By: Spooks
~ ~ ~ ~
In a distant room, one dark figure focused a telescoping lens on a window of the Winner house. Through the transparent portal, between half-drawn curtains and angled slats of venetian blinds, two stood together.
The figure adjusted the telescope as it watched the couple, long fingers stroking the object with a gesture of affection usually reserved for an infant’s face. The figure watched as the couple stood in what appeared to be pained silence. Exquisitely appropriate. Observation and the subsequent manipulation as carried out would imply that pain would be the reaction to the figure’s most recent contact.
Cold lips pulled themselves into a sneer, remembering the other. Her. She took everything so literally. She wanted to wreak bloody havoc on the hated one...how pathetically frivolous.
Life long agony was much more interesting...more rewarding vengeance to seek. The sneer forced its way from the figure’s face as it contemplated. Revenge was so much sweeter when it was penned artistically. Of course, artistry demanded drastic measures at times...a heavy blow delivered with a piercing of finesse...and of course, one must come away with other rewards...emotions were so fleeting, after all.
Investments must be made for the future. Traditional revenge, such as she sought was so transient, only lasting as long as the seeker remembered the moment. How idiotic. One must always have other goals. Emotions can only be satisfied for as long as the memory remains, after all, and pleasant memories fade more quickly than any others.
The figure felt a stab of disgust when it considered the other...How pathetic it was that she would even need a mask to carry out her final part in the plan. Courage in porcelain, a fragile façade...
Spineless.
Pathetic.
And yet so marvelously convenient...
Just another pretty pawn. One-dimensional. Made and given to the figure to be thrown away...
A slash of a smile appeared on the figure’s face as it watched three enter the room behind the hated one and his beloved.
Soon.
The dark figure left the room. Work to do, and all of that.
Its steps were even and measured.
Perfectly calm.
Controlled.
Yes.
~ ~ ~ ~
Heero turned out of the circle of Duo’s arms when they heard the sound of a knock behind them. The two exchanged a look.
“Yeah?” Duo threw the word at the door.
“It’s us.”
Quatre.
“Define ‘us.’”
“Just us guys.”
Another exchange of glances, “Come in, then.”
The door opened and Quatre led the way carefully. Immediately behind him, Trowa followed, his head cocked slightly to the side. Wufei swept into the room and closed the door soundly.
“Well,” Duo stated.
“Indeed,” Wufei returned.
No one said anything for a few seconds. Heero cleared his throat. “Where are all the others?”
Trowa folded his arms over his chest. “We left them back in the kitchen. I didn’t tell them what I read over your shoulder, but I did tell Quatre and Wufei after we left the table. I apologize for not waiting and letting you reveal its contents for yourself,” He paused looking down at the floor. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have looked at it myself without your permission. I apologize for my indiscretion.”
“What? Don’t worry about that, it’s fine. You know that I would have shown it to you, and to Quatre and Wufei,” Heero replied, truly surprised at the other man’s guilt.
Duo bent over and snatched the letter from the floor, reading its hateful message. He fought the urge to crumple the paper into a ball and throw it across the room.
“So...have you thought about what this one means?” Wufei asked, moving forward a little so that he could see the note. Duo handed it to him.
He let a low whistle escape his lips. “Wow.”
“I’ve thought about nothing else,” Heero confessed stoically, his face completely blank. “Taking into account the amount that the stalker has implied he knows about us, then it is entirely possible that this is a ruse. However, it could be entirely the opposite. That is--” he paused, and the corner of his mouth twitched downward once. He took a deep breath.
“That is, perhaps the stalker anticipated my eventual desire to locate my biological parents and spent time researching. I haven’t begun to search in earnest for them myself...so I don’t know how hard it would have been to find them,” he finished.
“Just because the stalker has possibly--let me reiterate the word ‘possibly’ here--found them doesn’t mean he’s done anything to them yet,” Quatre spoke up. “Although I’m sure that the stalker will reveal his motivations behind this later.”
Wufei turned the letter over in his hand, studying the paper and the black letters. “So simple. This bastard is frighteningly intelligent. I wonder how much this has been coincidence and how much has been part of his plan.”
“What do you mean?” Duo asked, unconsciously leaning towards Heero.
“Well...” Wufei sighed, drawing his eyes up to stare at juncture of the wall and ceiling. He looked back down at the paper in his hand. “First you happen to move to Japan, only a few weeks before this planned party. The stalker sends you the first package, you leave early, and boom! Literally. A bomb goes off. Incredible timing.
“Then something is stuffed in the mailbox for you here, the very next day, containing things you had touched only the day before. Obviously someone followed you. However, they must have already known you were going to come here, as we know two sets of invitations were intercepted. So he was planning this for at least nine months.
“Now what I’m wondering is how closely these two events are related. If--if--the bombing is the work of the stalker, is it possible that he planned for you to come here, that he knew? Could that be why he sent the first package to you that particular morning, to spur you into coming early so that he could torment you while making preparations for the grand finale that he seems to be leading up to?” Wufei swallowed, his face suddenly tight. “I’m sorry. It seems that I let my mouth run away with my brain.”
