with the whole thing, addressing Heero directly. ‘Yancy and I are old veterans. We did a lot of stuff during the war; you learn to make do with what you’ve got. I’ve done out-ship repairs a dozen times.’

I wanted to laugh, but figured the timing on that would have been a little bad. Heero’s hand was still on my shoulder, and I felt it tighten almost reflexively. I think my lover was getting a little bit pissed off.

On the overhead monitor, I could see that Avery hadn’t stopped his progress while he’d been talking to us, and was just arriving at the worksite. It crossed my mind that I didn’t even know the guy’s last name.

Captain Gray seemed to think that ended the conversation with Heero and gave his attention completely over to his boards. ‘How’s it look, Avery?’

There was a pause while we watched Avery squat ‘down’ next to the damaged vane. ‘Took a hit, alright,’ he confirmed. ‘Though I can’t tell from what.’ His hands reappeared and we could see him activate the magnetics in the equipment cask he had with him, attaching it to the hull near where he would be working.

My stomach was starting to knot, just thinking about what he was getting ready to do. Changing out a vane is not a one man job.

‘Captain Gray…’ Heero began, and I watched the man in question lose his temper. He turned sharply in Spencer’s direction and snapped, ‘Shut them the hell up or get them out of my cockpit!’

Spencer was quick to leap to his feet, coming over to stand in front of us, a pleading look on his face and doing that hand wringing thing again. ‘Duo,’ he whispered. ‘Please…’

Heero’s hand tightened so much it was starting to hurt.

I was kind of ignoring all of them, eyes fastened on the screen. I watched Avery open the cask and immediately pull a spanner wrench out of its niche. I think my knees went weak. My hand rose of its own accord and settled over Heero’s where he gripped my shoulder. ‘Avery,’ I called, surprised at the calm quality of my own voice. ‘Where’s your power meter?’

I thought Gray was going to burst a blood vessel, but before he could speak, Avery answered me, laughing lightly. ‘What the hell do I need a meter for, kid? You isolated it yourself.’

I blinked for a second, not quite able to believe he’d said that. ‘Just because the ship says it’s isolated, doesn’t mean it’s isolated. You never trust the computer when handling something like the deceleration network.’

He chuckled at my fears. ‘Didn’t bring one, kid. Guess I’ll just have to wing it.’

‘Avery,’ I tried again, going for calm and reasonable. ‘Listen to me; you are trusting a faulty system to tell you…’ and that was where Captain Gray finally completely lost his temper.

‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he bellowed, turning away from his station to level a finger at us. ‘I’ve had all I’m going to take out of you…’

Since Spencer and his father where both facing us, Heero and I were the only ones to see Avery die.

I had known my words were useless even as I tried to convince the man, because I had been watching him continue to work through everything I’d said. And as I had worried, as I’d tried to tell them, the vane was still charged. I watched that grainy video screen and saw the wrench enter the frame. There was an aborted scream, a flash of white, and then the screen went dead as it lost its feed.

‘Avery?’ Gray was shouting at the comm. ‘Hill! Report!’

Later, I would very distinctly remember thinking that the man was dead before I even learned his last name.

Heero’s hand left my shoulder and suddenly had me around the waist. I think I sagged a little, but I refrained from the cursing, because quite honestly… I hadn’t been all that surprised. On some level, I’d known things weren’t good from the moment Spencer had told us that only one man was going out there. No qualified mechanic who knew his damn job would have gone alone to begin with.

I’ll give the Captain credit; he didn’t panic, though he was to the point where he should have been. He forgot about us completely, his fingers pounding on his keys to bring up the video feed from another angle, picking up first one and then another external camera until he finally found the right one.

Spencer screamed and began to sob brokenly.

Avery Hill was floating a good twenty feet from the ship, tethered by his anchor line. His magnetics cut out along with the rest of his suit’s systems, by the shock he took off the number three vane. Vacuum suits are speckled about with idiot lights and tell-tales under normal operation and there is nothing that will chill a spacer quite as fast, on an almost sub-conscious level, as seeing a suit out-ship as dark as the one we were looking at. I shivered convulsively and suddenly had both Heero’s arms around me tight and sure.

I was thankful as holy hell that that suit was totally immobile. It meant the charge had killed the man, and he had not had to suffer through the three minutes it takes to die in a suit that has shut down. We could not have gotten to him in time.

I was about two seconds away from delivering my ‘holy fuck’ to Heero when he turned us bodily away from the monitor. ‘Turn the damn thing off!’ he barked at Gray, but I didn’t look to see if he immediately obeyed.

There was nothing for a couple of long minutes but the sound of Spencer’s gasping sobs and Heero’s soft assurances.

‘What a fucking waste,’ I managed, after a couple of minutes and Heero eased off, but didn’t let go immediately. My head was absolutely pounding and I knew my blood-pressure was probably through the roof, but I couldn’t spare the attention to do anything about it. There was a hamster waiting in the wings needing to present me with a thought that I just did not want to think about, and it was taking all my concentration to avoid the little bugger.

Spencer was about to drive me mad with his hysterics, half from the pure irritation factor, and half from understanding the guilt that was eating him alive.

‘Let me get him out of here,’ I whispered to Heero and he let me go almost reluctantly. I didn’t bother with Spencer myself, quite honestly not able to deal with him in the frame of mind I was in, and I simply went out into the main cabin to enlist some help. Leslie was not even a blip on my radar of useful people, and I looked to the other woman for aid, partially because between the two of them… she was the one not weeping and wringing her hands. For a totally surreal moment, I wondered if Spencer and Leslie were related.

She let me draw her aside, out of Leslie’s earshot. I figured if that girl was crying just from hearing Spencer scream, I didn’t want to be the one to announce that Avery had been… less than successful in his attempt to fix the ship.

‘I’m sorry, miss,’ I told her softly. ‘I need you to do a couple of things if you don’t mind?’

‘If you tell me what’s going on,’ she bargained, and I had to give her points for chutzpah. I spared a glance over her shoulder and then drew her a step further away from Leslie and other prying ears.

‘Mr. Hill just…’ I began, cringing internally, wrestling with wording. In that moment I felt a horrid sympathy for cops and doctors. I tried again. ‘He was killed trying to repair the ship.’

Her eyes flew wide and though she looked rather stricken, I could see her mind working and she finally said, ‘What do you need me to do?’

I ducked my head and sighed, finding my hands running through my bangs. ‘Can you take charge of Spencer? The poor kid is a mess and he’s just…’ in the way wasn’t polite. ‘He just doesn’t need to be seeing any more of this.’

She nodded understanding, of both my points I think, and let me lead her into the cockpit. I forgot about both her and Spencer when I realized that Heero and our stalwart Captain were in each other’s faces. But from the looks of things, Heero had the man on the ropes… he was white as a damn sheet and staring at my partner like he’d just suddenly announced he was a space alien here to tour the Earth and was looking for a guide.

‘…fully within my power to declare you unfit for duty,’ Heero was saying, and I knew just which trump card he’d pulled. I moved up to stand beside him, attempting to fill the position of the other cop, just not sure yet if my role would be the good one or the bad one. ‘So do not address me again as ‘you fucking asshole’ or I will have you locked in your quarters for the duration of this trip. You have to understand that you have essentially committed career suicide, and will be facing an inquiry when we return planet-side. Do not compound your problems by insulting an officer of the Preventors.’

Gray just sort of sank back down in his seat, looking very much like a puppet whose strings have been cut. I was afraid for a second that he might just pass out. I was distantly aware of Spencer leaving the immediate area. I hoped like hell that the attendant could get him out of here without panicking the entire shuttle full of passengers.

Captain Gray suddenly dropped his head into his hands and moaned, ‘It doesn’t matter now… we’re dead anyway. I can’t land this ship without the damper network. You two claim to be pilots… you should know that.’

It was apparently the cue that my little hamster had been waiting for, because he darted out, stopped dead in front of me, planted his banner pole, smoothed his fur and finally unfurled a sign that simply said. ‘You.’

I choked on a heavy sigh and figured out that I must be the good cop. ‘That’s not necessarily true, Yancy,’ I told him with a smile that managed not to turn into a smirk. ‘You see… we’re not just pilots. We’re…’ Ex-Gundam pilots who are perfectly capable of building a new shuttle out of Popsicle sticks and bubblegum given enough time. ‘We can do zero-g repairs.’

He jerked around to look at me, hope trying to catch light in eyes that suddenly seemed to be a hundred years old. I finally managed to work up just a tiny bit of sympathy for the man. ‘You can do it?’ he had to ask and I nodded.

‘If you have a pair of vacuum suits we can use,’ I told him, feeling Heero’s eyes on me. ‘Yeah… we can.’

In the end, the man relinquished the Captain’s chair to me because he really didn’t have much choice. The death of his co-pilot, a man he’d obviously been friends with, seemed to have finally taken the wind out of his sails. He went out into the cabin area, to make an announcement while I sat down and took over his boards.

While I called up all those telemetry reports again, verifying readings and going by the damn book, because the book exists for a fucking reason, damnit, Heero came to stand by my side, resting his hand on my back. For a while, he simply read over my shoulder, but when we both knew I’d gleaned all the information I was going to get out of those reports and logs, he quietly asked, ‘Are you sure you can do this?’

I turned to smile up at him, and knew it was a shadow of my normal grin. ‘I don’t really see that I have a lot of choice.’

‘I…’ he hesitated, knowing the reaction he was about to get, I’m sure. ‘I can try it alone, if…’

‘Do not make me deck you,’ I told him flatly. ‘Because we both just saw the results of somebody trying to do this job alone.’

His eyes got a little bit hard and he said, ‘But I’m not idiot enough to take short-cuts.’

I blew out a breath and found my hand reaching for his. ‘Love, going out is going to be bad enough. Sitting in here and watching you would be… more than I could handle.’

It seemed to please him and distress him all at the same time and he leaned in to give me an almost harsh kiss. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, all tight voiced.

‘Forever, husband-mine,’ I whispered back. ‘Now let’s go try on some vacuum suits. I hope they have something in my size… I hate when they don’t fit in the crotch.’

He smiled for me, but didn’t back off to let me stand. ‘Status?’ he asked me, and pulled my fingers up to kiss the back of my knuckles.

I wanted to be irritated, I wanted to force him to just let me out of the stupid chair so we could get the hell on with this, but damn it… he was going out there with me and he had a right to know as much as I could tell him. I sighed and dropped my head back against the head rest, closing my eyes and looking inward.

George had all the appropriate expletive banners sorted and ready to go, Guilt beast seemed to be off spending the evening with Spencer, and the kid in the back of my head had been given a drink of water and was currently being entertained watching old cartoon reruns on the wide-screen that is my imagination. Yep. Ready as I’d ever be.

‘I’m scared shitless,’ I told him bluntly. ‘But I’ve done this before. I… think I can do it again.’ I opened my eyes and looked at him. ‘Because you’ll be with me.’

The kiss I got for that was much gentler.

I was doing this by the books, so the first thing on the agenda was a trip down to engineering where I killed the entire deceleration network with the manual overrides. I’d seen it quite obviously demonstrated that the section isolation hadn’t worked. I don’t play with live-wires. While we were there, I dug up and tested a couple of power meters, and a replacement spanner wrench, I figured the one from the tool kit outside was probably long gone. My motto when working with shit that can kill you, is always error on the side of caution.

I would have made a good boy scout.

Heero shadowed my every step, helping where he could, but mostly just being with me. This seemed to be my show, not that he wasn’t perfectly capable, but this was shit I’d done for so long I could practically do it with my eyes closed, and he was letting me lead.

I noticed as we had to pass through the passenger sections, that people were starting to look at us as though we were crew. Turning to us with questions on the tips of their tongues, and faith in their eyes. It made me shiver. Bad enough to be doing this, but having all those other lives hanging over my head wasn’t making it any easier. I had to force myself not to really look at people or I started wondering if they had families. If that guy with the graying hair had a wife. If that woman in the green blouse had kids. I wondered if there was a Mrs. Gray somewhere and if she’d known about all the rules her husband was breaking in order to get Spencer into a good flight school. I wondered if she’d support him, or rip his head off when she found out about this trip.

But that just led me around to thinking about the fact that Spencer and his Dad might not actually make it back to tell her, if I couldn’t do what I’d said I could, so I just did my best to think about something else.

When there was nothing more to be done inside the ship, it was the level-headed flight attendant who led us down to the airlocks. Thinking about Avery, as we walked those cold corridors, I blurted, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bobbi,’ she told me, seeming a little bemused and trying to hide it.

‘I’m Duo,’ I told her, not that she’d asked. But then, maybe Leslie had already told her. ‘And this is Heero.’

She chuckled and said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’

It did seem kind of stupid, but I couldn’t have explained it if I’d tried, so I didn’t bother. ‘What’d you do with Spencer?’ I asked by way of subject change.

She lost her smile as she ducked through another section seal. ‘Put him to bed,’ she said shortly. ‘You were right; he’s a mess. Guy… the bartender, is sitting with him.’

I nodded, though I doubt she saw, and then we were there. I had to take a deep breath looking at the row of vacuum suits hanging in their re-gen niches on the wall. I shivered when my eyes swept over the one empty slot.

‘Thank you, Bobbi,’ I heard Heero say. ‘I think we can get it from here. Would you ask Captain Gray if he could stand by in the cockpit?’

She said something affirmative, gave us an odd little look that was somewhere between grateful and sympathetic and then finally left.

Warm hands settled on my shoulders.

‘Holy fuck?’ Heero asked gently.

I snorted, shivering again. ‘Not quite.’

‘Are you…’ he began, but I cut him off.

‘In full denial.’

He turned me around and looked me in the eyes. ‘We’ll be together the whole way.’

‘I know,’ I smiled.

Then it was the stripping to the skivvies part, and suiting up. Joy.

God… putting that damn suit on turned into a more difficult part than I had anticipated. I’d been thinking so hard about actually having to leave the ship, that I hadn’t let myself think too hard about the suiting up. There was a stage a couple of days into my little vacation in the belt when I would have sold my soul to just be able to take that damn vacuum suit off. I can still remember the itchy, crawly feel of my skin… of nerves in hyper drive. I can still smell that sour, stale stink of my own body locked in a place it should not have stayed for a tenth of the time it had.

My hands were shaking before I had the seals half done up. Well, this sure as hell wasn’t how I’d intended to start out. It didn’t exactly bode well.

Heero’s hands closed over mine, making me jump in surprise; I had not known he was that close. He took over sealing the suit, double checking what I’d already done. ‘Wyle Coyote or the Road Runner?’ he asked and I swear I heard something in my head grind as I tried to change mental gears.

‘What?’ I blurted.

He quirked a grin, though his eyes never left what he was doing. ‘Which do you prefer? The Coyote or the Road Runner?’

‘The Coyote,’ I told him, grasping after what he was offering.

‘Why?’ he prompted, finishing with my suit and handing me my helmet, understanding that I had to put that final piece on myself. Couldn’t have stood that until I was ready.

