A/N: This was meant to be posted on Halloween but my internet went out. T.T Ah well, better late than never…

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Pairings: Solox2, 1x2x5

Basement

There's something about the inherent feeling of misery that seeps down into the very fiber of a person on Monday morning. It was a feeling I was only starting to get used to, that dreaded well of exasperation that comes from the approaching five-day work week. Given that I spent my weekends staring at the empty walls of my little apartment, I felt the feelings were completely unjustified – at the very least, the walls of my office were far more interesting to look at.

I spent a moment just lying in bed, looking up at my ceiling. My alarm clock wasn't set to go off for another couple hours, but I didn't bother with trying to get back to sleep. I slept in small bursts, but without any security measures aside from the deadbolt locks on my door and windows, I never truly felt safe in my little one-bedroom apartment.

It wasn't much to look at. It was more room than I was used to, and I hadn't known how to fill it; I'd bought a mattress new, apparently that was just a thing people do, and that's what I slept on. It looked a bit sad, laid out on my beige-carpeted bedroom floor, so I'd bought a cheap, military-green afghan to curl up in when it got chillier. I kept my laptop and phone within easy reach, and hung up my work clothes in the closet with hangars I'd bought from the discount store down the street.

There wasn't much aside from that. The landlord had supplied the appliances, but I hadn't bothered with furnishing the place. There was a tablecloth I used as an indoor picnic blanket, which is where I took my meals. I didn't have guests; no one ever visited, and I never invited anyone over. I'm not sure even Preventers knows where I live, despite how long I'd been working there.

I rose from my mattress a minute before my alarm went off, entering the dingy bathroom. I didn't turn on the lights – there was something about the early morning hours that made me feel vulnerable, and illumination exacerbated the feeling of helplessness. I was washed, dried, and dressed in just under 15 minutes, tying off the end of my braid without conscious thought.

I grabbed a granola bar from the kitchenette; it was virtually the only thing stocked in my pantry. I'd have to remember to buy some groceries on the way back. I didn't cook – I couldn't quite work up the energy to try to – but some easy-made meals would do. Not instant; not enough nutritional value, the solider in the back of my mind knew.

It was only a 20-minute drive to work from my place. Preventers headquarters came up before my dash, and I made the familiar twists and turns of the wheel to pull into the employee parking garage, waving at Alfonso through the glass of his little security stall. He gave me a quick grin, the product of a few nightly bar-hopping ventures earning me the individualized attention.

Once parked – lucky me, I got level 2 this time! – I made sure my dandy little card key was still at the end of my obnoxiously lime green lanyard, before leaving the safety of my vehicle and shuffling once more into the circus Une was running in the guise of a federal agency.

"Mornin', Andy!" I called out after emerging from the garage stairwell. Andrea Cleary, a well-toned brunette with what I lovingly termed "resting worry face", waved at me from her seat at the front desk, her other hand holding a steaming mug of decaf coffee because, as she had wailed to me last Thursday, she was supposed to limit her caffeine intake.

It wasn't a long trek to my office, but it was a tedious one; from one corridor to another, security only increased: I bid greetings to one guard after another ("Hey, Bernie, you finally shaved off that sad excuse you called a mustache?" "Where'd you get a donut, Simmons? 'Fess up, buddy!" "Mikey, Simmons out there has a donut, I just thought you should know that – yes, he did refuse to give me one, but that isn't important right now!") and once I reached the elevator bank reserved for those who had access to more sensitive areas, I slid my handy-dandy key card through the card slot and stepped inside.

I never cared much for elevators, especially when I was within three stories of my destination. But the stairwell was for emergency use only, and Une had not been happy to find me hacking into it in order to avoid the moving mechanical box. She gave me this clipped-tones lecture that made me think it wasn't the first time she'd had to tell one of her employees not to be a paranoid idiot, which just made me wonder who was my equally-unlucky predecessor.

