Author: Sunhawk

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5+S

Rating: R

Warnings: Yaoi of the 1x2x1 variety, angst/sap/romance/bits of violence/moments of citrus, OOC, language, Duo POV, unrepentant use of pet-names and anything else I forgot.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this series.

Thanks to Plaiddragon for the beta read, prodding and chocolate, and Dev_Basaa for allowing me to pick her brain for medical details. Any face-saving is theirs, any mistakes are mine. Thanks guys!

Feed-back is a dream I have.

And I don't own anything in this series, either.

Ion Series Part 14
Directions

So, anyone surprised that I got a cell phone from Heero as a sort of congratulatory gift for my grand art gallery opening? It was a couple of days after he returned home, and he had the most sheepish look on his face when he handed it to me, but I suppose I should have expected it. Hell, not like I hadn't thought more than once during that time period that I ought to get myself one, but you know... I have to confess to a vague feeling like being tied down just a little bit more. Must have been my Spacer sense of freedom getting pinched, but I did manage to ignore it. Accepted it with quite a bit of good grace, I thought. Took me a while to get used to carrying it, but I'll even go so far as to admit it's come in handy a couple of times.

The only other 'gift' I got for my efforts, was one of those weird-ass little artist's beanies. I think there's a name for them, but damned if I know what it is. But if you stick one on a guy in the movies, the audience can immediately identify him as the artiste. It was sitting on my tool box the Monday after the opening. Still not sure who did it, or if the whole damn garage was in on it. I think they were sorry though, after I put the thing on without batting an eye and worked the whole day using a cheesy French accent. Hey... you don't grow up under the tender mercy of the Sweepers and not learn how to handle teasing. Though, to be honest, it was a huge relief to find myself dealing with teasing about the art thing, and not dealing with teasing about the evening news thing. I have no doubt that it was a conscious effort on the part of the guys, but it let me just pretend that they hadn't seen it. Made it a hell of a lot easier to deal with what could have been a damned humiliating situation.

As for the opening, it went pretty well, really. Aleyah even said so, in her quaintly caustic way. At least, I assumed that's what her declaration of 'I think you just might work out after all' meant. I didn't quite make enough for Allison's surgery, but I made a damn sight more toward that goal than I had thought I would, so I suppose I'd have to say the venture was a success. Still reserving judgment on whether it was actually worth the ulcer and gray hairs. Could just as easily have sold a kidney, and I still maintain I could have made just as much money, but that comment makes Heero look at me strange, so I sort of gave up mentioning it. I don't get him sometimes... it's not like I don't have two of the damn things.

My show ran for three weeks and I sold just over half of what was there. And I really can't tell you how I felt about that. It was this strange mix of exultant... and sick to my stomach. I had the horrid urge the day the show closed and I realized what all was missing, to track all those people down and demand the pictures back. 'You can't have it! It's mine!' I would yell, and they would have me hauled away by the little men in the white coats. It was somehow a very large shock. Especially considering what some of those pictures had been. All of the paintings sold, and I honest to God don't know where they all ended up. That pains me somehow... like I let Jensen loose on the world, all unknowing. I had a couple of bad nights because I couldn't shake the feeling that the psycho was 'out there' again. Heero noticed I was a bit twitchy, but I couldn't even begin to explain it to him... it just sounds nuts. I was very damn glad he was home though; would have been a stone cold bitch to get through those days if he hadn't been there to distract me. I have something of an overactive imagination, in case you've never noticed.

There was some consolation in that Quatre and Trowa had been able to snag the picture they wanted, and I caught the picture of Wufei and Beowulf for Sally. Quatre had worked the deal for their portrait before I had a chance to intervene, but I'd at least seen to it that Sally's was a gift. I hated when my friends paid for my work... it just didn't seem right. Sally had been thrilled, though she was still holding me to the promise of a painted version. Woman had been something of a tactician in her day, and it showed sometimes; you didn't out-maneuver Sally Po.

The Case of Flight 1410 ended up being rather anti-climactic in the end. Leslie had indeed come forward, cutting a deal and confessing. Once she talked, the other members of the crew folded one after the other. Spencer followed almost instantly, and I suspect the poor kid had been relieved that somebody else had bucked Daddy-dear so he didn't have to keep up the lies. By the time the bartender talked, even the good up-standing Captain Gray gave it up and made a full confession. Ended up charged with negligent homicide and a host of other lovely things. Lost his job, lost his license, and wouldn't see the outside of a prison for a number of years. Spencer would never own a pilot's license, but since he'd never really wanted to fly in the first place... I don't think that aspect upset him overly much. I got a post card from the guy addressed to me, care of Preventers' headquarters, with a half-assed apology. Kid really is kind of weird. I imagine Heero will know where he is and what he's doing for the rest of his life; he uses the word 'stalker' a lot when he mentions him.

Bobbi, the last I heard, had been 'let go' from her position, but had managed to parlay the whole thing into a stint on the talk show circuit. Leslie was the only one to keep her job. So I guess everything worked out ok, which was a pretty damn good thing considering that Heero had somewhat exaggerated his standing on the investigation team. Turns out that his hip-deep involvement was pretty much against policy, and while Une had given him the go-ahead, it had all been under the table, and had things actually gone to trial, Heero would have been in a world of hurt, because she couldn't have backed him publicly. I suspect he would have had to bow out of the trial and hope it didn't come to light. Part of why the guy had been so... on edge during those weeks. Part of why he hadn't been willing to talk to me much on the topic. We'd had words when I'd found out, but I can't say I really blamed him; not sure I could have stayed out of it either, had I been in his place. But I'd been more upset that he hadn't told me about the limb crawling, than about the actual limb.

But he is nothing if not a stubborn bastard. In the end, I'd just decided to file the whole mess away under 'worked out in the end' and tried to forget about it.

Which hadn't been easy when the phone calls had started. Bobbi wasn't the only one the talk shows were interested in. We'd finally gotten an answering machine and pretty much stopped picking up the house phone. Everybody who mattered knew to call the cell phones if they really needed to talk to either of us anyway. Frankly, I was ready to completely rip the regular phone out and be done with it. The first couple of weeks I was deleting a hand full of messages every freaking day. It took forever before the damn fervor waned a bit and then I was pretty much down to just ignoring the darling of the Rising Times; Mizz Angie Masters. I didn't even listen to the damn things anymore since the woman had tried to pull the 'I thought we were friends' shtick after a dozen or so ignored messages.

Some people just seriously don't know how to take a hint. What in hell did she think a total lack of response meant? There were days I feared her just showing up on our front porch, since that tactic had worked so well for her the first time.

That thought actually made me look past the glass in the window I'd been absently doodling on, and scan the porch. No sign of stalkerish reporters, and no sign of the mailman either.

'Duo, what are you doing?' Heero asked, and it made me jump; I hadn't known he was in the room.

'Uh... checking to see if the mail was here yet,' I told him, and hastily wiped my palm over the little rocket-ship I'd drawn in the condensation on the window before he saw it.

'I just washed the glass in the door yesterday,' he scolded, voice fading as he made his way through into the kitchen. I glanced over my shoulder to see an armful of dirty clothes and knew he was headed for the basement.

'And a fine job you did too,' I quipped, pulling my shirttail up to do a better job of polishing the glass. 'I just might keep you.'

'Oh, thank you so much...' he called back, and I think there was more, but it was lost to the basement stairs. I leaned in to blow my breath across the door glass, and gave it one last wipe to make sure all traces of my unconscious artistic endeavors were gone, when I noticed the grinning mailman on the other side.

I could have hoped for a couple extra minutes to get rid of the blush, but I'm sure the guy could see that too, so I just opened the damn door.

'Good morning, Mr. Maxwell,' he said, that grin widening just a bit, and I muttered a good morning back, trying not to tug at my shirt hem.

He handed over a good-sized stack of mail and turned to go, stopping for a second to tap at the door glass. 'Missed a spot,' he drawled and left the porch chuckling.

Maybe I should forget all the other job offers and just go into entertainment.

But I had a pile of mail to go through that probably contained what I'd been waiting for, so I forgot about him and went to the dining room table to sort through it.

Ever notice how, once you buy a house, your mail just sort of seems to multiply? All of a sudden a gold 'sucker' star must get placed on your credit rating, because everybody and their cousin's boyfriend's uncle wants to offer you a credit card. Half the junk in my hands was just that, but I was more concerned with the big envelope with the stickers all over it indicating it had come all the way through inter-colony services.

Most of what I get from Octavia comes in e-mail, but sometimes there are things that just need to be delivered by hand. I was just tearing into it when Heero came back up from the laundry room to pounce on what was left. I barely registered his own thick envelope as my treasures spilled into my hands.

There was the pre-requisite refrigerator art, a thick letter and a handful of snap-shots, along with a much smaller separate envelope with 'Mr. Duo' scrawled across it. The pictures proved to be a varied batch, starting with one of Ethan standing in front of his brand-spanking new swing set/jungle gym with a smile on his face, and I swear, the dust still settling from the workers finishing it up. There was also the whole lot of them with Trowa's sister Catherine, standing with one of the circus elephants. Devon was front and center, grinning like a loon, though Sarah was turned around looking at the elephant instead of the photographer. There were some general snap-shots with some clowns and I was pleased that it looked like Catherine had pulled out all the stops for my kids. I'd have to remember to send her something. There was another group picture that looked like it was from a school function, and then I was down to my letter.

It was newsy and full of Octavia's normal broad humor. She grudgingly admitted that I'd known what I was doing with Devon and the circus, seemed the young man had not been all that impressed when shown the normal sleeping quarters and 'mess hall' eating arrangements of those in the business. Not to even mention the elephant poop. While he'd been thrilled with the trip to the point of not being able to sleep the night before, he'd thrown over wanting to be a circus performer for going into construction. Guess he'd been quite impressed with the job the crew did putting together the jungle gym. Octavia had had to lock up all the power tools.

I swear, Octavia was born in the wrong century, and while she handled e-mail just fine, she really took to it when she got to write out real letters and they were always longer and more forthcoming. I was told about the couple that had been in looking to adopt, though she wouldn't speculate on chances or interest. She let me know, in her usual blunt way that she'd managed to keep any of the kids from seeing the newscasts before they had died down, and I was achingly relieved to know my status in their eyes probably hadn't changed. I much preferred being the on-again off-again ship's Captain hero, rather than the notion of becoming the fairly wimpy gay guy who all but sobbed on the evening news over going out-ship. Kind of hard to maintain your alien grappling reputation if people know you have vacuum-phobia. She told me that the new kid seemed to finally be settling in, and thanked me for working with Allison, who seemed much less the budding recluse since my visit.

Then she explained the school picture. Seemed Allison's class had gotten together and held a fund-raiser for her.

I pulled the picture out of the stack and looked at it again, with that new knowledge. Allison was right down front, and while her hair swept over her face on one side in a manner that made me think of Trowa, there was a tiny little smile on her face. The new kid, Mark was hovering on one side, looking a little belligerent and almost... protective. Sarah and Zinia were on the other, grinning happily and mugging for the camera. Allison was clutching a big plastic container to her chest and you could see that it was full of coins and bills. I just blinked at it for a minute, trying to process the words in my letter.

'Between what you gave me, the school fund-raiser, and the bits of public donations that we get, Allison has enough for her surgery,' it said, and I had to go back and read it again. Enough, it said. There was enough.

'Duo?' Heero asked, and I glanced up to find him looking at me in concern. 'Is something wrong?'

I just shook my head, not trusting my voice, and laid the letter down to point at the appropriate paragraph. I watched his eyes widen a bit as he got to the pertinent part and when he looked back to meet my eyes, I knew I was grinning like I'd just been handed my drink order and it had come in the Holy Grail.

'They have... enough?' he asked, just as though he hadn't read the same thing I had.

I nodded again and had to tell him, 'We did it.'

He just smiled and pulled me into a hug. 'I'm so glad,' he murmured into my ear and I squeezed him tight, wishing I could give a hug to Allison too.

We did it, echoed in my head, but you know... it didn't bother me somehow. I had thought it was going to, not being Superman and doing it all myself, but in that moment... reading those words... the fact that it was going to happen was all that mattered. That tiny little smile on Allison's face, a mere shadow of her old smile, peeking out and hinting that it might come back full blown one day... was all that mattered.

I can't say there wasn't a tiny bit of sting over not being able to handle it, a thing that at one time would not have even made me blink, but it wasn't anything more than that. Just a twinge, and a memory of more lucrative days. Guess I'm not too stubborn to learn. Sometimes.

I suddenly became aware that Heero was holding me somewhat awkwardly. I remembered his own package and realized that he had something in one hand.

'And what did you get?' I asked, drawing back to try to see what he was holding. The smile he got then made me not sure I wanted to know. It was a wicked little smirk, pleased as hell with himself and hinting that I wasn't going to be a hundred percent thrilled with whatever it was. 'What?' I asked that look, in a more guarded tone.

'A gift from Aleyah,' he informed me, and let me go to reveal it. At first glance, it looked like just a black portfolio type thing, but then he opened it up and I found myself staring at... me. A dozen little mes. 'She promised me the proofs from your portrait sitting,' he informed me, and if I thought I'd been blushing when the mailman had caught me spit-polishing the front door with my shirt... should have seen me then.

I am not overly fond of looking at pictures of myself. Honestly, I don't think I'm alone... I don't think most people are. I'm not all that self-conscious of my looks... other than a few small aspects, but it just makes me feel kind of weird. Wufei's everyday snap-shots seemed bad enough, but the spread I was looking at seemed like a hell of a lot of work and effort to make for a guy like me. I really had not been aware of just how many pictures Jacques had taken.

Heero was somewhat inordinately pleased.

'Stop smirking,' I grumbled, but of course that just made him smirk harder.

'Can't help it,' he smiled. 'What are the odds you'd have ever done something like this under any other circumstances?'

'Slim to none,' I growled and he chuckled.

'Then I am fully justified in my smirk.'

'Asshole,' I said, trying not to look at all the artistic black leather and the glow of studio lighting that he held in his hands.

'Go back to your letter,' he told me, closing the portfolio and giving me a quick peck on the cheek. 'I'm going to go find someplace to display this.'

I couldn't contain the groan. 'Display? Heero, come on...'

'I'm married to a beautiful man,' he teased, that smirk back full force. 'You can't blame me for wanting to show that fact off.'

I had figured out, given enough time, that Heero delights in making me squirm with comments like that, but damned if I've found a way to stop squirming. 'I'll blame you if you put that damn thing anywhere but upstairs,' I warned, and he actually laughed as he left the room.

'I suppose that means you'd rather I didn't put it on the living room mantel?' I didn't bother to answer him, but made a point of listening until I was sure that wasn't where he'd headed.

Another one of those things I should have seen coming, I suppose, but somehow I never did. I could admit to myself if to nobody else, that Jacques was an excellent photographer and what Heero was holding in his hands on his way upstairs, were probably the best pictures of me that had ever been taken... but that didn't make me any less uncomfortable with them. I sighed and went back to my letter.

There wasn't much more, some details on the scheduled preliminary doctor visit for Allison, but nothing on when the actual surgery would happen. I turned my attention to the little card addressed to 'Mr. Duo' and found it to be a thank you note from Allison.

'Dear Mr. Duo,' it began. 'Mrs. Octavia says that you sent money to get my scar fixed. Ethan says you got the money from fighting space pirates. I hope you didn't get hurt. Is it ok to pay the doctors with space pirate money? Mrs. Octavia says she thinks so, but I wanted to make sure. When my scar is all better, Mrs. Octavia says we'll send you pictures. I drew you a picture of what it will look like for now. I miss you, will you come at Christmas again next year? Anyway, thank you for the space pirate money. I hope you like your pictures. Love, Allie-cat.'

I grinned, imagining the good Mrs. Octavia diligently sitting across the table from Allison while she wrote that, spelling 'pirate' for her and trying not to laugh. Bet the woman chuckled all the way to the post office. I shook my head. Ethan and his obsessions. Guess my rep was still intact after all.

I unfolded my pictures and found the usual assortment of unicorns and cats, plus one glowing self-portrait. It was Allison in that the little girl in the portrait had blond hair and blue eyes, beyond that... it could have been just about any girl of that same description. Hell... could have been any long-haired boy of that same description. The child is barely seven after all. The important part was how the hair was out of the way and the girl was smiling brightly and there weren't any funny marks on the face that might have been a child's interpretation of scars. I decided it was a fine replacement for the current piece of refrigerator art; I'd long since stopped needing the inspiration of the Super-Mr. Duo picture, and thought it might be nice to have something in the kitchen that didn't just make me feel guilty when I looked at it.

I swapped the pictures and took the swappee and the extras to my studio to file with the rest of them. Someday, when the kid was a famous artist and having her own gallery shows, I'd proudly pull out my originals and embarrass the crap out of her.

It occurred to me then, that Heero was being a little too quiet for my own good, so I headed that way next.

From the very top of the stairs, you can see into our bedroom just a bit. Just a sliver, from that angle, of the end of the bed. That's where Heero was sitting, the portfolio in his hands and it was the look on his face that made me stop and just watch him for a minute. I knew what he was looking at, so I knew what the expression was for, and it made me feel... very odd. Warm. Good. Weird. Squirmy. The man looked positively tender; there was no doubt he liked what he was seeing, and knowing that he was seeing me... was kind of mind-bending. His expression was the kind I wanted to steal away into artist's memory and capture later on paper. There was the ghost of a genuine smile, not the teasing smirk he'd been giving me downstairs. There was a shine in his eyes that spoke of things I didn't dare catalog, but made heat wash through me all the same.

I know he loves me, but sometimes it's kind of hard to believe in the other parts. The parts where he really did think I was worth... a look like that.

It was too creepy just staring at him, so after a minute I took a step and hit that squeaky board at the top of the stairs. He looked up and smiled a welcome, holding out a hand for me to come and join him. I went and took it, and he pulled me down beside him. I was surprised to find one of those decorative storage boxes on the bed. It looked... kind of old.

'I know you hate hearing it,' he told me quietly, all hint of teasing gone. 'But you really are a damn fine looking man. When I look at this, it... amazes me that you're with me.'

I couldn't help but snort derisively and just shook my head in exasperation. I waved a hand in the general direction of the stuff beside him, ignoring the compliments for lack of the proper words to accept or deny them. 'What's all this?'

There was a soft sigh, and the smile grew a touch wry. 'There were extra prints that didn't get put in the actual portfolio. I was putting them away,' he explained and I was glad that it seemed like he was going to let things go. I thought about that word 'away' and nudged at the lid of the box, wondering what was in it, because I knew his pictures were in a different box in the closet of the spare bedroom. I blinked in some surprise when I saw a copy of those dumb little flyers Aleyah had printed for the gallery opening lying on top.

'Uh... Heero?' I had to ask, suddenly a little apprehensive about just what was in that box, and he looked a bit sheepish. Instead of speaking though, he just slid it into his lap and began to pull things out. It only took seeing the copy of a certain issue of the Rising Times and the clipping from the arts section of the newspaper about my gallery opening to know just what the box was.

'Are you just trying to embarrass me to death today?' I asked, and he chuckled, looking just a bit embarrassed himself.

'Not alarmed by my stalker tendencies?' he teased and I saw that the contents of the box weren't limited to... current events.

My eyes widened just a bit when I saw the program books from every Zero-Gravity expo I'd ever entered. 'Uh... I'm starting to be.'

His embarrassment was giving way to amusement and I couldn't help reaching into the box with him to sort through the contents. 'God, you really are a stalker!' I blurted when I ran across a newspaper clipping of the title transfers from back when I bought my ship. 'Jim Bama to Duo Maxwell, register 'Maxwell's Demon', it read right along with the dozen or so other transfers for that month. It was surreal, but not as surreal as lifting out that last clipping and finding Jensen's face looking up at me from a scrap of torn off paper in the bottom of the box. I recognized my own work, but... what the hell? It took me a long moment of blinking before I could figure out where in the hell it had come from. I remembered a kitchen table in a run down old house, sitting with Heero and Quatre and laying out plans. 'You... saved that?' I had to ask, and knew I sounded utterly incredulous.

'That was the first time I'd ever seen you draw,' he told me. 'I couldn't believe how you just sketched it out... you weren't half paying attention to what you were doing.'

It was really kind of a kick seeing something like that, knowing what it said, that he'd hung on to the dumb thing all those years ago. I mean, we'd talked about how we'd both been attracted even back then, but seeing such physical evidence of it was kind of... depressing, actually. Made those long lonely years seem so... wasted.

'Where the hell did you get those program books?' I asked, so that I didn't have to think about the other. 'I know damn well you didn't even know about them before Christmas.'

He ducked his head and I'd swear his cheeks pinked just a bit, but I couldn't be sure. 'I found them on the internet after I saw Spencer's copy,' he admitted and then looked up at me through the fall of his bangs. 'You going to autograph my copies for me?'

I snorted and elbowed him in the ribs, rolling my eyes and choosing to ignore that crack too. I picked up the flyer from the opening and turned it in my hands. I never had had a chance to look at the dumb thing. The picture Aleyah had chosen for the front made me look like one of those brooding artist types, and I wondered what my sitting down on the floor in the middle of the show to draw cat butts with a little kid had done to the impression she'd been trying to foster. Hard to look dark and brooding when you're playing with crayons.

Under my picture on the front of the flyer the opening line read, 'Artist, Gundam pilot, ship's Captain, dancer... Duo Maxwell is a multi-talented...' and that was more than enough for me. I tossed it back into the box and looked around the room for some change of subject, but Heero was quiet and I ended up glancing his way to see why.

He was just sitting and looking at me much the way he'd been looking at my portraits earlier. All it took was meeting his eyes for the box to be set aside and all his attention to be focused on me. We don't indulge in the middle of the day all that often, but there was no denying the heat of his touch.

We spent the next hour trying not to kick the box off the bed. I think he'd given up trying to tell me in words what he thought, and it's funny how that sort of thing is a little easier to accept through touch. I let him tell me without words, and for that little while it was almost something I could believe.

And with that box a presence on the bed with us... there were a few things I needed to tell him too.

Turned out there was something he needed to tell me that he couldn't get across in our wordless manner though, and sometime after we'd basked in the afterglow and were down to the looking for socks part, he blurted, 'Duo... Relena is coming out to the house this evening.'

'What?' I asked, stopping with my jeans pulled half way up my legs to stare at him.

'It's our dinner night, remember?' he asked, attention studiously on putting his box of mementos away, though his careful tone of voice belied any casualness. 'She's been asking to see the place.'

'And you thought it was a good idea to wait until the last minute to mention this... why?' I asked, pulling my pants the rest of the way up with a bit more... firmness than was probably necessary.

'To uhm... avoid getting glared at for any longer than necessary?' he ventured, sparing a glance my way out of the corner of his eye.

I snorted and threw his shirt at him. 'Watch me laugh,' I grumbled. 'Now get your ass down stairs and wash the damn breakfast dishes.'

He caught the shirt and dared quirk a grin at me. 'Are you seriously going to run around cleaning house now?'

'No,' I growled. 'We are seriously going to run around cleaning house now. I am not going to have the Queen of Sanc coming in here to find my carburetor in pieces on the kitchen table.'

'She's not the...' he began, but I cut him off.

'Dishes, Yuy,' I commanded. 'And dry the damn things too.'

'Sir, yes, sir,' he grinned and ducked out before I could throw something more than his shirt at him.

'And don't you forget it!' I called after him and heard his laughter drift back up the stairs.

Have I mentioned that sex turns the man into a comedian?

We are not slobs by any means, but we are two guys living in our own space and there are just things you don't want somebody like Relena Peacecraft thinking about you. So the laundry on the couch in the process of being folded, needed to be not in the process anymore, the dishes needed to be put away, the work in progress on the end of the kitchen table needed to find a new home. Toilet lids needed to be put down. I would have suggested that I needed to find someplace else to be, but I didn't figure it would wash. Besides... with my carburetor currently shoved into a cabinet in the back room instead of under the hood of my car... I was kind of stuck.

I suppose it sounds like I hate Relena, and that's not really true. We're just not exactly each other's biggest fans. Too much water under the bridge, I guess. She spent too much time thinking I was the King of shitty attitudes and I spent too long thinking she hated me for reasons other than why she did. Or... disliked me strongly.

First impressions are a hard thing to shake. And it's not really something you can consciously go out and do. You can't grab somebody by the short hairs and force them to look at you differently. It takes time. You have to prove it, I guess, and that's only something that happens over a long stretch of not acting the way the other person expects you to. So I still had the urge to cover my balls whenever I was around Relena, and she probably had her own urges. Maybe to lock up the good silverware, I don't know and I'm not asking.

And yes, damn it, despite Solo snickering in the back of my head for five whole minutes, I ended up dusting the bedroom with a bit of furniture polish just to try to cover up the smell of sex. Last damn thing I wanted to think about was the Princess of Pomp speculating on what went on in our bedroom.

Her driver brought her promptly at six, escorting her into Heero's care like the changing of the guard, and I suppose it was something of that nature. The guy was as broad in the shoulder as I was tall, I swear to God, and so obviously more than just a driver, as evidenced by the tell-tale bulge of a weapon under his coat. Relena's days of getting away with Paragon driving her around ended when she became higher profile than the Pope, I guess.

I wondered sometimes just how many security people had heart attacks over her little excursion with us to L2. But that leads to me wondering if she had slipped her leash only to keep the number of people exposed to my painting, down to a minimum. And, of course, that just brings me around to remembering what happened to those paintings, so I don't do a lot of speculating on the subject.

I resisted the urge to glance around the living room one more time as Heero saw her in; fearing we'd left bits of laundry on the couch or something. Would be just my luck to have the woman find a pair of underwear under the coffee table.

She looked around in open curiosity as she came into the house, nodding to me distractedly and I belatedly wondered about my own appearance, cringing slightly when I remembered I was wearing my 'I'm lost, but I'm making good time' shirt. My only consolation was that it wasn't the Hell-bound Beavers shirt.

'Evening, Relena,' I ventured and she smiled in a tentative way. That pretty well describes our relationship... tentative.

'Hello Duo,' she responded, turning toward me for a moment, and I could see her trying not to look at my chest to read the shirt. Maybe in polite company you're not supposed to read people's slogans. Or maybe it's a girl thing... they don't want us looking at their chests, so it's only fair if they don't look at ours? She turned away fairly quickly, going back to casing the joint... uh, I mean, looking around.

'It's very nice,' she said finally, clutching her little purse in front of her and it made me wonder if it was just to give her something to do with her hands.

'Nice?' Heero teased, smiling broadly at her. 'Is that the best you can come up with about our dream house?'

'As much as you've been talking about it, Heero,' she shot back, 'I was expecting something more along the lines of the Linderhof Castle.' But then she looked a little shocked at herself and I caught the flick of her eyes in my direction.

'That musty old relic?' Heero grinned, missing, or choosing to miss the look. 'Nice, but it doesn't have a porch swing.'

'Well yours didn't look like it was safe to sit on!' she responded and followed as Heero waved her toward our little dining room, obviously giving her the tour.

'Half the chairs in your sitting room don't look safe to sit on,' he needled and made her laugh.

'Those are antiques,' she replied in what I hoped was mock affront. 'I would certainly hope you wouldn't sit on them!'

I trailed along behind them, feeling oddly like a third wheel; I'd never really heard them banter like that before. It was a little easier to see how they could actually be friends when Relena wasn't so busy being... so stiff. But then, I suppose I was the element that led to her unease.

There were comments about the dining table, and exclamations over the bay window, and when we got to the kitchen, they'd teased enough that she felt free to mock the little flower decals on the cabinets. I wasn't really tracking the conversation as much as I was watching them together, so it kind of took me by surprise when I realized I was about to be abandoned.

'You promised the new French place, Heero Yuy,' Relena chided, waving a finger at my partner. 'And don't you try to back out of it!'

'I thought you meant the new restaurant on Hampton,' Heero replied, and I couldn't tell if he was just baiting her or not.

'Hardly!' she responded, looking like he'd just suggested they drive through McDonalds.

Heero sighed then, waving a hand at the Dockers and polo shirt he was wearing. 'Well, I certainly can't go dressed like this!'

She gave him a disdainful little sniff that was more of the teasing... I hoped. 'I doubt they'd let you in, so go change, our reservations are at six.'

Heero at least had the decency to give me an apologetic little smile as he slipped past me. Great. Have I ever mentioned that I don't own an etiquette hamster? I've got one for words not good for polite company, one to keep my foot out of my mouth, and one to deliver life lessons, but a social director hamster? Of course not; that might actually come in handy.

'French place?' I tried gamely, and she leapt on it like a cat on a chocolate dipped mouse.

'Oh, it's gotten wonderful reviews,' she gushed, and I wondered if she hadn't stopped to realize that Heero changing was going to kinda force the two of us to interact. 'Just opened last month and already had a write-up in Gourmet on the Town.'

I assumed that was some magazine for people who didn't know how to decide for themselves where the good restaurants were, and figured that Heero and I would probably never be eating there together. 'Sounds nice,' I managed, though I was thinking it sounded expensive. And pretentious. I wondered what would happen if Heero ever took Relena to McMurphy's? Wondered if he ever got to pick the restaurant.

But then I remembered Relena and Toria, and decided that there really was no knowing how it would go. Well... not as long as she wasn't wearing the pastel power suit she currently had on. 'Want to see the rest of the place?' I asked, since neither of us could seem to think of another thing that needed to be said about French restaurants, and Relena agreed just a little too quickly. Guess she was as uncomfortable as I was.

Short of showing her the basement and the bathroom, all that was left on the first floor was my studio, so we went there. It's really not all that much to look at. Windows, cabinets, counters, the couch from the old apartment, and my easel.

'So where are these murals Heero told me about?' she asked.

Oh yeah... and those.

'Uhm, on the inside wall,' I muttered, kind of appalled to think about Heero talking about them to other people. Both of them were kind of personal things. It made me wonder just what in the hell he'd said. Surely he hadn't said anything about how they'd come into being? My face flamed just thinking about that possibility.

I had been stark naked while doing the second one. Heero had come into the room and I'd done part of it with him pressed to my back, whispering encouragement into my ear. No... I seriously hoped nothing had been imparted about the execution.

Thankfully, Relena had already caught sight of the paintings and wasn't paying any attention to the state of my expression.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, seeing the church one first. I'd finished the thing since that first night of strange conception, at least, and I could see her looking it over with an eye for all the details. She frowned after a second and said, 'I don't recognize any of...' but then her expression cleared and her eyes went wide. 'Oh,' she murmured. An altogether different kind of oh than she'd used when she'd first seen it. 'This isn't... ' she began, but dropped that quickly and I realized she freaking got it. Or at least the obvious parts. It surprised me at the same time that it reassured me that Heero perhaps hadn't said more than he should have about things that shouldn't be shared. 'Is this...?' she had to ask anyway and I nodded to stop her from floundering around any more.

'The Maxwell church,' I confirmed and hoped she'd drop it.

She just nodded and turned back to look at it again, and it's probably kind of sad that I held my breath, waiting to see if she paid any more attention to Mary and her owner than she did any of the other kids. She stood out just a bit, in her finer clothes and fancy hat, but Relena didn't pick up on it. I am not a hundred percent certain if Heero has told that piece of his past to anyone else but me, and I'm a little ashamed of the fact that I kind of hoped it had been a thing just between us. A balance, perhaps, with the things I'd told him about my own past that not another living soul knew.

It's probably pretty twisted that somewhere inside I hoped those sorts of dark secrets were only between us. I didn't really need that sort of confirmation of Heero's love, but... well... I'm selfish, I guess. He shares so much history with everyone else; I wanted things that were just for me.

Then she turned her steps to the other side of the room and I was taken with the urge to trip her.

It was her turn to blush; the central and more obvious part of that portrait is Heero with his arms around me, after all. Or me, really, since that was what Heero had asked for me to paint. The part where I got to be in his arms had been a bonus. She said something inane and I said something inane back and then I could tell she was playing the Where's Waldo game, as she found all the little bits that aren't as obvious as the main part. I doubt much of it made sense to her, though who knew? She'd picked up on the church thing faster than I'd thought she would.

With a start, I wondered if she'd looked the story up. I'd told her to, standing in front of the memorial, if she wanted to know more. I chose not to ask.

When she spoke again, it was totally out of left field. 'I went to your show,' she informed me without looking away from the wall, face still faintly pink, or pink again, I couldn't tell. 'Everyone was talking about it.'

'Oh?' I managed, not sure I wanted to know what she thought.

'It was very impressive,' she ventured and I thought she might be looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

'Aleyah did a really good job,' I agreed and she burst out with a weird little giggle that lurched into unladylike when she tried to stifle it and failed.

'The paintings!' she had to clarify, looking at me a little more obviously. 'The pictures were impressive.'

My turn to blush and I found myself wondering if Heero was taking a damn shower up there. 'Oh. Uh... thanks.'

She laughed a little more freely and shook her head. 'Heero is right; you are very modest.' She, perhaps, realized that my thinking up something to say to that was unlikely, so she didn't wait for me to try. 'Though now I'm kind of sorry I made you make that promise.'

'Promise?' I prompted, opting to skip over the whole talent thing. 'What promise?'

'Not to make me the subject of any more paintings,' she said, just a little bit slyly, and I blinked at her for a minute, trying to remember just when said promise had been made. Aboard ship, I realized, standing under the only portrait I'd ever done of her... the one that had caused me so much trouble. The one I'd destroyed. It took me a second to get past that part to hear what she'd just said.

'You want me to paint you?' I blurted, appalled at myself for sounding so shocked and so eager at the same time. It wasn't something I'd ever expected to hear her express an interest in, but I couldn't help think that it might actually ease things between us. That would make Heero a very happy man. I knew it was something that bothered him; that his lover and one of his best friends didn't get along all that well.

I think my reaction took her by surprise and she looked away again, back at the wall. I think she was noticing my Gundam, but couldn't be sure. 'Well,' she ventured after a moment. 'I was perhaps a little hasty in ruling it out.'

It kind of made me want to laugh when I thought about it; it sounded damn shallow somehow. But looking at her, I'm not sure it was. Which probably sounds weird, but was the truth. Maybe because she didn't seem to get how it sounded?

'Well, they say it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind,' I said, wincing when it sounded lamer than it had in my head.

She looked hopeful and embarrassed, and a little bit wary all at once. I wondered for a moment how she did the politician thing with a poker face that bad. 'It would depend on the... subject, I suppose,' she said demurely, suddenly seeming to back off the idea. Maybe she was remembering the portrait that had pissed her off so much, too. She blushed hotly all of a sudden, and I realized I'd been staring at her with an artist's eye, studying the lines of her face and the sweep of her hair.

I looked quickly away, struggling for something to say, but was saved when Heero appeared in the doorway, Dockers discarded for dress slacks and a button down shirt. He'd even put on a tie and I couldn't help grinning at him. 'Must be one hell of a restaurant!'

There was a very strange moment then, pretty uncomfortable really, though I hadn't meant it that way, though maybe it was just left over from the previous uncomfortable moment. Heero stepped in, making it all right again, smiling broadly and telling me in a stage whisper, 'it's ok; it's Relena's turn to buy.'

I was relieved that they had to leave then, to make their reservations, because I'd had enough conversation with her Highness for one day.

Though I wish Heero hadn't had such an expectant look on his face, assuming that I would see them off. Honest to God; I've never particularly minded Heero and Relena's nights out; they're friends and I had wanted him to maintain that. But you know... I'd never had to stand and wave them off before. He usually just took off, something happened that involved food, and then he came back later. She'd never come over to our place before, either the house or the apartment. And I... well... much as I don't like to admit it...

God. I was jealous green, ok? They looked so fucking good together, walking down the steps. And he opened the door to the car for her, they drove away together and I had a moment of wanting to call them back. Then I stood there and laughed out loud at myself, because the whole evening had just been surreal with a capital weird.

'He is gay, y'know,' Solo chuckled from his favored spot on the porch swing.

'Yeah,' I replied without having to look at him. 'That would be the only thing keeping me from chasing the car.' He laughed louder than I had. Well... to my ears, anyway.

My, but sometimes life has this tendency to make you see things about yourself that are just... not all that attractive.

I wandered off the porch, idly trying to find a way to justify the weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, but there really just wasn't. They hadn't done a damn thing out of the ordinary... it was just my lame insecurity kicking in.

I picked my way around the side of the house, looking at the flower beds and noting where things were starting to poke through the soil. Just meandering and doing my best to shake off the image of them going down the front steps together.

Spring, as they say, was in the air, and I could already tell there was going to be a lot of work to be done around the yard. The fall winds had left leaves and bits of debris tucked into all the nooks and crannies around the foundation. The winter snows had compressed and apparently turned it all into a soggy mat that wasn't going anywhere on its own. I poked at a mass of it and decided it was nasty, and would require tools to clean up. Maybe even a ten foot pole. There seemed to be things living under some of it that I had my doubts about. Bugs were a thing that a space brat like myself had a real hard time adjusting too. Finding one in the house, especially of the eight legged variety, always left me feeling like battening down and venting the whole place to the cleansing wash of space. Not exactly an option anymore.

There were flower beds, ornamental trees, and small shrubs all around the house, but particularly on the north side. Raised beds that even I could tell had once had a rhyme and a pattern. Time had broken that pattern, wearing at it, adding things to it that weren't meant to be there. I wondered if it was something we would ever be able to sort out, or if it would be easier to tear it all out and start over. I found that notion to be terribly unattractive; as nuts as it sounds, it would feel like I was letting the former owner down. Seeing the tiny green shoots rising bravely out of the ground in obvious clusters, I could almost see the woman lovingly planting them there. I somehow just knew that her plan would be something to see, if I could just manage to figure it out.

I think it amused Heero no end, watching me research flowers and shrubs on the internet, but I had vague hopes of returning the property to... I don't know; some former 'glory'? Some imagined former glory?

I really couldn't explain it to him, but I just had a feeling that once upon a time our house had been something to see. And it offended something deep inside me to think that the beauty would die with the woman who conceived it. I wanted, somehow, to do her proud.

I had given up on the things I thought were flowers and had gone to look at the mass of brambles the neighbor kids assured me were roses, when I heard a car coming. Ours is a dead-end street, so we don't get much in the way of passers-by, just the occasional poor lost soul turning around, so I made the effort to walk where I could see past the porch. I was surprised to see Wufei's car pull up in front of the house.

I stood where I was and let him come to me, which he did with a smile, climbing the steps and taking the long way in order to stay on the little walk until he had to step off into the grass to join me. 'What brings you out to the boondocks?' I asked, though I already suspected it had to do with whatever the package under his arm was. His smile widened a bit.

'Would you believe me if I said I was just in the neighborhood?'

'Only if you tell me you're a close a personal friend of the Rubin's, because there is not all that much else in this neighborhood,' I laughed and he just shook his head, falling into step with me as I resumed my trip to the fence row.

'Well, I was on this side of town at least,' he amended, his free hand finding its way into his jacket pocket. 'And I thought I'd take a chance on finding you at home. I wanted to drop off your copy of the group picture.'

Almost, I made some crack about it being a day for pictures, but then realized I'd have to explain myself, which would lead to actually having to show him the portfolio... so I refrained. 'You didn't have to make a special trip out for that,' I had to point out and his smile changed to something with a sheepish air.

'I felt guilty for how long it took me to get these taken care of,' he confessed, and handed the package over. 'Sally says I am... photographically anal.'

I burst out with a laugh before I stopped to think that he might not see the humor in the tag that Sally obviously did, but he grinned along with me, so I guess it was all right to indulge. I could see a hint of anticipation behind the smirk though, so I bent to folding back the brown paper wrapped around the picture.

'Oh wow,' I blurted, when the framed piece was revealed, and then kind of felt dumb for the articulate reaction.

I should have known that Chang Wufei would not just hand out snap-shots. Framed or otherwise. The basic image was indeed the picture he'd taken at my show of the five of us, but where there should have been a gallery full of people in the background, we had been artfully removed from our surroundings and a new background put in place. We stood in front of a blank wall, every shadow in place, making me doubt that it hadn't really been there, and just to the left, over Quatre's shoulder was hanging my seagull and Gundam picture. The one that Aleyah had titled 'Peace'. It made a rather striking statement.

I glanced up at Wufei and found him looking rather pleased with himself. 'Damn,' I had to ask, 'did you do that?'

He nodded and offered up a little shrug. 'Anybody can do it with the right computer program. It's just a photo editing utility.'

I snorted, carefully wrapping the picture back in the paper. 'It might make the job easier, but I'm sure it doesn't do the balance and design for you. This looks professional, man.'

His smile changed to that one he gets when he can't decide if he's uncomfortable or pleased, and for a moment I considered saying something more, but had a sudden flash of how it made me feel when Heero was insisting on telling me how talented he thinks I am. Wufei has the soul of an artist somehow; there's a creativity within him that is sharp as crystal... and its a crying damn shame that he seems to lack the ability to give form to whatever it is he sees in his head. I suppose waxing poetic about his artistry, under the circumstances, was a bit cruel. So I settled on, 'Thank you, Wufei. I can't wait to show it to Heero.'

He inclined his head in a gesture that echoed a formal bow. 'You are most welcome. I'm only sorry it took so long to finish.' Then he turned to survey the yard, gesturing along the fence row we were standing next to with a wave that seemed to brush away the topic of pictures and art and abilities. 'So what were you doing when I interrupted?'

I let out a theatrical sigh and followed his wave with one of my own, taking in the whole backyard. 'Trying to figure out what in the hell I've got growing out here?'

He chuckled and pulled his hand out of his pocket to reach out and finger one of the vines that had a killer hold on the fence post. 'Well, you've certainly got your work cut out trying to tame it again, but this looks like it's a climbing rose.'

'So the neighbor kids tell me,' I sighed ruefully. 'Yellow, if you can believe them. And they insist their mother will be quite put out with me if I cut it down. Unfortunately they haven't told me what any of the rest of this is, and frankly... I can't tell a daffodil from a damn banana tree.'

Wufei laughed at me, turning to look back toward the house and the flower beds. 'Well, you're not going to find any banana trees in this part of the country, though that may have been an apple tree by the back of the house there.'

I couldn't help blinking at him for a second before part of that statement caught up to me. 'Might have been?'

He gave me a grin that told me I was being hopeless and started walking across the lawn. 'Well, it looks dead to me,' he opined, making me look around at all the other trees within sight.

'None of them are exactly green,' I had to point out.

'But they're budding out,' he said and paused as we passed a rather scraggly shrub in the flower bed. The thing had looked dead to me too, but Wufei carefully bent one of the branches, mindful of the many thorns the thing seemed to have. 'See how it bends? There's life in it still.' Then we walked the rest of the way to the tree by the back corner of the house and he repeated the experiment. The branch broke apart in his hands. He looked it over a moment more before nodding to himself. 'Oh yes... this is quite dead. But it does appear to have been an apple tree.'

I just stared at him for a moment before exclaiming, 'How in the hell do you know that? You're as much a colony brat as I am!'

He chuckled. 'We did have plants on the colonies, Duo. Imported, perhaps, but there all the same. And it takes a bit more work to get them to actually thrive there; before the war I had been studying to be a botanist.'

I opened my mouth with the more obvious question, but then closed it again. I suppose somebody who hadn't been spending those formative years learning the finer arts of pocket to hand living, might have had the time for things like 'studying to be'. It was kind of a kick; other than that brief time at the church, when I'd been made to attend regular school, I'd gone straight from street lessons, to lessons of war. I guess I'd never stopped to realize that the other guys might have had a slightly broader range.

Wufei looked uncertain for a second in the face of my conversational hesitation, so I grinned. 'Are you telling me you can identify the supposed to be here stuff, from the... not?'

He snorted, brushing the bark from his fingers against his pants leg. 'Probably,' he confirmed, so I dragged him over to the main flower bed.

'I think it's worth saving,' I had to say when he just stood and looked at the mess for a while. He had the same sort of 'bulldoze it under' look that Heero had when he looked at the yard. Scrap and start over, that look said, and while I wouldn't argue that it would probably be easier... I had my own views.

Wufei glanced at me, his eyes telling me he wanting to laugh at what probably seemed my naiveté, but he didn't. Just knelt down, and pointed to a clump of shoots in front of us. 'These are crocuses; they're one of the early bloomers, and these right behind them look like tulips, though you've got a crowding problem here and probably won't get many flowers this year. They really need to be dug up and separated.' He paused then, his fingers seeming to reach out without his notice and he plucked a spindly something out of the ground, tossing it aside. 'You've got your work cut out,' he mumbled after a moment and pulled up another weed. At least... I hope they were weeds. He showed the new one to me, told me it was called a dandelion and that it was a 'bad thing' despite the spiffy name. It was kind of odd watching him get lost in my garden. His eyes were somehow a million miles away.

He stood up, taking a step back and looking the bed over like he could see the damn thing in full bloom. He smiled wistfully and gestured toward an area that had barely started to sprout. 'You've got daises in there too, I'm surprised they didn't take over the whole bed without anybody doing maintenance. They can... can carpet an entire field if you let them run wild. It's quite impressive. And beautiful.'

There was something very damn odd in the air and I seriously didn't want to disturb it, so I just nodded, watching him look at something that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I wasn't seeing. I couldn't judge from his expression if I should be sorry for making him think about... whatever it was, or not.

He blinked after a second and seemed to shake himself free, I caught a glance in my direction, but I tried to pretend I hadn't noticed his side trip.

'It's a complicated layout,' he told me then. 'If I'm reading it right. The flowers are chosen so that something will always be in bloom; I'll bet it was beautiful a dozen years ago. But I don't know Duo... it had to have been a hell of a lot of work.'

I snorted and shook my head. 'So Heero keeps telling me. Repeatedly.'

He chuckled and turned to walk a few paces back toward the front of the house, gesturing toward a patch of green. 'That's just grass and if you don't get it dug out of there, it'll take over this whole section.'

'I'm seeing a trip to the Home Depot in my future,' I sighed, and wondered just what all I would be needing. A shovel, at the very least. Though... maybe they made something smaller for hand work. And a rake, maybe, would be a good idea for all that crap I needed to clean out of the way. 'Hell,' I told him as it occurred to me. 'We don't even own a lawn mower yet.'

Wufei laughed at me the way relieved single women laugh at women with kids as they're trotting off for a night out with the gang; with a hint of smugness in it. 'Want me to make you a list?'

He was joking, but I jumped all over it. 'Could you? I don't have a damn clue, and I'd just as soon not make fifty trips, despite what Heero says about my desire to live there.'

Wufei snorted, looking like he believed Heero's version and not mine. 'Isn't Home and Garden one of the last, unexplored departments for you?'

'Smart ass,' I grumbled, making him grin. 'Admit that you are jealous of my excuse to buy cool power tools.'

'Hardly,' he replied. 'If I want to play with macho toys, I work on my bike.'

'Totally not the same,' I quipped, following him up the walk. 'You have not lived until you've eeled your own drains.'

He laughed and stopped to do the bendy thing with another shrub. 'I think I'll pass, thank you. That's why I have a landlord.'

'Too good to get your hands dirty?' I teased and he gave me a look that managed to convey derision quite nicely.

'Or too smart,' he returned.

'Ouch,' I acknowledged the score, and we walked on around to the front of the house. I dropped down to sit on the front step, my picture resting on my knees, while Wufei stood looking out across the yard at my tangle of wanna-be rose bushes.

'It is nice out here,' he finally admitted, tilting his head back to look up at the darkening sky. 'You and Yuy chose well.'

It pleased me in an odd way, and I couldn't help but grin up at him. 'You should just go ahead and ask Sally to marry you, and you two get yourself one of these house things.'

It surprised a snort out of him and he shook his head with a dark chuckle. 'Somehow, I have trouble seeing that.'

'Come on, man,' I cajoled. 'Mrs. Chang Wufei? Two point five kids? You could grow your own yard full of daisies?'

It was just bullshit talk; banter without substance and I was surprised when I saw him wince. I'd needled him about a lot of things since I'd come to live with Heero, and I was sure Sally had been on the list before. I wondered what I'd said that had been any different than a dozen other times. Wondered what line I'd crossed that I hadn't known was there.

'Wufei?' I asked gently. 'I'm sorry... I was just kidding. Working in a garage, I guess I've gotten used to... that kind of shit. I didn't mean anything.'

He seemed a bit surprised that I'd picked up on his unease and he ducked his head. 'Nothing to apologize for,' he replied, but there was a tension there that told me different.

'No,' I argued, not really wanting things to be uncomfortable between us again. 'Your relationship is none of my business; I shouldn't have...'

'Duo,' he cut me off. 'It's not your fault. Seriously; you have nothing to be sorry for. You had no way of knowing about... about my history.'

I just looked at him in a way that was probably expectant, though I wasn't sure if I should ask, or just nod, or maybe just ask for a do-over. He sighed and looked back up at the sky, jamming his hands in his pockets while he seemed to collect his thoughts.

'Wufei...' I began, feeling like I was prying and suddenly wondering about his strange lapse in the side yard.

'No,' he cut me off again. 'I probably should have told you before now. The others know. It's... really not that big of a deal, but I'm... a widower.'

I gawped and I winced, and then I blushed furiously, remembering the Missus line. Then I started trying to stammer out another apology. Wufei laughed at me.

'Knock it off,' he grumbled, sounding oddly affectionate, and settled on the steps beside me. 'It was a long time ago. Before the war.'

'Before the war?' I couldn't help blurt. 'But how in the hell... I mean...'

He chuckled again, glancing at me just for the expression of shock, I think, before looking out across the street. 'Arranged marriage,' he explained. 'We were... hell, we were just kids. Just fourteen. Her name was Meilan... called herself Nataku, the strongest of the Long clan.'

He got quiet for a second and I knew the feel of memory blowing on the wind and waited respectfully for him to come back. I resisted the urge to glance toward the porch swing, wondering if my ghosts might have met Wufei's ghosts on some plane or other.

'She and I were too different in attitude, and too alike in temperament, I think,' he said at length. 'It was not a union either of us welcomed. Then the Alliance came and... well...' he shrugged and I remembered his original claim of 'widower' and made a sound of understanding, to spare him the telling. 'She was... beautiful, and strong. And sometimes it pains me that we never had a chance to grow up enough to understand each other, until it was too late.'

'I'm sorry,' I said softly and thought to reach out to him, but Wufei is Wufei and it would have felt weird without him making the offer. He tilted his head in thanks, a gesture that accepted the words as well as the touch left unmade.

'It was a long time ago,' he said, simplifying things. It was in me to object, but I understood how sometimes distance was the same as the passing of time. There were things for me too, that were long ago... but not.

He was quiet for a long moment, while it slowly grew darker around us, before he softly said, 'She died in that field of daises.' An explanation of the mood, and the trigger, and then he was done. He pushed to his feet with a gust of breath, dusting the seat of his jeans and turning to look down at me. 'I apologize if I've spoiled your evening.'

It made me want to laugh, but that seemed highly inappropriate, so it came out as a choked little noise that made him quirk a lop-sided grin. 'Thanks for the picture,' I told him and he nodded again, turning to start down the steps. He stopped at the bottom, looking back up at me and there might have been something in his expression that understood the irony of his next words.

'Duo, I haven't exactly shared this with Sally...'

I wanted very damn badly to mock a member of the Whole Truth Squad, and I might have, if the mood had allowed it, but instead I just raised my hand in farewell. 'I understand,' was all I said and he drove away.

I did snort then, because of the pure hypocrisy factor. Though, I suppose they'd always claimed that honesty thing was between the four of them and Sally must not have been a card carrying member of the boy's club.

But wow... what a bomb for him to drop. Married at fourteen freaking years of age and not even to someone you got along with? Interesting system... glad I wasn't a part of it.

I stood up myself then, because spring might have been in the air, but it was still pretty chilly at night, and made my way into the house.

My plan had been a soda and a ration bar for dinner, so I went to fetch them, deciding that I still had enough time to check my e-mail before Heero got home. I left Wufei's gift sitting on the kitchen table and took dinner to the living room where my laptop sat on the coffee table.

It's funny; once upon a time I'd lived on the computer. E-mail was pretty much the only way to stay in touch in the trade, especially when you're in a line like salvage; you don't really have regular routes or what you'd call ports of call. You might be shuttling between colonies, sitting in dock waiting on work, or... you know; spending weeks heading out into the dark on some hare-brained job. You just never knew. So it used to be nothing for me to check on my mail a dozen times a day, if I was where I could connect to the 'net.

Now, checking mail is more like a weekly event. Answering said mail... sometimes not quite so frequently. It's really a wonder anybody still bothers with me. It's a thing that nags at me when I let myself think about it. And has become a major chore since I let it pile up so much. Usually takes hours of intense effort.

E-mail, for the record, is a very strange psychological thing. How can something like the little orange 'new' flag make such a difference? There's such a moment of happy anticipation when the mail has that little flag. But that same message only carries the weight of guilt after that little spot of orange is gone. They should do a study on that... the psychology of effects of flags on the human psyche. Or, how my inbox is like a Jewish mother.

I sat down with my soda and my dinner and prepared to face my guilt.

Sisyphus greeted me when my laptop booted and I considered, not for the first time, changing my wallpaper and doing away with the poor guy... he really seemed to bother Heero with his perpetual rock rolling gig. And I suppose if I was honest with myself, life had changed enough for me that I didn't feel quite the affinity I once had. But a few minutes reflection didn't bring any appropriate replacement wallpapers to mind, so I abandoned the idea for the likely stall tactic it was and opened my e-mail.

Howard is an absolute wonder; it never ceases to amaze me when I get a message from him, that the guy is still hanging in with me. I had probably gone six months or more after the accident, barely responding to his messages, but I had continued to get one of his long, newsy letters as regular as clock-work. It had been something of a touch-stone for me through that time, even though I'd not managed much in return. I tried to do better in the communication field lately, but it really takes a good chunk of time to respond to something like that the way it deserved, and I'm afraid it sometimes still took me weeks to get around to it.

His latest e-mail had already been sitting in my in-box for over a week. It had come full of anecdotes about all the guys, Sweeper stories, and family stories, and news about the trade. At first that news had made me uncomfortable, making me feel like Howard was trying to pressure me into coming back, but after awhile I'd figured out he was just trying to keep me in touch with a part of my life that might have been closed off to me, but wasn't actually gone. I had tried for a long time to just deny its existence; feeling like it would be easier to just sever the ties. It had taken a while to come to grips with the part where there had been more between me and certain people, than a job and a way of life. Not being in the trade anymore had not made me care any less for Howard and Kurt, Hayden and Toria... I had just had to get my head around the fact that it worked both ways.

Good thing I have patient friends.

I suppose if nothing else, when I look back on my accident, I can at least say one thing; I saved Howard's business. I don't know just what the hell was in that data I flashed back to base, but the price for it had been enough to keep the Sweepers' heads above water, and had eventually led into a government contract that had turned things around. They were doing fine now, and Howard and Kurt had both sworn to me in independent e-mails, that they wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the Londonderry haul.

