Exactly when the little prank comment Duo had made during the Eve War had become a greater truth, he couldn't say. He'd hardly spent any time near Deathscythe's pilot up until then. Hell, the first time they met each other, they got themselves into a pissing contest in their mobile suits while Heero prepared to rocket away and kill a planeload of the wrong people. It hadn't gotten much better from there for some time.

He could still recall when OZ had picked Duo up during his stint as a loyal soldier to the Organization, that was and the kind of reaction Maxwell'd had in response to the perceived injustice of being locked in a dark cell with what he would later dub the two least entertaining people in existence. Coupled with being passed over for the ZERO affair and a punch to the stomach, Trowa had been almost certain that they were never going to hit it off as friends. It wasn't the kind of thing most people would just forgive and forget.

(Honestly, he was still half waiting for Duo to serve him 'one bitchin' dose of payback' for what he'd done to the guy's Gundam.)

But suddenly, there he was, rushing backstage to shake a poor, confused clown with a shockingly severe case of complete and total amnesia. Duo had been glad to see him, yes, but had become just as dumbfounded as Trowa when his efforts got him treated like nothing more than a frightening stranger and shooed away from the circus by a bossy redhead.

Trowa suspected that he did owe Duo for being there to save their lives when their useless, mass-produced Taurus suits were about to become permanent additions to the local collection of space debris. He'd wasted all of his ammunition not to anyone else's surprise, to be sure and Quatre had tried that reckless, stupid, and completely inadvisable maneuver just to attempt to save his worthless hide...

...That was it, wasn't it?

They'd become fast friends because Duo was initially Quatre's friend, although Trowa hadn't known that until much later. Over the last few months, he'd managed to piece together some of their wilder adventures based on snippets of conversation and vague references; he had no idea where to find the city filled with party-hard Maguanacs, flower-presenting dancing girls, and amazingly old men with silly facial hair, but he wanted to visit it.

At some point, he realized that up until recently, Duo had, in fact, spent more time with Quatre than he ever had.

Not that he was complaining. Much. Knowing that it had saved Quatre's life at least once, in a physical sense and again in an emotional one he couldn't begrudge Duo the friendship. Nor would he have wanted to; despite his handful of secret (if extremely brief) moments of addlebrained, teenage jealousy, he knew enough about how much that radiant smile and kind heart meant to him to know the effect it would have on the rest of his comrades as well, if in different ways.

The thought that Duo would be there to help out when he couldn't was oddly comforting, if he could ever be said to feel so relaxed about a situation like that, and having the chance to vent at or celebrate with someone when Quatre wasn't around or, sometimes, even when he was turned out to be something he liked, too. Besides, Duo was excellent at getting them both to lighten up.

And, truth be told?

Duo himself wasn't the most stable of people, either. Quatre's optimism and calculating streak often combined with Trowa's calm steadiness and razor-sharp instincts to tether Duo to reality when his grip on it got to be a bit shaky and holding on became more than he could handle.

Ingrained politeness and long experience tempered Duo's more volatile side and brought out the best of his quirky mind, refining the devious plans its fertile grey matter sprouted.

One, two, three. Or, to be more accurate, four, two, three, but the general idea was the same either way. Though Duo's importance to him was not on the same level or of the same nature as Quatre's, he nonetheless tended to think of their little group as an odd sort of family. Duo had almost taken on something resembling brotherhood.

That was fine by him, really. He'd already adopted a sister, and although he was wise enough never to mention it out loud, he held the opinion that Quatre's 29-strong horde of siblings also desperately needed some balancing out, if only so they would stop trying to fuss over Quatre and him all the time.

All of these things were true, but that didn't stop him from figuring that he ought to somehow intervene. After that one baby shower, Duo was never again to be trusted near a salad bar... and Irea was, at present, touting the health benefits of going vegetarian to anyone who would listen.

Quatre would just have to forgive him later.