The doors slid open to basement level one, a chilly level with tile flooring and cinder block walls on all sides. Shiny, black-metal double doors greeted me, another electronic card slot positioned next to them right above a keypad, with a small biometrics scanner between them.

Logic would dictate that a simple swipe of the key card would grant me access to my own work area, which had indeed been the original design – but good god, imagine having the whole of the Preventers network security open at the swipe of a card? I'd reworked the entire security system since my taking of the job just under six months ago, installing the keypad and scanner myself. Of course, I and my two poor underlings in the Preventers Network Security department were registered in the system and granted access with the press of a thumb to the scanner, along with Une; only myself and Une had the security code that would be needed for the keypad, given out solely on a need-to-know basis.

Granted, Heero could probably finagle his way in, through brute force if nothing else – but active duty Preventers Agent Heero Yuy wasn't going to come visit the gremlins in the basement. The last time I saw Heero, he and Wufei were turning down my offer on Friday night to grab dinner together. It was some kind of sick masochistic ritual I inflicted on myself – invite my old comrades out to do, well, fucking anything, and get rejected with varying levels of disinterest. At least they were still calling me by my given name and not 'Administrator Maxwell', as my little employee name card labeled me.

I jammed my thumb onto the scanner and heard the beep clearing me for entrance, stepping in and scanning the room quickly. I was the first in, as usual; not that my fellow gremlins were late, they were just very adherent to their pay-hours. We start at 7am and finished at 5pm, with a 1.5-hour lunch break in the middle; any time outside of that, Preventers dare not intrude upon unless they agreed to an additional overtime sum on their next paycheck.

I threw my Preventers jacket over my desk chair, checking the system diagnostics as routine. Satisfied that nothing catastrophic happened over the weekend, I set about making some coffee in the little snack area Nathan had set up once he'd started working here. I hadn't done much to change the office layout, aside from the increased security measures, so when Une granted me two little gofers, they'd pretty much taken it upon themselves to make the space we spent over 8 hours a day in livable.

It was an awful lot of space for three little gremlins, and considering I spent most of my upbringing in cramped space shuttles or alleyway crates, I hadn't known what to do with it. Abigail had convinced Une we needed more furnishings, and then the three of us pooled our money together to buy decorations and the like so that it looked less like a "serial killer's work floor," as Nathan had remarked. So we had a couple armchairs and couches in black leather, three desk areas, my own the massive monolith that designated me as "god of the Preventers Network," a break area stocked with various drinks and snacks that they both tore through like ravenous animals on a weekly basis.

There was the beep of someone's thumbprint granting them access, and I reflexively stepped into the blind spot from the viewpoint of the entryway. Nathan's jaunty whistling continued as he traipsed in, and he blindly bid me good morning as he moved to his desk area. I watched him for a moment as he set up his area: booting up his computer, then placing that ridiculous briefcase his wife had gotten for him as a gift for getting hired at Preventers on the desk to open. Our job didn't really require the need of a briefcase, but Nathan was certainly not going to admit that to his darling wife, so he ended up taking random papers filled with meaningless jargon home each day, trading them in for artwork made by his kids.

Just as Nathan started posting up Daisy's latest masterpiece, Abigail entered with another beep, empty-handed save for a small purse she kept on her person at all times. I'd checked it before, the one time she'd left it unattended when she was out on a small errand at the front desk, but it only had her car keys, chapstick, and wallet.

Abigail began her daily mantra of "coffee coffee coffee" as she threw her Preventers jacket on to one of the armchairs, gravitating over to the snack area. I dislodged myself from the blind spot and returned to my desk, which faced theirs so that I could keep an eye on them without having to turn my head. It was the only part of the office layout I was adamant about, although I definitely hadn't admitted to them that it was because I wouldn't keep my back to anyone unless I absolutely believed they wouldn't stab me for it.