A fair trade? On a good day, I can admit that it was. And the bad days were few and far between anymore anyway.

I pulled up my reply to Howard's message and worked on it a little more; those things take a bit of pondering sometimes, you know? People really don't have any interest in listening to you whine, though at least that part was getting easier. After getting out of the hospital, while I was still stuck in a wheelchair, there wasn't much else to work with. I guess that had started the downward spiral of non-communication, when I stopped to think about it, and that was something that I was still fighting, though it was getting easier.

I told him a little about the house and neighborhood. Told the amusing story about the morning I had seen a deer in the backyard through the upstairs window. Had about given Heero a heart attack when I went pounding through the house to grab a sketch pad before he realized there wasn't any danger. After I sketched the deer, I sketched him too; half dressed, leaning in the doorway of my studio with his gun dangling from one hand, his other up over his face, almost hiding the bewildered smirk. I don't bother to title my work, but in my head that one is called 'God save me from him'. I almost wrote it on there, in one of those little fluffy thought balloons, but didn't want to spoil the picture. I might even show it to him one of these days.

I actually got to the end of Howard's e-mail that night, answering all his questions and sending it off with a sense of accomplishment, though I knew it wouldn't last. Damn old guy must live on the internet in his old age; I knew he'd have a reply off to me in a matter of days. Which I would be delighted to see... until it wasn't orange any more.

While I'd been typing, I'd gotten two new messages, totally erasing my 'one up' on the in-box score. One from Quatre, copied to all of us pilots, asking about the next dinner, and one from Toria. The dinner message I left to Heero; he knew my taste in restaurants, and opened Toria's with a strange mix of anticipation and dread. Her last message had been not long after the gallery opening, and more to the point, the broadcast of my walk on the wilder side of shuttle repairs. It had been an embarrassing mix of mothering and ribbing. Something only Victoria Brannigan can manage.

I was a bit surprised when I opened it, to find it was from Hayden. It was far from the first time, but he generally left communication up to his wife, something I've noticed a lot of married guys do.

'Hey buddy,' he wrote, and I could almost hear the rumble of his deep voice. 'Thought I'd spare you any more of Torie's jokes and update you myself. Don't listen to him, Duo! I am not nearly as crude and unsubtle as he says!! Well, I'll try to spare you Torie's crude and unsubtle jokes, but you know how it is. You love me anyway, don't you Duo?!'

I blinked at the screen, absently munching on my ration bar and trying to decipher the message. I couldn't help the mental images of Hayden attempting to type and Toria climbing all over him to get to the keyboard. It made me smile, and then it made me melancholy, and then it made me think about beer and bars and flight schedules and I couldn't help but shake my head. Wondered if I'd ever manage to look back without feeling the bite of loss.

'The point here is that we're finally going to make it dirt-side if the schedule holds, the end of next month. We'd love to see you and do some catching up. Maybe plan a dinner at McMurphy's? You can even bring that grumpy boyfriend of yours, buddy-boy! We'll drop you a line when it gets closer to the time and we'll see what we can arrange. I wanna see his damn house! Duo, I wanna see your damn house! Don't you erase that again, Hayden Brannigan, or you'll be sorry!

Ok, if it's not too much trouble, maybe we could catch a cab out to your place, but only if you want to invite us, Duo. Don't let Torie's whining get to you. I do not whine! I'm going to sign off now, before this deteriorates any further into gibberish. We'll talk to you later. We love you, buddy-boy!'

Letters from Hayden and Toria always left me unsure if I should be snickering helplessly or changing my address.

I had hooked up with Hayden right after the war, and we'd been fast friends by the time we'd met up with Victoria. It had been a period of time when I think I'd been feeling a bit of... I don't know... a certain lack in my childhood? I guess I'd just started to understand how much I'd missed out on, for many and various reasons, while I was being raised to be one of the saviors of the known universe. Working at a real job for the first time ever, hanging out with Hayden in our off-hours, and planning our futures had kind of given me a taste of what life was probably like for most normal people my age. We'd had such plans; schemes really, and dreams, and all manner of wild ideas. I guess, by the time we'd run into the psycho Grace sisters, I'd been primed to really break loose.

Those had been some wild damn times. Not much more than a year, I suppose, when you got right down to it, but we'd crammed a lot of crazy shit into that time. Before the 'I do' part and the separate ships part. Though even after, when we met up, we had something of a rep around the trade. There is, for instance, a bar on L3 with the dubious name of Zenith's Edge that... well... let's just say we're not allowed in there ever again. I hadn't known a business could take out a restraining order. Though maybe they call it something else.

I've a certain amount of pride in the fact that there's a hand-printed placard on the front door of the place now, that says there are no hedgehogs allowed.

It's kind of a wonder that we came through most of that wild-oat period relatively intact. Even our reputations. Hell... especially our reputations.

I sipped at my soda, feeling the fizz of the carbonation on my tongue, and thought about different kinds of bottles. Ones with beer in them. We'd gone through more than our fair share of them. Sitting there, looking at that screwy two-person message on my laptop screen, I was struck with a sudden thought.

Is that how guys like Jock started out? Surely the man hadn't gone out the day his lady left him and taken his first drink? When did drinking go from 'just for fun', to a necessity? At what point did it stop being about cutting loose a little, and about just getting through the day instead?

How close had I come to being one of the fallen? What had kept me from turning to the bottle after Hayden and Toria had married, pooled their resources, and bought their own ship? I suppose there had been a bit of maudlin drinking at that point. I told Toria that I hadn't had a problem with them going off and leaving me to my own devices, but I gotta admit there had been a brief period where I'd resented the hell out of it. Hayden and I'd had all manner of plans and... well... being the third wheel ain't no damn fun. It hadn't lasted long; I'm not one to hide from what I'm feeling. Not overly much, anyway. And I knew the resentment was my problem, and not theirs. Linked as it was to that ages old abandonment thing. So I got over it. Toria had always treated me almost like Hayden and I were brothers, and that had made it a bit easier.

After that, after I got my own ship and set out solo, there had been some damn dark days. I'd been pretty stinking lonely, really. The job had kept me moving about as damn fast as I could move... but no matter how hard you work at it, there's always some in-between time. Always time enough to brood. And think. And wonder. And wish.

But, getting back to that drinking thing, what makes one guy an alcoholic and the next guy... not? I'd like to think I'm just not that damn stupid, but is that all there is to it? Neo didn't strike me as a stupid man either... but there he was.

I shut down my e-mail, deciding that I probably wasn't in the right mood for it anymore. Sisyphus was there to greet me, as always, when the desktop was uncovered and I wondered if the poor guy needed a drink. Or was that just the dumbest damn thought ever?

Hell, maybe drunk, the guy could get the damn rock up the stupid hill?

I decided right there that when I went to hell, I'd take along a six pack and some C4. We'd blow the fucking hill up and toast the devil with the beer.

And then I decided it was high time I removed that particular image from my daily life. A quick and rather random search on the net yielded a lovely grinning version of the Cheshire cat and I retired Sisyphus for the foreseeable future.

'Take five, Sis... you've earned it,' I muttered and that was about when I heard Heero at the front door.

He came in looking irritated and I had a second of wishing I'd gotten rid of the evidence of my dinner, before he grumbled, 'Duo... for God's sake, we have a security system for a reason; would it kill you to keep the damn door locked?'

I rolled my eyes, unsure if I should be relieved that he wasn't going off about the ration thing, or just frustrated that we were going to beat the door thing over the head again. 'I'm kind of sitting right here, man,' I quipped, not for the first time. 'I don't think anybody was going to sneak past me.'

'That's not the point...' he began, but then shook his head, giving it up. Made me wonder why... he's not usually so quick to abandon that particular argument.

He did lock the door rather pointedly though, before coming over to drop down on the couch beside me. I saw him notice my new, grinning mascot as he loosened his tie.

'Dinner not go well?' I ventured when he let out a somewhat tired sounding sigh.

'Oh,' he said, a hint of frustration coloring his voice, 'the whole point of it is supposed to be to catch up with each other, but sometimes Relena has trouble... leaving the office at the office.'

I raised an eyebrow, finding that hard to picture. 'Relena?' I had to ask and he quirked me a little grin.

'Yes, Relena,' he assured me. 'She really does take her duties seriously. With the council meetings next week, I swear Relena wishes she could draft me back to her personal security detail. It was almost all she could talk about.'

'But the Preventers are handling security at all the major functions anyway,' I said, confused by what her issue could be. How much more 'involved' could she want Heero? He was freaking in charge of security as it was.

'Yes,' he sighed. 'But I don't answer to her, I answer to Une...'

I couldn't help a snicker. 'Une's bulldogs?' I teased, trying to remember where I'd heard somebody talking about that. 'I remember something about the local force being kind of peeved about it. But it's tradition, right? You guys always...'

Heero was looking up at me with a rather... interesting expression on his face. 'Where did you hear that?' he asked kind of carefully, and I instantly knew it wasn't a term he was overly thrilled with. Or hearing used so openly.

'Uh...' I floundered, and couldn't help the sudden grin when it hit me where I had heard about it. Or read about it, to be more accurate. 'The latest issue of The Hellbound Beavers?'

I should probably not have snickered at the somewhat pole-axed look that came over him then. 'Please tell me you're kidding?'

'Sorry, man,' I soothed, 'but I've been trying to tell you for ages that the Beavers have their... uh... paws on the political heartbeat of the entire Earth Sphere.'

'Duo,' he said, voice rather flat. 'It's a comic book.'

'Actually,' I had to correct. 'It's considered political satire. Pretty timely satire too. Hell, the Beavers were lampooning the engagement of that eighty-something congressman to the former call-girl last month, before the bride-to-be had time to show the ring to her girl-friends.'

He leaned back, slumping down until his head was resting on the back of the couch. 'Une is going to be furious,' he groaned. 'She's been trying to keep a lid on the tension between the departments all month.'

'Well,' I ventured, 'there's no saying you have to tell her.'

He rolled his head to the side and gave me a look that seemed a touch disdainful. 'Don't you think she'll find something like that out?'

'To my knowledge she never saw the split-personality issue,' I muttered and rose to clean up my dinner mess. Or tried to. I was brought up short when Heero reached out and grabbed my shirt sleeve.

'Excuse me?' he asked, and I just sighed and sat back down, pulling my laptop over and launching a browser window.

'Here,' I said, pulling up the Beaver homepage. The little flat-tailed guys had started out as a web-comic and they still maintained the page as a gallery even though they'd gone 'big time' and hit real print. The picture of Guido the Beaver with his hair buns and glasses, sporting the spiffy military jacket with the shiny epaulets and waving a pistol... I understand is one of the site's most popular wallpaper downloads.

For a moment, looking at Une as beaver, I regretted my Cheshire cat decision, but the look on Heero's face kinda made me think I'd probably made the right choice after all.

'Oh my God,' he breathed, rather wide-eyed and staring, and there was a tiny moment when I think some part of him wanted to laugh so bad it hurt, but he wouldn't let it out. 'That's... that's...' he floundered and I couldn't help grinning.

'Pretty accurate, I always thought,' I supplied, but he didn't seem amused.

'Duo, she's our boss,' he scolded, not quite able to tear his eyes off the image.

'Nothing is sacred to the Beavers,' I intoned solemnly, and managed to escape while he poked half-heartedly at the gallery of 'classic' covers. At least it served to distract him from getting on my case about my dinner. And the locking up thing.

'Oh hey,' I called out from the kitchen. 'Pull up my e-mail while you're on there. Quatre sent us a message about the pilot's dinner.'

I heard a grunt in return and something that sounded suspiciously like 'Khushrenada' but I couldn't remember if His Excellency had ever been on the receiving end of a Hellbound skewer or not. Heero was fairly quiet after that while I worked around the kitchen tossing wrappers and bottles and restocking the soda in the fridge. But when he spoke next, the tone of his voice had changed and I had a feeling he wasn't still looking at satirical aquatic mammals.

'Duo?' he called and I stepped back into the living room to find him looking at my laptop like he'd just found that I had been downloading something distasteful. Not that I had, but the look was the same. He glanced up when I came into the room and nodded at my system. 'You appear to have new mail.'

I sighed a bit heavily and went to sit down next to him. 'God, did Howard reply already? The old fart couldn't even give me a day?' But it wasn't Howard's e-mail address that was sitting there blinking at me.

'Angie freakin' Masters?' I snapped, not quite able to believe the woman had invaded yet another part of my privacy. 'How in the hell did she get my damn e-mail address?'

'I'm starting to think we need to take out a restraining order,' Heero said, and his tone was sharp. A little angry. 'This is getting to be ridiculous.'

'Can you do that against a reporter?' I had to ask, because it seemed like if it was that simple, a lot of Hollywood types would have restraining orders against the entire profession.

I debated just deleting it, but then decided I wanted to be sure it wasn't just a fluke, and pulled it up in preview. My system warned me of a return receipt and I quickly rejected it. The message was definitely aimed at me, was definitely from my own personal Lois Lane, but was also a little vague.

'She's fishing,' Heero muttered.

'Yeah,' I had to agree. 'So maybe she'll go away when she doesn't get a response.'

Heero snorted and I had to agree with his doubts. I sometimes wondered if the woman would still be trying to get an interview when I was six feet under. I could imagine her digging me up and knocking on my casket. Or following my ashes out to where ever Heero chose to dump me.

I started to delete the e-mail, but then decided to file it. Never knew... might need it to prove stalkerish tendencies if we really did have to apply for some kind of 'get the fuck away from me' order.

I suppose I should be happy she hadn't yet made a personal appearance.

I moved on to Quatre's message then, getting back on track and trying to put the pushy reporter out of my head.

'It's our turn to choose,' Heero stated, though he hardly had to, since we were both reading the same thing. 'Where do you want to go?'

I shrugged and reached out to tug at the loosened tie around his neck. 'I don't care as long as it's not as upscale as where ever you went tonight.'

He smiled and shook his head. 'No, it was very much not your style. The menu was even in French, I wasn't a hundred percent sure what I'd ordered.'

I grinned at him. 'Was it at least edible?'

'It was an excellent restaurant, but not very... relaxing,' he smiled, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek. 'I'm going to go shower. We can decide on someplace and let Quatre know later.'

He climbed the stairs and I spent another moment considering Guido in drag for my wallpaper, before dismissing the notion. Would probably be like tempting fate... with my luck, the damn woman would find out somehow, and go through with that shooting at dawn thing. Though I went back and killed some time while I waited for Heero, browsing through the Beaver gallery; there really are some classic pieces in there. And there really was one of Treize Kushranada; a somewhat unflattering pose that involved wine glasses and rose petals and a jaunty little wave to the 'camera'. They'd even put the spiffy little sparkle on his buck teeth. I shut down the laptop when I heard Heero turn the shower off.

I was on my way through the house, shutting off lights and checking the locks when I remembered that Heero had put some laundry in, so I decided to go down after it; it should have been the last load.

The basement is kind of a weird place. I'd never really been in a house one before, well... not where the building above it was still intact. There's a fairly big difference, by the way, in the whole atmosphere. Ours is kind of... uninviting. It's not finished, just bare cinder block walls and concrete floor, and not really what you'd call a full basement. There's one big room under the main part of the house, a smaller room off that where the furnace is, and a kind of crawl space under the back part of the house. It doesn't really creep me out, but... it kind of creeps me out. There's really nothing down there but the furnace and the laundry and a lot of cobwebs. The lighting is kind of crappy and I keep swearing we're going to wire in some more fixtures, but it's sort of low on the priority list.

There was indeed a dryer full of towels and I dumped them in the basket to take upstairs to fold, reflecting that a counter wouldn't be a bad thing to install when we got around to working on the basement. Would be nice to be able to fold things without hauling them up to the couch.

Turning toward the stairs, something made me stop for a moment. Some... movement, barely caught out of the corner of my eye. I'm pretty embarrassed to admit that my heart about jumped out of my chest and ran up the stairs without me. Slowly, I set the basket down on the steps and then moved carefully toward the area that had gotten my attention. Intellectually, I knew damn well there was no way in hell there could be anything in our basement, but... well... cheesy horror movies aside, I had seen something move. A couple of steps and it happened again, letting me focus on it once I knew exactly where to look. The window. There are a couple of them; narrow little things that are so sealed with paint they probably hadn't been opened in years. Not that that kept Heero from having them wired when the security system had gone in.

I continued to advance, not sure what to think. Was someone outside trying to break in upstairs? Was I seeing them walk around in... I had to think to orient myself to what was outside in that area... in the daisies? It gave me a twinge about the earlier argument over locking up.

The light in the basement was not particularly bright, a single bulb over by the washing machine. The window was behind the stairs. There was a strong possibility that I hadn't been noticed. A person would have to get down practically on their belly in order to see inside the house, and the windows weren't exactly what you'd call pristinely polished.

I crept forward, not making any sudden moves that might attract attention, keeping to the shadow of the stairs and not taking my eyes off the window in question.

Slight movement, but nothing I could identify, as I had my own problem with the dirty window. I ducked low under the steps, brushing cobwebs out of my way and suddenly the movement came again, and there were two eyes staring at me, bright green and unblinking.

I managed to refrain from yelping in surprise. I did not, however, manage to keep from jerking back, which sort of led me to bashing my head on the underside of the stairs, which elicited the yelp anyway.

I heard Heero coming down the stairs even as I was extricating myself from under them. 'Duo? What's wrong? Are you all right?'

'Jesus!' I blurted, rubbing the back of my head, mind still trying to process what I knew I'd just seen. 'Screwy damn eco-system!'

Heero managed not to kill himself getting around the laundry basket and had me by the arm pulling me toward the light, trying to decide if he should be amused or concerned or calling an ambulance. 'What are you talking about?' he demanded, forcing my hand away so he could get a look at my head.

'Rat!' I told him, despite my vague doubts. 'Biggest God damn rat I have ever seen in my life!'

He instantly forgot about my head and turned to look toward where I'd been. 'Down here?' he asked, voice not a happy one. 'In the damn house?'

'No,' I assured him, stepping back to look toward the window again. 'Outside... looking in through the window.'

'A rat?' he had to question then, looking at me doubtfully. I saw the flick of his eyes toward where I was still holding the back of my head, feeling a small lump forming.

'I didn't hit my head that damn hard,' I growled and dragged him back with me. Sure enough, once we were close enough, there was the wink and blink of those glowing eyes again and I could make out its snout as it sniffed around the edge of the window. 'Does that look like my imagination?'

I was surprised when he just chuckled at me. 'No, it looks like a possum.'

'A what?' I asked, staring at it and not able to shake the 'rat' impression. 'You mean to tell me these things are normal?'

'Well,' Heero soothed, the amusement more apparent in his voice, 'not all that common I suppose, but as close as we are to the woods... it's not really surprising.'

'Then...' I began, but Heero cut me off with a shake of his head and a tug on my arm.

'Come on upstairs where I can look at your head better,' he said and ducked back out into the basement proper. I followed with one last look at our visitor. Still looked like a rat to me, but I suppose I was hardly an expert on the local wildlife.

When we got up to the kitchen though, Heero sat the laundry down on the kitchen counter and instead of going for the first-aid kit, went for the flashlight. 'Come on,' he smiled and led me through the house to the back door. 'They're relatively harmless,' he told me as he turned off the alarm before opening the door. 'But we probably want to discourage it from hanging around anyway.'

The thing was still poking around right where Wufei and I had been poking earlier, and it looked up at us when the flashlight beam fell on it. I couldn't help but laugh. 'That is the ugliest damn thing I have ever seen,' I whispered and Heero chuckled softly along with me.

'A face only a mother could love,' he responded, and the possum must have decided that he didn't like being in the spotlight, because he turned and began this ungainly waddle across the yard, heading for the dubious cover of the rose bushes. I couldn't keep from laughing out loud as his backside bobbed around. Not just ugly, but kind of ill conceived too.

I turned to Heero to voice that thought and found him smiling at me. I realized we'd come out not so much to chase the critter off, but to give me a chance to get a better look at it. Maybe he'd just wanted to share the joke, or maybe he'd been worried that I'd have dreams of giant rats or something if I didn't see it for myself.

It made me look past him at the backyard with a slightly new perspective. I wondered what else might be wandering around out there? What other creatures of the night might be sitting out in the shadows, waiting quietly for us to go away. It gave me weird thoughts of night goggles and motion sensor triggered cameras. Made me think of fairy tales and... oddly, Rudyard Kipling.

'I don't think I like that look in your eye,' Heero grinned and steered me back toward the house. 'I'm not buying you a pith helmet.'

I blinked, where he couldn't see, at how well he could read me. 'Oh come on, doesn't it make you wonder what else is living in our backyard?'

'I'm hoping none of them are actually living here,' he dead-panned, 'but just passing through.'

I contemplated that 'them' and felt the weight of non-existent eyes on us. Imagined a veritable Noah's ark of critters lined up at the edge of the distant woods, watching and waiting patiently for us to be gone so they could take back the night. I had to glance out through the windows while Heero reset the alarm, but of course I didn't see anything.

I thought for a brief moment, of taking up a pencil and sketch pad and trying to capture that snicker inducing, wobbling walk, that God-awful ugly tail. But thinking about the form and shape made something else jump to mind. 'Hey Heero?' I asked. 'Where does the term 'playing possum' come from? Do those things really fall over and play dead?'

He gave me the look that tells me I've made a mental leap in a direction he hadn't anticipated and he snorted, nudging me toward the kitchen. 'Never seen it, but yes, it's evidently a defense mechanism for them. They supposedly can look quite convincingly dead.'

I blinked at the images as they clicked into place in my head. 'Ray isn't a rabbit!' I blurted, and I swear I heard his mental gears strip.

'Pardon me?' he asked, following me into the kitchen and just staring at me for a minute.

'I never got the joke before!' I exclaimed. 'Ray is a side character in the Beaver's universe; he's supposed to be a rabbit. Everybody acts like he's a rabbit, but I always wondered, because he doesn't look a damn thing like a rabbit, but he falls over 'dead' every time something happens, and I just realized he's got to be a possum, and that totally makes the entire budget cut story arc make so much more sense! It's actually a...'

I stopped when I realized he was grinning at me like Trowa grins at cheesy monster movies. When the heroine is screaming at the same time she's trying to help the poor sap in the suit hide the seam?

'What?' I grumbled, caught off guard by the look in his eyes.

'You,' he told me, reaching out and snagging one of my belt-loops, 'are damn sexy when you are all animated and... geeky.'

I snorted, and followed my belt loop further into his personal space. 'Geeky? That doesn't sound good, Yuy.'

He let go of my pants and wrapped his arms around my waist to pull me even closer. 'Oh yeah... it's good. It's very good.'

'Good?' I prodded, draping my own arms around his neck and tugging on a lock of his hair. 'Good how?'

'I want to wrap you all over me, good,' he told me in that growly voice that always makes me tingle. 'I want to take you upstairs right damn now, good.'

He was already looking decidedly dark eyed and aroused, and I smiled lazily in return. 'Then what are we still doing down here?'

'Checking your head,' he murmured, but it was my earlobe he was checking with the solicitous tip of his tongue.

'Doesn't even still hurt,' I replied, leaning down and grazing teeth gently against his collar bone. He responded by hauling me bodily from the floor, hands shifting under my thighs in a move that left me no choice but to do that wrapping thing he'd mentioned.

'You're sure?' he had to ask, but his lips on mine didn't even let me answer. I thought sure as hell he was going to dump both our asses down the stairs trying to climb with my legs tight around his waist, but he's always been something of an unconscious show off with that strength of his. Had me pretty damn aroused too, by the time we reached the top of the stairs.

I thought it was going to be one of those hard and fast nights, but somehow ended up being not. Ended up being languid and slow; him on his back, me straddling his hips and making it last. Just making it feel good for awhile. Dancing near the edge, but not letting each other fall. Unhurried... indulgent... wonderful. Taking the time to explore; to enjoy the simplicity of a hand resting on a hip. Of the brush of fingertips down the length of an arm. The sound of shared words. The heady, intimate scent of too warm skin.

We lasted until something I did, some arch of my body, some movement... some sound... made Heero find the need, made him reach for the rhythm and we were down to the 'Godyes!' part. Down to the panting and grasping and incoherent words part.

And then down to the lazy arguing over who had to get up to go for the tissues part.

Afterward, he had to verify the reports about my head, with the gentle stroke of his fingers through my hair, before spooning up against my back.

I lay and teased the back of his hand with the tuft of my braid for awhile, thinking about comics and politics, about wallpaper and bulldogs, about rabbits and possums. Until he twitched and pinched me, grumbling in my ear. I switched to the inside of his wrist then and he entwined our fingers to make me stop, nipping at the back of my neck when I chuckled at him.

'Don't start something we're too tired to finish,' he muttered and I subsided, settling into his arms. Wishing my thoughts would settle as easily. 'What are you thinking about so hard?' he finally asked.

I sighed. 'Sorry; maybe I should just get back up so you can get to sleep.'

It made him snort and pull me closer into the curve of his body. 'Why are you not tired? You should be too worn out to be thinking this hard.'

'Especially since you made me do all the work,' I groused, and got my butt smacked for my trouble.

'Answer the question,' he commanded, palm resting against my hip in open threat. I reached to take his hand again, and chuckled at him.

'Weren't you the one who said not to start anything?'

'Well, we're awake anyway,' he complained, but I could hear the smile. 'Now tell me what's running through that head of yours that won't let you get to sleep.'

I didn't even try to lead him down the path of Beaver to rabbit to possum to flower garden to daises to dead people. 'Did you know Wufei was a widower?'

There was a moment of silence that spoke of a confused blink. 'What?'

'Wufei was out this evening,' I explained. 'He brought our copy of the picture he promised us from the gallery opening. He was helping me in the yard and we got to talking and he told me about being married.'

There were a quiet couple of minutes while he stumbled his way through the statements to the question again, before he told me, 'Yeah. He told me about it a long time ago.'

'Wish you'd told me,' I couldn't help complain. 'I kinda... put my foot in it.'

'Sorry,' he said. 'I never even thought about it. It was years ago and he never talks about it.'

I squirmed until he let me turn in his arms where I could look at him. 'I can't stop thinking about it,' I confessed. 'I mean... God; they were just kids! How in the hell could you marry little kids off like that?'

He couldn't help smiling at me amusedly. 'Duo, how in the hell could you stick those same 'little kids' in Gundams and send them off to war? Age is...' he shrugged. 'You know.'

I guess I did, but it still seemed... weird. But I suppose he was right; giving a fourteen year old an instant wife probably wasn't any worse than giving them a license to kill. 'Wufei was just so... calm about it. When he talked, he was all... tight. And... and... controlled. But there's this dark pain there. He's so... so...' I struggled with it until Heero sighed and kissed my forehead, pulling me in against his chest.

'I know,' he said simply.

'Do you think that's why he and Sally seem kind of... stalled?' I asked.

There was a heavy sigh and his hand rubbed gently up and down my arm, as though to comfort. 'I wonder sometimes. There seems to be something that he can't quite let go of. I don't know why Meilan and not... the rest of his family; they all died when the colony self-destructed, but there seems to be something about her that just eats at him.'

That didn't make sense when I thought about it, and told him so. 'But Wufei said she died in a field of daises. How could he know that if she died with the rest of the clan?'

'What?' Heero asked, drawing back to look down at me. 'He never said anything about that to me.'

For a moment, I wasn't sure if the tone of his voice was simple surprise, or if there was a touch of hurt there. 'It was the daises in the side yard that sort of led to my... putting my foot in my mouth,' I explained. 'I think he was just letting me know what triggered the memories for him.'

He was quiet for a minute and I could almost hear the gears going around as he replayed whatever conversation he'd had with Wufei in his mind. 'I guess he never came right out and said. I just assumed.'

I laid my head back on his chest and he curled his arm around me. 'I'm sorry,' I had to say again. 'I don't know why I can't stop thinking about it. I didn't mean to keep you awake.'

He rubbed his cheek against the top of my head, his arm giving me a little squeeze. 'I understand. Wufei can be very... self-contained.'

I grunted, and had to think about that. Had to think about wanting to reach out and not knowing how to get around that odd shield of... calm? I wasn't sure quite what to call it, but it seemed to hold the world at arm's length when Wufei wanted it there.

It made me remember times of stumbling and falling into Chang Wufei's support. I found it infinitely sad that somehow I couldn't seem to support in turn. Was the lack in him? Or in me?

I must have sighed rather heavily, because Heero squeezed hard. 'Don't,' he scolded.

It made me lift my head to give him the raised eyebrow look. 'I'm so easy to read?'

He smiled gently. 'Not so easy anymore; your moods are becoming much more complex, but there are some patterns I can't mistake. Wufei is just a very proud man, is all. Don't try to make that your fault.'

I chuckled as he proved that he really could read me sometimes and just laid my head back down. 'Go to sleep,' I commanded and he snorted, but subsided. I just stayed still after that and let him drift off, though my own thoughts kept me up a while longer. My imagination painting scenarios and making me wonder. And picking at that 'complex' comment when I grew tired of trying to unravel Wufei's past.

Saturday is 'chore' day, reserved for trips to the market and wildly interesting things like vacuuming and toilet scrubbing. I'd planned to spend the majority of the day finishing the rebuild job on my carburetor. While I wasn't outrageously fond of the car, it had its uses, and it had been out of commission for almost a week.

So we had gotten up that morning with the agenda of market, miscellaneous errands, cleaning, and car repairs. Our agenda had not taken Aleyah Winner into account.

Most things in life do not take Aleyah Winner into account, come to think of it, but I suppose that's beside the point. At any rate, I had not counted on her mid-morning phone call or the subsequent addition to my day.

She caught us between the grocery run and a trip to the dry cleaners, so I was standing with a head of lettuce in my hand in front of the refrigerator when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out and Heero leaned around me to put a gallon of milk away, glancing at the display I was staring at in open trepidation. He only smirked at me, taking the lettuce from my hand. I sighed and flipped the phone open.

'Hello?' I said, and hoped she couldn't hear the cringe in my voice.

'Darling,' she sighed, voice fairly dripping breezy distress, 'why do you vex me so?'

I blinked at the wall and only managed a confused, 'Huh?'

There was another sigh, one that managed to convey patience of the most taxed kind. 'Pet; why have you not been in contact with Jack Lee? I thought you had an understanding of the... honor of the offer?'

'Uh... would you be mad at me if I said I forgot?' I tried, wondering if I was risking a visit from her and her little territory marking dog by telling the truth.

There was a moment that spoke of a calming breath I couldn't hear, before she said, 'But now you have been reminded... yes, pet?'

'Yes Ma'am,' I muttered, trying for contrite but probably just sounding put out.

'Good,' she clipped out, all business. 'He's expecting you at two, I've e-mailed you directions; be prompt. Ta, darling.'

She hung up before I could accept, object, or think of an expletive.

'I'm almost afraid to ask,' Heero said while I stood staring at my phone. 'The look on your face suggests... not great news.'

'I apparently took too long dealing with that commission request from her buddy,' I growled, feeling just a little irritated. 'She just... made me a damn appointment with the guy!'

Heero turned from putting the bread in the cupboard to look at me. 'When?'

'Today!' I snapped, waving my phone in the general direction of town, meaning to indicate Aleyah somehow. 'At freaking two o'clock! A little more damn warning would have been nice!'

He'd been kind of trying not to grin at me, but that made him chuckle. He shrugged and turned back to fold up the empty grocery sack to put away. 'She probably figured if she gave you any more time, you'd just find a way to squirm out of it.'

The hole I was trying to bore into the back of his head with my glare didn't seem to be getting through. I shoved my phone back into my pocket before I was tempted to bounce it off the back of his head instead. 'Your amusement is not appreciated,' I growled, and I could only imagine the grin I couldn't see.

'I'm sure Aleyah would appreciate it,' he snickered and I left him to finish putting things away by himself. Jerk.

Aleyah Winner is a woman who rather defies all convention. At the same time that she allows herself to be defined by them. She has to not just break the rules, but own them.

From the moment I had agreed to meet with her to discuss the possibilities of an art show... she'd been very firmly in the driver's seat. I'm something of a control freak. So is she. It makes for a somewhat abrasive relationship. One that the entire rest of the world seemed to find damn funny for some strange reason.

I stormed upstairs, just managing not to stomp only because I knew it would make Heero laugh at me. I utterly hate Aleyah's imperious tone of voice, and I hate even more that I can never quite work up the nerve to tell her where to shove her tone. I owe the woman too damn much, and that just made it completely impossible to defy her.

And that really pisses me off.

So, what should one wear when one is going to meet with one of the biggest names in the realm of... art connoisseurery? Connoisseurism? Snobbery?

I'm, in case it has slipped your mind, a mechanic. I own lots of jeans and coveralls, t-shirts and polo shirts. There are a couple of dress shirts, some slacks and the one tux. The tux seemed a bit much, but the coveralls... not such a hot idea. I was fingering what was probably my best dress shirt and debating tie/not tie when Solo snickered in the back of my head.

'Gawd,' he chortled. 'What a suck up!'

'Shut up,' I muttered, glancing to where he wasn't lying on the bed. 'And get your damn shoes off the bedspread.'

He just rolled over and kicked his feet up behind him, grinning unrepentantly. 'Wimp,' he jeered.

'Asshole,' I jeered right back, and he faded to nothing but the chuckle.

'Ya sure are easily impressed anymore.'

'Fuck off,' I ground out, but put the dress shirt back and just went into the bathroom to clean up. He didn't stop laughing until I had the water running and the door shut.

If the man just wanted me to damn well paint something, how I looked shouldn't have a stinking thing to do with it. And if there was a tiny little thrill to be had from the mental picture of the cow Aleyah would have over my wearing my 'I had a nice day once and I didn't like it' t-shirt... it was a bonus.

I used the main computer in the spare room to check my e-mail, finding Aleyah's message and quickly memorizing the directions. It wasn't going to be hard to find; the house actually wasn't that far from Quatre's, and that entire end of town was sparsely built up with areas referred to as 'estates' instead of 'lots'. I should have realized Mr. Lee wouldn't live in an efficiency apartment.

Heero didn't so much as bat an eye at me when I left the house without changing, but then maybe he'd figured out I wasn't a happy camper, and was going for low profile. He just quietly handed over the keys to his car, without even the expected admonishment to be careful. Once I was on the road, it occurred to me that he really had been rather subdued, and I made a mental note to make sure he hadn't thought I was really pissed at him or anything. I was mostly pissed at myself and my inability to tell Aleyah to back the hell off. And not altogether happy to have my somewhat vague and dubious 'plans' interrupted.

Or maybe I was just annoyed at being told what to do like some errant child.

At any rate, it wasn't Heero's fault, even if he had laughed at me.

The Lee estate rated a spiffy little name and everything. Had a placard on the front gate that read 'Rogers Hills'. Thing looked like bronze, but I'm not an expert and couldn't say for sure. Was probably bigger than the plaque on the Maxwell Church memorial though. Part of me wanted to sneer, and part of me wanted to be impressed. Hell... even Quatre's place didn't have its own name.

I pulled up to the gate, suddenly glad that my own car had been out of commission. Heero's isn't a BMW or anything, but mine was a good five years further away from 'new' than his was. There wasn't a gate house or any security guy or anything, and I wasn't sure at first if I should announce myself or some damn thing. Didn't look like there was anything as mundane as a doorbell, but there did appear to be a two way speaker. I was just trying to decide if I should start hollering 'hello' at the thing when it squawked to life. 'Yes? May I help you?'

I resisted the urge to order a Big Mac by a very small margin.

'Duo Maxwell to see Mr. Lee? I have an appointment?'

The gates started swinging open even as the voice directed me to follow the drive to 'the main house'.

The place was sprawling. Immaculate. And yeah... damn impressive. As I followed the drive winding up through the grounds, I found myself wishing I could have just a half a damn hour to talk to the guy's gardener. Any one of the hundred he probably freaking employed.

The house itself looked like something they could have used for a location shoot when they filmed Gone with the Wind. Those same adjectives came to mind; sprawling. Immaculate. I found myself dry washing my hands against my pants legs before I even got out of the car.

I had a sudden pang when the gesture made me realize I'd not even thought about wearing my gloves.

I parked the car not quite in front of the house, wondering if where I'd chosen was an ok spot, and then not able to help snickering at myself. There was not exactly a shortage of parking places. The front door to the house opened while I was still making the hike up the front walk, and I was surprised that it was Mr. Lee himself, and not some butler. Surprised as well to see the man in a pair of the ugliest plaid shorts I'd ever seen, a coordinated polo shirt, with a drink in one hand.

Guess I was glad I hadn't gone with the tux.

'Mr. Maxwell!' he called out while I was still a good thirty feet from the door, his voice even more... boisterous than I remembered from the gallery. 'So good of you to come! And perfectly on time, too. I trust Aleyah didn't give you too short of notice?'

A third surprise in less than a minute; it promised to be an interesting afternoon. With all the unattractive connotations of the word. Not only did he know I'd been called to heel, but he hadn't had a problem with that fact. Nor with me knowing it.

It was no damn wonder he and Aleyah were friends.

'Oh, she gave me almost an entire half an hour,' I quipped, making the rest of the hike and taking his offered hand when I got there. If he was going to play the up-front card, I might as well not mince with the niceties either. 'The trip might even get me out of rebuilding my carburetor, which is all I had planned anyway.'

He laughed that booming laugh, his eyes unapologetically reading the front of my shirt, and the laugh gave an extra burst of appreciation before he gestured me into the house with his drink. 'Come in, come in! Good to see you again, I trust you've been well?'

He was already walking as soon as the front door was shut, assuming that I would follow. I did, of course, and my steps echoed through the... whatever the hell we were in. What do you call those? Foyers? It was wide open and could have easily held our living room, dining room and half the kitchen with no problem. Lot of marble, and there was just no way to match Mr. Lee's long stride and still keep my boot heels from clacking loudly. He had on some kind of house shoes that gave me a pang of fear that I should have taken my own off, but the guy hadn't exactly given me a chance, so I didn't worry about it. 'Fine thanks,' I answered his polite query. 'And yourself?'

'Most excellent!' he beamed, sounding just a bit smug. 'Just got back from the links. Played eighteen holes and handed Stan his ass on a platter. He owes me a home cooked meal now. Just might kill me to eat it, but it'll be worth it to get to watch him try to find his own kitchen. Doubt the man has ever seen it.'

I was glad I was just a pace behind, so he didn't actually see my jaw fall open. 'Uh... Stan Kirby?' I managed, since there had been a pause that seemed intended for me to insert something.

'That would be the man,' he fairly chortled, leading me through a room that seemed to be a den. It was dark wood, and manly furniture, books and clutter and looked like it needed the services of a good maid. Or even a bad one. 'Knows his golf, but couldn't boil water if somebody else turned the stove on for him.' He shook his head in a way that might have been fond, or might have just been mocking. 'Twit has been beating me for years, so he didn't hesitate to take the bet. Didn't know I just spent two months in Scotland studying with Clint Stark.' He chuckled in a rather self-satisfied way.

I gaped at his back as he led me up a flight of stairs. 'Clint Stark?' I couldn't help blurting. I'm not a sports fan, but even I'd heard that name. 'The Clint Stark?'

He actually glanced back at me so I could see the wide grin. 'The one and only. And let me tell you, the man drives a hard bargain, but it was worth every penny to see old Stan's face...'

He rambled on about golf things that pretty much went over my head, but then said head was just a little bit pre-occupied with the notion of a man who could take a couple of months out of his life, fly off to another country, spend God only knows how much money... just to win a bet. A dumb bet, at that.

Somewhere in the back of my head, the old, little used businessman in me rubbed his hands together and gleefully muttered, 'oh, yeeeeeah' and began really paying attention to his surroundings. Noticed the Persian rugs on all the floors. Noticed the real wood paneling. Noticed the six mile hike that hadn't gotten us there yet.

I was very obviously dealing with a man who had actually discovered a way to grow money on trees.

We had paused before a door that I suspected might be our final destination, and Mr. Lee was chuckling at something he'd said. I did my best to grin at the joke, but I honestly hadn't gotten it.

'You don't play golf, do you Mr. Maxwell?' he suddenly said and I could tell there really wasn't much question.

'It shows?' I asked, letting the grin turn a bit wry and he laughed at me before opening the door. To an entirely empty room. Albeit a big empty room.

He gestured me inside, then followed after, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what we'd come all that way to see.

'Welcome to my ballroom,' he said, gesturing grandly with that drink again. 'Or my future ballroom.'

'It's... uhm... really big,' I opined, and stepped further into the room. There were windows and several sets of French doors down one side, looking out over a garden/patio thing that damn near had me making the gardener consultation request that had occurred to me earlier. The floor was some sort of tile that kind of looked like polished granite, but I'm hardly an expert on stonework. On the wall opposite the windows were two massive sets of wooden doors looking like they had come whole from a movie set of some sort, and between them, an alcove that went nowhere. Just an echo of the doors and I kind of wondered if something weren't meant to be sitting there. I could imagine pedestals or plants or maybe a painting hung on the wall. Mr. Lee noticed my scrutiny.

'Exactly,' he grinned and walked over toward the recess. 'Cries out for a mural, doesn't it?'

If it did, it was in a muted kind of way. Didn't cry out the way an austere bulkhead did. His wall had so much to compete with, that frankly... the space barely whispered. I stared at it for a moment, but the only thing that danced across it were pale washes of color echoing the gardens outside. I turned around and looked that way. 'It's got a lot to fight with.'

He grinned widely, turning with me to look across the patio. 'I like your eye. You see the challenge.'

'What do you have in mind?' I had to ask, not at all sure the job appealed, but curious all the same. 'Do you mean to...'

He cut me off with a weird little tut-tutting sound, like I was trying to cheat on the final or something. 'I don't intend to steer,' he told me. 'I want to see what you come up with.'

I turned to blink at him uncertainly, wondering if he'd maybe gotten too much sun on that golf course. 'You're just going to let me make something up?'

He laughed that unashamed laugh, taking a swallow of his drink, the first I'd seen him take. I wondered idly what was in the tumbler. 'I want to see what you've got, young man!'

'Sounds like a test,' I blurted before I could stop myself, and I could tell I took him by surprise.

Damn well took me by surprise though when he just took another sip of his drink and said, 'You're every bit as perceptive as Aleyah said.'

'What?' I began, but he cut me off again.

'Let's just say I'd like to see how you handle yourself,' he chuckled, and damn well winked at me. I turned back to look at the alcove to hide what felt like it might turn into a blush. Had the man just hinted that this entire situation was simply a job interview? That sort of implied that he considered this one... a freaking area that would require the use of a step stool and paint by the palette full... to be small. What in the hell was the real job then? Painting his damn house?

George appeared and began quietly pacing off the size of the niche in little hamster strides, probably trying to get me back on track. He lost count around thirty, and I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't sure what a hamster step equaled anyway. He faded without protest, intimidated by all the open space, I think.

I walked further out into the room, to get the distance to see the bigger perspective, maybe a little intimidated myself.

'Can I at least ask what the room will be used for?' I ventured and he laughed at me outright, just standing back and watching me look around.

'It's a ballroom, Mr. Maxwell,' he informed me. 'There will be balls.'

I'd seen those. Balls were parties that weren't really meant to be fun. They were all about the showing off and the talking of things political. They looked a lot like parties from the outside, but if you let one fool you and lure you in... it didn't take long to figure out the difference. Funny... Jack Lee had not struck me as the kind of guy that would suffer through the like.

'So, there won't be much else in this room?' I asked, pacing back to what would be my 'canvas'. 'No real furniture?'

He'd crossed his arms, seeming to prop his drink arm up, and shook his head. 'A few side tables, I suppose, but balls are for dancing and mingling and the consuming of expensive wine.'

I snorted before I had a chance to stifle it and turned from looking at the wall to look out the windows again. 'And this mingling stuff happens in the evening?'

That one took him by surprise and he looked like he might be trying to hide a smirk behind the glass. 'Mostly.'

I nodded and paced across to the windows themselves, taking a look around and orienting myself. The setting sun would be coming in the windows at a bit of an angle, the patio oriented more toward the south-west than true west.

The patio itself was some sort of cobble-stone and not just concrete. There was a vaguely Greek tone to the décor, though nothing as blatant as statuary. There were some urn type planters though, that had a certain shape that left an impression more than anything. The things were already cascading with flowers, and while I wasn't exactly a landscaping expert just yet, I knew from my own yard that it was a bit early. So the team of gardeners had gone to some extra effort to achieve the look. I wondered what the garden would look like when it was fully 'in season'.

'May I?' I asked on a sudden whim, gesturing toward the outside doors, and Mr. Lee fairly beamed at me.

'Certainly!' he said, and led the way outside. There was an odd air of pride about him, and I realized that the man didn't just dump the job entirely off on those nameless workers. He had a hand in things somehow, even if it was only at the design level.

He let me walk around, answering questions when I asked them, but never volunteering. He was delighted when I noticed things like a small stone rabbit peeking out from under a shrub, but I could tell he wouldn't have pointed it out if I hadn't seen it.

There were a lot of those sorts of touches, from glass and wire dragonflies staked among the vines, to colors designed to unconsciously lead ones path.

Subtle, was the word that came to mind, and it surprised me coming from a man I'd been thinking of as 'boisterous' since the day I'd met him.

He watched me following a series of planters with my eyes, that seemed randomly spaced but whose flowers were graduated in shades of purple. The darkest near the house and the palest out in the garden somewhere. 'I knew you were the man for the job when I saw that portrait you did of Aleyah,' he informed me, his nod approving and I was rather surprised that he'd realized just from watching me that I'd noticed the design. 'Have me all figured out yet?'

I couldn't help an aborted little laugh, 'Not quite, sir,' I hedged and made him laugh in return.

'Good,' he grinned, saluting something I couldn't see with his drink. 'Can't have all my secrets revealed. You're an observant man, Mr. Maxwell. I look forward to seeing what kind of design you come up with.'

It was a dismissal as subtle as the garden around us, but I didn't miss it and nodded. 'Do you have a dead line?' I asked, getting back to business.

'No rush,' he told me, waving dismissively and turning back toward the house. 'I'd like to have the work done before it's too hot though. Hate to go to all this effort and nobody get to see it.' It made me wonder again just how much of the actual gardening he did, but in case it wasn't much... it seemed too rude to ask.

'Shouldn't be a problem,' I assured, thinking of some of the other murals I'd done. Then I wondered if I shouldn't make a point of slowing the hell down... my speed seemed to take a lot of people by surprise. Maybe the time I took would factor into the rate I could charge? Or... would speed be a bonus and I could charge more?

I reflected, as I followed him back through the house, that I should probably leave the money angle to Aleyah.

'Think you might have some preliminary sketches done by next week?' he asked, and it made me blink uncertainly. Sketches?

'I think I can have something... outlined,' I ventured, hoping I didn't sound too surprised.

'Wonderful!' he exclaimed, and I suspect, if both his hands had been free, he'd have clapped them together. 'I look forward to seeing what that... as Aleyah calls it... fertile imagination of yours comes up with.'

Me too, I almost said, but thought better of it at the last minute. 'I'll be in touch,' is what I managed, pleased that it actually sounded like I knew what I was doing.

He stood in the doorway and watched me to my car, and I realized that I'd never seen another person in that huge freaking house, the whole time I'd been there. No butler, no maids, no gardeners, no wife. Not even a dog. I wondered if they all had the day off, or if the guy really somehow managed all by himself.

Glancing back at the massive damn place in the rearview mirror... I just shook my head and chuckled. Hell, the guy would have to have help just turning the damn lights out at night, and locking up.

I couldn't help thinking that there was a whole circle of society out there that was just... really weird. And Aleyah Winner, apparently, rubbed elbows with them all. I wondered idly just what I'd be able to charge the man for the job. I used to either barter for the jobs I did for fellow ship owners, or else charge them a couple of hundred, depending on the subject matter as much as the scope of the job. But I couldn't help remembering what Heero'd reported the carpet layer guy had said... that the job I'd done in our bedroom would have been worth a thousand easy. I found myself looking around the grounds as I drove down the driveway, and wondered if I could actually get away with charging the man a thousand? There was a lot I could do with that kind of money; get the kitchen remodeling job done for Heero, for one thing. Or even just make a couple extra house payments.

Or did I want to get too crazy on what looked like nothing more than a test run? If the test was something that size, did I even want to know what the real job was? I kept seeing all that blank space in my head and trying to figure out what should go there. I'd never really had anybody leave it up to me before; people usually had a pretty good idea how they wanted their space decorated, and I'd always been able to fill in the blanks because I knew the person. I didn't know jack about Jack, to be blunt. Or... very little about Jack. He was a bit larger than life, was held in some regard by the not easily impressed Aleyah, appeared to have more money than Relena and Quatre put together, and liked to golf. Or bet. Or thrash his friends. Maybe all of the above.

The gates at the end of the drive opened as I approached them and I wondered if there was a sensor, or if Mr. Lee was manning the switch back at the house. I found myself turning the wrong way for home and accepted the notion to swing by Trowa and Quatre's place as a decent idea. At the gallery opening, Quatre had appeared to know something about the mysterious Mr. Lee, after all. When in doubt; research.

I was parked in their driveway before it dawned on me that just showing up unannounced was probably pretty rude. So I pulled out my cell phone while still sitting in the car, punching in Trowa's number and musing that the house was big enough that were they busy... they might never even know I'd been there if I just drove away.

Trowa skewered that notion when he answered his phone with a dry chuckle. 'I know it's been awhile, Duo, but do you really need directions up the front walk?'

I snorted. 'Just giving you the option of sending me on my way if you're busy.'

There was a derisive little noise. 'Haven't you been told before that we are never too busy for you?'

'Yeah,' I replied. 'But I always assumed that you were just being polite.'

Up at the house, I saw the front door open. In my ear, Trowa sighed. 'Just get in here, because I feel really stupid talking to you on the cell phone when I can see you.'

I laughed at him, but snapped my phone closed as I got out of the car. Trowa leaned in the doorway while I made the walk up the drive.

'Hey,' he said when I got there, and stepped aside so I could enter.

'Where's your blonder half?' I grinned up at him, eliciting a snort.

'In the office,' he replied, looking a little surprised. It wasn't a look I'd have probably noticed if I hadn't been watching for it. While I doubt Quatre and I would ever start... I don't know... going antiquing together or anything, I had been putting some effort into things. But it still seemed to take them by surprise whenever I sought Quatre out specifically.

He led me through the house to the little office I'd thought was so cozy when I'd stayed with them. I'd not realized that it was Quatre's actual home-office when I'd invaded it, or I'd have probably invaded someplace else. Of course, that was probably why he'd not let me realize.

I entertained myself keeping in perfect step with Trowa as we made our way down the hall, until he noticed, and began deliberately varying his stride. By the time we got to Quatre, I was all but snickering and Trowa was just trying not to roll his eyes at me.

The Winner heir, and pride n' joy was hunched over his laptop, smacking the keys with a little more force than was probably deserved by the poor machine, and didn't actually seem to notice that the entrance into his inner sanctum was a party of two.

'Trowa,' he said without looking up. 'Would you visit me in jail if I actually nailed Representative Rackham's ass to the wall of the convention center?'

I couldn't contain the snort of laughter, or I would have stayed quiet to see what else he might have said. 'Don't know about Trowa, but I'll come down and bring you chocolate bars to use for barter.'

I thought he was going to knock the laptop off the desk whirling around to look at us. His face was so red, I couldn't help laughing out loud and even Trowa chuckled softly. Probably less inclined to belly laugh at the guy he sleeps with.

'Did I mention we have company?' he said drolly and got a scowl that just wasn't at all intimidating coupled with the blush.

'No, you did not, dearest,' Quatre grumbled, voice tinged with a tone of and you're so going to hear about it later.

'Down, boy,' I scolded. 'I promise not to tell sis you used the 'A' word.' Then, more to defuse his embarrassment than a serious desire to know, 'Who's this Rackham guy and why are you threatening to crucify him?'

Quatre snorted, giving Trowa one last, totally ineffective from the look of it glare, and turned my way. 'The senate representative from L4. The man insists on acting like we're bosom buddies because our families come from the same colony cluster. He's been buttering me up for weeks and I couldn't figure out why. Well, he finally got around to messaging me... he's expecting to stay here during the council meetings.'

'Over my dead body,' Trowa informed the room at large, in a quiet voice that he could have used to discuss the weather.

Quatre just made a rude noise and shook his head. 'Yours and mine both.'

'Why in the hell does he want to stay here?' I had to ask, interested despite myself, imagining Quatre playing host to some boring politician, who would wander around the mansion in his bathrobe in the evenings, expecting to be entertained.

There was a look exchanged, a questioning eyebrow raised and a faint shrug, it made me wait patiently instead of making the speculative comment I'd been about to.

'There are a couple of rather... sensitive items up for vote this session. People are anticipating trouble. Several groups have already applied for permits to picket the convention center.'

It took me a second to roll that around to the obvious implication and I couldn't help grinning. 'So this guy trusts your security more than the Preventers?'

Trowa shifted, crossing his arms and leaning in the doorway. 'Apparently we fall into the 'colony born' category, which somehow makes us... more trustworthy or something.'

'But half of the Preventers are...' I began, but stopped at the almost unconscious shake of Quatre's head.

'But they're 'sell outs', don't you see?' he explained, managing to put in the quotes with just a disdainful twist of his voice. 'Rackham is...'

'Old school?' Trowa provided helpfully and drew a wry chuckle from Quatre.

'I was going to say 'old fart', but I suppose that works too. At least the man is in his final term. It's time for some younger blood in the L4 house, to be frank.'

'Well, if you let him stay here,' I quipped, 'don't put him in my room. I don't want some 'old fart' sleeping in my bed.' I shuddered theatrically and drew a delighted laugh from Quatre.

When he had it toned down to a warm smile, he seemed to brush the whole council/politics unpleasantness aside. 'Don't worry; I have no intention of inviting that man into my home. Now tell me... what brings you all the way out here?'

'Technically,' I had to correct, settling myself on the corner of his desk. 'You're 'in' and I'm 'all the way out', but let's not quibble. I came to pick your brain.'

He blinked at me, managing to look uncertain. 'Pick my brain? That sounds... unpleasant.'

'I promise not to use a fork,' I assured him, waving a hand dismissively. 'But you know this Jack Lee guy?'

I think the fork comment took him a minute, because there was a delay while he decided if it was relevant to the question before responding. 'I know of him, more than I know him,' he confessed, 'but we do tend to end up at the same functions on a fairly regular basis.'

'Ah!' I grinned. 'That means you both know him! Great; good to get multiple view points. So... what can you tell me about him?'

Trowa shifted his stance against the doorframe and tucking his hands in the pockets of his slacks. 'What? Are you thinking of dating him?'

'Ew!' I blurted, recoiling from the mental image that brought up. 'I'm a marri... I'm not into that kinky 'daddy' stuff, so just don't go there.' My face felt warm from the almost slip and I bulled forward, hoping to move on before the sly little smirk on Trowa's face turned into something more... verbal. 'I finally got around to talking to him about that commission he wants done and it turns out it's some kind of... of... test, or something. He won't tell me what he wants done... I'm just supposed to work up some suggestions or some damn thing.'

