Sorry for the delay! Every time I went to edit and post this, my pager went off, lol. As usual, any mistakes are my fault, not my beta reader's, who I thank for putting up with my constant misuse of then/than, and frequent comma abuse. If you see anything glaring, drop me a line and I'll fix it ASAP.

This is one of those chapters I split up due to length- the finished product was something like 17 pages long. So hopefully I'll have the second part up by the weekend.

Enjoy!

Chapter 3

05:47

You know, a lot of people think they never dream.

That's not true - at least, not in my experience anyways. Everyone dreams... well everyone except me, of course. I've never had a dream of my own. When I'm sleeping around other people the reason is obvious - I just don't get a chance. But when I'm on my own, well... I don't know whether it's because of my chronic sleep deprivation, or just that I'm physically incapable. Funny that; being physically incapable. I mean, is there some sort of gene I'm lacking? Some synapses that don't fire properly? Scary when you think about it; like saying I have brain damage or something. That's why I try to not think about it too much.

It doesn't matter to much to me anyway, I'm not really missing out when I'm tromping through everyone else's dreams night after night, and I've been stuck in enough to know that after awhile they tend to get repetitive. And slightly boring. There only so many times that watching someone show up to class or work naked is funny. Sex dreams? Well, I guess I've already ranted enough about them.

Though I have to admit, the ones where people dream they're suddenly falling still makes me freak out initially. There's something about being suspended a couple miles above Earth hurtling to the ground without the protection of a Gundam that tends to elevate my blood pressure a couple of points.

Everyone dreams... it's just whether they happen to remember they did when they wake up.

I have been dream-walking for as long as I could remember... must have been five or six years old the first time I realized that it wasn't a normal thing to do. Solo was one of those people who could never remember his dreams; every morning he'd wake up and wait for me to come around, laying on his stomach, chin resting in his hands, and generally looking like a kid on Christmas Day, or so I'd imagine having never actually experienced one myself. And everyone morning I'd tell him what he'd dreamed about. Lemme tell you, that takes talent. When you dream, everything makes sense, whether you're talking to animals, or flying, or in one place and suddenly in another, but trying to make sense of it when you're awake is another matter. Trying to make sense of someone else's mind and then explaining it to them, well, that's like translating a foreign language into... I don't know, raccoon-ese or something.

But Heero literally did. Not. Dream. Not even the usual winding down, replaying the events of the day part, unless that had been so brief I'd missed it during my stint in Quat's mind. I actually had to check my watch to see for myself that time had passed. The proof was there though. Six hours had passed.

I had actually had close to six consecutive, restful hours of sleep inside Heero's head.

Well fuck me.

05:49

"Duo?" Quatre whispered from the doorway, not coming any closer until he was sure I was awake.

Unlike Heero and I, Quatre hadn't been raised in a life that required you to be on your guard all the time. He'd learnt quickly though, the first time I stayed with him, never to touch me until he was sure I was awake. I had him flat on his back, wind knocked out of him, with a knife to his throat before his mind could even comprehend I was up. I was probably twitchier than Heero, not that I was about to put that theory to the test anytime soon, because I was never completely sure where I had gone to sleep and what I was going to wake up to.

All the caffeine pills didn't exactly help calm the nerves either.

I rolled over in my sleeping bag and smiled lazily at him. "Hey, Quat. Sleep well?"

He gave me a puzzled look and strode across the room, pulling away my sleeping bag before I could realize what was going on. "God, Duo, what happened to you?"

Now it was my turn to be confused.

"Your neck!" he exclaimed, reaching out gently to brush my hair away.

I reached up and felt carefully, closing my eyes in realization at the crusted blood I felt there. I looked at my hands for confirmation, sure enough, there was blood under my fingernails too.

"Crap," I sighed, wondering how I was going to explain this to him without him trying to take the blame for it. It was his dream I'd been stuck in last night, and only Quatre could feel guilty about not being able to control his subconscious mind.