‘Come on,’ I stammered. ‘You have to feel for the poor guy.’

Heero snorted, lifting his own helmet in his gloved hands. ‘The bird was smarter.’

I stood and watched him dog his helmet in place, and had to take a second to work on my breathing. ‘No… the damn Road Runner had divine intervention, that’s all. He was dumber than a rock but he always got away; had to be some deity on his side,’ I told him when I could.

‘So you like the underdog,’ he teased and just stood waiting for me to finish working up my nerve. The gentle smile on his face somehow made me feel like an idiot and I got irritated enough with myself that I just slapped it in place.

‘Let’s just say I have an affinity for characters that God seems to hate that much,’ I grinned ruthlessly. He grinned back, checked my helmet seals and stepped toward the lock.

‘Ready, Maxwell?’ he asked me and it rather took me by surprise; that he seemed to understand that the coddling couldn’t happen here. That it wasn’t what I needed.

‘Just a minute, Yuy,’ I told him, and made him stand there while I checked all his seals too. He looked, for two seconds, like he was going to take offense, but then only smiled at me. When I had gone over his suit as thoroughly as he had gone over mine, I nodded sharply and he keyed the inner lock door open.

‘Are you there, Captain Gray?’ Heero called and I felt the heat creeping into my face as I realized we were on open mike.

‘Here,’ came the Captain’s voice, sounding tinny and not altogether happy.

‘We’re in the lock and ready to exit the ship,’ Heero reported.

‘Roger,’ Gray said tersely and I hoped that we wouldn’t be relying on the man for anything major. I’m pretty sure he was not our biggest fan.

We stepped side-by-side to the outer door and keyed our magnetics. Heero leaned over and touched his helmet to mine to gain that private contact.

‘Ready, love?’ he asked gently.

‘Yeah,’ I told him, getting a good solid grip on my quivering nerves. ‘Let’s just do it.’

He keyed the decompression cycle and we stood there while the air was pumped out, then the outside door was sliding back. We each did the duck walk thing, moving forward with the magnetic boots until we could reach the tether hooks just outside the lock. It took me two tries to get my line attached, but Heero didn’t mention it. I wasn’t sure if he’d somehow purposely managed to make sure that I wasn’t on the side where Avery Hill’s corpse was tied off like an errant helium balloon, or not. But I was grateful all the same. It still took all my will power not to look ‘up’ at it. Him. Look up at him.

I shivered and killed the boots, kicking free of the lock, kind of intent on getting free of the shadow of that corpse too. Heero was not a heartbeat behind me.

While zero-gravity will always hold a special place in my heart, out-ship does not. I can do it. I have done it. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it, but even before the accident, I was not wildly thrilled with working outside the ship.

After the accident… I would have to place it somewhere after frontal lobotomy on my list of fun things to do.

Space is just a very damn big place. Vaster than the human imagination. Deeper than eternity and just as dark. Falling is a feeling you just have to learn to live with, because your gut is convinced you are doing just that, the entire time you’re out there.

I kept my eyes on the ship and not the stars, as we made our way out to the vane array.

‘Really though,’ Heero said, his voice reaching out to me when his hands couldn’t. ‘How smart could the Coyote have been to keep driving into painted tunnels?’

‘But that’s my whole point!’ I blurted, more than happy with the distraction. ‘How could the Road Runner keep running through those same non-tunnels?’

‘Divine intervention?’ Heero asked and I had to imagine the smirk.

‘Exactly!’ I confirmed, keying my magnetics again as we arrived at the work site. I dropped solidly down to the hull and felt the faint vibration a moment later, when Heero did the same. ‘That bird did all manner of things that should have been impossible. Somebody, somewhere was pulling strings in his favor.’

‘The writer, maybe?’ Heero teased and waited patiently while I pulled the power meter out of my utility pouch.

‘For the sake of the argument,’ I told him with an exasperated sigh. ‘There is no writer… there is merely a pissy God with a bad attitude and supreme power; always a bad combination.’

I’m not sure what his answer to that would have been, because I muttered, ‘Shit’ somewhat out of turn.

‘What is it?’ he asked me and I turned the meter so he could see it.

‘Damn,’ he agreed.

‘What’s going on out there?’ Captain Gray called then, his voice making me jump. I wondered why I could not keep it in my head that the man was listening in.

‘The array is still live,’ I informed him. ‘The overrides… didn’t override.’

He didn’t laugh at the little joke, only muttering his own expletives.

Avery Hill never stood a chance, since he’d opted to toss the rule book. You live by your instruments and you die by your instruments, but you never trust the damn things because they will always fail you at the worst possible times.

‘Ok,’ I asked Heero. ‘You ever change out a vane with a high-v charge?’

‘First time for everything,’ he told me drolly. ‘How about you?’

‘Nothing with this much kick,’ I sighed, wishing I could rub a hand over my eyes. ‘But the principal’s the same… right?’

He chuckled for me and we moved carefully forward to take stock of the tool cask. ‘Looks like we’ve got everything we need,’ Heero said. ‘You want two, or four?’

I had a moment where I almost asked if he would mind overly much if we did them one at time and just worked together, but I knew that was stupid and told him, ‘Two,’ in a very tight voice. ‘I’m already on this side.’

I think he nodded, but I’m not sure. There was a long moment’s hesitation and I knew that he was thinking all kinds of thoughts that involved reaching out and touching me, but that just wasn’t possible. He finally did touch his helmet to mine so that he could ask me one more time if I was alright.

‘We came out here to do a job, love,’ I replied with a sigh. ‘Let’s do it and get out of here.’

We were close enough that I could see his smile. I gathered my set of tools and moved off.

Think of it as switching the rails on a train track. We needed the little train called ‘power’ to take the high track and stay the hell off our low one. It’s not a particularly complicated thing, but a very delicate one, you want to be real damn careful what you touch with what or you could end up like… like Avery Hill.

Crouched over the section junction, I had a moment of quiet panic, looking at the small space I was getting ready to work in, and watching my hands tremble. I took my sweet time working my lock wrench out of my pouch, and concentrated on breathing. By the time I had the cover off, I’d managed to steady my hands to the point that death by electrocution was more like a fifty-fifty chance and not so much a fore-gone conclusion.

‘Duo,’ Heero’s voice suddenly called. ‘Maybe… maybe you should wait for me to do that.’

Guess he’d gotten his own cover worked free and just figured out what kind of tight space we had to work with.

I… probably should have said ok. I probably should have agreed. But, and I know this is getting back to a lot of macho issues that I thought I’d worked out, but I knew Captain Gray was sitting in the cockpit listening to us, and I just could not make myself back down in front of the man.

‘I’m fine, Yuy,’ I told him blandly, and bent to work.

Don’t mock me, I know it was stupid.

I could almost feel Heero’s frustration crackling through the ether. ‘Watch your own fingers over there, mother-hen,’ I told him before he could speak again, and he gave out with a little snort, but shut up.

‘Is there a problem?’ Gray spoke up and I had to fight not to flinch. I really needed to keep the man’s presence more solidly in mind.

‘No,’ Heero told him shortly, and I could practically hear him grinding his teeth. My partner was not all that enamored with the good Captain Gray.

Oddly, the man’s question kind of twisted my perceptions around just a touch. Made me stop and realize that the job I was doing at that moment was really not all that big a deal. I wasn’t even working on the real job yet; changing the vane. If I couldn’t manage a simple power shunt, what in the hell made me think I could do the rest of it?

I found some of my old concentration squirreled away somewhere, and set to work. Squatted on my haunches in a vacuum suit was not an all that unfamiliar position, and maybe because it was familiar in ways that had nothing to do with the asteroid belt, I felt my mind slipping back into route and procedure, remembering the training, remembering the rules. Multiple feed lines… drydex conduit… shielding barriers… Simple operation. Crack the coupling, access the line, jumper the…

‘Duo?’ Heero’s voice was careful; calling quietly so as not to startle me, but it was the hesitant tone to it that got my attention instantly, making me completely leave off what I was doing.

‘What’s wrong?’ I demanded.

‘I think we have a problem over here,’ he told me, and I didn’t even think about it. I killed my magnetics and kicked off; making the leap to his side almost before he’d finished speaking.

‘What is it?’ I asked, looking him over for any signs of suit breach or other damage. ‘Are you all right?’

I could see him blinking at me almost owlishly for a second before he managed, ‘I’m fine, but I think I found why the section isolation failed.’

We hunkered down together over the number four section junction and he showed me what looked like an impact site. ‘Whatever hit the vane broke up?’ I speculated and he would have nodded if he could have.

‘Looks like it,’ he agreed. ‘It’s fused the whole unit.’

‘Damn,’ I muttered, reaching to rub a hand over my face before I remembered that I couldn’t.

‘What is going on out there?’ Gray demanded, and I flinched again. The man was either going to have to shut the fuck up all together or be a more active participant in the conversation. I couldn’t keep taking his little surprise comments.

‘Shunt isn’t going to work,’ I told him.

‘Then we’re screwed,’ he said, voice sounding utterly defeated even over the tinny connection.

‘Not necessarily,’ I told him. ‘Just because the book says you don’t change out a vane while it’s hot, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.’

‘You’re crazy,’ he told me and I had to laugh.

‘So I’ve been told,’ I muttered. ‘You find me a better alternative and I’ll be more than happy to give it a try.’

That got me a long moment of silence and I resisted the urge to say I thought not, and forgot about him.

‘Let’s put the covers back on and get to it,’ I told Heero. ‘We don’t have much choice about what comes next.’ He didn’t speak immediately and I leaned in to touch helmets. ‘Heero? Is everything ok?’

‘I just…’ he began, but then stopped. ‘You sure about this?’ he finally asked, and I wondered briefly what he had been going to say.

‘We really don’t have any choice, love,’ I said, wishing I could touch him. ‘We get this array back on-line or we’re going to discover for ourselves what lies outside this solar system.’

He sighed, and nodded the tiny little nod you can manage in a helmet and we broke apart. I cut my cleats again and made the hop back to where I’d been working, undoing what I’d done. When I had the cover back in place, I turned and found Heero waiting for me by the work cask, tools already put away. I went to join him.

‘You ever actually done this?’ he asked when I got there, and I gave him a cheeky little grin that he probably didn’t see.

‘Not on this scale,’ I drawled carelessly. ‘So when I made my mistake, my arm was only numb for about an hour. Kurt won’t let me hear the end of it, either.’

He didn’t know whether to laugh or be appalled, so he didn’t respond.

‘You make a mistake out there, and you’ll be a whole lot more than numb,’ the voice of Captain Gray suddenly said, and this time I was in a position to see Heero flinch as well.

‘Oddly enough, Yancy,’ I chuckled. ‘I am very much aware of that.’

I think the man might have growled at me.

Heero ignored him. ‘It’s your show then, Duo. I’ve never worked with an array like this before.’

So I dug out the tools we’d need and parceled them out according to who I planned doing what. ‘Simple as hell, really,’ I grinned at him. ‘Old vane out; new vane in. The trick is not getting fried.’

He gave me a dry chuckle, following my ungainly duck walk over to the equipment in question. ‘What do I do?’

I squatted ‘down’ and bade him with a gesture to join me. ‘You see where the vane connects?’ I pointed, and when he grunted his affirmative, I launched into a detailed description of how the connection was made, how the covers came of and how the disconnect worked. He stopped me before I could get to the ‘new vane in’ part.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked flatly.

‘That’s going to be your job,’ I said calmly.

‘And just what are you going to be doing?’ he pressed, voice just as calm, though I could see he was starting to understand how things were.

‘I have to pull the vane,’ I explained, though I’m sure I didn’t have to.

‘No,’ he told me, and he was using his command voice, which kind of pissed me off.

‘My show, remember?’ I grinned.

‘Don’t be an ass, Maxwell,’ he growled and I could tell he was getting irritated with me.

‘Heero,’ I sighed, putting on a placating tone. ‘It only makes sense; I’m the one with the… eye-hand coordination handicap.’

‘And I’m the one whose never even seen one of these networks up close,’ he countered. He was making me nervous, he’d lapsed into his somewhat flat, stubborn tone of voice, and I seldom got anywhere in arguments with him when he dropped back to his ‘immovable object’ stance.

‘Look Yuy,’ I began, but then he really got angry with me.

‘I’m not an idiot,’ he snapped. ‘I know the man pulling the vane is going to be the dead one if the other guy screws up. I’m not taking that chance. You are doing the disconnect.’

‘But I’m supposed to take that God damn chance?’ I snapped back and somewhere in the distance I thought I heard a heavy sigh.

‘You have the experience,’ Heero reasoned. ‘It’s less of a chance.’

‘My damn hands have been shaking since we picked up the stinking vacuum suits!’ I yelled, feeling my face flaming at the admission. I only hoped that I had no more witnesses to this than Captain Gray; though that was bad enough. ‘It’s going to take a steady hand to do that job without crossing something up!’

There was a long quiet moment while we stared at each other through all the layers of suit and vacuum and fear, and then he said softly, ‘hold your hands out.’

‘What?’ I barked, still riding the crest of my fear-born anger.

‘Hold your hands out,’ he insisted, and when I just stared at him, he continued gently, ‘You found your center somehow, Duo, when you started working. You stopped panting, you stopped babbling about nothing, and I’d be willing to bet your hands are as steady as they’ve ever been.’

I completely refused to hold my damn hands out, but I found myself focusing on them and had to admit that he was right. While I still felt far from steady, I wasn’t shaking like a leaf anymore. I thought to wonder about it, but honestly didn’t want to dwell on it too much, afraid of jinxing it.

‘I trust you,’ Heero said then and took the wind right the hell out of my sails.

‘Damn you,’ I muttered and he couldn’t stop from chuckling, seeing as how he’d won.

‘Let’s do it,’ he said, and the ‘love’ was implied.

It took us another couple of minutes to trade tools, as I’d doled them out according to my original plans. Then there was nothing for it but to settle into place and get started.

My job was to open the housing and unwire the old vane; being damn careful not to cross the wires or let them come into contact with anything else. Not a hideously difficult task until you had to do the second one.

Heero’s job amounted to something akin to playing ‘Operation’; once I had the vane loose, he had to lift it free of its mounting without touching anything. Only, if we screwed up, it wasn’t going to be a buzzer that went off.

‘Captain Gray?’ Heero called, just before we began. ‘Are you there?’

There was a quiet little, ‘Roger,’ in reply and I wondered what the man was thinking.

‘I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from speaking to us for the duration,’ he requested, and it rather surprised me. ‘We can’t afford to be startled in the middle of this.’

‘I understand,’ the guy said, and he sounded odd, almost subdued. It made me feel really uncomfortable.

Then it was just hunker down and do it. ‘You don’t touch shit until I clear it,’ I grumbled and Heero actually chuckled at me.

‘Aye, sir,’ he murmured, and had we been anywhere else, I might well have reached out and smacked him in the back of the head.