'Test?' Quatre said, expression going from quizzical to full out confused.

I found myself vacating the edge of his desk so that I could do the exasperated hand gestures without knocking something over. 'He's got this big-ass ballroom and there's this... this stupid dead space. It's like a recessed thing that goes nowhere and he wants a mural in it, but he won't tell me what in the hell he has in mind, and somehow or other the whole job seems to be a... a... trial run! He's got some bigger job in mind, but he won't tell me what that is either, but apparently if I'm a good little artist, I'm in the running for the other thing. But I've always known the people I did paintings for and I don't know shit about this guy or what he likes. Hell! I don't even know where all that obviously substantial amount of money comes from!' I stopped for a breath and on a sudden thought had to ask, 'He's not some kind of... of... black-market millionaire or anything, is he? Because I seriously can't work for some guy who's selling used body parts or something.'

Quatre started laughing first, but I caught a dry chuckle coming from Trowa's direction as well. I opened my mouth to inform them I didn't find myself all that damn amusing, but my cell phone gave out with that little chime that told me I had a text message and I settled for just glaring at them while I pulled it out to read Heero's quietly understated little 'Ok?'

I let them settle down while I keyed a response, 'With T&Q. Home soon.'

'No,' Quatre told me when he saw he had my attention again. 'Jack Lee's money does not come from illicit organ donation. At least, not as far as I know. His great-grandfather was one of the original investors when the science of the anti-gravity field was just a lot of wild theory.'

'The family stood firm in the face of a lot of ridicule, actually,' Trowa chimed in, and it didn't take much imagination to understand that part. Turning gravity off and on with a switch? I'm sure Christopher Columbus had felt that same sort of derision from half of Europe as they snickered behind their hands over his impending doom at the edge of the world.

I wondered how that part fit into Jack Lee's lifetime. He didn't strike me as being in any way a bitter man, so maybe Gramps had gotten to the 'raking in the cash' part before he came along. I'd have to look up a little history when I got home.

'Ok, so he's not in some sort of mafia,' I conceded. 'But what's he like? Other than seeming to have some sort of weird rivalry with Stan Kirby?'

Quatre made an amused sort of sound and just shook his head. 'Jack and Stan go way back,' he smiled. 'And Aleyah too, come to think of it. What's Jack like? Uhm... loud? A little bit of a...' he hesitated on the wording and Trowa stepped in.

'Let's just say he doesn't shrink from the spot-light.'

Quatre smiled approval of the wording before resuming. 'I used to think that he and Aleyah ought to get together until I realized they're too much alike. They'd kill each other.'

I thought about that one for a second, not quite seeing it between my prim and proper patron, and the grinning, laughing Mr. Lee. My confusion must have shown on my face, because Trowa chuckled lightly. 'Two people too used to having their own way all the time.'

I snorted and had to concede the point. I was trying to formulate a question about Aleyah and Stan Kirby that wasn't just... rude, when Quatre suddenly brightened.

'I just remembered something!' he said, obviously happy to have information to impart. 'Jack's in that horticulture club. That rose society? He won some award or other a couple of years ago for some new hybrid.'

I thought about that incredible garden and wondered if there had been roses and I just hadn't recognized them. Or was it too early for roses? Something else to look up when I got home.

'He named it after his mother, didn't he?' Trowa asked, and Quatre gave him a shrug that stated clearly that he didn't have a clue.

'It was a rare color or something,' he mused, obviously never really caring before. 'I remember Aleyah was quite impressed.'

'You know, Duo,' Trowa suddenly interjected. 'Maybe you should go talk to Aleyah.'

I sighed, thinking about it. Yeah, she was probably the more obvious choice, but I had a funny feeling that talking to her would be considered 'cheating' somehow. I said as much and Quatre got his confused look back.

'Does commissioning usually work that way?' he had to ask, eliciting another exasperated hand gesture from me.

'No!' I huffed, realizing for the first time that the whole thing was kind of irritating me on some professional level. Damn man wanted something, he should just freaking ask for it. 'I've never done anything but bulkheads before, but a home is a home, and this shouldn't be any different. You ask somebody to draw something for you, you ought to damn well know what you want.'

'Well, I suppose,' Trowa said after a moment. 'That you don't have to accept the job.'

'Right,' I snorted, kind of covering up the part where that had never really crossed my mind. 'Aleyah would flay me.'

Quatre studiously aligned his desk blotter with the edge of the desk and said in his about to take names in order to kick some butt voice, 'If you don't want to take the commission, I will speak with Aleyah.'

I took a long moment to think about it. He said that as though he could actually buck the woman. As though he could say a few words and keep her from having something she obviously wanted. As though she would actually care what he said.

Silly boy.

I didn't tell him it was more an issue of me not wanting to disappoint her as any real fear of flaying. 'Don't risk it, little brother,' I quipped, but I could see him getting that stubborn light in his eye and sighed. 'No, seriously. It's... weird, but I think I'll take a shot at it. I have to admit it kind of calls to my competitive side.'

There was an odd hesitation on his part, but Trowa stepped in with a quiet, 'as long as you're not letting Aleyah bully you.'

'That is entirely too harsh a word for Aleyah. She would never bully anyone. It's more like... intimidation.'

Quatre chuckled, the moment put behind him, and I wondered about it. His protective streak showing, I supposed.

'I guess I can't help being a little curious if I can cut it,' I confessed, giving them an uncomfortable little shrug, and Trowa let out with a theatrically gusty sigh.

'Just can't pass up an opportunity to measure yourself against some lofty standard?'

'Not sure how lofty it is...' I muttered, otherwise keeping my mercenary thoughts to myself. 'At any rate, if you guys think of anything else that might help, I'd be more than happy to hear about it.'

'I can poke around a little,' Quatre said, and it made me picture half of the Earth-sphere's upper crust finding themselves being grilled about one Jack Lee.

'Don't go out of your way,' I was quick to add and heard a noise from Trowa that led me to believe he'd followed the same thought path I'd just run down.

It left an odd silence, so I took the opportunity to make my excuses, and we said our goodbyes. Trowa ended up seeing me back to the front, though I teased him about thinking I couldn't find my way.

'Hate to find you a week from now, wandering around lost,' he retorted. I was just opening my mouth to zing something back about the size of the place, when my phone chirped at me again. I pulled it out to find another message from Heero. 'Dinner?' it read, in what I imagined was plaintive text. Trowa chuckled at me as I keyed my response.

'Married, huh?' He smirked. 'So where's the ring?'

I cringed; should have known he wasn't going to let that slip of the tongue pass. 'Symbolically married,' I parried. 'Where's yours?'

I was left blinking when he pulled the chain out of the front of his shirt.

'Symbolically, of course,' he quipped, and let me touch the plain gold band dangling in front of me. There looked to be an engraving inside, but I didn't try to read it. I felt oddly touched that he'd shown it to me even if he was teasing the crap out of me for the same sort of sentiment.

'This new?' I had to ask, and the quirky little half smile told me it was, before he voiced it.

'Christmas,' he said, his tone gentling down and it made me think that maybe the ribbing had just given him an opening to show it off a little.

'Congratulations,' I grinned up at him and he snorted, slipping the ring back inside his shirt, seeming suddenly embarrassed. I'm not sure I'd ever seen an embarrassed Trowa Barton before. It was kind of weird, so I tossed an arm around him and said, 'No, seriously. Welcome to the family and all that shit.'

It made him laugh, but he returned the one-armed hug before rolling his eyes at me. He started to say something else, but Heero pinged my phone again and I glanced down to see what his reply was to my offer to pick up take-out. When I looked up again, his expression had changed and all the bantering seemed to be gone.

'I'm glad you have your own... symbolism,' he told me quietly. 'You and Heero are good for each other, I think.'

It made me duck my head and I took a moment to work studiously at putting my phone back in my pocket, hesitating on the first couple of things that came to mind. Trowa took hold of the base of my braid and gave me a half-hearted little shake. 'He's as happy as I've ever seen him,' he told me simply.

It made me look up at him, heat rising to my face. 'You pulling Heero's mind reading trick now?'

He gave me a wry little grin. 'Who do you think taught it to him?'

I answered his grin with a distracted curve of my lips, but couldn't help poking at the subject. 'Is he really? Because sometimes... sometimes I just feel like I'm gettin' more out of this whole thing than he is, you know what I mean?'

He made a sound that was derisive, but then his mirth faded and he gave me a thoughtful look. After a moment, he glanced in the general direction of the room we'd left behind and gave out with a soft little sigh. 'Yeah... I guess I do know what you mean, but you're wrong. Heero was... a very lonely person those years that you were gone. You've turned his regimented little world upside down... it's good for him.'

'Nice to know I'm not the only one up-ended,' I retorted, and he chose to see the humor and not the possible underlying bitterness; laughing lightly.

Then as quickly as we'd staggered onto the subject, he wandered off. 'You know... Jack Lee is every bit as faceted a personality as Aleyah; don't make the mistake of taking him at face value.'

I made my own little derisive noise, but was more than happy to follow him to the less uncomfortable topic. 'I have yet to figure out even that much. The man is...'

'Over-whelming?' he supplied helpfully and I nodded.

'Don't let him get to you,' he advised. 'You're talking about a man who reportedly put tadpoles in all the water glasses at his last dinner party.'

I blinked at him for a second, trying to imagine the scene. 'Don't tell me...'

Trowa grinned, almost as pleased to deliver the line as I'm sure Mr. Lee had been. 'Frog in your throat?'

I groaned. 'Oh God... what have I gotten myself into?'

'Nothing you can't handle,' he told me, giving me that strange feeling like I'd somehow been led to the line.

'Sure as hell hope so,' I muttered and took a step away. 'I should probably be going before Heero starves to death.'

I got a look that told me he knew I was just evading, but he let me get away with it. I took a step off the porch and hesitated on a sudden thought. 'Uhm... you'll keep Quatre from actually having Mr. Lee investigated or something, right?'

His laugh was more ironic than anything else, letting me know that I probably wasn't too far off base. 'I'll at least keep him from trying to bribe employees into going through the man's trash.'

'I'm going to take that as a joke,' I informed him, probably looking a bit wide-eyed. 'And you are not going to disillusion me.'

'I'll just say goodbye then,' he smiled drolly and we parted ways on that note.

Once in the car and on the road, I went ahead and called Heero, because texting can be handy, but I find it to be a pain in the ass. I can talk and drive; the authorities frown on you keying and driving.

'Everything go ok?' he asked, when I'd gotten him on the line.

'As typically 'ok' as anything goes for me,' I chuckled. 'It took so long because I stopped off at Quatre and Trowa's to see what they could tell me about my new employer.'

'You got the commission?' he asked and there was this strange little lift to his voice that made me really stop and reflect on that.

'Guess I did,' I replied. Though, thinking about it, I'd not really stopped to see the 'maybe' aspect before. It actually made me feel kind of foolish; it had never occurred to me that it wasn't already a done deal. Nobody had ever asked to talk commission before, who hadn't already fully intended to hire me.

Made me feel kind of unintentionally arrogant.

'What does he want you to do?' Heero asked and I repressed the snort because I know how that sounds over a phone.

'Good damn question. I'll tell you about it when I get home,' I told him. 'You have anything in mind for dinner?'

'Whatever you like is fine,' he assured, but then amended. 'Though not pizza, if you don't mind. Wufei and I had it twice last week.'

'Think I'll just get sandwiches then,' I decided, thinking about what was on the way home. 'Fish, chicken, or hamburger?'

'Chicken,' he decided after a moment. 'And a salad if you stop somewhere that has them.'

'Roger,' I grinned and he didn't bother to repress the snort. It sounded like a wuff of air in my ear. 'Home in a bit.'

'Be careful,' he told me, his usual sign-off, and we hung up.

Heero's car has an actual radio that functions, and I turned the volume back up once I was off the phone, humming quietly along with the song that was playing.

I let myself think about that tone that had been in Heero's voice when he'd realized I was doing the commission, and had to admit to myself that he'd sounded just a tiny bit... proud? Maybe? If it wasn't just wishful thinking. It made me feel a strange mish-mash of embarrassed and warm and... lame for liking it so much.

Though I sure as hell hoped I didn't end up screwing the whole thing up by not managing to come up with something for the job. So far, I had nothing but a vague notion that involved a Greek garden with lots of flowers. And that just seemed too mundane for the indomitable Mr. Lee. Somehow, the mural was going to have to be something really... special. Not just flowers, but... special flowers? Maybe those roses that Quatre had mentioned? A whole landscape of those roses? Or was that just too damn obvious? If not the roses, then what? Some kind of alien flora? A hamster on the dashboard ran through a quick slide show of weird vegetation and I banished him when he got to the Venus fly-trap pun.

I arrived home with dinner in hand, barely remembering going through the drive through, and praying I hadn't ordered something Martian.

When I walked into the house, Heero wasn't immediately in sight, but the dining room table was set for two. I couldn't help a roll of the eyes at the plates and silver-ware; Heero is the only guy I know who feels compelled to put fast-food on a damn plate. Isn't the whole point of ordering out to avoid the clean up? They put everything into those convenient little containers... why not use them? I was setting my own plate off to the side when I heard Heero come through from the kitchen.

'Barbarian,' he sighed and I grinned at him.

'Plates are too ridiculously high-class for Mr. Bucket chicken,' I informed him and he just shook his head, noting the lack of drinks and stepping back into the kitchen to fetch some.

'You better be bringing me a soda, Yuy,' I called after him. 'I've had a rough day.'

He muttered something from the depths of the refrigerator that I couldn't make out, but didn't really have to, in order to get the gist of it. Not really wanting to hear another lecture on the total lack of nutritional value of my beverage of choice, I decided to change tracks before he could really get started.

'So, in theory, if there was any possibility of plant life on Mars... prior to any terraforming, I mean... what do you suppose it would look like? Native Martian vegetation, so to speak.'

There was a sudden total lack of sound from the other room. I took it to mean that I'd not only changed his track, but derailed it. I tried for an inquisitively innocent look, but couldn't quite lose the grin before he stepped back into view.

'Martian... what?' he had to ask, holding a soda in one hand and a glass of his tea in the other.

'You know... foliage that would grow on Mars?' I quipped, taking my soda from him for a long swallow before moving to sit down. He followed suit after giving me a look that begged to be reassured I hadn't lost my mind.

'We are not landscaping the yard in early Martian,' he said, settling across from me and pointedly unwrapping his sandwich to arrange it on his plate.

'You're washing that,' I grumbled, spreading my own sandwich paper out in lieu of a plate. 'Not the yard. The commission.'

'You do this on purpose,' he groused back. 'And don't think I don't know it.'

'Do what?' I asked innocently and I think he might have tried to kick me under the table.

'Make me insane with the vague topics and rabid subject changes,' he said while sparingly drizzling the dressing on his side salad.

'I never changed the subject,' I said. 'It's been the same one since I got home.'

He gave me a doubtful look. 'So you're telling me that Jack Lee has commissioned you to paint extraterrestrial plant life for him?'

'It's as much a possibility as anything else since he won't freaking tell me what he wants,' I complained and got a 'look' before Heero told me to start from the beginning. Which I did. And when I was done, I couldn't decide if he was just more confused than when I'd started or not.

'A test?' he finally asked. 'For what?'

'That would be the question of the hour,' I told him around a bite of sandwich. 'Or the second question of the hour. The first being what in the hell do I do for the actual test to get to round two.'

'You make it sound like a game show,' he chuckled at me, and I took his amusement to mean he didn't really seem to understand the need for nervousness.

'It feels like a game show,' I grumbled. 'One I haven't been given the rules to.'

'You'll do fine,' he assured me, and there was such a tone of unconcern that I had to stop chewing just to stare at him. He met my gaze with an amused little smile and I swallowed.

'You do understand that I'm going to stress and worry about this until I figure something out... right?' I asked and got a dry chuckle.

'Of course,' he assured me. 'It's what you do.'

'Asshole,' I muttered, and took a couple of long gulps of my Mt. Dew. His smile spread wider.

'And I'll make sure to keep your soda well stocked. In the bottles. With the peelable labels.'

I freaking gaped at him, kind of forced to notice that the label on my bottle was already loose on one side. I hadn't even noticed picking at it.

'But you also realize that this... this... weird smug attitude of yours is just going to lead to a pissy attitude from me?'

He stuck a forkful of his salad into his mouth, making me wait while he chewed and swallowed. 'Yep. That would also be what you do.'

'I'm gonna hurt you before this is over,' I muttered, but he just couldn't seem to get that damn look off his face to save him. We shut up and ate then, but I couldn't stop thinking about his weirdness.

It sort of came off as smug, like I'd said, but it wasn't really that. It was like he just... believed in me. Like there wasn't any doubt in his mind that I would pull some damn genius idea out of my ass at the last minute and it would all work out in the end. Pardon the pun. But... what the hell gave him that belief? With all the mistakes I'd made, and all the wrong choices; what made him so freaking sure of me?

'Slow down,' Heero said, and though he delivered the line with a light chuckle, there was a hint of concern in his voice.

'What?' I asked, looking up, startled to find that hint mirrored in his eyes.

'You just went from irritated to pensive in... about five seconds flat,' he told me gently and reached across the table to brush a finger-tip across my knuckles where my hand curled around my bottle of soda. 'What is it?'

'What gives you such faith in me?' I blurted, before I had a chance to think about it and maybe not say it. Because I really did want to know. Only... not.

His finger stilled on the back of my hand and he gave me a funny, cocked-head look. 'You really willing to hear it?'

It sounded like a trick question with the odd wording, so I didn't answer immediately, taking a minute to just stare at him, puzzling it out. He either decided to take my silence as an affirmative, or decided he didn't feel like waiting for me. That finger moved, hooking at my hand and making me let go of my soda so he could take my fingers in his.

'I've told you until I'm blue in the face what a beautiful, talented, amazing man you are,' he said, and I was instantly beet red in the face and looking at the remains of my dinner instead of at Heero. I heard him sigh.

'And you can't hear me,' he said, somewhere between resigned and exasperated. 'But that's not where my faith comes from anyway. I know you, Duo,' he continued, voice getting firm. 'You don't quit. No matter what.'

I frowned darkly at the bits of bread and chicken in front of me, thinking about the biggest 'quit' there ever was. The one that made a ship's owner into a mechanic. The pilot into a ground-bounder. His fingers squeezed tight around mine until even my damaged nerves acknowledged the pressure and I had to glance up at him.

'You did not give up,' he told me fiercely. 'You've gone back and faced your fears time and again. Life is change, and you've rolled with every damn change that's come your way. Maybe you aren't where you thought you'd be, but you're still standing, and still coping, and still...'

'Tilting at windmills?' I supplied inanely, embarrassed and uncomfortable and fervently wishing I hadn't started us down the path he was on.

'Still fighting. Against very real demons.' he corrected, and if the reach across the table hadn't been too far, I think he would have pulled my hand up and kissed it. 'And you're not scrawny enough to be Don Quixote.'

It let me laugh a snort of a laugh, but I had to look away from the fierce light in his eyes. 'Ok, Sancho... I'm sorry I asked, already. I give.'

But my capitulating didn't stop him; teach me to give him openings. 'You excel at everything you do because of that tenacity.'

I made a grumbling little noise, hunting for words that would change the subject, but he tugged at my hand until I met his eyes again.

'I have faith in your strength of spirit,' he said and then let me go.

I watched him spear the last of his salad for a minute. He seemed to be done, and I was pretty damn glad; I was developing a theory that the human body can only handle so much blushing before... something bad happens. Kind of like blowing a fuse on an electrical circuit. I gathered up the trash from my dinner and rose to take it into the kitchen to throw away. Passing through the kitchen doorway, behind his back, where I didn't have to meet that intense, blue-eyed gaze, I stopped.

'That... means a lot to me,' I told him. 'But let's not make a habit of hashing it over.'

I thought he'd let it go, but there was a quiet chuckle behind me. 'You did ask.'

'And I learned my lesson,' I muttered, going on into the kitchen before he could say anything else.

Why do all my warm fuzzies come wrapped up with terminal embarrassment?

I went to drag my carburetor out of the cabinet where I'd hidden it when Relena came over, to respread it on the smaller kitchen table. I really needed to have the car running before Monday, just in case Heero needed to drive separately. With the conference coming up, some of his days had been spent in places that were not the office, and I'd had to take myself to work.

The blush was even pretty well gone by the time Heero came in to wash up his dishes. We worked on opposite sides of the kitchen in a silence that was only tinged with faint awkwardness, before he finished up and came over to drop a kiss on the top of my head.

'Need a hand?' he asked and I was kind of relieved that he was going to honor my wishes to drop the previous subject. Sometimes he will, and sometimes he has to push it.

'Nah, I'm almost done with this part anyway,' I told him, being down to the reassembly. 'And I'll wait to put it back on until tomorrow, when I have the light.'

'Ok, I'm going to go check my e-mail while you're working on this then,' he said, and trailing his fingers across my shoulders as he went, he left the room.

There is a pad of paper and a pencil on the kitchen table, there under the phone for taking notes. I managed to get four screws put back in place before the pencil found its way into my hand and there were suddenly a half a dozen sheets of paper with arching shapes on them, each doodled with some variation of the theme of alien plant life.

I was pretty sure by sheet number four that the idea was a bad one, but couldn't quite help poking at it to be sure. The concept was... interesting, but not as easy as you'd think. What makes a plant a plant? Well... they're green, usually, and leafy, mostly. There have to be recognizable aspects or it's not a plant. But in order for it to be alien, those aspects had to be unrecognizable enough to be, well... alien. I really didn't think I could pull that off on a canvas the size we were talking about, and I was sure of that fact when I found myself doodling a vaguely leaf shaped thing with tiny arms and legs attacking a caterpillar with a dinky little spear.

'What'n hell are you on?' Solo asked from somewhere above my right shoulder, leaning down from his seat in mid-air to peer at my scraps of paper.

'I dunno,' I muttered. 'But it's apparently not strong enough.'

'Yer way over-thinking this, rat-boy,' he snorted and had he actually been real, he'd have probably wadded up my scribbles and bounced them off my head.

'If you've got any better ideas, asshole,' I grumbled at him. 'I'd be happy to hear them.'

'Tank coulda come up with better'n this crap,' he informed me, and I thought about shuffling them away so he couldn't see, but that was just kind of stupid, so I didn't act on the impulse.

'Damn inconvenient, you not being real,' I told him on a sudden thought. 'You could go haunt Mr. Lee and come back and tell me what he really wants done.'

On a whim, I gave the caterpillar some body armor.

'Real cute,' Solo chuckled in his mocking sort of way. 'When'd ya get all goofball and girly?'

I blew a raspberry, but otherwise chose to ignore him, deciding to shut up before Heero heard me talking to myself. Though it crossed my mind to wonder if Solo... I mean, my sub-conscious wasn't trying to tell me something. Was I thinking too 'light weight'? Maybe the commission needed to be something more... meaningful?

'Meaningful?' Solo jeered. 'I'm outta here.'

I spared him a wave of my fingers and wondered why he didn't make a noise when he vanished. Like the comic book characters when they teleported? Though I suppose as much as he popped in and out, that could get annoying.

I thought the caterpillar needed some sort of weapon with which to defend himself from the invading leaf creature, but I couldn't figure out how he'd hold it with nothing but feet. But then... maybe the leaf creature was just defending itself against being eaten? I mean... don't caterpillars eat plants? Who was the real bad 'guy' here?

That made me stop and blink stupidly at the little papers littering the table. I think they constituted 'off track'. With a sigh, I gathered them up and tossed them in the trash can under the sink. Pretty safe bet that extraterrestrial plants were a no go. Which left me with what? Golf? Roses? Anti-gravity?

I abandoned carburetor, caterpillars, and kitchen for my laptop, with the remembrance of that research I'd planned on doing. There was probably a lot I could find out about Mr. Lee from the internet. Starting with what those special roses looked like... just to continue the plant life theme.

It took a little bit of work, 'Jack Lee Roses' just popped up a billion genealogy sites for more variations on that string of names than I cared to count. I kept adding words until I wasn't getting any hits at all, and finally started off in a different direction; finding the site for the local chapter of the Earth Rose Society, and working my way backward to my goal.

I should have stuck with the alien veggies... roses are damned complicated. Floribunda? Grandiflora? Tea? Hybrids? It took a bit of poking around; Mr. Lee's prize winning pride and joy had been a couple of seasons prior. The pictures were a little off the main web site... fame is apparently fleeting, in the circle of horticulture.

I don't know squat about roses, but even I was impressed. The thing was of the previously mentioned grandiflora variety, and apparently those suckers could get pretty big. There was a series of professionally posed (can you 'pose' a flower?) pictures that just sort of made me want to plant roses all the hell over the property. The blooms were a rich orange, fading rather abruptly at the edges to white. They looked 'frosted'. The site had all manner of frou-frou wording about 'rich golden' this and 'kissed' that. It made me roll my eyes just reading it. Wasn't named for his mother though, unless the woman had had some seriously deranged parents. The tag proclaimed it to be the 'Jyp-C'. I was actually off looking at something else before the pun trickled down into my brain. A rose. Named Jyp-C. Produced by a man named Lee. I wondered just how many people got the joke? I probably wouldn't have either if Toria hadn't been such a huge fan of pre-colony edge of weird film, and had forced Hayden and me to embrace her hobby. I snorted at my own laptop screen, wondering once again just what in the heck kind of guy Jack Lee really was. Faceted, Trowa had said.

'What?' Heero asked, appearing suddenly at my side and leaning down to look at my screen. 'Please tell me you're not planning on replanting the whole yard in rose bushes?'

'Just trying to figure this Jack Lee guy out,' I told him, scrolling to show him the head-shot of the man in question, by way of explanation. I waited while he quickly scanned the text and got the gist of it.

'How in the hell do you produce new colors?' he wondered idly, his brow furrowed in obvious confusion. It made me think about it and I chuckled.

'Rose dating services?' I quipped and he looked at me oddly. 'No? More like arranged marriages, then?'

That made him roll his eyes and he reached out to tug at my hand. 'Come on, it's bed time.'

'You go ahead,' I told him. 'I just want to trace this back a bit more and see if I can...'

'Oh no,' he cut me off, tugging harder. 'If I leave you alone, you'll still be down here in the morning researching... God knows; cupcake recipes or something.'

Since the tug was rather insistent, I let him pull me away, leaving the laptop sitting there with roses glowing on the screen. Heero'd obviously already made the nightly rounds, and he had only to flip the living room light off before we made our way up the stairs. Though it was quite a while before we got around to the sleeping part of that bed time thing.

The sweat was still cooling on our skin when I finally made the backward trace in my head. 'Cupcake... icing... frosting... frosted roses. Heero! You made a series of random mental leaps; I'm so proud!'

I, perhaps, should have waited to make the joke until his head wasn't still resting where it was, because the line got me nipped on the thigh. I nipped back, and it roused him enough from the sleepy, lazy afterglow to settle us for the night.

The breath stirring the hair on the back of my neck had already started to even out, when he murmured, 'Love you, baby.'

I snorted softly, but couldn't see his face, 'Love you... cupcake,' I replied, but he was so far gone he didn't notice. It made me wonder what about our earlier conversation had brought that term out. It's not one he uses often. Maybe all that talk about faith and fighting had made him think back to the accident? I hoped not, I didn't like to think of him falling asleep with those kinds of thoughts.

Though somewhere in the night, my own memories mated with the talk of roses and arranged marriages, and I woke in the early hours thinking about Wufei and his bride again. I suppose it was a change from trying to puzzle out Mr. Lee, but it was just puzzling of a different flavor, so I'm not sure I could call it a pleasant change.

Still couldn't get over the notion of taking two little kids and arbitrarily deciding they should be joined in holy matrimony for some purpose other than love, or even severe like. Just sounded like the ultimate in 'awkward moments' if you asked me.

But then I didn't much get the notion of eating things like snails and fish eggs either, but apparently they're considered lip smacking good in some corners of the world. So what the hell; maybe there was something to it.

Though... you ever wonder about the first guy to look at a snail and question if he could eat it?

I think I've mentioned that I seem to need slightly less sleep than Heero, and on days when we don't have to be somewhere, I tend to rise well ahead of him. I don't always, but I find if I stay in bed once I'm awake, it isn't long before I disturb him. Now and again for a little bit of 'morning' time isn't bad, but most of the time I don't like to feel like I'm keeping him from getting a good night's sleep. So I slipped out of bed that morning with my thoughts and puzzles, and went back downstairs to my research, leaving Heero to sleep in if he could. It was Sunday after all... that whole, weird ground-bounder 'day of rest' thing.

I think I knew before I was even done in the bathroom, that I wasn't going to be looking at roses when I got my fingers on my keyboard.

You know that thing called a census? When mankind took off for the stars, they got even more anal about it. I think, originally, some ground-bound space-phobic bureaucrat just wanted to be able to point to a definitive list of the 'the lost' when the colony program failed. And even though it had ended up thriving, the process had already been set in motion. So there were detailed records all the way back to the very first launch of the very first ship carrying the very first colonists off to the very first colony. And public record, so I didn't even have to do anything Heero would have frowned on to get at them. Or... would have frowned on me doing from my own computer.

Wufei himself had inadvertently given me her name once I'd dredged it up from memory, and I could guess her age based on his. Still took a lot of digging; the name was not screamingly unique. It was actually Wufei's comment about her temperament that told me when I'd found the right girl. And the date of death only verified it.

They used those cheesy class pictures for the kids. I had wandered through a series of prim and proper young Chinese ladies, dressed in their best for 'picture day', with not a hair out of place and delicate little smiles on their faces before I found it.

Long Meilan was neither prim nor proper, glaring out at the photographer with a look that probably had the man snapping the picture as quick as he could. Her hair was caught up in practical little pig tails and her expression told me that she so had better things to be doing with her time. I could almost hear her asking the man behind the camera 'May I go now?' in a tone laced with cool disdain. I wanted to laugh at her; what a spitfire she must have been! And then I wanted to cry, looking at all that potential. Looking at... at I wasn't quite sure what, really. Not from just one old photograph.

And maybe that was part of it; if she could speak to me so firmly from just that one picture, what a force of personality she must have been. And it made me think about that arranged marriage thing, and think that maybe it wasn't so damn nuts after all, because if there had ever been a match for Chang Wufei... I was looking at it. I could stare into those dark eyes and tell just how she would have grown. How that temper that burned in that gaze would have matured over time into a tenacity that would never have allowed for the word 'no'. She would have been beautiful in that striking way women can be when they just don't care about it.

'Oh, Wufei,' I whispered, touching the screen of my laptop as though I could bridge the years and grant them the time to grow up. I felt the grief of his quietly under-stated little 'too late' like I hadn't when he'd actually said it.

'Duo?' Heero asked, seeming to suddenly appear beside me and I about jumped out of my skin.

'God,' I gasped. 'Don't do that!'

He spared me a little grimace of apology, but went right ahead sliding an arm around me. 'What is it, love? You look upset...'

I leaned into him a little; still recovering from the shot of adrenaline he'd given my heart, and flicked my fingers toward the laptop. He turned that way, when I didn't elaborate and I waited while he took in the information in front of him. He's a quick study and it was all right there in black and white... much faster than my trying to explain it.

'That's Wufei's... betrothed?' he finally asked, voice going all weirdly reverent and I knew he'd caught at least some of the same feeling I had. 'How...?'

'The colony may be gone,' I told him. 'But the records were central.'

He let go of me to lean in for a closer look. 'I never even thought to hunt,' he said, sounding kind of guilty for some reason. 'I wonder if Wufei ever did?'

I didn't answer because... who the hell knew? It wasn't a question that required a response, but it sure made me think. Made me doubt that Wufei would welcome having it pointed out to him. Made me wonder if he would be grateful to have it pointed out to him. I decided it was something I'd have to think about for a long time before I even thought about bringing it up to him. Heero noticed the links I hadn't bothered to yet, and clicked over to a page that contained a different picture. For two seconds I was confused about how there could exist a picture of Meilan all grown up, but then I realized it had to be her mother.

It told me just a little bit more what she would have been like if she'd grown. They looked very much alike; the structure of the features, the cast to the eyes. Though the elder woman held a certain serenity, I had no doubt the spirit was there. Then Heero clicked again and we were looking at the father. And there was that burning fierceness staring back at me. Meilan might have inherited her mother's looks, but that temper came from dear old Dad sure as anything. I could imagine that same 'May I go now?' from the man, only much testier.

Another click and we were looking at Meilan again and Heero muttered softly 'What a waste.' So softly, in fact, that I'm not sure he meant to say it out loud.

I didn't reply to that either and it made Heero turn to look at me.

'Are you all right?' he asked me gently and I gave him a quirk of a smile.

'Yeah,' I reassured. 'Just... I guess I could see her being one of 'mine', you know? She's probably Davey's age in that picture. Maybe a little younger. It's so easy to imagine what she was like.'

He glanced back at the screen and suddenly seemed to be uncomfortable with the whole thing, because he reached out and closed the window. I didn't object; I could find it again if I wanted... and I wasn't sure I wanted. She was already tucked away like a damn memory of somebody I actually had known.

It left us staring at roses again and Heero sighed. 'You didn't...' he began but I cut him off with a chuckle.

'Only a couple of hours.' But then I glanced at the clock and realized it was a bit later than normal. 'You slept late.'

He looked only slightly sheepish. 'You wore me out. Breakfast?'

I smiled my acceptance and he went off to see what he could find. Somehow Sunday morning breakfast had become a strange little 'thing' with him. He claimed that I cooked for him every day and he just wanted to return the favor, but I suspect it was just his way to assure that at least one day a week my breakfast wasn't a ration bar on the run.

I poked half-heartedly at Jack Lee's life while I waited, but only managed to verify some time-line issues. Very unlikely that the man harbored any bitterness over the whole anti-gravity development thing. In fact, he'd more likely been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, if you know what I mean. The family had to have been insanely rich by the time he came along, and looking at the hints of a family tree I could find on-line... all that money had to have come down to Jack himself. Didn't seem to be any other 'branch' off his Grandpa's tree.

Guess that pretty much answered the question of what Jack Lee did for a 'living'; what ever the fuck he wanted.

By the time Heero called me in to breakfast, I'd decided that I was tired of roses, murals and pasts all the way around. I was just getting ready to shut my laptop down when my 'new message' notification chimed at me. When the message downloaded from Wufei, I had a truly bizarre moment of horrified guilt that he somehow knew that I'd been poking around in his private affairs. I almost snickered out loud when it only proved to be the list of gardening supplies he'd promised me. I sent it off to the upstairs printer, then finished shutting down; determined to get something accomplished that didn't involve a keyboard and mouse.

Breakfast was oatmeal and toast with fresh fruit on the side, and I accepted it without any fuss. Yeah, it was a ridiculous amount of food, but I'd figured out the Sunday morning thing was something special for Heero and I didn't want to ruin it. I wasn't sure what the deal was entirely, but Heero was always rather affectionate about the whole thing. Hell, we both happened to still be barefoot, and the guy even sat and rubbed his toes over mine under the table. I'd figure it out some day, but I didn't want to risk spoiling it by asking.

'So,' I ventured when we got to the you wash, I'll dry part, 'fancy a trip to the home improvement store this afternoon?'

'The center of all things gadgety?' Heero grinned. 'What do we need now? I thought we already owned one of everything?'

I threatened him with the tail of the dish towel but didn't follow through since he was armed with suds; never go against a projectile weapon with a close range one. 'Hardly. We haven't even scratched the surface of the garden center.'

'I'm not even sure what we need...' he began, but stopped at my wide grin.

'I got recommendations from an expert; Wufei sent me a shopping list!'

'Why do I think I should be scared?' he dead-panned, and I went ahead and snapped the towel in his general direction.

'We've got to get all the crap cleaned out from around the foundation,' I told him. 'Hell... that's probably part of what's attracting the critters. And we need to be thinking about a lawn mower...'

'Couldn't we just hire the kid down the street?' he asked, draining the dish water and rinsing his hands.

'I thought you wanted to save money to have the kitchen redone, lazy?' I said, poking him in the ribs until he gave enough ground that I could open the cabinet door and hang the towel up.

'How much could it cost?' he grumbled.

'Too much,' I smirked and it made him laugh.

'You asked?'

'Of course,' I sniffed disdainfully. 'I had to weigh the cost options.'

He snorted and hooked an arm around my waist to pull me in for a quick kiss. 'Well, regardless, I can't go anyway... I have to go in to the office this afternoon.'

I kissed him back and sighed. 'I'll be damn glad when this stupid conference is over. What is it this time? All the department heads want to synchronize watches?'

He gave me a mock glare and shook his head. 'Not sure yet; the L4 delegate is suddenly throwing a hissy fit about the safety precautions. Wufei and I are meeting with his head of security to go over their concerns.'

My abrupt burst of laughter caught him completely by surprise. 'You can thank Quatre; he must have gotten around to telling the guy he wasn't staying at his place,' I explained, stifling my chuckles against Heero's shoulder.

'Damn it,' he grumbled, sounding about half serious. 'Why the hell do you know more than I do about my job?'

'I have connections,' I teased and he just shook his head, letting me go as I headed off in search of shoes and socks. I hadn't even made it out the kitchen door when I heard him open the cabinet door and there was a sharp intake of breath.

'Damn it, Duo!' he said, in such a tone of exasperation that I about gave myself whiplash turning around to see what I'd done wrong. I was not expecting to see him fishing in the trash can like I'd thrown away his badge and gun. Even less was I expecting to see him come up with a handful of papers, glaring at me like I'd thrown away kittens. 'How could you...' he began but then just kind of petered out with an incoherent sound of frustration. He took the papers over to the table and spread them out, checking them for... something. Damage, I guess.

It took me a minute to even figure out what they were; I couldn't remember throwing anything away that I thought would bother him. When I stepped in to look, he was reverently brushing crumbs off a Martian begonia. 'Oh for God's sake...' I muttered. 'Heero, those are trash... just stupid doodles I made trying to work an idea out.'

He looked like he was going to launch into an argument, but suddenly just looked stubborn, changing tactics. 'Well, I saved them so they're mine now.'

It left me blinking at him. Did he think I was going to snatch them out of his hands or something? Were we five years old to go scrabbling around on the kitchen floor fighting over...

Ok, that brought back a mental image I didn't really want to be having, so I just shook my head. 'Ok,' I assured him. 'If you really want the dumb things.'

He smiled, a hint of sheepishness to it, and went back to studying the little sketches. I watched him look for a minute, before going back to my quest for shoes.

Art was an area where I don't think Heero and I will ever see eye to eye. Just the term itself made me uncomfortable. 'Art' like it was some high-falutin' big deal thing, instead of just something I did in my spare time. That he was perfectly capable of having a ten minute, absent minded doodle of an armored caterpillar matted and framed just because it was something I'd done, was... embarrassing.

Ok, and maybe just a little bit sweet, not that I'd admit that even under torture. If I encouraged the man, he'd be unbearable.

I put on my work boots, and a pair of my coveralls as well, since I was going to be elbow deep in my engine for the next hour or so. By the time I had my tools and carburetor together, Heero was on his way out the door too, to head into town. We walked outside together and he gave me a quick kiss goodbye right there on the porch. It was still an odd little rush that we could do things like that; at the old apartment, there were just too many people around. People who could be shocked sometimes. It still made me just a touch uneasy, but it was kind of balanced by the warmth of being able to.

'When do you think you'll be home?' I asked as we made our way down the front steps.

'Not sure,' he sighed. 'This could end up taking awhile. Since we have to go in anyway, I think I'd like to get some of the paperwork caught up that has gotten neglected while we concentrated on the conference. If you decide to go down to the garden center, don't wait for me.'

I grinned at him widely, hoping it hid the tiny twinge of disappointment. 'I'll be sure to take the credit card,' I teased and he poked me in the ribs before stepping toward his car.

'We're saving money for the kitchen, remember?'

'I'm not the one with the problem with the kitchen,' I smiled and he just rolled his eyes.

'I'll see you when I get home,' he told me. 'I'll call if we decide to make an evening of it.'

I waved him off and tried not to think bad thoughts about politicians, counsel meetings, or the Preventers in general. I was getting kind of tired of the lot of them mucking up what was supposed to be our time off.

It took me less than an hour to get the carburetor put back on, and then I took my shopping list and took off for the home improvement store.

And yes, the ax really was on my list. Wufei put it there. That or a chainsaw, and the ax was a hell of a lot cheaper. I didn't get everything on his list; the lawn mower could wait a little longer, and was a big enough purchase that I didn't want to make it without Heero. But I went ahead and got what I felt like we were going to need for at least the next couple of weeks. It was getting to be pretty damn obvious that Heero wasn't going to have a lot of free time until after the conference, to go shopping.

There really are a lot of tools out there designed expressly for chopping things up. Axes and shears, clippers and hatchets, saws and weed whackers. Like... industrial strength confetti makers. I limited myself to the ax and a pruning saw for the purposes of taking down the dead apple tree, and a pair of hand clippers for the smaller jobs around the yard. A rake, a shovel, an economy size box of trash bags, some work gloves and a little hand spade took me over the vague 'budget' I'd had in mind, but I still ended up buying some chain to fix the porch swing. Then on the way through the check-out couldn't quite resist the book on the care and feeding of your average rose garden. Needed to figure out that whole roses-on-the-fence-row thing, so my neighbor didn't wind up hating me for killing them.

And then I went to wage war.

Ok, so it was more like a tentative foray into enemy territory for the purposes of reconnaissance. And maybe some hostage taking. If only gross, rotting leaves would fall to the pressures of dire threats to their brethren.

I had really had no idea what a disgusting, slimy, crawling eco system existed under those self-same leaves. I'd have to remember to thank Wufei for thinking about noting the work gloves, because I have no doubt my spacer soul would have been other-wise traumatized by wading in there without. It took all bloody damn afternoon to rake the crap out and bag it up just down the north side of the house.

I get the whole 'circle of life' thing, ok? I understand that the birds have to eat, and that they will elsewhere be on the receiving end of that, right on up the chain. I get the part where when things die, without being the afore-mentioned appetizer, that you don't just want them lying around rotting forever and that's where the bugs come in on the other end of things. I get the concept, I really, really do. But, seriously, what deity decided that there needed to be so damn many different varieties of bugs, and that they had to be so... crawly?

I hadn't been working an hour before I just wanted a damn shower.

I entertained myself for a good chunk of the afternoon, trying to figure out just what would have to be nailed down in order to vent our entire property to vacuum. Given that it was possible, of course. If I could put an airlock in next to the willow tree or something.

That led to a mental picture of zero gravity dancers amid a swirl of autumn leaves and I actually contemplated it for my commission for about two minutes before I realized it would just end up looking like a damn self-portrait. Or that's what people would think anyway.

Solo kept me dubious company for part of the day, sitting on the back steps or hovering nearby. Sometimes offering suggestions and sometimes idly singing something that wouldn't quite come clear in my head, though I was sure I heard the word 'lumberjack' a couple of times. He was quite smugly pleased with himself, though I suppose that pretty much describes his mood most of the time. Or it did. He quit when I started singing the spider song back at him... he used to hate spiders.

It was getting pretty late by the time I attacked the actual apple tree, using my spiffy new pruning saw to hack off a couple of smaller limbs just to see how it would go. It was getting too dark to do anything major, but I suppose I couldn't quite resist the lure. Never cut down a tree before, dead or otherwise. It didn't take long to figure out that it was going to be a lot of work. And pretty messy. The thing didn't really look that big, but just the few limbs I cut off quickly turned into a pile of brush that was going to have to be bagged or bundled or otherwise disposed of.

And apparently dead wood is hard. Or maybe apple tree wood is. Or dead apple tree wood is? Whatever the combination, by the time Heero got home, my arm was getting damn tired, and I was sweating my butt off despite how the temperature was dropping with the sun.

I heard him pull up, of course, and stopped to watch him climb out of the car and head my way. I saw him eying my mound of trash bags and could see the vaguely guilty look from clear across the yard.

When he got closer, I could see more than the guilt; he looked tired. Physical labor can wear you out, but there's something about the sort of administrative crap he had to have been dealing with all day that can just wear you down.

'I'm sorry...' he began, when he was close enough, and I'm not sure if he was apologizing for forgetting to call, leaving me alone with the bugs, or just the whole big job thing, but I cut him off with a wide grin and wide open arms.

'Come any closer and you'll be sorry for something else entirely,' I smirked, flaunting my filthy, sweaty, utterly disgusting self at him.

It brought him up short, and he eyed me up and down from a safe distance. 'Did you clean out the flower beds, or wallow in them?' he asked, his answering smile kind of wan, but enough to tell me I'd derailed the guilt thing.

'Wallowed,' I informed him, tossing the saw aside and stalking toward him. 'I wanted to share the full experience with you.'

He took an almost involuntary step back and actually looked a bit alarmed. I looked him over, decided he wasn't wearing anything that wouldn't wash, and said the hell with it.

The tackle surprised a burst of laughter from him that he quelled quickly in order to meet the kiss. I drew back and grinned down at him triumphantly; he looked pretty damn good lying in the grass all wide-eyed like that.

'Duo,' he said, in that husky voice I could never quite match. 'You reek. Badly.'

I flopped down full length on top of him and squirmed like a puppy. 'Yes, but now you do to.'

'Brat,' he grumbled, and dug his fingers into my side until I gave ground. With a buck and a shove, he reversed our positions and I found myself sprawled in the grass with him sitting on top of me.

I think we were both too tired for any serious wrestling, and when I didn't struggle, he just sort of sat back and looked around as best he could in the near dark. The melancholy look stole back across his face and I sighed and gave in to his need to apologize.

'You got a lot of work done today,' he said. 'I'm sorry I wasn't here to help.'

'Well it's not like you were off playing cards or something,' I teased, then gave him a mock glare. 'Were you?'

'I wish,' he snorted and stopped looking at the yard to lean down and look at me. 'Senator Rackham is turning out to be a major pain in the ass.'

I was trying to decide between the obvious crude come-back and something more sympathetic, when a somewhat high pitched voice sang out, 'There they are! They're outside! Hey, Mr. Duo!'

If I have moved faster in my life, I don't ever remember doing it. And Heero must have been moving just as fast, or I'd have thrown his ass clear across the yard in my efforts to get off the ground. And out from under him.

'Uh... hello, Ruthie,' I managed, after a moment of mentally convincing myself that my clothes did not need to be straightened.

'See Mom?' she piped up. 'I told you it wasn't too late!'

I must have made a noise that sounded... amusing, because Heero gave out with a funny little cough that was a lame attempt to cover a snicker.

'Well this is humiliating,' I growled under my breath, but he just gave me a smug little smile.

'As I recall, you're the one who started it,' he replied, keeping his voice just as soft, but then Ruthie and her Mom were too close and all I could do was smile.

'Mrs. Rubin, I presume?' Heero greeted our neighbor, so smoothly that I just wanted to kick him. Did nothing fluster the guy? I could feel my own face still flaming like a bed of hot coals, and it was weirdly irritating that Heero was calmly smiling and shaking the woman's hand.

'That's Mr. Heero!' Ruthie supplied and I stuck my own hand out on cue when the kid got to the 'And that's Mr. Duo!' part.

'So nice to finally meet you,' Mrs. Rubin said somewhat... enthusiastically, and it made me realize that, had she noticed the whole frolicking in the grass thing, she probably hadn't been surprised. Guess the likelihood of the woman having seen any one of several news reports lately were pretty high. Almost certainly would have more than clued her in to the... uh... living arrangements of her new neighbors.

There was part of me that wanted to be relieved that she didn't seem overly shocked by the idea, but it was warring with the part that was still smarting over something that private having gotten attached to the line 'film at eleven'. Not that I suppose I had been all that far into the closet, but it's kind of nice when things like that are a conscious choice and not part of tonight's top story.

I missed some of the niceties and was brought back to planet Earth when Ruthie began waving a sheet of paper in my face. '... so would you like some?'

I almost laughed out loud when I realized we'd finally gotten around to the Girl Scout cookie thing. 'Sure,' I told her, and Heero gestured the group of us over toward the front porch.

'Oh, we can't stay,' Mrs. Rubin said, even while she followed Heero's lead. Ruthie and I brought up the rear, me looking at the chart I'd been given, and Ruthie extolling the virtues of various flavors of cookies.

In between having the term 'Tagalong' explained to me and being told which cookie was the favorite of every member of Ruthie's family, I heard Mrs. Rubin comment on 'what we'd done to the old place'. I missed catching which cookie Ruthie's best friend's dog was fond of, while I listened to Heero gracefully give me credit for most of the work. Mrs. Rubin turned to me then, coloring faintly, and seemed to notice her daughter talking my ear off for the first time. It wasn't clear if her discomfort was from the babbling, or just me in general. I hoped to God the woman wasn't going to indulge in some sort of 'celebrity' weirdness.

'Ruthie,' she admonished, though she was still looking at me and not her daughter. 'Give the poor man a chance to make up his mind. I'm sure he's seen Girl Scout cookies before!'

I didn't bother setting her straight on that score; wouldn't know a Girl Scout cookie from a Boy Scout cookie. Assuming there was such a thing. I almost asked, but then realized that it was probably one of those things that would make people look at me funny. We'd arrived at the steps and apparently an understanding had been reached somewhere while I'd been listening to the history of peanut butter, and we weren't inviting them in. So I sat on the steps and filled out the sheet against my knee.

'It is just so nice that the house isn't empty any more,' Mrs. Rubin was telling Heero, still looking weirdly flushed, not seeming to know quite what to do with her hands. 'It was such a beautiful place before Trishie took sick.'

'Trishie?' I heard myself ask almost incredulously. Somehow, in trying to make up my mind how the former owner had been called, I'd settled on 'Pat' in my head. Trishie... was not keeping with the mental images I'd had.

Mrs. Rubin kind of giggled, seeming suddenly to be embarrassed by the sound. She flushed even deeper and her hands fluttered up to tuck her hair behind her ear. 'Oh, she always insisted that her name was Patricia, she hated being called Patty, so Les would make up these outlandish names and somehow Trishie stuck. It just drove her crazy, but then the kids picked it up and...' she kind of shrugged, maybe fearing that it sounded like they'd all been mean to the poor little old lady. 'I don't know... I guess that made it all right, because she started referring to herself that way.'

'You knew her pretty well?' I asked, and probably sounded just a bit too hopeful. It made her duck her head and she seemed to be watching her own hands smooth over the hem of her blouse.

'Oh yes,' she smiled, losing a bit of the strange giggliness, and turning just a bit nostalgic. 'She was such a dear. They both were. Treated the kids like their own grandkids. They used to come down for Christmas dinner every year.'

'They did?' Ruthie wanted to know, looking wide eyed. 'I don't remember!'

Her mother looked at her fondly. 'You were just a baby, sweetie.'

'I don't suppose you have any pictures of the house?' I had to ask, hoping it wasn't too bold a thing. 'Especially the yard?'

I needn't have worried, Mrs. Rubin fairly beamed. 'Of course! Why, the yard was the showcase of the neighborhood! Trishie was forever taking pictures of the kids in front of the flowers and the willow.'

'I'd love to see them,' I said, probably a bit too enthusiastically, and added on a hasty, 'if it's not too much trouble.'

'No trouble at all,' she assured me. 'I'll hunt them up and bring them by.'

'We'd appreciate it,' Heero interjected, and shifted his foot up a step in a clear signal that he was ready to go in the house. It surprised me; it wasn't really like him, and told me that his day really had been pretty crappy.

'Come on Ruthie,' Mrs. Rubin said dutifully. 'We need to get down to the Tikemeyer's before it gets any later.'

I handed over the cookie sign-up sheet and Ruthie looked at it before grinning at me blindingly. 'Wow! Thanks, Mr. Duo!'

'No problem, kiddo,' I told her and watched her skip down the steps to take her mother's hand. Mrs. Rubin seemed glad to have something to do with herself, and she said her goodbyes with that weird flushed look again.

We had neighbors named Tikemeyer?

'Duo,' Heero asked, stretching a hand out to help me to my feet. 'Just how many boxes of those cookies did you order?'

'Uh... ten?' I told him sheepishly.

'What in the hell are we going to do with ten boxes of cookies?' he wanted to know.

'Don't worry,' I snorted. 'I'll take them in to work. The guys are always bringing stuff in and putting it out by the coffee station. I've felt kind of bad for never having anything anyway.'

He rolled his eyes, but dropped it, following me around back and helping me pick up the tools to take in the house. We had a small shed near the south edge of the property, but had yet to replace the rusted old lock, so didn't use it.

'So you never got around to telling me about Rackham,' I prodded, wanting to know just what had him so beat. 'Quatre said he was a bit 'old school'.'

'Well Quatre is too polite,' Heero grumbled. 'The man is archaic to the point of pain. If he could pull in armored swat teams, I think he'd do it.'

He went on, in that vein, as we took ourselves and my new assortment of tools into the house, dumping them on the counter in my back room until we could deal with them properly. He'd obviously had a frustrating day and I offered a sympathetic ear while he vented. He doesn't very often, though I've never been sure how much of that had to do with the Preventers' lame-ass 'security clearance' deal, and how much was just his natural inclination to shield me from all annoyances.

I herded us through the house to the bathroom, listening to him growl about what a waste of time the entire day had been. It was there that I figured out just what it was that had made Mrs. Rubin so damn giggly. Probably wasn't the 'famous' status of her neighbors, but more likely the half pound of grass stuck in my hair. I huffed at Heero, but he was so engrossed in the telling of his day that he didn't even notice, and I let it go. Don't suppose there was much he could have done about it anyway, and I suppose I had started it. Though it would have been nice if he'd at least told me I looked like an idiot.

I got him stripped and pulled into the shower with me while he explained the ridiculous demands Rackham's aid had made on his boss's behalf. Washed his hair while he told me some of the things Wufei had suggested they do to meet those demands that involved duct tape and the shipping of dignitaries to South Seas islands. Uninhabited ones. By the time I'd enticed him into scrubbing my back, he'd worked it out of his system and then I proceeded to work it completely out of his mind.

We really needed to price a bigger water heater.

Later, after we'd eaten and fallen into bed, and said the hell with everything else, I lay listening to his breathing and tried to decide if I should be elated that he'd felt he could unburden himself to me like that, or depressed that he didn't do it any more often.

I had come to understand his protective streak where I was concerned, but it didn't alter the fact that I felt like I'd healed past the need. I wondered sometimes if he would ever achieve that same kind of healing.

Monday arrived with a set of sore muscles and an annoyance for the day that, once upon a time, I had not understood. Ground-bounder time structure is just rife with those sorts of manufactured, self-imposed irritants. In space, a day is a day is a... well, a cycle; we're structured around a whole different set of rules and nothing makes me miss that quite like the glare of Monday morning.

