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Chapter List
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Chapter contributed by : Gigamouse

CHAPTER THREE

Of kitty cats and bunny slippers�
When Duo woke, it was usually a sudden and immediate affair. One moment he
would be seemingly deep into sleep and the next those curious blue eyes were
open and watching the world with complete and utter clarity. His �usual� wake
up, however, did not include furred, five-pound objects falling onto the middle
of his back at five in the morning. Giving a startled noise, the boy came up
swinging, flipped over onto his back and got tangled into his bed sheets. Then
he met the floor.
The yowling of Rattrap was his first indication that what had attacked him
had not been a burglar or angry ex-oz soldier or any of the other number of
things Duo�s sleep-fogged mind had conjured for itself in its moment of terror
but a simple, annoying, god-damned cat. Duo pushed himself up to a
sitting position and looked around for the increasingly loud sounds of
distressed feline coming from somewhere in the tangle of bedding. Then he saw
it, the writhing lump of linen that was slowly making its way across the
bedroom floor.
He surged to his feet and tackled it, knowing that it wasn�t going to hold
still no matter that he was trying to help it get free. Somehow, the cat had
managed to get itself wound up in a bundle of the sheets. Duo sat cross-legged
on the floor once he�d managed to get the cat-bundle into his arms and began to
figure out how to free the thing without hurting either of them. He�d almost
succeeded, but then Rattrap�s paw came snaking out of the linen to leave yet
another set of fresh, bright red scratches on the back of his hand. Dropping
the whole bundle, Duo cussed at the cat and put his hand to his mouth to suck
on the wound.
Rattrap wormed himself free of her trap and took off like a shot for the
door. �Yeah you better run!� Duo called out after him, not that he thought the
cat would care. �Why did I even bother to take in your ass, anyway?�
He dug at one eye with the heel of his unwounded hand, getting the sleep
grit from it as his other hand slapped at the night stand behind him.
Eventually he came up with the alarm clock he�d been looking for and he sighed
at the glowing red numbers listed there. �It�s Saturday,� he whined to
himself and put the clock back with a huff. It didn�t matter now, though; he
was awake.
Pulling himself to his feet, Duo grabbed the blankets up off the floor and
began to straighten them out. He sighed when he got a good look at the one that
had been the closest to Rattrap�s paws; it had more than a few holes shredded
into it. With a roll of his eyes, the braided boy began to remake his bed,
carefully tucking each of the blankets in and spreading the comforter over the
top neatly. The pillows went next; each was fluffed and put into its proper
place and then he pulled the comforter over those as well and straightened the
blanket until there wasn�t a single wrinkle.
Bedroom back in order, the boy stumbled his way into the living room and