The next part was tedious as all hell; getting inside the housing and baring the connections without coming in contact with the actual vane. ‘I’d give a weeks pay for a cold soda right now,’ I muttered at some point and got little more than a snort from Heero; I think he was afraid of distracting me. I found, as I crouched there, that I was able to achieve some level of forgetfulness. That some part of my head still had access to the memories from before the accident. Not all my abilities and knowledge had been eaten by the black hole that was that trip to the belt.

I can’t tell you how long it took me, working the connections free, I’m sure it was more than a half an hour, but the only reason I can tell you it was less than six was because that’s all the air we had. Not that I came close to that, but I honestly would have believed you if you’d told me it had been five hours and fifty minutes. It felt like a damn year.

Slow and careful as hell is the only damn way to manage something like that. I couldn’t help remembering getting knocked on my ass the first time I’d tried this kind of repair. Kurt had laughed his ass off and told me it was a lesson that would stick with me forever. It had. It loomed rather large in my thoughts at that moment.

Then the vane was finally free, sitting in its mounting with nothing keeping it there but inertia. I took a minute to just breathe and then went in for the difficult part. I had nothing to use but my hands to keep all those wires apart, and away from the vane. Nothing could touch. Both sides, simultaneously. I hooked my fingers over wires and pulled them back, careful not to touch the bare part, careful not to cross them, careful not to let them contact metal, careful as bleeding damn hell. And then I had to hold it all steady while Heero did his part.

‘Meter it, Yuy,’ I commanded, and got no argument. He pulled the power meter out of his pouch and did a full scan, which pleased me; I’d been afraid he would cut corners in his hurry.

‘Clear,’ he told me tersely.

‘Ok,’ I said. ‘Pull it. Slow and steady and straight out. I make the slightest damn noise and you let go, you hear me?’

‘Got it,’ he replied and I wondered at the strange, almost bemused sound to his voice.

Despite all the reassurances and the caution, I still found that I was holding my breath when he finally reached out and took hold of the damn thing. I couldn’t look up at him, having to keep all my attention on my little rat’s nest of wires and making sure I kept his route clear. All I could do was watch the two pieces of metal as they slid apart, and try not to whimper.

I almost gasped for that breath when he finally told me, ‘It’s clear.’

Not that it gave me much respite, I still had to crouch there and keep the way clear for the new vane. Had to hold myself as steady as a stone. I couldn’t even look away to watch Heero make his way to the tool case where the replacement vane was anchored. I had to assume he detached the new and replaced it with the old, but hell… he might have chucked the bad one off into the night for the added two seconds it would have bought him.

I was starting to feel the strain. I knew my heart rate was up… way up, and I would have sold my first born child to be able to wipe away the trickle of sweat that was teasing it’s way down the side of my face. I did my best to stop what was getting darn close to a pant, and just spent all my concentration on my hands. My hands and what they held. The slightest deviation would mean Heero’s life.

If it came down to it, I’d put my hand between him and the power, but I knew I might not have that chance. If we slipped up…it would be too sudden for me to do a damn thing about it.

A bubble of memory wormed its way through my concentration and I heard the voice of a grizzled old spacer telling me, ‘I panicked and I froze and I got the other guy killed.’ I would have shivered if I could have afforded it.

I ruthlessly shoved those thoughts back in the box, the last damn thing on Earth I needed to be thinking about at that moment, was Neo. Bad timing all the way around.

Francis appeared in front of me, between my spread arms, wearing a tiny little vacuum suit and looking scared. He half-heartedly waved his little repress banner in front of my nose, but couldn’t seem to stand out-ship at all and faded quickly away.

I blinked as it crossed my mind that a brigade of little tool wielding hamsters would have been real damn helpful about then. Hell, a tool chest with more supplies than we had, would have been nice, with or without the hamsters. But then I had to put the little buggers out of my mind as Heero’s legs reappeared in my line of sight.

‘Doing ok?’ he asked me, sounding truly concerned.

‘So far so good,’ I grunted. ‘You ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be,’ he replied. ‘I’m going to have to crouch down in front of you so I can see what I’m doing.’

‘I know,’ I told him, feeling bad because my voice sounded terse even to me, so I added, ‘you just damn well be careful.’

He snorted and then hunkered down with me, lining the vane up and starting to lower it into place. ‘Guide me on that side,’ he told me, and his voice had that calm quality that spoke to me of years long past.

‘You’re just a centimeter too far my way,’ I told him, and even though I knew he was settling it into place almost slower than the eye could follow, I felt like he was moving way too fast. ‘Easy,’ I couldn’t help telling him. Sweat was making my eyes sting, but I couldn’t afford to blink it away. ‘You’re committed,’ I told him unnecessarily; I’m sure he knew as well as I did when he’d gotten that far, but the fear was waking in my gut and making me want to fill the silence.

Maybe Heero understood, because he said, ‘I’m still good on this side… how’s the back doing?’ a very pointless thing to say, because we didn’t have the leeway for anything other than ‘good’ at the moment.

‘Still clear,’ I told him. ‘Keep going.’

But then, quite suddenly, he stopped moving altogether and I wanted to look up at him, but couldn’t take my eyes off the weave of my wires. Couldn’t spare the attention to look up and see what was wrong. ‘Heero?’ I ventured cautiously, suddenly very afraid and not sure why.

‘Duo,’ he said, and his voice was very calm. Very damn calm. ‘Listen to me. Listen to me closely… you have to hold still, you hear me?’

‘No shit?’ I blurted, and hoped the bluster hid the note of panic. ‘What…?’

‘Listen, love,’ he said softly, and I could hear his unease, which told me just how strong it was. ‘Hill’s… suit, has drifted, ok? It’s right behind you… just off to your left.’

It. It, not him. The suit. Not the corpse. Right behind me. How close? Oh God… how close? Like the Londonderry. The corpses. Drifting. Toward me. Coming… for me. Captain Camden and the dead crew of the Londonderry. All my nightmares come to life. Oh God.

I think I made a small sound of distress.

‘I’m right here,’ Heero told me, voice very damn firm. ‘Duo… I need you. You said it yourself; we’re committed. We can’t stop now.’

‘I know,’ I opened my mouth to say, but I’m not entirely sure what came out.

‘I froze…’ that voice in my head said again, but it was kind of hard to hear over the sound of my own panting.

‘I need you,’ Heero said again, brooking no argument. ‘Now.’

I hung on those words, and held steady, even as my nerves were screaming for me to move, to get the hell away from what I couldn’t even look to see. Almost made it worse; like the shark in deep water, what you can’t see is immensely more frightening, sometimes, than what you can.

‘Just…’ I stammered out through a suddenly dry throat. ‘don’t let it touch me without warning me… ok?’

‘Ok,’ he agreed, and there was relief in the sound of his voice. ‘Ready?’

‘Let’s get this over with,’ I muttered and just blocked it out. Blocked it all out except for the part where Heero was putting his life in my hands. My poor, scarred, not altogether steady hands.

I would not be another Neo. Damn it to hell and back if I would be another Neo.

‘Guide me,’ he almost whispered, and the vane was moving again.

‘Less than a centimeter to my right,’ I managed and watched critically as he made his adjustment. ‘There,’ I called, when it was aligned again. ‘Steady on.’

It seemed to take an eternity and I thought my heart would hammer its way out of my chest. I swear to God, the damn thing wasn’t moving at all, and through all my determination to keep my attention on the job, I couldn’t help but feel the imminent brush with that thing behind me that I just didn’t want to think about.

Then it settled home and Heero was telling me, ‘Clear… I’m clear,’ and I was choking on a sob. Heero was gone from my line of sight almost before he’d finished speaking and I’m sure he was moving to remove that thing behind me. The… corpse, behind me. The vacuum suit clad corpse behind…

‘Breathing, Duo,’ Heero scolded and I almost laughed, but knew damn well where that would lead, and it wasn’t to a place I could afford out here. After a moment, he soothed me with a gentle, ‘It’s gone.’

I wanted to close my eyes and curl up somewhere, but we weren’t done yet and my fingers were still almost an integral part of the network. Still interwoven with those live wires and I had a sudden image of my hands holding little lightening bolts, like some Greek God looking to strike somebody down. Sparks dancing along my finger tips and shooting off into the dark. Sparks like little stars…

‘Duo?’ Heero’s voice broke through to me and I blinked against the stinging sweat in my eyes, surprised at the almost palpable fear in his voice. ‘Duo… get your hands out of there, now. Do you hear me?’

‘Ok,’ I told him, calm as could be, and began slipping my fingers free, untangling myself from my weird fantasy vision. When I was no longer in danger of turning myself into a light bulb, I found that all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around my knees and sit very quietly.

Heero was there, not able to do much in the way of physical touch, but he brought himself close and touched our suits together so that he could tell me, unheard by listening ears, ‘It’s all right, baby. I’ve got you. I’ll take it from here and then…’

But that sent a shiver of fear lancing through my gut and I found myself trying to clutch at him. ‘No!’ I exclaimed, hearing stark terror and kind of surprised by it. So, ‘No,’ I said again, trying for a little more calm and not really getting it. ‘You stay the hell away from it. I’ll get it; I just need a minute, that’s all.’

‘You’re too spooked,’ he soothed, and had we not been in vacuum suits, sitting on the skin of a ship, floating in the middle of no damn where, he would have been holding me close and stroking his hand over my hair. ‘I watched how you did it… I can…’

‘No,’ I said again, flat and as forceful as I could make it. ‘I can’t do that again. It’d be too much like pissing at the Gods. I won’t have you near it again. God hates me too much.’

He didn’t know how to answer that and we just crouched there together, locked to the ship with our magnetics engaged, while I got my breath back.

‘Duo-love,’ he began again, still trying for that reasonable tone, but I wasn’t going to listen to it. Was not. Would not. That had been too damn close and I wouldn’t risk him again. It was too much like tempting the fates, and I knew the usual results of that little practice.

‘My show,’ I growled, my anger gaining me a little bit of my equilibrium back. ‘You won the last one. You’re not winning this one. No fucking way in hell, so just back off now. You said it yourself; I have the experience. I just need a damn minute is all.’

‘All right,’ he soothed, managing somehow to make his voice into the caress he couldn’t give me. ‘All right… calm down.’

When I’d managed to get my heart rate down to a rhythm that didn’t sound like something a Gaelic rock band would produce, I straightened and he let me draw away. Mindful of the fact that we had an audience again, I told him, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m getting kind of tired of being out here. Let’s get this done.’

I didn’t get the chuckle I was hoping for, but he settled on his haunches next to me and said, ‘Tell me what to do?’

We were close enough that I could see his face and I knew he could see mine, so I smiled for him. ‘Just talk to me… ok?’

Which didn’t make him happy, but was really all I needed from him. Just a voice to drive back the memories and help me remember where I was.

I bent to work wondering just what in the hell Captain Gray was making of all of this.

‘If you’re such a big cartoon fan’ Heero said, ‘why don’t you watch them anymore?’

‘They don’t make decent cartoons now a days,’ I told him absently, taking my tools and my nerves in hand. ‘I’ve seen all the old stuff already.’

‘Everything?’ he asked, trying to sound flippant and failing. I could feel his eyes on me, watching my every move. It oddly didn’t make me feel nervous, like I would have thought it would. It was… comforting, somehow, to know there was a second pair of eyes guarding my safety.

‘You know,’ I replied. ‘This really isn’t fair. Why do we keep talking about my obsessions? What the hell did you used to watch?’

He took the cue, understanding that I wasn’t asking to be drawn out. That when I’d told him to talk to me, I’d truly meant it. I needed him to do most of the talking this time. ‘I read more than I watched videos,’ he told me and I wasn’t surprised. But then his voice got a little wry. ‘Though I have to confess to a small addiction to the Discovery channel when I first found it.’

I had to snort a little laugh, imagining Heero parked in front of the television every night, watching some dry as dust documentary on… what, I wondered? ‘Fess up; what was it? Flight documentaries? The history of colony construction? What?’

He managed, somehow, to sound sheepish even over a suit radio. ‘They ran ‘Junkyard Wars’ reruns on late night ‘Classic Discovery’ every Sunday.’

I would have rolled on the deck and howled if it wouldn’t have been an extremely bad idea under the present circumstances. ‘You have to be kidding me,’ I said instead, and wished I could grin at him, but I was back around to that place where I couldn’t turn my eyes away from what my hands were doing.

‘Hey,’ he said in mock indignation. ‘I didn’t make fun of your cartoons.’

‘I watched more than that, you know,’ I groused. ‘And I read too.’

‘I saw,’ he agreed, but then he seemed to lose the conversation for a moment as I made the second connection. The one that guaranteed that even if there hadn’t been enough wires touching before to power the vane, there were now. ‘Though… you have an odd reading method,’ he managed after I’d drawn my hands back and was switching to the next connection. ‘Most people read a little more randomly than you do.’

‘Just working my way through the classics,’ I murmured, not able to spare a whole lot of attention his way.

‘I can’t believe you took the works of Edgar Allan Poe on a solo trip that long,’ he told me, warming to the topic a little. ‘Talk about depressing.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, managing to get the last wire in place on the first strut without frying myself. ‘Guess it was one of those seemed like a good idea at the time, things. I very distinctly remember regretting it.’

There was a pause and I think he just suddenly realized the ground we’d wandered onto. He floundered for a bit, while I shifted to the second strut, wished for the hundredth time that I could wipe my eyes, and set back to work. Despite my trying not to think about it, the notion of the belt and books had popped into my mind, and since I didn’t have enough brain cells left for anything else, brain wandered off and did some free form thinking. ‘Did you… read to me while I was out there?’ I blurted and I think I kind of scared him.

‘Yes,’ he answered after a quiet moment, no doubt contemplating the wisdom of the topic. ‘Once we got far enough out that our communication window with you was larger than Earth’s.’

‘Heero,’ I had to ask, it being the logical next question. One that had nagged at me mildly, more than once. ‘Why in the hell didn’t you guys talk to me?’

He hesitated so long I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. ‘You reacted so badly when Quatre told you who was piloting the rescue ship, and we didn’t understand why. We were… afraid.’

‘I thought I dreamed someone reading to me,’ I told him, skirting the other issue because it was upsetting him. ‘I thought it was Sister Helen.’

‘I thought it might help,’ he said softly. ‘Even if you were sleeping through it… I thought the sound of a voice might help.’

‘It did,’ I told him just as softly, and then had to pull my hands away from my work while I fought off a shiver. ‘Change of topic, I think.’

‘Sorry,’ he murmured contritely. ‘You don’t really want a cat, do you?’

I chuckled at his leap of subjects, took a steadying breath and went back to work. ‘Maybe someday,’ I had to confess. ‘But I’m pretty sure I don’t want anything to do with that animal that Sally keeps trying to foist off on us.’

‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘The only time I was anywhere near it, the thing bit the crap out of me. I completely refuse to have that beast in my house.’

I got quiet while I finally made the last connection, then drew away with a shaky gasp after air. ‘Done,’ I told the general area somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Thank God,’ Heero breathed and I’m not at all sure he meant to say it out loud. The dangerous part done, he moved in and we made quick work of putting the housing back in place.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ I told him and was surprised at how shaky it came out.