Heero was oddly quiet the next morning as we did the bathroom dance, brushing teeth and washing up around each other. It left me with a kind of pensive feeling, worrying that he might be regretting the talk of the previous evening. I was rather relieved to come up from rinsing my face to find myself caught up from behind.

'Was I whining last night?' he asked, a shamefaced little smile trying to break out. It made me laugh right out loud, trying to put the words 'Yuy' and 'whining' together in the same sentence.

'Venting,' I corrected. 'It's a much more manly term.'

He settled his chin on my shoulder and watched my reflection dry its face. 'Was I venting too much?'

I took a moment to regard his reflection in turn. 'I thought you were sharing. Sharing is good.'

He smiled softly, but couldn't quite help saying, 'It felt like whining.'

I twisted my head and kissed his cheek, it tasted vaguely of shaving cream. 'You've listened to me often enough.'

He sighed. 'Duo, you never complain about anything.'

I turned completely in his arms and tried to keep from rolling my eyes. 'God, you are so... besotted.'

I got the little, slightly smirky smile that usually leads us to the bedroom. 'Can't help it... I just love a man in coveralls.'

I snorted and straightened his collar while I was right there in his personal space anyway. 'You are never coming into the garage again, Yuy. That just gives me all kinds of creepy mental images.'

'Griff is totally not my type,' he dead-panned, and ducked out of the bathroom before I had time to retaliate where there were things close at hand like shaving cream and wet wash clothes.

My already iffy mental image stripped gears; Griff hadn't even been on my radar. 'Ewww! You asshole! How am I supposed to even look at the man today?' I called down the stairs after him, but he only laughed.

I went to finish getting dressed because it was time to leave for work. As I had half expected, we ended up having to drive separately. I didn't complain, but I find I rather miss the morning if we can't go together. It's sort of an enforced quiet time when we can talk without a lot of distractions. Though, the mood he was in, maybe it was just as well; if he started the boxers/briefs speculation about my boss, I'd have probably punched him, and there would have been an accident, and the whole morning would have just been shot to hell.

While most of the Preventer organization was all a twitter and involved in some way, shape or form with the conference, it didn't impact the garage all that much. We didn't have a lot to do with security until after the fact, when the bullet holes were being patched and brakes being replaced. Preventer agents, for the record, are damn hard on brakes for some reason. So while Heero, Wufei, God and HR only knew how many others were gearing up for the week from hell, I was settling in to a typical Monday morning. With nothing more interesting than a transmission job on the docket. Almost felt like cheating somehow.

I started the morning in the bay between Giles and Dave, pulling a ruptured radiator and listening with half an ear to them talking about taxes and bills and something somebody's kid had done. I thought they were just generally bitching about the cost of something, and wasn't paying that much attention. Turned out to be something sports oriented, and if I'd been listening, I might have anticipated it when they turned the conversation around to a different sports topic.

'Hey Duo,' Giles suddenly called. 'Softball practice starts in a couple of weeks, are you sure we can't talk you into signing up? They're still looking for a left fielder.'

Because, had I anticipated it, I might not have replied, 'But I'm right handed,' quite so seriously.

Dave laughed anyway, but Giles stepped out from under the car he had up on the rack to look at me. It made me realize it was one of those stupid statements, so I grinned cheekily and hoped he'd think I was joking.

'You don't know how to play, do you?' Giles asked, blowing the idea out of the water. I sighed and gave in to the inevitable.

'L2 wasn't real big into organized sports,' I told him dryly. 'We were more into... uh... keep-away and hide and seek.'

'We used to play hide and seek,' I heard Dave muse almost to himself, and Giles rolled his eyes at me theatrically, making me snicker. Dave's a great guy, but not always real quick on the uptake.

'If you'd come out and watch the games more often,' Giles said, ignoring Dave's trip down memory lane, 'you'd figure it out... it's not exactly rocket science.'

I was totally not getting into my weird intrusion issues with him, and just shrugged. 'Oh yeah... a bunch of grown men chasing each other around with a little white ball; sounds fascinating.'

He snorted, but stepped back under the car and went back to work.

'You oughta go to a couple of practices with Yuy,' Dave tossed in helpfully.

'Dave...' Giles warned, and Dave came out from under the hood of the Dodge he was working on to glare over my head at Giles.

'Hey, it ain't easy fittin' in to something like that!' he grumbled. 'I'm just sayin' it might be easier on Duo to kind of work up to it, is all.' Then he rattled around and pulled something out of his toolbox before going back to work. Left me and Giles both staring at him. Guy came out with stuff a little closer to the mark than you'd expect sometimes.

Since everybody else had gone back to work, I did too and let the conversation drift back to pee-wee soccer, whatever in the hell that was. Suppose Dave might have a point, as much as it pained me to admit it. I'd actually been dreading the start of the new season just because of the weird... issues, Heero and I had over it. Or I had over it. The previous season had come around while I'd been, in Heero's estimation, not up to it. Or, as he'd put it, 'not up to sitting in the hot sun'. Which sort of implied that maybe he expected me to go this season, being more 'up to it'. But he hadn't actually asked. And I suspect he wouldn't, even if he wanted me to go... not wanting to push. But if he didn't want me to go, he also wouldn't ask... would he?

I really have no idea why that one area had become something that loomed so much on the horizon. I think because softball had been something that Heero and Wufei had been doing together for some time before I ever came back into the picture, so my inserting myself into the middle of it felt kind of... weird. Not that actually playing was even a possibility. Well... maybe not an impossibility, if you know what I mean... I'm fairly confident that I could probably figure it out. But... not somewhere I was willing to go. Watching from some hypothetical bleachers was one thing; suiting up and playing would take 'intrusion' to a whole new level.

But anyway, back on Dave's track... maybe dropping by and watching a couple of practices might not be such a hideously bad idea? Less risk of embarrassing Heero if I at least watched enough to know what was going on. And maybe just a little bit of reassurance in Wufei's direction that I wasn't planning on taking up their sport.

Not that he'd ever said anything; I'm reasonably sure that the obsessive worrying at the notion like a psychotic rat terrier with a chew toy, was all in my own head, but... best to be on the safe side.

Sometimes I suspect I could benefit from a hamster in charge of neurotic fixations. Not that I needed another one; maybe George could take it up as a side-job? Thank God the rodents can't unionize.

I finished the radiator replacement and did a couple of oil changes that morning, deciding to leave the transmission for the afternoon. It was a much bigger job and would probably not be done by quitting time, but I'd decided I might just clock out and finish it anyway. No rush to get home; Heero and Wufei would be staying at the convention complex for the duration of the conference, so it's not like I had anything to go home to. Except maybe possums.

I was just putting my tools away, getting ready to head out for lunch when I felt a strange tension fill the garage. There is always noise in the bay, the sounds of tools and talk, engines and motors, so I'm not going to say things went suddenly silent, but there was a definite change as voices stilled. I glanced up and realized that everybody around me was doing the same; noticing a change and looking to see what was up. I followed the gazes to see that the garage had a visitor. And after a second, I could feel some of those same gazes shifting to me as well.

The guy sitting in the wheel chair just outside Griff's office was not somebody I had ever expected to see again.

Mickey. He of the over-loaded engine hoist. He of the attitude. He of the missing leg. I honestly can't tell you what I felt, looking at the kid. I think the first thought was something vague about wishing I'd left for lunch about five minutes sooner. After that was just a strange mix of discomfort, guilt, pity, irritation and more guilt for feeling irritated. Then I realized that the whole damn crew was waiting to see what I was going to do.

It was something of a jolt. A weird little jolt. Not like I'm some sort of damn foreman, or team leader or any other thing that made me any sort of 'go to' guy. I was not used to having people follow my lead in what amounted to a social situation. Kind of sucked, to be honest. I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to just quietly slip out the side door.

It took me a couple of seconds to mentally step away and admit that if it had been anybody else sitting there, any other fellow mechanic showing up after having been hurt on the job, that we'd all have been over there crowding around him and asking questions. But somehow all the guys were holding back and making it my call.

Mickey was not exactly the prodigal son returned. He'd never been anybody's particular buddy.

But... right is right and wrong is wrong, and sometimes what you feel has nothing to do with it.

So I tossed aside the rag I'd been wiping tools down with, and started walking across the bay. Never mind that I just wanted to kick a couple of co-workers for essentially making me the point man on something I'd have sooner not have dealt with. Never mind that the stare I was getting from Mickey made it unlikely that it was going to be a welcome conversation.

I noticed two things as I made that trek; there was an older man in the boss's office, talking to Griff in a serious looking way, and that once I started moving... so did the rest of the guys.

At least they were going to back me up.

Not that Mickey looked like he was exactly up to wrestling me to the ground or anything. It had been months since the accident, but... the kid didn't really look like he'd come to any sort of grips with his situation. He just looked... pissed.

Pissed at the world.

I really did not want to have to deal with him.

Then I was standing right in front of him, and I had this over-whelming urge to squat down to be on his level, but that made me remember all the times that Heero had done the same thing to me. I had hated it; it had made me feel like a damn child or something. Having that sudden memory well up, and then wrench around to show me things from the other side, pretty much just left me standing there staring at Mickey with my jaw working, trying to get my head back in the right reality and find words that applied.

And here I thought I'd given up the fish imitation.

Giles, God bless the man, only let the silence hang there for a moment before he tossed in something appropriate. It was a greeting of some sort, I couldn't tell you what, but there were echoes and things were finally more like they should have been. I let words spill out, probably repeating something I was hearing, and just felt bad for botching the moment. But really... what the hell do you say?

'Sorry you're an idiot'?

'Wish I could say we missed you around here'?

'I told you so'?

Yeah... perhaps not.

The rest of the guys did better once they got started, and it made me wonder. Was that a grounder thing? In space, stupid didn't usually survive accidents like Mickey's. If you couldn't learn to listen, if you couldn't learn, the results were usually pretty damn fatal, and spacers seldom found themselves in a position to be making that kind of chit-chat. Sure, we had our fair share of accidents, but they were seldom the result of pig-headed dumb-assedness.

And that's all I found I wanted to say to the kid. Man. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. I'd had it confirmed after the accident when somebody had mentioned his age. He was a good four years older than I was. Or older than Dr. G had estimated I was. Not a boy any more by a long damn shot. Looking at him, sitting there in his wheelchair, some part of my head wanted to feel sorry for him. I wasn't very damn long from being that helpless myself, and there was a part of me that said I should sympathize. But the rest of me looked at him and saw his... attitude, still intact and sneaking distasteful glances my way even while he talked to the others, answering questions and telling his tale.

He was a dumb-ass, and deep down inside somewhere, the shard of guilt that I guess I'd never quite let go of, melted away.

He was not a person that was worth Heero's suffering.

The guy I'd seen in Griff's office had come out to join the crowd, and he was suddenly right there in my personal space, and before I could do more than blink in surprise, he was pumping my hand enthusiastically.

'You're the one who saved my boy's life!' he said, not waiting for any kind of confirmation. 'I can't thank you enough! Griff told us how near a thing it was; when I think about what could have happened...'

I could still see Mickey just past dear old Dad's arm and his expression could only be described as a glower. I heard him growl 'Dad,' in a warning tone, but it wasn't loud enough to deter his father. Though it got him looks from the two mechanics standing closest to him.

It was kind of sad, really, to think that Mickey could have lived through a mistake like that and not even have learned anything from it. Not that I wanted the kid slobbering all over me and begging my forgiveness... his Dad starting to look watery-eyed was bad enough. But it just sort of made me feel bad for the father, and I found myself wanting to apologize to him. Sorry your kid is a dumb-ass...

'... if there's ever anything you need,' the man was telling me, while his son looked horrified, 'anything at all, all you have to do is ask.'

'That's really not necessary,' I demurred, trying to get my hand back from the guy, and trying to spread his over-whelming gratitude around a little. 'We'd have done the same thing for any one of us.'

It made him turn his attention to the rest of the group, and more importantly... let go of my hand. 'My son's damn lucky to have friends like you guys,' he said, almost beaming with pride, while Mickey just sort of sat in a hunched silence, looking pretty damn uncomfortable. 'In a couple of months, when Mickey is up to it, me and the missus are going to have a big cook-out and invite the whole garage.'

Tears were practically running down the guy's face, and Mickey just looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. There was a kind of stunned moment that Dad pretty much missed while he pulled out a handkerchief and unabashedly wiped at his eyes, talking about hog roasts and potato salad. I can not express the utter horror of the idea of spending a day trapped in a place where Mickey lived, making small talk with his grateful parents. I was hoping somebody else would say something, so that I wouldn't have to, when Griff finally stepped in and put an end to the whole display.

'You're embarrassing the crap out of your boy, Hank,' he laughed, clapping the guy on the shoulder and steering him into motion. 'Let's go get that tool box.'

Hank managed to look shamefaced and said something in return about kids and old men, sounding pretty darn friendly with Griff. Made me wonder if Mickey got the job from Dad's connections. Not that I could fault him, since I was pretty sure I had the job from Heero's connections, but... well, it explained a lot.

There was an awkward silence then that one of the guys tried to fill by asking Mickey how long before he was coming back to work.

'I'm on disability now,' Mickey told him, at least having enough sense to blush over the statement. I couldn't help thinking about Kurt, and maybe it showed on my face, because he turned his glare back in my direction, not bothering to hide it with Dad out of the way. 'You got something you want to say?' he suddenly snapped.

Francis helped me keep the 'grow up' behind my teeth, and I just shook my head. Maybe he'd been expecting the 'I told you so' thing from me.

'Just wanted to say good luck,' I told him, and stuck my hand out, knowing he'd shake it rather than look like an ungrateful little prick in front of all the guys, and especially in front of his old man. I have no doubt if it had been just the two of us, he'd have spit on me as soon as look at me. I have no idea what made me do something that petty, but he was just really... irritating me.

He did take my hand, though he made me wait just a second longer than was polite, but I just waited him out, not letting hand or smile waver. Hank and Griff walked back just then, and Hank looked just about to bust something, grinning at 'his boy'. Made me wonder if he understood just a bit that I was not his son's favorite person, and if he thought something had just been settled between us. Made me kind of sad for him; he seemed like a nice guy.

A nice guy that seemed to understand a whole lot better than Mickey, just how much he owed to karma, or the Gods, or a garage full of mechanics.

He had to thank me one more time, shaking hands all around, and his grip was a firm one compared to the reluctant thing Mickey's had been. Giles and Bobby were quick to volunteer to help take the tool box out front and load it up, while Hank took the handles of Mickey's wheelchair and they were finally leaving.

We stood around like a damn herd of sheep and watched them go, nobody quite sure what to think, and once they were all outside, Dave very quietly said, 'Does anybody else feel kinda bad about wanting to smack him in the back of the head?'

Nobody else would fess up, but there were a number of snickers.

Then we scattered for lunch before Griff came back in and yelled at us for standing around.

I grabbed my jacket and slipped it on while I jogged across the street, heading for the Andover deli. I tossed a cocky grin and a wave at Giles where he and Bobby were still wrestling Mickey's tool box into the van parked in front of the building. Giles managed to flip me off behind his back and I had to bite back a laugh, lest it echo too loud in the entrance to the alley.

I made the trip almost on auto-pilot, slipping through the alley and dodging across the street, mind going back over the weird little encounter. I wondered that Griff hadn't warned us that Mickey was coming in. Or maybe he just hadn't known. Or hell... maybe he'd realized that half of us would have fled the damn building rather than have to suffer the discomfort of making nice with the guy.

It's funny how some people acted like the world owed them some sort of... politeness, just because something bad had happened to them. I'm as human as the next guy, so I'll confess to feeling vaguely guilty for thinking it, but Mickey was a jerk. Always had been, and probably always would be. The fact that he'd lost a leg, did not mean that he was owed a damn thing from any of the people he routinely treated like crap.

Again, I couldn't help but think of Kurt and his own loss, and how differently he'd handled it. Mickey's comment about disability pretty much told the story of his future... the kid would probably still be living in his parent's basement, living off his disability checks when his folks were dead and gone. He'd never try to adjust, never try to go back to school or learn a new trade. Or even attempt to come back to his current one. Something that Kurt was living proof wasn't impossible. If you didn't know about Kurt, you'd never even realize; he was just a guy with a funny little limp. Well, unless he was drunk enough to pull the wooden leg joke; he never seemed to tire of freaking out the ladies.

By the time I'd gotten to the deli, I was pretty well wishing I could forget the whole topic, and if Heero had been in the building, I'd have poked at him to come have lunch with me, just to give me somebody to talk to, and get my mind off wheelchairs, and invalids, and pissy mechanics.

Because the next logical step in the mental musings was, naturally, comparisons and other shit that were just a little bit too close to home and not really conducive to a relaxing lunch hour.

I got my sandwich, letting the girl at the cash register flirt with me, before settling in my usual spot by the window. I really wished I had company.

I suppose when it's all said and done, I have to fess up to a little bit of an attitude of my own. I've been given to understand that a good patient, I do not make.

I really do not remember a whole hell of a lot of the time after the accident. The first few days after the rescue are... vaguely there, but once the infection took hold, and the fever tried to melt my poor little brain, it all gets kind of hazy. And the more time passes, the more dream-like a lot of it seems.

The guys swear to God, for instance, that Sally had come out to the hospital to see me and I don't remember a bit of it. But I have flashes of... things, that just make me want to cringe. I have a moment that I remember quite distinctly, of telling somebody... a nurse, I think, to get the fuck away from me and demanding Heero. I can't recall what she'd been trying to do, and I can't recall how it ended. But I can remember the sharp panic, and I remember yelling, and looking back, I can admit that I was being totally unreasonable about whatever it was. I'm sure that poor nurse went home that night and told her family all about the jerk she had to deal with at work.

There's nothing quite like seeing echoes of yourself in the actions of someone you really can't stand. Like a reflection in a shattered mirror... distorted and incomplete, and disturbing.

I took a bite of my sandwich and pulled out my cell phone while I chewed. Heero could very well be at lunch too, but I wouldn't risk calling him in case he wasn't. Knowing him, he'd answer no matter what he was in the middle of, just because it was me, so I settled for texting him. If I've ever been a jerk, I apologize, I told him, and had to smile thinking of him reading the message in the middle of a room full of stuffy delegates. I left the phone lying on the table in front of me while I ate, just in case Heero was able to reply, but there wasn't any return. Made me wonder what he was in the middle of. Made me wonder if it had anything to do with Representative Rackham.

Sipping my drink and looking around, I realized the lunch crowd was pretty sparse and wondered if it had to do with the conference somehow. The convention center wasn't all that close to the Preventer building, and it hadn't occurred to me there'd be an impact, but maybe people had been afraid the traffic would be bad. Where there were usually a good dozen people in the place, if I stopped in at the true lunch hour, there wasn't half that. A couple with a kid, three secretary looking types, and another guy using his time to text too. Or maybe he was playing Tetris. It was oddly depressing that something that was affecting the whole city wouldn't even be a blip on my day... until it came time to go home. I mentally cursed Mickey's timing; seeing that damn wheelchair was making me remember all kinds of things that I'd really rather not. Being wheelchair bound and being alone, waiting for Heero to come home from work, was kind of right there at the top of the list. Not my finest hour by a long damn shot.

There are days that I suspect I had a crap-load of karma to balance out where that recovery period was concerned. Especially with Heero. While I was more than well aware of the monetary debt I owed Quatre for that rescue, I think there was a much more emotional one that I owed Heero. Kind of a 'no duh' thing, I suppose, but... more than the obvious, I think. I have glimmers that I demanded a whole hell of a lot while I wasn't completely in control of my own thinking processes. Demands that I think Heero more than met at every turn, no matter the cost to himself.

Not that anybody will freaking just tell me what went on. I would pretty much sell a major body part to have video footage of that time period, though I suspect viewing it would just about make me want to jump off a cliff. It's just a very freaky thing to know that you did things and you said things, but you're not quite sure what.

By the time I'd finished my sandwich, I'd dwelled enough that I was right on the edge of memories that were bordering the accident itself, and since I kind of really didn't want to be spending time fishing those waters on a day when I'd be spending the night alone... I decided to just go the hell back to work. Surely Mickey and Hank were long gone.

Slipping my phone back in my pocket and pulling my jacket back on, I took my trash to toss and headed out the door. I got a cheery little 'have a good day' from the cashier and I waved as I stepped out into the afternoon sun. It was kind of a weird contrast to my mood. It made me sigh as I fished in my pocket for my soda change; my mood hadn't been all that bad prior to Mickey darkening the door.

There was a guy at the vending machine ahead of me, and just as I came up behind him, he straightened with a muttered, 'God damn it', brandishing a bottle of Mt. Dew like the machine had just dispensed a frog. He saw me then and chuckled ruefully, looking slightly embarrassed. 'Pushed the wrong button,' he explained and glanced around for a trash can. 'I hate this stuff.'

I echoed his chuckle and reached past him to drop my own coins into the machine. 'It's your lucky day then, because that's what I came for,' and I gestured for him to have another try at button pushing.

'Really?' he grinned widely and handed over the Dew as I dropped the last coin. 'Thanks, man!'

'No sweat,' I replied and stepped back as he made his selection. 'No point in throwing away a perfectly good bottle of soda.'

He bent to retrieve his Diet Pepsi and stood up smiling widely. 'Not sure you can call that crap perfectly good,' he laughed good naturedly, 'but I'll agree it's my lucky day.' I uncapped my bottle just as he did his and he raised the bottle in toast. 'Here's to good fortune!'

I snorted, but raised my bottle in answer and we each took a swig. I turned to walk away then, but found him moving like he was thinking of following me. 'Oh hey,' he said, looking almost embarrassed again. 'You know this area very well?'

I stopped and tried not to sigh. Just my luck to get tangled up with some tourist lost in downtown. I guessed it didn't matter; I had been going back to work early anyway. 'Fairly well,' I confessed, and hoped it wasn't going to end up being anything too complicated.

'I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch down here,' he explained. 'And I thought she meant the deli, but... well...' and he shrugged, indicating no friend. I wondered briefly if the guy had just been stood up, but decided that was his problem to figure out if it was so. He was a short, stocky kind of guy, not all that good looking but I suppose it takes all kinds, so maybe his lady friend found him more attractive than I did.

'Well, there is a sandwich shop a couple of streets over,' I told him, gesturing toward the alley. 'I'm headed that way if you want to follow me? Or do you have a car?'

He took a step toward the alley and I fell in with him, taking another long swallow from my bottle. 'I'm parked down this way anyway. If you could just point me in the right direction?'

I was actually kind of relieved not to have to make two blocks worth of small talk with a virtual stranger, but just smiled. 'It's really not all that far, though my... coworker thinks it is.'

'I really appreciate it,' he said. 'I really don't want her to think I stood her up or something. I probably shouldn't have hung around here so long...' he went on, stuff about his friend and time and... I just couldn't find it in me to care. I nodded in what I hoped were appropriate places and found myself standing next to his car with him, trying to think of a way to politely excuse myself. God, but some people liked to talk; my mouth felt dry just listening to him, and I tipped my bottle up again.

'... she's nice and all, but just not very understanding, if you know what I mean,' he said, his weird little smirk making me try to focus on the thread of conversation. Guy looked kind of vaguely familiar when he wasn't grinning like a loon.

'Yeah, sure,' I replied, nodding in what I hoped was a thoughtful manner, and wondered if it would be too obvious to say I had to get back to work when it was still twenty minutes to the hour.

'Why don't I just drive us?' he suddenly offered. 'Since we're both going that way?'

It left me blinking. I really just wanted to go, but didn't want to be impolite to the guy. 'I should...' I began, and stopped as the words seemed suddenly very darn hard to push out with a tongue that felt thick. I cleared my throat and tried again. 'Should be going...' I managed and took a step away.

Or tried to. I heard a car door open somewhere behind me and all of a sudden the guy I was talking to didn't seem much like a tourist anymore. His entire expression changed as my soda fell from fingers that just couldn't seem to grip.

'Say goodnight, fag,' he hissed, and with a quick glance to his right and left, tossed his own soda, and gave me a shove in the chest.

It clicked in my head then, as I stumbled backward, and I wanted to groan at my own stupidity. I'd fallen for the most lame ass set-up, and I remember thinking that Heero was going to kill me.

Assuming, of course, that there was anything left for him to kill.

I tried to shout, to raise a fuss, but my throat just didn't want to produce any sound. I think that was the moment when it filtered down to my poor addled brain that I was in serious fucking trouble.

My heart gave a lurch as adrenaline hit it, and I tried to lash out at the son of a bitch, but it was like I was moving in molasses. Then hands had me from behind and I was being dragged through an open car door, my head bashing the frame and further disorienting me. I managed to land one solid kick at the original guy, not even able to see the new one, but after that there was a cloth that smelled sickly-sweet, and despite my best efforts not to breathe...very soon after, there was just nothing at all.

My last coherent thought was about Heero... and how pissed off he was going to be.

Nothing eventually gave way to darkness. And cold. And I couldn't seem to... move. Tethered, my brain said, the feel of the word somehow filling me with dread. My thoughts felt... thick. I couldn't see, and when that fact trickled down through awakening senses, I began to strain to do so.

Dark, a voice in my head hissed, as though it was a secret. Dark. Darkdarkdark, and dark was bad. Dark was bad and cold was bad, and dark and cold together were very bad and it was cold and it was dark and why the fuck couldn't I move, and suddenly I couldn't seem to catch my breath and...

I am very ashamed to confess that I screamed. Like a God damn baby, I screamed.

It had all been a lie. There was no Heero and no house and no garage and no... life. I was still there, still trapped, still in the belt and no one was coming for me and I was going to die alone in the cold and silence. Was going to die in the most horrible way, sucking for air that was just not there.

And the ghosts of the Londonderry would come pick over my bones.

The scream bubbled up, born of terror and twisting round with the utter anguish of losing the dream, of losing Heero, until it was echoing hollowly around me and that was what finally pulled me back from the edge of something that was threatening to fracture my mind.

The sound should have been contained in my suit. Should have been stunted, and dull. Should not have been echoing around me with hints of stone and wood and open space. The cry stuttered and stumbled away to a whimper, almost of its own accord, leaving me with nothing but the sound of my own gasping breath.

Not there. Can't be there. My own panting... echoed. It freaking echoed. I could not... was not... notnotnotnot. Where? Didn't matter. Not there. Not in that place. Not in that nightmare. Heero saved me. Heero fucking damn well saved me. He came for me and he took me out of that place and I was... not... there!

My mind kept trying to overlay what it expected to feel onto my... reality. I could feel a raging thirst, could feel the sting of suit burns. Felt a numbness in my hands and feet that my mind refused to believe wasn't there. The dark conspired against me with the cold and I wanted to doubt.

Not there, not there, not there, not damn well there. I'd made peace with Captain Camden, had left his ghost in the care of his widow and he was not going to come shambling after my air.

Then why is it so cold? a tiny voice in my head wanted to know. Why is it so dark? Why can't I move?

I didn't have answers, and I didn't have faith, and in the end I didn't have much in the way of focus and I sank back into the nothing.

My second rise to the surface of consciousness was only slightly less traumatic. Looking back later, I would realize that I'd still been throwing off the effects of the drugs, but at the time I'd just felt... scattered. Wits and memory and feeling, all just totally scattered. I remembered waiting for the sound of Quatre's voice to find me in my isolation and talk to me, but thoughts of him only brought memories of a conversation about... roses and politics, which didn't fit with what my brain was trying to convince me was my actuality.

'Quat?' I called out anyway, not sure if I should hope for a reply or not.

If he answered, it was going to confirm my worst nightmare, but if he didn't... it didn't really refute. What if I was trapped still and that whole part had been the dream? Where did the lie start? When did the hallucinations kick in? If I dreamed Heero, had I dreamed Quatre? Had I dreamed talking to Kurt and Howard? Maybe it was all a lie and Randy had been destroyed and I'd lost the signal home right from the first moment and I'd never talked to anyone at all and I had... wait, not was... am...

It took... time, to throttle the panic down to something that could be thought past. I like to blame it on the drugs in my system. Blame it on the disorientation. But for a while, all I could do was lie... where ever the hell I was, stare into the dark and suck air in ragged gasps.

No, damn it, I'd worked that part out. I was not in the damn belt.

'Think, Maxwell!' I growled at myself and just did my best to ignore all the things trying to tell me what was not true.

Eventually it registered that I could not move because of... something, at wrists and ankles. I was not simply trapped inside a suit, tethered to a bulkhead. I was much more literally trapped. Movement brought the sound of metal on metal and suddenly I remembered a man. A grinning man with a bottle of soda.

Well, bloody hell.

I was handcuffed. Handcuffed at wrist and ankle to... something. I was not completely uncomfortable. A bed, perhaps, or something very like it.

As I got my breathing under control I started to notice more. There was a musty smell to the air. The chill had a feel of dampness to it. And more importantly, at least to my gibbering inner child... the dark was not quite as complete as it had first seemed. The more I stared, the more my eyes were adjusting. Not enough to make out my surroundings, but enough. Enough to help quell the panic.

There is nothing in the universe as completely black as the dark that is found in the bowels of a dead ship at the fringes of nowhere.

This dark... was not that black. And I clung to that knowledge and tried not to laugh in relief. Because I was pretty sure there wasn't much to be relieved about.

It was probably pretty screwed up that I felt reassured anyway.

Not trapped; just abducted! So much better! Things were looking up!

I did laugh then. Or tried to. It was a sound anyway, that I knew was a bad idea, and I bit my tongue until I got it stopped.

Hysteria, I decided, would not be all that difficult a thing to fall into. But probably pretty damn ill advised.

I have not a clue how long I laid there struggling to separate shadow from shadow as hard as I could, and not doing much else. Like thinking. Thinking, at that point, was somewhat over-shadowed by the whole 'feeling' thing. And not much more to feel than the mad pounding of my heart against my breast bone.

'Oh God...' I whispered, and I think it was just to hear the sound of my own voice. To hear something besides the sick sound of my panting. To hear the echo that confirmed things I needed to have confirmed.

My therapist and I had sat down one session and tried to list out all my triggers. I had a nice little laundry list of the suckers. Guess what the top four are?

I think, if I were to ever actually wake up to find myself in a vacuum suit, all bets on my sanity would be off.

Eventually, I had a go at testing the bonds, but I'm not Heero... the cuffs held fast, only rattling metallically. I felt around the best I could and decided that I was cuffed to a metal bed frame of some sort. The actions somehow served to start my brain functioning again though, and I started to take notice of other things. Like the missing weight of keys, wallet and cell phone. Like my jacket was gone. Like the vague headache. And when I turned my head, trying vainly to see my own hands... a weird feeling of vertigo.

Drugged, abducted and trussed up like the veritable Christmas turkey. But to what end? Who the hell had those guys been? Assuming the second one had been a man. I thought so, but I suppose there was no real guarantee. I tried to conjure up some memory of the hands that had grabbed me, but that whole part was just... fuzzy. I couldn't believe I hadn't realized sooner that I'd been drugged. What the hell had they given me? Whatever it was, it had been damn fast acting.

The first guy somehow seemed vaguely familiar. At least, once he'd stopped playing his part and his true face had come out. But I couldn't dredge it up.

It was just utterly appalling that I had fallen for something like that. I wanted to kick my own ass. I'd obviously developed too much of a pattern in my day's routine, and given them an opening a mile and a half wide. I'd done everything just short of tying myself up for them.

'Damn it!' I growled, and jerked hard at one of the cuffs in a fit of irritation, but only bruised my wrist. God; I was just so furious with myself! How could I have been that stupid? I had seen what I had expected to see; accepting the whole setup at face value, taken that bottle of stupid soda, and done their damn work for them!

The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn't entirely left over from what ever they'd put in my drink.

Heero was going to freaking... oh hell; who was I kidding? Heero was going to freak. Later, if there was a later, he'd freaking kill me. I wondered if he even knew I was missing yet. And that made me wonder how long I'd been out, and I reached for the only time-piece I had; my own body. Having to make the effort to take a physical inventory made me realize that my thinking wasn't completely clear yet. Noticing things like aches and pains should not have taken such conscious effort.

I could tell from a general dull stiffness in my joints, that I'd been lying in the same position for awhile. My bladder was full, but wasn't really screaming at me yet, so it probably hadn't been a huge amount of time. Most definitely more than just a few hours, but probably less than... eight?

Beyond the aches and stiffness, there were a few sharper pains that spoke of rough handling. Bruises mostly, and the sting of a scrape or two. Nothing that felt debilitating, but they definitely hadn't given a shit about my comfort when they dragged my ass... where ever I was. I vaguely remember hitting my head on... something. The door frame of that car I realized, trying to remember what the car had looked like; old training telling me that every scrap of information could be a lead But then I had to snort; who the hell was I going to freaking tell? I was on the wrong damn side of the investigation.

What was that thing Heero said? Who what when where why and how? Some investigation thing. I knew how and that was about it. I suppose I technically knew the when of the crime, but had lost my hold on the when of the now. Though I suppose I kinda knew the what. Except for knowing what the what actually was.

'Fucking hell,' I muttered to the dark and had to squelch the urge to start snickering. Again. I really, really did not have myself together. My thoughts were just all over the map. It struck me for the first time to be afraid of what they'd given me. Was it safe to assume it had simply been some knock-out drug? And that it was wearing off? Because I just could not seem to keep my thoughts headed in anything that resembled a straight line. What if there was some sort of permanent damage done? Or... would it even matter in the long run? They might just end up killing me. No way to know that until I knew the why.

I never liked mystery novels. I usually was too tempted to read the last chapter first, and that sort of killed the suspense. Really wished I could jump ahead to my own last chapter.

Ok... maybe that wasn't the best wording.

Focus, Maxwell.

I took a couple of deep breaths and then just held it, willing my heart rate down, forcing myself to pay attention to my own breathing. Had to calm the hell down and start thinking, damn it. The cavalry wasn't going to come charging over the hill any time soon. Sure, it was a pretty safe bet that I'd been missed, but so what? I couldn't remember seeing anyone else on the street when Mr. Dietcoke and I had walked into the alley. Nobody would have seen a thing. So what would happen? The guys would miss me when I didn't come back from lunch. Eventually, maybe somebody would walk over to the deli to see if something was wrong. They might be able to verify that I'd been there, and maybe what time I left. And then what?

I suppose that depended on what this was all about. Ransom? I suppose that was possible. People assume that if they see your face on television enough that you have to have money. That 'fame' equaled 'rich' somehow. If that's what was going on, I suppose there would be contact and then... what? Not like Heero could pay it. Though, I suppose Quatre could. And Heero wouldn't hesitate to ask him.

So maybe the cavalry would come charging over the hill, but I guess I couldn't really count on that being the deal. And even if it was... I'm not a moron, despite that the present situation kind of indicated otherwise... I've seen the crime shows. No guarantee that I'd get turned back over. If the kidnappers managed to actually get the money and get away... I had seen at least one of them. I was really their only witness. Why would they care, at that point?

And if they didn't get away with the money? If they actually got caught? Again... I was the only witness. If there was no other evidence, it might work out better for them if I was never found.

They might just end up leaving me to rot no matter what the hell it all turned out to be about.

I had a mental image of a bed full of moldering bones lying there in the dark, the empty eye-sockets in the skull looking wide-eyed and horrified. One of the arm bones finally giving way, letting the metal cuff fall and chime eerily off the metal bedpost.

I shivered so hard the bed rattled, and I felt the ache of adrenaline in my throat again.

'God,' I muttered, 'I am so screwed.'

Is it terribly, terribly pathetic that my poor inner child just wanted to curl up and weep?

With a little effort, I remembered the feel of Trowa pressing my ear to his chest, making me listen to his heartbeat. Helping me get my own under control.

Breathe in through the nose, and... hold it. Out through the mouth and... pause.

Breathe in through the nose, and... hold it. Out through the mouth and... pause.

Breathe in...

I wondered idly if all my hamsters had hyperventilated and passed out, because I was not getting a lot of help in the thinking process.

Somewhere over my head, I heard the sound of... something, and that whole breathing exercise thing went right out the window.

It's probably pretty damn sad that my first impulse was to yell for help, before some voice in my head that sounded a lot like Solo, metaphysically smacked me in the back of the head and told me to shut the fuck up.

Oh yeah... probably not the cavalry.

So I shut up and listened, straining to hear, every bit as hard as I'd been straining to see.

Basement, I realized, as the sounds resolved themselves into footsteps. They were not making any real effort to be quiet and it struck me in that moment that I was probably pretty damn far from anything resembling civilization, or I would be gagged. Which I was not.

The sounds slowed and a door opened on squeaky, rusted sounding hinges. The steps resumed, sounding louder as they passed almost directly over my head. There was a hint of grit in the air then, and I imagined dust filtering down from the floorboards above me.

My brain grabbed after the stimulus of the sudden wash of information. A house of some sort. Wooden floors. Old and dusty and probably standing unused. I'd seen that quiet fall of dust motes in our own house when we'd first moved in and before we'd started cleaning. I was definitely in a basement, and I could imagine cinder block walls and concrete floor. Understood the cold.

It was unreal how much it helped to feel even that faint bit of orientation again.

The footfalls stopped once more and there was a rattle that spoke of a lock or latch. Then the sound of protesting hinges again and suddenly... light.

Almost, I let sound escape. Almost. But it was unclear just what form that sound would take, so I bit it back and just drank in the relief of being able to see.

It wasn't much, no flare of blinding light, just filtered, wan sunlight, but it was enough that I caught a glimpse of those block walls I'd imagined. Could see vague outlines of the wooden beams over my head.

And wooden stairs across the room down which that light was spilling. Then came the creak of footsteps as the...somebody began their descent, flashlight beams dancing ahead of them.

I shut my eyes and feigned sleep; not like I was going to be able to make out anything anyway, and much more likely to hear something if they didn't know I was listening.

Even through closed lids, I could see the play of the flashlight beams across my face and had to fight not to react.

'See?' I heard the voice of the poor lost tourist, sounding smug. 'I told you we had him.'

'Had to be sure,' snapped a second guy, voice deeper and completely unfamiliar. 'Hard to believe it was so damn easy.'

'Wasn't that damn easy,' grumbled the first. 'Or I wouldn't have a cracked rib.'

It was in me to grin like a loon at that news, but I didn't.

'All the same,' the new guy said, sounding somehow more... authoritative. 'Don't forget what he is; Gundam pilots should never be underestimated.'

There was a snort of... disdain. 'What he was. Now he's nothing but a fag artist. The plan went without a hitch.'

There was an answering snort of a laugh. 'And now we just sit back and wait for his boyfriend to panic on cue.'

'And hope that idiot Rackham continues to...'

'Act like an idiot?'

They shared a slightly louder laugh and I heard sound that indicated they were moving closer. I had to remind myself to keep my breathing steady. I thought I'd jump out of my skin when a hand landed heavily on my ankle, giving it a shake as though to test the cuff.

'Should he still be out?' new guy asked from entirely too close for my own personal comfort.

'He'll be under for hours yet,' Dietcoke guy said, the smirk plain in his voice. 'Still hard to believe a light-weight like him was ever a pilot.'

'They were all young,' his buddy replied, a really weird hint of some kind of nameless pride there. 'We raise them tougher in the colonies.'

Diet guy snorted mirthlessly. 'Don't look so damn tough now, does he?'

The guy chose to ignore the comment and I had this twisted moment of feeling vaguely bad that I'd let the reputation of L2 down. Or something.

The heat and glare of the flashlights left my face and when I heard them moving away, I dared crack my eyes open. There were indeed two of them; my tourist buddy and a taller guy with a short bob of a pony tail. The near darkness only told me that he wasn't blond, but I couldn't pick out colors at all, otherwise.

They started up the stairs and something was muttered that I couldn't make out, I heard the word 'plan' again, but just as they reached the top, I heard something more that almost made me yell after them, and I regretted my decision to play possum.

'Peacecraft...'

The door at the top of the stairs shut, the tumblers in the lock turned, and I was alone in the dark again.

I continued to hold as still as a stone, straining to catch anything else, but I couldn't make out more than the murmur of their voices as they reversed their trek. I heard a burst of more laughter, but then it was completely quiet and I realized they'd left the house. A few more minutes and I heard the distant sound of a car engine starting.

And that, apparently, was that.

I was actually kind of disappointed that there hadn't been any super villain gloating and posturing. Hell, they hadn't even been in my presence for more than ten minutes. I couldn't even have identified the new guy. It would have been nice to have gotten more of a clue as to what their plans were. Didn't they read the bad guy handbook? They were supposed to beat their chests in a macho way over the conquered hero and at least let him know if they were going to kill him in the end or not.

Though I suppose I might have heard more if I'd let them know I was awake and tried baiting them a little. Or maybe it would have just gotten me roughed up. Or maybe they'd have clamed up and not said anything at all.

At least I'd heard enough to piece together the 'what' and 'why' of the whole caper. And it was actually kind of depressing to realize it didn't even have anything to do with me. It was about... Relena.

I was trussed up somewhere in somebody's abandoned basement because I was... a decoy? Or, more specifically, a distraction? How... humiliating.

And while I hated to have to admit it... it just might work.

Heero had pretty much proven when he'd gotten his ass ventilated on the job because of worrying about me, that he could be very easily distracted when it came to my safety.

Just fucking great.

I didn't have much information, but I thought I could see the skeleton of their plan. Rackham had something to do with it, but it sounded like he was just a bit of unwitting camouflage. Probably all his ranting about security had everybody focused on him. And Heero and Wufei, instead of concentrating on the real picture, would be beside themselves over my disappearance.

Looked like me and this Rackham guy were partners in the decoy business. At least Rackham wasn't looking at a probable short future ending in fodder for an episode of CSI - AC.

But what the hell did they want with Relena? She was obviously the real target, but... what? Bribery? Kidnapping? Assassination?

I couldn't guess; I didn't know a thing about what their agenda was. Didn't really matter; any of the above fell into the 'bad thing' category. And as touchy as Relena and I were around each other, I still respected her and I didn't want to see anything happen to her.

Not to even think about what it would do to Heero if something befell her on his 'watch', so to speak. Especially if it was his own inattention that let it happen.

'God, this sucks,' I told the dark, and couldn't help rattling the cuffs again.

I hate being helpless. Always have. Probably has a lot to do with my childhood, but that feeling had only intensified since the damn accident. Helpless and... waiting, had to be the worst of all possible scenarios for my ass to find itself in.

It had been bad enough, lying there stuck before, but knowing that somewhere out there somebody was stalking Relena, and I was the only damn person who even knew it, was just sending my blood pressure through the roof.

And it just pissed me right off, knowing that Heero could have probably snapped the chains on those damn cuffs like they were tooth paste. It made me jerk at them again, and they rattled loudly, but pretty much went... nowhere.

It made me even madder, made the frustration coil around in my gut, and I started pulling hard, straining against the damn things, my mind trying to will them to give way. I pulled and jerked and rattled and cursed and then pulled some more, muscles quivering with strain. 'You bastards!' somebody yelled, and I think I lost it for a bit there, because it gets a little fuzzy around that point. I think the frustration just mated with that lingering doubt about... things I was tired of thinking about. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong choice and here I was again back where I'd started, or just there again. Stuck. Trapped. Helpless. Waiting for... the end? Waiting for...

'Heero!' went echoing around the room, a sound of anguish and denial and pain and... brought no answer at all, of course.

I came back to... the right reality, panting harshly, my heart thudding sickly in my chest, head throbbing right along with it and... right where I'd started out. Though my wrists stung like hell and I thought I might be bleeding.

'Son of bitch,' I moaned and it was more of a croak, my throat sore from yelling. 'I really don't want to die like this... this sucks.'

I was not going anywhere. I was going to end up slowly starving to death and I'd be lucky if they at least found my damn body someday. Of all the fears I had and all the phobias I'd developed, I think I was hip deep in the big one.

I don't think I ask for a whole hell of a lot out of life; I'd learned that you kind of have to take what you were offered and make the best of it. But if the Blue Star Wish Fairy had come drifting down from on high and asked me for that one thing, that single solitary thing that I was allowed to ask for, it would be to not die alone in the dark.

Is that so very much to ask?

'Guess so,' Solo snorted from somewhere close by and I tried to meet his weird amusement, but found myself just too damn exhausted.

'You found me?' I whispered, just as though he were really sitting there with me.

His chuckle was a bit smug. 'Found ya half way across the damn solar system, didn't I?'

I started to point out that might have something to do with him living in my head, but didn't, because it might have made him leave and... and... I wanted him there. Wanted him to stay and talk to me even if some part of my head didn't believe in ghosts. Even if most of me was practical enough to know I was lying there talking to myself. I opened my mouth and closed it a couple of times, but nothing really came out.

'Ya know I'll always be here, Baby Rat,' he told me anyway, and I knew in that moment I was well and truly fucked, because Solo just does not go all soft on me otherwise.

'Yer Heero will show up, dumb ass,' he chuckled, and would have cuffed me in the head. 'Ya just gotta... have that faith thing.'

Faith was something Solo had always been a bit light on, it never having done him much good in his own life.

'Solo...' I said, ashamed of the vague quaver in my voice. 'God... Solo, what am I gonna do?' I felt suddenly drained and weak, all my strength spent on my futility. Another bad choice.

'Come on, kid,' he told me then, an echo from the past and another situation that had left me... unsettled. 'Just get some rest.'

I suppose it was the only comfort he had to offer, not being real and all. Not like he could run for help or phone home or any damn thing else.

Maybe it was the drugs still leaving my system, or maybe I'd just worn myself out beating myself against an immovable situation, but I did end up falling asleep again.

There was the breath of a distantly familiar hand stroking over my hair that was oddly comforting despite the dark omenish feel to it.

I dreamed weird things about medieval racks and ice floes, and woke to the feeling of goose flesh and... vague shame. It took a moment to orient myself again and I was relieved when I didn't have to wrestle with the wrenching twist of settling realities. I realized that I must finally be throwing off the affects of whatever I'd been given. My brain felt less like it was stuffed with cotton candy, and more like I could string three thoughts together in a row without getting lost. For the sake of verifying that things were still as I had left them, I gave a tug on my cuffs, wincing when I felt the bite at cuts and bruising.

It was hard to think about my tiny break with... control, without feeling the heat of embarrassment rising to my face. I could only thank God there hadn't been any witnesses to my display of temper and... fear. I'd accomplished nothing but causing myself more discomfort and pain. And on top of my self-inflicted wounds, I had a growing problem that was getting kind of hard to ignore.

I needed a bathroom break bad enough to cramp, and hoped I wasn't going to be forced to just go in my damn pants, but was not quite to that point yet. I estimated another few hours had elapsed and from the drop in temperature, had to guess it was somewhere in the middle of the night. Not being able to move much at all might very well make hypothermia an issue if I ended up trapped there for very long. I couldn't decide if that was a relief as opposed to the whole slow 'starving' thing.

I focused on listening for a bit, but heard no sound that I didn't make myself. It was unnerving. After a bit I couldn't quite help myself and called out, 'Hello? Can anybody hear me?'

It made me feel stupid, and somehow only made the quiet seem deeper. I shivered, the cold feeling like it was seeping into my damn bones. So many memories vying for attention, for center stage.

I wished Solo back but he didn't come. I wondered if it was hard for him to leave the house now that he had an actual place to haunt. That made me snort, wondering about my own damn mind, but somehow the sound was intimidating in that big empty nothingness and I found that panic welling up inside again.

It was not something I wanted to let get started again. It took three or four wheezing breaths to get it wrestled down though, having to lie and do the breathing chant for a bit.

In through the nose...

Kinda hoped I died before I peed myself... how embarrassing would it be to be found like that?

The thought popped into my head just like that, and it struck me as the most absurd damn thing and I started to snicker helplessly, and just like I'd been afraid of, it spiraled up out of control and I laughed until the tears were running for an entirely different reason.

Solo wouldn't come and stroke my hair when I was like that, because boys don't cry and he wouldn't deal with me when I did. It was a lesson he'd tried hard to teach me, but one I sometimes just couldn't stand up to.

I was scared, damn it. I didn't want to die like that... hell, I didn't fucking want to die at all. I didn't want to lose Heero. Didn't want to leave him blaming himself and hurting. Didn't want to leave him living alone in our house like Trishie had lived after her Les was gone. Wandering rooms that we'd barely had time to fill with memories.

And Relena. I didn't want those bastards getting to her and doing... whatever in the hell they had planned. She was a good hearted girl and didn't deserve to be hurt over some asshole's political agenda.

I freaking hate being helpless.

I felt like a God damn gazelle staked out at the watering hole.

It struck me, all of a sudden, that it hadn't been all that long ago that I'd been eating my own stomach out over... a painting commission. I choked on a snort just thinking about it. What I wouldn't give to have what to paint for Jack Lee be my biggest problem again. Perspective, sometimes, gets delivered with a big stick.

And is it really twisted that I had a weirdly dark moment of wondering who would get that commission if I ended up becoming... unavailable?

Those assholes were toying with my life. With the lives of my friends. With my family, my... my husband, damn it. Joking and teasing aside, that's what he was to me and those mothers were messing with his head.

And that just pissed me right the fucking hell off.

Somewhere around where the foot of the bed should have been, something gold glinted in the light that wasn't there and the most buff hamster I have ever seen in my life turned his one-eyed gaze my way. His chain mail rattled as he turned to look at me and he swung a battle-ax up to rest on one muscled shoulder. Can an imaginary rodent give you a disgusted look? Sure felt like it.

His gaze said, 'Watcha gonna do about it?'

I was not bothered when he faded from my mind's eye; he was creepy. No wonder George and Francis had been so scarce.

What are you going to do about it?

There was someone out there trying to hurt what was mine, and why was I weeping into my own ears and waiting for the cavalry to come?

I do not have the brute strength that Heero has, but back in the day, I had a few skills that compensated quite nicely, and there was a time when my quick wit was one of those things. I blame the drugs for having kept me from thinking two feet past the 'oh shit!' part any sooner.

Of course I was not going to be able to break the damn handcuffs or pull the stupid headboard loose. But I had been thinking... or not thinking, as the case may be, too... straight line. I'm not as flexible by a long shot, as I had been when I was a kid in pilot training, but old Doc G had taught me a thing or two about getting out of places I did not want to be in.

When I started thinking and stopped reacting, I went at things at the less obvious angle. Obviously slipping the cuffs was not going to happen with my ankles, but if I could even get my hands free, I was going to up my odds of escape by a good margin. If I could just improve my range of motion I might be able to reach... something. Anything.

I started with my left hand because it was on the side of the bed that wasn't against the wall, but I quickly realized the skin was too swollen from my earlier... attempt. If I got that hand loose, it probably wouldn't be usable when I was done.

I turned my attention to my right hand. Somehow, the damage wasn't quite as bad there, or maybe the cuff just wasn't as tight. When slipping out of something around your wrist, it's your thumb that gets you. Everybody thinks the wide part is across the knuckles, but you can curl those in with a lot more flexibility than you'd think. But that thumb that makes our hands so delightfully useful, just doesn't want to give ground. I didn't much care how much skin I lost, but breaking bones was not really an option; wasn't going to do me much good if I couldn't move my hand after getting it free.

I tried to relax and began working at it; curling in and trying to slide rather than pull. Made me wish I'd kept up with some of the exercises I'd practiced in my misspent youth. I was feeling the bite fairly quickly, but continued to rock my hand back and forth, working skin into the cuff on first one side and then the other. It would have been a bit easier if I'd had the other hand to help with, but in the position I was in, I was reduced to brute pulling before very long at all.

For the record, brute pulling kinda hurts.

The metal of the cuff, cold and unforgiving, began to cut into my flesh as I forced the figurative square peg through the round hole, despite the laws of physics. I growled a curse and just continued the slow, steady pressure, feeling the blood start to trickle down my arm. I could almost hear Doctor G explaining the misnomer of 'double jointed' to me, lecturing me on hyperextension, bones and muscle. I had reached that point where I could not curl things in any more and was just starting to despair of not being able to manage it, when I felt that moment that told me it was doable. I gave a final jerk, just to get it the hell over with, and an incoherent cry of victory escaped me as my hand finally broke free, the cuff rattling loudly against the headboard.

I just laid there for a couple of long moments letting the pain settle before trying to flex and move my hand. Without being able to see, I couldn't be a hundred percent sure of the damage, but raising my arm up so I could feel things as best I could with my still trapped fingers... it didn't feel too bad. I'd made sure the cuff took the skin off on the back side of my hand, staying away from the major veins on the inside of my wrist. The bleeding wasn't gushing, and I wasn't in any huge danger from what I could tell.

Once I had my breath back, I just worked my shoulder and elbow, easing the ache of immobility. It made the rest of me ache even more somehow, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

I reached for my trapped wrist then, but even with both hands, that cuff was just too damn tight. I'd felt vaguely guilty for the previous damage, but once I was able to completely explore the area, I was fairly sure I would not have been able to slip out of it even if I hadn't caused the skin to swell and bruise.

Can I be forgiven for making the next priority the relief of my bladder? And is it just too damn stupid that I blushed like a school boy the whole damn time I was doing it? With one hand free, I was able to rock up on one hip and managed to fumble things around to pee pretty much off the side of the bed. Not the most perfect solution, but better than soaking my damn pants. My bladder still ached afterward, from holding it so long, but it wasn't the unholy distraction it had been.

The smell... I would get used to.

Then I began to explore everything I could reach. My own pockets had been stripped and I had nothing of use left on me. The bed, or whatever it was, was narrow and old in styling. I could feel the metal frame work, but could not find bolts or screws that I might work at to get the headboard loose from the under-frame. The thin mattress felt like nothing but old, deteriorating foam. I could feel the cinder block of the wall beside me, but could not stretch far enough to find any edges.

I needed... a tool. Something I could use as a tool. A nail or screw or needle or... something. I could pick the damn locks on the cuffs if I just had something I could use as a pick. It was unbelievably frustrating to have my head working again, and still be stuck. I felt kind of stupid, really. Ought to know by now that just the desire to do a thing is not enough to get the thing done. My wanting to get myself loose and go kick some ass, was not going to suddenly give me the strength to break free. Buff damn hamster disdain, or not.

Not that I was planning on giving up.

I opted to explore the wall on my right again, carefully running my hand over it in a sweep pattern, just in case a nail or something might be protruding where I could pull it out if I could just find it. There was nothing but cold stone from as high as I could reach, down to the bed, where I was thwarted. I was fairly sure I could reach the damn floor, if the bed were not sitting right against the wall. Unconscious thought told me to move it, before conscious thought snorted derision. Yeah... if I could move the bed, I would not be cuffed to the bed, and I would not care to move the bed.

Or... could I move the bed?

I gave an experimental rock of my body and found that the thing didn't seem to be all that bleeding heavy. Ok, maybe I could move the damn bed. I had to be careful, I wasn't quite ready to resort to tipping myself over, not just because of the puddle of urine on the floor that I did not really want to find myself lying in, but I didn't much want to risk breaking a wrist or an ankle either. Might, as a last resort, but I wasn't quite there yet.