We worked in casual comfort for the first half of the day; Nathan had to run out to level 3 because Esther managed to kill her screen light for the second time this season, and Abigail regaled me with her latest venture into taking up a new hobby; knitting, at the urging of her girlfriend. From the look on her face, it seemed she'd prefer to shove one of the knitting needles through her own eye.

Lunch rolled around; it was not a set time for us, as we preferred to keep at least one person in the office for the duration of the work day, so I let Abigail take hers first, and let Nathan know that once he finished up his latest work order, he could go ahead and take his. A work order came in from human resources in the intervening hour, and I took my little Bluetooth headset as I left the floor to head up.

"Heading to lunch, Duo?" Parker asked as I emerged from the elevator bank. He'd taken Bernie's position, and he'd be replaced by Alyssa Moore after my own work day ended.

"I've got a lunch date with one Ethan Bennett in HR," I replied jauntily. The name was new to me, but that only meant he was either newly-hired or had managed to escape system errors since my time at work. HR was one of the bigger departments, so it was impossible to know all of them, but I'd been there enough to at least recognize most of the faces, even if I didn't know their names.

"Nothing more romantic than the blue screen of death, I'm sure," Parker mock-crooned.

I passed through the lobby, heading in the direction of the main elevator bank, when I caught sight of Wufei stalking by in the same direction. Employees and civilians alike made way for him, Andrea's Resting Worry Face morphing into subdued terror as he stopped before her.

It didn't take a genius to the see the reason for Wufei's irritation, as there was a petite blond woman following along behind him wearing a Visitors tag. A quick glance at her face let me recall her name, one Victoria Gautier-Chang, wife of ZhiSong Chang. The harried expression on her face clued me in that she'd been sent in Wufei's direction and likely had to stutter out an explanation for her presence in his level 5 office when she was supposed to be seeing her husband in HR.

"It is a simple check-in system," Wufei was telling the frightened secretary. His voice was coldly professional, but that was just Wufei's default setting when it came to social interactions; he didn't exactly do friendly conversation, but you definitely knew when he was pissed at you once you saw it. He was irritated but I didn't think it really earned him the wide-eyed fear Andrea was giving him.

When faced with someone showing such obvious fear, Wufei didn't back down – he gave them a reason to continue. Sensing the quickly-coming decline of the situation, I decided to step in before Andrea was forced to beg Une for hazard pay.

"It's all that decaf, Andy, it addles the brain," I interjected, keeping my tone light. Both Andrea and Mrs. Gautier-Chang jumped, but Wufei managed to keep his surprise to a barely-discernible stiffening of his shoulders. It wasn't altogether unexpected; I'd subconsciously crossed the distance without making even the slightest sound, something instinctual in me that continued despite the end of the war.

I came up to Wufei's side. He was looking at me now, his face set in that neutral expression he and Heero favored when scowls just weren't appropriate for a situation. Andrea was less subtle, face blooming into open relief at my interruption.

"Maybe you can get away with one cup of joe in the morning," I winked at her. I turned to Wufei's blond shadow with a friendly smile. "You're here to see ZhiSong, right? I'm headed up to HR, just tag along with me."

"Thank you," she replied with a faint smile, darting a wary glance at Wufei. He just gave a tight nod, the only sign he was satisfied with the solution, and turned on his heel to presumably return to his work. I motioned for Mrs. Gautier-Chang to follow me, and we ended up at the main elevator bank, me standing beside Wufei, the lady on the other side of me.

"Have you had lunch yet, 'Fei?" I asked while we waited. It never hurt to ask.

"It's 'Wufei'," he returned in that same coldly professional tone.

"Have you had lunch yet, Wufei?" I repeated, just as the elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. "I gotta quick work order in HR, but then I-"

"I already ate," Wufei cut me off.

Mrs. Gautier-Chang shifted beside me; if I was reading her body language right, she was probably wishing she was in a different elevator. Or maybe that her husband had a different job, one that didn't require her to follow ex-terrorists into enclosed spaces.