Ironic, that, if you think about it.

"How bad is it?"

He put his hand under my chin, clinically turning my head this way and that to get a better look. "It's hard to tell in this light, but they mainly look superficial. They've all stopped bleeding anyway."

"Well, don't worry about it then." I pulled my head away from his hand, not meeting his gaze and waiting. Quatre didn't know how to 'not worry', I swear, the guy had a whole part of his genetic makeup dedicated to it.

"I'm not worried about a couple of damn cuts, I'm worried about you!"

Damn - about the closest I'd heard Quatre come to actually swearing.

"Quatre, keep your voice down," I griped, cocking my head towards the doorway in case Heero'd caught any of our conversation. The guy had hearing like an supercharged screech owl. "You told me you wouldn't say anything to Heero."

He sighed, and rubbed at his face frustratedly. "I know. I promised you I wouldn't. But Duo, what did that?"

"I did, I guess." I shrugged. "I doubt it was that squirrel in the attic. Though, I bet I smell especially scrumptious this morning. Eau de B.O. The perfect marinade."

Day four with no shower would do that to a person.

Quatre scowled, and pushed his blond hair out of his face. "It's nothing to be making jokes about, Duo!"

"I know it isn't," I hissed, "but what am I s'posed to say? Oh woe is me, boo hoo, please feel sorry for me because I apparently tried to rip my own throat out last night? I've been dealing with this my whole life, Quatre, this happens sometimes, so quit the damn worrying act already!"

I knew immediately I'd gone too far. This wasn't Heero I was dealing with, who could take the rebukes just as easily as he dished them out. This was Quatre, the one who actually gave a damn. I felt like I'd just slapped a puppy. Not because I routinely slap puppies, but if I did, this is what I'd imagine it felt like. I gnawed on my bottom lip and struggled for something to say. I didn't do apologies, not well anyway... but he deserved one.

"Quatre, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap."

He gave me a half-smile. "It's not all an act, Duo."

"I know." I grinned at him ruefully. "My mouth... takes over my brain sometimes. Quite annoying really. Look, Quat... nothing about how I sleep is normal. Obviously. My best guess is I don't get muscle atonia sometimes... that's what cause paralysis in your sleep so you don't act out all your dreams. Would kinda suck if you jumped off a roof 'cause you thought you could fly, ya know?"

"So something was trying to rip out your throat in either my or Heero's dreams," Quatre asked tersely, not buying my casual attempts to brush him off.

I so did not have time for this. Any minute now Heero was going to come waltzing up here and declare world war ten on me because we were running ten-point-oh-two seconds behind schedule. The last thing I needed was for him to start giving me the third degree too.

Though, me being into the whole self-harm thing would be helluva lot more believable than the real problem. Sad, that.

"Something like that," I told him finally, squirming out of my sleeping bag and grabbing my clothes so he'd know the conversation was closed.

Sometimes I thought it'd be easier if I learned to lie, just like everyone else.

05:55

Quatre left me alone to get dressed. I would have loved to have cleaned the blood off my neck, but the closest water source was downstairs. It was a large canteen designated as drinking water, and knowing Heero, if he knew I wanted to actually, gasp, wash with it, he'd throw me over his shoulder, hike the half-mile and dunk me in the stream himself. There was nothing I could do but resign myself to the fact that my neck was going to be itchy with dried blood all day, and to be thankful that my clerical shirt would cover the evidence.

06:00

I rolled up my sleeping bag, and as I was the last one out of the room, it was my job to get rid of any fingerprints. Purely precautionary of course, by Mr. Anal Retentive's orders, because none of us had traceable identities, and like OZ would really care about some pigsty shack smack-dab in the middle of absolutely nowhere, even if they were by some miracle, able to find it. Still, I dutifully rubbed down the door knob, light switches (in case any of us had touched them out of habit) as well as the banister as I went down the stairs.