It took some experimentation with, basically, jouncing my body up and down while pushing against the wall with my free hand, but I eventually managed to shift myself several inches out from the wall. It was damn hard work, work that I was almost sorry for when the sweat I'd worked up began to chill on my skin.

I was lying there trying to rub warmth into whatever I could reach when I suddenly heard a noise. The creak of someone moving around overhead again.

I could cheerfully have screamed. If the bastards found me with one hand free, they were sure to replace the fucking cuff and make damn sure I didn't slip out of it again. I briefly considered trying to get the cuff back on, but I already heard them near the door at the top of the stairs and knew I'd never make it in time.

I wanted to curse a blue streak, but bit my tongue and stayed quiet. I heard the rattle of the latch and tried to think what to do.

Why were they back, anyway? Not like they'd shown any concern for my comfort so far, so I doubt they'd come to feed me or any damn thing. Was this the 'dispose of the evidence' trip? Had they gotten to Relena and didn't need me anymore? Finally come to taunt the fallen good guy? All of the above?

Whatever. Probably didn't bode well for me in any case, and I wondered if the last of my life was being measured out in minutes.

Well, fuck them. If that was how the dice were going to fall, so be it. But I would do my best to go out fighting.

As the hinges at the top of the stairs made their protest, I lifted my arm up and tried to look like I was still securely fastened in place. Closing my eyes, I let my head roll awkwardly to the side and tried to look dead. If somebody would just come close enough, I'd be taking the son of a bitch to hell with me.

I really hoped it was the homophobic bastard with the Mt. Dew hatred.

I took a couple of deep, quiet breaths while I listened to stair treads creak, oxygenating my blood. The flare of the flashlight beam was darting mostly around the stairs themselves with no sunlight from above to guide them, and I dared to continue breathing deeply until they reached the basement floor. Then I went still.

I heard the scuff of a shoe on the concrete, felt the burn of the light through my closed eye-lids and then there was a sudden rush of footsteps. I almost grinned.

Gotcha, sucker!

When the fingers touched the side of my neck, checking for a pulse, I knew right where the son of a bitch was and I had him by the throat, fast as a striking snake. The next few minutes might well see me dead, but I'd be damned if I didn't take the mother fucker with me.

My eyes had snapped open, but the glare of the sudden light had me just as blind as I'd been in the dark. I kept expecting the man to bash my brains out with his flashlight, but he only had me by the wrist, trying to twist free.

I meant to crush his windpipe before he had the chance.

I think I was very damn close to achieving my goal when suddenly Heero's voice cut through to me and I let go like I'd been doused in scalding water.

'Duo! Stop it! Let go... it's us!'

The next part was something of a nightmare of wildly flaring flashlight beams and a lot of yelling. And... Wufei falling to the floor.

'Oh my God,' I whispered, and knew a terror unlike anything I have ever quite felt before. I've killed men a time or two in my life, but... but... Wufei was my friend. My brother. And I'd just... just...

When I heard the sound of breath rattling harshly into his lungs again, I thought I would weep. 'Oh God... oh God, Wufei...'

I don't think Heero knew which of us he should be seeing to. I couldn't see a damn thing, my eyes so accustomed to the dark, that all I could make out was shapes and movement, but I could see Heero trying to attend to his partner, while his attention seemed to be turned my way.

'I'm fine!' I snapped. 'Check Wufei!'

'Hold this!' he snapped back, and gave me his flash-light while he grabbed Wufei and pulled him up into a sitting position, leaning against the bed frame and the wall. I did my best to hold the light steady, but my hand was shaking so damn bad, the light was all over the place.

Out of the blue I wondered if Wufei was sitting in my puddle, and I almost fell prey to the whole hysterical thing again, but... didn't.

'Duo,' Heero had to ask, even while he was checking Wufei's vitals. 'Damn it... baby, are you all right?'

Absurdly, I almost corrected him. Almost told him not to call me that, and it was such an inane, asinine thing to even be thinking about, that somehow it brought me completely back into focus.

'Shit,' I growled, and really listened to Wufei. He seemed to be breathing, even if he was still out, and if he could breathe... not likely that he would suddenly stop after the fact. 'Listen, Heero... forget about us and listen to me. You're doing exactly what those guys wanted, they were never after me, they...'

'It's all right,' he soothed, turning away from Wufei to look at me. 'Rackham is in protective...'

'No, damn it!' I growled, getting frustrated. 'They're after Relena! I don't know what, but Rackham and I were both just... decoys! You have to...'

'Relena?' he asked, giving me his whole attention. 'What do you know, Duo?'

'I'm trying to tell you, damn it!' I shouted at him, adrenaline having no other outlet. 'I heard them talking. Rackham isn't in on it, near as I can tell, but was just a convenient distraction. They took me specifically to screw with your concentration. They have something planned against Relena... but I don't know what. You have to alert somebody...'

But Heero was swearing and starting to look... distinctly distressed. 'There's no damn cell reception out here. Duo...' he looked positively anguished, and I instantly saw the rock and the hard place he was between.

'Go!' I yelled at him, giving him a shove in the shoulder. 'Send someone for us! But you have got to get word through!'

He knew what he needed to do, but I could see it was killing him. I saw him get that stubborn set to his jaw and he grabbed hold of the cuff still holding my left wrist and gave the chain a wrench, but it held fast. It... pleased me. Somebody had thought enough of me to buy the good stuff; probably Gundanium laced if Heero couldn't bust them.

'Go!' I shouted again, and the noise he made then was an animal sound of pure frustration.

'Duo... damn it, Duo. I... I'll... send a squad,' he finally told me, his voice intent, but somehow still laced with defeat. A man having to follow his head instead of his heart.

'Go,' I told him again, more gently. 'I'm fine, I swear.'

He didn't trust himself to speak again, just looked at me long and hard for a moment, then turned and ran for the stairs. At least he left us a flashlight.

It was weird as hell hearing the pound of his running steps overhead and listening to them recede. Knowing he was leaving.

I heard his car roar to life and I imagined him growling curses at the night; it made me feel better. I wondered how far he'd have to go before he either found a phone, or managed to pick up cell reception. Wondered where in the hell we were.

Twisting around so that I could see Wufei, I wished I'd thought to have Heero dump him on the bed with me before he took off. I wasn't exactly in a position to help him even if he had needed me. I was able to reach his face though, and I gently patted at his cheek the way you see them do in the movies.

'Wufei?' I called softly. 'Hey... come on man; wake up.'

Weirdly, it made me remember our time trapped aboard the Libra, and I shivered again. I wished like hell Wufei's breathing didn't sound so... audible. He rolled his head away from my patting, so I stopped and called him again.

'Wufei, hey... Wufei?' he wasn't going to be happy when he figured out what had happened in the few minutes he'd been... unaware. I wondered if Heero would have made him stay with me if he'd been awake. Or would Heero have taken the opportunity to stay, and sent Wufei?

Maybe it was just as well Wufei had been momentarily out of the loop; they might have wasted precious time deciding the issue. As long as... as long as I hadn't hurt him.

'Wufei?' I called again, embarrassed by the faint twist of fear that found its way into my voice. I could see him struggling to come back though, so I shifted the flashlight from its spot on the bed so it wasn't shining on his face any more.

He made a noise then that was... unclear. Might have been a question about the situation, or maybe a curse on my ancestors. Or just a complaint of pain. I really couldn't tell.

'It's Duo,' I told him, probably unnecessarily, but I just wanted to be clear on that in case he came around thinking he was still under attack. 'I'm really, really sorry man. I thought it was the bad guys come back to ax me. I couldn't see and I swear to God I didn't know it was you and...'

He made a sound then that was more... directed at me, and it came out sounding so rough and hoarse and... irritated, that I just wanted to shrivel up and die. 'Oh God... Wufei, I am so damn sorry...'

He leaned forward then, bringing himself more in a line with me and tossed an arm over my shoulders where I was twisted around trying to see him. 'Hush,' he managed to croak out, and I thought that Guilt would just eat me alive.

I couldn't help clutching one handed at his shoulder and he shifted on up to his knees to be able get closer to me. 'I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...' I found myself crooning at him while he leaned down to try to hug me.

Maybe it was just his experience being a Preventer, and dealing with people in... stressful situations, or maybe he was still getting his own head together, but he just let me go for a bit, holding me and letting me babble.

I couldn't stop running the scenario through my head where I'd actually... killed him.

It was the feel of his body heat that made me start shivering uncontrollably. Only that. He pushed back then, and stripped out of his jacket despite my protests, wrapping me in it as best he could. Then he cast a look over his shoulder that seemed... annoyed.

'Yuy?' he wanted to know then, voice barely a whisper, and I realized he'd probably assumed Heero had gone to their car for tools or something.

'He... he had to go,' I confessed, and he turned to stare at me like I'd just told him Heero'd been abducted by aliens. I rushed on, wanting to spare him the effort of questioning me, and spare myself the sound of his voice. I wondered if I'd done permanent damage, and tried not to think about it. 'I was just a damn distraction, Wufei. I over-heard them talking... it's all some plot that has something to do with Relena. The whole plan was for you guys to get reassigned over my disappearance. Heero said there's no cell reception... where ever the hell we are. He said he'd send help.'

He picked up the flashlight from where I'd had it lying beside me and turned it on the spot where the one empty handcuff hung. Just seeming to accept my explanation, focusing in that way he has on one thing at a time. 'How...' he started to ask, but then turned his attention to my free hand and didn't have to finish the question. He shone the light on my still trapped hand and I could see him dismiss the idea that I might get my other hand loose the same way.

'If you could find me something,' I told him. 'A... a small nail, or wire or allen wrench or something, I'm pretty sure I could pick these.'

He nodded, but just kept sitting there looking at me. I wasn't sure if he was thinking, or was just reluctant to leave me. Then he smiled and stood up to fish something out of his pocket. I couldn't help grinning back when he pulled his badge free from his wallet and undid the pin on the back before handing it over.

It was almost depressingly easy to get my hand free once I had the tool to do it with. Probably didn't take me ten minutes. Proved that had I just been able to find something earlier, I could have gotten my own ass out of the fire. Or at least out of the frying pan.

Once both my arms were loose and I'd worked my shoulders free of some of the ache, Wufei helped me sit up and scoot forward until I could reach my feet. It probably shouldn't have been such a shock how dizzy it made me, not being prone any more, but somehow it was. Wufei sat behind me while I worked on the other two cuffs, helping support me, and sharing his heat with me. I felt like I'd never lose that vaguely clammy chill. I had a million questions, but felt guilty making him try to talk; it obviously hurt him to do so, or he'd probably be questioning me up one side and down the other.

He held the flashlight for me while I worked, and wasn't a hundred percent steady himself. When I was free, he wouldn't let me try to stand up immediately, but had me swing my legs off the edge of the bed first and just sit for a minute.

'Not... going anywhere,' he told me, gravely voiced and sparse with his words. I didn't tell him that I just wanted the hell out of that basement so bad I could taste it. We sat quietly while feeling came back into my extremities and my head regained some equilibrium.

'Don't know what they gave me,' I told him while his attention was on putting his badge away. He didn't ask how I'd managed to get myself drugged, and I didn't volunteer the embarrassing 'dumb ass' part.

'Hurt you?' he finally asked and I shook my head.

'Not to speak of,' I sighed, working my ankles and knees. 'Some scrapes and bruises is all.' I felt him nod behind me, and I felt the gnaw of Guilt again.

'I am so sorry, Wufei,' I had to tell him, too damn aware of what might have happened if Heero hadn't been right there with him. Knowing that Wufei himself had practically let it happen because of his reluctance to hurt me.

'Idiot,' he grumbled, affection plain in his voice despite the gruffness. 'Don't apologize... for defending yourself.' He was quiet for a minute, I'm not sure if considering words, or just regaining his breath. 'You did yourself proud.'

I just hung my head. His words... eased a feeling that was far from proud, but I didn't know how to even begin to explain what was in my head. 'Can we... get out of here?' I finally asked, and there was a sigh from him, but nothing more.

I thought I would fall on my damn face when the standing up part happened, and Wufei supported me, though I can't say he was completely stable himself. The stairs were daunting damn things, open on both sides and rather steep. We clung to each other on the way up, until we were high enough to reach out and steady ourselves against the floor joists. I couldn't help turning to look back at the last minute, letting the flashlight beam play across the place where I'd spent the last... I didn't even know. I shivered and huddled deeper into Wufei's jacket. It looked like a damn crime scene. The thought would have made me laugh if Wufei hadn't been there... it was a damn crime scene.

He touched my elbow then in a gentle, understanding sort of way, and urged me on.

We emerged into what had probably once been a kitchen, though there weren't any fixtures left. I immediately saw how Heero and Wufei had found their unerring way to me once they'd entered the house; the trail of footprints in the dust led straight from the front door to the basement. The rest of the place appeared relatively untouched. It was rather creepy, to be honest, and we ended up going outside to sit on the steps of the place to wait for help to arrive. It really wasn't any warmer inside the house, and even out in the open air was warmer than the basement had been. I had just wanted out, and when I'd moved that way, Wufei hadn't argued with me. Just settled me on the steps, sitting one step behind me so he could shelter me as best he could. I'm not even all that ashamed to admit that I let him.

I still had not a clue where in the hell we were. The house was all but falling down, the windows broken out and boarded over, completely empty from what I'd seen as we'd made our way out of it. From what I could make out of the area, it was wooded and overgrown, the drive up to the house nothing more than a rutted path with grass growing down the center of it. Literally in the middle of nowhere, I realized that there probably would never have been a chance of anybody just stumbling across the place.

'How in the hell did you find me?' I finally had to ask, despite my resolve not to make Wufei talk any more than he had to.

He made a funny little noise that I suspect was an attempt to chuckle, but made us both wince. 'Clerk at the deli,' he began, voice changing pitch as he tried to find a comfortable range. He settled on a breathy whisper that I had to concentrate on to hear. 'Rather taken with you. Saw suspicious man leave right after you. Security cameras.'

He had to stop for a minute and I pieced it together while he just breathed. The cashier at the deli flirted with me rather blatantly, but I had just assumed she did all the customers. It was weird to think she might have some kind of... crush on me? But, a suspicious man? I thought about the crowd that day; there hadn't been a lot of men and one of them had been with a wife and kid. The other one though... I remembered thinking that he was playing with his cell phone too. Could he have been texting Dietcoke guy? Alerting him to my movements for the set up? Probably. I tried to remember what he looked like; had he been the second man that had come into the basement? No, definitely hadn't had hair long enough for a ponytail. I stopped trying to dredge his face up when I realized it didn't matter; they'd gotten his picture from the deli's security camera anyway.

'Did you catch him?' I wondered out loud, and Wufei just nodded. And somehow traced him back to the property where our butts were currently chilling, I reasoned.

I felt Wufei make a tight little sound that made me think he was trying to clear his throat. 'Stop,' I whispered, my own voice lowering in sympathy. 'I'm sorry; I'll stop asking questions. Stop trying to talk before you hurt yourself worse than I already did.'

He cuffed me lightly and gave me a look that was meant to chastise me for the guilt I'm sure he could hear in my voice. But I noticed he didn't try to reply.

Partly because I didn't want to be tempted to continue questioning, and partly because I was starting to feel like a puppet with its strings cut now that the adrenaline was draining away, I leaned into him and tried to relax. I hoped I was returning at least some of the body heat he was sharing with me, because he'd completely refused to take his jacket back, making sure I was wrapped up tight in it.

'Thanks for coming to bail my ass out again,' I mumbled and was surprised to find that I was suddenly very damn sleepy. He answered by giving me a squeeze and we settled down to wait.

And wait.

I was kind of appalled that I was having so much trouble keeping my eyes open, and I wondered about it. Not really used to sleeping through things like kidnappings, intrigue, and mystery. I suppose there was some lack of nutrition and fluids at work there, I'd been without for... awhile; God knew how long. Suppose Wufei did too, but I didn't want to make him talk by asking. It seemed to be the wee hours of the morning, with false dawn hinting at the sky, but I couldn't have told you what morning. Hell, maybe it was left over from the drugs. I yawned hugely and Wufei reached around me to rub briskly at my arms, generating warmth even through the jacket.

I somehow didn't think it was a good sign that it was taking so long. I wondered where Heero was and if he'd gotten through yet. I wondered about Relena and hoped to God she was all right. And not just for Heero's sake; she was a good kid, and didn't deserve for those guys to hurt her.

The thought kind of surprised me as it filtered down through drowsy senses that were trying to shut down now that the tension was draining out of me. A good kid. She was, you know? Just a kid, really. Maybe roughly the same physical age as the rest of us, but you do a whole different kind of growing up when you have to fight for the right to eat from day one. Maybe things started off rough for her with the fall of Sanq and the death of her real parents, but she'd admitted it herself... she barely remembered it. She'd grown up not even knowing she was a Peacecraft. She grew up as the pampered and adored Relena Darlian. How does that kind of upbringing compare with growing up on the streets? In a mercenary band? In Gundam training? Her experiences during the relatively brief period that was the war, just couldn't compare. Yeah, we were all in our twenties now, years on down the line and all 'grown up', but...she was still just a kid, relatively speaking. Poised, and prim and proper and so very damn naïve. And she sure as hell didn't deserve to be hurt because some idiots wanted to use her to further some bloody damn cause.

Didn't deserve to die. She had spirit and she had ideals and she had earned the right to grow into her potential. She didn't do bad, for all her rose colored views on life, but she could be so much more, given half the chance. She could make changes, and she could make this peace that we'd won, grow wings.

Somehow, for the first time, I think I caught a glimmer of what it was Heero saw in her. That... potential.

And for some damn reason, it made me think of Wufei's Meilan. Potential lost. It made me ache, and I prayed to Father's God to let Heero get through in time.

No more lost potential, God. No more lost dreams. Lost beauty. Lost innocence.

Are you listening?

'She was beautiful, Wufei,' I heard myself saying. 'I'm so, so sorry you lost her.'

We'd been sitting quietly, each thinking our own thoughts and maybe he thought I'd dozed off, because I felt him flinch when I spoke. 'What?' he asked after a moment, voice just a ghost of sound.

'Meilan,' I confessed, a bit appalled at myself. 'I... looked her picture up in the census records. She had...' I struggled for a word that fit, and finally settled on, 'a warrior's spirit, didn't she?'

He was quiet for so long that I started to realize just what I'd said. Started to realize that I was drifting on the edge of... something. Sleep? That my mouth was working somewhat without the inclusion of interaction with my forebrain. I lifted my head and looked up at him, trying to work out an apology, but he was staring at me with such a look of weirdly open... wonder, that I stopped. And we just sort of stared at each other for a long moment.

'Yes,' he finally agreed. 'She did.'

'What would you have me paint for you?' I asked, and I'm not sure if I was whispering because I was afraid of breaking the moment, or if some part of me was trying to make me shut up.

He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from mine, and even though there wasn't much light, I could still see a look of utter longing well up in him. 'Home,' he replied, and I think it would have come out ragged and breathless even without the bruised throat. He looked vaguely shocked that he'd said it, almost like I'd tricked him somehow.

I'd have promised to paint him the world in that moment, was opening my mouth to tell him so in fact, when his look suddenly changed and he seemed to shake off the mood. He made a noise that sounded... not happy, and he was suddenly pulling me to my feet. 'Walk,' he commanded, and started doing so, hauling me with him. He touched my face, and slipped his hand into the jacket to touch the center of my chest. 'Too cold,' he explained, and I thought about arguing; it was spring after all, not the dead of winter. It wasn't that damn cold, but I suppose my metabolism had already taken a couple of cheap shots.

'I'm just a little tired,' I reassured, then felt bad when I thought he hurt himself trying not to laugh. I was saved from having to defend my point of view when we both heard the sound of distant sirens coming up the hill through the woods.

His lips moved without sound, but I knew the feel of 'About fucking time,' without having to hear it. He moved us back over near the porch, perhaps wanting to make sure we weren't run over by some overly enthusiastic driver in the dark, and we waited.

They came in like a damn swat team, locked and loaded and looking for bear. Three squad cars, some kind of van, and a damn ambulance. I am very sure I looked like a deer in the, for a change, very literal headlights. I almost raised my damn hands, but Wufei was immediately gesturing in a way that was trying to look commanding instead of like a weird-ass game of charades.

A tall guy wearing a flak jacket and Preventer insignia came striding right up to us, and I wasn't surprised that Wufei seemed to know him. 'Agent Chang!' he barked, and stalled a gesture that wanted to be a salute. 'Situation, sir!'

I wondered just what in the hell Heero had told them. Wufei opened his mouth and the guy blinked at the croak that came out. 'Stand down, Agent Morgan, the...'

His voice broke from him pushing it too hard, probably not wanting to sound wussy in front of the fellow macho men, so I cut in. 'It's pretty much over now, man,' I informed him. 'No bad guys to nail; just the mop up and the boring statement stuff.'

The guy blinked at me while Wufei worked his throat and looked... either amused or pissed; I had trouble telling. 'Uh... Agent Maxwell?' Tall-n-armored asked hesitantly, looking me up and down like he'd expected... something.

Almost, I corrected him and told him 'Captain Maxwell', but then remembered the 'not any more' part and floundered around with names for mechanics before finally just letting it go. 'Maxwell,' I confirmed. 'Yeah. If you have a medic, Wufei needs somebody to look at his throat...'

I was surprised to find that Wufei could still make a growly kind of noise that was pretty intimidating, considering. It got Agent Morgan's attention back, anyway. 'Get the damn medics,' he whispered, giving up and just going with wussy sounding. 'Maxwell's bordering on hypothermic.'

Morgan looked at me and I just gave him a shrug that clearly stated I was tired of arguing the point. 'This way,' he told me, I guess figuring they'd need the light inside the ambulance to work anyway. Might as well take me to them, instead of the other way around.

'Not without him,' I stated calmly, and prepared to get stubborn if I had to.

'Damn it, Maxwell,' Wufei ground out, and I let him see the stubborn.

'I almost killed you, asshole,' I told him. 'Humor me.'

There were some hand gestures then, that expressed exasperation quite nicely, but still managed to border on rude. I held my ground, but then kind of wished I hadn't once we were settled in the lighted ambulance and the nice medic lady had Wufei's shirt open.

His throat was already an alarming shade of black and blue and you could clearly see the crescent imprint of my fingernails where I'd... where I'd... almost...

They wrapped me in blankets when I started to shake and I just let them think I was cold. Or maybe I really was... I wasn't even sure any more.

It got kind of chaotic after that; there was somebody checking my vitals and somebody else working over my wrists, a third one looking at Wufei and talking to him in low tones that I couldn't really make out over the people in my personal space. Morgan was waiting to pounce on me, his notepad already in hand, exchanging comments with Wufei in between the medic's questions.

Outside in the yard, the forensic people were swarming like ants, hauling out equipment, taking pictures and setting up lights even though it was already obvious the sun was starting to come up.

I had this bizarre moment of... distance. All the sounds kind of receded and left me alone in my head for a minute. Probably more likely that I just got over-whelmed with it all and shut it out. I remember watching one of the forensics guys go into the house and having this weirdly territorial flash of not wanting them to go down into that basement. It seemed a... a too personal thing, all of a sudden. I didn't want them to see that bed that probably bore the imprint of my body on it. Didn't want them photographing the cuffs with my blood on them. Didn't want anybody seeing the damn obvious puddle on the floor and knowing what it was.

I watched them take pictures and study the dirt like they'd never seen the like before, and I was just... very embarrassed.

All those people were there because I'd screwed up.

I wondered where Heero was, and if they'd tell me if I asked. I wondered if Relena was ok and if he'd gotten through to somebody in time.

It had been so long that I was kind of afraid he hadn't. It was frustrating, because if he hadn't... if something had happened to Relena, then damn it... he'd need me and I ought to be there with him instead of sitting out in the middle of nowhere while people poked and prodded at me.

It made me mad. Made me wish that DietCoke was right in front of me and I could get my damn hands on his throat like I'd intended. I wanted him to call me a fag to my damn face when I wasn't incapacitated.

When I was able to... respond.

I blinked, watching, but not really seeing a guy taking shoe imprints from the ground. Something sliding into place in my head and I suddenly knew where I'd seen that smirk before.

'They've been planning this since before Heero and I moved,' I told nobody in particular, and maybe it's because I'd been so still up until that moment, it made the whole ambulance get quiet.

'What?' whispered Wufei and it drew my eyes back to the present and I looked across at him.

'You remember the big argument we had in that pizza place across from our old apartment?' I asked and he nodded even while he looked faintly uncomfortable, as though worried that I was going to go into the details of the fight. 'The guy... he was there. He's been stalking me at least that long.'

'You sure?' Wufei wanted to know and I nodded probably a little more emphatically than was necessary.

'It's been nagging at me,' I told him. 'He was familiar, but I couldn't place him. It was... something he said. It just clicked.'

He inclined his head, accepting the information and I could see him adding it to the equation, fitting it in like a puzzle piece to see if it made a difference. I wasn't even sure it really mattered. It only verified that it hadn't been a spur of the moment thing, which I thought was pretty damn obvious anyway.

The nice medic lady approached Wufei with a syringe then, and he questioned her before giving his consent. Something about swelling. It made me look at the damage I'd done again, and he caught me staring, but only sighed.

I dropped my gaze to my own lap, avoiding his frustration with me, to find my hands back in my own possession again. Wrists wrapped in pristine white gauze, making it look like some sort of lame suicide attempt. I realized the other medic was preparing to put an IV in my arm and I couldn't help frowning at him.

'You're fairly dehydrated, Agent Maxwell,' he explained, voice patient like he was talking to a little kid or the impaired. It made me frown harder and I turned to Wufei to finally get around to asking just how long it had been, but he'd taken himself back to his duties while I hadn't been looking. Jerk.

'You're the boss,' I sighed, figuring there wasn't much point in fighting it. The nice medic lady, having finished with Wufei, moved up on my other side with all the stuff I was more than aware was used for taking blood. I sighed again, and just held my arm out. 'You're looking for traces of something that was ingested in liquid form on Monday at noon,' I told her, letting her figure out the timing. 'Fast acting. Caused initial disorientation, thirst, and loss of muscle control. After affects of headache, vertigo and...confusion. I think they used chloroform on me too.'

She gave me a surprised little look. 'You're in there after all,' she smiled, and bent to work.

'The hamsters aren't in accord yet,' I told her. 'But I'm working on it.'

She traded a look with her partner and I chuckled to let them know it had been a joke. Didn't need to end up going in for a psyche evaluation too. I might not come back out.

The ambulance bobbed slightly, and I looked over to see Agent Morgan climbing in to sit in Wufei's vacated spot. 'Can you answer some questions now, Agent Maxwell?' he asked, and I couldn't let it go any more.

'You can drop the agent stuff,' I told the group in general. 'I'm just a damn mechanic in the motor pool.'

I'd figured that there had just been some assumptions made, but there was a moment of hesitation all around that made me wonder if I'd been billed as such somehow.

'You get bonuses for field work?' the IV guy asked while he worked, and I had to look at him to realize he was joking. I grinned at him for the effort.

Morgan seemed to take it in stride, but I guess it didn't much matter to him what I did for a living... he just wanted his questions answered. And answer them I did. Guy had me going over it and going over it, pulling details out of me that I hadn't even thought about before. Clothes and cars and positioning and timing and witnesses. Where had the car been? Had DietCoke guy shaken hands with his right or left? Did I remember seeing the second guy follow me out of the deli? Did I remember seeing what he ate for lunch? Did I see anything in the car before I blacked out? I answered him as clinically as I could, though it got tough when he started in on the earlier incident that I'd mentioned to Wufei. He and I were both blushing by the time I got through the whole 'fag' thing.

Then he closed up his notebook and spoke a command into the radio clipped to his flak jacket before turning back to me. 'Now, Mr. Maxwell,' he told me. 'If you think you're up to it, we've got a sketch artist...'

I couldn't help but laugh, and was still doing so when Jones stuck his head around the edge of the open ambulance door to stare in at me.

'Oh for fuck's sake,' he growled, looking terribly uncomfortable in a flak jacket that was too big for his frame, and clutching a bundle to his chest that I was sure contained his sketch stuff. Looking at him, I suspected that he didn't get out into the field very often; it seemed to be a new experience for him. It made me feel kind of bad again, at the same time I couldn't quite help thinking it was probably good for him.

Morgan managed to look scandalized that their resident sketch artist was cussing at the witness/victim, so I gave Jones a 'gimme' gesture before Morgan could start in on him.

'Hope they didn't get you out of bed, man,' I drawled and he just snorted, dragging out his sketch book and a pencil, passing them to the nice medic lady to hand to me.

'Hell yes, they did!' he grumbled, though he didn't seem to really be all that upset about it. 'Nobody sane is up at this hour by choice!'

I flipped open the book and started right in while Morgan tried to figure out if he should be bemused or annoyed, and settled on shaking his head and giving over his spot to Jones when Jones poked at him for it.

'Let me know when you have it ready to fax,' he told Jones. 'I'll be checking in with Agent Chang.'

Jones was already hunched over, watching me work intently, and only gave the guy a distracted wave.

'Sorry they dragged you... where ever the hell we are,' I apologized. 'If I'd thought about it, I'd have done this to start with.'

'Well if somebody would have told me who they wanted me to work with, I'd have just laughed at them and rolled over and gone the hell back to sleep,' he snorted, and I couldn't help but grin. Guy had a pretty decent sense of humor; it was something that hadn't come out in our last encounter.

'We're ready to transport, Agent... uh... Mr. Maxwell,' the nice medic lady interjected gently, watching me work right along with Jones. 'As soon as you're done there.'

I couldn't contain a snort that bordered on derision. 'I really don't think I need a hospital for some scrapes and bruises.'

'If you weren't a Preventer employee,' the IV guy told me somewhat gleefully, 'you'd actually have a choice.'

'Great,' I muttered, blocking in the eyes and eyebrows of DietCoke, trying hard to maintain a sketch artist type of decorum and not letting myself give him that sneer he'd had there at the end of our... conversation. 'Well, Chang is in worse shape than I am if you ask me, so we're not going anywhere without him.'

There was an odd little laugh from the third guy, the one that had looked Wufei over. 'Good point,' he said, and climbed down from the back of the ambulance, grinning widely. 'I think I'll just go find him and point that out.'

The other two shared a rather sadistic grin and I wondered if it was a medic thing, an agent thing, or just a Chang thing.

'You're good at math, aren't you?' Jones suddenly asked, ignoring everything else in favor of watching me draw like he was going to see the secret formula for turning lead into gold appear on the paper under my hands.

'Uh... yeah,' I confessed, pausing to look up at him, a little alarmed by the raptorish look in his eyes. 'Why?'

He waved a hand at my sketch and I wasn't sure if it was to encompass it, or to urge me back to work. 'You're very... exact. You have a precision that shows through in your composition. Your base layout suggests an understanding of mathematics that borders on genius. It's part of what makes your pieces so strong even when the finished work flows beyond...' he stopped suddenly, perhaps feeling the wide-eyed stare of everybody left in the ambulance, and blushed darkly. 'What?' he asked defensively. 'I went to your show, ok?'

'That's good,' I heard myself say. 'For a minute there, I was afraid you were getting ready to hit on me.'

It was one of those moments where you wish you had a rewind button on your mouth and I'm sure my face turned every bit as red as his was, but he took it right in stride. 'Just buttering you up for a job offer,' he quipped, and got points for brass, even while my blush crept up a bit higher.

I bent back to work, muttering, 'I'm still thinking about it,' when the IV guy chuckled in a way that felt unrelated. I glanced up to see him looking out the back of the ambulance with a grin on his face, so I followed his gaze to see Wufei striding across the grounds with Morgan in tow, with a scowl on his face like a thunder cloud.

'Here comes the pissy dragon,' muttered the nice medic lady, so we were all sitting there staring right across the yard when all of a sudden people came boiling out of that house just like those ants they'd reminded me of earlier.

Somebody shouted 'Fire in the hole!' and everything just went to freaking hell in the most hideously slow motion manner.

Or maybe it just seemed slow to the adrenaline that I suddenly seemed to be mainlining.

I beg forgiveness for thinking of Wufei first. I had people closer at hand who fell more on the 'civilian' side of the fence than he did, but...

Screw it; I make no excuses; he is one of 'mine' and I looked to him first, but he and Morgan had both already dug heels in and were running hell-bent for the nearest squad car.

The nice medic lady had the good sense to look horrified, but Jones and IV just looked kind of... confused. When I lunged for the back doors, I actually had to almost climb across Jones to reach them. Judging our time to be short, based on the utter panic going on all around us, I just took the time to jerk one of the doors shut, grabbing Jones and hauling him bodily across the ambulance to be behind it with the rest of us, shouting 'Get down! Get down! Get down!' the whole damn time.

The explosion, when it came, rocked the whole damn vehicle, blowing dust and dirt through the open door in a tornado wind rush that stung and left me tasting grit.

You ever just had one of those days?

There is a moment after a major explosion that is just this weird thing of... near silence. Which, of course, is impossible, but it exists all the same. Perhaps it's just the contrast after the explosion itself, or perhaps it's the human ear shutting down in shocked disbelief. The first thing I was conscious of hearing again was the sort of panicky sound of Jones' breath in my ear as I still had him clutched to me. The next was the strange ting of the lighter weight debris as it rained down on the roof of the ambulance. Then was the shaky cursing of IV as he sorted himself out.

And then we all started to hear the sounds of the wounded outside. The nice medic lady was the first to get it in gear and she pulled herself up from the floor and began gathering her kit with hands that were not altogether steady.

'Wufei...' I muttered and I'm afraid I wasn't that gentle shoving Jones off to the side.

'You... ripped your IV out,' he told me inanely, and I glanced down to confirm it, but the damage didn't look that bad.

'I think that's the least of our problems,' I said, and shoved away to follow the nice medic lady outside. I was not reassured to find Wufei and Morgan still on the ground, though it looked like they'd partially made the dubious safety of the squad car.

I was relieved that the nice medic lady headed that way without my having to drag her there, because I think I would have.

Before we got to their side, Wufei had pushed himself up to hands and knees and I saw him look toward the ambulance, but when he saw me on my feet he turned his attention to Morgan; I can not convey the relief that flooded through me. Maybe it was already having come so close once that day; a second near miss was just too much to deal with. Wufei seemed to forget himself for a moment and called out to his second in command, his voice nothing but a dry croak.

Then he started to cough. I realized at the same time the nice medic lady did that all the dust and smoke in the air was wrecking havoc with his already constricted airway. She hesitated, as though thinking to head back to the ambulance, but then shook it off and turned to me. 'Tell Paul to bring an oxygen mask!'

It took almost a whole heartbeat for my head to transition from 'Paul' to 'IV' and I went pelting back the way I'd come.

Paul, thank God, had gotten his shit together and when I commanded him in a voice that was probably pretty damn terse, he didn't argue, but hauled the requested equipment out and took off.

I trailed after him, part of my head thinking about evaluating and prioritizing the wounded. About looking for the other medic. About radioing in for backup and another ambulance. But I had to see them get Wufei's breathing under control first. Just... had to make sure I hadn't ended up killing him in the end after all.

Morgan was sitting up at least, when Paul and I arrived back at the squad car, nursing a head wound and having his pupils checked. Wufei was... making a sound that was turning my stomach wrong-side out; a sick sucking for air that echoed out of my own nightmares. Paul was beside him in an instant, slapping a mask over his nose and mouth, shifting him to lean forward slightly and I wondered if he was afraid he might get sick. The thought made me queasy just thinking about it; under the circumstances, the outcome would probably not be good. I knew it was bad just because Wufei was being so... docile.

I found myself almost panting in sympathy and made myself stop, hoping nobody noticed. It took a couple of long minutes, and I think it was as much Wufei's own will power as anything else, that finally seemed to settle the cough.

The nice medic lady finished with Morgan and caught my eye while she gathered her kit together. 'Stay with him and make him keep that on,' she commanded and I hesitated, thinking that I could better serve elsewhere. 'I don't want to be doing an emergency tracheotomy out here,' she added, and I think it was meant to scare me into complying. Or scare Wufei. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was actually a relief to realize there was something they could do if Wufei did stop breathing.

I looked out across the grounds and was kind of surprised to find that things were not... chaotic. It rather made me want to laugh at myself; I was in the middle of a squad of Preventers, be they medics or agents or forensics... they really didn't need me to help them get organized. I accepted my assignment with a nod then, and sank down to kneel beside Wufei while Paul and the nice medic lady took themselves off to be useful.

Morgan had been left leaning against the squad car with a wad of gauze that he was supposed to be pressing to the gash in his forehead. He grinned at me wanly through the wash of blood on his face. 'Ain't this just been a pisser of a day?' he managed dazedly.

'You have no idea,' I muttered in return, then stopped to think about that statement. 'Just what the hell day is it, anyway?'

'Wednesday,' he informed me and looked like he wanted to laugh at the expression on my face, but didn't have it in him.

Damn; I was missing a good chunk of time there. I tried to think back and piece the time line together, but just wasn't sure. There had been the ghost of some sunlight when my captors had come calling, and I had to guess that must have been some time Tuesday, but I couldn't even guess the particulars. No damn wonder I felt so generally whipped.

Heero... had to have been beside himself.

It sort of hit me then, in a weirdly delayed moment of clarity, that the sons of bitches had meant to blow me to kingdom come. The smoke and dust in the air, the blood on Morgan's face, the groans of the wounded... suddenly were very damn personal.

And it meant that whatever plan they'd had for Relena had passed some sort of make or break moment. No way, if that bomb had been set off by accident by one of the investigators, would there have been any warning. It had been on a timer. They had meant to hang on to me only as long as needed for... whatever, then the evidence and witness were supposed to get neatly disposed of. Or... not so neatly.

I wondered if we were far enough out into the boonies that nobody would have even noticed the explosion? How long would it have been before somebody even realized what it had been? They might not have ever found my damn body.

Beside me, Wufei made a motion like he was going to pull the oxygen mask away so he could speak, but I pressed my hand over his and kept it in place, frowning at him. 'Don't make the nice medic lady hurt you,' I warned, and he gave me a glare that was lukewarm at best, relenting and using gestures instead. He touched the center of my chest, then made a motion that clearly indicated drawing, it made me turn and look toward the ambulance. Jones was standing just outside the doors, staring around wide-eyed and tight-lipped, obviously not having a clue what he should be doing with himself.

'Hey, Jones,' I called, and felt guilty when he jumped a foot in the air. He turned my way and I swear I could see the whites clear around his eyes. 'Can you find the sketch book and bring it here?'

I thought for a moment, that the poor guy was in shock, because he just stood there staring at me like I was speaking a foreign language so bizarre he didn't even recognize it. Just when I thought that I was maybe going to have to go check on him, he turned around and climbed back into the ambulance.

'Poor guy,' Morgan muttered distractedly. 'I think this is the first time they've actually sent him into the field.'

'Baptism by fire,' I opined without thinking, but Morgan just chuckled.

It took Jones a few minutes and I can only suppose he had trouble finding the stuff. The explosion and scrambling bodies had done enough damage in there, but on top of that... I don't even remember where in the hell I'd thrown the sketch pad.

He reappeared eventually and came over to give it to me, unable to keep from staring across the yard as he came, either at the smoldering remains of the house, or the area where the forensic team was assembling the wounded.

'W...what should I do?' he stammered, as I took pencil in hand and tried to concentrate on getting the feel of the sketch back. 'Should I be doing something?'

I glanced up at him, where he was standing and I remember thinking the medics wouldn't thank me for sending him to assist if the guy up and fainted when he got there. Poor sap was as white as a sheet.

'Sit down here and help Agent Morgan,' I told him. 'His arm is getting tired.'

I thought for a second he was going to balk, but he dutifully sat and took over holding the gauze against Morgan's forehead. I only had to tell him once to press harder, though he apologized while he did it.

I spent my focus on my work then; it suddenly seemed even more important to get the likeness out. Though I know the urgency should have been there before, I guess there was just some part of my head that realized if they'd been willing to blow me up... it sort of made the likelihood higher that assassination was what was in the works for Relena. It all suddenly seemed more... immediate. I wondered at myself then, kind of wondered why I couldn't seem to get myself back in any sort of gear. Maybe there was more to that hypothermia theory of Wufei's than I'd thought. Or Paul's dehydrated theory.

Or maybe Morgan's pisser of a day theory.

Some guy in a flak jacket with soot all over it, came up while I was sketching, to report to Wufei that there had been no casualties, but there were a couple of forensic people who were going to need immediate transport and the nice medic lady, who's name turned out to be Sheila, wanted Wufei on the wagon for the ride.

He turned to gesture toward me, but the guy was quick to report there wouldn't be room.

'I'm good, Fei,' I soothed. 'I'll ride down with Jones... I want you with the nic... with Sheila in case something happens that needs... uh... her expertise.'

His resistance was actually kind of token, and I decided in that moment that he'd scared the shit out of himself with the coughing fit. Couldn't blame the guy; I knew from personal experience just how much it messed with your head to suddenly find it difficult to breathe. Sort of an important function.

I finished up the sketch about then and Morgan was right there waiting for it, taking back his pad of gauze from Jones and struggling to his feet. He took the picture away mumbling about satellite uplinks and portable fax scanners. I watched him go and hoped he didn't end up getting blood all over the damn thing.

'How the fuck can you be so calm?' Jones suddenly asked, and I couldn't tell if he was awed or just disturbed. I didn't look at him, keeping an eye on Morgan instead, just in case the big guy fell over or something.

'On the inside I am gibbering insanely and wishing for a do-over,' I told him and got a funny little snort from Wufei, but Jones seemed to have lost his sense of humor about the time the 'fire in the hole' part happened.

Somebody was delivered to the ambulance on an actual stretcher, then Paul was coming for my charge. I thought Wufei was going to fight it, there at the end, but he just looked at me long and hard, conveying something with his eyes that frankly... went right past me. It was in the neighborhood of 'be careful' or 'take care' or 'don't do anything stupid', so I just smiled and squeezed his shoulder before turning him over to the medics.

I ended up riding with Jones, Morgan and an only slightly worse for wear agent who, thank God, drove because I thought for a minute I was going to have to. I even got shotgun. The guy seemed a bit daunted by ferrying the moderately wounded, and kept sneaking looks in the rearview mirror at Morgan, as though he was afraid of him passing out or something. We hauled out, just us and the ambulance, and probably made an interesting convoy for the birds and raccoons to watch go down the drive. Nobody even bothered with the sirens, and I had to wonder why they had, coming up. I didn't know who to feel sorrier for... the injured on the way out, or the guys left behind to sift through the debris looking for clues that were probably nothing but a memory. I watched the trees go by out the side window for a mile or two before I realized the driver might have more information than I did, and tried to strike up a conversation.

'So,' I ventured, feeling a bit awkward not even knowing the guy's name. 'Where the hell did they find the bomb, anyway?'

He cast a look at me out of the corner of his eye, trying to look like he was paying close attention to his driving. 'Uh... under the bed in the basement, sir.'

I blinked at him for a second, thinking about my jouncing the bed out from the wall. Made me wonder how close I'd come to bashing into the thing. Made me wonder if I could have set it off early. Well, I'd been looking for something to get me out of the cuffs... I suppose that would have done it.

I stifled the only slightly crazed sounding snicker because it made the guy look like he was having trouble concentrating on his driving.

'Does anybody know what's happening on the other end of this mess?' I asked then, deciding I didn't want to know anything more about the bomb.

'Sir?' he asked, hands working at the wheel while he followed the ambulance down the trail.

'Heero... uh... Agent Yuy,' I clarified. 'The catching the bad guys part?'

'I wouldn't know, sir,' he said, but I wondered if he really didn't know, or if it was more of that security clearance stuff. It made me sigh and drop the conversational ball, because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to find out much from the guy about the things I wanted to know. I turned my head enough to catch a glimpse of Jones in the back seat.

'You guys ok back there?' I asked, because he and Morgan were both being pretty quiet.

He glanced at Morgan before telling me, 'Just peachy, though if we pass a McDonalds or something, can we drive through for coffee?'

He got a laugh from me and Morgan both, but the driver just very seriously told him. 'Sorry sir; I can't do that.'

'Damn,' Jones mumbled and I suddenly wasn't sure if he'd actually been kidding or not. He gave me a rather direct look then and said, 'Just so all the cards are out on the table... if you take me up on the job offer, you are so doing all the field trips from here on out.'

'I'm not sure that's a selling point, man,' Morgan muttered and I craned my neck around a bit more to be able to see him where he sat behind me. Poor guy was still holding a wad of bloody gauze to his forehead, though it looked like it might not be the same wad of gauze.

I went along with his joke with a 'No shit!', but didn't bother to tell him that it kind of was. I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my Preventer career sitting in some office somewhere making paper airplanes and paperclip chains, waiting to be called down to the conference room to talk to various witnesses. It actually had been part of what had kept me from really thinking about the offer all that hard; it sounded like the epitome of boring.

'Just how often do you have to actually go into the field, anyway?' I asked Jones and he glanced down at his ill-fitting gear with a grimace.

'Well, this is the first time it actually qualified as 'field',' he explained. 'Usually they bring the witnesses to me. Or I meet them in some bank or something. You know... after all the scary shit is done and over with.'

I don't know which of his three car mates snorted the loudest, but the driver was the only one who looked embarrassed.

'Do you really have so much to do that you need an assistant?' I had to ask, just having a whole lot of trouble with the notion. I'd caught a glimpse of the guy's office; I couldn't shake the mental image of him sitting in there spinning in his chair most days.

Something kind of weird happened in his eyes then, and he was suddenly leaning forward to look at me while he talked. I realized we weren't just making idle conversation any more.

'An assistant?' he snorted. 'As if. Of the two artists in this car, I would be the one who has not had a gallery show at Expressions. It's not entirely the workload, though there are days. It's your damn ability. That piece you did for Miss Peters; you weren't even in the same room and you still managed to take that... that mish-mash of emotional vagueness and turn it into a closer likeness than I managed after working with the woman for two hours!'

'That one you did today was pretty good,' Morgan supplied helpfully and I wondered just how damn much blood the guy had lost, because he was starting to seem a little... spacey.

I chose to ignore Jones' blatant butt-sucking because I just never knew how to answer that sort of thing anyway. If you argued, you sounded like you were just fishing for more butt-sucking. But if you said 'thanks' did that imply some sort of agreement with the butt-sucking? And wasn't that just... self butt-sucking? It just made my head hurt trying to work it out.

'But how much would you actually need me?' I asked, cutting back to the point. 'How much chair spinning can a guy do all day? Surely you can't have eight hours worth of sketching to do every day?'

I suppose I should have watched my wording, because I'd put an unholy light of weird hopefulness in his eyes that was just scary. 'There's more to it than just the witnesses, though Preventers has more than their fair share; violent crime is kinda what they do. But we can contract out to the local law enforcement offices too. I spend probably two days a week with the city police.'

'I'm hardly qualified...' I hedged, but that just sort of got him excited and he didn't even let me finish the sentence.

'That's the great thing! It's not what you'd call an exact science!' He was waving his hands around as he spoke, and Morgan was starting to look a bit apprehensive the more Jones warmed to his topic. 'There's no degree program or anything like that; psychology is a plus, but dude... you seem to have that part down. It's something you're either good at, or you're not, and you've totally got the talent!'

Damn guy was infectious. I could... kind of envision it. It wasn't all pretty; I'd bet money they'd just cram us both into a shared office or something. But I was starting to imagine it... which made me kind of nervous. 'But you still wouldn't need me all the time,' I pushed, and he deflated just a bit.

'Yeah, that's part of why I haven't come down to the garage to hound you before now,' he sighed, his hands dropping back into his lap. 'I can't get Une convinced to bring you in full time.'

It was kind of creepy to think of him and the good Commander sitting around discussing my future without me being involved in it, but I suppose they'd each punted their respective balls into my court and I'd been the one to let them drop. Jones had leaned back in his seat again, looking a bit morose.

'Well, why the hell can't I just stay where I am?' I heard myself ask. 'And just come in like... what'd Wufei call it? As a consultant or something?'

I could see him mulling it over and wasn't at all sure I liked the look in his eyes. I was opening my mouth to tell him that I refused to be addressed as 'minion', when Morgan kind of snickered.

'You know... most job interviews are more private than this.'

'No shit,' the driver muttered, but I don't think he realized anybody else heard him.

'That could work,' Jones mused and I was pretty sure I heard gears meshing in his head. I decided to just drop the topic before he had me convinced to be his indentured servant, and turned back around, finding that the scenery had not changed much while we'd been talking.

'Where in the fuck are we anyway?' I asked nobody in particular, but the driver took it as a personal address.

'About an hour north of the city, sir,' he said, and it made me glance over at him.

'You really do not need to 'sir' me... I'm just a mechanic.'

'Sorry sir,' he replied and I gave it up for a lost cause.

I turned to watch out the window some more; it was a beautiful day out, which was somehow just surreal as all hell. It should have been... cold. Or something. Raining, at least. Something that somehow reflected the utter trauma of the past... God; days. The past few days. I was still trying to get my mind wrapped around that aspect. I leaned my head against the window and the glass was merely cool... it looked like a perfect day for yard work, but I suspected I wouldn't be getting anywhere near my pruning shears for quite some time.

I swear I just blinked my eyes shut for a moment, but the next thing I knew somebody was calling my name and when I opened my eyes again, the trees were gone and there we were in an emergency bay and there were people swarming just everywhere.

'Maxwell, wake the hell up so they can open your door without dumping you out,' Jones was telling me, and I straightened self-consciously, realizing there was some white-coated person staring at me through the car window.

The next part doesn't really rate repeating; the usual hospital stuff. Done enough of it over the years that it's pretty old hat, though I'd never descended on an emergency room en masse before... it was kind of cool watching the organized chaos going on around me like it was choreographed. That is, until I was drawn into the dance and then... not so much.

Jones managed to bow completely out at that point, as he'd pretty much escaped the whole ordeal without a scratch, and he gave me a jaunty little wave before, presumably, heading back to headquarters to turn in his flak jacket and radio.

Or barter with Commander Une for possession of my soul.

I'd have fought the whole thing harder, but one of the forensics guys suddenly decided they needed my clothes for evidence and once I was in the little hospital gown, I just went with it. Kind of didn't want to risk distracting anybody anyway; there were enough other people who needed the attention way worse than I needed to throw my weight around and make demands.

Popular opinion seemed to be that I was somewhat dehydrated and recovering from a brush with mild hypothermia anyway, and I suppose when enough people tell you the same thing, you finally stop arguing about it. I was just getting down to the part where I was kind of ready to go the hell home and... maybe crawl into the back of my closet and hide. For about a week.

What I really wanted, was to find out what the hell was going on with Heero. Ensconced in one of those emergency room cubicle things that was really nothing more than a bed with a curtain around it, I was pretty well able to hear what was going on in most of the identical cubicles for a twenty foot radius. Or... as much as I could make out with dozens of people talking in dozens of different conversations at once. While I was catching bits about the explosion, the obvious medical stuff, something that involved Aunt Betty and her cat Pretty-Boy... I was not hearing any gossip about assassinations or kidnappings or anything else involving the summit meetings. And while that was a very good sign, it wasn't helping my curiosity much.

They'd given me a heated blanket despite the fact that I'd been out of the basement and in a heated car for the past hour or so. It felt really nice, but it was kind of relaxing muscles, which was tending to make me sleepy, so I was playing with the buttons on the bed and reading the labels on the IV bags to keep myself awake. Which seemed really stupid considering I'd mostly been asleep for the last... who the hell knew? There was a missing twenty-four hours in there somewhere at the very least.

I had noticed that the voices around me were... thinning? And the conversations were ebbing away from the shrapnel/trauma/stat stuff, and switching over to the more mundane TV update/what's for lunch kinds of topics. It was making me feel vaguely forgotten in a way that couldn't decide if it was relieved or irritated. Not that I felt there was really anything wrong with me; nothing I couldn't fix on my own with a bottle of soda, about four ration bars and my own damn bed, anyway. I was just starting to debate calling out to see if anybody would come and let me go, when the curtain went shushing aside and there was Sally Po staring at me all wide-eyed and I thought for sure she'd come to wreck vengeance on my ass.

If I could have decided between 'Don't kill me!' and 'It was an accident, I swear!', I would have been babbling at her the moment she appeared, but since my tongue was trying to tie itself around my own teeth, she moved first.

'Duo! Are you all right?'

'Uh... I... I guess,' I said smoothly, and she came on in to my little area and sat down on the side of the bed to envelope me in a hug.

'You had everybody scared to death!' she scolded and I couldn't help pulling away to look at her.

'It wasn't exactly my idea,' I pointed out and must have sounded miffed.

'I know that, dumb-ass,' I was informed. 'But what happened?'

I sighed, and flopped back against my pillows. 'I was a dumb-ass,' I confessed. 'They caught me completely off guard and drugged me. Hauled me clear out of town, from what they tell me. I've been tied up in the basement of some abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere for... since Monday. I guess. I don't really remember much.'

She got that weirdly maternal look that all women can manage and stroked a hand over my cheek, getting ready to say something... reassuring, I'm sure, so I cut her off with the thing her presence brought back to the front of my mind. 'How's Wufei?'

The maternal look only intensified, the hand on my cheek stilling, 'He's going to be fine, Duo,' she said, her voice going all firm, and I knew she knew how Wufei had ended up in his own emergency room bed.

'I'm really sorry I trashed your boyfriend,' I said, aiming for teasing and only managing to sound like a little kid confessing to breaking Mommy's favorite mug.

It made the maternal look go all misty-eyed and she leaned back down to hug me again, just hiding the look, I think. Or maybe she just needed a hug of her own, so we just did that for a minute or two before there was suddenly some very loud throat clearing going on and we both turned to find a woman in a white coat with all the accessories that say 'doctor', grinning at us widely.

'Damn, Po,' the woman drawled. 'Every time I find a good looking man in a bed today, there you are wrapped all over them!'

I felt myself blushing hotly and expected the same from Sally, but she just grinned cockily and patted my cheek. 'You just wish you had your own harem, Devant.'

'If you weren't so stingy, you'd share,' the good doctor muttered, looking down at the paperwork in her hands.

Sally let out with an unladylike snort. 'This one you'd have to share with Yuy, and I really want to hear your sales pitch if you try it.'

Dr. Devant just sighed somewhat theatrically and got down to business. 'Mr. Maxwell, we've got the preliminary test results back from your blood-work...'

There was a pause that was meant to allow for privacy if I wanted it, so I prompted with a 'And?' because I could have cared less if Sally heard or not.

'It's good news,' she reassured. 'We found traces of temazepar-K7 but nothing else. It's a drug that metabolizes fairly easily and from the counts, is already leaving your system.' She had come around the bed while she talked and poked at the IV bags. 'Regulating your fluids will help flush your system,' she continued, making a note on the chart. 'And there really aren't any long term side-affects.'

