Intrigue

by Kagura


Chapter Three: What Is This Feeling?


Since the first playdate was on Tuesday, Quatre and Relena had to wait three days for their next one. And it wasn't just Relena and Quatre who couldn't wait. Zechs, who was starting to get on Noin's nerves, was now yelled at several times a day by Noin. On Thursday, Noin finally went up to Lady Une and asked to be moved to either a different partner, or get an office to herself. Lady Une gave her the single space office. Mean while, Heero, who was partnered with Duo, had an office to himself all week. Relena ended up going to the Preventer child care center on the first floor every day, while Quatre had his own babysitter, a nice teenager from across the street named Kagura. Noin's work got done faster because she was anxious to get to the weekend. That only resulted in time passing more slowly, which drove Noin insane just as much as Zechs did. She kept berating herself, telling herself that she was only excited for the weekend because it would give her a day off. Heero, meanwhile, pretended that everything was normal, acted like everything was normal, but continued in his persistant search of why he felt like when Noin and Quatre left he was suddenly filled with emptiness.

Sally, Cathy, and Hilde all called Heero at one point or another to ask about why Trowa, Wufei, and Duo were the way they were. Hilde was even called from back up to work with Heero, although she wouldn't show up at the office until Monday.


Saturday dawned bright and early. Relena was the first one up. She ran into Heero's room and started bouncing up and down on the bed. "Wakey, wakey! We'we going to pway wif Quatwa at 0900 hours!" Relena had gotten into the habit of memorizing what other people had said. Heero glanced at his clock, it was only 6:00 in the morning. He groaned, but got up anyway.

"Let's go to Dunkin' Donuts, okay Relena?" asked Heero. He needed coffee now, not in 15 minutes when the coffee maker was done.

"Only if I can get a pink fwosted doughnut."

"Sure, what ever..."

Five minutes later the arrived at Dunkin' Donuts. Relena bounced out of the car and into the building, dragging Heero along behind her. Heero's eyes were still on the verge of closeing.

"What may I get you, sir?" asked the lady behind the counter.

"I'd like a regular coffee, black, and..." Heero was cut off by the very bouncy child.

"I wanna pink doughnut!" said the excited Relena.

"Okay," said the lady. She went over to the coffee maker and made a cup of coffee, set it down on the counter, then went and picked up the pink frosted doughnut and set it down on the counter. "That will be $3.75, please."

"Here," said Heero, plunking down a five on the counter.

"You change will be $1.25. Thank you for choosing Dunkin' Donuts. Can I help the next customer?"

"Regular coffee, cream and sugar, and a chocolate frosted doughnut," said the woman behind Heero as he moved out of line, carrying the pink frosted doughnut and sipping the wonderful caffinated drink.

"Can I hawve my doughnut, Heewo?" Heero handed Relena to pink pastry as they sat down at one of the tables. Relena stared at the round pastry, glee shining in her eyes.

"You get dragged out of bed at 6:00 this morning, too?" asked a familiar voice nearby. Heero looked up, to find Noin sitting down next to him as Relena and Quatre started to compare doughnuts.

"Yeah," Heero grumbled, continuing to sip his coffee.

"How can you stand black coffee? I'd at least have to put sugar in." Heero shrugged.

"Still not awake? At least a quarter of your coffee is gone."

"Caffine doesn't affect me until the third cup."

"Oh."

Half an hour later, after Heero had had three cups of coffee, the four of them went over to park so that Relena and Quatre could run their energy out. The tag game lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes, which brought them to 0900 hours. After that, they went to the aqaurium to see the fish, the Museum of Science for the heck of it, and saw an Imax presentation. The Museum of Science had a lightning show. Heero was practically laughing at Relena who had hid behind him during the show and was hugging Quatre like something bad was going to happen. Noin smiled at the picture. It looked like Heero was creating a human shield. The Imax presentation was about Egypt. Because Quatre and Relena were supposedly three, they ended up sitting on their respective gaurdians lap and did not have to have their own seat, although, by the end of the show, Heero and Noin were both wishing they had gotten the chibi's their own seats since their laps were sore from holding the three year olds.

By the time they left the Imax presentation it was already 9:00 (or 2100 hours). When they finally reached Heero's apartment though, Heero had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of Noin's car. Noin didn't feel like walking past all of Heero's neighbors carrying the gundam pilot, so she turned the car around and headed for her house. She carried the three year olds into the house first, and put them in Quatre's temporary bed, then put Heero in the guest bedroom, then got ready for bed and went to sleep.

This type of schedual continued for the next few weeks. Depending on who fell asleep first, Noin would wake up at Heero's place or Heero would wake up at Noin's place. Noin's guest bedroom became a second home for Heero, and Heero's bedroom became a second home for Noin, until one morning, when Zechs tried to surprise Noin at her place to find she wasn't home. In a panic, he called Heero's apartment. Relena picked up the phone.

"Hewo?"

"Hi, Relena, this is Zechs. Is Heero there?"

"Yeaw, hang on one momen, pwease."

"Hello?" asked Heero

"Hi, Heero. You don't know where Noin is, do you?" asked Zechs.

"Yeah, she's in my bed."

"You mean you're..." Zechs was shocked.

"Heero, who is that?" he heard Noin's voice in the background.

"Zechs." He could tell that Heero was trying to cover the mic on the phone with his hand.

"You just told ZECHS, of all people, I was in your bed?"

"Yeah."

"Jeeze, Heero, you're going to give him the wrong idea."

"Heero, put Noin on the phone." Zechs had a very sudden urge to yell at Noin.

"Okay."

"Here, Noin. Zechs wants to talk to you." Heero's hand was covering the mic again.

"Hey, whats up?" he heard Noin say.

"Don't you whats up me! How could you? How could you sleep with Heero of all people, in front of my sister!"

"Zechs, I was not sleeping with Heero, I slept in his bed. He slept on the couch. Although, now that you mention it..."

"Noin..." Zechs was getting iritated. Noin sounded a little too happy with the current predicament.

"Well, Heero is kind of short a bed. I mean, Relena took the guest bedroom, and of course Quatre sleeps there, too, cause you know, little kids sleep in groups when in groups. So then it comes down to Heero's bed and the couch."

"You're telling me that Relena is sleeping with Quatre?"

"Jeeze Zechs, they're only three at the moment."

"Right."

"Anyway, you need to stop acting like I'm your property, because I'm not. I'm your partner in the Preventers, and a friend, not your tool and not your girlfriend, you got that?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Because I was just thinking..."

Click. Zechs did not want to here what Noin was thinking, especially after that little lecture about the two of them not being an item. He realized then that he had taken Noin for granted.

When Noin got off the phone after hearing the harsh click of the other end being cut off, she turned to see Heero sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter, eating a strawberry, face emotionless, as if he heard nothing in the conversation.

"So that's what you ment," Heero said finally.

"By what?" asked Noin.

" 'Jeeze, Heero, you're going to give him the wrong idea,' " said Heero, trying his best to imitate her voice. The imitation wasn't very good, but it got the point across.

"Oh, yeah, that's what I meant."

"Oh, okay."

But for the rest of the day, the conversation with Zechs would not leave her mind, nor the conversation with Heero afterwords. But what neither Heero nor Noin noticed was that there were two more days until the end of the month.