“Wufei. That did not do wonders for my sense of safety,” Duo whispered. “Holy shit. I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Well, we’ll know the lab results tomorrow morning, so at least that will help,” Heero muttered. “We’re missing something here, something big. I just don’t know what.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Later that evening, the guests now staying at the Winner mansion broke into small groups instead of one large group. The former pilots had stayed together after their conversation in Heero and Duo’s room and ended up in one of the rec rooms. Quatre, for once, let Trowa convince him that he really wasn’t being a bad host by not “entertaining” the other guests. Wufei rolled his eyes at that and snorted. Duo and Heero, meanwhile, just tried to forget their increasing worries. It actually worked...for a little while.
Left to their own devices, the women busied themselves elsewhere. Hilde had decided to take a nap. Relena and Dorothy played a heated game of table tennis. Every so often Dorothy’s ringing laugh would sparkle across the green table; the two women were evenly matched.
Mariemeia had sought out the maid, Jenny, the one she had spoken with earlier. While the two were talking, they stumbled across a particularly cute (Mariemeia thought, anyway) nephew of one of the Manguanacs named Hakim. Since the three were all pretty close in age, they had a nice conversation until the end of Jenny’s break, after which Mariemeia and Hakim wandered around together. Eventually they found the room where Relena and Dorothy were playing table tennis. Immediately Dorothy subjected them to a barrage of teasing.
Dinner was a blur, everyone discussing what they had done after lunch segueing into other topics. After they finished eating, once again everyone broke off into their own little groups. It was hard to pay attention to a conversation that included nine people, after all.
So the day passed. Time ticked away.
~ ~ ~ ~
In the Preventer’s temporary Tokyo field office, Sally Po sighed heavily, leaning back in her stiff folding chair and tilting her head backwards. It had been a long day, and it was only seven o’clock.
She had just been going over the updated casualty list. Fifty-seven people had been found in the debris since she had talked with Heero and Duo. Bodies...or just body parts. Dead. Of course, this late in the game, it was impractical of her to hope for any survivors amongst the rubble.
Perhaps it was the doctor in her that kept hope alive, she mused to herself. How ironic, considering the amazing amount of jaded doctors she had met. They all just wanted to help people, and becoming cynical just ended up as some people’s defense mechanism. Sally smiled wryly and stared up at the ceiling. Everyone was different.
The laptop in front of her chimed softly. Tilting her head back down, she stretched one arm forward and brought up the secure link with the Preventer’s database and her remote email account. The lab results from Geneva soon scrolled down the small screen. A few keystrokes later, and they were sent to Heero’s and Duo’s own Preventer accounts respectively. The Preventer database was more secure than sending the results over regular channels.
Sally paused only to get a cup of coffee before pouring over the results. After an initial scan, she turned to the small com device attached to the laptop by a long snaking cord. Her fingers flew over the buttons, selecting a recording and rewinding it. Something in the report had jolted her memory.
“--Lived in different sized apartments depending on the number of people and how much money they had. There was an elderly coupl--“ Duo’s voice rang out as she checked the progress.
“--Impossible for the guards to kee--“ Heero this time.
“--It's conceivable that someone inconspicuous could have slipped in with a small package or--" Duo again.
Sally sighed impatiently. Okay, perhaps she wasn’t giving the recording enough time to rewind. Deliberately, she watched the digital numbers countdown, forcing herself to wait.
She had a hunch...
When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she stopped the device and let it play. Heero was speaking.
“--With the size of Tokyo, and especially considering mine and Duo's reluctant fame, it was one of our first choices.--“
Ah, this was what she wanted. She smiled tightly.
“--No, we had absolutely no prior knowledge of the realtor company nor the apartment building before the hotel clerk referred Duo.--"
Sally listened to her own voice reply, fighting the urge to wince. She hated how her voice sounded in recordings.
She started rewinding again, watching the red numbers flash. If her memory served her correctly then...
“--I went to the front desk to inquire about local realtor companies and good areas to live, since locals usually know best, and the girl at the counter directed me immediately to the realtor that owned the building.--"
Forward.
“--So we went to the realtors' office, and it turned out they just had an opening turn up that morning.--"
Sally waited a moment, just to make sure she remembered the name of the hotel correctly.
A moment later, Duo’s recorded voice confirmed it for her.
“--Chester International, it's the only one in the city. --"
Sally shut off the recording.
She checked the list of missing residents and their apartments.
A moment later she was out of her chair, excitement and worry blossoming in her tired chest. She needed to check up on a few things.
~ ~ ~ ~
At around six a.m. Heero rolled carefully out of bed, extracting himself from under one of Duo’s far flung arms. Quietly, he padded to the bathroom, digging his bare toes into the carpet as he walked. A few minutes later, he returned to the still mostly-dark bedroom and blinked at the difference in lighting for a moment. Outside, a bird chirped merrily.