It had been a concern that I'd set on the back-burner of things to worry about, but it was still a damn relief to hear it. I must have made some sound, because Sally squeezed my hand reassuringly.

'So I can leave now?' I asked hopefully and Dr. Devant laughed, looking across me at Sally.

'Why is it none of these guys want to spend any time with me, Po?' she asked genially.

'Your sadistic reputation precedes you?' Sally suggested helpfully, but Dr. Devant only chuckled, leaning down to do the stethoscope thing.

'I'd like to get another round of fluids, if you think you can stand to suffer my company for a while longer,' she said when she was done, and I sighed, because how do you say no to that? Which, I suppose, was probably the point.

She made some more notes and then she was gone, moving off to poke the next poor sap. Sally had stood up to be out of the way, and she perched on the side of the bed again once the doc was gone, just as though she were going to be there a while.

'Can I get you anything, Duo?' she asked.

'Two double-cheese burgers with fries, a liter bottle of anything liquid and a pair of pants?' I tried, and it rather left her blinking at me.

'I'm so sorry,' she blurted. 'I didn't even think! I'll see what I can come up with.'

She was gone before I could apologize for making her feel bad, but since my stomach was whimpering pathetically at just the mention of food... I didn't exactly try to stop her. Though the woman's acquisition skills need major work because all she managed to come up with was an apple, two packages of saltines, a Hershey bar and a bottle of orange juice.

She settled back on the end of my bed and watched me inhale her provisions and it made me wonder. 'Where's Wufei?' I asked between bites, and surprised a funny little look into her eyes that I took for concern.

'He's getting some tests run,' she admitted guardedly and I felt my blood run cold.

'Oh my God,' I breathed, staring at her, my lunch forgotten. 'What the fuck did I do to him?'

She got that... firm look again, giving my knee a squeeze since she couldn't reach my face from where she was sitting. 'He is going to be fine. They're just taking some x-rays as a precaution.'

In my mind x-rays did not equate to 'tests' and I said so. It made her sigh and give me a look that suggested I was supposed to be not noticing these things.

'They're scoping his throat,' she finally confessed. 'But it doesn't mean anything. It's just procedure... considering.'

My chocolate got forgotten in my lap and I dry washed my face with my hands. 'Considering I tried to rip...' I couldn't finish it and I heard Sally sigh rather loudly.

'Duo, stop beating yourself up. You thought you were...' she began, but stopped when I snorted.

'I thought I was taking one of the bastards with me, is what I thought,' I told her bluntly. 'I was still trapped... I was just aiming to make sure I didn't die alone.'

I dropped my hands away from my eyes not sure what kind of look I was going to find on her face. I was expecting at least something akin to disturbed... not a wide grin. 'Yeah, Wufei already bragged about that part.'

It finally won a dark chuckle from me and I dropped my head back against my pillow. 'We're a cheery damn bunch, aren't we?'

'Comes with the history,' she quipped and took up the last bite of Hershey bar to pop in her mouth.

I watched her chew for a minute, then just shook my head. 'Why aren't you hovering over your boyfriend instead of your boyfriend's partner's boyfriend?'

'Are you trying to get rid of me, Duo Maxwell?' she teased, but I kind of thought I detected some strain there.

'Don't be an overly sensitive girly-girl,' I groused. 'I'm being nice and telling you to go where we both know you want to be. I'm fine and will probably just nap now that my stomach is semi, sort of full.'

My relationship with Sally Po is... odd. We really don't know each other all that freaking well, when you get right down to it. I have no idea what her history is outside of where it interconnects with Wufei, and thus with me. She has two tones that she tends to use with me... teasing or motherly.

Both of them seemed to fail her.

'Wufei...' she began, but then hesitated before giving it another shot. 'I'm supposed...' but that didn't work out for her either and she just kind of stopped, biting her lip and looking at me.

I realized what the deal was with the 'supposed' and tried not to cross my eyes in frustration. 'He set you on baby-sitting duty,' I accused, and she wasn't able to meet my eyes for that telling moment. I gusted out with a frustrated sigh and she just stopped pretending, falling back on the teasing tone.

'I'm not diapering you,' she told me and it was just so lame an attempt that I took pity on her, wadding up the chocolate bar wrapper and winging it at her forehead. She snatched it out of the air but then sat fiddling with it, not able to take the teasing any farther.

'I'm fine,' I told her. 'You heard the doc. I'm not in any danger and am going to be out of here in a few hours.'

She frowned at me, squeezing the paper into a tighter ball. 'Duo, you've just been through a terribly traumatic...'

I couldn't help snorting. 'I slept through most of it.'

She snorted right back at me, but there seemed a touch of something more than simple annoyance in it. 'Maxwell...' she began and I cut her off.

'M'lady... I'm ok. Tired maybe, and a little pissed off, but really... none the worse for wear.'

She gave me the strangest look, searching my eyes for something... God knows what, and it reminded me a little of the look Wufei had given me right before he'd been stuffed in the ambulance. Then that weird little mothering look was back. 'Guess you are, M'lord,' she said, and there was something almost wistful about it.

'Go on,' I urged, giving her a wide smile. 'You know how grumpy Wufei gets when he's being poked and prodded.'

She grinned back, trying to hide the relief. 'Yeah... almost as grumpy as you.'

She kissed my cheek before she left, though I made her take my trash.

I lasted almost another hour before the button pushing was just not any damn fun any more, and the next time a nurse bustled in to check on me, I informed her that she needed to find me some pants or I was prepared to scandalize the entire floor by walking out with my totally inadequate hospital gown flapping in the breeze. She went right off and fetched me... Dr. Devant.

'Leaving us so soon, Mr. Maxwell?' she asked, chart in one hand and digital thermometer in the other, with no sign at all of any pants.

'Not like you weren't expecting it,' I had to point out as the thought suddenly occurred to me. 'Otherwise, I'd be in a room by now instead of still hanging out down here.'

She brandished the thermometer and I tilted my head obligingly so she could stick the thing in my ear. 'Bright boy,' she commented absently, noting the reading and then stopping to meet my eyes. 'One more thing and then I think we can stand to lose your company.'

'One more thing?' I asked, but she didn't even bother to answer when the nurse showed up at that moment happily waving a bottle that I was more than familiar with.

'I get the use of a restroom, at least?' I sighed, and the woman actually laughed.

It was not hard at all to fulfill, pardon the pun, the request, and they seemed happy with... whatever they were looking for. I got to trade in my bottle for a set of surgical scrubs and a pair of paper slippers. The nurse removed my IV, I signed some papers, received the standard blah-blah lecture, and was free to go.

Too bad I had no idea where.

I thought about hunting Sally up and seeing Wufei, but realized that the idiot would just insist that Sally... take me home or something. Woman didn't need to be dealing with that crap; Wufei needed her and I didn't, but I knew Wufei wouldn't see it that way.

Then I thought about just going the hell in to work. It was damn tempting; Griff had his eye on everything that had anything to do with Preventers and he might actually have a clue what was going on, but the very idea of showing up in the garage in my spiffy aqua scrubs and paper slippers was... daunting.

The outfit kind of clinched it for me; no matter what else I decided to do, the first order of business was clothes. Nobody anywhere was going to take me seriously wearing a set of pastel pajamas... I looked like an escapee from the local psych ward.

Home was what I opted for, the lure of a shower and clean clothes and just the damn feeling of sanctuary were too much. I was just preparing to ask the discharge nurse to call a taxi when I realized... I had no way of getting in my own house. I had no money, I had no keys, I had... a whole lot of nothin'.

I could just imagine telling some cab driver that not only didn't I have the money to pay him actually on me... but he'd have to wait for his cash while I broke into the place I had him take me to. There would be cops called and questions asked and... I felt weary just thinking about it.

So in the end, I shuffled down to the lobby in my stupid little slippers and did the only thing that came to mind; used a pay phone and called for help.

It occurred to me after the phone started ringing, that Trowa might very well have his hands as full as everybody else; Quatre was as prominent a figure, and therefore just as much a person to be protected as Relena. But I just didn't know who else to appeal to. I knew Heero was hip-deep, or he'd have already found a way to contact me. I wasn't about to risk trying to call him when I didn't know what he was in the middle of. I knew he'd be kept apprised of the situation, and would know our status. Breaking his concentration for no other reason than to whine about how much longer he was going to be saving the day... was not going to happen.

It took Trowa so long to pick up, that I was starting to fear he wasn't going to. His voice when he finally came on the line was rather... terse. 'Barton!' he snapped, and it was a tone I hadn't heard him use in a long time.

'Uh... bad time?' I had to ask, and heard the breath go out of him in a whoosh.

'Duo? Jesus! Duo, is that you?'

'Yeah, it's me,' I told him, not quite sure how to handle the sudden change in his demeanor. 'So... how's your day going?'

There was the strangest choking noise and I wasn't quite sure if he was trying not to laugh, trying not to scream, or trying not to crawl through the... whatever the hell they are; airwaves? to come and strangle me.

'Where...?' he began, after he got that noise throttled down, but I could suddenly hear Quatre in the background and for a minute all I could do was stand and listen to them.

'Duo? That's Duo?' I heard Quatre asking, and his tone was even scarier than Trowa's had been. Trowa made a sound in the affirmative, and Quatre's voice rose in volume as he got closer. 'What's his status? Is he secure? Is Chang with him still? Go and get him; I want him under our protection until...'

'Hold it!' Trowa cut him off. 'I'm not leaving you alone until...'

'I'm hardly alone!' Quatre snapped back, that command voice making me twinge. I could hear Trowa inhale sharply in preparation to doing his own snapping and I leaped into the tiny pause.

'Guys!' I yelled into the phone, making everybody in the lobby turn to look at me. 'Knock it off!' It bought me a hesitation, and I lowered my voice and continued on, my face flaming. 'Listen... I'm fine. Wufei is fine. We're at that...' I glanced at the information desk. 'St. Eligius hospital. I've been released but... I sort of don't have any money. Or house keys. Or... ' I glanced down at myself, 'much of anything else, really. I thought maybe you could spare Abdul or Rashid long enough to give me a ride home?'

'Don't be an ass, Maxwell,' Quatre ground out, and I could tell he was in possession of the phone. 'Your house is compromised until we can have it swept and the access changed.'

I blinked at the phone in front of me for a moment while my head translated 'swept' to 'checked for creepy bad guys', and 'access changed' to 'change the locks'. Oh yeah... guess there wasn't any guarantee the bastards had just tossed my keys in the trash.

I didn't admit the part where that hadn't really occurred to me yet, but it wasn't like Quatre really stopped long enough for me to reply anyway. 'You stay where you are and we'll have you extracted as soon as possible. Is Chang secure?'

'Uh... they're doing some x-rays,' I told him, wondering why I kept wanting to add 'sir' to the end of all the lines I delivered to him. 'Sally is with him.'

'Good,' he told me and suddenly seemed to have handed the phone off, because I could still hear him talking, but his voice was fading away, and I didn't think he was addressing me any more.

'Duo?' Trowa was back on the line, and he seemed somewhat... less tense. Or maybe he just seemed less tense compared with Quatre. 'Are you really ok?'

'Fine,' I told him. 'Tired, I guess. And feeling pretty stupid standing here in the middle of the lobby in my paper shoes, but... all things considered, not all that bad. Just feeling really out of the loop. Do you know what's going on with Heero?'

'Not really,' he confessed. 'He had somebody from the office call Quatre to let us know they'd found you and to tell us to lock down, just in case. We're getting regular reports on the situation, but nothing much about Heero specifically.'

'Relena?' I had to ask, even knowing that he'd have mentioned it by now if she'd been harmed.

'Spirited into hiding is all we know,' he said, but then sort of interrupted himself. 'We'll talk about it once I get there...'

'You don't need to come,' I told him, remembering his argument with Quatre just moments ago. 'Just send somebody. Hell... I can take a cab if you guys can just loan me the money to pay for it once I get there.'

He snorted sharply and I could almost see the roll of his eyes. 'Don't go there, dumb-ass. Quatre is right... it would take a mobile suit attack to get in this place right now; I'll be there in fifteen minutes.' And just to avoid any further argument, he hung up on me.

Kind of aggravated me, to be honest. If he'd given me a minute, I'd have told him to look for me... somewhere way less public than the front lobby. But as it was, he left me little choice but to find a seat and wait.

People might have mistaken me for a hospital employee if it weren't for the fact that I had to have looked like something the dog not only dragged in, but dug up first. I just pasted on a vaguely vacant smile, but people weren't looking at me directly anyway, though there was a lot of staring out of the corners of eyes going on.

I'm surprised Trowa didn't get a speeding ticket getting there.

I'd have been more shocked by the whole sweeping in and grabbing me in a hug right in front of God and a dozen witnesses thing, if I hadn't been so shocked over that hug very quickly revealing that he was packing. I couldn't freaking remember the last time I'd seen Trowa carrying a damn gun.

Before I had time to do more than grunt at him, he was ushering me the hell out of that place and toward his double-parked car.

'Wait a minute!' I protested even as we were going through the front doors. 'What about Wufei? I thought we could check in with Sally before we...'

He didn't even slow down, leading me to the car even while I could tell he was scanning the area and it made me feel twitchy at the same time it made me feel just... stupid. I was pretty sure my part in the whole bloody thing was well and truly over, and I was having a bit of trouble with the James Bond routine. 'Quatre contacted Une directly. Wufei is going to be fine and he's being transferred to the Preventers infirmary as soon as possible.'

He handed me in to the car and I grabbed the seat belt just to make sure he didn't try to buckle me in, but he seemed more concerned with getting the door shut. I took a deep breath while he made his way around the car to get in the driver's side, and just focused on getting the vague stirrings of temper under control. I had a feeling, as up-tight as he seemed to be, that if I started humming the Mission Impossible theme, he'd just freaking back-hand me.

As soon as he pulled out of the parking lot, he had his cell phone in his hand and a terse little, 'I have him, we're in-route,' was said to... Quatre, I assumed. He acknowledged something and hung up.

I stared at him for almost a whole block before he noticed.

'What?' he finally snapped, hands tight on the wheel, and jaw set like his teeth were clenched.

'You guys are just being really scary in a weird sort of way that makes me want to point and laugh, ok?' I confessed, and thought he was going to rear-end somebody when he had to take a second to turn and glare at me.

'For God's sake, Duo!' he growled, exasperation plain, 'You've been missing for two days!'

'That's what they keep telling me,' I grumbled. 'Though I think I slept through the first one, but the point is kinda the part where I'm not missing any more. We're to the 'relax' part.'

'And what about the part where those bastards are still out there?' he wanted to know, making more of an effort to keep his eyes on the road.

'Well since I wasn't anything but a distraction to start with,' I explained. 'And they probably think I was blown to smithereens at about eight o'clock this morning when the house went up, I doubt anybody is after me anymore anyway. So can we calm the hell down and drive through Mr. Bucket or something?'

'What? No!' he blurted, then did this funny little double-take at me. 'Smithereens? What fucking smithereens!'

I sighed and slumped down in my seat, resigned to dealing with Quatre's scary cook if I wanted to get something to eat. 'Apparently there was a bomb under the damn bed and the time ran out.'

There was a bit of a lag before he responded and I'm pretty sure he was counting to ten. 'Ok. A bomb. A bed? Maybe you should just start this from the beginning?'

'What? Your intelligence network falling down on the job? I thought you guys had it all figured out?' I sniped and winced at just how... weirdly petulant it came out.

Things went dead quiet for a couple of blocks until we got stopped at a light and he was able to spare the time to really look over at me. I was cranky and refused to meet his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'You just... we were all pretty damn scared, ok?'

I snorted, picking at the hem of my spiffy scrubs. They were actually kind of comfortable in a totally un-fashionable sort of way. Reminded me of the vacuum suit undies I used to wear all the time. Well, expect for the pastel green thing. 'You have no idea,' I informed him, not completely able to squelch the testy tone of voice.

'Well you're acting more like a guy who needed a ride after locking his keys in his car, instead of a guy who needed a ride because he got abducted and... apparently... damn near died,' he said, and there was a hint of a smile in his voice, so I glanced across at him.

'Well the panicking and the freaking out part were hours ago,' I mumbled. 'And I don't much see the point in revisiting it now that it's all over.'

He reached across and gave my arm a squeeze. 'Duo... are you all right?' he asked, but the light changed and the guy behind us got pissed and laid on the horn. Trowa flinched and turned his attention back to his driving, pulling out and leaving me to do the flipping off of Mr. Impatient.

'Seem to be,' I told him after a minute. 'Not exactly how I thought I'd be starting this week out, but I'm not dead, or still trapped, or... smithereened, so ya gotta count it as a plus.'

'What in the hell happened?' he finally asked and it made me sigh, thinking about the telling of the whole damn thing.

'Since we're almost at your place,' I said. 'How about I just wait and tell it once?'

He snorted, but acquiesced since, as I'd pointed out, we weren't a mile from Winner mansion.

When we pulled up out front, the gates were closed... something I'd never seen before. There were Maganacs manning the gate and big scary dogs roaming the grounds. The Maganacs waved at me cheerfully, while the dogs eyed me warily. I stayed close to Trowa on the walk up the front steps, Rashid himself opening the front door for us. He was packing too.

Is it pathetic that the whole thing just made me really self-conscious about the pajamas and paper slippers?

'It is good to see you safe,' Rashid greeted me and directed us to Quatre's personal study. I nodded my thanks and followed Trowa down the hall.

It was kind of weird to remember the last time I'd made the same walk with Trowa. It was a much more... somber trek.

I liked to think that Quatre was ensconced where he was because it was just his favorite place, and not because it was a room without any windows.

He proved that he had every movement on the entire estate being reported directly to him, by meeting us practically in the doorway of the study and I wasn't at all surprised to end up with an armful of Quatre.

'Oh thank Allah,' he breathed in my ear, hugging me tight enough to bruise. 'We... feared the worst.'

'About a dozen near misses,' I assured him. 'But I seem to have managed to avoid the 'worst' part.'

He drew back to give me one of those searching looks that make me squirm, running his hand over my... what must have been damn frazzled hair. 'Near misses?' he had to ask and I sighed, knowing we were getting down to the part that was going to involve lots of talking and even more questions.

'Yeah,' I told him. 'I managed to not kill Wufei, get blown up, or pee my pants, but I also didn't get any Mr. Bucket, so I'm not sure how the balance stands.'

It was kind of funny watching him try to decide just which question he should ask first. Or maybe he was trying to decide if he ought to be having me readmitted. Somewhere off to the side, Trowa made a dry little sound of amusement and we both looked his way to see him pouring himself a glass of something that was a lovely shade of amber and looked... kind of attractive. 'He's busy being the tough guy, Quatre. Don't mind him.'

I hadn't even known that Trowa drank, but he dropped his lanky ass into a leather chair and took a swallow without so much as a grimace, stretching his legs out and letting his head drop back against the chair back. I reflected that he looked kind of tired.

Quatre still had me by the shoulders and he steered me over toward the couch and I accepted the unspoken command to tell the whole sordid story.

It turned out to be more of a two way street than I had anticipated, so it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I confessed to the dumb-ass part of the abduction and they confirmed Wufei's abbreviated little story about the deli clerk. When I explained about pretty much missing the rest of Monday and a bunch of random chunks of Tuesday, they told me how my cell phone and wallet had been strategically dumped in different parts of the city, creating the intended wild goose chases. I tried to skim over the cold, dark, trapped aspects and I think it went over Quatre's head, but that part made Trowa leave off staring at the ceiling and really look at me, so I skimmed right on into the trying to get loose part. That made Quatre fuss over my wrists and hands, so if Trowa had intended to address phobias, he had time to think better of it.

I skipped the warrior hamsters and ghosts, taking it straight into the 'almost killed Wufei' portion of my tale and from that point on, I completely had the floor. Quatre sitting cross-legged on the couch beside me, listening as intently as a little kid listening to a bedtime story. I hoped I didn't give him bad dreams.

When I wrapped it up with the hospital parts, finishing with the 'And then you showed up,' flourish, Trowa looked up from the depths of his half empty glass and gave me a funny little half grin.

'You know,' he opined. 'You might very well have saved Chang's life when you insisted that he get transported back with you.'

I blinked at him for a second and couldn't help see his logic. I guess it would depend on where he'd been when the 'fire in the hole' part had happened. It gave me chills at the same time that I wondered if it didn't maybe balance out the part where I'd tried to kill him. Maybe a little?

Not that it mattered in the end, I suppose. He didn't seem to be holding it against me.

It was probably a good thing that Ahmad chose that moment to interrupt, clearing his throat in a quiet sort of way from the doorway, because Quatre was starting to get a look that was a hinting at 'pissed off'. Guy can get pretty frustrated when shit is hitting the fan, and he can't join in the... hitting. I wondered how long he'd been entrenched in that room, not able to do much more than chew on his desk and attempt to gather information.

Ahmad gave me a nod, but Quatre left my side to go grill the man about... whatever. The condition of the topiary or some damn thing. Not like there had been an attack on the grounds and we'd missed it. It had me off the hot seat though, so I took the opportunity to turn my attention Trowa's way and did my best to employ my sad and pathetic look.

'Who do I have to beat up to get some damn food around here?' I asked, and it made him smile.

'You shouldn't mix kicked puppy with bully,' he told me, but I could see him gathering himself to rise from the depths of the leather chair. Made me wonder if his drink had kicked in, because he seemed much more relaxed.

Miming something to Quatre that must have indicated food, he steered me out of the room and toward the kitchen. There was a trash can beside Quatre's desk and I took a moment to peel off the stupid paper slippers... they hadn't held up to walking around outside anyway... and just tossed them.

Trowa started to lead me down the hall toward the back of the house, but we passed one of those decorative mirror things and I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at myself and replaying the last couple of hours adding in the bed-hair look.

'You know,' I grumbled. 'Would have been nice if somebody would have told me I looked like I got dragged backward through a barbed wire fence.'

Trowa had stopped a few feet on down the hall when it had become apparent I wasn't following, and he cocked his head to look at me. 'Would you believe me if I told you we were just so damn glad to see you alive, that I never noticed?'

'Nice sentiment, but... no,' I told him, and he just grinned.

'Why don't you go on up to your room and shower. I'll go find some food and meet you up there in...?' he drew it out into a question, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

'Twenty minutes should do it,' I told him and we parted ways.

I was half way up the stairs before I thought to question the whole 'my room' thing. I assumed the one that I'd used when I'd stayed with them back during my 'can't sleep' days and was not nearly as surprised as I should have been to find the attached bathroom there stocked with my normal brand of shampoo and all manner of combs and brushes. I wasted no time stripping and taking my hair the rest of the way down.

I think it ended up being longer than twenty minutes, but once I was in that decadent damn shower, I found the flood of fresh water made me feel the... crawliness I hadn't been letting myself dwell on.

I was almost sorry that I hadn't opted for a bath... I kind of wanted to see the ring afterward.

I washed and rinsed and washed again, taking advantage of the expensive looking conditioner I found. Then... I just scrubbed. The water took the bandages off my wrists, and made my cuts sting, but I just didn't care.

The conditioner was some damn nice stuff, making much less of a nightmare out of the comb-out than I'd been expecting. I made a note of the name, though I doubted I'd be able to afford it.

When I was done, I slipped the scrubs back on for the lack of other clothes, and went out to find Trowa patiently waiting for me with a lunch and a med-kit.

He gave me a quiet little smile and gestured toward the weird table and chairs set up in the corner of the room. Who puts kitchen furniture in a bedroom? 'I figured as long as you were in there that the dressing didn't survive.'

I reached for the kit, but he just rolled his eyes at me, pulling the second chair around so that we were sitting knee to knee. 'You don't have to do that,' I told him. 'I can get it after I eat.'

'Not like I haven't bandaged you before,' he said, his attention more on seeing the damage I'd done to myself for the first time, and it took a second before his own words caught up to him. It made a funny little melancholy look steal across his face, but I don't think he realized I noticed. I just sighed and stuck out the right hand, which was in the worse shape, and used the left to pick up the sandwich he'd brought me. It was a nice simple ham and cheese on that nifty bread he and Quatre had introduced me to. 'Not Mr. Bucket,' he smirked, 'but I hope it meets with approval?'

I had to finish chewing and swallowing the first bite before I could tell him it was fine. Though the ice cold bottle of Mt. Dew sitting next to the plate was giving me some severe twitches. I somehow doubted I'd be able to handle one of those for awhile.

It got kind of weirdly quiet after that while he worked and I ate, doing my best not to wolf the sandwich as fast as I had my apple and candy bar. There was something odd in the air that I couldn't quite figure out, but it was making Trowa work with a gentleness that was somewhat uncalled for. You'd have thought he was wrapping the hands of a newborn.

'Are you... ok?' I finally asked him, finding my voice wanting to drop down to match that mood.

He didn't even look up at me and it took him a moment and an audible breath to reply. 'Yeah,' he finally allowed, but he didn't sound very sure of himself.

'Tro?' I had to question, pushing at that hesitation just a bit. He put a last piece of tape in place, stopping to rub a hand over his eyes.

'Just been a long couple of days,' he said and after a moment held his hand out for my other wrist, making me switch my sandwich to the freshly bandaged hand.

'Uh... I'm sorry?' I offered, and he couldn't quite stop a burst of a laugh that staggered brokenly, before he got it shut down. He bent rather studiously back to work, leaving me staring at the top of his head.

Other people had trouble with that hysterical thing? Who knew?

'Hey...' I began, not even sure what I was going to say, but the worried tone made him sigh.

'We thought we'd lost you, little brother,' he told me quietly, hands not stopping in their wrapping, though they didn't seem entirely steady.

'Not lost,' I tried, probably a bit too desperate to keep things from getting too intense. 'just...'

'Just fearsome confused,' he finished the quote, but it just fell kind of flat and he offered up a chagrined little smile.

'I really am ok,' I assured him since he was actually meeting my eyes.

His smile grew a little and he sighed again. 'I know,' he finally admitted. 'It was just damn hard not being able to do anything.' The smile flared into something a little more real then. 'Helpless waiting has never been my strong point.'

That won him a bark of laughter from me and I had to deliver the 'Tell me about it!' line. His smile turned wry and he bent back to finish with my wrist.

I had just begun to wonder if he was going to say anything else at all when he slipped out a cautious, 'That had to have been... rough.'

It was simply stated, and obvious what he was referring to, but he managed to make it into a question all the same.

'Yeah,' I agreed, not sure I wanted to get into it, but I suppose I'd known since the telling in Quatre's office that he was going to get around to it sooner or later. 'I had a... moment.'

He paused what he was doing again, looking up to meet my eyes in one of those hard stares that makes me want to confess to eating the last Oreo. 'A moment?' he pressed.

I sighed, letting my own gaze drop down to look at where my arm rested in his hands, some of the damage still visible and I had to repress a shiver. 'I'm sure you can imagine,' I tried, but he just kept looking at me, not letting me get away with the evasion. 'I was pretty disoriented... at first,' I confessed. 'That temazepar stuff really messed with me for a long time. I've still not got the days all pieced back together.'

'TK7?' he asked, and I seemed to recall that number and nodded. 'It's a type of date-rape drug,' he explained. 'No damn wonder it hit you so fast; stuff is nasty and utterly tasteless.' He hadn't gone back to his bandaging, still looking at me intently and I was starting to feel squirmy. 'Disoriented?' he finally prompted and I had to bite back on a really heavy sigh of frustration. Between the two of us, all the sighing was getting to be ridiculous.

'Come on, man... it was fairly predictable. I pretty much had a full blown panic attack,' I could feel my face heating up and just bulled through it. 'When I first woke up, I was freaked out, but things didn't sound right and I... figured it out.'

He started to say something, but then didn't, taking pity on me and turning back to wrapping gauze. 'Figured it out?' he asked after a minute, and somehow managed to imply a whole lot of understanding in that question.

I snorted softly. 'Yeah... I remembered your damn breathing lessons.'

He glanced back up at me and we shared a look that didn't want to speak of a whole lot of crap on both sides. 'Glad I was some sort of damn help somewhere,' he finally chuckled, letting it go just as he put the last piece of tape in place.

'Didn't have your hands full enough around here?' I quipped, but it only made him deliver a derisive little snort.

'Hardly,' he said, sitting back now that he was done, the tape container still in his hands, and he began to turn it between his fingers.

'This place is locked down like Fort Knox,' I had to point out. 'Seems to me like there was plenty...' I petered out under his suddenly somewhat scornful look.

'Did you miss the forty man personal army?' he drawled, raising an eyebrow. 'Quatre hardly needs me to protect him.'

I couldn't help a grin and reached out with a bare foot to nudge him in the shin. 'Quatre Winner hardly needs that army to protect him either, if you'll remember.'

He grinned sheepishly and ducked his head. 'Yeah... I know. I'm sorry; just tired, I guess. It gets hard sometimes not being in a position to do anything.'

He stopped talking, that roll of tape turning around and around in his hands, a physical echo of the thoughts I could tell were going around and around in his head.

I stayed quiet and let him work it out.

'I wanted to be out helping find you,' he said at length, not looking at me. 'But I felt like my place was here. But...' and there he hesitated.

'But?' I prompted, knocking my knee against his and finally got him to look up at me again.

'I'm just so damn superfluous,' he blurted, and I swear a faint blush rose to his cheeks, and he snorted at his own melodrama, his gaze dropping back to the tape in his hands.

'Come on,' I chided. 'You're not here because of your awesome ninja skills, man... you're here because Quatre loves you.'

He got an affectionate little look then, but it was wistful all the same. 'I know. Sometimes it would just be nice to feel like... I had a use, you know?'

'Trowa?' I asked, rather shocked at him, and he just shook his head.

'I'm sorry,' he said again. 'I don't know what's got in to me today. Two days without sleep maybe. Just...'

But that was where we heard a pained little sound from across the room, and I never did get to find out 'just' what.

We both looked up, probably pretty damn guiltily, and there was Quatre in the doorway looking at Trowa like he'd just confessed to keeping a harem in the basement.

Oooops? It had never occurred to me that he would leave his... command central, to come and hunt for us.

Almost, I leaped into the middle of it, excuses rising to my lips, explanations... duck and cover. Back up a friend.

But then I really thought about it and decided that just maybe it was a thing that needed to come out between them. It was something Trowa had hinted at before, feelings of being over-whelmed, of losing himself in the Winner life-style. They'd made the commitment to make their relationship into something permanent, and maybe it was time for Trowa to come clean. I glanced back at him when the tape hit the floor and rolled away, finding a look that was mostly apprehensive.

'Quatre?' he ventured, but Quatre was already gone. 'Shit,' was the next thing out of his mouth and I thought he was going to knock the chair over getting up. I reached out and grabbed his sleeve and he froze, though I'd half expected him to just jerk free. Having just changed my bandages, maybe he was just leery of hurting me.

'You know he's not leaving the house,' I told him. 'Count to ten, then go find him. Just... talk to him instead of making excuses.'

There was a look in his eyes that was a mix of fear and resignation, but I think there might have been some relief there too. I let go of his arm and stood up, reaching out to snag the chain around his neck, pulling the wedding ring out of his shirt and leaving it hanging in plain sight. He smiled at me and some of the fear went out of his expression.

'Yeah,' was all he said, his fingers reaching to touch the ring almost reverently.

'Go on,' I told him. 'I've got to braid my hair and crap anyway.'

He took a breath that seemed to be of the girding variety but took a moment to hook me into a hug. 'I'm glad to have you back, just... don't do anything like that again, ok?'

'I'll do my best,' I returned, letting him cloak the depth of his emotion in the teasing. He gave me a last squeeze and then he was gone.

It sort of left me in the lurch though; unless I decided to go patrol the grounds with the Maganacs, because I sure as hell wanted to stay as far away from that conversation as I could get. I did end up braiding my hair after I finished up my lunch, opting for a glass of water from the bathroom rather than touching the soda though. Then I paced for awhile. Then I watched the dogs from the bedroom window for awhile. And in the end, I just threw myself down on the bed, only expecting to wait until one of them came to tell me it was safe to come out... and somehow managed to fall asleep again.

When I woke, it was obviously hours later, which somehow surprised me... and somehow didn't. It was noticeably later in the day, but not dark yet, and the moment my senses swam back to the surface, I was aware of a presence. I lifted my head to find it, expecting to see Quatre sitting at the table, or Trowa finally bringing me real clothes, or maybe dinner, as late as it seemed to be. I was not expecting to see my lover standing just inside the door, his back pressed to the wall, and his arms wrapped around his own middle, staring at me like... like he'd almost lost me.

'Heero?' I said, sitting up, a little surprised that he didn't immediately move.

I heard him take a breath, almost like he'd been... holding it. And his voice, when he finally spoke, was... tight.

'Is there... time for me now?' he whispered and I was a little surprised at the spark of bitterness that wanted to flare into something more in my gut. I ignored it, recognizing the source, and set aside all the jokes and quips that wanted to rise to my lips, just climbing out of bed and opening my arms.

He came across the room in a rush then, like some hold on him had been released, snatching me up close, and it made me wonder how long he'd been standing there watching me sleep.

In his arms, things inside me that I hadn't even known had teeth in me... just let go.

'I didn't want to leave you,' he told me, all strangle voiced.

'I know,' I soothed. 'I know. It's all right. We were fine. Everything is fine now.' And it was, now that he was with me. They were just words, I suppose, but in that moment, I said them because they were true all the way down to my soul. The house could have caught fire, or been swallowed by a sink hole, and I wouldn't have cared.

'I left you...' he said, his voice breaking completely. 'Dear God... I left you lying on top of... of...'

'Hush,' I chided. 'You didn't know. Hell, I didn't know. It doesn't matter... we were well away. We weren't even hurt. Doesn't matter...'

He just held me then, not arguing, not agreeing, just... holding on. He hid himself in me; it's how he grieves. It had taken me a long time to figure it out, but somewhere inside, Heero has his own inner child, and deep down where he lives... he was weeping brokenly.

'I'm ok,' I crooned to that child. 'I'm fine, they didn't really hurt me. Wufei helped me get loose and we completely left the house. He's fine too, Sally is with him. It's all right baby, I'm here now...'

He just soaked it in for awhile before managing, 'It killed me to leave you like that.'

'I know,' I told him. 'But we did what we had to.' He finally drew back to look at me and I smiled gently for him. 'Hell... you look worse than I do.'

He couldn't manage the laugh, just looking at me like he was trying to memorize my face. I stroked his hair from his eyes with a knuckle and wondered if he'd slept at all since the morning I'd disappeared. I pulled him down to sit on the side of the bed, turning sideways to keep him wrapped up in my arms. He rested his head in the crook of my neck and sighed heavily.

'Is Relena ok?' I had to ask; not at all sure he'd have told me if something had gone wrong.

He nodded and I wasn't sure at first that he was going to elaborate, but he confirmed the gesture with a, 'Yeah. I got through when I got down out of the hills. We relocated both Relena and Zechs immediately.'

'Zechs?' I parroted, staring at the wall over his head. 'Damn, I didn't even think of him; in my head he's Merquise!' It gave me a cold chill realizing that I'd not even told Heero exactly what I'd over-heard, but had only given him my own interpretation. I almost asked him what had made him make that judgment, but hell... it's the man's job, I shouldn't be surprised he's good at it. So instead I asked the next logical question. 'Did you catch them?'

'We don't have the whole faction yet, but we have the man on the surveillance tape from the deli and the one you sketched. It's only a matter of time.'

Speaking of the case, his voice had steadied, but I still found myself stroking my hand through his hair wanting to sooth and comfort. 'I saw at least one other, just not well enough to identify.'

'I know,' he said, voice weirdly thick. 'I had them read me your report over the phone as soon as it was in.'

I couldn't help a snort of a laugh. 'Isn't that against protocol?'

'Dunno,' he muttered. 'Nobody was going to tell me no.'

I realized I was starting to bear a bit more of his weight than I had been, and when I shifted back, pulling me with him... he came without protest. When I had us laid down with him tucked in against my side, I kissed the top of his head and told him, 'I am so very sorry I let that happen; I won't be that careless again.'

His arm tightened around my chest and he sighed, trying to tell me something that ended up being just too complex for his brain to process. All I got was something about soldiers and his fault. I would have argued, but he'd already crashed.

It occurred to me only vaguely, that maybe I should be worried about what he was supposed to be doing as far as his job was concerned. But I knew Heero well enough to know that, exhausted or not, he would not be where he was if there was something waiting for his attention. There was a tiny voice inside that wanted to be petulant about my coming dead last on the list of things that needed to be done, but my logic over-ruled it quite handily; sometimes shit just happens. I wasn't last by his choice; I was last by necessity. I could see in the haggard look in his eyes, where his heart had been while the rest of him had been doing his duty. It was enough to know that.

I lay awake for hours, stroking his hair and making sure he stayed on the narrow bed with me. I'd been napping half the afternoon, and was far from sleepy, but as early evening wore into evening, then into night, I eventually began to doze myself. In the end, I must have fallen completely asleep, because morning found our positions reversed and I woke with my head pillowed on his chest, and his fingers trying to tame the flyaway hairs at my temple.

I lifted my head and met his eyes and knew that my Heero was back in charge. His inner child is a tougher little shit than my own.

'Morning,' I smiled and instead of answering, he cupped my cheek and brought me up for a kiss that was hungry and needy in a way that somehow wasn't at all physical. Hell, tossing a leg over him to gain enough leverage to rise up and meet that need, proved he wasn't even aroused.

I drew away to study his face, brushing the hair from his eyes with the back of my hand. 'You look better,' I told him.

'I feel better,' he replied, the hand drawing little circles in the small of my back telling me that was as much because of me, as him getting a decent night's sleep. Leaning down, I kissed him again, and he sighed into it. 'I am so sorry, love.'

'What the hell for?' I had to ask; I'd thought we'd gotten past his leaving us behind, the night before.

'Getting you into this?' he replied, lifting a hand to trace his finger tips over my cheek, stroking a wisp of hair behind my ear. 'They targeted you because of me. Because of who I am.'

'Technically,' I grinned. 'It was because of Relena... or Zechs, I suppose, depending on how that all works out. But you sure as hell don't need to apologize to me because of what some psychos decided to do.'

'But if...' he began, and I cut him off with another kiss.

'Not your fault.'

'Duo...' he grumbled, and I leaned in again.

'Shut up, Yuy; not your fault.'

It was a little longer before I let him try to speak again.

'I love you,' is what he blurted when I did, and I grinned down at him.

'Much better,' I praised and finally got a smile out of him, though it seemed kind of wan, like he was still tired. 'Are you ok?' I had to ask that look, and his smile went all warm.

'I am now,' he said, and hugged me close.

'Such a sap,' I teased, and squeezed him tight in return.

We probably would have continued to trade endearments but the mood was pretty well shot when Trowa suddenly asked from somewhere in the vicinity of the doorway, 'You two want to come down for breakfast, or should I just close the door?'

We both jumped a damn foot in the air. Son of a bitch laughed all the way down the hall.

So we climbed out of bed and cleaned up the best we could, both of us obviously, looking like we'd slept in our clothes. Or borrowed scrubs... I couldn't quite think of my aqua pajamas as 'clothes'. And to be honest, I was a little miffed that nobody had yet to think to offer to loan me anything else. Quatre and I are pretty much the same size, and surely the guy had something lying around that hadn't cost him the equivalent of one of my paychecks.

Heero was staying about as close to me as he could get without just picking me up and carrying me everywhere we went. It was in me to object, but I couldn't quite figure out if it was for his sake or mine, so I let it go, figuring he'd work it out of his system eventually either way. There was just no way I could remember the mess he'd been in my arms the previous night and seriously consider reprimanding him over anything. I'm a sucker for kids even when they're merely the psychological manifestation of the way my thinking catalogs feelings.

The smells of breakfast had my stomach calling out like a love sick moose before we hit the bottom of the staircase, and I wondered if I would ever get over feeling like I could happily eat said moose all on my own with nothing more than a bottle of ketchup and a fork. I would have been embarrassed at the noises I was making, if Heero's stomach hadn't chimed in too. It almost made me laugh, until I stopped to realize just what a rotten job he'd been doing the last few days of taking care of himself. I reached out and took his hand and he led me into the dining room that way. I wasn't too uncomfortable about it, since it was just us and the guys anyway.

As usual, there were a variety of foods that would have put an all you can eat buffet to shame, but for the first time I could remember, I wasn't really all that bothered by the overindulgence. There were places set for us, and I let Heero steer me into the seat that had me between him and Quatre, I wondered if it was some sort of deliberate protective move, or if I was just being hyper sensitive. Suppose it didn't matter, both places had a plate and a fork and that's really all I cared about at that moment.

I had already dished up bacon, eggs, fruit and toast and was slathering jelly on my toast when I suddenly realized that the conversation had lagged after the standard 'good morning' stuff. It made me remember the 'ooops' thing from the evening before and I glanced between Trowa and Quatre, trying to determine if they'd worked things out or not. Trowa seemed ok, if a bit quiet, but Quatre just seemed uncomfortable as all hell.

I suppose if things had gone really badly between them, they wouldn't have both been sitting there at the breakfast table, but that was really nothing more than an assumption, and you know what they say about assumptions. I took a bite of my toast, looking for clues while trying not to look like I was staring at them.

About gave myself a heart attack when I noticed that a certain chain was missing from around Trowa's neck. Until he reached for his orange juice and I realized that the ring had just been relocated. I happened to catch his eye then, and he smiled crookedly before turning his attention back to his eggs.

So... we were not sitting in the middle of a lover's spat. I glanced at Quatre again and could tell the quiet was just his embarrassment over the incident. I watched him dissect a strawberry with his knife and fork with a precision usually reserved for diamond cutting, and laughed at him to cover the stupid grin when I saw the matching ring on his hand.

'Oh come on, Winner,' I mocked, lifting a strawberry from my plate and taking a bite. 'Strawberries are a finger food! Pick it up... I dare you!'

He blinked at me for a moment, managing to look sheepish and embarrassed and relieved all at once. 'Uncouth lout,' he grumbled good-naturedly.

'Finicky.' I teased back, and waved my half eaten strawberry at him before popping the rest in my mouth. He huffed at me, seeming to relax, his attention leaving the boundaries of his plate at least.

'Heero,' he ventured. 'I'm sorry I missed you last night.'

My partner made a dry sound that was kind of a place holder for amusement and glanced down the table Quatre's way. 'I pretty much missed everybody last night.' And though he didn't seem very repentant, he tacked on a little, 'Sorry.'

Trowa snorted and I glanced across at him. The look on his face made me imagine Heero blasting through the house like a man on a mission from God, and I felt a smile cross my own face that was probably pretty damn goofy. I turned my attention to my bacon, sparing a glance Quatre's way to see if he tried to eat that with a fork too, but didn't find any on his plate at all. It will remain one of the world's mysteries, I suppose.

I was just trying to decide if it would be rude to ask to leave before we even finished breakfast, when Abdul did that Maganac thing and appeared at Quatre's elbow. He leaned down and spoke softly for several moments, whatever he was saying keeping Quatre's rapt attention. If he was looking at any of the rest of us, you couldn't tell through the damn sunglasses the guy never seemed to be without.

'Excellent,' Quatre said when he was done, and Abdul bowed himself out. I couldn't help giving him a little waggle of my fingers and the guy grinned and gave me a thumbs up before he left the room.

'What is excellent, Quatre?' Heero asked, having wolfed down the contents of his plate in record time, and was still eying the fruit and muffins like he was considering going back for more.

'Your house is clear,' Quatre informed him, dissecting another piece of fruit with a delicacy that I suspected was purely for my benefit.

'Report?' Heero asked, while I tried to figure out which of them to gape at.

'My men took in scanners and dogs, and swept the place from top to bottom,' Quatre said around a bite of strawberry. 'Nothing out of place, though you've got something of a squirrel problem in the attic and a possum living in your shed. The Preventers canvassed the neighborhood and found no reports of suspicious activity or strangers. We cleared your vehicles as well.'

Heero was making sounds that were approving, and I suppose on some level I was approving too, but I had another couple of levels that were thinking about... not strangers, but you know what I mean... digging through my underwear drawer and harassing my neighbors. 'What?' I couldn't help ask. 'Dogs? Canvassed?'

'Don't worry,' Trowa grinned across at me. 'Coquette was not involved.'

'Har,' I deadpanned. 'Funny, asshole. What the hell did they tell our neighbors?'

For some reason, that made Quatre get a funny little smirk and he waved his fork in my general direction. 'Don't worry, I don't think any of your neighbors were all that traumatized... between the Preventer agents and my men, the little girl down the street managed to sell twenty boxes of Girl Scout cookies.'

'Oh God,' I groaned, imagining extras from Men in Black standing on Ruthie's front porch, that little mop of a dog barking its fool head off, while her mother answered questions and wondered if the new semi-celebrity addition to the neighborhood was such a hot idea or not. Cookie sales, not withstanding.

Heero was suddenly rubbing soothing circles in the middle of my back, his breakfast forgotten. 'Duo? What is it?'

I turned to give him the disbelieving raised eyebrow look, finding his own expression a little more upset than the situation warranted, though it made it kind of confusing about why he was questioning me. If he got the upset... why was he questioning my upset? The man, sometimes, is damn hard to read.

'You are totally not getting the rumor mill aspects of this whole thing, are you?' I asked with a sigh. 'Our whole neighborhood just got grilled by professional movie extras. We're either going to have a rash of hate mail, or every Tom, Dick, and Tikemeyer is going to be finding an excuse to ring our doorbell to see if they can get a clue what's going on.'

The hand rubbing my back hesitated and Heero managed to look vaguely confused, he opened his mouth to reply, but then seemed to think better of it. I rolled my eyes in disgust.

'You know,' I had to tell him. 'For a detective type of guy, sometimes you really just don't think things through, Heero. What do you think the neighbors thought that was all about? A background check for a job interview? Popularity poll? Practical joke?'

Trowa chuckled at me and I glanced away from Heero and found Trowa and Quatre looking at me funny too. Trowa kind of smug, and Quatre kind of... weirdly warm. Affectionate? I suddenly didn't want to know. I turned back to Heero and his confusion was lifting, but his new expression wasn't any easier to understand, but it weirdly echoed Quatre's. I've over-used that word, haven't I? But weird is the only thing I can say to describe that moment. They were just being... weird. I thought Quatre was going to hug me, and I didn't even know why. I decided to finish my bacon and worry about it later.

'So does that mean we can go home now?' I ventured, deciding to take the news in the best light. 'Or,' I suddenly hesitated. 'It's Thursday, isn't it? Shouldn't we be going to work?'

Trowa laughed right the hell out loud, pushing his plate away and giving up on breakfast entirely. 'I'm pretty sure getting kidnapped gets you a day or two off work,' he said.

'You don't know my boss,' I replied. 'He'll just want to know why I didn't come in for half a day, since I was... unkidnapped yesterday morning.'

I was going to have to come up with a better word before I did go back to work though; kidnapped sounded so... Victorian. Abducted? Somehow that just implied aliens. I'd have to work on it.

'Griff has been kept... apprised,' Heero interjected quietly. 'You don't have to go back to work until you're ready.'

'I wouldn't mind blowing off the rest of today at least,' I had to admit. 'Kind of want to go down to the infirmary and check on Wufei and Sally. Though I want to go home for some damn clothes first.'

Whatever had been bugging Heero seemed to wash away and he let a smile overtake him. 'I think I'd like to go home too.'

'Great!' I quipped, pushing away from the table 'Let's blow this pop stand!'

'Pop stand?' Quatre asked, trying to decide if he'd just been insulted or not. I laughed at him, stopping to tousle his hair, then on impulse leaned down to give him a teasing, sloppy kiss on the cheek.

'It's an expression, baby brother, don't get your knickers in a wad,' I said, meaning to breeze by and make that my exit, but he suddenly had an arm tossed awkwardly around my shoulders and I was left little choice but to stop. It was an attempt at that hug I'd felt coming on, and it was accompanied by a weird... there's that word again... little hitch in his breath.

'Hey,' I soothed, squatting down by his chair where I could get a better idea of what was going on. I think I got it when I got a good look at his face. 'I'm ok,' I told him gently and he gave me this watery little smile.

'You really are, aren't you?' he asked, but it wasn't really a question and he didn't wait for an answer, just took the opportunity offered by my new position and gave me a real hug.

It was a... peculiar moment that left me feeling, all the way out of the mansion, like I'd missed something, but I never did figure out what. I guess the week had been as rough on him as it had been on the rest of us, even if he'd had the resources to make things happen instead of having to just twiddle his thumbs and wait.

And for the record, he did finally think to offer me some clothes, but by that time we were on our way home anyway, and I was less than a half an hour from my own wardrobe and it just seemed... kind of pointless. So I left the Winner mansion the same way I came in... shoeless and in my spiffy aqua jammies.

And I'm pretty sure it was only my imagination that made me see curtains moving aside and people peeking out of every house within five blocks of our own, but I'm not positive.

I was surprised to see my own car parked out front... Quatre and 'the boys' really had thought of everything. Oddly, it was that small touch that really made me feel... not 'all right' about the whole thing, but more like the invasion of our home was something thoughtful from a friend and less like something that made me want to squirm.

It was such a relief to walk through our own front door, that I even ignored the shiny new key Heero had to use to do it. There was a new access code for the alarm system too, which just seemed like over-kill to me; not like I'd had the old one written down in my wallet or something. It had never been compromised anyway. But I suppose I couldn't blame anybody for being thorough.

Never mind how it kind of made me feel like... a civilian. That's not quite right, but you know what I mean? Like... if it had been any of the other guys, they'd have never fallen for that lame ass bait and switch with the soda bottle? The whole episode just made me feel... soft. Like I'd lost some edge. It just wasn't an edge I'd missed before then. Not like I ever wanted to feel like a 'soldier' again, but I guess I just didn't much like the idea of feeling like a liability either.

Quatre's men had been as discreet as possible while still being their meticulous selves; the house didn't look ransacked at all, but there was just a vague air of... wrongness about the place. I'll admit, if I hadn't known they'd been there, it would have taken me a bit before I noticed. But things were just oh so slightly not how we left them. A picture sitting more to the left than normal. A book that had been left on the coffee table face down, was face up. Couch cushions ever so slightly out of kilter, obviously having been lifted and checked under.

I wandered into our little dining room, automatically reaching out to shift a chair back into place, Heero trailing after me. 'It's creepy,' I said unnecessarily.

'I know,' Heero replied, and he sounded almost... guilty. I kept walking, going into the kitchen, kind of wishing I hadn't said anything.

When we came up beside the phone, the light on the answering machine was blinking and I paused to check the display that registered one message waiting to be played. I punched the button and listened to the automated voice tell me it had come in Monday afternoon.

'Duo...' Heero muttered, but his tinny, recorded voice had already started to play.

'Duo? Duo if you're there, please pick up,' it said, and it was a jolt to hear his voice all tight and contained, an edge of panic in it. 'God, please be there...' that voice continued, sounding almost like it was talking to itself, and that was when Heero reached around me and hit the delete button.

'Sorry,' he muttered sheepishly, and I turned to lean my head against his.

'I'm sorry I put you through that,' I told him gently and he slipped his arms around my waist, sighing softly.

He hesitated for a moment, picking his way through all the faults and sorrys and regrets to settle on, 'I'm just glad you're all right.'

It made me grin. 'Me too,' I agreed, and managed to keep it to that, cutting off all the one-liners that sprang to mind about smithereened and moldering bones. I've learned that Heero just doesn't quite get that level of my sense of humor.

We separated and continued the walk through the house, having to take stock ourselves, and just verify that there weren't any spooks hiding behind any doors or anything. Not that we didn't have faith in Abdul and his boys, but... it just helped settle nerves.

The tour ended in our bedroom where I stripped out of the damn scrubs, dumping them in the dirty clothes basket even though I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. I wondered if I ought to return them to the hospital and started to ask Heero's opinion, but was stopped when I turned that way and he caught hold of my hand. His touch was light, gentle in a way that said 'careful', and I realized he was taking inventory of all the little hurts. The wrappings on my wrists made them painfully obvious, but the bruising on my ankles and the various other bumps and scrapes had been hidden before then. The place where I'd ripped out the IV was, oddly, the most shocking looking and surprised us both; it had darkened overnight.

'You're really all right?' he asked me, and I smiled, slipping my arms around his neck, incidentally hiding most of the damage from him.

'Fine,' I assured him, and he kissed me lightly since I was right there in his face anyway. 'Humiliated, as much as anything,' I confessed, trying a bit of teasing, just to see if he was ready, but he didn't rise to the bait, just sliding his arms around me, pulling me in close and moving us across the room. The naked/not naked thing was making me feel a little weird, but before I could do anything about his state of over-dress, he had us tumbled down on the bed and it was obvious he wasn't really thinking amorous thoughts anyway. In typical Heero fashion... he was after the details.

For the next hour, he pulled at me with questions, and I rather surprised myself with a sudden need to clear some of it out of my head. I had thought I just wanted to forget about the whole bloody thing, but I found myself telling him all the damning little bits, skipping only the parts that involved ghosts and chain mail and other things that go bump in the night. We started out with me lying between his thighs, my head propped on my arms folding across the middle of his chest, hands relatively free to gesture as needed, but somehow, when we got to the cold and scary, 'oh shit' parts, I found myself lying under him, as though he could hide me away from it all. And I could see in his eyes that he got all the levels of that 'scary', just like Trowa had. It bothered me a little bit, almost like he could see those moments where I'd given in to the panic. But he somehow made a haven out of nothing but the two of us, wrapped up together. This web of safety and warmth that drew whispered confessions from me until it was all spilled out for him to see. Almost all. I didn't confess that the ghost of my dead brother had kept me company, I didn't confess that I sometimes saw motivational rodents. And I didn't confess to being so far gone that I'd cried.

He's seen it all from me, since that accident in the belt, so he knows all the holes in my dignity, but some things... you aren't required by law to share.

When he ran out of questions, and I ran out of story, I wasn't much surprised to find that there was room in my head to think about our position. To think about how, if those damn pants of his weren't where they were, that I would only have to tilt my hips just so, and he was right where he needed to be. It was a realization that came fast and hot, and had me hard in a moment. I pulled my legs up, wrapping around him, the denim of his jeans rough under my heels, rougher against other things, tilting to meet him anyway, even though clothes were in the way of it. It made him hiss after a lost breath and his body thrust helplessly against mine, utterly uncaring of barriers and obstructions. I tugged vainly at his shirt, wanting the touch of skin, wanting to not be the only naked man in our bed any more. Heero pulled away, rising up to pull his shirt off, his gaze raking over me in an entirely different way than he'd been looking at me earlier. His shirt tossed off to the side, his hands dropped down and tugged the button free on his jeans and that was the exact instant that his cell phone began to ring.

I had this bizarre moment of incomprehension, my brain somehow convinced that button popping free was what had caused the sound.

We froze, the moment utterly shattered. We were both familiar with his ring codes enough that he didn't need to tell me, but he did anyway, voice a melting pot of frustration, exasperation, and resignation. 'It's Relena.'