‘If you can get the tool cask,’ Heero said. ‘I’ll get…’

The corpse.

‘Ok,’ I told him before he could decide just what to call it.

I moved back to the cask and went about mounting the tools where they belonged, just trying not to watch what Heero was doing. Though the weird-ass mental image I got of him skipping along, towing Hill like a kid with a balloon, might have actually been worse than reality. I know it took me awhile to shake it off.

Zero gravity is a wonderful thing. From the look of the tool chest, I’d be willing to bet in full Earth gravity it weighed twice what I did, but once I cut its magnetic locks, all I had to do was nudge it in the direction of the air-lock, kill my own magnetics and off we went. I wound up my tether line as I went.

Heero had quit talking to me when we’d separated and I suddenly found my gut twisting round itself, unhappy with the quiet. ‘Heero?’ I called, and wondered how long I could hold off the aftershocks from this little foray.

‘Right behind you,’ he soothed, and I can’t tell you how convinced I’d become the he wouldn’t answer me. That if I turned around to look for him, he wouldn’t have been there. ‘Why don’t you take the tools and cycle through the lock first and I’ll…’

‘We’ll both fit,’ I told him tightly, feeling panic overtaking me thinking about leaving him out-ship. I couldn’t have done it if the whole damn universe had depended on it. Could more easily have waited outside alone while he went through first. I can’t explain the sudden need I had not to be separated from him. He just suddenly seemed so… vulnerable. Precious. Important. Integral. I don’t know… I just couldn’t stand for him being out there without me.

‘Are you… sure?’ he asked and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that at some point, Trowa had told him about my panic attack over an empty vacuum suit. Knew that he was worried about how I’d react to being shut in such a tight space with, not just a suit, but a genuine body filled one.

‘I won’t look,’ I told him ruthlessly, and prodded the tool cask into the ship. I unhooked my tether-line, activated my magnetics, but refused to move into the open lock until it was clear he would go with me.

‘All right,’ he agreed, though he didn’t sound all that happy about it. I stayed in the hatchway until he’d touched down and locked to the deck beside me.

‘In,’ I growled and settled my hand over his tether-line until I was positive he would obey me. There are sensors that keep the exterior doors from closing as long as a line registers attached on the outside of a ship. Call me paranoid, but I just had this weird feeling, and I didn’t want to take any chances that he’d go all macho on me.

I waited until he was passed me, and then I undogged his and Hill’s lines myself. The hatch slid shut almost immediately and I damn near got caught in it. Heero’s cry of ‘Duo!’ harmonized my own yelp quite nicely.

‘Shit!’ I blurted and was left holding the severed end of Avery Hill’s tether-line in my hand and could only imagine the body drifting off the port bow.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Heero snarled and began punching at the controls, trying to get the hatch to reopen before the body was too far gone.

The hatch refused to budge and even as Heero was getting angry, I was becoming very afraid, and suddenly understood what had been nagging at me for the last ten minutes. I saw Heero turn and look in the general direction of the cockpit, just as though he could see the Captain right through the bulkhead. I saw him open his mouth and knew that Captain Gray was about to get an earful. But before the words could come out of his mouth, I drug him to me, touching our helmets together to put us into private conversation.

Captain Yancy Gray had been entirely too damn quiet.

‘He means to space us!’ I blurted and saw Heero blink at me.

‘What?’ he queried, sounding unsure, but his anger was bleeding away in the face of my certainty.

‘Think about it,’ I hissed, keeping my voice down despite the fact that it wasn’t necessary. ‘No one else aboard this ship really knows what’s happened except for people who stand to be in almost as much trouble as he is. If we happen to have an accident… Captain Gray and his son are off the hook.’

He hesitated a moment, not really wanting to believe it, I think. ‘But why would he even let us back in the ship?’

‘He couldn’t close the exterior hatch until we’d unhooked,’ I reasoned, suddenly just very damn positive of my theory. ‘He couldn’t risk re-entry with an open hatch.’

I saw Heero believe it between one blink and the next. ‘What the hell is he waiting for then?’ he said, but it wasn’t a question of doubt, but simple confusion.

‘I don’t know,’ I told him, starting to feel frantic. My eyes were ranging around us as best I could, and I couldn’t find a damn think to hook to. Nothing to hang on to. ‘Maybe working up the nerve to commit his first murder?’ I had little doubt it wouldn’t take him forever. ‘We have to get the fuck out of this air lock!’

And then a look came over Heero’s face that damn near had me flinching away from him. If we survived this, I would not want to be in Gray’s shoes.

Heero wrenched away from me and went straight to the control panel for the interior doors, his commands did nothing to gain us entrance to the ship though, and the panel itself was recessed and totally inaccessible. All repairs were meant to be done from the other side of the bulkhead. No way in hell could we pull the panel for manual override. A sound escaped him and I shivered; it was almost the sound of a really pissed off, trapped animal. He left the control panel and turned to the hatch itself. There wasn’t much there, but there were a couple of places where the shape of the metal afforded some sort of place to grip. He turned to me and gave me the old military ‘be ready’ hand sign, and then settled his hands on that door. I thought I would laugh at him out right, but knew it for the hysterical urge it was and just let it go. This was Heero and he couldn’t just stand here and do nothing, no matter that the effort was less than futile; he had to try.

I forgot him, left him to his straining, knowing he couldn’t possibly force a ship’s hatch open with nothing but his hands. I turned away, looking at the panel for the outside doors and wondering if I could jam the controls somehow, when I was buffeted with a rush of air. I whirled as best I could in zero-gravity, shocked as hell, and found Heero had the inside hatch pulled open almost a whole damn hand-span. I wasted almost ten seconds staring at him in open disbelief, before the sounds of his almost groaning breath shook me into motion. I kicked over to his side, intent on helping him, but he caught my attention with a look, making me touch his suit so he could impart something to me without Gray overhearing. I was half afraid I wouldn’t be able to hear him over the pounding of the blood in my ears.

‘Can’t… hold,’ he said tersely, and I could see him shaking with effort. ‘Jumper… controls.’

It was all he could impart and that little bit came out in gasping pants. I wanted to argue, I wanted to wail and demand that I couldn’t leave him in there, but we didn’t have the time for the hysterics. I broke away without a sound and gathered what I could from the cask as fast as I could manage it. It was then I discovered that I was still holding both Hill’s severed line and Heero’s as well. Without a thought, I hooked Heero’s line to my suit, shoved the tools in my pouch and went back to where the door was cracked open. Adding my own effort to Heero’s, we managed to pry the hatch open enough that I was able to squirm through, and then he couldn’t hold it any longer. I heard him give it up with a near moan of frustration. I almost screamed when the door slid shut behind me. I would have called out to him, but was afraid of spurring Gray into action if he realized we’d figured out what he was up to. What he was contemplating.

It was all adrenaline overdrive then. I spared the minute it took to rip my helmet off and jerk the suit open so that my hands were free. I hated losing the time, but knew I would more than make it up not trying to work with the clumsy gloves on.

I don’t think I really had any conscious thought at all. There might have been a frantic hamster with a banner that read ‘Hurry!’ in there somewhere, but I didn’t have the attention to spare. Tools came out of my pouch as fast as I could jerk them. I utterly destroyed the panel cover getting it off, my imagination making me hear the sound of the outside hatch opening every other second.

When Gray got up the nerve to carry through with what had obviously occurred to him while he’d listened to us saving his ship, he would open the outside hatch, then open the inside, blasting us out into space on a plume of explosive decompression. Then he could calmly close it all back up and claim we’d had an accident. So sad. Too bad. But they died heroes, isn’t that nice?’

I wanted to pray, but was afraid to.

I wanted to cry, but couldn’t afford to.

I wanted Heero, and had to do that for myself.

I let myself find my voice, because without the helmet, nobody could hear me anyway, and I cussed until I ran out of English curses, then switched to Japanese.

I couldn’t even begin to let myself imagine Heero standing there in that air lock, all alone and trusting me to get him out. I would freeze up if I let myself even start to think about failing him. If I let myself think about losing him.

I clung to the knowledge that his tether line was still attached to me, and that if the doors opened before I could free him, I still stood a chance of pulling him to safety.

Don’t be stupid. I know. But I couldn’t let myself feel that slack line. Couldn’t let myself know that it had been cut when the door slid shut. I couldn’t know that or I would start shaking and wouldn’t be able to stop.

‘Bastard son of a bitch is dead… so damn dead. I will kill him with my own hands. Then I will piss on his corpse and space what’s left…’

Because when you’re so scared you can’t see straight… you have to get mad.

Then it all came together under my hands and the door was sliding open and Heero was lunging through and grabbing me and taking us both to the wall. He had hold of me and he had hold of the first solid thing that came to hand and then we were being battered by hurricane winds and I was taken back with a jolt to that near disaster with Relena aboard my ship.

Somewhere in there, I was aware of the fact that I’d almost not made it. Aware of the fact that the good Captain Gray had finally worked up the courage, hit the button and I’d gotten the door open mere seconds ahead of the outside doors opening. Plastered against Heero, I heard him screaming inside his suit and for two damn seconds almost panicked completely before I realized it was for the benefit of our audience.

I had no mike and since there was no one to really hear me, I let myself give vent to a sobbing cry and held on to Heero as tight as I could with one hand, scrabbling with the other to help him hold to the wall.

The bastard left the hatches open for almost a full three minutes. It was the longest three minutes of my life.

By the time the winds stopped tearing at us, stopped trying to make us go outside to play with poor Avery, I was starting to get lightheaded from the thinning air.

We fell to the floor in a heap, and I don’t know about Heero, but I was panting like an asthmatic. Some distant part of my brain felt the ship thrumming beneath us in an effort to make up for the lost air. Felt the bite of the cold that’s always left behind by sudden decompression. Wondered idly what Gray was telling the passengers.

But then I got enough air that only one damn thing mattered, and my hands were ripping at Heero’s suit. I knew he was all right, knew he’d probably come through in better shape than I had, because he was still sealed and protected inside his vacuum suit. But there was nothing in my brain but the need to touch him. To strip him out of that thing that part of my head would always think of as a coffin, and touch him. I almost threw the helmet across the room when it finally came free in my hands, then just bent to kissing him. Cheek, nose, chin… whatever the hell part came within reach.

I’d hit that aftershock part.

‘Oh God, Heero…’ I panted, clutching at him, pulling at his suit. ‘Are you all right? Oh God… talk to me!’

‘It’s all right now,’ he told me, and I was a little pleased that he was panting some too. ‘We’re ok… you did it… we’re ok…’

His nonsense rambling thing. I didn’t care; he could have been speaking to me in some dead aborigine language, just as long as he was talking to me. As long as he was all right.

He didn’t let us lie there for long, before he was pushing up and peeling the rest of the way out of his suit. Helping me peel out of mine. I was shaking so damn bad I don’t know that I could have done it myself.

‘That fucking bastard is so going to regret this flight,’ I muttered at one point, just trying to bolster my own flagging nerves. It might have sounded more impressive if half of it hadn’t been stammered through chattering teeth.

‘He’ll be lucky if he lives long enough to regret much of anything,’ Heero hissed, and I glanced up to see that look on his face again, the one that made my gut run cold.

I didn’t reply, and he continued to prod us into action, seeming to suddenly decide we needed out of that room. I suppose he was right; if Gray figured out that he hadn’t gotten the job done the first time, there was nothing to keep him from trying again. We took the clothes we’d shed to get into the suits and retreated to the corridor before stopping long enough to dress. Even having the section sealed behind us wasn’t enough to make me breathe any easier. Heero didn’t seem to settle until we’d gotten completely out of the main hall and had gained the first cross-corridor.

There, he finally stopped and pulled me into his arms, and it was a damn surreal thing, feeling his hands on my back and remembering what he’d just done. How could someone so strong manage to be so gentle? I forget sometimes, that unbelievable, adrenaline-bred strength of his. Though, in that moment, I thanked God for it, because I had no doubt we’d have been drifting out in the middle of nowhere, without it.

I let myself fall into that strength, wrapping my arms around him and hanging on tight. ‘God damn,’ I croaked out, voice sounding shaky and a little high. ‘This is like some really, really bad movie.’

He choked on a laugh that I could tell he hadn’t intended to let pass his lips, and his arms tightened convulsively, though he didn’t speak.

‘I swear, Heero,’ I told him vehemently. ‘This is our last vacation. I’m never leaving the damn house again.’

He gave in to the laugh that time, though it was strained. I’ll never be positive, but I think that moment may have saved Yancy Gray’s life. You can never be real sure about these things, but there was something in the set of Heero’s shoulders after that, that was subtly different. Some feral light that was eased from his eyes.

Not that he wasn’t still seriously put-out, but up until that moment, I think he had been perfectly ready to rip Captain Moron’s head off and punt his cranium from one end of the ship to the other and back again.

I couldn’t decide if I was happy I might have been the instrument of the man’s salvation, or not. At that second… not. Later… maybe.

‘You’re trembling,’ Heero pointed out to me, quite unnecessarily, I thought. ‘So hard… are you ok? Really ok?’

‘Too much time on this roller coaster,’ I quipped. ‘I just want off now. But I’m good through what we have coming up next.’

‘We can’t leave that… lunatic at the controls,’ he told me, not that I’d needed him to tell me that either.

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘Which means we’re going to have to bring this ship down ourselves. I know.’

It took a concerted effort between the two of us to get ourselves untangled.

He looked at me long and hard when he could see me again, and reached to gently brush at my sweat-soaked bangs. ‘I’d rather have you at my back for this,’ he said. ‘But if you’re not up to it, we’ll take you back to the…’

I snorted, though my heart was doing something exceedingly strange in my chest. ‘Don’t even go there,’ I growled. ‘Unless there’s no other choice, you and I aren’t getting two feet away from each other for the duration of this nightmare.’

He grinned at me then, but there was an edge to it. ‘Let’s go give Gray the surprise of his life.’

I grinned back and felt the stirrings of something old. Something that was pushing down the shakes and the desire to go find a dark corner and crawl into it.

We heard the elevated buzz of voices from the main cabin before we ever got there. The kind of buzz that only happens when a group of people has something juicy to dissect verbally. I was looking forward to wading through there even less than I was looking forward to the confrontation with Captain Gray.

Suffice it to say the room went silent as a tomb when we made our entrance. And I don’t think it was just from how scruffy and disheveled we appeared. Heero looked around the room, as though evaluating each and every passenger as a potential threat and then quietly said, ‘You may return to your cabins. The repairs to the ship have been completed.’ It was testament to the scary properties he can bring into his voice, that the hubbub didn’t erupt until we’d moved for the cockpit. Heero gave Bobbi, the girl I had come to think of as the head flight attendant, a rather imperious gesture, and she followed him into the short corridor that linked the main cabin with the cockpit without hesitation.

‘I am an agent of the Preventors,’ he told her grimly. ‘I will be placing your Captain under arrest for violation of several inter-colony laws. Captain Maxwell will be taking over the piloting of this vessel. You may inform the crew, but do not alarm the passengers with the information.’