Heero wondered if he should even bother trying to go back to sleep; usually, once he was awake, that was it, he was up for the rest of the day. However, the early morning light had barely started to seep around the curtains and through blinds, and the bed still looked rather inviting...he found himself lifting up a light sheet, being careful not to wake his sleeping lover.
“Heero?”
Oops.
“Sorry.”
“S’okay. I wasn’t really ‘sleep...” Duo mumbled thickly, rolling closer and throwing and arm over Heero.
“Why not?” The Japanese man asked softly, tucking himself into the body beside him.
“Thinkin’ about stuff,” Duo replied, his voice supremely muffled with sleep. “We find out some stuff about the evil bastard from hell today, ya know? Thinkin’ about that...”
“Yeah, we do find out stuff, don’t we?” Heero mused, his tone affectionate. He pulled his head back to look at Duo. The longhaired man was almost asleep again. Heero smiled. “It’ll be something to go on.”
“Mm-hm,” Duo nodded, his eyes closed, eyelashes fluttering as he let out a yawn.
Heero watched him fall asleep. A few minutes later, despite himself, he was too.
~ ~ ~ ~
A few hours later found the two alone in Quatre’s bedroom, settled in front of the blond’s personal com center.
Heero logged into the Preventer’s database and found, with a mixed sense of dread and relief, that Sally had indeed received the Geneva results and forwarded them to both he and Duo. Opening them, he loaded the text report first while the graphical analyses loaded. Duo read over his shoulder.
“Well.”
“Well,” Heero echoed, turning his chair to stare at Duo.
Duo stared back, turning his chair as well.
“A female?” Duo finally said.
“It appears so,” Heero nodded. “Assuming that the blood in the glue belongs to the stalker, that is. However, considering the taunts that he--she--has thrown our way, I find it highly unlikely that the blood belongs to anyone else but her.”
“Huh. Too bad the envelopes and the glue and all that were generic crap,” Duo said after a moment. He picked up a pen from the table and started to twirl it between his fingers.
“At least the ashes and the bits of concrete aren’t from the blast,” Heero said, scrolling down to look at a graph. “The concrete is the particular industrial mix used in the building, so it is from the apartment, but isn’t what you’d get scooping up random rubble. So, it’s pre-blast. The lab techs hypothesize someone may have taken a sledgehammer to a support pillar in the parking garage and obtained a bit of concrete that way, but the ashes are regular paper and other household materials.”
“That’s only half a relief, though,” the American sighed, tossing down the pen. “It doesn’t completely rule out the stalker’s involvement, it just means that he--excuse me, she--only stuck around long enough to break into our apartment and swipe some stuff before the blast and that she possibly had the chance to somehow grab a bit of building concrete. Maybe she knew that we’d eventually get to have professionals go over the things she sent so she did this fake stuff to throw us off track.”
Heero shrugged. “It’s possible. I’m trying not to over think things right now, though. I’m more concerned about what the lab results tell us rather than what they don’t tell us.”
“Got a point, my man,” Duo sighed, swiveling back and forth a little in the computer chair. “So the stalker’s a girl. That’s all we know for sure. What girl would be out to get us?”
“And here’s where things get potentially frightening. Who, at some point or another, hasn’t wanted to get one of us for some reason or another? Think only of people we know, Duo, if that helps, and use them as examples. It could be anyone,” Heero sighed, bumping his knee against his lover’s.
“You think it’s someone we know?” Duo’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline.
“No! I didn’t mean that! I just meant that as an example,” Heero protested.
“Hey, wait...we can’t just rule people out because we know them...” the American’s voice trailed off suddenly. He chuckled darkly. “I can’t believe I just said that. How fucking paranoid can I be?”
“You’re not being paranoid, you’re being reasonable,” Heero frowned, his eyes downcast. He hated to think like this, to be so cynical, especially after he had worked so hard to make himself start trusting people in the first place. But... “Think about it. The ‘I see you I know you’ note. Quatre speculated that the stalker meant it literally, but Trowa reasoned that the stalker was just trying to make us distrustful. However, with what the stalker has already demonstrated of her knowledge of us, I don’t see it as totally out of the question that she does know us, or has at least made contact with us. It very well could be someone we know.”
“Ugh. I hate to say it in this case, but you’re right. So let’s analyze women we know,” Duo popped his thumbs loudly. “But let’s not get too cared away, okay? The second we start looking at every single female we meet or know as a potential murderous stalker is the second that the stalker has officially crawled in our heads and won control. I won’t let her influence how I treat my friends who happen to have two X chromosomes. That’s not fair.”
Heero nodded. “Of course not. I didn’t mean that we should interrogate Relena, Mariemeia, Hilde, and Dorothy just because they’re women and could possibly hold grudges against one or both of us. Or Sylvia, either, for that matter, when she gets here today. Or Noin, Sally, Une, anyone.”
“Just checking, love,” Duo winked. “Sometimes you get a tad carried away. Besides, Dorothy might kill us.”
The shorthaired man rolled his eyes. “We’ll keep our own semi-suspicions to ourselves for now, agreed?”