through to the kitchen. The grey-furred annoyance came back, winding his body
around his legs and trying to trip him. Duo resisted the sudden urge to kick
him and instead sighed, �What do you want?�
Rattrap mewled. As if he actually understood the human, he ran over to the
bowl that Duo left out for him food at the far end of the tiny kitchen. It was
empty, save a few kernels left. The boy frowned and shook his head. �I didn�t
think you�d eat through all of that in a night�� He opened one of the top
cabinets and took out the bag of food he�d picked up when he�d decided to take
the cat home last week. Rattrap dived onto the food almost before he�d finished
pouring it. Duo had to laugh a little at that, a little bit of a smile crossing
his lips.
Sinking down to sit on the floor, Duo carelessly put the food bag on the
floor beside him and ran a hand down Rattrap�s back. He didn�t even lift his
face from the food but he began to purr loudly. �Yeah, I can relate,� Duo told
the cat with a stronger smile. He scratched gently behind the cat�s ears,
feeling his spine and rib cage underneath the dark grey fur. Rattrap really
wasn�t so bad looking of a cat, he thought. His fur had the faintest of grey
stripes to it, that weren�t visible at all when he was wet, and it was short
and silky when kept clean. Now that he�d gotten all the bugs off of the cat, it
wasn�t scratching constantly. One of its ears had a big chunk of it missing,
true, and his tail was a little scraggly in places. But somehow he�d managed to
miss the �mangy� part of being a stray. Duo was glad for that. Having fleas was
bad enough, losing one�s hair was worse.
�I get a bit cranky when I don�t have food, either,� Duo found himself
telling the cat as he continued to pet him. His good ear cocked back towards
him. �You and I aren�t so different, ya know?�
The boy shook his head and laughed at himself, �Of course you don�t know.
�Maybe I�ll tell you about it one day.�
He was just about to climb to his feet when Rattrap looked up and mewled at
him curiously. Duo settled back down on his bum and leaned back onto one hand
while his new flat-mate turned around and curiously sniffed at his pajama
bottoms. He tilted his head to one side, watching as the cat hesitantly crawled
up onto his leg and then into his lap. Unable to smother it, the boy chuckled a
little when the cat�s long whiskers brushed against his stomach and the noise
caused Rattrap to freeze temporarily. Duo sobered, eyes lift and felt a grin
tugging at the edges of his mouth.
�Oh? I�m not allowed to laugh, am I?� He asked him and, as if in response,
the cat put his white-socked paws upon Duo�s pecks and leaned in to rub his
face against his master�s jaw.
�Wouldn�t you know it, my first kiss.� Duo winked at the cat, which blinked
its green eyes up at him and then dropped back down to all fours in his lap.
That was a lie, of course, but how would the cat know that? Duo shook his head;
a grievous error for all in turn. The cat�s ears suddenly perked and it turned
its head towards the same hand which it had clawed earlier. The boy watching
him frowned, unsure where it was going, until the animal suddenly dived for his
hand.