I’ll give the girl credit; she managed to school her expression enough that I couldn’t tell you if she’d been taken by surprise. I had a feeling, whether she’d been a party to the original… unorthodox pilot’s training sessions or not, she was probably going to come through this mess all right. I was kind of glad; she’d been nice enough to us. I gave her a wan little smile that was meant to be somewhat comforting, and she nodded. Then it was time to follow Heero into the cockpit.

He went first, only because you couldn’t get through the hatch in anything but single file formation, but I was hot on his heels and we split the moment we could, he going to the right and me to the left. Ready to engage in whatever it took to take the big guy down. Not sure if we would be facing a weapon or not; though they were illegal to carry, we’d already seen how much Captain Gray cared for the rules. We were both crouched and ready, wound like cheap springs and itching for an excuse to pound the man to hamburger.

We needn’t have bothered. The Captain was sitting in the pilot’s seat, his head in his hands, weeping quietly. Guess the asshole had a conscience after all. Too bad it had engaged too late to have done us any good, had we not taken care of our own rescue.

‘Captain Gray,’ Heero intoned menacingly. ‘I am placing you under arrest in the name of the Preventors. Please step away from the shuttle controls.’

When Gray jerked his head up to stare at Heero, I tried really hard to gage his reaction, but I just wasn’t sure. All I saw for sure was shock, but I couldn’t clearly tell if the underlying emotion was relief or regret. It might have made things easier if I could have honestly believed the man was truly sorry for what he’d tried to do.

Oddly, in that moment, all I can really remember thinking was ‘poor Spencer’, which was probably pretty stupid since the kid wasn’t exactly innocent in all this. If anyone should have had my sympathy, it should have been Hill, who was no more innocent than the rest of them, but had already paid a price that was way too high.

What a fucked up trip.

Gray was wise enough not to try for denial. Wise enough not to argue, only nodded shortly and left the pilot’s seat. I had to repress a shiver, seeing a man removing himself from the command chair for the last time. Too many parallels. Too many memories.

It probably wasn’t necessary, but we ended up binding his wrists with electricians tape and confining him to his cabin. I pulled the inside door control panel with my own hands and saw to it that he couldn’t open that door without several hours and repair tools he didn’t have. We would have simply duct-taped him to a seat in the main cabin if that wouldn’t have required a great deal of explaining to the passengers that we didn’t care to have to make. The man was more than subdued and I think Heero got across without actually saying it, just what a mercy we were showing him by not simply spacing him on the spot.

Heero returned with me to the cockpit to check the shuttle course and status. I think it bothered him to leave Gray unguarded, but he seemed to have that same fear of us being out of each other’s sight that I had. The remaining crew didn’t seem too sympathetic to their former Captain’s plight, but you never knew. It was still hours till we gained atmosphere again, and I didn’t much feel like challenging the already overworked powers of worse.

I was almost surprised to find that the shuttle had not been set on some suicide course into the sun or something. It would just about have been the expected capper to the whole mess.

Heero sat quietly in the co-pilot’s seat and watched me while I went over course and heading, verifying that our repairs were adequate to the job, checking all the fuel levels and energy readings. Things I needed to familiarize myself with if I was going to be landing an unfamiliar ship.

‘You know,’ I told him after a bit. ‘The aliens should be arriving any minute.’

‘Aliens?’ he asked, quizzical eyebrow raised and a hint of tired amusement in his voice.

‘Yeah,’ I grinned. ‘Isn’t that the only thing this B movie is lacking?’

‘I don’t know,’ he smiled, letting his head fall back. ‘There hasn’t been a shoot out yet… unless I missed it.’

‘Bite your tongue, fool!’ I snapped, only half kidding. ‘Do not tempt fate; she’s bitchy!’

He snorted and rolled his head until he could look across at me. ‘You know… there hasn’t been much romance in this movie of yours yet. How about you come over here and sit with me?’

I smiled warmly at the very idea of dragging my ass across the cockpit and climbing into his lap, but had to decline. ‘Besides the unlikelihood of my doing that in front of a shuttle full of people… if I let myself lie down in your arms right now, I’m going to completely shut down and you’ll be piloting this bucket back by yourself.’

He didn’t chuckle, though on running the line through my head again, I guess I can kind of see why, but he did get up and come across to me, since I wouldn’t go to him. He leaned down and kissed me gently, drawing back to look at me and then leaned down to do it again. ‘Have I told you today that I love you,’ he asked simply.

‘Since it’s the wee hours of the morning, I don’t think so,’ I smiled up at him. ‘Not in so many words, at least. But I think I got it somewhere in amongst all the cursing and grabbing hold of, parts.’

‘Tell me?’ he whispered and the teasing tone was gone.

‘I love you,’ I obliged, and thinking about those moments that had had us with an airlock hatch between us, ‘so much that it scares me sometimes.’

He kissed me one more time, and then went back to the co-pilot’s seat, settling in to sit watch with me.

Judging from the sounds coming from the main cabin, most of the passengers had followed Heero’s suggestion and returned to their quarters. It didn’t take long at all before things quieted. Heero and I both seemed to have more than enough to occupy our minds and for a while, we were quiet ourselves, just sitting together and thinking.

It was hard to get my head wrapped around it all. Hard to think back and remember that just a couple of days ago I’d been worrying about simply making this trip. If someone had told me I’d have to put on a vacuum suit and go out-ship before it was all over, I’d have crawled into the back of my closet-cave back home and never come out. And now, here I was getting ready to land a commercial shuttle.

But you know; it all kind of lent credence to my whole ‘suck it up’ method of coping with things. Though I wasn’t about to speculate about how well I’d have done without Heero with me, I had to admit to myself that I’d managed it. Managed whatever hurdle the fates had seen fit to throw in my path. Maybe I hadn’t handled it with what you would exactly call grace, but I’d done what needed doing when it came right down to it.

I wondered if that fact would make people stop telling me I needed therapy? I turned toward Heero to ask him just that, and found him with his head leaned back against the head rest, sound asleep.

I grinned at him like a loon for about thirty seconds before guilt beast loped through the doorway, toenails rattling on the deck-plates, and set to gnawing on my ankle. Heero would not be dozing in a situation like this one, if he weren’t already completely wiped out from dealing with my sorry ass. Heero is not prone to taking naps. So then I just sat and watched him sleep for a bit, and felt bad for putting him through so much turmoil. But then I thought about the fact that he felt safe enough in my presence to doze the hell off in the first place and I was back around to grinning at him.

His hair was as sweat-stiff as mine was, his eyes dark circled, his clothes rumbled and looking like he’d worn half of them under a vacuum suit and thrown the rest of them on while running for his life. But, you know, he was still a damn gorgeous man. And you know what else? He’s mine. Isn’t that a kick in the head? It is to me sometimes. Heero Yuy is a handsome, strong, fascinating man. Sexy and compassionate, gentle and patient, and damn it to hell… in love with me.

No, it’s not a surprise, but sometimes it just kind of blind-sides me.

Dear God but I wanted to go home. Wanted my bed and Heero’s shoulder to rest my head on.

Guess I was pretty tired too.

So I sat through the last hours of the night cycle alternating between watching Heero and getting familiar with the ship. The quiet bothered me a little bit, but I had only to look across to see Heero resting there, and things were all right. Not wonderful, but something I could deal with.

He was upset with himself when he roused some hours later, and gave me a look of reproach. ‘Duo, why didn’t you wake me up? What if there’d been trouble?’

I gave him a snort of a laugh and rolled my eyes. ‘Like you wouldn’t have been awake in a heartbeat if anyone else had come into the cockpit. You were tired… it didn’t hurt for you to sleep.’ I shrugged and figured the look I gave him should pretty much get across the idea that I didn’t feel bad about letting him rest.

He looked guilty then, and gave me a sad little frown. ‘I didn’t mean to leave you alone like that.’

‘I wasn’t alone,’ I told him, smiling warmly. ‘You were right here. That’s all I need.’

He looked only a little reassured, and I think he might have said more, perhaps another apology, but we began to hear voices out in the main cabin and before long Bobbi stuck her head in through the hatch and smiled at us. ‘Do you gentlemen need anything? Coffee? Some breakfast?’

I exchanged a look with Heero, both of us wondering if we could trust the woman. But then I had to grin and shake my head; Good God, I really was getting paranoid. ‘Coffee would be lovely, if you wouldn’t mind?’

‘Not a problem,’ she said with a perky little laugh. ‘Anything for you Mr. Yuy?’

He hesitated a moment, but then grudgingly said, ‘Tea would be most appreciated.’ When she was gone, Heero turned a critical eye my way. ‘You should eat.’

‘Probably,’ I chuckled. ‘But I really don’t know that I can stomach more shuttle food right now.’

In the end, we couldn’t stomach the drinks either. When Bobbi brought them to us, we thanked her politely and then sat and stared at the bulbs in our hands. The drink bulbs prepared for us by a woman who was likely to be facing charges with the rest of the shuttle crew based mostly on our testimony. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself I was being stupid, I just couldn’t make myself drink the damn thing.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I snarled, but went right ahead and chucked my coffee into the disposal chute by the door.

Heero only quirked me that sardonic little half-grin of his, handing me his tea as I went by.

We’d be on the ground in a couple of hours anyway; I could sure as hell wait.

‘You know,’ I told Heero after I’d settled back in the pilot’s seat. ‘Procedure dictates that we notify ground control of the… change in personnel.’

Heero only grunted, his expression letting me know that I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, and that he wasn’t all that happy about it.

So I put the call through and yielded the floor to Heero as the official on board, to deal with the fairly pissed off sounding dispatcher that came on the line.

‘Who am I talking to?’ the guy snapped. ‘Where the hell is Captain Gray?’

‘This is Heero Yuy, agent first class with the Preventors,’ Heero informed him, sounding impersonal and professional and altogether not like himself. ‘Captain Gray is under arrest and has been confined to his cabin. I need to speak with your head of security.’

There was a pause and then the guy barked, ‘Where the hell is the co-pilot?’

There was an almost imperceptible sigh from Heero, but he maintained his almost clinical air, quite nicely, I thought. ‘Avery Hill lost his life attempting shuttle repairs. Now I need to speak with your head of security.’

There was a long damn pause then, before the guy came back on, sounding slightly more subdued. ‘Agent Yuy… just who is flying that shuttle?’

Heero glanced across at me, looking a touch apologetic, as though he wished for my sake he could leave my name out of this. ‘My partner, Captain Duo Maxwell, is a licensed pilot. Now I really need to speak with your head of security.’

While the guy was stammering, trying to figure out just what he had on his hands, I pulled up a search window so that when he told Heero that Mr. Carpenter would be right with him, I was able to shake my head in the negative.

‘I said your head of security,’ Heero snapped, looking at me as I mouthed the proper name to him. ‘You find Ms. Kasten and tell her she has a level three emergency on shuttle flight fourteen-ten. Now.’

That got us another long pause and Heero grinned at me wolfishly while we waited the guy out. It ended up taking them almost twenty minutes to find her. I wondered if they pulled the woman in from home, which brought on another thought and I snorted softly. ‘Well, I hope this woman loves her job,’ I told Heero. ‘You realize it’s Christmas morning?’

Heero blinked at me for a moment and then had to grin ruefully. ‘It is, isn’t it? I suppose it’s a safe bet we’re not going to be her favorite people before this day is out.’

I grinned and turned back to the controls, poking at the information I’d dredged up from the shuttle port’s public pages, looking to see if there was anything else there that might be useful, when I heard Heero climb out of the co-pilot’s seat. I looked up as he came to stand beside me, and he leaned down to deliver a gentle kiss. ‘Merry Christmas, love,’ he said softly, smiling with that little twist of irony in his voice.

I chuckled. ‘Merry Christmas,’ I agreed. ‘Damn good thing we don’t actually celebrate the holiday, or this whole thing might be kind of depressing.’

He laughed at my lame attempt at humor and might have replied, but the comm. finally chirped for our attention, announcing that they’d dredged up Ms. Kasten.

I was kind of surprised when Heero perched on the armrest of the pilot’s chair, staying by me while he dealt with the woman.

‘Ms. Kasten?’ he asked, and waited while she acknowledged herself before going on. ‘This is Agent Heero Yuy of the Preventors…’

She cut him off, though she managed to do it without sounding all that rude about it. ‘Forgive me Agent Yuy, but would you mind giving me your badge number as verification that you are who you say you are?’

Heero quirked a little appreciative grin at me and it was a bit of a relief to finally be talking to someone who seemed to know how to do their damn job. ‘Certainly,’ he told her and rattled the thing off from memory. We had to wait a few minutes while she, or more likely, someone on her staff, made contact with Preventors headquarters. When she came back on the line, there seemed to be a touch more respect in her voice.

‘All right, Agent Yuy,’ she told him brusquely. ‘Your people vouch for the badge number and the fact that you were booked on that flight. Now… my top propriety here is the safety of that shuttle. I understand that Captain Gray has been detained, I need to know who you have at the controls.’

‘Of course,’ Heero assured her. ‘My partner is an experienced and licensed pilot,’ and he looked to me to complete the sentence. To give the woman the information she wanted.

‘Duo Maxwell, Ma’am,’ I informed her and went ahead with my license number, knowing she’d be asking for it next. There was another bit of a wait while they ran my id.

‘Your status shows inactive, Captain Maxwell,’ she said when she came back to the mike. ‘You sure you can handle this?’

‘It’s like riding a bicycle,’ I quipped, not knowing what in the hell else to answer to that question. ‘You never really forget how it’s done. Besides… we don’t have a lot of other choices at the moment.’

She hesitated while she thought it over, I guess, and I wanted to ask her if she was perhaps going to teleport a replacement pilot into the cockpit. Heero settled a hand on my shoulder and the united front was kind of nice, even if the woman couldn’t see it.

‘All right, Agent Yuy,’ she said, obviously deciding that I was the best she had at the moment and dismissing whatever doubts she’d been dwelling on in favor of a new topic. ‘You mind telling me just what happened up there?’

‘I would prefer not discussing it on an open channel,’ Heero told her. ‘Suffice it to say that the lightest charge against Captain Gray will be gross negligence of duty.’

I almost snickered, but bit back on it. Heero squeezed my shoulder again and gave me a mock glare.

There was another pause and Security Chief Kasten did not sound happy when she spoke next. ‘Fair enough, Agent Yuy,’ she said crisply, and dismissed him this time, speaking to me again. ‘Captain Maxwell, we will be bringing you in under a standard level three emergency.’

I opened my mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut again. That rankled, but I suppose it was only procedure. So, ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ was all I said.

I’d never before had to land anything on the ‘ditch and burn’ strip, as pilots affectionately called it. The runway that was so far away from the terminal and all other traffic, that even if you were drunk off your ass and tried to land one-handed, you couldn’t screw up bad enough to damage anything that mattered. It affronted my spacer pride somehow.