"Are you and Heero free for dinner?" I tried again. I usually asked at the end of the week, but hell, we were here together anyway. Maybe Monday was my lucky day.

"…no," Wufei said. The hesitance was new; usually the rejection was pretty quick.

I pounced on that while I could. "When are you guys free? I found this cool place on-"

"Duo, it's your floor," Wufei interrupted me again, the doors dinging open. A frown flit across my face, I could feel it, but Wufei had his face turned to the elevator panel and Mrs. Gautier-Chang was already walking out.

"Well, let me know when you guys are free and we can grab a bite," I said instead, forcing the cheer back into my voice. "My number is still the same."

Wufei grunted something resembling an affirmative at me, but I didn't hold my breath. I lead Mrs. Gautier-Chang forward, hearing the whoosh of the elevator doors as they closed behind me. She was glancing at me but kept quiet, and I dropped her at ZhiSong's desk as I passed it on my way to my actual destination.

HR dominated the entirety of the 3rd floor, split into four different sections. I headed in the direction of section responsible for online media, waving at the section Head in greeting. He pointed me in the direction of Bennett's desk; the desk area itself was empty of personal belongings, a thin pile of documents stacked neatly in the tray. I knew immediately he must be a new hire; no Preventers employee had a desk with such a little amount of paperwork.

Sure enough, once I had the computer booted up, it started blurting out system errors. It wasn't anything too crazy; I just had to get it connected into the network I had Preventers on, which required a few passcodes entered in the right places. I just had the computer on its default settings and decided to pen a little note suggesting that Bennett change the screen background to something less inane than the random mountain road it was on when I heard the nearing footsteps.

I glanced back, catching sight first of the well-built figure moving in my direction at a leisurely pace – most likely Ethan Bennett, then. I had just pasted my patented Friendly-IT-guy smile on my face as I rose to my feet, looking up into familiar azure blue eyes.

After working in Preventers for just under half a year and with a paranoia streak that had served me well over my short but colorful life, I was quite familiar with most of the people that worked in my building. I may not know them personally, may not even know all their names, but I was pretty good with faces.

Ethan Bennett was familiar to me, but not for that reason.

It felt like all of the oxygen in the room had been sucked out. It was like being sucker-punched, but instead of the pain of the assault, I was left with the breathless feeling afterwards. It was reflex that kept me from falling backwards, but the sharp shock of feeling had forced my mask to drop and I was left staring, expression distorted into something far more genuine.

There was a frailty in my tone that even I had a hard time recognizing the sound of my own voice as it emerged from my throat.

"…Solo?"

Solo had been a lot of things to me. It wasn't hard – I didn't have a lot to start with, and so it was easy to slip in and fill in the gaps. Solo had been especially good at that, picking up kids here and there: we'd slept together, stole together, ran together and fought together. We had needed each other, every single one of us in that street gang, but we were easily replaced – another necessity, because we dropped as quickly as flies.

Solo had been different, because he was the one to find others to fill in the holes, was the one to find shelter, was the one to decide whether to fight or flee when it came to territory rights. He'd been bigger than all of us, twice my age at the time, which practically made him an adult in my eyes. Not a lot of street rats make it to their teens, but once they do, they become something a lot scarier than a street rat.

Solo was scary, but looking back now, I know that he'd also been scared. He'd have been stupid not to be. Scared of starving, scared of freezing, scared of losing a turf brawl, scared of the soldiers who'd eye us too long, scared of the way we smaller ones would look at him when the hunger gnawed our bones too insistently – but most of all, Solo had been scared of dying.

So he'd gone and done that. Not in some dirty street fight, not in defense of some battered shred of pride, not for some noble cause; he'd died lying on a tattered scrap of tarp, not having done much more than whimpering and crying quietly as the plague took him.

I'd been too late with the vaccine. I know now that even if I had been earlier, it wouldn't have done much good – vaccines couldn't do shit once someone already had the damn sickness. But I'd come bursting in with the vaccine stashed in my knapsack, the healthy kids huddled in one corner of the basement of the burned-out husk of a building where I'd led them when Solo had stopped being able to move on his own, watching with wide eyes as I moved about our sick and festering with intent.