�Gyah!� Duo lifted the hand up quickly, only to find that that was not
what Rattrap had been after at all! The tug on his hair alerted him to
something quite a bit more dangerous and he scrambled to his feet, jerking the
brown rope of hair away from and out of the cat�s clutches. �OK, no! Bad cat!�
Once he was on his feet, Duo pulled his braid over his shoulder to examine
the ends of it, frowning at the bit of cat saliva glistening on one of the
plaits, as well as the bunched and loose pulled hairs going everywhere. �This.�
He stated, bending down over the put-out seeming cat and holding his braid just
out of reach, �Is not. A chew a toy.�
The cat blinked at him and eyed the braid; it obviously wasn�t listening.
After a moment of staring at the animal, Duo sighed and stood up straight. It
was pointless to argue with a cat, he knew that, and he scratched his head idly
as he yawned. �It�s too early for this,� the boy muttered to himself, and
turned to jerk open the refrigerator door. He managed to pour himself a bowl of
cereal, coat it in milk, grab a spoon and make it into the living room without
any further cat-related incidents. Flopping back upon his well worn and
wonderfully soft couch, Duo reached one foot forward and pressed the large, red
�power� button on the TV remote that was in its normal spot on the coffee
table. Brilliantly coloured and utterly pointless Saturday morning cartoons
greeted him cheerily and almost immediately the boy found his spirits beginning
to perk a bit. He loved cartoons.
There were plenty of people out there who would tell him that he was �too
old� to watch these sorts of shows� Duo even had to agree with them a little.
Yet there was something about being able to watch the little stuffed-animal
looking characters walking around talking about friendship and hope and
happiness that made life just a little more bearable. He liked the ones best
that were had silly villains and nonsense stories, rather than the more
serious-seeming �boy�s� cartoons. Duo didn�t quite understand the appeal in
super-charged fighters beating up super-charged villains and everyone ranting
about how powerful they were.
And though he�d been living here for months, now, it once more occurred to
him that he was able to sit on a couch he had bought, watching that TV
he had paid for, in an apartment that was warm and comfortable and clean and his�
and just how amazing that truly was. Eating his own cheerios, to top it
off. Duo shoveled another gigantic spoonful of the grain-based breakfast into
his mouth and munched on it, much the same as the cat had done with its own
food earlier. If anyone had ever asked him what he thought Heaven would be
like, he would have described this.
Two months ago he wouldn�t have considered that this would have ever been
his.
The war had left a lot of people at loose ends and Duo hadn�t been an
exception to that. While proud of himself for his part in bringing it all
together, the days after that New Years Eve had been filled with confusion and
uncertainty. Until Howard had helpfully offered him a permanent position with
the Sweepers, that was. Duo smiled at the thought of his old friend and laughed
around a mouthful of food at a mad scientist on his show who had inadvertently
reminded him of his friend.
They had set about cleaning up all of the old debris from the space battles,
a job so enormous that it still wasn�t complete to this day. Those had been
good times, Duo thought, some of the best� except when it hadn�t. Cereal
finished, he put the bowl down on the table and didn�t object when the cat
hopped up to drink the milk.
Watching the cat, Duo�s face fell a little as he remembered the scrap yards
he�d helped to fill. Though the work had been plentiful, the money decent and
the company great, Duo had always hated to return to colonies after a �junk
run.� Out in space he could just look at the debris as piles of scrap. He
fought with them, cursed at them, and forced them to go the way he wanted them
to go so that they could get them inside to break apart and sort. But when you
were standing inside, with nothing to fight with except your own conscience,
and looking down at the piles upon piles of mobile suit parts�
Most of the suits from space were mobile dolls, but not all of
them.
Duo flung his arms over the back of the couch and tipped his head back. His
eyes went back to the television and its soothing, nonsensical fantasy world.
The boy couldn�t help but crack a smile at a really bad pun. Soon he found
himself laughing again and the memory of the corpse�s face withdrew from his
mind.
The flashing colours and cheery jingle-esque songs woke him up enough so
that when someone knocked on his door a few minutes later he was able to answer
it without resorting to �Mr-grounchy-pants-mode...� as Sally had so helpfully
named it. A little wary of the sort of person who might come knocking on a
person�s door just before six in the morning in this neighborhood, Duo
got to his feet slowly and checked the peep hole before he moved to undo the
locks. Much to his surprise there was a slicked-back black head of hair whose
owner was just short enough that only the top of his head could be viewed. Duo
knew that ponytail.
He pushed the chain back and unbolted the door lazily before pulling the
door open to reveal the rest of Chang Wufei, partner and
annoying-person-who-calls-at-insane-hours-of-the-morning. �� It�s five am.�
�I�m well aware of that,� the Chinese man growled, �and there is a cat
drinking from your cereal bowl.�
Duo followed Wufei�s gaze to the coffee table where Rattrap was still quite
happily downing the milk he hadn�t drank. Offering the sight a shrug, Duo
turned back to the other boy and quirked a brow. �Yeah, it is. Uh� what�s up?�

�You weren�t answering your phone. We�re on assignment.�
�My phone didn�t go off,� Duo replied helpfully and finally moved aside so
that the smaller boy could enter. Wufei stepped into the room carefully, eyes
wary of the dark apartment as if something (possibly the cat, who his eyes kept
returning to) was going to jump out of the gloom and bite him. He looked almost
disappointed when the dark shapes within were nothing but furniture. �What�s
going on?�

�I can�t tell you here.�
A frown crossed Duo�s lips even as he entered the bedroom to find some
clothes. He glanced at the bathroom as he passed it, wishing he�d taken a
shower the night before; with the way that Wufei was acting it didn�t seem as
if he was going to give him the time to take one now. Neither was he terribly
impressed with the other boy right now. The scene he�d witnessed the night
before replayed in his mind and he thought about asking about it� maybe this
had something to do with that?
Before he could say them the words died on his lips. It was more than a
little catty to ask it that way, and certainly not the sort of way he wanted to
start a conversation with the touchy Chinese boy. That would only go badly, Duo
knew, and so as he shrugged on a sweater he tried to find a better approach,
�Can you at least tell me where we�re going?�

From the other room he heard Wufei respond: �L4, at the moment. If you want to
know why check your text messages.�
�That would require knowing where it is�� Still muttering to himself, Duo
wormed his way out of his pajama pants and into a pair of blue jeans before he
stopped to think about it. Uniform? � No, Wufei wasn�t wearing his. Where the
hell was his phone?
The boy buttoned and zipped his pants and then went about to find the stupid
device. He hadn�t yet managed to buy or install a vidphone, as the complex he
was at hadn�t yet added them to their list of supplied amenities. It had to
have been the last complex in the country to do so, but Duo wasn�t complaining
as there was a tendency for those sorts of contracted services to be very
expensive�at least this way he had his choice of cell plans and didn�t have to
worry about what he was wearing when someone called.
That he hadn�t heard the phone go off was very odd indeed. A light sleeper
by habit, Duo usually woke up at the first sound of something strange in his
apartment. The first night with the cat had been absolute hell because of that�
and yet the phone had never woken him. The one logical conclusion lead him
right back to his nightstand and then he dropped onto his knees and looked
under the bed. The little black box-like object was there, dark as pitch, and
he reached forward to grab it. It�d probably fallen there when he�d taken the
tumble off the bed that morning.
The boy sighed to himself when he realized that he hadn�t plugged it in the
night before. Trying to turn it on just confirmed that it was, in fact, quite
dead. He rolled his eyes at himself and stuffed it into his back pocket.
�How long?�

�It depends. Did you find it?�

�I forgot to charge it last night.� Duo got to his feet and set about pulling
some of his clothes, including a uniform, from his dresser drawers. The
familiar sound of Chinese cursing came from the living room, only slightly
masked by the insane singing of the cartoons he�d left on. �Got a cab waiting?�

�Work car,� Wufei replied shortly; the TV shut off. The bag he kept for long
assignments, a green-grey rucksack from the war, was stuffed at the top of his
closet. Duo had forgotten to repack it in case of emergencies, but he thought
it best not to bring that up. Instead he quickly stuffed some clothes into the
bag, an extra pair of shoes and his amenities from the bathroom. Another stop
at his nightstand gave him his wallet, which he shoved into his pocket and
headed out into the living room.

Duo threw the now stuffed rucksack on the couch, startling Rattrap, and he bent
to take the bowl up off the coffee table. As he headed into the kitchen to
clean it, Duo noticed that Wufei was looking about the small living room with
an expression of awe on his face. �What?�
The boy stiffened. Duo crossed into the kitchen and washed the bowl clean as
quickly as he could. He absolutely wasn�t going to leave his apartment with an
unwashed bowl of milk lying about! If he leaned forward just a little, Duo
realized that he could see Wufei in the living room beyond, face yet again an
unreadable mask. He smirked faintly to himself, and when the Chinese boy
noticed him, he shrugged.
�Nothing,� Wufei finally answered, �Are you ready?�

�Just a minute.�

Duo poured another bowl of food for Rattrap and filled his water bowl. For a
quick moment he wondered what on earth he was going to do about the cat� and
then shook his head. There were ways of dealing with it and this was obviously
important. Back in the living room, Duo threw on his jacket, grabbed his
rucksack and slipped his shoes on, �Alr�fuck, wait.�
Wufei visibly winced at Duo�s language but didn�t object. �Twenty bucks says
that he hasn�t had his coffee yet,� Duo thought to himself as he dug a car
charger he�d bought for his phone out of a small cabinet. �OK!� he said aloud
and grabbed his keys off the shelf by the door, �Now I�m ready.�

He paused outside the door for Wufei to get out, then shut the door on
Rattrap�s desolate mewl. For a moment Duo felt guilty and he hesitated on
locking the door. Then Wufei barked out �come on!� from the stairwell and Duo
turned the key in the lock. After looking around for a moment, he checked to
make certain that his spare was still hidden with some gum over the mantle of
the door and then turned to follow Wufei down the stairs.
Moments later they were in the army green jeep that any Preventer could use
with the proper paperwork and heading towards the nearest airport. The minute
Duo had gotten himself settled Wufei had thrown a pile of manila folders into
his lap with two curt words: �Mission brief.�
Duo nodded and plugged his phone in before he opened the one on top and
began to read.

