Cursed. He must have been cursed. All his life as a circle. Pain over and over. Anyone, everyone he was even the most tenative of friends with died. Leaving him alone, alone, like he'd always been... Well, since the first death. His breath caught as he thought of her, so proud and so, so strong... And then "the curse", as he referred to it, followed him, even after all the penance he'd done during the wars, followed him to where he thought he was safe, the end of the wars and the dawn of new beginnings, his hopes for a normal life dashed down with the first letter.

~We regret to inform you...~ What the hell was that?!! Those people never gave a damn about him or anyone else they ever contacted. ~... That Mr. Winner has fallen gravely ill with a rare, untreatable form of cancer.~

That was as far as he had read before tossing the paper aside and throwing together his things to make the trip t his friend's bedside. Once there, Quatre was unconscious, floating between life and death. Only three days later, they lost him.

With a heavy heart, he'd begun to head back to his home. He'd then been confronted with the news that Trowa had died only minutes after Quatre in some freak accident. He stayed long enough to see the two lowered into the ground, side-by-side, in two of five plots Quatre had picked out at the end of the war. At the time, Duo had mocked Quatre about it, and, at the time, he'd concurred with the crazy baka, but now he was oddly comforted by the fact that he'd be in eternal slumber right next to his four best buddies.

It was only three months later that he'd gotten the letter about Duo. About his car-accident which killed him four hours after his immediate hospitalization. So he stood, with Heero, watching the slow decent of the coffin into the freshly dug grave next to his other two fallen comrades.

Just as he began to heal, he received a letter from a hospital in New York city. Heero had attempted suicide, unable to cope with his koi's death. He'd rushed to the hospital and sat, waiting for his friend to either cross over or to rejoin the conscious. He spent hours upon hours sitting with the uncharacteristically limp hand in his, talking to the prone form on the hospital cot. He sat that way for well over a week, then watched as another friend officially "passed over".

That had been a month ago.

He took another sip of his wine, somewhat aware that he had consumed near two bottles of the stuff and was somewhat amused that he didn't even care.

And then, the voiced started again This time he knew he was crazy, for he could see them too. He looked over his fallen fellow pilots, Quatre leading Trowa around by his hand, Heero with his arm casually resting around an all-too-cheerful ghost's waist.

"Now I know I'm crazy..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes in disbelief.

"Rub your eyes all you like, 'Fei. 'Snot gonna make us go away." Duo mocked as the group approached the mini-bar of his house. "And what a friendly welcome at that! Ye'd think he'd seen a ghost!"

"Four ghosts, to be precise." Quatre corrected.

"Wha'? How?!! You're, you're dead! I saw you lowered into your graves! It doesn't get any dead-er than that!!!"

"Well, duh!" Replied Duo. "We're ghosts."

Wufei turned an even whiter shade of white. "But... How?!!"

"Well," Heero began. "After we died, we were given a choice. We could either stay and fix things or go up and let some angels take care of it. We chose to stay here and fix things up."

"Wait, fix what? I don't understand." Wufei buried his face in his hands.

"Well, our first goal is to get you to stop drinking." Quatre dumped the half-empty bottle down the sink.

"And to make you sleep more often." Duo chimed in.

"I don't need to sleep more, I'm fine!" He protested weakly.

Duo gave him a patronizing look and an annoyed sigh. "You haven't slept in four days. And when you do sleep, it's only a couple of hours at a time, and those hours riddled with terrible dreams." He walked through, literally through, the bar. "It's time you learned to put all this behind you."

"How... How did you do that?"

"What? Walk through the bar?" Duo asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, we can chose whether or not to affect or be affected by this world. The only reason you can see us now is because we decided to let the world affect us. We've been around for quite some time, but only now have we started to directly alter your life."

"That would imply that you have been indirectly affecting my life at some point... What did you do?" He asked, suspiciously.

"Well..." Duo bit his lip. "We got that security man to come see you..."

"So that's why he kept calling!" Wufei shook his head. "What, you guys don't think I can't protect myself, is that it?"

"No, we just would feel more comfortable if you did have body-guards, and so forth." Quatre said.

"What else have you done?"

"Well, there is one more thing..." Quatre began.

"Tell me." Wufei's voice was dangerously low.

"Well..." He squirmed uncomfortably. "I sorta... Got you your job..." He blushed.

Wufei thought about that. "You did what?!!"

"I'm sorry!" Quatre pouted.

"Damn, I knew that guy was creeped out by something, the minute I signed on with him..."

"You do have to admit that it's a pretty cool job, though... I was pretty jealous myself when you got it." Duo reminded him.

"What, parading around in front of a bunch of cameras? Oh yeah, it's a blast!" Wufei's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Hey, being an actor-model can't be all that bad!" Duo sighed.

"Well..." Wufei thought about it. "I do kinda like it when I get to race cars for ads and stuff..."

"That's the spirit!" Quatre smiled.

"So, why are you all here now? I mean, why not at a decent hour when people are actually awake?!!" Wufei asked, slightly cross.

"We came now because people are usually asleep at this hour. And you're not." Heero explained.

"You should be falling asleep right about... Now." Quatre said, watching Wufei as his head slowly fell to the counter. "Okay, he's dead asleep now. Good thinking with putting the sleeping drug in the wine, Duo."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, child's play, really."

The four of them got Wufei tucked into bed, then took posts to make sure nothing would bother him that night.

* * * * *

"Don't you feel kinda bad going through his stuff like this?" Duo asked, leaning on the door-jam of Wufei's office.

"Hmm? Oh. Not really." Heero replied, flipping through a stack of papers. "Since we're not technically alive anymore, I think the rules are a bit different. And besides, we're doing this to help him, not hurt him!"

"Oh, fine... Just don't leave any evidence that you were here!"

Heero just gave him a look and went back to work. He was leafing through a stack of envelopes when he came across one at the bottom of the stack. With his name on it. He hesitated, not sure whether he should open it or not. On one hand, it would be a grievous violation, Wufei may never have wanted him to see it. On the other hand, this could be the answer to the problem he'd seen in days of watching the still-alive pilot.

He made his decision and tore open the envelope. His eyes darted to the top of the page to see when it was written. January 17th. He winced, only one day before Wufei had gotten the news about Quatre. 'So that's why I didn't get this...'

He continued reading, horror getting more and more apparent in his eyes. Before he'd even read the signature, he was on his feet and walking through the wall to the room where the others were keeping guard over the sleeping pilot. As he entered, the others looked up at him, curious as to what had brought him out of the study.

"You guys... I'm afraid I have some rather bad news..."