There'd only been three of them at that time. Callie had passed hours earlier; her little body was cold and stiff, the drainage from her nose and eyes already crusted over on her skin. Teddy was feverish, still in the early stages of the sickness, and I stuck him with the vaccine – but I never learned if it would help or not. He'd died in transit, when another gang saw us limping our way out and thought we'd make easy pickings.

Solo had been still, and cold, and staring unseeingly at the corner of healthy children. I knew that expression, and the only touch I would allow myself was to reach over and close his open eyes. We had a sort of tradition in our street gang, in honor of those of us who death took long to claim – we took our names from tragedies.

Solo wasn't the first person I'd lost, but he was the first I'd cared enough about to mourn that loss, to weave that tragedy irretrievably into me. 'Duo,' because I would always carry that loss with me, would always carry Solo with me.

"I'm so sorry," Solo – or, as his Preventers ID named him, Ethan Bennett said. "This must be…difficult, for you."

I could see some of the boy I'd left behind in the empty building. The shape of his eyes, the arch of his brows, the sharp curves of his lips; he'd lost the sallow, starved edges that all of us had back on those streets, replaced with the smooth, handsome shape of adulthood. He'd grown into an athletic build, lean with muscle that outweighed my own more slender frame.

"I'm just…" I didn't really know what I was. Confused? Worried? Absolutely fucking terrified? It's not every day that my dead come crawling back up from their metaphorical graves and got hired by my employers. "You're dead. I saw you… I…"

I'd touched his eyelids, pulled them closed with trembling fingers that I didn't allow to linger. There was no time; I'd stolen the vaccine from a hospital, they'd already sent what passed as law enforcement – hired thugs, in reality – out after me. We don't bury or dispose of our dead on the streets. We had no means, the most we could do was leave them lain out on the ground, eyes closed, something draped over their faces to hide their last expression from the eyes of the living. I'd used the fucking tarp for Solo.

"I left you there. The plague… you were so sick, and I wasn't quick enough, I got the vaccine but you…" I clamped my mouth shut. This wasn't a confessional, wasn't my last plea to the dead – this was me, sitting at a table in a local pub with a ghost.

Solo didn't say anything for a long moment, hands clasped around his beer bottle. His expression was thoughtful, taking in my words, my justifications – to judge? To understand? I don't know, even though I'd been able to read Solo's expressions easily as a child.

"Duo," he finally breathed out, so softly it was nearly lost to the background drawl of the room. "It's not your fault. Back then, with the plague – I was close to death. There was nothing you could have done about it then."

One hand reached out, across the table to pull my own forward to hold. His fingers were soft, lightly-calloused as they gently cradled my own. "I was lucky to survive long enough for people to find me. People that could help me back then, and did. By the time I'd recovered enough to actually be able to do something… you were long gone. I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

I wanted to know who had helped him. I wanted to know where he'd been taken to be cured, where he'd been allowed to live long enough to recover, wanted to know when he'd been healthy enough to realize the rats he'd raised were nowhere to be found.

Instead, I stared at his hand holding my own. His fingernails were neatly trimmed and clean. They were warm and strong, no hesitation in his touch of skin on skin.

"How'd you end up here?" crawled out of my mouth.

Solo's fingers lingered on my own as he slowly pulled away, settling back into his seat. His smile was small but gentle on his lips as he regarded me. "Well, not quite the same way you did… But the war gave me a purpose, and after it ended, I found myself wanting to ensure the colonies could have the peace we'd fought so hard for," he said. "Preventers seemed like a good place to do so."

"Never pegged you as the soldier type," I said.

Solo shrugged. "Didn't have a lot of options back then," he returned. It dawned on me that the expression on his face as he looked at me was that of understanding.