There was the murmur of voices over the radio, as Ms. Kasten conferred with someone, then she was back. ‘We have you on the ground at twelve hundred hours, gentlemen. I will expect a full debriefing immediately.’

‘Of course,’ Heero told her, sounding just a bit disdainful, perhaps irritated that she had felt compelled to tell him something he already knew.

‘I’ll see you on the field then,’ she said, and if she heard his tone of voice, she ignored it. ‘Oh,’ she said suddenly, a hint of amusement suddenly coloring her voice. ‘Merry Christmas. You’ll make mine a lot brighter if you keep that ship in one piece.’

I could not contain the derisive snort that time. ‘I’ll see what I can manage,’ was all I told her, because most of the rest of the lines that popped into my head weren’t really appropriate.

She signed off then, and I imagined her turning around and ordering a room full of people into action. ‘Are you imagining a huge blond, Valkyrie woman?’ I asked Heero, only half kidding.

He chuckled. ‘Actually, I was envisioning a woman with black hair pulled back in a severely tight bun who answers to the name of Natasha.’

I couldn’t help laughing in return, and found my head leaning to rest against him since he was sitting right there anyway. ‘Well, Natasha or Brunhilde, I have a feeling we’re going to be heartily sick of her before the day is over.’

He sighed and rubbed his hand up and down my arm. ‘I’m sorry, but yes… we’re probably going to be in the security office for most of the day.’

I sighed in return, but couldn’t think of a thing to say in response. Whining about feeling like I was at the end of my rope wasn’t going to make all the red tape go away. It wasn’t going to make me exempt from having to testify.

He seemed to understand how I was feeling, because he lifted a gentle hand to trace along my cheek, but I had to catch it in my own, stilling it where I could look at it. His fingertips and the heel of his palm were bruised black, and I bent to carefully brush my lips over the undamaged flesh in the center of his hand. Acknowledging the price he’d paid in winning our freedom. His body, sometimes, has trouble bearing up to that strength of his.

Heero only smiled, but we didn’t speak of it.

‘Duo,’ he said softly. ‘We have a couple of hours… do you think you could get some sleep? You’ve been up all night after a couple of rough days…’ he just let it trail off, asking the question and not pushing. I thought about it; sleep sounded very damn heavenly. I was so very tired. Achy down in the bone tired, and if I was going to be taking this ship in, a little rest sure as hell wouldn’t hurt. But I had to be bluntly honest.

‘Not away from you,’ I told him. ‘If you’re asking me to go back to the cabin; I’m too edgy over that crap with Gray. I wouldn’t be able to relax without you there to watch my back. And at least one of us has to stay here.’

‘I’m not separating us for anything, until we’re off this damn ship,’ Heero said firmly. ‘But, do you think you could take a nap here in the cockpit?’

‘I can try,’ I conceded. ‘Just… don’t let me sleep too long. Give me a good half an hour to wake up before I have to do anything the matters.’

‘All right,’ he agreed, and I was absolutely appalled at how fast I was gone after I settled back in the chair and made the conscious effort to let go.

It was very much like falling into a black hole.

I think Heero was a little distressed by how much trouble he had waking me back up, and he’d given me the whole three hours; calling me a half an hour before our approach began, almost to the minute.

I had to get up and walk around the cabin to get the kinks out, I don’t think I so much as twitched a muscle the whole time I was asleep. I would cheerfully have drunk any damn think Bobbi would have brought me at that moment, and asked for seconds.

‘God, Duo,’ Heero told me, watching as I tried to stretch and bend in the awkward confines of the cockpit. ‘You’re exhausted; are you sure you can do this? I’ve never brought in anything this size before, but I can…’

‘I’m fine,’ I told him, putting a little more effort into waking up. ‘But I have to use the head so bad I’m going to pee the pilot’s seat if I try to land this sucker without going first.’

He didn’t look happy about it, but finally confessed, ‘Me too. I was hoping to get on the ground first, but it’s starting to get… distracting.’

I grinned at him. ‘Ok… this is beyond ridiculous. I’m going out into the main cabin to the damn head. You can see it from the cockpit door, if you want to stand watch. I’ll guard your potty break if you’ll guard mine.’

I swear, I think his face tinged just a touch pink. He nodded and we executed mission ‘Pee or Explode’.

It was almost painful to go, it had been so long. When I was done, I washed my face and sucked water out of my hands from the faucet. It felt like the best damn drink I’d had in years.

The worst part was enduring the curious stares from the passengers that were starting to filter into the cabin to belt down for reentry. I just tried not to make eye contact and walked briskly.

Then it was my turn to stand in the hatchway and watch while Heero made his own trip.

Nothing at all happened, other than Leslie giving him a polite ‘good morning’ as he made his way back. I wanted to laugh at our paranoia, but couldn’t quite forget the sound of air being sucked out an airlock. I shivered and decided that it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you.

Then it was no more playing. Time to buckle down, belt down and get the hell to the job at hand.

‘You’re in charge,’ Heero told me as he settled himself into the co-pilot’s seat. ‘You just tell me what to do.’

I snorted and glanced across at him. ‘Of course I am… I’m the Captain,’ I quipped and got a grin out of him. ‘Pull up the second level status screens and keep an eye on my heat and energy outputs. My Demon wasn’t this large; don’t let me drift into the red. I’ll keep the first level on my screens. I don’t intend to so much as scuff the paint on this baby.’

Heero couldn’t help an odd little smirk. ‘Getting our pride up, are we?’

‘Damn straight,’ I grumbled. ‘Never had to land on the ‘ditch and burn’ in my entire life and I am professionally insulted that the woman is going to make me do it now.’

Heero laughed out right at me, looking… pleased with me, if that makes any sense at all. I just shook my head and got down to work. I buzzed the intercom and let Bobbi know to put on her ‘seats in the upright position’ speech. Then I called the tower to take my coordinates.

‘Don’t you break my shuttle, Captain Maxwell,’ Ms. Kasten told me, and I could freakin’ hear the smug grin in her voice.

‘I was landing ships while you were still doing your graduate thesis,’ I smirked right back at her, positive that her first name was Brunhilde. ‘Don’t you worry about your shuttle.’

‘You don’t sound that old, Captain,’ she said, amused.

‘I’m not,’ I informed her and killed the connection. ‘Five bucks says she’s blond and no less than five foot eight,’ I muttered to Heero and he chuckled.

‘You’re on,’ he said. ‘My five says she’s black-haired and wearing stiletto heels.’

Then it was time to plot my trajectory and get ready for the descent. I did it in my head, then verified it with the computer, finally calling to Heero, ‘Spec it one more time.’

He did, without question, but had to tell me, ‘You knew you had that.’

‘Not taking any chances as tired as we are,’ I informed him. ‘You see anything that so much as makes your nerves quiver, you call me on it. Check and double check. I’m not going to get pissed off if you question me.’

He was rather quiet, but as I’d just killed the autopilot, I really didn’t have the attention to spare to look across at him.

‘Aye, Captain,’ he finally said, and there was a hint of… respect in his voice that made me want to grin.

Commercial shuttles are… big. Really damn big, and not in a good way. I have to confess to a couple of ‘oh shit’ moments when I first took that yoke in my hands. It’s kind of like the difference between driving a car with power steering and suddenly finding yourself behind the wheel of a John Deer tractor. Salvage ships are designed for maximum maneuverability; you have to be able to take them any damn where and keep yourself in one piece while doing the job of salvaging. Commercial shuttles are… bricks with wings.

‘I’m getting uneven output on the engines,’ Heero told me calmly and I called up his screens, watching the levels as I made adjustments. ‘There,’ he told me when I had it, and I turned the watching back over to him.

‘Not going to have a lot of margin for error on this puppy, are we?’ I muttered and he grunted his agreement.

I didn’t have long to get the feel of the ship before we passed ‘zenith’ and were totally committed. The last hour, autopilot had engaged the vane array and we had dumped the prerequisite velocity, but it still felt very much like riding a flaming comet to Earth. But then… it always does.

I wished I could play my music.

‘Watch the number two,’ Heero said and I flicked my attention to that engine’s telemetry.

‘Runs hot, doesn’t she?’ I murmured back, and bumped the stabilizer just a hair.

‘It’s synched,’ Heero let me know and I forgot about it, trusting him to keep an eye on the recalcitrant thing. I split the main screen and put up a topography map next to a simulation of our trajectory.

I marked our path with a yellow flag and told Heero, ‘Landing gear down when we reach that point, ok?’

‘Affirm,’ he responded, acknowledging responsibility for the task.

I started to feel the buck in the yoke that told me the wrestling match was underway, and I couldn’t spare much thought to anything but holding her steady. The border of the simulation began to glow red, showing us the outside temperature as it rose.

Instincts and habit began to kick in, and it was like I had never left the trade. Like I’d never turned my back on this. I felt a bubble of panic, thinking that I had forgotten to slap Solo’s shoulder, until I remembered the ship was not mine.

‘Duo,’ Heero’s voice sounded just a bit hesitant. ‘A little shallow?’

‘Not with a passenger class,’ I told him, keeping my eyes on my boards. ‘Handles a lot different from a transport.’

‘Sorry,’ he said softly.

‘Don’t be,’ I told him gruffly. ‘I said to question.’

I couldn’t look to make sure the reassurance was enough.

I remember thinking that I really would have preferred to do this with a little bit more sleep to my credit.

They don’t name commercial passenger shuttles, just those stupid numbers. I always thought that was an insult to the ship and wondered idly if Gray had named the think in private. Fourteen-ten seemed so… impersonal.

‘Jinx,’ Solo whispered in the air beside my ear and I had to grin.

‘Thought you were watching my house, asshole?’ I murmured and he took his limited existence away with a dark chuckle.

‘Duo?’ Heero called. ‘Are you… all right?’

I let out with a laugh, and dared a flick of my eyes his way. ‘Oddly enough, going down in a flaming ball of disintegrating metal is not half as frightening as putting on a vacuum suit and going out-ship.’

There was a noise like a laugh that had been bludgeoned to death. I grinned in response, but don’t think he saw it.

It was quiet for a long couple of minutes while I just held on, feeling muscles bunch and knot. Damn, but commercial shuttles are fucking ungainly beasts.

‘Landing gear deployed,’ Heero called and I grunted, realizing we’d passed that mark and I hadn’t even noticed. I’d been counting on him to remember it so much, that I’d completely put it out of my mind.

‘Shit,’ I hissed, after another minute of yoke-wrestling and feeling like I was losing. ‘It’s like flying a damn elephant!’

There was a sudden tension in the air and I decided that might not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances.

‘Do you need me to take it?’ he asked, and I was pleased that he hadn’t let his earlier false assumption throw him.

I made myself feel the edges of my endurance and was able to tell him, ‘I got it… but thanks.’

He grunted, and managed somehow to make it sound relieved.

We were low enough that the trajectory map was useless and I had Heero switch it for a nose camera view of the ground coming up to meet us. We were dead on target.

‘Getting hot on two,’ Heero told me tersely, but I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

‘Synch it,’ I ordered. ‘The breath of a hair, no more; the stabilizers are touchy as hell.’

It took him a second and then he called, ‘Got it.’

I got the ping from the control tower and the lights on my runway went from yellow to green, as I hit my alignment.

‘Come on, Jinx old boy,’ I muttered around the lip I had clamped in my teeth. ‘Let’s not embarrass ourselves.’

The strip seemed to be coming at us awfully damn fast. But then… it always does. I checked the speed and found it right where it ought to be. Checked altitude and found it right on the mark.

Bringing a ship in is a strange thing; there’s always this last minute up-swelling of supreme doubt, when you are just positive that you’re about to end up splattered all over the tarmac, followed by a moment of pure euphoria as you realize you’ve brought it all together.

I put that son of a bitch down light enough I would not have cracked eggs on the runway.

‘Braking thrusters,’ I called and let Heero handle that while I guided us down the center of the almost embarrassingly wide strip. He was as gentle with those as I’d been with the touch-down and I grinned. Between us, we brought that shuttle right down to the end of the tarmac, and even turned it at the last minute so we were facing the right direction for the tow-truck to haul the ship back to the main port. ‘Take that, Brunhilde,’ I gloated and set about shutting down.

When the ship was nothing more than a parked car, systems inert and quiet, I let myself slump back in the pilot’s seat with a weary groan. ‘Man, I wish that was the end of this,’ I told Heero, then rolled my head to finally really look across at him. ‘I relinquish command, partner. You’re the residing peace keeping official… your show now.’

He looked damn near as tired as I felt, and gave we a wan little grin. ‘I’d have traded you parts.’

‘No way in hell,’ I said fervently and then it was time to unbuckle and get back to work.

We went out into the main cabin, and Heero declared a small delay, asking people to keep their seats until the port authorities came out to meet the ship. Bobbi had already announced that due to the unusual circumstances, we had not come down next to the terminal and a bus would be brought out to ferry the passengers off the field.

People seemed curious, but not really afraid or overly upset. I looked around for Spencer, a little leery of the reception I would get from the kid, but didn’t see him. I frowned slightly, having to assume that he’d been allowed to ride out reentry in his cabin, which is slightly against the rules, but then I had to admit that’s pretty much where we’d let Captain Gray sit it out, so who was I to judge?

Then it was time to greet our adoring public, and we went to un-dog the main hatch. The grounds crew had moved in just that fast, and an exit ramp was being trundled up to the ship. We looked down at the array of cars and personnel and I felt a little daunted. They looked like they were just waiting to swarm all over the ship and I envisioned a long damn afternoon in front of me, answering questions and getting grilled six ways to Sunday. Joy.

Then Heero grunted in surprise and I followed his gaze to see a familiar figure. ‘Wufei?’ I asked, though I hardly had to.

‘I suppose it stands to reason,’ Heero mused. ‘He would have been notified when they ran my badge number.’

I had to chuckle softly, stepping back with Heero as the ramp mated to the side of the shuttle with a harsh clang of metal on metal. ‘You realize Sally is going to kill us for dragging him off on Christmas day?’

He quirked me an amused little grin, but then we both noticed the woman standing next to Wufei. I’d gotten the height, but Heero’d gotten the heels. We’d both missed the hair.

‘Looks like a Sonja, instead of a Brunhilde or a Natahsa,’ Heero teased. ‘Guess the bet’s off.’

The woman only lacked a broadsword and a shield. Well… and maybe a chain-mail bikini, but the severe, navy-blue Armani suit was more imposing.

I glanced down at myself and had to chuckle. ‘We’re going to look like crack-head alley-squatters next to them; you realize that, don’t you?’

‘Maybe it will inspire them to finish with us sooner,’ he suggested, though I could tell he didn’t believe it, was just making talk. Filling the silence.

I looked at him again, realizing he was probably maintaining the banter for my sake and had to tell him, ‘I’m ok, Heero.’

He gave me a critical once over and smiled softly. ‘You sure? Because you look like shit.’

I had to cut the laugh off when I realized Ms. Kasten was half-way up the ramp and was looking at us like she was considering which body-part to take home for dinner. I think we affronted her by daring to crack a grin in the middle of her ‘situation’.

