WARNINGS: Rated M for language & YAOI (this means two married men having marital relations... with each other)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the boys, the Gundams, the copyrights, or the patents. But the snappy one-liners are mine, all mine (unless indicated otherwise in the chapter notes).

First, Last, and Only Time

Follows "Two out of Three" – With their training completed, Duo and Trowa are given their first mission-support assignment. Trowa POV. Rated M for m/m sexual situations.

"No way, pal. I'm taking the pilot's seat on this one."

Heero stiffened.

Wufei glared. "Cross—"

"He's the better pilot when it comes to terrestrial aircraft," I interjected before things could go pear-shaped and end up blowing out the walls of Heero's meticulously organized office. "I'll take the gunner position."

"In that case—" Duo swooped in and snatched up the mission outline from Heero's grasp. "—it looks like there are a few typos on this that need correction. I'll just go fix those, shall I?"

I watched him storm out of the room, his stinging pride at the helm.

Heero growled, "Why does he always have to be so damn competitive?"

There was no arguing that Duo was competitive. Just shy of viciously so. "Our lives have changed a lot over the last eight months," I reminded him.

Heero wasn't particularly interested in hearing it, but that was fine. I let him and Wufei get back to work. Work and mission preparations would help Heero cool off so he and Duo didn't end up finding an opportunity to each gain a set of bruised knuckles during our upcoming assignment.

Heero was wrong, though, if he thought Duo's insistence on piloting could be completely explained by pointing to one culprit: competition. If anything, Duo's competitive spirit gave him a relatively harmless outlet for the pressure he was under, pressure to make the seamless transition to a team player within a system that imposed uncompromising standards and immovable expectations. I doubted Professor G had ever demanded so much of him. The old bastard had only ever asked Duo to sacrifice his life, never his soul. The jodhpurs and the braid had said it all: G hadn't cared about Duo's quirks so long as he dedicated his life to the impossible task of eradicating one oppressive military organization after another. Now Duo wore khakis, pressed with a single pleat, and kept his shoulder-length hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. He filled out his flight plans in Times, New Roman, 12-point font with standard margins and one-point-two-five spacing. As per regulations.

No, Duo's struggle wasn't about competition at all. It was about finding balance after the world had been yanked out from under him. I could imagine each and every confidence-quaking, self-image destroying, life-threatening beating that Duo had taken just within the last year alone: first at WEI, from the time I'd kissed him on the rooftop until Howard had found us huddled together on the couch; then on X18999 when we'd been dancing in quicksand; after that, the pretense of the mission had fallen away revealing the future to be an alien landscape from which he'd made a strategic retreat; perhaps the world had settled down for him in that sleepy, little countryside town, but then he'd chosen our marriage and every day in Clifden had been a kind of nested Pandora's box as we'd inched our way toward cohabitation, unlocking one layer after another and either breathing a sigh of relief or facing the subsequent fallout; finally, we'd come back to the real world, to a three-year commitment that had begun with training and was now defined by probationary employment.

It didn't surprise me that Duo was even now searching for his center of gravity: the world hadn't stopped shifting unpredictably beneath him. It didn't help that Heero was simply unable to imagine a reason to resist such a regimented and micro-managed existence. Additionally, neither Wufei nor Quatre seemed to be having difficulty integrating into the Preventers' machine of justice-for-all, but they had the touchstone of stable childhoods to fall back on.

I suppose I did, too. In a way.

"Y'know, I don't set out to be an asshole when I wake up in the morning," Duo muttered at me when I leaned a hip against the often-unused desk we shared with about ten other guys in the transport hangar. He was jabbing at the keys like each and every one of them was an unblinking eye of Satan and he was determined to provoke an early Armageddon.

I told him, "You are not an asshole."

"A shithead, then."

"Try again."

"A goat-licking sonuvabitch?"

"Do I look like a goat to you?"

And finally he laughed. He threw back his head and barked out all the tension that was tearing him up inside. "Uh, maybe if you grew a beard?" he suggested, his eyes glittering with mischief.

Since we were the only ones in the cramped and generic office, I braced a hand on the desktop so I could lean in and, lips brushing his ear, said, "Ba-aa-aa!"