As soon as he heard my foot touch the last step, Heero threw something at my face without looking to see if I was paying attention, and luckily, my reflexes engaged in time for my hands to catch it.

If it had broken my nose, I swear he still probably would have found some way to make it my fault.

"Wonderful. Leftovers," I muttered as soon as I realized what I held in my hands. "Makes the raccoon look that much more appetizing, eh Quat?"

Quatre, already perched on a stool at the wobbly table, was looking like he was preparing to bolt at the slightest indication of danger from me or Heero. On hearing my comment though, he relaxed a hair and tossed me a knowing grin; he was munching away on his own package of condensed, flash-dried, nutritionally-stuffed cardboard. Probably didn't have any saliva in his mouth to comment, the crap tended to suck you dry. I went over and rummaged through my duffel bag until I found what I was looking for— a small bottle of hot sauce. Quatre pulled a face as I applied it liberally.

"You're disgusting, you know that, Duo?" He wrinkled his nose and mimed shoving a finger down the back of his throat.

I smirked at him, and pointedly added a few more shakes. I was going to pay for it dearly later with bathroom breaks—I swear the stuff takes a direct route through your digestive tract by eating through your stomach lining, and I didn't exactly have the heartiest stomach to begin with when it came to spicy stuff - but who knew when I'd get to bug him like this again. "What's disgusting is you can eat it like it is. Might as well start chomping on the drywall."

"Yeah, but... hot sauce? For breakfast?"

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, Quat," I smirked.

He grimaced. "That's the problem... I did."

"I wish I could have witnessed that!" I crowed, slapping him over the shoulder and causing him to choke.

His retaliating look warned me that if I didn't shut up now, I'd be needing to duck and cover very quickly.

I busied myself making coffees for the three of us, using the time to wipe the grin off my face and took a bite of my own over-glorified breakfast chock full of calories, iron, and protein every time I could force myself to swallow it.

Sneaking a look at Quatre, I pulled the hot sauce bottle back out of my pocket and waved at Quatre to gain his attention.

"Duo, he'll murder you!" Quatre hissed, spraying a mouthful of crumbs over the table in alarm as I pantomimed dumping the remainder of the hot sauce into Heero's coffee cup.

"He may murder me, but it was worth it seeing you do that," I laughed, sticking the unopened bottle back in my pocket as he lunged for it.

"Living area's wiped down, so if you touch anything clean it off." Heero startled me by reappearing from nowhere at my elbow, and plucking his coffee out of my hand. At least this time I didn't chuck it at him. He gave Quatre, who was still in mid-lunge, a strange look.

"I did the upstairs already," I added, earning yet another look of surprise from Heero. At least it looked like he missed my sabotage attempts on his coffee.

I fished a couple of laxatives from my bag and snuck a couple of caffeine pills out of my pocket while I was at it, washing them all down with a swig of my coffee. About the only thing military issued rations were lacking in (besides taste, of course) was fiber. They were actually called Meal, Ready-to-Eat, or MREs for short, but over the years, soldiers with a lot more time on their hands then me, had had come up with a variety of alternative meanings for the acronym including Meals Requiring Enemas, and Meals Refusing to Excrete. My personal favorite was 'three lies for the price of one; it's not a meal, it's not ready, and you can't eat it.' Hence, the laxatives. Nothing too strong mind you, just enough to make sure you could 'go' when you needed to. Better out than in, and all that.

"This is the versed." Heero tossed a vial at Quatre, stooping to get something else out of his pack.

"Shit, where'd you pick that up?" I stuck a hand out and snagged it casually in mid-flight before Quatre had the chance, squinting to read the label.

Heero didn't answer, and I didn't bother looking at him. He was probably giving me that look that made him look like a disgruntled camel. I was well versed in that look.

"If the guard looks like he's under two hundred pounds, give him one unit. If he's over, give him two."