‘Which of you is Yuy and which is Maxwell?’ she demanded before she’d even stopped climbing, and we did a quick round of introductions. I got a little grin as she shook my hand and she said, ‘Not looking for a job are you, Mr. Maxwell?’

Because I was damn near tired enough to fall asleep standing up, the woman got about two seconds of the pure unadulterated reaction to that question before I got it shoved behind a grin. It left her blinking at me in obvious confusion. ‘No thanks, Ma’am,’ I told her, and left it at that.

We were able to turn over the tedious chores to the security crew and fade into the background. Or, at least, I was able to. Heero was front and center, dealing with Ms. Scary-woman, but Wufei was at his side now, and I felt like I could relax my guard for the first time in… a long time.

It was decided that the passengers, who were still relatively oblivious to a large part of what they’d just gone through, would be gotten off the shuttle before Captain Gray was brought out of his cabin. No need to parade the man through a crowd of on-lookers. While they were still dealing with that, I managed to get Heero’s attention long enough to convey that I was going to get our bag out of the cabin while we waited. The ghost of a frown crossed his face, but he nodded after a second and let me go.

I cheated. I felt kind of bad about it, but while I was in the cabin, I took the time to change clothes, redo my braid, brush my teeth, and wash up. Hey; opportunity knocked… it wasn’t my fault, it didn’t knock for Heero as well. I wasn’t fool enough to let the chance pass, though I would not allow myself to sit down on the bed for even a minute; I knew it wouldn’t take that long for my body to take advantage of its own opportunity.

So I finished up, packed our things and headed back to where I’d last seen Heero, before he sent out a search party. And that was when I finally ran into Spencer.

I hate to admit this, but I will; had I seen him before I stepped out into the corridor, I would have stayed in the damn cabin and hidden from him. I’m not particularly proud of that, but it’s the God’s honest truth. I just didn’t know that I had the strength left to deal with him. But I didn’t see him, had in fact, already started walking before I glanced up from settling our over-night bag against my hip to find him standing there… obviously waiting for me.

If my hamsters made noise, one of them would have popped up and whistled that stupid theme from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’.

I opted for hopeful innocence and smiled, though it was probably a little lame. ‘Hey Spencer,’ I greeted him. ‘Feeling better?’

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just standing down the corridor and staring at me, face all twisted up; confused and hurting. I waited… I’d put the ball in his court, after all.

‘My father,’ he finally managed, voice all raspy and choked. ‘Wouldn’t do what you’re accusing him of.’

He fairly quivered with tension, and I knew I was probably not going to be able to avoid a blow up, but had to try none the less. ‘Spencer… your father made a serious error in judgment when he chose to ignore the law and…’

‘He was only trying to help me!’ he blurted, and the expression on his face made me think of kicked puppies.

‘I know that,’ I soothed. ‘But you can’t ignore the rules. Look what happened when that vane went down; that’s exactly why you don’t leave an inexperienced pilot alone at the helm. Your father knew that too.’

His face got all scrunched up and he came a couple of steps closer, remembering Avery, I imagined. ‘I told you about that in confidence! I can’t believe you’re doing this to us!’ he said and it was almost a wail.

‘Spencer, please,’ I tried again. ‘This isn’t about your father letting you pilot a damn shuttle. This is about what he tried to do to cover that fact up.’

He came the rest of the way to meet me; his face flushed a blotchy red. I automatically took a step back, turning so that my back was to the wall and not to open corridor. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he exclaimed. ‘I trusted you!’

‘Spencer,’ I sighed, resisting the urge to bury my hands in my hair and beat my own head against the wall. ‘First off, you don’t even know me! Second, my partner is a damn Preventors agent; you think he could ignore something like this? And third, we might very well have taken your father aside and just given him a warning… right up until the part where he tried to space us to cover his ass!’ I was a little surprised that I was getting a bit angry myself. I knew better; he was just a damn kid, but I was just so stinking tired.

Then Spencer grabbed hold of the front of my shirt, yelling, ‘My father is not a murderer!’ in my face. I swayed back, losing our bag off my shoulder, but was reluctant to just shove the poor kid off.

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘He is not. By the grace of Heero’s strength and nothing more… he is not.’

Standing there like that, with my shirt fisted in his hands, the falling bag, my apparent loss of balance… from the other end of the corridor, these things probably looked pretty much like Spencer was attacking me.

At least that seemed to be what Heero was thinking as he came charging down the hall, intent on turning my ex-biggest fan into guacamole dip. I had to bodily put myself between them to even slow Heero down. ‘Stand-down!’ I barked, shoving Spencer behind me, and it was a very strange thing to watch my partner go from almost berserk to totally confused in the space of a heartbeat. ‘It’s all right, Heero,’ I told him quickly. ‘He wasn’t attacking me.’

He had to take me by the arm and pull me a couple of steps into the clear anyway. I was kind of surprised that the glare he was giving Spencer didn’t make the kid burst into flame where he stood. Over Heero’s shoulder, I saw Wufei and Ms. Scary coming down the corridor with matching frowns. The sound of the woman’s heels on the deck-plates was grating.

‘He didn’t hurt you?’ Heero demanded, still holding my arm and giving me a quick once over.

‘No,’ I soothed. ‘It’s all right. I…’

Then behind me Spencer sort of went to pieces, bursting into tears and collapsing to the deck in a heap. I contained a heavy sigh by biting my tongue. ‘I think somebody should go get Leslie,’ I told Heero and pulled away to squat down beside the… God, I had to stop thinking of him as ‘the poor kid’. I found myself awkwardly patting his back. ‘Come on, man,’ I said softly. ‘It’ll be all right…’

‘This is all my fault!’ he sobbed. ‘I never should have told anybody that I wasn’t licensed!’

‘Look, Spencer,’ I told him reasonably. ‘If you hadn’t told me, I would not have realized you were in trouble when that alarm went off. If we hadn’t gotten there when we did, the van array would have been blown and we’d all be halfway to Venus by now and no looking back.’

He looked up at me, blinking furiously, and you would have thought there was no one else in the corridor but me. ‘But Dad’s going to go to jail all because of me.’ For a second it actually crossed my mind to wonder just how old he was; in that moment he didn’t look any older than about sixteen.

‘If your father goes to jail,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s because of what he did, not because of what you did.’

I suddenly had a lap full of sobbing Spencer and would have cheerfully traded places with just about anybody else on that damn ship. Was this day never going to be over?

‘He’s going to hate me!’ he wailed and I really wished he’d quit that.

I couldn’t stop one of my hands from scrubbing over my face, and I looked up to see if anybody had gotten Leslie’s ass in gear yet. I really didn’t know how in the hell to deal with this. Wufei was missing, so I assume he was the one who went after her, but there was no sign of their return. So I bulled forward. ‘Your father loves you, buddy,’ I blurted. ‘He wouldn’t have risked his damn career if he didn’t.’

He lifted his head from my lap and looked up at me. ‘But if I hadn’t screwed up when that vane went down…’

‘Bullshit,’ I snapped, wishing I could just smack some sense into his head. ‘The array was damaged all on its own. The repairs would still have been needed. Avery would still have made his own mistake. Heero and I would still have had to go finish the job. Spencer… it would all have played out just the same.’ He just sat and stared at me and I couldn’t repress the sigh again. ‘Spencer, you aren’t innocent in this anymore than anyone else. You knew what you were doing was against the law, but Avery Hill is dead by his own hand, and your father is guilty by his. If you’re going to feel guilty… at least feel guilty over the right thing.’

‘I’m just so sorry for everything…’ he told me, looking at me searchingly, hunting for signs of my disgust, I think. Nothing like having someone you look up to, view you with disdain.

‘I know, kid,’ I told him. The best I could do.

Then Leslie was there, and she came to put an arm around his shoulders, urging him up. ‘Spencer,’ she hissed. ‘I think you should shut up now.’ No one got in their way as she led him away.

I did not have the strength to get myself off the damn deck.

I looked up to find Ms. Kasten with a calculated look on her face, watching the retreating shuttle crew members, and I suddenly realized that Spencer had somewhat inadvertently just confessed. It wasn’t anything that could be used against him, of course, but it had put the woman on the right scent and I had no doubt she’d pursue the facts until there was no blood left to squeeze from the turnip.

Heero came and offered me a hand up and I took it without argument, careful of his bruises. ‘I’m done, Heero,’ I told him, trying to let the apology lie in my tone. But it was the truth; I’d passed the end of my patience hours ago. Passed the end of my endurance and was closing fast on the end of my willingness to repress and contain.

‘Ms. Kasten,’ Heero said, doing his best to sound intimidating. ‘I will have a full report to you by tomorrow afternoon, but we’re…’

‘I want that report today, Mr. Yuy,’ she informed him with just a touch of arrogance in her voice. ‘I am the final authority on this port and no one is leaving until…’

‘It’ll take you until tomorrow to edit out all the damn ‘F’ words if you try and take my statement right now, anyway,’ I snarled. ‘Shoot me or charge me with something, because I am going the hell home to sleep until New Years, other wise.’

I’m really not sure what possessed me, but somehow I’d taken the right tact, and after a long damn minute, the woman threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘Fair enough, Mr. Maxwell,’ she told me with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Consider it my Christmas present to you, since you didn’t plow my shuttle into the ground.’

‘Thank you,’ Heero interjected before I could open my mouth again, because God only knows what would have come out of it. Wufei grabbed our bag off the floor while Heero nudged me past the woman and we were finally headed out of there.

‘I do expect a full report by tomorrow afternoon, gentlemen,’ she called after us, but nobody responded.

‘Damn, Duo,’ Wufei chuckled at me, when we were finally down the ramp and on the ground. ‘That woman has a reputation a mile high as a gold-plated… tyrant. She must like you.’

‘I doesn’t matter one way or the other,’ I told him. ‘I was serious… they’d have to shoot my ass to keep me here any longer. I have had all I can take and I’m going the hell home.’

He gave me a rather surprised glance and then quirked a little grin. ‘Trip go well?’

He got the laugh he was looking for, but it took a great deal of effort for me to get it wrestled to a stop again. ‘Fucking ducky,’ I told him ruthlessly when I could, and beside me Heero muttered,

‘Later, Wufei.’

Much later, I wanted to tell them. Way later. Days later, in fact. But I suspected I was drifting toward rude and just shut up.

Wufei’s car was there on the field with the rest of the security vehicles and he led us to it. I didn’t wait for anybody to try to put me anywhere, but opened the back door and threw myself down on the seat; I don’t even remember anyone shutting the damn door.

Wufei ended up just driving us home. I think he was afraid of letting Heero drive as tired as he looked, and not having to try prodding me out of one car and into another was just an added bonus. If they’d had much more trouble getting me to wake up when we got to the house, I’d probably have ended up being carried inside over someone’s shoulder. As it was, Heero had to stop me from heading straight for the couch as soon as he opened the front door. I think I snarled at him when he thwarted my exhausted body from seeking that first flat surface, but I let him herd me upstairs with the lure of our bed. I can’t tell you when we lost Wufei.

I was ditching clothes the minute I hit the top of the stairs, aiming for that glorious expanse of softness like a salmon on its single-minded trip upstream. Heero was right behind me. I barely let him pull back the covers before I was prone, burrowing into pillows and preparing to leave the mortal plane behind for as long as I could manage it. ‘Never leavin’ home again, Yuy. Never.’

He chuckled as he crawled in next to me, pulling me into his arms. ‘Amen to that,’ was the last thing I heard before I crashed and burned.

I think I’d just finally gotten to the emotional collapse part of the week’s schedule.

I have no idea how long I slept, because I have no idea what time it was when I got started. Through the rest of whatever remained of Christmas and into the next day.

I woke alone and wasn’t all that surprised. The clock told me it was mid-morning. My body told me it didn’t care. I might well have rolled over and gone back to sleep if I hadn’t needed to pee, bathe and eat, in that order.

‘Bout time ya got yer lazy ass up,’ Solo chuckled, not bothering to come out in the open.

‘Shut up, asshole,’ I muttered and rolled my ‘lazy ass’ out of bed. When I gained the hall, I heard the faint sound of Heero typing on his computer in the bedroom we had turned into a study. I knew he was working on Ms. Scary-woman’s damn report and just took myself off to the bathroom to begin the job of turning myself into a human being again.

The towels were still damp and I knew that Heero had been up for awhile and had already showered. So I didn’t feel bad about allowing myself some extra time. It felt wonderful to be clean again, though I remembered the whirlpool tub at the hotel with a faint pang of longing.

Clean, bladder-relieved and feeling a little more civilized, I left the bathroom intent on finding Heero. But when I opened the door, it was the smell of food that greeted me instead of the sound of typing. I went to get dressed, then headed down to the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ Heero greeted me as I came into the room. ‘You’re still alive.’

‘Barely,’ I grumbled and went unerringly towards him, where he stood by the stove, until I could nudge my way into the curl of his arm like an insistent puppy. He chuckled, but wrapped an arm around me, keeping the other one free to stir at what he had cooking.

‘You’re all right?’ I asked, settling my head against his shoulder.

‘Fine,’ he reported, sounding amused.

‘I’m all right?’ I asked and it took him a second longer but he answered with a chuckle.

‘Fine.’

‘That’s food and we get to eat it?’ I continued, taken with the urge to kiss his collar bone, and reached up to pull his t-shirt aside to do just that.

He hummed an affirmative and gave me a little squeeze.

‘Then tell me all the rest of that was just a nightmare,’ I requested, and he kissed the top of my head before replying.

‘Just a nightmare,’ he agreed companionably.

‘Good,’ I sighed. ‘That means we don’t have to go visit Amazon woman today.’

He snorted and left off stirring what looked to be some sort of chowder when I peeked, to put both arms around me. ‘I said it was a nightmare… I didn’t say it was over.’

‘Damn,’ I muttered dejectedly. ‘You’re not working with me here.’

‘Sorry,’ he murmured, managing to mix amusement and regret in his voice until it came out just sounding affectionate. ‘Come on… this is ready whenever you are.’

‘I was ready about this time yesterday,’ I quipped and made myself let go of his warmth to go pour our drinks while he dished it up.

It proved to be some sort of chicken chowder and it came with these lovely little cheese biscuits that I had to force myself to stop eating before I exploded. My bottle of iron tablets was sitting in the middle of the table and I had to chuckle at the image of Heero making sure he kept those with him at all costs through the whole week, over and above anything else. I took one without him having to nudge the bottle and he smiled at me.

Half way through doing the dishes, I suddenly felt a shiver run up my spine and found myself staring down into dirty dish water, head trying to make an adjustment that just seemed too difficult.

‘Duo?’ Heero asked gently, touching my shoulder and I looked up at him.

‘This is… so fucking surreal it isn’t even funny,’ I had to tell him. ‘From plotting reentry to… to thinking about putting dish soap on the grocery list... do you think we’ll ever reach an age where we stop being able to switch mental gears in hyper-drive like this?’