“Yeah,” Duo replied, as though it went without saying. “I think what we need to do is go over exactly what’s been done when. That would tell us who, if anyone that we know, would have had the opportunity to carry out at least the visible results of the stalking.”
“Assuming, of course, that she carried out all of this on her own. She could have had help. If one can hire an assassin for the right price, one can surely hire a little help to observe and send letters,” Heero said.
“Oh, well shit. Hadn’t thought of that. Of course, that alone would narrow down the field. Think of how much that would cost. You’d have to be rich,” Duo considered, tapping his fingers on the computer desk. “But, damn...I hadn’t thought about her having help. She could have hired a whole team. With enough money, you can do almost anything.”
“This isn’t going to pleasant, is it?” Heero asked with a sigh. He started printing the lab results.
“Oh, hell no,” Duo replied cheerfully, a dark look settling in his eyes. “Come to think of it, almost everyone we’re friends with now--including each other--were enemies at one point, or in one way or another. Ugh.”
Leaning back in his computer chair, Heero fought the urge to pull the other man into his arms. They’d never get anywhere at that rate, though, and there would be time for comfort later. Instead, he hooked his ankle around Duo’s. The simple gesture went a long way. The longhaired man looked up at him, sent him a shaky smile, and began to talk.
They began to pick apart their female friends.
Duo was right.
It wasn’t pleasant.
By the time they were finished, Heero felt exceedingly paranoid.
So did Duo.
They didn’t talk about it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Elsewhere in the house Mariemeia found herself being watched by two sets of protective eyes. Since bumping into Hakim, Abdul-the-Manguanac’s nephew, in the hallways yesterday, they had ended up hanging out together for most of the rest of the day, then most of the next morning as well. Somewhere along the way, Dorothy had informed Wufei of this development, and since then the two teenagers had picked up a couple of permanent tails.
Right now they were in one of the rec rooms. All of them. Mariemeia supposed that they were just being protective, and she realized that it meant they cared, and she appreciated their concern...but really.
It was annoying. Especially when Relena had found them, because it was only a matter of time before the room filled up. Hilde had wandered in a few minutes later, carrying a box of cheese crackers in one hand and a can of artificial cheese-in-a-can in the other. She proceeded to spread the liquidy cheese goo from the can onto the crackers, popping them one by one into her mouth. Mariemeia winced. Yuck. And right before lunch, too.
Then Quatre and Trowa had shown up. Evidently Heero and Duo were getting those lab results. The point was, though, that everyone (almost) was congregated in the same room as they were, and if they left, Dorothy and Wufei would surely follow. And with them would trickle the crowd.
The two teenagers had no chance of escape, she thought, admitting to herself that she was probably being just a tad melodramatic. Not that they really wanted to do anything, but it was hard to get to know someone and vice versa when trapped in a room full of people that already knew you.
The redheaded girl resisted the urge to throw something at the horde and focused on what Hakim was saying. He was an interesting guy. Cute, too. Jenny had definitely agreed with her on that. The three of them had talked for a long time after dinner, since Jenny’s shift had been over then. Despite how much she liked being around all of the others, it was nice to be around people that were closer to her own age.
Mariemeia was glad that she and Dorothy had shown up early. Now if only she and Hakim could ditch the remoras...
~ ~ ~ ~
“Hello!” Duo called out to the general room as he sauntered in through the doorway, surveying where everyone was standing or sitting in one quick visual sweep of the room. Might as well announce their presence, he figured. He halted to stand about midway into the room itself.
Mentally Duo counted down.
3...
2...
1...
“Well, what did it--"
“So was--"
“Did--"
“How did--"
“Was there anything in the results about--"
Beside Duo, Heero cleared his throat over the barrage of questions. The room fell into slightly embarrassed, but still concerned silence.
“Er...sorry about that,” Quatre said after a moment. “Anyway, get on with it! Uh, please?”
“How eloquent,” Duo quipped, letting his smirk settle into a smile before the expression faded completely from his face. “Let me summarize the results. There were largely unhelpful. Most of the analysis showed nothing we could use, and the slightly good news is about the building bits: they aren’t from the post-exploded building.”
The American paused and looked over at his partner, fighting the urge to wince at that last bit of careful wording. They had decided to keep the specific details between themselves for the time being.
Heero continued the summary, picking up where Duo had left off. “Basically, the only thing the results showed was that the stalker is female.”
Together, Duo and Heero waited for everyone to react. They really didn’t want to suspect anyone they knew, but after their conversation, it was difficult not to be paranoid.
“Ha! The Idiot is a woman!” Dorothy exclaimed almost immediately. She nudged Relena with her elbow. “Well, you must have something else to speculate about...”
“For instance what he--pardon--she sent yesterday?” Relena asked, crossing her arms over her stomach. Her voice faltered for a moment. “Unless of course you’d rather not discuss it.”