It burned through me then, overwhelming in its intensity – the sheer desire to be understood. To have someone look at me and discern the smile I plastered on like a well-worn mask, to know everything I'd done and not be afraid to hold my bloodstained hands, to speak with me with the soft caress of understanding. God, it was more than just a want, but an integral need.

My whole body trembled, and unbidden, a smile came to my face.

Run. Hide.

I lurched to my feet.

"Duo!" He didn't touch me, some instinct left embedded into the body of a soldier recognizing how easily my fear may turn into violence, but he'd jumped up from his own seat. "Please – Duo, don't run away from me."

Somewhere deep in my memories, I heard Solo scream at me to run. If they catch me, it's over – people don't keep rats, they kill them.

"God, Duo…" Solo, this Solo, begun in a heartbreaking tone of voice. He took a step closer and I didn't dare move, didn't dare break the fragile air between us. He finished crossing that distance to me, tentatively reaching out to hold me by the shoulders before slowly drawing me into a stiff embrace. "I never meant to leave you," he whispered harshly into my ear.

My braid laid heavy against my back; my ghosts laid heavy against my heart.

"You didn't," I replied quietly.

"You alright, Boss-man?"

I looked up from the mug of coffee I'd been nursing. Abigail had just been giving me her summary on the Atkins work order – Millard had spilled coffee on his damn desktop again, Une really was going to kill him one of these days – and just as she'd finished up, she'd decided to spring that on me. It wasn't really a surprise; she and Nathan had been trading glances all week when they thought I wouldn't notice. Stealth experts, these two were not.

"I was, until I realized someone had eaten the last mocha biscotti," I told her with a theatrical scowl.

At his desk, Nathan groaned. "I already told you I'd buy a new box-"

"I wanted it with my coffee this morning," I told him. "I was looking forward to it all week. I dreamt about it last night. Mocha biscotti soaked in this black tar brew Abby keeps trying to convince me is coffee-"

"You heathens don't know anything about coffee!" Abigail snapped defensively. She had a lot more spitfire than Nathan, but she didn't waste her energy on trying to figure out the people around her. She was honest with others, and expected others to be honest with her in return. I don't know where she'd picked up that mindset from, certainly not the battlefield, but perhaps that attitude had served her well in university.

Nathan rolled his eyes at me as she went on a rant we were both widely familiar with, and I shot him a mischievous grin that he acknowledged with an exasperated sigh. He turned back to his desk work, and Abigail stalked back to her own, where her cup of black tar awaited her, which she took a pointed gulp from.

We worked efficiently but with the usual amount of banter throughout the morning. Nathan took his lunch first, intending to meet with the missus, and Abigail took hers soon after. Nathan returned, with a fresh box of mocha biscotti, which drew an honest laugh from me – had he had Angelique buy some and then meet him for lunch?

"I was just kidding, man," I told him.

"It's nothing," Nathan shrugged. He was a good kid, a few years older than me, but he'd learned everything he knew about computers from the same posh boarding schools I'd infiltrated during the war. He didn't always understand some of the more morbid jokes that many of the field agents traded, and when he'd learned who he'd be working under, he'd spent the first few weeks being absolutely terrified I'd snap and put a bullet between his eyes if he said or did something wrong.

Honest to God, it was like working with a rabbit. I think that old bastard G had once remarked that getting kids to trust you was a lot like animal training – equal parts rewards and punishment used to earn trust. I teased and joked with him, lightly chided him if he made a mistake, and teamed up with him when Abigail needed to be ribbed on. The easy smiles I always wore were sure to put my two little gremlins at ease, and they never needed to know more about their boss than that.

I headed out for lunch, trading some light conversation with Mikey as I passed him. There was a small get-together at Morrison's this Saturday, him along with some of the other security personnel and select others were meeting up in the evening, and he wanted to see if I was up for it. I gave him an ambivalent answer so that if I did decide not to divorce myself from my staring contest with my apartment wall, my absence wouldn't really be noted.