"And if he's a beached whale?" I muttered for Quatre's ears alone, earning myself an exasperated grin.

"Then give him four." Heero's jaw clenched minutely; every word carefully enunciated.

Busted.

"And this stuff is safe?" Quatre asked tactfully, steering the conversation back on topic.

Translation; would it kill him?

"I suppose that depends on how good you are at guessing body weight," Heero replied shortly, giving off the impression he didn't give a damn one way or another. And throwing all the potential blame onto Quatre, of course.

I scowled at him. "Could you be a little more vague? If the guy dies, it may attract attention."

"I'm not going to be there to hold his hand, Duo. If the guard stops breathing because Quatre gave him too much, then he dies."

Apparently, that was all there was to it for him.

"Well, you're a ruthless bastard, aren't you?" I told him pleasantly, a sneer betraying my tone. "No regard at all for human life. You do realize we're trying to win a war to save the planet, right? Not pick 'em off one at a time. You sure you joined the right side?"

"Duo-" Both Heero and Quatre spoke up then, one looking ready to insert his coffee cup down my throat, the other sorely wishing he hadn't brought attention to himself.

One guess which was which.

"No, no-" I waved my hand at both of them angrily, "before I shut up, I'd like my opinion noted that I think this whole mission is grossly flawed. Suicidal even. There is absolutely no reason why three of us are required to break in-"

"Duo, you've already... made your opinion noted," Heero answered, sounding remarkably like he was trying not to choke on the words. "And it does require all three of us. We can't pull off an infiltration of this scale-"

"So you're admitting you need us?"

"Until I can figure out how to be in three places at once, yes."

Oh god, that was nearly a joke! I fully expected him to combust in front of me.

"The Gundams-"

"-have no place at a base like this! You just said it yourself, Duo, we're trying to save human lives."

"With some planning, we could still protect the civilians on that base, and-"

"And how are you planning on doing that? Give them a call? Get them to issue an evacuation notice? Because that's the only way you're going to guarantee the safety of civilians.

Poor Quatre's head was bouncing back and forth between us like he was watching a tennis match.

"You don't know that, Heero! We could come up with another-"

"I do know that," he hissed, startling me with his vehemence. "Every time we do a job like this, we put civilians in danger. The Gundams only increase that risk. So no, Duo. We're not using the Gundams."

"Huh," I muttered, turning away from him. "Maybe there is an iota of humanity in you after all."

I missed the pained look on Quatre's face. Heero's too.

As much as I hated to see his logic, Heero was right. Had this been the usual kind of military base, we would have tackled this the usual way—Gundams, in and out in an hour tops, and it would have most likely been a solo mission rather than tying up the three of us. That was really the sticky point with me. Three of us breaking in tripled the chances that something would go wrong, that we'd get caught, killed, and all those other joyous consequences that came with attacking an OZ military base in broad daylight. In this case, there was a huge population of civilians that lived and worked on the base in the ammunition factories that we were going to destroy—the whole base was more like a small town really.

So with the Gundams ruled out, that only left us the stealth approach. Heero was to hack into their computer servers, copy the lot and destroy the rest; I don't know what the hell 'They' were looking for, but that's why we were the grunts, and 'They' the evil masterminds. Maybe they didn't know what info they were going to get, which is why they wanted Heero to copy the whole damn lot, or maybe they were worried he'd waste too much time if he rooted around the system for one specific thing. I don't know. I frickin' hate computers, I really do. I can do basic hacks, we all can. But if something went wrong, Heero was the man for the job, I was big enough to admit that. You can't just do a little soldering here and replace a piston there, and that's what screwed me up. They spoke a language- well, more like a few dozen-I didn't understand, literally. Now, tell me to fix an engine with a rock and a pair of pantyhose and I'm your guy. I'll take hands on any day.