“Wait! Wait! Hold on, I’m still to get used to all of this,” Hilde broke in. “Okay, so how do you know that it was the stalker’s blood? Everybody’s told me bits and pieces of things, and although they all sound pretty fishy, nothing exactly adds up. You’ve got nothing concrete, just a bunch of speculations and crap based on how this supposed chick’s been manipulating you. What if it’s a guy, or more than one person, or something? Oh, I don’t know! What if they just want you to think that it’s a girl so they used some girl’s blood? That wouldn’t exactly be hard to come by, know what I mean? Help me out here, because I don’t understand how a bunch of rational people can suddenly start jumping to conclusions based on circumstantial evidence.”
“Well, Hilde, you’ve got to admit, it’s one hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Duo replied after a moment of stunned silence.
He and Heero exchanged a look and a very minute head nod. Duo hated how they were doing this.
“We think that it’s the stalker’s blood because of her later actions. Perhaps it is someone else’s blood, but that wouldn’t fit her profile. Everything else she’s done has been consistent and largely accurate,” Heero said, his voice almost too professional.
Duo watched as Hilde took that in and felt immense relief when she nodded her head in understanding. Even though they hardly got the chance to spend time together and had to limit their friendship to long emails and lots of phone calls, Duo still considered the woman to be one of his best friends.
Back when he had been helping her get the salvage shop up and running, he had started to think of Hilde as an almost-sort-of-kind-of-sister. As for lately...well...Sure, he had been out of touch for a month or two, but she rarely ranted unless something else was going on. Duo made a mental note to spend some time with her later to find out what was wrong.
“Oh, that makes a lot of sense. As long as you’re not giving yourselves blind spots,” the woman said, tugging on a strand of her dyed green hair.
“What, the ‘missing the forest for the trees’ mentality?” Wufei snorted, his cynic’s mask firmly ensconcing itself upon his face. “I hardly think you need to worry about that happening.”
“Hey, it’s good advice,” Relena countered reasonably. She leaned against the edge of the nearest couch. “So basically, the results showed a whole lot of detailed nothing.”
“How utterly typical. One must usually apply scientific knowledge in order to get any use out of it,” Dorothy interjected.
Duo shrugged. “Well, whatever.”
“Wow, that must be really disappointing,” Mariemeia spoke up from the couch. When everyone turned to look at her, her face tinted pink. “To put it crudely, it really sucks.”
“That is one way to put it,” Heero agreed.
“But hey, at least you have more solid information to apply to what we’ve already figured out,” Quatre said as he tugged on the sleeve of his shirt.
“That’s better than pure speculation,” Trowa nodded.
As he spoke, his sharp emerald eyes rolled over Heero, then Duo. The pair got the feeling that the other man knew they had a few other things on their minds. He had probably been observing their body language and mannerisms during the whole conversation, thus the reason he hadn’t contributed to the conversation until now.
It’s always the quiet ones, Duo thought with a mental grin; they make the most observant friends. He watched as Quatre picked up on Trowa’s gaze. Duo could almost see the blond mentally reviewing the conversation. Then...there it was! A light of comprehension flooded Quatre’s eyes. Two down...
Meanwhile, one of Wufei’s dark eyebrows had taken a decidedly calculating tilt. Make that three.
“Have to agree with you on that, Trowa. Now, I hate to cut the conversation short here, but I want to have another look at those results to make sure we didn’t miss anything,” Duo said briskly, feeling guilty. Technically, they were going to have the papers in front of them, but there was no use in reviewing what wouldn’t help.
“We’ll be in the bedroom.” As Duo spoke, making sure he got Quatre’s attention. Hopefully, he’d get the message.
Heero nodded, and together the couple turned and left the room.
Out in the hallway, they walked quickly to their bedroom. Duo kept his voice low. “I hate this. I’m so fucking paranoid. I can’t help it, though.”
Heero shot him a sideways glance as they rounded a corner. “If you can’t help it, then you just can’t help it. Usually you feel certain ways for a reason. For instance, pain is an indicator that some part of your body is being damaged. This is the same kind of thing. You...we...are reacting in an emotional manner to stressful stimuli. It’s natural, and it cannot be fully controlled. It happens for a reason and is part of the body and mind’s normal functioning procedures.”
Heero’s vocabulary always seemed to grow under periods of duress.
“Heero,” the American sighed, “Sometimes you’re too cut and dry for your own good. But I understand what you’re trying to say. Thank you.”
The Japanese man smirked.
Stopping at the entrance to their room, Duo turned to lean against the doorframe. “I’m guessing that Quatre, at least, will be coming along any minute now. Do you want to go ahead and go in or what?”
“Go in, but leave the door open. We can take the printouts of the drawer so we can ‘look at them’,” Heero suggested, rolling his eyes. “You didn’t have to make an excuse, you know.”
“Well, it was better than being rude,” the longhaired man yawned. “Damn. All this running around and being stressed out is really making me tired. I must be getting old.”
“Right. Sure, Duo,” Heero snorted. Suddenly, he yawned, too, as he made his way over to the dresser. Opening bottom drawer, he pulled out the printouts of the lab results and dropped them on the dresser top. “You made me yawn. Hmph. If you’re getting old, then I’m getting old. We’re barely in our twenties.”