The lobby area was virtually empty at this time, Subira smiling at me from the front desk as I headed towards the garage stairs. I caught sight of a familiar unruly head of hair, picking up my pace even as I reflexively made my steps inaudible; I only remembered that this wasn't the brightest idea when approaching this particular pair just as they reached the stairwell doors, and I quickly made my presence known by shooting out a cheery "Subira, do me a solid and tell Abby that Nate's my new favorite and if she wants to reclaim her title as Duo's #1 Gremlin, she'll need to buy me better coffee!"

"I'd rather not get involved in basement politics, Duo," Subira yelled after me with a laugh.

It'd done as I intended, though, and let Heero and Wufei know I was just behind them. They didn't turn to look, not even to glance, and I wondered not for the first time if this was some kind of field agent thing – don't acknowledge anyone that's not wearing a goddamn Preventers badge, especially basement-dwellers who only kept their sticky fingers on a computer keyboard, rather than a trigger.

I squashed the hurt feelings back into the little black box I kept them in, pulling that same smile on my face. "You guys on lunch break?" I asked as I fell into step with them, and together we descended the stairs.

"No," Heero answered shortly. Getting any sort of elaboration was like pulling teeth, so I didn't bother – I'd learned the hard way there was no point. I just counted it a small victory he hadn't ignored me.

"So, any plans this weekend?" I persisted. They didn't work the weekends, Une didn't let them unless there was an emergency – I knew because I kept track of their mission reports and emails. Not that I'd ever admit it.

"No."

I almost asked if they spent their free time staring at their apartment walls too, but decided that probably wasn't a good idea. I didn't want them thinking I was crazy or anything – Duo Maxwell wasn't going to break just because peace was so much harder to understand than war.

"Mikey said there's a get-together at Morrisons – it's that Irish pub I was telling you guys about last month, the owner is cool, he gives Preventers a discount," I told them. Was money a thing for them? I didn't like to spend frivolously, so maybe they had the same reservations. "You guys should come, it's a relaxed place."

Wufei actually looked over – not at me, of course, but at Heero, and his usually-cool exterior was replaced by an expression of pointed expectation. "We're busy," he said. It was in answer to me, even if his eyes had moved away from Heero and back to the front, where he pushed open the garage doors. Apparently they'd both parked on B1, and I followed them out despite having parked on B3.

"You're busy," I echoed, tone losing the cheer. "You have no plans but you're busy."

They actually did stop walking then, and I did too. They turned to face me, and we formed some kind of loose triangle while somehow avoiding actual eye contact with each other. It felt like something was going to be said, something that could fucking explain why they'd been icing me out ever since I'd joined Preventers.

I didn't join Preventers solely for them, okay? But I can't lie and say that they weren't a consideration in my overall agreement to it. I knew them – at least I thought I had – and I trusted them, shared enough safehouses with them, worked as comrades-in-arms, and traded positions enough as field medic and patient when it came down to it. I'd have trusted them to watch my back as I slept, but with every rejection lobbed at me in the ensuing months of hard-won peace, it felt like one more fucking knife twisted into my back.

I wanted someone to talk to, someone to understand, and I thought – well, I thought they would. There was a period of time in the war where the only thing we had was each other. I thought that had meant something.

Footsteps interrupted the tense moment between us, and if they really were going to say something, the opportunity was lost when the encroacher pushed open the doors to enter the same floor. I tensed for a completely different reason than they did, but the glance they shot me before their gazes locked onto the person now standing in surprise at the doors were sharp.

"…Duo? You okay?" Solo asked warily. He'd hesitated for a long moment, before he started moving closer to stand at my side, keeping a vigilant eye on the other two.

"Just fine, man." The words came out calm and even rather droll, but the tension only grew when Solo actually took a half-step forward, so that he had an edge of space between me and my two silent companions.