'You need to answer it,' I told him, and managed a wry little smile that made him able to pull the phone out of his pocket and not bite the poor girl's head off.

'Yuy,' he said into the receiver, managing to only sound tired and not angry with her. For a long moment, his attention was still on me, even while he listened, his eyes full of regret. But I could hear the vague upset in the voice coming over the phone and his focus shifted reluctantly away.

'Wait, Relena,' he said after a moment, and he lifted his head to look up at the ceiling and I'm not sure if he was asking for patience from the higher powers, or just needed to not be looking at my naked self all sprawled out under him in order to concentrate. On another day, I'd have probably nibbled on his bicep or something; just to see if he could keep his focus, but... well... it just hadn't been that kind of week. 'Just where are you?' he finally asked, and the explanation he got was long winded and made him sit back on his heels.

I gathered myself, feeling weirdly vulnerable all of a sudden, and sat up beside him, dragging a pillow over into my lap. I couldn't hear much, but the sound of her voice was obviously not happy. I caught something about the Preventers and something about Zechs, though she called him Milliardo.

After a few minutes Heero cut her off. 'Ok Relena, calm down. Let me make some calls and I'll be there as soon as I can.'

'We,' I muttered, and he either didn't hear me, or wasn't inclined to argue. I went ahead and got up to fetch clothes just in case he tried to ditch me with the whole 'naked' thing as an excuse, and got dressed while he finished the call.

When he snapped the phone closed it was with a heavy sigh that was more... tired sounding than truly worried.

'What's up?' I asked when he didn't immediately tell me anything, and I got another one of those sighs that seemed to radiate up all the way from the soles of his feet.

'Sometimes,' he said slowly. 'I think there are just a few too many groups around here with their hands in the security pot.'

I sat down beside him on the bed, snagging his shirt on the way and handed it to him before bending to put on my shoes and socks. 'Bodyguard competitiveness?' I prompted and he let out a little snort of a sound.

'I'm not even sure,' he said, rubbing a hand over his face. 'Preventers had both Relena and Zechs secure, but she says they're moving back into the estate and she's not even sure who authorized it. But Zechs is on-board a hundred percent, so she claims nobody is listening to her objections.'

'That... seems unlikely,' I ventured, trying to imagine the Queen of Allshesurveys being ignored by anybody.

'Unfortunately,' Heero grumbled. 'She tends not to really voice her objections when Zechs is involved.'

'So...uh,' I hesitated on the wording, not wanting to offend, but having a bit of trouble getting my head around the part where, 'we're going back out to mediate a case of sibling rivalry?'

I got a laugh out of him and he finally stopped fiddling with his shirt and pulled it back on. 'Yeah,' he had to agree. 'I guess that's about the size of it.' Once his shirt was on though, we just kept sitting there and I turned slightly to look at him.

He gave me a drawn little smile that was about midway between miserable and sheepish. 'God, I'm so sorry...'

I leaned in and dropped a kiss somewhere near the corner of his mouth. 'There will be time later, husband-mine.'

It made him smile in a way that was all warm and soft, and he leaned into my arms for a long moment that was pure indulgence on his part. He doesn't allow himself many of those moments, so I just held him until he made the move to pull away.

'Come on, Sancho,' I grinned then. 'Let's go tilt at the windmill for the lady.'

He just snorted, but climbed to his feet and pulled me to mine. 'I...' he began, and gave my hand a squeeze. 'You don't have to go, but I...'

I spared him the search for phrasing. 'Try and stop me.' I think he was relieved, at the same time that he managed to look guilty. I suppose it was a toss up between him wanting to keep an eye on me, and not wanting to drag me back across the city.

All my stuff was still in some evidence bag somewhere, but Quatre had anticipated that and Heero had a second set of the new house keys that he handed over to me when we stopped on the way out for him to teach me the new alarm code.

Heero used the drive over to place various calls to various folks in charge of various phases of security. Uttering various curses when he was done.

'Not part of the master plan?' I had to prompt and he let out a rather explosive snort of derision.

'Politics,' he grumbled, sounding like the word tasted bad. 'The Sanq counsel is concerned about... appearances. The colony heads are pushing to finish out the summit. Une is... hedging her bets. She seems to privately agree that the danger is over, but publicly she's opposed.'

'Is that what's feeding Relena's...' I searched for a more polite term, but couldn't find one, so I just tried to make it sound teasing, 'hysterics?'

I sensed the side-long glance, but didn't look across to meet it, so I was able to ignore it. 'Probably,' he finally admitted, letting my wording go.

'And what do you think?' I asked, his being the pertinent opinion, if you asked me.

He didn't answer immediately, mulling it over before admitting, 'I'm not sure I can be... clinical on this one.' I did turn his way then, but he was the one studiously not looking. Even in profile, I could plainly see an expression best described as pained. I reached out to rest my hand on his thigh, the look eased, and he sighed. 'They're... amateur. Their plan was flawed, the execution was mistimed, and they were cocky. We identified and captured the first one within the first twenty-four hours. We had the second one not long after we had your sketch. They folded under questioning pretty quickly after that, and it's just been mop up.'

'So,' I had to ask, 'just what the hell is their agenda, anyway? Do we know?'

He snorted, a sound that held a little bit of disbelief. 'They call themselves the Sons of Adam... the 'planet's care-takers'. They're an animal rights group protesting the exporting of wildlife to the colonies.'

I felt a little bit of that disbelief myself. 'You're shitting me, right?' I blurted, even knowing that Heero doesn't joke like that. 'Are you saying they targeted me because of that stupid export job?'

'Seems to have been incidental,' he said, his hands working at the wheel as though he were thinking about getting to squeeze somebody's throat. 'They went after you to distract Wufei and me; you were right about that part. The plan was to kidnap Relena to leverage through boycotts on exports.' He worked at a few more things, lips parting on words that died still-born more than once before settling on, 'Damn bunch of idiots.'

'The zealots usually are,' I agreed simply, and let it go so he had time to calm down because we were almost at our destination. I hate when bad people get hold of good causes. Or at least... reasonable causes. Doesn't really matter if you have a valid point, once you try to kill somebody to make it.

Since we were getting close, I pulled out my gloves and began putting them on, and got the expected little sigh of protest from my partner.

'Heero, we've been over it,' I chided. 'You know how she feels.'

'I know,' he had to admit and made himself stop, though I could hear the objections he was biting back on in his tone. I flexed my hands as I worked the fingerless gloves in place, oddly struck by how uncomfortable I found them. I tried to remember the last time I'd worn them, and decided it had probably been at the gallery opening. It rather surprised me that it had been that long... it had actually taken me a moment to find the things, back at the house.

We drove in silence for a bit before he finally spoke again, going back to the original question. 'I'm pretty sure the whole thing is over, I guess it just makes me feel like I'm being cocky to admit that.'

I chuckled at him. 'You know... deep down you don't believe there's any more danger, or I wouldn't be along for the ride.'

I could tell the statement gave him pause and when he smiled at me, it was a little shamefaced. 'I guess you're right,' he admitted, and he did seem to relax at bit.

'We'll go in, pat the Princess's pretty little hand, you do your security Nazi thing, and then we'll drive through Mr. Bucket for lunch.'

I finally got a real laugh out of him, though I wasn't sure for which part. 'What?' he had to ask. 'Mr. Bucket again so soon?'

'It's been... days,' I hedged, not even sure. 'And I've had a damn craving for a chicken sandwich that nobody will indulge.'

He just shook his head. 'Sounds like a plan, just...'

'I know,' I sighed. 'No calling her Princess to her face.'

'Actually,' he drawled, quirking a grin that was a touch self-deprecating. 'I was going to tell you not to mention where we're eating unless you want a lecture on cholesterol.'

It was my turn to laugh, so I did... though the image of Relena lecturing us about our diet was just kind of creepy.

Relena's place... the Darlien place, I suppose you'd call it, was just as shiny and crystalline as I remembered... and the site of total chaos.

There were Preventers at the gate and household security at the door. Servants carting belongings in, orders being issued and countermanded... two minutes inside the place and I was overcome with this overwhelming urge to laugh right the hell out loud.

Off in a corner of my mind a troupe of little performing hamsters were reenacting the scene with a Three Stooges bent, pointing and gesturing wildly, plowing into each other and falling on their asses. I bit my cheek and just tried to look... attentive.

We were approached by a frazzled looking guy in a black suit that just screamed 'Security!' who seemed relieved to see Heero making an appearance. He was wearing a spiffy ear piece and he handed one over to Heero without being prompted. I opened my mouth to make some crack about him always getting to play with the cool tech stuff, when the guy handed one to me too.

I grinned and accepted it before Heero had a chance to set the man straight. Guess the guy was used to seeing Heero with a partner and assumed I was the replacement until Wufei got out of the infirmary. I imagined he'd be hearing about it at some point.

'Come on man,' I grinned when the guy had moved off to question some maid about the contents of a bag she was carrying in. 'I promise I won't sing dirty pub songs or anything... I just want to hear you work.'

He snorted at me, putting his own unit in place. 'You'll be sorry... it's like having a half a dozen bees yammering in your ear for attention.'

'Just because you get to play with the neat toys all the time...' I began, but could tell he was already tuning into the radio chatter. I looked my own ear piece over, finding the volume control and making sure the 'talk' part was muted so I wouldn't be broadcasting my snarky comments to the room at large, then slipped it on.

I was immediately assaulted by a cacophony of the same voices that were all around us, and I winced, turning the volume down. Heero smirked at me.

'...has the kitchen been cleared for...'

'...Browder, report to the third floor lounge...'

'...I need somebody out at the front to relieve...'

'...Merquise? Your wife is on the land line...'

I think that last one was the last straw, and Heero reached up to press his own 'talk' button. 'Ok people; cut the chatter. The radio is reserved for security issues.'

There was an immediate cease of all talk, like a room full of kids who got caught by Daddy with their hand in the cookie jar.

It made me wonder... do you eat Girl Scout cookies out of the package? Because we didn't own a cookie jar. I started to ask, but then decided I might just strip Heero's mental gears, and the poor guy acted like he'd been running full throttle for days, and probably didn't need the distraction.

The radio silence lasted all of about fifteen seconds, until somebody figured out the voice of authority belonged to Heero... excuse me; Agent Yuy, and then the demands for attention started.

Heero brought a hand to the small of my back, herding me with him through the foyer while he fielded questions and gave directives, sparing me an apologetic little smile.

I think it was about then that Relena spotted us. It was a weird kind of moment; Relena Darlien-Peacecraft... Peacecraft-Darlien? has been through a lot in her life, I suppose. The loss of her family when she was so young that most of it was lost to vague sparks of toddler memory. Hell, from what Heero has told me, she didn't even know she was a Peacecraft until the first war, when her adoptive father was killed. But through it all, she'd been raised to be a diplomat. Raised to live in the public eye as part of being a member of an influential family. The girl knows how to do poised. She knows how to do grace and manner.

But when we heard her voice calling Heero's name in relieved greeting, and turned toward that grand staircase to see her on the bottom step, I was struck not by her comportment, but by the look in her eyes.

Do we all have an inner child? Am I not the only person in the world who has a little kid living in their head that sometimes just wants a cookie?

I recalled a conversation during a certain trip to L2 about reliance and trust. About leaning on people. The little kid in Relena's head was running across that foyer and throwing herself into Heero's arms.

Adult Relena managed to keep it to a brisk walk and a brief hand-clasp.

Surprised the hell out of me though, when her first words were to me.

'Duo!' she had to ask, all wide-eyed. 'Are you all right? Should you be out?'

It made me chuckle, though a second's thought left me wanting to cringe at the realization that the whole household probably knew what had happened to me.

I'd give a lot to be able to go just a couple of days without being the topic of all the water cooler conversations in the whole damn city.

'I'm fine,' I assured her, ignoring the presence of the bandages around my wrists, though I could see her looking at them and wondering. I wasn't sure if it was squeamishness or breeding that kept her from asking. I felt like I ought to say something more, it somehow felt terse, but nothing much was coming to mind. But then she was overtaken with this guilty expression and suddenly didn't seem to know which of us to turn to.

'I'm so sorry I bothered you,' she told one of us, or both of us, I couldn't tell. 'But Milliardo and Lady Une just... well, sometimes they just don't seem to...'

Whatever they didn't seem to, there must not have been a politically correct way of wording it, because she just petered out and looked imploringly at Heero, seeming to ask him to understand. And he did, because he let out with a snort of almost disgust and all but rolled his eyes.

'Rivals to the end,' he muttered and she blushed lightly, but nodded. I had a feeling I was missing a whole hell of a lot, but decided it didn't really matter. The gist was, they didn't get along, and that was probably enough knowledge to follow the conversation. Relieved of explaining herself, Relena went on.

'When we began to relocate, barely twenty-four hours after the evacuation, I couldn't help but think it was...' she hesitated, and gave a quick glance around, looking for Zechs, I presumed, or maybe making sure none of the scurrying employees were within earshot, 'just Milliardo wanting to go against Preventers orders.'

I kind of decided in that moment, that it was probably a good thing Relena and Zechs didn't normally live under the same roof. Heero dropped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. 'He has his pig-headed moments,' he agreed, 'but he'd never endanger you, just to irritate Une.'

She gave him a wan little smile and allowed the little kid to lean into the hug. 'I know,' she admitted, somewhat grudgingly, from the tone. 'It just all happened so fast, and I couldn't seem to find out who actually authorized anything.'

'Let me go talk to Milliardo,' Heero said, already scanning the room, looking for the good Prince of starched shirts and leather. I realized he was about to leave me making small talk with Relena - again - about two seconds before he reached out and brushed apologetic fingers down my arm.

'You be all right for a few minutes?' is what he asked and I wanted to roll my eyes at him. All right, yes... happy, not so much.

'I'm fine,' I told him anyway, because I may not have breeding, but I do have manners. They might have been learned at the business end of a ruler, but I had them all the same. I watched him walk away, hearing him ask for Zechs' presence in my right ear. I wanted to say something smart-ass about him using the radio for a non-security issue, but I guess it's just one of the perks of being at the top of the pecking order. You make the rules, so they don't apply to you.

I was trying to think of a nice safe topic of conversation, when Relena took the ball out of my hands. Assuming I'd ever had it in the first place.

'You don't like him very much, do you?' she said, standing there with her hands folded and watching Heero walk away too. I knew darn well we weren't talking about my lover.

'What?' I began, blinking at her and trying to think of an evasion that wouldn't have me choking on my own tongue. But she didn't really look all that pissed off, just vaguely curious, so I swallowed what probably would have been a lame attempt, and sighed. 'I guess I can't quite get over that whole stupid 'duel' thing.'

She glanced at me, seeming kind of confused. 'Duel? That's not what most people hold against him.'

I couldn't contain the snort, and my manners apparently took a hike to boot. 'Guess most people aren't... cohabitating with the guy he was doing that whole 'to the death' thing with.'

She just managed to contain a little giggle, lifting a hand to her mouth to do it, and looking entirely too much like a little girl.

'What?' I muttered.

'It's sweet,' she said, blushing faintly and having to look away again, eyes following the path of a man with a bag of groceries, for lack of anything else to watch.

'Don't get me wrong,' I grumbled. 'Not like I don't think that whole Armageddon plan wasn't a bit on the psychotic side, but I can't seem to get past what he put Heero through.' It came out sounding harsher than I'd intended and I ducked my head, rubbing at the back of my neck. 'Sorry... I know he's your brother and all.'

'I suppose he is,' she said, gaze sweeping across the room and voice kind of weirdly wistful.

I chuckled. 'You don't sound so sure... thinking of a DNA test?'

It amused her, I saw it in the twitch of her lips, but she quickly tamped down on it and tried for something a little more disdainful, a look I was more than familiar with. Then that morphed too, and she just looked kind of sad. 'We're... family because we work at it, but I... really don't even remember him. He says he remembers me, but I wonder sometimes how much.'

I looked around too, as though I might see the wayward Prince, and had to think about what something like that would be like. 'It must be hard having a... virtual stranger, suddenly having so much say in your life.'

The comment made her jerk her head around, and she stared at me for a minute. 'Nobody has ever realized that before,' she said softly, and there was something in her voice I couldn't identify. Surprise, maybe? Or maybe just frustration that it was me, of all people, that got it? I couldn't tell. But then she was looking away again and blushing hotly.

'It stands to reason,' I shrugged. 'Zechs is a... take-charge sort of guy. And used to having people follow his orders without question.'

'I'm not one of his damn soldiers,' she hissed, and I really don't think she had meant to let it slip out. The tops of her ears were so red, I took pity and let it pass, pretending not to have heard.

'Heero was right; this thing really is kind of annoying,' I said, fiddling with my earpiece and letting her think the radio chatter had drowned out her words.

'How did you...' she began, looking up at the thing with a funny little frown and it made me wonder if maybe they wouldn't let her have one.

'I think somebody assumed I was Heero's partner,' I admitted, hoping I wasn't going to get the poor guy in the suit in trouble. 'And I didn't bother to set them straight.'

She made a little harrumphing sound and frowned more, and it made me grin. 'You want to listen for a bit?'

The little kid was in her eyes again even while the rest of her was demurely declining. In my mind's eye, I envisioned a stern and pompous Zechs patting her head and telling her to be a good girl while he went off and played soldier. I ignored her protests and pulled the thing off, warning her where the 'talk' button was, then fit it over her ear. Her expression went from embarrassed to exultant to guilty to curious all in a flash and I couldn't help leaning in and saying in a low tone so nobody else would hear, 'Come on, Princess... a little rebellion now and again is good for the soul.'

Riding her little wave of guilt, it made her laugh, but she squelched it pretty quickly and I got a weirdly calculating look. I think I caught her by surprise again.

It really made me stop and wonder just what her life was like, if something as simple as getting to listen in on the security net was such a rush for her. She forgot I was there for a minute, her focus going inward to the voices in her ear, head cocked slightly with eyes unfocused. It made me wish I had my sketch pad with me.

I wondered for the first time if that trip to L2 had taken place as easily as it had, because her Highness had secretly wanted it to happen. Because really, looking around at all the security and the people whose very livelihoods were tied up with one family's existence... that little adventure never should have happened. Maybe the poor kid had just wanted out for a while, and I had been an excuse that made the whole thing... not her fault. She could justify a couple of weeks away because it hadn't been a 'vacation', she'd been doing her best to... what? Deal with a publicity incident? I wondered just how she'd spun the whole thing to her brother and her security detail.

'Duo?' Relena suddenly said, interrupting my musings. 'Do you... want to sit down somewhere?'

'What?' I asked, wondering if I'd done something to make her think I was feeling... puny.

'You just must be tired,' she ventured, all weird hesitation, looking at me searchingly like she was trying to see some sign of my ordeal.

'I'm fine,' I told her, thinking that it would serve me well to just get a button or something to wear. Maybe a name badge; Hi! I'm Duo Maxwell, and... I'm fine!

She got a funny little frown then, that searching look going intense. 'You're not doing that stupid... macho thing again, are you?'

I stared at her for so long, trying to think of a reply that her frown kind of crumbled and she looked away, blushing brightly again. 'Sorry,' she mumbled. 'That was... rude.'

I snorted. 'Probably not in light of my track record,' I admitted. 'But no... I don't think I've been particularly macho at all for the last couple of days.'

She glanced back up at me, seeming surprised that I wasn't irritated at her for the remark and met my smile with a tentative one of her own. 'So... what happened?'

I understood the notion of a press conference in that moment, and wondered just how many more times I was going to have to tell the story. 'It was pretty lame, really,' I told her, ducking my head and looking down at my Nikes. 'They drugged me and hauled me away like a load of turnips. I was actually kind of embarrassed.'

She touched my arm and gave me a sympathetic look. 'In that moment right before you pass out?'

It took me a second, then I laughed out loud, a couple of the servants looking at me oddly. 'Yeah... right then; I think my last thought was that Heero was gonna kill me!'

She burst out with a laugh almost as loud as mine. 'Me too!'

I'm not sure where the conversation might have led from there, but we both heard the voice of the man in question and looked up to see him coming down the grand staircase with Zechs and his entourage in tow. I hadn't even known Zechs had an entourage, but there were about four guys in suits that managed to look like uniforms ranged around the guy like a pack of damn hunting dogs, the blue glow of earpieces on every one of them, and tell-tale bulges under their jackets. I'd bet money they saluted Zechs and called him sir and would probably eat out of dog dishes if he told them too. I managed by sheer force of will not to roll my eyes.

Zechs looked... miffed somehow, and Heero looked irritated. The four horsemen didn't look anything at all. Stoic, maybe.

The guy in the lead who had been sweeping his gaze over the foyer, I'd swear, in a damn pattern, reached the bottom of the stairs and his attention seemed to stick on us. I saw him reach up to his radio and he said something I couldn't make out. Beside me Relena stiffened and sighed. I looked at her and found her mirth all gone and a somewhat resigned look on her face.

'What'd he say?' I asked and she glanced that way before replying.

'Wanted to know why 'the target' was out of her room,' she replied and couldn't manage to keep the bitterness out of her voice. I realized that she was keeping her right side turned away from them, so the group wouldn't see her own blue glowing headset.

'They... locked you in your room?' I blurted before I had a chance to think up better wording.

'Like I was twelve years old!' she hissed tersely, the irritation plain on her face for a second before she smoothed it away. Almost surreptitiously, she reached up and plucked the communicator from her ear and slipped it into my hand. My fingers closed around it automatically, and she gave me a crookedly little smile. 'They wouldn't let me keep it anyway, but... thank you for letting me...'

She didn't quite know what it was she was thanking me for, so I finished the sentence for her. 'Play?' It made her wrinkle her nose in an admission of sorts.

Those manners of hers kicked in then and she touched my arm lightly. 'It was... nice talking with you, Duo,' she said and not only sounded like she meant it, but that it surprised her. Then she walked off to meet her captor... uh... escort, and they began the walk up the stairs. She went with her head up, walking sedately, as if the guy wasn't tailing her every move.

Had it been me, I'd have had my hands mock cuffed behind my back and turned it into a theatrical event, but I suppose Relena's way was more dignified.

I watched them reach the top of the stairs and turn to the right and just as they disappeared, a tinny little sound from my left hand made me jump, and I had to chuckle self-consciously. I'd forgotten the stupid radio. I almost stuffed the thing in my pocket, feeling a little weird about having it again... like I'd taken a cool toy away from some other kid on the playground. But then I realized that Heero hadn't come across the foyer and wasn't in sight. So I slipped it back on, to see if I could catch what was being said and tell where he'd gone.

The tinny voice turned out to be Zechs and I couldn't help a grin while my mind made 'tin' jokes. Tin man... Tin plated... Tin God... He came clear while I was fitting the radio back in place. '...done, report back to me in the ballroom, Simcoe.'

But then all was forgotten when the Simcoe guy responded... and I recognized his voice. 'Yes, Commander Peacecraft,' was all he said, but it was enough.

Relena had just gotten escorted to her room by the missing third man.

I think the resultant firing of electrical impulses in my brain fried every hamster I owned... I went through half a dozen possible courses of action inside of that first lurching heartbeat, then charged up the stairs after them.

I had very little to go on; I just knew that Relena was about to be alone in her room, God knew how far into the gilded palace, with a guy who had attempted to blow me into the next life without so much as a regretful sigh.

Plan A was grab Heero and go get the asshole, but Heero was not in sight and I didn't know if I dared waste the time hunting for him; there were a dozen routes out of that foyer and I had no idea which way he'd gone.

Plan B was to holler for Heero over the spiffy security radio, but since the bad guy was on the same damn channel... bad idea.

Plan C was some vague notion of grabbing the first Darlien employee I passed and get them to go find Heero. But the long explanation about just why they had to move fast, keep calm, and be discreet... would have taken just as long as finding Heero myself. Last thing I needed was for some maid to go shrieking through the palace in hysterics and alert the guy that I was on to him.

So we went with Plan D which was just an even vaguer 'don't leave Relena alone with the scary man' idea, then... something would present itself. I hoped.

Thankfully, they were still in sight when I topped the stairs and I didn't have to go racing down the labyrinth of halls chasing after them. As it was, my sudden appearance behind them, made tall, dark and pony-tailed reach a hand under his jacket. I chose to pretend to be a total civilian and to not get the implication.

'Hey Princess,' I called cheerfully as I caught up with them. 'Heero says he's going to be a while yet, so I thought I could work on that sketch we talked about while we wait.'

Simcoe looked less than thrilled, making sure he gave me plenty of room in the wide hallway to get past him to catch up to Relena, thus thwarting my tentative plan D and a half. If I could have gotten in behind him close enough, I'd have just taken his ass out and asked questions later. Though he didn't seem all that suspicious, he was a wary son of a bitch, and I had to settle for just getting myself between him and Relena.

'Sketch?' Relena asked, sounding uncertain, and I grabbed hold of her hand, trying for plan D and three quarters.

'I know it's short notice,' I blurted out, mind going a mile a minute. 'But I'm here and we've obviously got the time.' I gave a tug, trying to head her back toward the front of the house. 'Let's just go down and rustle up some paper and some pencils. Then we can go on up to your room.'

I really think she sensed something was up, because she was frowning slightly, but Simcoe seemed to intimidate her and she glanced his way instead of following my lead. 'I don't know...' she began, and gave the guy his opening.

'Commander Peacecraft's orders are for you to return to a secure room, Miss,' he said, looking more unhappy by the moment. Getting to hear him speak again just cemented it in my mind though. I knew I wasn't wrong.

'Ok then,' I agreed, turning us back around. 'We'll just ring for a maid or something, and have it sent up.' I didn't want to piss the guy off and force him into a move if I could help it. He seemed to relax once we were moving in the direction he wanted again, and there was just no doubt in my mind that something bad was going to happen once we got there.

I still had hold of Relena's hand and knew I was squeezing just a little too tight, but she didn't protest. I wasn't sure if she got that I was trying to tell her something and was just waiting to see what that something was... or if she just thought I couldn't tell how tight I was holding on with my scars.

Ok... Plan E then.

Before Simcoe could have a chance to maybe 'confiscate' the radio I really wasn't supposed to have, I reached up and hit the switch. 'Hey Sancho... me and the Princess are going to work on her commission while you finish up. Then we can go for that pizza you promised me, ok?'

Yeah... I know; but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

There was a delay that seemed to drag into minutes before Heero came back with a very quiet little, 'Roger that,' and I swear my knees felt weak; he got it. Got something, anyway, and I knew Heero well enough to know he'd come and find out just what that 'something' was. I gave Relena's hand a reassuring little squeeze before I realized that she didn't know she needed to be reassured. I sure as hell hoped we had a ways to go before we got to her room.

I started looking around like a tourist in the big city for the first time, exclaiming over the furnishings and using the gawking as an excuse to drag my feet, pausing now and again to look at things. 'Wow, this place is huge!' I gushed. 'I'll bet this hallway is as wide as my whole back room!'

Relena rose to the conversational challenge, though maybe she didn't really know there was any challenge in it, and was just being polite. 'Oh, it's not that big,' she exclaimed, and I hauled her to a stop so I could theatrically stretch my arms out, making her stretch too and demonstrate that we couldn't reach the walls even together. Relena giggled, only sounding a little bit nervous, and Simcoe couldn't quite stifle a sigh. I used the turn to catch a glimpse past him down the hall, and also checked his position. He was closer than he had been, but not quite close enough for me to make a move without risking him getting his gun out. He still had his hand tucked oh so casually inside his coat.

'Please proceed, Mr. Maxwell,' he couldn't keep himself from prodding, and I flashed him a smile that I hoped appeared vacuous and unthreatening.

'Sorry man,' I told him and resumed walking, though I let go of Relena's hand, moving closer and dropping an arm around her shoulders. If she hadn't known something was wrong before, she did then, but all she did was give me a wide-eyed look.

I wondered what the hell was taking so damn long and began to doubt that Heero really had understood that I was trying to impart something was wrong. We had to be getting close, even if the Darlian house of many hallways was the size of a small country.

Damn it... I was going to have to come up with a Plan F, and E had pretty much sucked.

And then we were there and Relena was reaching out for the knob on a door that looked just like all the other doors, and all I could do was frantically try to revive hamsters to see if any of the damn things had any unused ideas on them. Plans are so damn much easier when you don't have civilians to protect.

I had just settled on the utterly half-assed idea of trying to get the door of the bedroom slammed in Simcoe's face, and just telling Relena to run for it while I tried to hold the guy off, when Relena made the tiniest of little sounds that drew my attention to the far side of the room we were preparing to enter... and there was Heero, gun in hand and game face on.

I grinned widely, pulled the Princess in closer and ushered us quickly over the threshold. 'Here we are!' I babbled loudly, making sure Relena didn't follow that little sound of surprise up with anything else, keeping my eyes on Heero.

He wasn't watching me, of course, but I was watching him like a hawk, and the second his eyes told me the target was there, I wrapped Relena up tight and took us down and hard to the left, clearing the way for Heero to do his job.

There were a chaotic couple of minutes after that. I heard Simcoe curse, and Relena gargle out a scream at the exact same moment. Heero demanded that something be dropped, and then there were what seemed like a whole lot of gunshots.

I just concentrated on doing my part, keeping Relena tucked away underneath me, and making sure we stayed the hell out of the way.

It was impossible to follow what was going on with Relena making all manner of noises that did not fall into the category of 'poised', but I drew comfort when I heard a cry of pain that was not in Heero's voice. There was shouting and running and somewhere it sounded like a door rebounded off a wall.

Then Heero called, 'Clear!' and I dared raise my head. I looked first to make sure Heero hadn't been hit, then to see the status of the bad guy. Simcoe was down, half in and half out of the room, and while the blood pooling didn't look good, he still seemed to be breathing.

Zechs and the rest of his men in black were in the hallway with guns trained and glaring fit to nuke the playing field. But then, I suppose they were looking at 'one of their own'. Had to be feeling pretty damn stupid right about then.

Heero was already on his radio calling for an ambulance and issuing orders, gun still in hand. I looked at Simcoe again and wondered if he'd last until they got somebody to him. 'Damn, that's gonna stain,' I muttered, and Relena just freaking burst into tears.

Made me stop and realize I was still sprawled all over her, so I rolled off and sat up and she came with me, clutching at my arm and somehow managed to end up sitting across my lap sobbing against my shoulder.

Well, shit.

I patted awkwardly at her back and just gave her a minute, watching as Zechs instructed one of his goons... uh, guards to make some effort at triage until the medics showed up; wouldn't do to let the guy croak until somebody got some answers out of him. Then he could croak for all I cared.

I saw Heero tear his focus away from the situation to look our way. 'Status?' he demanded and I couldn't help a lopsided kind of grin.

'We're good,' I told him and he managed a warm little smile before he turned back to his prisoner and the business at hand.

'Speak for yourself,' Relena stuttered out, breath coming in hiccups. 'I have a run in my stocking.'

I laughed for her, because it was a valiant effort considering she was still hugging my arm and we were sitting on the floor, and there was a guy trying to bleed to death on her bedroom floor. 'Things just aren't practical anyway,' I told her, having discarding all the lines about being lucky that was the only thing she had a hole in. Probably not the most comforting thing to say. Though I think her mind might have gone in the same direction, because she sat up for a second, taking a couple of gulps of air in an effort to get the tears stopped, but then looked at me kind of funny and started sobbing again.

She balled up a fist and thumped it rather ineffectively against my chest. 'I don't get it!' she suddenly wailed. 'What damn flying monkeys? It doesn't make sense!'

I just sat blinking at her while she smacked me in the chest before it finally clicked in my head and I looked down at the shirt I was wearing and couldn't help laughing right out loud. 'Good Lord, Princess... you've never seen the Wizard of Oz?'

She just shook her head, looking miserable and God help me... I felt so damn sorry for her that I just wrapped her up in a hug. 'Don't worry, I'll get you a copy. Nobody should go through life without knowing what flying monkeys are.'

'I never understand your stupid shirts,' she grumbled petulantly, like I only wore them to drive her crazy or something. I was opening my mouth to promise not to wear them around her any more when I was suddenly aware of a presence looming over us and looked up to see Zechs standing there looking distinctly uncomfortable.

'Are you all right?' he asked, and she looked up at him with an oddly hopeful little look on her face. I wondered why; because he'd shown some sign of worrying about her that didn't include throwing orders around? She gave a shaky little nod and his look went from uncomfortable to... I couldn't quite catalog it; embarrassed? He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and squatted down beside us to hand it to her. He tried on a weird little smile that I think was supposed to be supportive, but I could almost feel him wanting to call her to attention like one of his soldiers. 'Pull yourself together, dear,' was what he said, and while it wasn't entirely unkind, I still felt her flinch.

I've mentioned before that I have a problem with women in tears, right? I use that as my excuse for what came out of my mouth next, because I have no conscious memory of formulating it. 'Us poor sad civilians get an extra five minutes before we have to suck it up and 'soldier on', Sir,' I snapped, snatching the offered hankie away from him and pressing it into Relena's hands. 'We'll let you know when we're ready to fall out for inspection.'

Man, you'd have thought I slapped the guy right across the face. He went red as a beet, and guys with complexions that fair can really turn red. I suspect that things would have escalated into the world's weirdest damn fight over a girl ever, if Heero hadn't arrived at that moment. I kind of figured he inserted himself for the express purpose of heading off that weird damn fight, but I didn't ask, and he just ignored the whole thing like he didn't notice the looks on both our faces.

'Duo,' he asked, squatting down with the rest of us and resting a hand on my shoulder. 'How the hell did you know?'

I forgot about Zechs, glancing past Heero at where they were working on Simcoe. 'I recognized his voice on the radio,' I told him. 'He's the missing guy from the basement.'

Zechs seemed to notice the security headset attached to my ear for the first time and turned his bluster in a direction where he felt more in control. 'Maxwell, what the hell are you doing with...'

But Heero smacked his figurative hand in that arena too. 'Damn good thing he had it, Merquise,' he said tersely, barely turning his attention that way, and Zechs just withdrew from the field, standing up and stalking back to the scene of the crime.

'Control freak,' I muttered without thinking, but Relena only let out with a bizarre aborted giggle and looked up at us with a watery little smile.

'You ok?' Heero asked her and her smile got a little more real.

'I think so,' she told him, then got a strange, almost pensive kind of look. 'Thanks to Duo.'

'Aw, t'weren't nothin', Ma'am,' I told her and things were suddenly just very... uncomfortable. I think she felt it to, because there was this mutual movement to get our butts up off the floor. When we started in that direction, Heero offered her his hand and once she was off my lap, I joined them in the vertical. I busied myself dusting my pants, and Relena straightened her skirt.

Across the room, I saw that Simcoe had come around, and was glaring heatedly at anybody who crossed his line of sight. Zechs said something to him, and the guy kind of stilled, looking almost chagrined for a second, before settling for sullen.

In my right ear, somebody announced that an ambulance had arrived at the front gate. And in my other ear, I caught a familiar voice and turned to see Relena's assistant Chezarina coming through the back of the... what must be a suite of rooms, toward her boss. There had to be a second way into the room for Heero to have gotten into place ahead of us undetected, and I wondered about it in an idle sort of way. Who had two ways into their own bedroom? I think it would make me twitchy... bedrooms should be retreats, not thoroughfares.

'Miss Relena!' Chezarina called, as soon as she set eyes on her charge and it made me wonder about Relena's adoptive mother... wasn't the woman still alive? Because Chezarina sure as hell seemed to be filling the role.

'I'm fine,' Relena told the woman, but it didn't stop her from getting hugged and fussed over. Chezarina spared me a smile after she'd verified Relena's welfare.

'You always seem to manage to be in the thick of things, don't you Mr. Max... Duo?' she told me by way of greeting.

'Don't make me Ma'am you,' I teased, and made her smile, but she seemed to notice the whole bleeding man thing about then. She managed to look... affronted, somehow. Not horrified so much as shocked that her little Relena had been exposed to the sight. There was much bustling then, and Relena was ushered away.

It was something of a relief.

Freed from the duty of small talk and hand-patting, I followed Heero back to the circle of men in black, watching minion number one applying pressure to the hole in Simcoe's abdomen.

Simcoe, despite the bloody red ink blot he was leaving on the carpet, seemed sharply focused and was taking 'sullen' to a whole new level. Zechs was speaking at the man in a low, growly tone when we joined the circle, and I missed most of what was said, but suspected the Platinum Prince was just venting his spleen at a party who wasn't likely to piss back at him.

I saw Simcoe's gaze flick my way when I came into view, in an almost involuntary way. I resisted the urge to waggle my fingers at him. Heero had holstered his weapon, but he was standing close and I felt the touch of his hand on the small of my back. Somebody noted over the radio, that the emergency crew was on their way up.

I wondered if they'd had to wait for a guide to make sure they didn't get lost.

'... possibly hope to accomplish?' Zechs was demanding of the prisoner, and I caught that look again, just for a breath, like the guy was somehow bothered by upsetting Zechs. It didn't make sense.

But then he got a rather flat look, still staring at that point somewhere far away. It made me, just for a second, have to glance that way to make sure there really wasn't something on the ceiling to be noted.

'We're the voice of the planet,' he suddenly blurted. 'We speak for those that can't.'

It was the first thing I'd heard the guy say since he'd told me to move the hell along and I couldn't help thinking that he really... didn't sound all that passionate. Though I suppose that could be the whole bullet hole thing. Or the about to go to jail for a really long time thing. But it was communication, and Zechs jumped all over it.

'And what the hell does that have to do with my sister?' he snapped, and I wanted to smack him for the weird proprietary air. But then, I suppose we've established that I've wanted to smack Zechs for a very long time, so maybe his tone was just in my imagination.

I was kind of surprised that Simcoe responded, it didn't really seem to be the politic thing to do, but he, oddly, seemed to be finding his topic. 'You would have stopped the unspeakable acts of animal cruelty to get her back!' he said and I couldn't help staring at him. Back? And how the hell had he thought he was going to get Relena out of center stage with nobody the wiser? 'Dolphins are as intelligent as man, but are they given a choice about being relocated into the depths of space?' he wanted to know, and I found myself looking around the room to see the reactions of the others. There were mostly vague looks of confusion and disbelief, mixed in with some serious animosity from the guy's former brothers in arms. I turned to look at Heero and found a narrow-eyed glare that was both calculating and pissed off. Zechs asked something else and Simcoe launched into more, something about life-spans and zero gravity and I was struck quite suddenly by how much he sounded like he was... quoting. The guy could have been reading text off a pamphlet. He was about as emotionally invested in dolphins and ocelots as I was in brussel sprouts.

'Bull shit,' somebody said, and when all eyes turned my way, I realized it had been me.

I really hadn't meant to open my mouth, and I couldn't help the blush, turning away from all the stares to address Heero directly. 'He's colony to the core,' I explained. 'I heard him.'

It shut Simcoe up at least, and when I looked back, he was staring straight at me. There was something in his eyes that hinted at... remorse? And I suspect the guy was regretting not just putting a bullet between my eyes and being done with me when he had the chance. I remembered him admonishing Dietcoke to not underestimate a Gundam pilot, and while I sure as hell hadn't done much of anything to be all that impressed with the last couple of days, other than surviving, I hoped I'd at least surprised the jerk.

'Being colony born, does not preclude...' Zechs began, and I think it was just because he was so pissed off at me that he had to disagree with anything I said, but I just cut across his point with a derisive snort of a laugh.

'Don't tell me you can listen to that shit and think he believes it?' I demanded, and he just couldn't argue the point. Hell, Simcoe couldn't argue the point, and just went back to his staring act.

But then the medic type people were there, and the circle broke while they loaded the asshole on the gurney. Heero had to excuse himself from my side then, to go and issue orders and make sure everybody was on the same page. I just stood back and watched, trying to puzzle out the weirdness, pretty sure that I wasn't going to get my chicken sandwich anytime soon.

I found myself looking around the room while I waited, and wondering about a life that had... I don't know what you'd call it... spaces within spaces? Relena's 'room' wasn't just a bedroom in a house, it was a set of rooms within a... what? A Community? I imagined that all the people who lived within the sprawling place had their own set of rooms. The area we were in was actually a sort of sitting room, and through a doorway I could just glimpse a hint of what must be the actual bedroom. I knew there was another entrance and I wondered where it was and if there were more rooms than just those. I'm sure there was a private bath. Hell... if the girl put in a mini-fridge, she wouldn't have to come out for weeks!

But it was weird... it was obviously a place where Relena lived, but it still seemed to be about appearances. Where were the young girl trinkets and left over stuffed animals? Where were the books and the private stash of chocolates? The place might as well have been a suite of rooms in some posh hotel. It was... creepy.

There was a single picture on a side table and I found myself drawn to it. I wandered over and picked it up, finding a family type portrait of a teenaged Relena with what must have been the Darliens. The father looked like a man very used to having his picture taken; he looked confident and his smile held a well-practiced warmth. The mother somehow managed to look like she understood just what the future was going to hold, but could only wait for it to happen with as much grace as possible. Relena's smile held all the optimism of a thirteen/fourteen year old; happy in the moment and not needing more than that.

They looked like the perfect little family unless you knew the story.

'Please leave my sister's things alone,' I was told, and looked up to find Zechs standing next to me, frowning disapprovingly. I couldn't help a roll of my eyes.

'It's a picture, Blondie,' I said before I could quite stop myself. 'I'm not riffling her underwear drawer.'

The tops of his ears pinked, and his frown deepened. It was probably a good thing he and I didn't cross paths any more often than we did... the guy was entirely too damn easy to bait, and given my feelings, it might very well become a hobby. I could almost see him collecting his temper; there was a heartbeat delay while I'm sure he took a mental deep 'calming' breath. And then the son of a bitch tried to... intimidate me.

He changed his stance ever so slightly, drawing on every last inch of his superior height and managed to lean into my personal space without really appearing to move much at all. 'Do you have a problem with me, Mr. Maxwell?'

I ignored him while I took a last look at the picture in my hand, carefully placing it back on the table, making him wait while I flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the frame, and then adjusted it just so... making sure it was exactly as I had found it. Then I turned to face him, moving further into his personal space instead of retreating, which I'm sure is what he had expected, and smiled. 'Only the same problem I would have with any pompous, over-bearing control-freak trying to compensate for the holes in his own security by bullying anybody who comes within ten feet,' I told him cheerfully.

I swear to God, the tone threw him for a second, and there was a blink before he decided to be pissed. 'I find your brand of humor to be inappropriate for this situation, Mr. Maxwell,' he ground out, looking for all the world like he wanted to have me thrown out on my ear. Or thrown in the brig.

I cocked my head and leaned in just a bit more, lowering my voice as though imparting some secret. 'Funny thing... I wasn't joking,' I told him flatly.

The pinking of the ears got darker and spread down his neck. I wondered if the guy had a blood pressure problem. 'My sister was almost killed today...' he began, and it sent a twinge through my temper.

'Yeah, about that,' I said, cutting him off. 'No need to thank me or anything like that, since my actions had absolutely nothing to do with you what-so-ever, but seriously dude... you need to learn the girl's name. It's Relena. R-E-L-E-N-A. Not 'My Sister', and I know you were away for a while and all, but you missed a couple of birthdays... she's an adult now. That attitude you've got going on like she freaking belongs to you is so sixteenth century it's unreal. What's next? Arranged marriage? Convent?'

I realized somewhere in there that some part of my head was down on its knees praying he'd take a swing at me. Just... really freaking begging for him to get pissed enough to take the first shot so I could be totally justified in wiping the floor with his lily white ass.

And don't look at me like I'm crazy... the bigger they are, the harder they fall. I know his type; military trained and so damn full of his own superiority it's not even funny. Give me a good street fighter any day of the week.

I have all the respect in the world for soldiers; I've fought against enough of them... fought shoulder to shoulder with enough of them. They have an understanding of honor on a level that guys like Zechs never can. Honor isn't a high and shiny ideal; it's a thing of grit and blood. It's a thing you live with every moment of every day, and sometimes you have to compromise it and sometimes it has to compromise you, but it's not a decoration that you pull out when it's convenient.

It's not a thing you can bend to make your own wants acceptable.

You tell me where the honor is in challenging a boy to a life and death fight, one who has just come out of a month long coma. A boy still healing and still hurting and still reeling emotionally from making one of the biggest mistakes of his short life. You tell me what winning that kind of fight would have proved anyway. Where's the honor in that? Where's the nobility? Nowhere. Nowhere, because that was all about a reject of a man trying to prove something to himself.

Trying to prove something to Treize.

A gentle hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. 'Duo,' Heero chided softly, and I'm not sure if it was his tone or the chalky white state of Zechs' face that told me I'd just dumped a whole lot of very old crap off my chest. At volume.

I felt my face flame every bit as bad as anything I'd managed to make Zechs produce, and I muttered something that my conscience intended to be 'Sorry,' but I'm not sure my anger let come out that way. I did not resist when Heero pulled me away from there and out into the hall.

Oddly, Zechs didn't have much to say.

One of the goons glared at me the whole way out of the room, one of them couldn't meet my eyes, and the third wasn't in sight... maybe he'd been triage-goon and had gone to wash his hands.

Heero didn't say anything, but he put his arm around me, something he doesn't do very much in public because he knows it makes me feel funny, and just steered.

'God,' I muttered, once we were out of there. 'You can't take me anywhere, can you? I'm so sorry. I... I don't know what happened. I don't think I meant to do that.'

Heero made a noise that I took to be... disbelieving amusement? I least, I hoped it was amusement. We came around a corner in the hall and for a moment, we were alone, so I pulled him up short where I could turn and look at him... just to make sure.

The look I found in his eyes was something I didn't know how to catalog; it made me want to gather him up in my arms at the same time it made me a little nervous. He still hadn't really spoken and I couldn't help blurting out another apology. 'I really am sorry. I don't know what came over me. He just... he just makes me so damn mad.' I glanced back down the hall, as though I could see the man through the walls and started to sense the presence of Guilt. 'Maybe... maybe I should go back and apologize,' I said, and took a step that way, trying to convince myself it would be a good idea. 'You know... better.'

Heero let out with a strangled little sound that wanted to be a snicker and grabbed my arm, pulling me back. 'I think maybe you and Zechs have... chatted enough for one day,' he finally told me and pulled me the rest of the way into his arms. It was... weird, in the middle of the Peacecraft/Darlien domain. Not that I would have denied him after the last couple of days, but it was still a little uncomfortable. He felt it too, and didn't keep us standing there long, but for that moment he made his jumbled feelings as plain as he was able.

Which wasn't very, quite frankly.

But we were still in the middle of a situation and there was work to be done and we went about doing it. Or Heero went about doing it, and I went back to being bored. It's a damn wonder that law enforcement gets anything done between all the freaking bouts of paperwork and talking.

Though things got a whole hell of a lot more serious after that; even my company of hamsters quit their mock 'n roll act. Nothing quite makes a group of people buckle down and fly straight, like gunshots, blood and screaming.

I have to admit that it was kind of cool getting to watch Heero work; the guy gets damn focused when he's on the job, but you know... the whole thing really made me stop and think about that offer Une had made me.

I've always sworn that I really wasn't that interested in strapping a gun on again and riding out with the rest of the cowboys, but I suppose I have to confess that I hadn't been able to completely dismiss the notion once the good Commander had tossed it on the table. Somewhere after the departure of the ambulance, and before our own, it kind of hit me that it had been as much... not peer pressure, because nobody had even known she'd approached me... guilt, maybe? My own guilty conscience that had kept me from just turning her down flat?

Because really... that's what my heart was telling the rest of me. I just couldn't even imagine myself doing what I was watching Heero do. Being a Preventer agent wasn't all cool toys and adrenaline highs. The paperwork and the legwork and the getting in people's faces part was really just not all that attractive.

Not that the shooting and bleeding stuff was, but you know what I mean.

I had no desire what-so-ever to become a Preventer agent, and saying yes to Commander Une because she asked nice, was just stupid.

Saying yes because somewhere inside I was afraid Heero and Wufei might look down on me was... worse than stupid.

Being a mechanic in the motor pool at the place where... let's face it... 'my boyfriend worked', was probably not going to cut it in the long term. I really couldn't see myself busting my knuckles over various and sundry bullet riddled vehicles for the rest of my life, but for the moment, it suited my needs and offered me a paycheck while I figured out just what it was I did want to do. But I think I'd just eliminated one of the options that had been on the list. Cool toys not withstanding.

It was a strange feeling making a decision I hadn't really even thought I was dwelling on. It was a hell of a relief at the same time it left me feeling like I should be apologizing to somebody.

Hours later, when we finally walked out of that place, Guilt beast was waiting for me in Heero's car, tongue lolling from his weird little canine grin. I did my best to ignore him because most of my head knew he was stretching. Like he was just bored and looking for something to do.

God, there was a thought... could guilt become a habit?

There was a stop at headquarters because there were still statements to be delivered, though Heero took pity and got me my sandwich... I just had to eat it in the car on the way. It was damn late by the time we were done with all the crap and got to head for home, and I was dragging rather pitifully. I tried not to show it, because it would just worry Heero, but I think he was just too tired himself to notice. It was well after dark by the time we hauled ourselves through our front door, and there was just no thought of anything from earlier in the day. We just locked up, stripped and hit the bed, practically racing each other to sleep.

Damned if I even know who won.

I suppose I had rested since my little excursion, while at Quatre's, but I was in my own home, in my own bed, with my own living, breathing security blanket/body pillow and I slept, as they say, like the dead. If there were dreams, I do not remember them.

Morning was painfully normal, and yet... not.

I woke with my head pillowed on an arm that was not mine and with my legs tangled with Heero's. When I opened my eyes, it was to find him awake and waiting for me, and I smiled lazily across at him. Once he saw I was awake, he dropped a kiss on my forehead and returned the smile, his fingers beginning a gentle stroke over my hair.

'Morning,' he said softly, while I stretched and yawned.

I was just starting to tell him about the truly bizarre dream I'd had, when the pull of sore muscles made me stop and reconsider. Stark white bandages stood witness, and I switched it at the last minute to a simple, 'Good morning.'

Bizarre, yes. Dream... apparently, not so much.

Heero being awake first, made a lot more sense in that light. Not that it never happened, but it's rare. Senses began to register that it was a bit later than I usually woke too, but neither of us bothered to comment on it, probably at the risk of being Captain Obvious. I shifted closer, exchanging arm for shoulder, as pillow, just in case he needed the blood circulation. He moved to accommodate me, pulling me in close and I knew we weren't going to be getting up for awhile.

'There isn't any more paperwork to be done, is there?' I asked, trying for petulant, but it was just too early and it came out with another yawn instead. Heero chuckled softly, almost like he was trying not to spoil some mood, and picked up my hand to twine our fingers together.

'You want there to be?' he teased. 'I could arrange something.'

'Funny, Agent Yuy,' I grumbled and tried to pull my hand free to poke at his ribs. He refused to let go, tugging at me until I gave up, and when he responded, his voice was oddly wistful.

'I'd really rather not be Agent Yuy right now.'

I twisted to look at him and found him staring up at the ceiling, with an expression on his face that gave me pause. It was one I'd seen not all that long ago, but I couldn't read it any more in that moment, than I had the day before. His hold on my hand had eased and I slipped free to rub my hand up and down his stomach, not finding him tense, and I puzzled at his mood.

'You ok?' I asked carefully, and it made him close his eyes and smile.

'Yeah,' he assured me, his tone kind of... wry. It made me push up on an elbow where I could really see his face. He opened his eyes to meet my gaze and his smile warmed. There was a tilt to his head then, that asked, so I bent and kissed him. He made it... slow.

When I drew away, I caught a glimpse of a need in his eyes for a moment that was almost overwhelming, but it was gone so quickly that it left me unsure if I'd seen it at all. Heero Yuy is not a coy lover; as a general sort of rule, he knows what he wants and is not exactly shy about pursuing it. If there is hesitation in his love making, it is generally reserved for dealing with my own inexperience and not pushing me toward things I'm not comfortable with. And after a year... that inexperience wasn't really much of an issue any more.

'You sure?' I had to press, his frame of mind was one I just didn't know what to make of, and it was leaving me a little off-center. 'You're awfully quiet this morning.'

He quirked a funny little smile, maybe a little sheepish... maybe a little self-conscious. 'Just thinking about... yesterday.'

There was a lot about 'yesterday' that could lead a man to think, and I just gave him the raised eyebrow look that prompted for some clarification. He huffed a little sound that indicated a bit of discomfort over the topic, whatever it was, but finally burst out with, 'I never really understood what your problem with Zechs was before.'

It left me staring at him for a moment, on the receiving end of a gear strip for a change... Zechs Anal-Retentive Merquise was not what I thought we were talking about. I realized I was studying his expression, trying to work out what he was thinking, and made myself stop.

'He just... gets under my skin,' I growled, feeling my blood pressure rise just thinking about the man again. Pompous damn ass.

'He's really not such a bad sort,' Heero ventured carefully, kind of doing his own studying, bringing his finger tips up to brush over my cheek as though he could feel whatever it was he couldn't seem to see.

It... bugged me. That Heero would defend the man. In my head, Merquise would forever equate to that moment when I'd thought I'd seen Heero die. I suppose, in all fairness, my unreasoning hatred should probably be directed toward Dr. J, but Dr. J was already long dead and gone and, well... Zechs wasn't.

I really did know that my dislike of the man was just a little bit over the top. He hadn't been the only one to blame for what had happened to Heero. It was Lady Une's threats, and Dr. J's orders, and hell... even Noin had had a hand in it, but somehow Zechs was the one I wanted to blame. It just all boiled down to that, and I guess it didn't have to have a rational explanation. Yes, we'd been in a war, but that damn 'challenge' had taken it outside those confines. Made it personal.

'The son of a bitch hurt you,' I heard myself grind out, just feeling stupid and melodramatic for not being able to get past something that Heero himself obviously had. But he didn't react the way I thought he would; didn't scold me, didn't correct me... just raised his head enough to initiate another kiss. This time, when he dropped back to the pillow, there was no denying the hunger in his eyes. It confused me... I wasn't at all sure why I hadn't already been rolled over into the blankets. The signals I was getting were all crossed up and unclear. This wasn't how things usually went; I wasn't used to Heero wanting something he couldn't seem to ask for. And I didn't think he even knew I could tell.

His arousal was obvious, his failure to take the initiative... not so much.

We don't consciously pay a lot of attention to that whole pitch and catch thing. It's never been anything we discussed, our sex life had just kind of settled into a vague pattern all on its own. It was just what we both seemed to be the most comfortable with... as odd as that sounds considering how we'd started out... so that's generally how things fell into place.

I felt a little bit like a dance partner who had suddenly been handed the lead without warning. It was puzzling... he's usually more blunt about what he wants.

Left without any verbal clues, I focused on his body language; when I bent to kiss the hollow of his throat, he threw his head back, his eyes falling closed, and I could feel the quickening of the pulse under my lips. It put me in mind of a wolf baring its belly and spoke of... submission. It flooded me with a sudden weird sense of protectiveness and when I shifted to rise over him, he just... surrendered.