“Soon it’ll be our thirties! Then our forties! Then all my hair will fall out and we’ll have to have wheelchairs races because before we know it, we’ll be eighty!” Duo exclaimed dramatically, flopping backwards onto the bed. He immediately bounced back up and walked over to the where Heero stood.
“Wheelchair races?” Heero asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course, won’t that be fun? We could share a wheelchair if you’d like and race Quatre and Trowa. I bet they end up sharing a wheelchair. Oh, wait...Then Wufei would probably yell at us because he’d only have one set of arms to wheel himself along and think it was unfair. He’d be right, of course, so we’d have to give him a head start. Except he probably wouldn’t take it, damn that weird justice complex. Hm. This is getting complicated.”
Suddenly Duo found himself wrapped in a fierce embrace.
“Heero?” He asked, circling his arms up and around his lover’s back.
“Mm?”
“Are you okay?” The American asked, slightly worried. He pulled back and looked at his partner carefully. Duo was fully astonished to see Heero’s eyes shining slightly with unshed tears. Quickly, he pulled the other man closer to him and kissed the side of his neck. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”
For a long moment, Heero didn’t reply, and just tightened his arms around Duo and pulled him close again. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost too soft to be heard.
“No. You said everything right. I can’t wait for those wheelchair races.”
And Duo understood.
Despite having lived together for almost two years, they had never spoken any real words of commitment. Plans had sprung up spontaneously as they moved together, and slowly they had allowed themselves to become bonded. Their relationship, their love, had always been heavily implied, a sure thing on both parts, but not actually said out loud for various reasons, fear being first and foremost.
Before, this wordless union had been enough, but now...
Duo took a deep breath, feeling Heero’s heartbeat against his own. How could they have waited so long to take this step? Every day, they both knew it; it only needed to be said.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
It was the first time they had exchanged the words.
~ ~ ~ ~
“That was...odd,” Wufei said. They had just rounded the corner of the hallway, officially putting them out of earshot of the room they had just vacated.
“Quite,” Trowa agreed with a slight tilt of his head. “At least they weren’t too obvious.”
“Yeah, but they were obvious enough that we noticed something was up,” Quatre muttered in a worried tone. “Oh well, I guess we’ll find out. That is, if they decide to tell us what’s going on.”
“Oh, and here I thought that was the very reason we so subtly ditched the women, and the Manguanac-wannabe kid that’s trying to move in on Mariemeia,” Wufei snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Uh, Manguanac-wannabe kid? Wufei, Hakim’s harmless. Lay off or I have a feeling May’s going to explode in your general direction. And yes, thank you for stating the absolute obvious about why we’re headed where we’re headed,” Quatre sparred back, rolling his eyes.
Meanwhile, Trowa knocked on the frame of Heero and Duo’s partially opened door. They couldn’t see if they were inside from where they stood.
A few moments of quiet shuffling later and half of Duo’s face appeared around the edge of the door. The one visible eye swiveled over them. “Hey. Come on in.”
The door opened wider and Duo stepped back. Heero stood by the dresser, holding a stack of papers. A few minutes later, and all five of them were settled on the floor in a circle, the printouts of the lab results scattered discarded in the center. The other former pilots had wanted to see the results for themselves.
“So...that was entirely unhelpful,” Wufei stated, glaring disdainfully at the papers.
“Not completely,” Duo shrugged. “Some stuff helped, but basically...yeah, nothing to rule out.”
“Why did you decide to keep the little details to yourselves earlier?” Quatre asked, his pale forehead furrowing. “Why the sudden need for subterfuge? Technically, I know that we five are all either reserve or active Preventers and that these are Preventer files, but somehow I doubt that was part of your reasoning. What’s going on?”
“Simple,” Duo explained, “Paranoia. It’s not as though we want to be untrusting bastards, but think about it this way: this person knows us very well. We thought she was able to torment us so effectively because of how long she’s been watching us, but what if that’s not it? What if she literally knows us, and we know her?”
“Let’s be perfectly frank here,” Wufei cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Are you saying that you suspect someone you know?”
“No,” Heero replied, putting a hand on Duo’s shoulder. “It’s just a possibility that occurred to us. However, despite our shared desire to put that possibility out of our minds, it’s next to impossible to ignore. It’s not an active suspicion, it’s a defensive reflex that’s extremely difficult to control.”
Duo nodded.
Quatre raised his eyebrows and turned his head to the side. “Well, then. Do you want us to lie for you? I don’t want to sound rude, but it might come down to that. For instance, I noticed how you avoided answering Relena’s question about what was in yesterday’s letter. No one but us knows right now.”
“Of course not,” Duo looked aghast. “Don’t lie. Damn. I hadn’t even realized that we avoided the question. Did you, Heero?”
Heero looked up at the ceiling.
“Heero?”
“I didn’t want to deviate from the purpose of the conversation, which was to relay information about the lab results,” Heero stated in a monotone. He continued to stare at the ceiling. He blinked a few times.
The other four exchanged a flurry of glances.