Quatre, in theory at least, had the easy part of the mission. Break into the security room, incapacitate the guard, upload a program that would delete any potential footage of our break in, and replace it with a copy of what it had recorded for the same time span yesterday. But because he was venturing further into the base than either Heero or I, he also had the highest risk of been seen and captured, and though he had all the infiltration training that the rest of us had, he lacked any real practical application. Don't get me wrong, the guy has proven himself to be more than capable the few times I've seen him in action, it's just... the whole thing made me uneasy. I was used to working on my own, and I would have much rather done the break-and-enter part myself, but there was stuff to be blown up and I was positive no one would be capable of setting up the little monsters I had planned for the job. I'd had to get creative—I was limited to supplies that I could physically carry in, which rather limited my actual initial explosive potential, and so the whole operation would be one part planning, and two parts improv, depending on what I found when I got there. I'd neglected to tell Mr. Military that little flaw for obvious reasons. I was used to flying by the seat of my pants... it would just give him a wedgie.

Heero started triple checking our packs, making me a little leery as he rifled through mine. He had all the same training I had, and while the explosives I did have in there may not do too much damage to a military base on their own, they certainly would make a Very Big Boom in the middle of the kitchen floor. Besides, him touching my self-assembled 'bomb making' kit, my knives... it made me feel like he was going through my underwear drawer or something. I wish the guy would just trust me to do my job. You didn't see me going near his laptop to make sure he had the latest OS installed or anything. I was just glad I had the caffeine pills in my pocket.

I took the opportunity to study him while his back was to me. It was still bothering me, the fact that he didn't dream, and yet fascinated me as well. I wished now that I'd braved a trip into his mind sooner. The opportunity was gone now, if this job went according to plans, I wouldn't be seeing him for awhile. Hell, if it didn't go to plan, I'd probably never see him again.

Was it common for him to not dream? Or had he simply just not slept last night? I ruled that out immediately, if he hadn't been sleeping, I wouldn't have had the chance to get pulled in. I wondered if he even realized...

He turned around before I could look away and I knew I was busted.

"If you're done staring, maybe we could do something useful? The mission perhaps?" Heero's tone was as sharp as ever, but his expression was unreadable. I wonder if he knew or cared about the impression he left.

I choked back the urge to do something incredibly self-satisfying, like blow a raspberry at him, and settled on a nice, mature shrug. "Just makin' sure you weren't going to have any little accidents with the explosives. The C4 isn't ordinary play-doh, ya know?"

It may have been a suppressed laugh or a snort that followed; probably the latter, as if he would be stupid enough to confuse the C4 with something so... civilian. I didn't bother to get clarification, it was probably better to keep things civil, for today at least. Six hours and I wouldn't have to deal with him again until the next time we were forced to put up with each other's company.

That should have made me feel relieved, but it didn't.

Heero Yuy didn't dream. And that intrigued me.

A/N: Get ready for explosions next chapter! LOL. To everyone who reviewed, thank-you. I'm a shameless review hog, and they spur me to keep updating as quickly as I am. The explanation as to Quatre's non-traceable identity was unfortunately put at the end of the previous chapter instead of this one, but like I said, it will be explained later on. Hope you all keep reading and enjoying!

TanithNight: I found your review funny (funny ironic) considering I'd already written this chapter, especially in regards to the beginning, lol. Just keep in mind that just because Duo says something, doesn't mean it's true, or what I think. And if that sounds vague, good, because then I'm not spoiling any of the plot for you, lol. Thanks for your kind review.

Kelkatan: Thank you for what was probably the most amazing review I've ever had. Seriously. I was glad to hear you liked the raccoon part as that was added in on the day as almost an afterthought. I'm glad you find the characters to be in character also. Some of your theories are amazingly close to the truth, others way off, but I loved reading about them. Thankyouthankyouthankyou, lol!

wind dancer 1981: You've stuck with me through all my stories, so thank-you once again for your kind review. I hope you're enjoying this story. ^_^