It was plain as day then, what he wanted... what he needed. His body language begged not just for my dominance, something he'd had no problem asking for before, but for that elusive... something more.

It was daunting. And was doing strange things to my insides.

I followed the line of his throat and found his mouth and he met my kiss with a desperation I wasn't used to finding in him. It made me remember the look he'd given me the day before in the hall at Relena's place, and I suddenly understood it.

The realization that my rising to his defense had set this fire within him, just left me breathless. It was a perspective that was both euphoric and... melancholy.

It made me wonder if this need had been there before and I'd missed the cues. Made me feel like I'd maybe been failing him.

But he hooked a leg around me, begging me as best he could, and I forgot about the what ifs and set about trying to meet his desires the way he'd always tried to meet mine.

I hadn't really counted on what it would do to me. There is something damn overpowering about that level of submission. It woke an aggressive side to me that was almost shocking in its intensity. It was all... instinct and primeval signals, and I damn well wanted to laugh out loud feeling my body giving over to a call older than time. Testosterone and hormones and pheromones and a voice inside that cried... Mine!

Was this what Heero felt? When I wrapped around him and clung to him and begged him to just give me that feeling, even when it was a feeling I couldn't completely articulate, was he overcome with this... counterpoint?

The greater the need, the greater the need to fulfill?

But then there was no room for musing as his body accepted me and I strove to control the rhythm, keeping his desperation in check... making sure it lasted. Not forcing, but imposing my will.

Control... God, it was all about control. And trust.

That feeling was... vulnerability. And the trust to open that up to someone else.

Easy enough to share one's body... not so damn easy to share the rest.

It was a gift he was giving me, almost too intense to bear, and when his breath began to come in choked gasps, I gave in and began thrusting deep, making sure we fell together, holding him tight while his orgasm shook him like a rag doll.

And I continued to hold him, finding myself ghosting soft kisses over his face while he recovered, understanding the depth of his tenderness in these moments for the first time. I... sheltered him, and was left amazed somehow that I could.

I could already tell it wasn't something we would talk about. It wasn't something he would be comfortable giving a name to... admitting to. And I found myself savoring the moment, wondering how rare a thing it would be.

We didn't speak at all, really, I just held him and did my best to give him the peaceful place that he's always been able to give me. He drifted away again and I ended up just using a corner of the sheet to clean us up before curling up with him and we forgot the world for just a little while longer.

I roused up to the feel of him leaving the bed, but when I lifted my head, he just kissed my temple and whispered. 'Sleep. Showering.'

I grunted and burrowed back into the pillows, hearing his soft chuckle as he padded out of the room. I lay for a while, listening to him move around the bathroom, feeling terribly decadent and lazy. It had to be after ten. And hell... I wasn't even positive what day it was. I had a twinge, thinking about work, but then decided Trowa was right... getting kidnapped should really entitle you to a day or two off work.

Kidnapped? Abducted? Captured? Taken prisoner? I really needed to find a better phrasing before I did go back.

I couldn't get back to sleep, not that I really wanted to, so the water was still running in the bathroom when I climbed out of bed and set about starting my day. And if there was just a tiny part of me that was worried about things being odd if I was still there when Heero came back... I just tried not to think about it.

The bedroom was a freaking mess, with clothes all over the place and the bed needing to be stripped and changed. I dressed and dealt with it, and headed down to the kitchen deciding that I would take care of breakfast before Heero got to it, to avoid the four course meal he was likely to produce in his current state of mind. A quick pair of omelets would more than handle the job. I was dishing them up just as he came down to join me.

'Perfect timing,' he told me, fetching the drinks while I turned off the burner and set the frying pan into the sink.

'Heard the water shut off,' I confessed and took my juice from him as we sat down. He was quiet for the first few bites and it made me worry that things were going to be awkward between us. It felt like it was somehow my place to make sure that didn't happen, and I reached out with my foot to nudge him under the table.

'You're thinking awfully hard this morning,' I ventured, leaving it open for him to take how he would. But all I got was the quirk of a slightly hangdog smile.

'Afraid I was going over case points,' he admitted. 'Wondering if they got anything more out of Simcoe last night.'

'Other than a bullet?' I quipped, and he snorted at the cheap shot. I just grinned unrepentantly, relieved as hell that the morning hadn't left him feeling... I don't really know what. Any more than I know why I had thought he might feel ill at ease.

I've been given to understand that I have a penchant for borrowing trouble.

'You know,' I had to point out. 'There's no way he was intending a kidnapping there...'

'Hell no,' Heero agreed before I even had the though half articulated. 'Only a moron would have thought he could have gotten Relena out of there undetected, and a moron would not have been able to infiltrate Zechs' house security as well as he did.'

I refrained from disparaging Zechs' hiring skills and ventured instead, 'So he did mean to kill her? I didn't... over-react?'

He looked up from his omelet and gave me a look that was a virtual slap in the back of the head. 'You know he did,' he affirmed. 'He was drawing his gun before he even saw me.'

'There's something... weird going on with him and Zechs,' I said, not at all sure I wanted to bring it up, but not really able to ignore the things I'd seen. I was afraid Heero would just assume prejudice, but he only smiled.

'You noticed that too?' he asked and it surprised me.

'Like... like he was ashamed or something,' I mused, trying to put a name to it.

'I've seen the guy around Zechs before and always thought there was a bit of hero worship going on,' Heero mused, sipping at his juice and eyes unfocused, as though he were seeing something besides our kitchen.

I had to let a couple comments about taste and ego settle out of my head before I dared speak again. 'You didn't buy any of that animal rights shit... did you?'

That got me a roll of the eyes. 'Hardly. I don't think he could have fooled a ten year old with that act for more than five minutes.'

It was something of a relief to know we were on the same page even if we weren't quite sure what the book was about yet. Not that I should have been surprised, really... I think I've noted before that Heero is pretty damn good at his job. He started to say something more, but his cell phone chose that moment to ring and he put down his fork to fish the thing out of his pocket.

'The office,' he murmured and flipped it open. 'Yuy here.'

He listened to a voice I couldn't hear and after a moment, his eyes found mine and I could tell by his expression that while kidnapping might get my ass a day off... he wasn't getting the same consideration. Though, I suppose in all fairness, he hadn't been the one cuffed to a bed over a bomb. I finished my breakfast while he made arrangements and set times, snapping the phone closed when he was done, and bending back to his own omelet. Proved it wasn't urgent, at least.

'Bad news or good?' I asked and he gave me a sheepish little look.

'Both?' he said, letting it hang for a second, but I just waited. 'Goods news is Goddard... the man from the deli... might be ready to talk. The bad news is I have to go in to the office.'

'Have fun with that,' I jibed, just to make sure there was no thought in his head that I would be tagging along for the ride. I'll admit that my trotting off to Relena's with him had been as much for my benefit as for his, but... it wasn't something I planned on making a habit of.

For a second, something rose up behind his eyes that made me think we were about to have a rather big fight, but I met that look with a steady one of my own and after a moment he deflated. Reaching across the table, he took my hand and just sat holding it while he worked his way through wording.

'I worry,' was what he finally settled on, letting the admonishments and arguments go. Lifting my hand up to kiss my fingers.

I squeezed carefully and couldn't help a smile. 'I swear I'll be more careful,' I assured him. 'But I can't just stop...'

'I know,' he sighed, cutting me off. He closed his eyes for a moment then, pressing my hand against his face and just sitting. I thought he was working with his wording again, but when he opened his eyes all he managed was, again, 'I know.'

After he'd gone, I locked the front door behind him and got on with the business of dealing with the tedious day to day details of living. Laundry and dishes, grocery lists and showers, yard work and email and bills not quite overdue.

Life goes on... if you're lucky, and no matter how crappy your week is, at the end of it, the toilets still need to be scrubbed.

While washing the sheets, I'd gone ahead and tossed in the rest of the pile of dirty clothes, which is what had brought my 'Don't make me call my flying monkeys' t-shirt back to my attention. While I was putting it away in the drawer I couldn't help but think about the conversation it had prompted.

I suppose not everybody in the world could be expected to know vintage movie references and crap, but... The Wizard of Oz? Didn't everybody have at least a passing knowledge of it? It's like some... culture thing. I'd never had anybody see the shirt that didn't at least have some idea what it meant. Maybe they'd never actually seen a flying monkey, but usually at least knew what one was. Hell, even Dusty's kid had gotten it.

And why in the hell did it bug me so much that Relena had not had a clue?

I shut the dresser drawer and glanced up at Solo's portrait to find him kissing the back side of the glass in his frame. 'Suck up!' he snorted at me and I rolled my eyes.

'You're such an ass sometimes,' I told him, but he ignored the jibe, climbing through the frame to follow me as I went to drop the empty laundry basket in its spot by the door.

'Got under yer skin, did she?' he asked, drifting along behind me.

'Hardly,' I snorted and got the expected derisive laugh.

'Careful, rat boy,' he said gleefully. 'She'll end up one of 'yours' and then what? Be spendin' all yer time in that big fancy-pants place.'

'The hell,' I snapped, leaving the room like that would actually shut him up. 'She's not one of mine and never will be. That's just... weird. She has more than enough people looking out for her.'

As expected, he continued to follow me, poking at me with a finger that would never connect again and snickering loudly. 'You mean like yer Heero?'

I turned and snapped a glare his way. 'What's yer... your damn point? And will you stop that damn floating shit, and walk like you mean it?'

He laughed uproariously, delighted as always, to get under my skin. He straightened around, making walking motions that would have been more convincing if he weren't still a foot off the ground. 'Well, seems like you and yer Heero did pretty ok keepin' the little lady safe.'

I... suppose we had. With a little help from the goon squad. Not that I was admitting that to Solo. 'Doesn't make her one of mine,' I grumbled and shivered when he caught up and walked through me, stopping in front of me to meet me eye to non-existent eye.

'Then where ya goin'?' he asked innocently and I finally got fed up and waved him away like so much smoke.

'Shut up, asshole,' I growled and went on into the bedroom we'd turned into an office. And I went right ahead and found a copy of the Wizard of Oz movie for sale on-line, and paid no attention to his ethereal, distant laugh when I ordered the damn thing.

Then I forgot about him when I noticed the little scraps of paper lined up across the desk in varying stages of... salvage.

Alien vegetation. I had to snort, wondering at myself and where my brain wandered sometimes. What had I been thinking? Somehow, I could not see Jack Lee being all that thrilled with fuzzy little armor-clad caterpillars and moon lilies. I could just picture the apoplectic fit Aleyah would have thrown if I'd pitched that idea to Mr. Lee.

Heero had used a book to try to flatten one of the little sketches out where it had gotten folded, and I had to smile. I could just see him in my mind's eye fussing over the stupid things like he was trying to save newborn kittens, abandoned on his doorstep. His fascination with my art always left me with the strangest feeling of warmth warring with embarrassment. The things were just oddball bits and pieces scribbled on little sheets of notepad paper. Most of them unfinished or overlapping other ideas. It was just ridiculous the way he treated them like they were something special.

Made me think about the look on his face when he'd first studied the mural I'd done for him for Christmas. The man had just glowed, and I still found him sometimes standing and looking at it. It seemed a somewhat dubious gift to me, but I swear sometimes if the house ever caught fire, he'd just about take an ax to that section to try to save it.

Maybe... maybe I ought to do art for him more often? Though, perhaps something in a more conventional size. I just wasn't sure what in the world to paint for him? Our friends? Something from his past? Something from his job? Or maybe something he could hang in his office? A landscape? Nothing came to mind at all, but then looking down at the menacing leaf creature, I had to chuckle. It wouldn't matter. I could paint just about anything for him and he would be just as delighted; I think he'd pretty well proven that already.

Though before I put any more thought in to that, I really needed to decide what in the bloody hell I was going to paint for Mr. Lee. Or... what had the guy said? Work up some 'preliminary sketches'? Somehow I didn't think showing the guy little begonia men was going to cut it. I'd never done a preliminary sketch before in my life. Of course... I'd never done a damn commission for somebody who wouldn't give me a clue what they wanted either. The client says 'I want flowers' or 'I want my naked girl friend' or 'I want the farm house my grandma grew up in' and I just freaking painted it and money exchanged hands afterward. Done.

This was a damn pain in the ass. How could I do a preliminary sketch on a piece of paper for something that size? If I was going to paint that size, I needed to sketch that size. How the hell was I supposed to get a feel for anything trying to doodle on little bits of notepad? Maybe real artists worked that way, but my head just functioned more... real time, or something.

It actually crossed my mind to go down into my backroom and use one of the unpainted sections on the back wall to work at ideas, but that just seemed... stupid. Not like I could haul the wall to Jack Lee, and no way in hell was I having Jack Lee in to my house. Not after seeing his. Bad enough dealing with Aleyah and her weird little attitude, like our house was just the cutest thing since Polly Pocket. But at least I hadn't actually seen her place, so I could choose to imagine something more mundane, and less... palatial. And less intimidating.

The whole thing was kind of aggravating, really. If the guy were anybody else, I'd have just laughed in his face and told him to come back when he had a clue what he wanted to hire me for. I wasn't even sure I wanted the stupid job, much less the one it was leading up to. Granted, the as-yet-undiscussed money would be nice, but it's not like I'd been advertising commissions. Mr. Jack Pull-My-Finger Lee had approached me. Technically, my doing any work for him was a favor on my part, money or no money. I wasn't entirely sure if the favor was owed to him or Aleyah, but either way... I hadn't volunteered for this gig.

So why the fuck was I giving myself an ulcer over the whole thing?

Sitting there staring at blooming aliens, I couldn't come up with an answer. If Lee and Aleyah liked my work, then they liked my work, and they'd have to deal with the fact that it was apparently... a little unconventional.

Putting Heero's caterpillar back under the book, I dug Jack Lee's card out of the desk and went to the kitchen to give the guy a call. Assuming he hadn't jetted off to Australia for lunch or something.

I was surprised that not only was the phone picked up right away, but that Mr. Lee answered himself. I launched right in before I had a chance to second guess myself. 'Mr. Lee, this is Duo Maxwell. Do you have time to meet with me this afternoon?'

'Mr. Maxwell!' he replied, sounding both surprised and enthusiastic. But then the guy always kind of sounded enthusiastic, come to think of it. 'Good to hear from you! You've got something to show me? Wonderful! I'm free until dinner time. Come out when ever you like!'

'Great,' I hedged, carefully not admitting the 'show' part one way or the other. 'I should be there within the hour.'

'See you then!' he... enthused, and we hung up. I couldn't help shaking my head. The guy was just so damn... up beat. I wondered suddenly if life was just that damn good to him, or if he would still be the same kind of person without all the money and privilege. Had his circumstances shaped him... or did he shape his circumstances?

I went out to gather up my paints and supplies, somehow amused at the notion that Wufei would be thrilled to hear that I had actually used his easel to 'go on-site' as he'd put it, even though the odds were that I wouldn't need them. Always be prepared, right?

With that motto in mind, I stopped in the kitchen to shove a ration bar in with the brushes and palette knives and opened the fridge for a bottle of soda for the ride. Looking at the damn green bottle, so enticing, and yet so... menacing, I kind of got pissed. Stupid. I wanted a damn drink. I had bought those bottles with my own hands. I'd already drunk several others from the same carton. No one had been in my house that I did not trust.

Fuck if a guy with a hero-crush on Zechs and a freaking homophobe were going to keep me from enjoying something that I damn well enjoyed. Whether Heero thought the stuff was bad for me or not. Maybe I'd cut back someday, but it would be because I started getting fat, or developed diabetes or some damn shit... not because a bunch of lame ass would-be terrorists had made bad associations in my head.

I pulled a bottle out of the fridge, uncapped it rather ruthlessly, raised it to... something, said 'Fuck you all' and took a couple of big swallows.

And if there was some part of my head that held its breath waiting to see if anything bad would happen... it was a small part.

The bottle, recapped, went in the easel box with everything else. Ready to go, I took a moment to call Heero's office; wasn't about to disappear on him again, if he didn't just up and have a heart attack, he'd probably kill me.

It rang long enough that I was expecting the voice mail to kick in when it was picked up, but instead I got this gravely, 'Chang here.'

'Wufei?' I blurted, rather shocked to hear him. I had envisioned him still in the infirmary for some reason. 'What the hell are you doing there?'

There was the sound of air being used to indicate amusement without any real vocalization and I had to give the guy credit... he'd been practicing. Taking his condition under consideration, I allowed it to pass for his side of the conversation and bulled on. 'Are you all right? You can... uh... tap on the phone or something, one for yes and two for no? Or, is Sally there? I can talk to somebody else or call back and you can let it go into voice mail.' I retracted that one in my head the minute I said it, no harm in letting him take a note. Though there were other things on my mind then, besides Jack Lee and his commission. 'God... what did the doctors say? Oh hell, that's not a yes or no question. Uh... are you going to be...'

'Duo,' he whispered and I shut up instantly so as not to make him try and raise his voice. There was a moment of silence then; I don't think he'd expected me to yield the floor so easily, I got that ghost of a laugh again before he told me, 'I'm going to be fine. Nothing permanent.'

He was still keeping it short, I noted, but then he'd said 'going to be'. Not exactly fine at the moment. Not that I hadn't known that, but... not permanent. I was surprised with the sudden need to sit down and hoped he didn't hear the rattle of the kitchen chair when my butt hit it. 'Oh thank God...' I heard myself say, and realized too late that was probably worse than him hearing my knees go weak.

'Nothing to feel bad about,' he said gently, or maybe it was just the soft sigh of his voice that made it sound that way. I couldn't help a derisive laugh.

'Just almost killing one of the guys that are the closest thing I've got to brothers,' I said, rubbing a hand over my eyes to erase the mental image of that look I'd gotten of his throat in the ambulance. 'Oh no... nothing to feel bad about at all.'

There was a long moment before he spoke again and I felt bad for making him work so hard trying to talk. 'My fault...' he said and his voice had a thickness it hadn't held before, it made me wince with guilt.

'Don't try to talk, Wufei,' I told him. 'Your voice is getting worse. There's no sense in hashing this out. I'm gonna feel guilty, and you're gonna try not to let me and... yeah.'

He made that sighing sound again before yielding the point. 'Ok. Later.' Which meant he wasn't willing to yield the whole match.

I went ahead and told him why I'd called then, and let him take the message for Heero. We signed off, me getting a parting admonishment to be careful. I laughed and promised not to take any more 'candy' from strangers, but he didn't seem to see the humor.

I wondered what Heero was in the middle of that he couldn't answer his own phone, but hadn't wanted to ask and just make Wufei talk more. I hoped he was roughing somebody up. Which was probably pretty politically incorrect, but I just didn't care.

Solo was lazing on the porch swing when I left, and waved me off with a smirk. That's the real problem with figments of your imagination; living in your head, they're privy to all your thoughts, even the dumb-ass ones.

I suppose I should have been planning and thinking about my 'composition' during the drive over. Maybe thinking about the things I knew about Jack Lee, but my head had gotten itself wrapped around the concept of living and was busy making comparisons and looking at patterns.

Life is change. There's just no way around that, really. Even if it's only aging. And I suppose if there was a way to stop it, it wouldn't be life anymore... it would just be stagnation. Existence.

I looked at Jack Lee and I thought... there's a guy that embraced change with both hands. Probably blew a raspberry on its belly just for shits and grins while he was at it. He struck me as not really afraid of much, not intimidated by much, not slowed down by much.

It made me wonder about his past, about his up-bringing. Made me wonder about the things that shaped him. Was that kind of... chutzpah something a person was just born with, or was it something you learned?

Most people go through life waiting for change to happen... sometimes in fear, sometimes with longing. But... life lived them.

Then there were the few like Jack Lee and Aleyah Winner who made change happen. No waiting around for them; they went out and lived life.

I pulled up to the gate at 'Rogers Hills' with the realization that somewhere along the line I'd ended up letting life live me.

Buzzed in by Mr. Lee himself, I made the drive up to the house wondering just how I'd ended up in the holding pattern I seemed to be in. Beyond the obvious answer. Could it not be said that I was healed from the accident? It had been over a year.

I climbed out of my car, easel in hand, and made the walk up the front walk of that house and thought... What the hell am I waiting for?

'Mr. Maxwell!' Jack Lee called from his front door, giving me a vague sense of déj&aagrave; vu, 'Come in! Come in! I can't wait to see what you've come up with!'

And we were there already. I sighed, returning the hearty hand-shake and putting my musings aside as I crossed into the man's house.

House. Home, I corrected myself, thinking about that cluttered study he'd led me through. While a lot of the place looked like a set for the latest issue of Palaces, Castles, and Other Extravagant Abodes, it was obvious the man lived in it. It might make me feel uncomfortable, but he was right at home. The horrendous plaid golf shorts were gone, but the well-worn house slippers were in attendance. I put my focus there for a second and tried to ignore all the marble, glass and gilt.

Really... he was just a man. A little loud, a little too used to getting his way, a little rich. But still just a guy looking to hire me to do something he couldn't do for himself.

'Well, Mr. Lee,' I had to admit, once the pleasantries were over. 'That's kind of why I'm here... this 'preliminary sketch' deal is sort of giving me a problem.'

He got a hint of a frown then, the first time I'd seen that almost jovial expression clouded. 'Oh?' he prompted, tone a little guarded.

'Yeah; I don't really do them,' I told him bluntly then bulled forward when that hint of a frown started to manifest into a real one. 'But I've got a proposition for you. I'm more of a... hand's on kind of guy. Inspiration is sort of...' I waved my hands in the general direction of his entire house, 'place oriented.'

He cocked his head a little, the frown getting put on hold... still there, but seeming undecided. 'Proposition?' he asked, and I caught a whiff of the business man he had to be, in the question.

'Look,' I said, trying for a combination of earnest and professional. 'Here's my offer... you let me just go in there and paint, and if you don't like it, I'll paint over the thing and no charge. It'll be like I was never here. You can't lose, and I can stop driving myself crazy with little scraps of paper that are never going to lead me to anything of that scale.'

He was too much of a poker player to let me see whatever was going on in his head, but I could hear the interest when he asked, 'No charge?'

'Not unless you like it and decide to keep it,' I clarified, because damn it... I wasn't an artistic charity.

'And the price if I like it?' he asked, and I knew I had him when that hint of a frown vanished and his normal wide smile began to reappear. I'd intrigued him; he was just too curious to see what I came up with.

'That's between you and Aleyah,' I grinned. 'I've been given to understand I'm not to handle the financial side of things.'

He laughed out loud then, and I had a sense that had been the right response. Not just for my wallet, but for his respect, because I'd admitted where I was out of my depth.

He gave me a theatric wince, as though admitting that Aleyah would end up with a price higher than I'd have gotten for myself, not that that was any surprise, but then he brushed past all the business part. 'How can I say no to an offer like that?' he grinned, and looked pointedly down at the case I'd set at my feet when I came in. 'I take it you are prepared to start now?'

'If your wall isn't doing anything else,' I quipped, and got a loud laugh.

'Then we've got ourselves a deal, Mr. Maxwell!' he said, and swept his hand in the classic 'this way' gesture. He led me through the house on a completely different path than last time, and we arrived much quicker. It made me wonder if I hadn't gotten the scenic route for a reason. Offering me a glimpse of... what? The man behind the public face? Made me wonder if I'd missed something.

I was relieved, once we'd arrived, that the good Mr. Lee bowed himself out, leaving me with a blank wall and the reassurance that he'd 'be around' if I needed anything. I had feared the guy would fetch a lawn chair and a drink and sit down to watch me. I somehow doubted anything better than Martian veggies would have presented itself in that sort of environment.

It was just past noon and I set my easel up, putting my still cold soda on the floor under it and going ahead and pulling my ration bar out, unwrapping it and eating carefully over my palm so as not to get crumbs on the immaculate stone floor, and started staring at my canvass.

It was somehow not as big and intimidating on a second viewing. Guess it had gotten a little larger than life in my head. I tried to imagine filling the space and still didn't have a clue. I squelched the disappointment with a nervous chuckle. I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as walking up to the wall and having it tell me the inner workings of Mr. Lee's head.

I turned and really took the time to look around the room and out across the garden without the weight of the owner's gaze on me, full of the expectation of reaction. I could imagine women in glittering gowns wandering around on the arms of men in expensive tuxedos. Could see servants with trays of exotic drinks and frou-frou finger-foods or... what was the word? Hors d'oeuvres? I wondered if there would be an orchestra for dancing? Mr. Lee did not strike me as the type of guy who would cut corners or skimp. I looked up at the structure of the room and realized that there would probably be flower arrangements and lights and all manner of elaborate decoration.

All stuff that was going to give my poor little mural something to fight with.

I almost snorted... when had it become little? I suppose the alcove wasn't as big as some of the bulkhead art I'd done, but it still wasn't anything to sneeze at. Perspective, I suppose.

I turned my back on the garden and went to examine one of the flanking doors. They really were impressive. Looked to be solid as... well, oak, if I didn't miss my guess. Banded with some sort of black metal and looking very dramatic. Beautiful things, really. Art in their own right and it made me think that if the setting were mine, I'd probably do nothing more than set a pedestal in the alcove with some flowers or something, and let the doors be the focus.

But it wasn't my space and Mr. Lee wanted a mural. And more importantly, my patron wanted Mr. Lee to have a mural. Or have whatever he wanted, I suppose.

I walked back over to stand in front of the space, stooping to pick up my soda for a drink. If I painted a mirror image of the garden, I could give the illusion that the room was almost completely cut off from the house, sitting in the middle of an elaborate grounds far away from civilization. I thought that illusion might appeal to Mr. Lee.

I pulled a brush out of my supplies and stroked the dry bristles over the wall, letting color fill my mind in its wake, letting lines flow and fade, enticing the muse of creativity to step up to the damn plate.

A path that went this way... an urn here... a tree there. Flowers. Color. Sky. Light. I could see a winding cobblestone path leading down a few garden steps, curving past a stone bench. Perhaps a frog in honor of those tadpoles in the water glasses. Those famous roses everywhere, filling the whole garden with rich color. I could almost smell them, could almost feel the velvet of the petals under my fingers. I could make it the most perfect of settings. There would never be bugs there, or draught or blight. A rose that would never fade.

Those roses were in my mind's eye when I put paint to pallet and began.

I blocked in the steps and wondered where Heero was. Hoped that they'd gotten something useful out of the man from the deli. The one he'd said they thought was ready to talk. I wanted to believe that the case was wrapping up, but there had to be solid evidence of that before the Preventers dared let their guard down.

I rough shaped an urn, the thought of Preventers making me wonder about Wufei. I was going to have to make a point of going to see him. Getting to talk to him had helped, knowing he was out of the hospital and back on the job, but I didn't think I was going to be able to shake that image of him coughing and sucking for air, until I saw him myself. All his reassurances aside... there are some things you just have to see for yourself.

Stepping back for a moment to survey my progress, I had to grin. Everything was pretty much blocked in with the same color, more a map than anything, and I suppose it counted as that 'preliminary sketch' I'd been grousing about. I bent to pick up my soda bottle, taking a drink and turning for a moment to look out across the garden to judge how much time had passed. I wanted to get far enough along in one go that Mr. Lee could make a judgment, even if there was no way I could get the whole job done.

Movement in the garden drew me to step over closer to the nearly continuous wall of French doors. I was kind of surprised to see Mr. Lee out among his plants, dressed in another pair of those God-awful plaid shorts, in red and white this time, and a bizarre smock that I almost wanted to call an apron, over a shirt that had seen better days. If I hadn't known him, I would have thought he was the gardener of the place. His back was to me, half way across the garden anyway, and I watched him for a moment as he lovingly settled some sort of plant into a planter. I guess that answered the question of just how much involvement he had in the landscaping.

For a moment, it actually crossed my mind that the man had gone out into the garden where he could catch glimpses of what I was doing, but really... it's not like he couldn't have just come into the room and watched if he'd felt like it. It was his house, after all. And I think we've established he's not exactly a shy sort.

But besides that, he seemed totally absorbed in what he was doing. I watched for a moment, sipping at my dwindling drink as he settled the plant just so, pinching at the leaves and pressing the soil down around the base. Seemed to know what the hell he was doing, though I suppose that shouldn't have been a surprise. I turned away before he caught me watching, setting my bottle back on the floor and taking up my brush again.

The rose bushes would go just there, maybe with some white flowers as accents around the base and...

I glanced back over my shoulder, looking at the over-all design of Jack Lee's garden so that mine would echo and compliment, and that's when it hit me.

My garden.

Anything that I painted would only over-shadow the real thing. I didn't have any of the limitations of reality. I could make rose bushes as tall as I wanted them to be. I could make them lusher than nature intended. As vibrant in color as my paints would allow. I could make plants that never died, never lost their blooms, never suffered a winter, forever in the golden rays of a clear, sunny day... and it would be the worst decision I could make. That garden was obviously Jack Lee's pride and joy, and painting competition for it was just not going to work.

I sighed, picked up my palette and began 'erasing' lines with white paint, regretting the lost hour.

The Plutonian cabbages were looking better by the minute.

It ended up being a long damn afternoon, I had a period after that of totally doubting my offer, and thinking about what an idiot I was going to look like when Mr. Lee came back and I was still standing there staring at a blank wall, scratching my head. Nothing breaks your concentration quite like the fear of looking stupid.

There had to be something I could do with anti-gravity and golf and dumb bets and roses... right?

I remember looking out across the garden to make sure the guy was still out there and I wasn't in any danger of him walking in and catching me beating my head against his wall. He was standing there in those ridiculous shorts, wearing some sort of... I swear to God... clogs, with his apron on, and I just wanted to laugh.

And that was the moment I settled on my design and I turned back to work with a grin. What the hell... he'd love it, or he'd hate it, but at least it would be off my plate of things to do. If nothing else, it would probably keep Aleyah from ever volunteering me for another commission for any of her friends.

I managed to hit that zone after that, while the day wore on around me. Somewhere in there, Mr. Lee left his garden, the sun moved across to shine warmly in through all that glass, and under my brushes, a mural began to take shape.

They tell me I work fast, but even I wasn't up to filling that space completely in just half a day. For one thing, I would need a ladder to reach all the way up to the top of the arch, but I concentrated on the center, making the design understood, so that I could get across the point. I let the edges go in order to incorporate some finer details, making sure the potential would come across. By the time I heard my host coming back into the room, I still had a long way to go, but I was well satisfied with what I had.

The timing was pretty perfect, really, as I'd done the lighting in the painting to match the time of day that Mr. Lee had claimed the room would be in use, and we were just about there. The sun slanting in across the floor in near perfect synchronization. I couldn't have picked a better unveiling, short of actually having the thing done.

I stepped out of the way, turning to greet Mr. Lee, intending to let the thing speak for itself and was pretty damn surprised to find him in the company of my patron. My somewhat... unhappy looking patron.

'Mr. Maxwell!' Aleyah gasped, staring at my handiwork with a mixture of shock and embarrassment on her face. 'What in the world?'

She was... disappointed with me, I could tell, and it was kind of a shock how much it bothered me. It gave me the sudden urge to rush to explain myself, when I had not intended to. Had intended to just let the image explain itself.

But then Jack Lee started to laugh as loud as I've ever heard him, and Aleyah's look went from bordering on pissed, to... kind of confused.

'It's delightful!' he roared, coming over to look closer at the details, before stepping back to get more of the over-all feel. 'Mr. Maxwell, you are a man after my own heart! It's going to be perfect! I can't wait!'

Aleyah had gotten control of her expression, and had gone for a neutral sort of bemusement, but Lee wasn't fooled at all.

'She doesn't get it, Mr. Maxwell!' he crowed and I thought the guy was going to bust a gut, he was laughing so hard. I didn't touch that with a ten foot pole; wasn't about to accuse Aleyah Winner of 'not getting' anything. Jack Lee might get away with that, but I didn't think that I would.

I just stepped away to deal with my paints and brushes, pretty much deciding that I was done for the day, and let them look. And Mr. Lee chortle and rub his hands together in glee.

I went with the tadpoles... figuratively speaking.

I did not know Jack Lee all that well, but even in the small amount of time I'd been around him, I knew that he was a man who loved life, and prized laughter... and adored a good practical joke like none other.

So I painted... was in the process of painting... him a practical joke. Once it was finished, and in the proper lighting, that alcove was going to become another doorway into a sumptuous and elaborately detailed... bathroom.

Aleyah continued to not get it until Mr. Lee pantomimed plowing into the wall trying to walk through a doorway that wasn't. Or... maybe she was just pretending not to in order to let Jack have his joke. I really wasn't sure; she certainly seemed oblivious enough, but I had trouble believing she was that... slow.

Even Coquette, sitting politely at heel, seemed to roll her eyes.

'Jack,' she scolded. 'That's almost as bad as those dreadful... fish!'

'Tadpoles, my dear,' he corrected distractedly, studying the layout and details.

There was the edge of an oak, iron banded door mostly open, but matching the real ones. A step down, then a marble and tile bathroom modeled slightly off the one they called 'mine' at Quatre and Trowa's place, because it was the most elaborate bathroom I'd ever seen. There was a slightly Greek flavor to the décor (fake décor?) with a stylized frog theme that was tasteful while giving a nod to the previously immortalized tadpoles. I'd topped it off with a vase of freshly cut Jyp-C roses on the vanity.

I didn't know if I'd won the 'bigger commission', but I'd certainly won the current one; Mr. Lee couldn't stop pointing and laughing and pointing some more.

'Look at the detail, my dear!' he was exclaiming to Aleyah, spotting how I'd cocked one of the towels just slightly, to make it look a little less picture perfect. 'And it's not even finished!' he said, turning toward me, grinning from ear to ear. 'Do you think it will be done by next weekend? I have a dinner party planned and it would give me a great deal of pleasure to... unveil it then.'

Aleyah made a noise that was supposed to convey quiet disgust, but Mr. Lee ignored her.

'If you don't mind me working in the evenings after work,' I told him. I reflected after the words were out of my mouth that I should probably have figured out exactly what day it was before agreeing to anything, but it was too late then. 'Uh... barring kidnapping or anything.'

Mr. Lee laughed at my 'joke', though Aleyah and Coquette just looked further annoyed. 'Excellent!' he beamed, and I was put in mind of a kid about to get the keys to the candy store. With no adult supervision. I wondered if that's why the guy didn't appear to be married... nobody around to tell him no. 'Wait here a moment, young man. I'll be right back.'

With a last glance at the work in progress and another, almost evil chuckle, he left us standing there. I tried to busy myself with my easel and empty soda bottle, but I needn't have worried; as soon as Jack Lee was out of the room, Aleyah's look of disgust was gone.

'You are a wonder, darling,' she informed me with a smile that made me want to take a step back. 'I shouldn't have doubted. You couldn't have won Jack over in a... more appropriate way.' Her gaze flicked in the direction of the mural and I could tell she appreciated the job, at the same time she thought the idea was nothing less than childish.

I sighed and almost confessed how close I'd come to blowing it, but then thought better of it. 'Didn't mean to scare you,' I dared, and she made that 'pooh-poohing' noise she can manage to make sound elegant at the same time it leaves you feeling laughed at.

'Nonsense, dear,' I was told. 'Jack enjoys his little... games. I don't begrudge the man his entertainment.'

I reflected that the truth of that probably depended on who ended up being the butt of that entertainment, but didn't pursue it. Somehow, I just couldn't see even the great prankster managing to make Ms Winner look foolish, and I kind of didn't want to know about it, if it had ever been otherwise. Being friends with Jack Lee was probably akin to living in a minefield.

Coquette, who had been on her utterly best behavior, trotted over then to look up at me, cocking her head as if smirking. I couldn't help lifting my easel box off the floor to keep it... out of range, but otherwise resisted growling at the beast. Bet she wasn't allowed to... anoint Jack Lee's damn house. When I looked up from glaring at the dog, Aleyah had stepped closer too.

'You did your patron proud, my dear,' she said, voice a little low, as though it wasn't something she wanted to risk anybody over-hearing even though nobody else was in the room. 'You chose just the right tack.'

'So does that mean I got this other mysterious job?' I had to ask, because I knew darn well she knew about whatever it was. I watched her expression carefully, for whatever clue I could catch, but she didn't let anything show. Just gave me that neutral, polite smile of hers.

She tossed me a bone though, turning back to look at the mural while she told me, 'Definitely in the running, pet.' She hesitated then, glancing casually down at Coquette, using the dog's ears I realized, to judge if Mr. Lee was on his way back. 'It was a clever opening volley, dear... but there must be follow-through to win the war.'

She didn't give me a chance to reply, just turned and walked away, Coquette following along at heel. I wasn't sure for a moment if maybe I was supposed to follow too, but then Jack Lee was bustling back into the room and the conversation was obviously over.

I realized through that little exchange that Aleyah wanted very badly for me to get the bigger job. Had probably put my name into the figurative hat. I was just left wondering if it was because she truly felt I was the right person for whatever the job was, of if it would just be a feather in her cap because I was one of 'hers'.

I somehow doubted I would ever know.

'My home is open to you whenever you need it to be, young man,' Mr. Lee was telling me, handing me an envelope in a distracted sort of way while he went back to looking at the mural. I wondered if the guy had thought about installing hidden video equipment to capture the intended moments of... humor, but decided not to mention it.

I took the envelope but then wasn't sure what to do with it. I assumed it was my payment, or down payment, or retainer or something that involved money, and I was dying to look, but didn't know if that would be... rude. I ended up just folding it and slipping it in my pocket.

Was that just... stupid? I was doing a job for which I did not even know how much I was getting paid. Had, in fact, not had a say in the fee. It kind of felt stupid. But I knew the value of this 'art' thing was way different in the circle where Lees and Winners rubbed elbows with Peacecrafts and... other rich people. In my circle? Hell... I'd done a portrait of a guy's childhood dog once, in exchange for half a box of ration bars.

It was a whole different world, and I knew I was better off trusting Aleyah to handle things. Even if it did make me feel, as mentioned... stupid.

I'd lost the thread of conversation and blinked when Mr. Lee's hand was suddenly stuck into my personal space and I took it, shaking on automatic and understanding it was time to go home.

'When Stanley gets here for dinner, my dear,' he was telling Aleyah, as he started to lead the way out. 'Not a word.'

'Of course not, you old reprobate,' she sniffed, and it made me wonder if maybe Aleyah was exempt from the jokes. Or was she just exempt from this one only because she'd happened to see it early? If it had been Stan Kirby who had arrived for dinner first, would Mr. Lee be warning him not to tell Aleyah?

Weird damn friendship, if you asked me. Were I around them very much, I suspect I'd develop a paranoid streak a mile wide. Ok... a mile wider.

Aleyah didn't bother making the entire trek to the front door with us, taking a side hall into... God knows where; presumably a passage that led to the kitchen or dining room or some such place. I tried to imagine what sort of dinner those three old friends would sit down to together. Somehow I couldn't see them ordering out for pizza.

'Call me next week, pet,' she told me, patting my cheek in farewell, in that weird gesture that made me feel like I should wag my tail. 'We must begin planning for your next show. Sometime in the fall, I think.'

'Show?' I echoed, and winced internally... I'd sworn to stop letting her do that to me. 'What show?'

'Mustn't let the moss grow, my sweet,' I was lectured and I got a last pat before she turned and headed through the doorway. 'Don't be long, Jack darling... I'm famished! If Stanley doesn't arrive soon, we'll simply start without them.'

Coquette stood for a moment, looking up at me and I felt this weird kinship... like the animal was recognizing me as a pack mate because the alpha female patted me too, then she trotted off after her mistress.

Jack Lee gave a low chuckle, and I wondered if he hadn't gotten the same sense, but he simply began leading me through the labyrinth of his house again. I actually felt like I might find my own way after a few more trips, if the guy would stick to the same damn path twice in a row.

He opened the front door for me when we got there, and we had to stop and do the handshake thing again. I suddenly realized that I hadn't thought to wear my gloves and I had a moment of thinking to snatch my hand away from his, but if he noticed anything odd, he didn't give any sign. His expression did something odd though, not that he lost his usual wide grin, but there was a slightly different intensity.

'Tell me, Mr. Maxwell,' he said. 'Was that what you had planned when you came here today?'

It was in me to lie and tell him some story about knowing all along, and needing the impact of the actual picture to sell the idea or some damn used car salesman thing, but when I opened my mouth a sheepish little voice admitted, 'I didn't have a clue what I was going to do, sir.'

He laughed in a wry kind of way. 'Took guts, young man,' he told me, then sobered; it was weirdly intimidating... I didn't think I'd ever seen the man really serious before. 'I'll be honest, I wasn't sure about you. You have the talent, but what you lack is a belief in your own ability. Makes you timid. Timid won't get you far in this business.'

I knew I was turning red, but had to ignore it; wasn't a moment for stammering and staring at my feet. 'I'm much less timid sitting in a pilot's seat, sir, but this art thing is still kind of new.'

He laughed more than the joke warranted, and clapped me on the shoulder... kind of a macho patting thing, I guess, but then zinged me with a parting shot. 'Oh, I don't think you're as new to this 'art thing' as you are new to relying on it.'

I wasn't even sure how in the hell to take that, so I settled for a laugh of my own and took my leave with another reassurance from him that any time would be fine to come back and finish up.

The glee with which he voiced that actually made me start to feel just a bit guilty for all the embarrassment I was in the process of aiding and abetting.

I would have felt worse if I wasn't actually starting to see the humor in it.

It was well after dark by the time I was on the road and I had time finally to regret the loss of my cell phone. I imagine if I'd still had one, I would already have gotten a call from Heero. I thought about stopping and using a payphone, but decided in the end to just keep going; that time of night there wouldn't be much traffic and I should make good time anyway.

I drove with the windows down and the radio on, such as it was, listening to it fade between stations, blending some sort of new age synth with something that might have been jazz. It was... oddly soothing depending on which station was dominant.

I wondered about the dinner that was going on in the mansion I'd just left, and about the dinner conversation. Would they be making a decision about the as yet unnamed commission? Stanley Kirby hadn't seemed like my biggest fan, and I wondered how much say he would have in the hiring process. I was sure it was between the three of them, being co-owners of Expressions, and all. I just wasn't sure if Mr. Lee would hold off until after the unveiling of his latest practical joke or not. Had that 'test' been simply for him to make up his own mind, or was it a bigger test?

I had a sudden dread that Mr. Kirby would get taken in by the joke himself, and would end up hating me for his public embarrassment and my shot at the prize would be blown to hell.

It was a strange sort of feeling, because up until that moment I hadn't even been sure I wanted the damn job, whatever it was. But feeling that sudden alarm, I realized... I did. Not even knowing what the commission was going to be. Maybe it was just wanting to keep Aleyah happy. Maybe it was feeling like coming through for her would in some way pay back all that I owed her. Hell, maybe it was just my basic competitive nature coming through. I just knew I wanted to see what the big deal was, and I wanted to take a shot at whatever in the hell kind of job needed a pre-job in order to get it.

The notion sort of fit in with the totally surreal rest of the week.

When I pulled up in front of the house, I wasn't surprised to find Heero sitting on the steps in the dark waiting for me. Guilty, but not surprised.

Making the trek up the front steps, I could fairly see the tension ebbing out of him. I sat my paints down on the porch and dropped down to sit beside him with a gust of a sigh.

'Hey,' I said, leaning into his shoulder and tilting my head for a quick kiss. 'Sorry it took so long.'

He took a deep breath and let it go. 'It's ok... I figured you ended up painting when I found your easel gone.'

I reached out and snagged one of his hands to hold in mine, understanding from that inadvertent admission that he'd either been pacing the house, or actively looking for clues. 'When did you get home?' I asked.

'About dinner time,' he confessed. 'There's take-out in the fridge we can heat up later.'

'Sounds good,' I told him and leaned my head against his shoulder while he rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand and finished the job of putting his anxiety away. 'So how'd things go at the office?'

'Good,' he said, almost sounding surprised. 'Goddard was pretty shocked when he found out about the bomb. It didn't take much pressure after he found out we had Simcoe, to get him to cop a plea.'

'Please tell me he'll still do time,' I had to ask and Heero snorted.

'He's still looking at kidnapping charges, but right now he's just trying to get out of being an accessory to attempted murder.'

'Good,' I grumbled, seriously not liking the idea of any of them walking.

'Goddard and the other one... Hardy, have been involved with these 'Sons of Adam' for years, but have no record of any sort of...'

'Psycho behavior?' I supplied and Heero chuckled at the same time he let go of my hand to slip an arm around me.

'Yeah,' he confirmed, and kissed the top of my head. 'A couple of citations a few years ago for involvement in some protests that got a bit out of hand. But nothing even close to this.'

'And Simcoe?' I wanted to know, looking out across the street in front of us and remembering the sullen look on the guy's face while he'd lain on Darlien carpet and bled all over the place. 'I know damn well he didn't believe a bit of that crap he was spouting.'

'Oh, he was completely using them,' Heero confirmed, the arm around me tightening for a moment and I wasn't sure if it was a protective tendency or if he was just getting pissed thinking about Simcoe.

'He lived then?' I asked, trying to sound like I cared, and Heero snorted.

'I wasn't about to kill the son of a bitch until we had some answers out of him,' he told me, confirming that he was indeed the one who'd taken the guy down. I'd figured, but there had been a lot of hardware waved around during the incident, so I hadn't been positive.

We sat for a little bit and watched the clouds drift across the face of a waning moon, listening to the crickets. Guys like Simcoe and especially Dietcoke... what'd Heero call him? Hardy? Made me wish bad things about 'human rights'. I'd like to go in and thoroughly thrash the guy without ending up in jail myself.

Funny how police brutality doesn't look the same from the other side.

I decided not to share that thought.

'How's Relena doing?' I asked instead, and found that... oddly; I kind of actually cared.

Heero chuckled right out loud, and there was an ironic tone to his voice when he told me, 'Better; Zechs went the hell home.'

I opened my mouth, not even sure which of the dozen or so snarky comments was going to come out, but then bit my tongue. Heero's chuckle faded down to something that held hints of warmth, and he kissed the side of my head. I could feel the smile. It was kind of reassuring that I hadn't humiliated the crap out of him.

But then he sighed. 'They're resuming the summit meetings tomorrow...'

'And you'll be reporting for duty bright and early,' I finished for him and there was another sigh.

'Yeah... 'fraid so.'

'We probably ought to stop just sitting here then,' I prompted and he gave me a squeeze, leaning in for a real kiss.

'Probably right,' he admitted then and I stood up, offering him my hand. He took it and I pulled him to his feet, stopping to pick up my easel case with my free hand as we headed in.

'Can we take some vacation time when this is all over?' I quipped and it made him chuckle again.

'You want to go somewhere?' he asked and I rolled my eyes, though I doubt he saw it in the dark.

'Hell no!' I grumbled, waiting while he locked the front door and set the alarm. 'I don't even want to leave the house! No police work, no grease, no paint, no hysterical screaming... just for a couple of days.'

He smiled, leading the way through the dining room into the kitchen. I left my paints on the dining room table and followed him, moving to get plates while he pulled little Chinese take-out boxes out of the fridge.

'Hey,' he suddenly asked, putting the first of the boxes in the microwave. 'You didn't say... how did things go at Mr. Lee's?'

I rolled my eyes, realizing that again, he probably didn't see it because his focus was on setting the timer. 'Weird,' I said. 'That word that seems to be defining my life lately.' I moved past him to get our drinks and he turned to give me an expectant look.

'So, did you pass this... test?' he asked, and he seemed kind of... hopeful.

'I don't have a freaking clue,' I had to confess. 'Mr. Lee liked the mural, but I think it's like a popular vote kind of thing, or something. Aleyah was there and was giving off this weird vibe like she was quietly rooting for me. Or... something. Oh, and I'm afraid I'm going to be spending every free moment at the Lee estate until the damn thing is finished, because Mr. Art Connoisseur wants to unveil the dumb thing this next weekend and... uh... Heero? What day is it?'

He just blinked at me for a moment and I could tell... he wasn't a hundred percent sure either. 'Friday,' he finally said, and there was a hint of a question in it, even if he really didn't want to admit it.

'Fuck,' I muttered, staring at him. 'I wonder if he meant this weekend or next weekend when he said next weekend?'

'Guess I know where you're going to be tomorrow while I'm stuck back at the convention center,' he grinned and I almost groaned. A little bit of Jack Lee went a long way and quite frankly, I could have used a few days off. The timer went off then and saved me from having to voice that. Heero turned to pull what smelled like sweet and sour chicken out of the microwave and I went back to pouring drinks.

'I suppose I might as well get the stupid thing done,' I sighed going to the table with our glasses. Heero stuck something else in the microwave and brought the hot boxes to the table so we could get started.

'Ok,' he had to ask. 'Is that just you being... you, or is there something about this painting that is bugging you? You've called it both stupid and dumb in the last five minutes.'

We sat down across from each other and I just sat staring at him for a minute. It was kind of stupid, but I almost didn't want to tell him.

'Duo?' he prompted, pausing in dishing up his chicken to look at me with a hint of confused concern in his expression.

I sighed and gave it up. 'It's... just embarrassing,' I admitted, and of course had to tell him the whole sordid story. From extraterrestrial foliage to kindred dogs. He was laughing so much I think his food got cold. Though I have to admit, once I got him going, I probably made things a little bit more interesting than they actually were... not like I really knew what had been going through Coquette's little doggy mind. But... I like it when he's all focused on me, and obviously enjoying himself. He gets this kind of warm look in his eyes that's just all... I don't know, but it makes me feel all goofy inside.

By the time we were done with our dinner, he was definitely giving me that look, and I could tell it wasn't going to take much to ease that look right on over into another one that was equally as focused, but in an entirely different way.

We rose to clear the table and he caught me by the trash can to pull me in for one of those 'testing the waters' kinds of kisses, but when his hand settled on my hip he suddenly stopped.

'What's this?' he asked, poking at my pocket and making something crinkle.

'Crap,' I muttered, dumping my trash and digging into my pocket to fish out Mr. Lee's envelope. 'I completely forgot!'

'What is it?' Heero asked, stepping back to give me the space to pull the paper out and fold the envelope flap open.

'I... am not entirely sure,' I said sheepishly. 'Payment? I'm not even sure if it's full or...'

Then the check, because that's indeed what the envelope contained, was in my hands and all other coherent thought just sort of went for a roller coaster ride to the Bahamas with all my hamsters along for the trip.

I'm not even sure how I ended up sitting back in the chair with Heero squatted down in front of me looking just about as shocked as I felt.

I had totally made the right call letting Aleyah The Business Goddess Winner do the haggling.

Heero didn't even try for anything reassuring, just knelt there holding my hands that were busy holding that scrap of paper. If somebody else had walked in at that moment, it would probably have looked like we were saying a prayer over it.

Homage to the God of Finance?

The thought brought a hysterical little snicker out of me and I tore my eyes away from the line of zeros that was about five times what I'd hoped for, and looked up at Heero. 'So... about that kitchen remodeling job you wanted...'

He had seemed willing to share my hysteria for a moment, but the comment made him sober. 'Are you sure that's what you want to do with it? I mean... you've said before that you're fine with the kitchen the way it is, and that's your money...'

'Dumb ass,' I snorted and used the check to swat at him. 'What's mine is yours and all that crap. I promised the kitchen would come first and we've been putting it off too long as it is.'

He tilted his head to avoid the brush of paper, giving me that cocked-head, appraising look. 'We could... send it to Octavia?' he had to prod, knowing how much it bugged me to not be contributing what I once had to the home.

'She'll get a share,' I smiled, appreciating the careful assurance that he didn't mind my odd views on charity. 'I doubt it will take the whole thing to have the kitchen done.'

He gave me a nod, accepting without question however I chose to allocate the funds, and rose from his crouch. 'Come on, it's not something that needs to be decided right now... we really need to be getting up to bed.'

I glanced back down at the check in my hands. 'Ok, just... give me a minute?'

He smiled and bent to kiss me. 'Sure; I'll just go lock up.'

There was a hesitation then, as he glanced at the check once more before giving me a long look that spoke of things I was a little afraid to name. He started to say something else, but then just smiled, kissed me again and left the kitchen.

I let out a breath and carefully laid the check out on the table, smoothing it flat and counting the figures again. George crept out from behind the salt and pepper shakers, sidling up to the piece of paper as though it might bite him. He looked at it too, but didn't have a banner that read 'pretentious', and so just went back into hiding.

Or maybe he just couldn't spell it.

But yeah. I was in possession of a check that was worth more than I made at my day job in months, and I'd gotten it for painting a picture of a bathroom in a guy's fancy ass ballroom so he could make fun of his friends.

I'm not an idiot; I wasn't about to toss the check or something stupid, but I couldn't help wonder... is that really what I wanted to be doing for a living? Is that what I wanted to become? Gundam pilot... Ship's Captain... Mechanic... what? Artist for hire? Was that really the path I wanted to head down? And if so... where did it lead?

It felt like, somehow, I was standing at some sort of cross-roads and it was high time I chose a direction. And while the numbers staring me in the face were damn freaking attractive... just what the hell was down that path?

There were ghostly eyes upon me and I couldn't help whispering softly, 'What do you think, old friend?'

Solo grunted in return, his voice close though he chose not to show himself. 'What do I think? I think yer too damn old to be worrying about what ya wanna be when ya grown up.'

I chuckled. 'Point,' I agreed, and picking up the check, rose to go turn off the kitchen light before heading upstairs. 'Guess we'll see what this big deal job is first.'

I made my way out of the kitchen in the dark, hearing Heero moving about in the bedroom above me, but something made me glance back at the last minute. Solo had deigned to appear and was standing there next to the chair I'd just vacated, looking up at the ceiling just as though he could see Heero through the intervening structure. The dark was, as usual, no hindrance to seeing him since he was really just in my head anyway. So I could see the bright clarity of his eyes when he turned my way just the way I remembered it when he was alive. There had always been a sharpness in him that spoke of a wit and intelligence that frankly... was a crying shame had never had a chance to grow. More potential lost. More chances ungranted.

He snorted, rolling those eyes at me, but wouldn't be baited.

'You know I'm proud of you too,' he said and it made me smile. I leaned my head against the doorframe for a moment and stood looking into the empty room.

Almost, I admonished him not to name that feeling that was such a fragile thing sometimes, but... he wasn't really there, and he hadn't really said it. The echoes were only inside me, a feeling naming itself.

'Yeah,' I whispered aloud anyway. He would have been, the Solo of all those years ago. He would have laughed like a loon about rich folks and stupid, and could have stretched that kind of money to feed the lot of us for... a damn long time.

There would be a new kitchen and there would be money sent to my kids and maybe it was time I picked another author and started reading again. Started sending the kids books again.

Or maybe there'd be enough to have my car painted.

There'd be time to figure it all out.

I went up the stairs and put the check on my dresser under Fuzzybutt where he and Solo could keep an eye on it... and went to join my husband in bed.

Whatever the future was bringing, whatever road I ended up on... I just knew I didn't want to be my own lost potential.

OWARI

 

 

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