++//\++
Relena wasn�t sure why her pillow had suddenly decided to smell of
cigarettes, but it did. Cigarettes and mint, she corrected herself when she�d
pressed her face further into the stuffed object and taken a good whiff. An
unusual combination, really, and the woman groaned faintly in displeasure. That
wasn�t enough to force her eyes open, however, or to even allow her to register
shock around the thumping headache that was currently pounding between her
ears.

Instead of turning away from the stench, she buried her face further into it
and pulled the heavy comforter a little higher over her head to try and drown
out a strange, incessant tapping noise coming from somewhere in the room with
her. �Go away!� she called out to the bodyguard that was thumping at her door.
Work could be damned for another five minutes, so far as the Vice Foreign
Minister was concerned; it wasn�t often that she bellowed such things out at
anyone, much less Mike or Gareth, and she fully expected them to come barging
in at any moment to see what was wrong.
The tapping stopped as soon as she yelled and in that minute-long respite
the girl almost managed to drift back into slumber-land. Then the noise began
again and she growled. Sitting up, the woman grabbed her foul smelling pillow,
chunked it at the noise without looking, and then flopped back down, face first
upon the equally smelly mattress and buried her head in her arms.
Much to her surprise the tapping stopped with a grunt.
Around the headache wormed the thoughts that there was someone in the room
with her and that she would never again stay at this particular hotel if all
their beds smelled like this. Really, you would think that they would have a
better cleaning staff for all the good those five stars did them. Why was there
someone in her room?
Relena lifted herself upon her elbows and opened her bleary, sleep clouded
eyes. The light caused her headache to double its efforts and as such thinking
became far too much work for casual use. Yet� it did distantly occur to her
that when she�d fallen asleep the night before her bed had had a headboard.
The clatter of porcelain near the bed caught her attention. Relena lifted
one hand to her eyes to rub the sleep from them as she sat up further onto her
knees. There was a blurry, human-shaped blob in the corner fiddling with what
appeared to be an equally blurry tea set placed in a room that was� not her
hotel room. Reality snapped home in the manner of an instant and the Vice
Foreign Minister clutched the comforter to her chest.
The room was drab, though comfortably warm, with old water-stain marks
splashed across the ceiling and down the half-wallpapered walls. There were
still some cracks in the plaster and the molding of the lit fireplace and her
bed was nothing more than two mattresses stacked on top of one another on the
floor. Her pillow currently resided on the floor near a half-closed laptop.
The girl started as the human-shape in the corner turned around and headed
towards her. She quickly backed away three paces, almost to the edge of the
bed, before her eyes reached his face.
�Heero?�

++//\++
The Chinese man came towards him still in a huff and cup-less. An immediate
alarm spread through Duo�s body, worse than what he�d felt when he�d realized
their mission�Wufei without coffee was not going to be a pleasant experience.
�What? Was the line too long?�

They�d arrived at the terminal just in time to hear the first announcement
stating that their flight was going to be delayed. No amount of �this is
important Preventer business� or flashing of badges was getting them around it,
either. Briefly the two had considered stealing a shuttle, yet had only gone so
far as planning out the heist�there was a reason why the flight was delayed and
trying to fly in the conditions described actually was suicidal, not
just ill-advised. In the end, they�d been forced to wait it out with everyone
else. And every minute more was another minute that the Vice Foreign Minister
was missing.
That was a hard lump to swallow. Duo tried not to think about it, instead
focusing on the smaller boy beside him. Wufei�s glare might have actually been
enough to freeze Hell, had someone killed the boy right at that moment and sent
him down there. �How can Starbucks be out of coffee?� the Chinese boy snapped
as if Duo would have the answer to that. �This is insane. Why did they even bother
to open? You would think that if your coffee shop had the ill-taste to
be out. of. coffee, that opening the doors anyway would just be
pointless and cruel!�
�They probably still have tea�� Duo offered. He was rewarded with the
blackest look imaginable. The braided boy turned his head away so that Wufei
wouldn�t see him smiling. It was all he could do not to laugh. As soon as he
could control his voice, he couldn�t help but adding, �This is why I never
drink the stuff. Too easy to get addicted.�
�I�m not addicted.�
�Really? Because the fact that you�re frothing at the mouth over the lack of
an addictive substance really hints otherwise.�
�Maxwell,� Wufei warned.
�Y�see, there�s this little thing called �caffeine� which is present in most
coffee mixes. It tends to drive people crazy if they don�t get it, if they let
themselves become dependent on it to, say, wake up.� Duo grinned out at the
crowd around them. He kept his voice light and cheery, despite that the other
boy about him was quite noticeably grinding his teeth. It really was too easy.
�It�s OK, you know,� Duo said seriously when Wufei didn�t reply. He turned
to him, daring to drop a hand on the shorter boy�s shoulder as he affected his
most concerned look, �Lots of people are caffeine addicts. You just have to be
willing to admit it.�

�Maxwell, if you don�t get your hand off of me��
�Ah, sirs�?�
Both the agents looked up at the rather sheepish looking stewardess standing
not too far away. �Why is it that people always seem scared to approach us?�
Duo couldn�t help but wonder. He didn�t bother to ask, however, and instead
just tilted his head and flashed her a smile that caused most women to relax in
his presence. It was amazing what the right body language could do.
It worked almost immediately, and the woman�s own lips drew into a small
smile and her posture became more confident. Duo didn�t miss one of Wufei�s
hands tightening into a fist beside him. Thankfully, that was hidden by his
coat and the woman never noticed. �My supervisor asked me to tell you that
there should be a weather window for your flight in eight hours. We�re doing
all we can to get your flight out at the first opportunity.�

Wufei muttered something in what sounded like Chinese and so Duo jumped to
reply first, �Thank you for telling us. Are you sure there�s nothing before
that, though?�

�I�m sorry,� the stewardess shook her head, �These freak storms happen
sometimes in the early spring. We�re really doing the best that we can.�

�Thank you,� Duo nodded to her, resisting the urge to sigh until she was gone.
Wufei glared up at him and, feeling more than a little irritated himself, he
snapped, �What? If there isn�t anything she can do there isn�t anything she can
do. You saw the satellite as well as I did.�
Wufei made a rude noise. �I�m going to find some coffee.�
�Good luck,� Duo called after him. He watched the back of the shorter man�s
jacket for as long as he could see it in the crowd milling around the airport.
�Please let him find some coffee,� he muttered to himself once he was certain
Wufei was far out of hearing range. Tipping his head back against the wall he
was leaning his hips against, the boy let his eyes turn towards the windows
lining the outer wall of the terminal. It really was coming down hard now. When
they�d first gotten to the airport there had only been the faintest of
sprinkles and nothing to indicate the horrible storm that had grounded all the
flights minutes after they�d stepped into the terminal itself. Now they were
stuck in crowds of angry, snappish people, screaming kids and harried staff. It
had been all Duo could do to keep Wufei in order� Maybe that was why he kept
pushing at the other boy�s buttons. The more that Wufei was angry at him, the
less likely Wufei was to take it out on anyone else.
The mischievous side of himself couldn�t help but note that it was more than
a little fun to push those buttons as well.
Above all, however, they couldn�t risk attracting attention to the station
they were headed for. Most of the ESUN knew that Relena had gone there the day
before and they only had a few hours, maybe a day, before the girl�s
disappearance would have to be made public. It was imperative that they keep
that silence about it as long as possible� and that they reach L4-RS01 as soon
as they could.
It took a long minute for Duo to realize that his cell phone was ringing.
When the distinctive pop-music finally reached his ears over the din of the
crowd, Duo dug quickly through half of the multitude of pockets on his person
before he finally found the compact device. Flipping it open quickly he pressed
it to one ear, �Yello?�
�Good morning!� Quatre piped from the other side. Duo couldn�t help but
smile at the cheery, disembodied voice; the blonde had always been a morning
person and today, despite the weather, seemed to be no exception. It was nice
to have someone else around that was so easily cheery.
�Morning, yourself� not so sure about the good.�

�What�s wrong?� Cheery, yes, but Quatre was also easy to sober when he needed
to; it was really easy to see why he made such a good business man. Duo
chuckled faintly and shook his head. As much as he wished he could confess the
entirety of the situation to the former pilot, it simply wasn�t permissible.
Especially in so public a setting.
�Nothing!� Duo laughed and knew that Quatre would see through it, ��Fei and
I just got called out for some stupid little mission. Why the local police
can�t handle something this small I don�t know, but they�re begging the big
shots to take it off their hands. You know how it is.�
�OK, I�ll keep my eyes open for anything big hitting the fan,� Quatre
responded. The corner of Duo�s lips lifted and he knew that Quatre hadn�t lost
his edge, even after so much time had passed. �Can you tell me where?�

�Nah.� That, at least, didn�t have to be changed. �Listen� I know it�s rude of
me to ask, since it�s your vacation and all, but I had to leave pretty suddenly
and I didn�t have anyone I could leave Rattrap with suddenly��

�I�ll make sure he�s taken care of.�

�Thanks, man,� Duo smiled softly, �The key�s over the mantle. It�s stuck there,
so you might have to get Rashid to look.�

�Oh ha-ha-ha, I do you a favor and you bring up the short jokes. I see how it
is.� They both laughed and some of the tension fell out of Duo�s
shoulders. �Do you know how long you�ll be gone?�

�If I�m lucky only a few days� but I don�t know. You know how they like to drag
these things out.�

�Mmm� I see,� Quatre muttered to himself. Duo�s smile wavered a little and his
brows knitted together for a moment.
�Well, at least now you�ll have Trowa to yourself.�

�What is that supposed to mean?� Quatre asked suddenly. Duo couldn�t help but
be a little surprised at how defensive his friend sounded and he shrugged,
despite knowing that Quatre couldn�t have seen the gesture. At that moment,
Wufei returned bearing a large, generic-looking coffee cup and a similar one of
smaller stature. He handed the small one to Duo, who took it and sniffed to
find that it was chai tea. It seemed that this was the morning of surprises.

�Nothing,� he finally responded to Quatre and indicated the phone with his eyes
when Wufei gave him a questioning glance. �Just that you�ve been wanting to see
him again; go catch up or something.�

�Oh� right.�
Duo couldn�t help a laugh at that, even around his mouth-full of tea. It was
surprisingly good, and Duo briefly spared a thought as to what coffee shop had
the balls to compete with a Starbucks in the airport. Whatever it was, they
were certainly getting business right now. �So. Go see him. I�ll see you when
we get back, K?�
�Right. And� good luck,� Quatre replied. Though the boy had tried to shove
as much happiness as he could into his voice, it still fell far short of the
mark and Duo closed his phone with a worried frown. Wufei was still giving him
a curious look, though he doubted that Wufei would admit to that if questioned.
Instead, Duo just sipped his tea as mulled over a response.
�Quatre,� he finally told him and was met with a grunt. �Trowa�s in town
remember?�

�Ah, yes.� Wufei responded and sipped his coffee. With all that needed to be
said, said, the two stood beside one another, drinks in hand, and watched the
rain pour down.