He snorted and shook his head. ‘No… it’ll just be arthritis medicine instead of dish soap.’

That struck me as supremely funny, but when I started to laugh I had a really hard time getting it stopped and ended up getting Heero’s shirt all wet when he had to hold on to me. Or I had to hold on to him, I’m not sure just which it was.

I heard the rush of air again, hissing as that air lock door first started to open, and I wondered that I hadn’t had screaming nightmares all night.

‘Love you,’ I had to tell him and it made him squeeze me tight.

‘Forever,’ he soothed and then we finished the dishes.

Cooking, dishes, unpacking; it may all have seemed surreal as hell, but it was stuff that needed to be done, and no one else to do it.

I went to the basement to fetch a laundry basket while Heero drug the suitcase into the kitchen to empty it. Everything that was left in it was dirty and there was no sense in hauling it upstairs only to have to bring the dirty clothes back down again.

When I came back up from the laundry room, I found Heero with a little grin on his face and a roll of paper in his hand. ‘You forgot your Christmas present from Allison.’

I broke into a grin of my own and sat the basket down to take it from him. He began dumping the dirty clothes in said basket, watching as I slid the ribbon off and unrolled the picture. I suppose I had been expecting the usual fare of unicorns and flying horses. Maybe a picture of the house. Maybe a picture of Mrs. Octavia. Elves. Rainbows. I don’t really know.

I hadn’t been expected what I got, and I felt like I’d been kicked squarely in the nuts when it was opened up and revealed. Kids have a way of seeing things sometimes, that just sort of twists it all up into a neat little package and dumps crap right in your face.

It was a portrait of me. Allison, recognizable because of her long blond hair the way it had been before it had been cut, was perched on my shoulder, safely out of reach of the humongous dog that I was vanquishing with almost superhuman ease.

The dog was an ugly, slavering thing. Black and brown and as vicious looking as any starving junk yard dog you’d ever want to meet. But the me in the picture didn’t seem to be noticing. It lay on its back with my foot squarely in its stomach, pinning it to the ground without even looking. I was smiling at Allison-on-my-shoulder. Allison-on-my-shoulder, unmarked and unchanged, was smiling back.

It wasn’t a Rembrandt. It was a picture done by a child, albeit a talented one. There were flaws; my braid was a bit too long. I couldn’t have held her up on one shoulder like that. Left and right hands were difficult to tell apart. But the thought was as clear as a bell. The idea behind the art was unmistakable.

I guess I lost my grin.

‘Duo?’ Heero asked gently. ‘What’s wrong?’

I gave him a wan little smile and turned the picture around where he could see it too. It took him a moment longer to decipher it, not being familiar with grade school art, and then he looked kind of pained. ‘Oh,’ he said and couldn’t seem to come up with anything else. I saw his hand twitch and knew he’d be reaching for me in a moment, but I was kind of afraid of where that would lead, so I turned away and put my picture on the refrigerator, since that’s what I’d told her I was going to do with it. Then I just kind of left the room, because I felt sort of lousy and didn’t really feel like making Heero feel like crap too.

I took myself off to my studio and threw my butt down to sit on the old sofa there, finding Heero’s afghan still draped over the back of the thing and pulling it around me. I wondered if that room would be cool in the summer or not. It was sure cold enough at mid-winter.

Heero’s Christmas portrait on the wall took me a little bit by surprise; I’d almost forgotten the thing was there. It was still new and had not yet become part of the background. I wondered idly why the kids weren’t among the things I’d tried to render out that window; I’d certainly thought about them often enough during those days. I wondered if it would be wrong to add them now.

Such faith she had in me. Such belief. The meaning was as obvious as a message in sky-writing. She honestly believed that, had I been there that day, I would have kept that dog from hurting her. Mr. Duo makes everything all better. Mr. Duo can fix anything.

Well, at least she hadn’t drawn me wearing a damn red cape.

Was there nothing in my life that I could keep safe? Was there no aspect that wasn’t touched with my failure to be in the right places at the right times? Would I always prove to be too weak? Too late? Too… whatever in the hell it was?

How in the hell did you make something like this right? How did you give a kid back something as precious as the face that the world judged them by?

I hadn’t lied to her or Heero about that. I didn’t feel that the scar on Allison’s face made her anything less than what she had been before. She was still my beautiful little sprite. Was still gifted and bright and talented.

But don’t tell me that scar stopped on her skin. Scars like that go all the way to the bone. She could not forget it. She would see it every day when she looked in the mirror and it would make her shy. It would make her hesitant. It would make her doubt and fear and wonder at every glance she got. Are they looking at my scars? Do they think I’m ugly? Are they talking about it? Are they going to stare?

I knew those feelings all too well, but I’d been on the threshold of becoming a man and had come through it mostly intact. Had managed not to let the damning things define me. At least… mostly not.

But what about Allison? She wasn’t almost grown; she was only seven. It couldn’t help but change her; I’d seen signs already. How do you fix that? Without benefit of a time machine?

Heero let me sit and brood for awhile before he came to hunt me up, not saying anything, just sitting down beside me and offering himself for whatever I was in the mood for. Talking. Weeping. Whatever came up. I settled on leaning against his shoulder.

‘You know I’ve got to try and figure out a way to arrange that surgery, don’t you?’ I told him, half expecting him to argue with me; we were talking about a good chunk of change, after all.

But he only snorted, reaching out to take my hand. ‘I knew that the minute Octavia mentioned it,’ he informed me in a smug little, tender tone.

I sighed heavily, letting my hand lie limp in his, careful not to put pressure on his bruises. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t be,’ he said softly. ‘That… need of yours to protect the world is part of what makes you the man I love.’

I found myself blushing hotly. ‘You don’t get sick of all the… excess baggage?’

He chuckled and brought our hands up so that he could kiss my knuckles. ‘Never,’ he said simply, sounding amused by the very notion.

‘I am sorry, Heero,’ I suddenly felt compelled to tell him. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I don’t know why I keep feeling so… down.’

There was a stillness in the air then, that made me look at him. Had I not known for a fact that he hadn’t been eating anything, I’d have sworn that something was caught in his throat. I waited and it took him a few minutes to work the words out.

‘Duo-love,’ he finally began. ‘You’ve… forgotten what the season means.’

I frowned, trying to make sense of what he was saying. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told him.

He sighed, and I think he’d hoped I’d get whatever he was saying without him having to elaborate, but I was just baffled. I could tell he didn’t really want to say what he did next. ‘We’re coming up on the anniversary of the day you launched… on that job,’ he said gently.

I’m afraid I just sat and blinked at him.

Well now. An anniversary of sorts. A year. A whole damn year. No wonder I was so stinking depressed.

I wondered how I could not have known that.

I wondered why it was something of a relief to have it pointed out to me. To know what it was that had been subconsciously eating at me for the last few weeks. The mind is a seriously screwed up thing, when you get right down to it; it’s all done with smoke and mirrors, I think. And sometimes my smoke seemed to get a little thick. Or maybe my mirrors were all the funhouse kind.

I lifted my head from his shoulder and quirked him a little grin. ‘Happy anniversary?’

His smile was a lovely anniversary gift. ‘I suppose it will be,’ he agreed, seeming pleased that I could see it that way. I settled my head back on his shoulder, having to think about it a little bit. Having to let myself remember. Had to poke at the what ifs and the might have beens.

‘Did I ever say thank you,’ I blurted. ‘For coming after me?’

He laughed and let go of my hand to slip his arm around me, tilting my head back to kiss me. ‘I believe you did… somewhere in there.’

I snorted, just leaning against him. Feeling his warmth.

A year. Sometimes it seemed like a million years ago… and sometimes it seemed like just yesterday.

We sat like that for a while, in companionable silence, until he finally sighed and told me with some regret, ‘We have to be in Ms. Kasten’s office in two hours and I have got to finish my report first.’

‘Oh joy,’ I grumbled and he laughed at me. I sat up so that he could go get to work, but he had to kiss me before he went. Deep and slow; promising more later. Promising much more later.

I sat for a long while after he left me there, and stared at the painting on the wall. Tried to look at the picture itself with a critical eye. Tried to see beyond the flaws. Tried to see what there was in it that had taken Heero’s breath away.

Then I got up to go get the phone.

Heero had all the guys programmed in, and I hit the 03 that would dial Trowa’s private cell phone, smiling at the old joke.

‘Hello?’ he said after the second ring, and I wondered where he was and what he was doing. Wondered if I was bothering him.

‘Hi, Trowa,’ I said, feeling suddenly awkward, losing my amusement over the speed dial programming. ‘You got a minute?’

‘Of course,’ he told me. ‘What do you need?’

‘An honest opinion about something,’ I informed him, glad he couldn’t see me squirming.

‘I think I can do that,’ he said, his tone implying a chuckle he didn’t actually deliver.

I hesitated a minute, thinking about wording, and he waited patiently for me. ‘I can’t ask any of the other guys, because they’re so damn… besotted with it. But I think I can trust you to be straight with me.’

He did chuckle then. ‘Maybe I will be… if you get around to telling me what this is about.’

‘My artwork,’ I blurted before I ended up just hanging up and forgetting the whole thing. ‘They’re all so damn in awe of it, but when I look; all I see are the things I did wrong. The things that don’t look like what I saw in my head. Trowa… am I any good, or not?’

‘Yes, Duo,’ he told me with a sound to his voice that was both firm and affectionate. ‘You are very good. If there are flaws in your work; I don’t see them.’

I gnawed on that for a second and then forced myself to go on to the next question. ‘This sister of Quatre’s… just what does she have in mind?’

‘She wants to take your work into the gallery,’ he told me, quite matter of factly. ‘She wants to introduce you to the art world.’

‘What’s she get out of it?’ I had to ask, because it’s been my experience that people don’t generally do things without a reason.

‘Prestige,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘If she discovers a major new talent, it elevates her standing in the circles she runs in.’

‘What do I get out of it?’ I asked, feeling somewhat mercenary, but I was quite deliberately on the kitchen phone and staring at Allison’s picture, bolstering my resolve.

‘It depends on what you want, Duo,’ he told me. ‘Anything from simple exposure to the certainty of some very lucrative sales.’

Lucrative sales; there were the magic words. Because that was very much what I was after; the money to buy my Allie-cat’s bright smile. The money to make a thing right.

I smoothed my fingers gently over the picture on my fridge and told Trowa, ‘Can… can you guys tell her I’m ready to talk?’

It was his turn to hesitate, though he wasn’t quiet near as long as I had been. ‘Are you sure about this, Duo?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, though I wasn’t at all. ‘I am.’

‘Ok then,’ he told me. ‘I’ll talk to Quatre and we’ll get back with you.’

‘All right,’ I agreed and wondered if he heard the note of panic in my voice.

‘Duo,’ he said then, voice oddly warm. ‘You really are very damn good.’

‘Thanks, Tro,’ I managed, and we hung up.

Holy bleeding hell; what had I just done?’

‘You couldn’t have just asked me?’ Heero’s voice was gently chiding, but didn’t sound all that serious, and when I turned to find him in the kitchen doorway, he was looking at me with that cocked-head smile.

‘You’re besotted,’ I accused.

His smile widened and he came to take me in his arms. ‘Yes… I am.’

I snorted and tried to settle my head on his shoulder, but he recognized it as the hiding that it was, and wouldn’t let me.

‘So did Trowa give you the confirmation you needed?’ he asked.

I blushed, as I had known I would, and dropped my eyes. ‘He thinks I’m pretty good.’

Heero laughed delightedly. ‘Pretty good,’ he mocked. ‘He didn’t tell you you were amazing?’

‘Stop it,’ I grumbled.

He did quit teasing, but his smile refused to fade. ‘So tell me; what brought this on?’

I felt my face heating further and looked down, studying the pattern in the linoleum. ‘I didn’t figure you’d let me take a second job,’ I muttered and listened to it get quiet.

His fingers found there way under my chin and he coaxed me into looking up at him. His expression was… wistful. ‘So this is about… the money?’

I cringed; it made me feel so damn mercenary. ‘No,’ I told him, sounding sullen despite myself. ‘It’s about Allison.’

There was a small sound of understanding, but he left it hang there and I finally sighed heavily. ‘I guess… a year is just a long time to drift around trying to figure out what I am.’

His hand moved the rest of the way and cupped my face, thumb stroking gently over my cheek. ‘Not so long,’ he soothed. ‘You take all the time you need.’

I couldn’t contain a rueful little grin. ‘Heero,’ I told him firmly. ‘It’s time you took the training wheels off. I don’t need babied any more… I need…’

He grinned too. ‘Kicked in the ass?’

I blinked at his wording, then impulsively, I turned and kissed the hand that was caressing my cheek. ‘Exactly.’

His smile faded and he took me into a tight embrace. ‘I don’t know that I can do that.’

‘Yeah you can,’ I chuckled, remembering his firm voice leading me through my mental mine-field when I’d faltered. ‘I’m not asking you to be an asshole, I’m just asking…’

‘I know,’ he whispered.

‘I guess I just need to know what I am now,’ I told him.

His lips came to brush against my ear. ‘My partner?’

‘As happy as that makes me,’ I sighed as he traced my earlobe with the tip of his tongue. ‘I need to figure out what I am… on my own. I’m not a spacer. I’m not a salvage man. Just what the hell am I? A mechanic? I think… I want more than that.’

He drew back to look at me, all trace of teasing gone. ‘You know I’ll support you in whatever you want to do.’

‘I know,’ I smiled. ‘And that means the world to me.’

He kissed me then, and not in the gentle way he had been. It was deeper… hungry. I was aching with need in a matter of moments, hands tangled in his hair, body struggling to get closer to his. But I knew we didn’t have the time. Despite Heero’s reappearance downstairs; I’m sure he wasn’t done with his report. I tried to draw away, tried to still the urges making me kiss him so hungrily in return. Making me press myself against him. But he wouldn’t let me, following my retreat until we were backed against the refrigerator.

‘Stop denying yourself,’ he commanded, voice husky. ‘Stop denying me.’

I blinked at him, wide-eyed, suddenly consumed with guilt. ‘I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t… God Heero; not there. I couldn’t…’

‘Shhhh,’ he told me, tone gentling, looking at me intently. ‘I know. But we’re home now.’

‘We don’t have time,’ I whispered, even as I was moved to kiss the hollow of his throat. Kiss the pulse in his neck, so strong and so fast.

‘We’ll make time,’ he growled. ‘Because I need this every bit as badly as you do.’

I couldn’t have refused that if my life had depended on it. I didn’t want to.

I let him convince me. I let me convince me. All the longing and need from the trip came home to roost and I didn’t think we’d make it up the damn stairs. Clothes became an irritation, to be jerked off and discarded as fast as possible. There was little in the way of foreplay. I wanted him inside me. I needed to give. He needed to take. It very quickly became desperate. Frantic. Demanding. Damn loud. And, my God… damn wonderful.

We ended up being more than just a little late. Ms. Kasten was not a happy woman. But you know… we just didn’t care.

 

Cont....

 

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