Disclaimer: I still don't own 'em.

A/N: So here's chapter two. Don't worry, the plot will kick in soon. Again, sorry about the shortness; the chapters do get longer as this goes. I promise. Reviews would be appreciated.

Warnings, since I forgot to put them in chapter 1: language, violence, 1+2, 3+4. AU. I think that's it.

Chapter 2

It was an annoyingly long time later that the door to our boring cell opened again. I really wished I could be more certain about the time interval, or even guess an actual interval, but I'd never realized before how much I relied on the sun and the clocks around town to keep track of time. And now I was really, really wishing I had a watch.

No one was thrown into the room this time. Instead, three goons with guns−possibly the same goons as last time; I wasn't paying that much attention and it's not like it mattered anyway−gestured all of us out into the corridor and lined us up…and then shackled us all into a line like all those old textbook pictures of slaves in galleys. You know, everyone has a cuff on each wrist and each cuff is attached to a long chain. Except our wrist cuffs were attached to each other so we had no free hand movement at all, which sucked muchly. I was stuck near the middle of the line, between Maria, who was quietly sniffling, and Heero, who seemed to be trying to glare a hole in the guard closest to him. More power to him and I hoped it worked; I really disliked these guys.

We were marched along like an odd set of ducklings, clanking the entire way through boring white hallways and doors and even down a flight of boring stairs−was anything around here interesting? And navigating stairs when you can't grab the railing is Not Fun−until we reached a pair of−gasp!−steel doors that opened onto night in a sheltered cove out of a bad pirate movie. I rolled my eyes. Was there no originality left at all? Between the chains and the setting I was beginning to think we were bound for slavery after all. Obviously they were going to try to take us someplace else, but whenever we got there I could pick the lock on my cuffs and high tail it for the nearest city.

We were marched into the ship and down into the hold where the end of the chain was locked to a ring near the door; paranoid much? It was a good thing there were only ten of us, because it wasn't a huge ship and there wasn't that much room. Some water bottles were thrown in with us and the door to the top deck was locked behind us. Luckily, we had a light in the room with us so we could see. Unluckily, it showed rather clearly that the lock on the door was inaccessible from the inside again. Damn. The water was nice though, since they hadn't fed us or given us anything to drink the entire time back in the cell.

The ship's engines rumbled to life and the boat juddered around us as we passed the water down the line so everyone could drink. Hey, we're street kids, not savages! When you go without as often as we do, you learn to live with what little you get and help others when you can. If you don't help when given the chance, no one will ever help you when you need it; turnabout is fair play.

About half the bottles were emptied and the rest were left for later, since the boat was definitely moving now and none of us knew how long the trip would be. I was bored again, since the wall lumps were still being quiet and lumpy and the two odd ones out weren't talking either, so I surreptitiously pulled a lock pick out of my hair and set about making sure I could get out of my cuffs if necessary. I was already damned sure I could, but it never hurt to check. I was right, it only took about two minutes of fiddling and I had them unlocked.

I'd had my knees up as a screen, fiddled in such a way that my hands were out of general view, and been pretty much silent, so I'd thought I'd been unobtrusive enough about it that no one noticed. Unfortunately, when I looked up after quietly relocking the cuffs I found I had blue eyes glued to me. I winced. I didn't want anyone else knowing I could get out because I didn't know if I'd be able to get anyone else out. Helping others by sharing food and water is all well and good, but that's not a decision that could get everyone, or even anyone, killed. Group effort here would likely end in somebody dead, since it's kinda hard for ten people to all up and take off at once without being noticed and shot at, so my lockpicking being general knowledge was a Bad Plan. Even if they didn't kill us they'd catch us and take my lockpicks, and then we'd all be back at square one and I'd be completely screwed too.

Apparently Heero had the same idea I did, since he didn't say anything, although his eyes flicked to Wufei and they had another silent conversation. I was really getting sick of those. When they finished their silent tete-a-tete, the two police flunkies were looking…speculative. Oops. Either I'd just painted 'asset' on my forehead or they were putting two and two together and getting 'thief'. Or worse, both. Any way it went it could be a bad thing, but nothing I could do about it now. Although it was kind of disconcerting since Heero was directly next to me and Wufei was right next to him. Double stares with an impact. Ouch.

I sighed and shifted the location of my butt by several inches. Hopefully this trip would be relatively short, both for a 'getting home' standpoint and a 'damn this hurts' standpoint. There's only so comfortable you can get when you're hooked to someone on your right and your left and there's limited leg room anyway.

I thumped my head back against the wall. I wanted to be home, back in my hidey-hole with no worries besides my next thieving job or next day working for some money at the junkyard. I'd've given up the thieving for the junkyard if I could; I liked messing around with scrap. But I couldn't work at the junkyard as a steady job; the guy who actually owned the place wouldn't've let me work at all, but his second-in-command was okay with it as long as I didn't get caught. Of course, that meant I couldn't work when the big boss was actually around, and I got paid under the table so it was a pittance at best, but it did help me squeak through the rough times.

In a roundabout way, I could blame the big boss for my current predicament, which was kind of nice since I didn't like him already for having such a stick up his ass about not hiring an "uneducated workforce." And I was getting sick of blaming myself for this mess. I hadn't had many chances to work my "honest" job lately since there hadn't been any trips to call Mr. Head Honcho out of town recently, which was why I had been out thieving and in a place to get myself caught. No food is a good motivator for going to steal some. Getting food was simple: pick the lock on the service door that leads to the pantry, grab nonperishables, sneak away unobtrusively and lock the door behind me in hopes of confusing people as to whether anything is missing. Unfortunately, the previous night's trip had included the unexpected and unwanted get grabbed from behind in a dark alley before getting anywhere close to the target building. I officially hate chloroform.

And now, I was on a boat, going who knows where. Yay. I really didn't want to blame myself for this one. I was also kind of hoping we'd get somewhere soon so I could take off. I was hungry and very very tired of twiddling my thumbs.