Solo was looking between them, and I knew he must have realized who they were. If he knew what I did for a living before the war ended, then he definitely knew who he was standing before. Survival instincts prompted the stiff posture, and I'm sure the cold looks both Wufei and Heero were giving him were not helping matters.

I wondered if I should be making introductions – 'Hey guys, meet my dead childhood friend!' – but the decision was taken from my hands when Heero's gaze switched back to me. "Sorry, we're busy this weekend. We'll see you later, Duo."

They didn't wait to see me nod or even make any sort of response, turning and resuming their walk back to their vehicles. I watched for a bit, and realized they were carpooling; they'd both climbed into Heero's car. I guess I missed that development in their relationship – I wonder who came up with it first, and if charts and graphs were used to convince the other.

"Fuck, that was terrifying," Solo muttered, dropping into a crouch once Heero's car had turned the corner and went out of sight.

My eyes followed the movement, a grin on my lips at the sound of his weak tone. "Wha's wrong, they scare ya?"

It was easy to slip back into the way we spoke in L2, even though G and the Sweepers had spent years beating it out of me. It made people look at you funny, or if they recognized the dialect, down at you – I'd never used it around the other guys. I hadn't been keen on reminding them of the gutters I'd crawled out of, even back then.

"It's a reasonable fear," Ethan returned, sounding just a touch petulant. He'd looked up and his frown grew at the sight of my wide grin, which I quickly changed for a more conspiratorial smile.

"Oh, they're just a couple of softies," I said. He straightened up from his crouch with a roll of the eyes, but his frown lost its teasing edge and became something more genuine. I let my smile drift away at the sight of it, waiting for what I already half-expected.

"Do you… Do they always brush you off like that?"

It hurt to hear it said out loud like that. It was a well-known secret among the workplace, this strange dynamic I shared with my two former comrades. I'd been rejected enough times in front of witnesses that I got invited on more pity bar crawls than should be legally allowed.

"Didn't ya hear?" I said, and I didn't have to feign the bitterness that seeped into my voice. "They're busy guys."

It couldn't be helped. They were heroic Preventers agents, striking fear into the hearts of corrupt men; they didn't have time to entertain the rat in the basement. Maybe they could go out for the occasional party, but only if the former princess was hosting, for security purposes. Once in a blue moon, Quatre would find a way to escape his never-ending procession of board meetings to come back dirtside and force everyone to come together for a meal, but the break was never long enough and he'd be half-glued to his cellphone anyway. Fuck knows where Trowa was at any given time, the circus he'd taken up with never in one place for long.

That's what peace is, I realized – a bunch of people I thought I knew moving on without me, and a small apartment with white walls.

"Duo…"

Warm hands reached for mine, and I had to physically stop myself from reacting with more than just a flinch. He kept saying my name in that same breathy tone, a verbal caress that stole a shiver up my spine. I wonder if he noticed, his azure eyes looking into my face as if staring at some kind of missing puzzle piece.

"You shouldn't waste your time on people like that," he told me quietly.

I wonder what expression I had made in response to that, because his grip on my hands tightened. "Turns out I have nothing but time," I replied.

There was a long moment where he grit his teeth, searching for something in my expression that I wouldn't let show. I started to smile again, the familiarity of it more soothing than the leaden weight in my gut, but then his eyes darkened even further.

"Don't smile," he bit out. "Not if you don't mean it, and I know ya don't fuckin' mean it."

Hysterical laughter bubbled up from the recesses of my throat, but I didn't let it out. I just stared up at him, tested the hold he had on my fingers, and watched as he took several measuring breaths.

He gave my hands one last reassuring squeeze, mollified somewhat that the smile had left my lips, and then turned abruptly. "You're on lunch break, right? Me too. Have you tried that sandwich shop on 5th and Townsend? It's got a killer meatball sub…" I let his words wash over me, allowed the privacy he gave me to pull myself back together.

I stared at his back.

I was hungry.

Basement, Part I End.

A/N: Will post Part II in a couple days, if my internet holds out. :)