“So, um, anyway. What, Wufei, did Relena ask you about it last night during your post-coital smoke?” Duo asked, snickering. When all else fails, change the subject. Drastically.
The Chinese man’s face turned bright, fire engine red. “Excuse me?” He asked in a low, dangerous voice.
“What?” Duo backpedaled mentally. Oops, it seems that the subject had turned around and tried to bite him on the ass. “It was a simple question...oh, sorry. I forget, you don’t smoke...”
“Thin ice, Maxwell, thin ice,” Wufei warned, taking a deep breath as though he were about to continue.
Duo cut in before he could finish. “What about thin ice?”
“You’re skating on it,” the Chinese man gritted out.
“But, Wufei,” the American said patiently. “I don’t know how to skate. Why on earth or the colonies would I venture out on a sheet of thin ice wearing blades of metal on my feet if I didn’t even know how to properly maneuver?”
Wufei cracked his stern expression and rolled his eyes. He took a deep breath. “Right. Silly me. Just show some damn respect, okay?”
“Fair enough,” Duo acquiesced. Ah, blessed relief. And it seemed the Heero was feeling better, too. Ah, blessed success.
Wufei waited a moment, then cleared his throat. “To answer your question, sans crude implications, she made a point of not asking. She did say, however, that whatever the letter said, it was must have been upsetting and that although she was curious she knew that it wasn’t my place to tell her.”
“So was did this conversation take place after you two did the--“ Duo piped. He stopped after Wufei sent him a warning glare. “Just kidding. Oh, hey, for some reason, that reminds me...”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Of?” Quatre asked expectantly.
“When we spoke to Sally the other day, she told us to tell you something, Wufei,” Duo continued. He shot a glance at Heero. “I’m just not sure on the exact wording. Something about vultures.”
“Vultures?” Trowa echoed.
“Vultures,” Duo repeated, nodding his head sagely.
“Oh,” Wufei had a feeling he knew what it was about and wished he could postpone this conversation.
Undoubtedly, once they heard what Sally had wanted relayed, they’d want to know what it meant. And that would mean explaining things he wasn’t quite ready to put into words quite yet. Of course, they were things he should probably talk about, which was probably why Sally had told Heero and Duo whatever it was that she told them. If he was right, that is. If he was wrong, well, then he’d just have to deal with something new, which would undoubtedly also be unpleasant. Great. How delightfully awkward.
“Heero, do you remember?” Duo asked.
“’Vultures can only really eat you if you're going to die. They're scavengers and feed on weakness,’” The Japanese man paused. “Quoted exactly.”
Four sets of eyes focused on Wufei.
He looked rather embarrassed. Damnit, he had been right. Maybe he could be clever and give just enough information to satisfy their curiosity without getting into the personal connotations of the statement.
“Well? What the hell does that mean?” Duo asked. “Come on.”
“Ah...it’s a reference to the media,” Wufei said after a moment. “Sally and I started referring to the bastards as carrion-eaters and vultures back when the tabloids started the resurgence of articles about my part in the Dekim Barton Uprising.”
Wufei never referred to it as the “Mariemeia Incident.”
“So, that’s it?” Quatre asked.
“Basically.”
“Wait, wait, wait. So why would Sally ask us to remind you of this? Hmm?” Duo poke Wufei’s arm.
Wufei bit his lip. So much for being clever. “Well...okay. Might as well get this over with. As you all well know, the reason that Relena and I both came here two weeks early was to spend time together. This is because our relationship is not public knowledge. Now. Public knowledge...media...vultures...trouble...see the relationship between these things, or shall I draw you a picture?”
“Oo! If I said no, would you really draw one?” Duo asked.
Wufei scrunched his lips together. “This is embarrassing.”
“Oh, shut up, Duo,” Quatre mock-glared at the American and turned to Wufei, his eyes sharp. “Are you worried that your relationship isn’t strong enough to survive the media’s beating? Or are you afraid of what they’ll say about either or both of you? Or, and feel free to smack me for this if I’m totally off base, but are you afraid that you might be overstepping yourself here by going public? As in, are you at the point where it’s necessary for you to be seen together because you can’t stand being apart because it’s a secret?” He paused. “Heck, I’ll bet you haven’t even talked this over with Relena.”
“Uh, no, I haven’t, actually,” Wufei said, blinking in surprise. “How’d you guess all that? Am I that obvious?”
“No, but Sally is,” Quatre replied. “Did you talk to her about this?”
“Yes.”
“Then what do you think the whole ‘feeding on weakness’ thing was about? If your relationship is strong enough, it can last anything!” Quatre thumped his fist into the soft carpet. “The first thing you need to do is talk to Relena. This is something you need to decide together.”
Wufei blinked. “Okay.”
“Damn right.”
Just then, a knock sounded from the door.
“Uh, yeah?” Duo spoke up, purposefully shifting his eyes off of the still wound-up Quatre toward the direction of the doorway.
“I’ve been sent to inform you, sirs, that lunch is ready,” a masculine voice said politely through the wooden barrier.
“Thank you,” Heero replied. He leaned forward and began to gather the mostly useless printouts.