++//\++

She sat on the bed and glared at him. He sat on the floor and glared at her.
The tea between them grew cold, the laptop monitor went to sleep, the fireplace
crackled and the light outside the bedroom window began to grow. In the
distance a bird made its first, tentative chirps to the morning air.
Ever since she had entered politics, Relena had had her fair share of
staring contests. As childish as it sounded, even politicians ran out of words
eventually and were reduced to staring one another down until someone cracked.
She tried to convince herself that this wasn�t any different than that, yet the
thought kept intruding that the man she was currently staring at had a horrible
case of bed-hair , was wearing his pajamas and bunny slippers.
Heero Yuy wore bunny slippers.
Relena�s eyebrow twitched as she resisted the urge to giggle. No. No, she
would win this contest, goddamnit! At least the tea that he had
provided her had made some headway into relieving her headache. When she�d
first woken up it had been a monster fit to devour her brain; now it had
softened to a faint whisper at the back of her mind that didn�t make any sense
until she concentrated on it. It also helped, in a strange sort of way, that
she was currently seeing red.
�You poisoned my chocolates.�
�Laced,� the boy corrected her with his usual straight forward manner. �I
laced your chocolates.�
Her eyes narrowed a little further and his did as well. Ignoring that
answer, she continued, �To kidnap me.�

�Yes.�

Had it been anyone else, Relena might have been shocked. Instead she was livid
and broke eye contact as she shot to her feet. �You kidnapped me!�
Heero�s face turned up towards her, the faintest (and most infuriating) of
smirks upon his lips. �I believe we covered that point already.�
Relena, the Vice Foreign Minister of the Alliance, the Queen of the World,
the Queen of the former Sanc Kingdom� Relena, who had been in politics for
years now and faced down men older than her own father, and who had an argument
and rebuttal for everything�screamed a single note of frustration and
turned away from her captor. Stomping over the mattress to the other side of
the room, Relena turned an about face when she reached the wall and stomped her
way back. This time she stopped before him, bare toes a mere hair�s breadth
from the tea set, and pointed a finger at his unflinching face.

�Gyah!� She told him quite verbosely and then followed this by making a series
of squeaky, high-pitched noises. When her incomprehensible tirade ended, she
closed it with a huffed �Grruhh!� and marched right past him, out the door that
seemed ready to fall off its hinges at the slightest touch.
Thankfully it was made of sterner stuff than it seemed, and the door stayed
on well enough that she was able to slam it behind her. It opened almost
immediately and the bunny-slippered kidnapper followed her at a sedate pace.
Relena paid him no mind, instead walking down the carpeted, decrepit hallway of
what looked to have once been a fine hotel.
�Where are you going?� He asked and Relena couldn�t help but note the
boredom in his voice. She found a stairway and headed down it.
�Away from you!� The girl responded with a huff. Much to her surprise, he
didn�t seem terribly interested in stopping her. She reached the landing
unmolested and took a moment to look around the lobby of the ancient hotel. It
was an odd sort of style� the typical western-style hotel features were
everywhere and yet there was something just slightly off about it that
Relena couldn�t quite put a finger on. It was as if someone had tried to
imitate a style they weren�t native to.

She located the double doors that looked as if they would lead outside and
began her way across the lobby just as Heero caught up to her. He walked with
her to the doors and stopped a few feet away while she tried to open them. They
were stuck or locked, and Relena would bet on the latter. After she�d tugged at
it for several minutes and beat upon the wood in frustration, she turned to her
captor.
�Open the doors, Heero.�
�Why should I?� He countered and leaned upon a wooden column that she
wouldn�t have had the guts to touch; it looked as if it would fall away at any
moment.
�Because!� It took her a moment to come up with something that sounded even
half-way logical, �I have work to do, Heero.�
�I know that.� The Japanese boy replied evenly. He stood straight, then, and
slowly advanced on her. �Have you forgotten that I kidnapped you?�
A frown tugged on Relena�s lips. As he took a step forward, she took one
backward. �You can�t be serious.�
�Why not? I went through all this trouble, didn�t I?�
�Heero, I know I told you to kill me during the war�I was a different person
then.� The look in Heero�s eyes caused Relena to gulp nervously and she
resisted the urge to squeak when her back met the wood of the doors. No matter
what they looked like, both were very solid and very much locked.
Heero shook his head, stopping mere inches from his prey, and leaned in
until their noses had almost touched. Relena could feel her chest growing
tighter, her pulse pounding in her throat. Whether it was fear or� something
else, she did not know, but her eyes were glued to the boy�s and she did not
even dare to blink.
�You work too hard.�

++//\++
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