“Well, this was fun. I can’t believe it’s lunchtime already,” Duo muttered, helping Heero with the papers. While Heero neatened the stack, he stood up and wandered across the room, bouncing on his toes and talking more to himself than to anyone else. “Long morning. Can’t believe Sylvia and her fiancé are showing up today. Long day. I’m going to need a nap. Looooong day.”
Heero stood up and shoved the printouts into a dresser drawer, then looked back over to where the other guys where still sitting on the floor. Taking a long look at Quatre’s wired state, and the odd look on Trowa’s face, he promptly walked over, grabbed the back of Wufei’s shirt, and yanked him to his feet.
“What the hell?” The Chinese man barked, whirling to glare at Heero.
Duo laughed from his position by the now open door. “He must be hungry. Come on, come on. Food’s waiting and all that.”
So they left the room. As soon as they were halfway down the corridor, Wufei turned on Heero again, his voice a harsh whisper. “Okay, explain.”
“Let’s put it this way, when Quatre said that Sally was being obvious, he wasn’t entirely accurate. Sally was quite subtle. Quatre just happened to be in the right mood to hear what she said and pick up on what she meant,” Heero began.
Duo stepped in. “I know that you were busy catching the literal meaning of what Quatre was saying, so it’s understandable how you could miss it the first time, but think about the parallels between what he said to you and how it kind of relates to he and Trowa’s relationship. I mean, shit, the two have been almost living together for years, but they just won’t come out and commit to anything more concrete. Let me reiterate that they’ve been stuck on this plateau for years. I’m thinking that some of that frustration might have come out back there. Not that they aren’t happy right now and all that, but, well...oh, I don’t know. Let them work it out.”
“Oh. Great. Now I feel stupid,” Wufei groaned. “And self-centered.”
”Don’t,” Heero rolled his eyes, stepped between the other two and propelling them in the direction of the dining room where they had eaten breakfast. “You’ve got your own problems.”
“So do you, and you still managed to notice,” Wufei grumbled.
“Whatever, Wufei. We’ve been paranoid bastards lately and have been acting slightly unbalanced. I hardly think that we’re the ones you need to compare yourself to right now,” Duo shot back good-naturedly, his expression slightly clouded despite his tone.
When they sat down at the table, Duo noticed that Hilde had a plate full of cheese. Just cheese. Different kinds of cheese, but cheese, nevertheless.
He was really going to have to talk to her later.
“Hey, where are Quatre and Trowa?” Dorothy asked, her hand hesitating as she raised her glass to her lips.
“Oh, they’ll be along in a minute,” Duo replied in an offhanded manner.
~ ~ ~ ~
Out in the hallway, Mrs. Jessam, the Winner head of staff, stopped one of the temporary staff members. The young man had the mail firmly cradled in his arms and had been about to bring it into the dining room.
“See here, Tom, were you about to take that in while they were eating?” The tall, imposing woman asked briskly, her voice measured in a decidedly clipped British accent.
“Um, yes, ma’am?” He replied, looking down at the bundle of mail.
“Now, I know that you’re part of the temporary staff, so I’ll be lenient, but first off all, take look into the dining room,” she said patiently, her thick bun of gray hair bobbing at the back of her neck as she gestured to the doorway of said room.
Tom stuck his tousled head through the doorway and surveyed the room. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Was Mr. Winner in there?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Let me educate you, then. The mail delivered to this address first and foremost is his, at least it is as far as I’m concerned, regardless of whom else may be receiving packages while temporarily living under his roof. Therefore, you are only to give the mail to him,” Mrs. Jessam said patiently. “Now, I want you to put that right here on the...hm...no, that’s not secure enough for my peace of mind. We’ll put the mail in the kitchen for right now.”
“Ma’am? Why don’t we just wait for Mr. Winner?” Tom asked, biting his lip and wincing in preparation for the older woman’s answer.
She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m not going to treat you like an idiot, young man, because I’m sure you’ve not had your head buried up your posterior for the past two weeks. You have heard about what’s been going on with pair of the guests, correct?”
“Um, yes?” He answered tentatively. “Stalker or something, right?”
“Very good. There’s hope for you yet. Well,” she started as she ushered him into the kitchen, “I’m sure you also realize that they receive things in amongst Mr. Winner’s mail, which is usually brought in at lunch. So far, they’ve had very few undisturbed midday meals. Today, however, we won’t be bringing in the mail after they finish eating and have left the table, thus letting them enjoy their food to the fullest extent possible.”
“Oh,” Tom said. “That’s really nice of you.”
The older woman’s face clouded. “They’re such nice boys, I hate to see them go through something like this,” she paused, forcing a smile onto her broad face. “Oh well, I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.”
Tom just smiled nervously and bobbed his head in agreement. From what he had heard, those two guys the boss had invited over where probably in some really deep shit. Not that he’d say that to anyone, least of all Mrs. Jessam. He needed this job.
Tom tossed the pile of mail onto a kitchen counter and walked away.
~ ~ ~ ~