Which, of course, set him off again. The accomplishment shouldn't have made my chest puff up. I'd piloted a Gundam – one of the best combat mobile suits in the known universe – so I knew what power was and I knew what it felt like to have it at my fingertips; somehow, that paled in comparison to making my husband laugh out loud. This was power. The very best kind.

He wound down and I found myself staring into his eyes, our noses nearly touching. His grin was wide but soft. "So, we can at least agree that I'm a sonuvabitch?"

"No."

He threw up his hands, aggravation trying to find a foothold in his self-depreciating humor. "How would you put it, then?" he challenged.

I smiled. "You are… being yourself." When his eyes gleamed with dark and sarcastic intent, I added, "Unfortunately, Gerald is also being himself. Add in a small, enclosed space and brace for impact."

He snorted. "Impact, yeah. I was yea close to impacting my fist on his damn face." He punched a couple more keys and the printer on the other side of the room whined to life, working itself up to grudgingly spitting out the revised copy of the mission outline.

"I noticed."

Duo leaned back in his chair. It squealed with alarm but he ignored it, linking his fingers together behind his head in a display that was tempting me to wonder what else might be on the menu.

"Thanks for backing me." His serious tone knocked me back into the moment we were actually in rather than the one I was hoping we'd be having before takeoff at 2000 tonight.

"I was simply stating a fact," I informed him. He really was the better aircraft pilot. His strength was in wings and rotor blades, mine in bipedal mobile suits. "Everyone knows colony boys are born knowing how to handle a stick."

His lips twitched. "It's called a cyclic," he corrected me.

"See? You know what you're doing."

He grinned and sat forward, leaning up until we were almost kissing. "An' I know what we're gonna be doing just as soon as preflight is taken care of."

With a wink, he brushed past me. I kept my hand in my pocket and let him go. Duo Maxwell might like to tease, but he always followed through.

Three hours later, with our chosen helicopter locked and loaded like the weapon it was, he came through.

"Duo!" I hissed through gritted teeth. How did he know? How did he know how much I liked it in the shower? I'd certainly never told him, but somehow he'd figured it out.

With the white noise hissing around us like static, I lost myself in the moment, for there was only this moment with no external world, no universe beyond. There was nothing except for Duo's shoulders beneath my hands, my knee hooked over his hip, his body rocking unstoppably against mine, my back pressed against the shower liner, and the sound of his voice stumbling through my name again and again and again.

"You remember," he whispered urgently into my ear, "the first kiss I gave you?"

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. "Yes. Outside my door."

"You invited me in," he reminded me as his mouth moved over my arched neck.

"I wanted—" I began to confess, but then his hand, callused now after two months of training and two additional months of piloting, smoothed over my flank, leaving sizzling skin in its wake as it slid under my ass and—

"Fuck!" I hissed when his soapy fingertips touched me there.

"Yeah," he agreed, his lips moving against my exposed throat, his teeth just a thin barrier of tender skin away from the lifeblood beneath, "I wanted it, too." He sucked my earlobe into his mouth and I groaned, my fingers digging into his muscles.

His hips were rubbing breath-stealingly urgent circles against mine and his fingers were mimicking the pattern. I wasn't going to last much longer.

"You wanted—to wait—to—" I attempted to remind him. I had no idea why I was still trying to uphold my end of the conversation. Lengthy vocalization was not one of my strong points, generally speaking (and even less so during lovemaking).

"And you were worth it," he growled, changing the rhythm again, surging against me roughly, perfectly. Hmmm, yes. "Worth it," he repeated tenaciously. "Everything. You're worth it all, baby."

They were more than words – I could feel it – and Duo gave that to me without reservation, just as he gave himself. I fell into him and fractured. My heart burst and my sight darkened as I came, as he came, and the white noise continued uninterrupted around us, a moment out of time.

The leg under me shook, trembled, and the one hitched up over his hip gave out. As I felt it begin to slide downward, his hand was suddenly there, lowering my foot to the floor carefully lest I trigger a muscle cramp. Meanwhile, I breathed. Just breathed. Duo's weight against my pelvis and chest held me upright. This weakness should have left me shaking with terror-induced anger instead of sated with pleasantly buzzing satisfaction. The soldier in me would have hated it if my faith in Duo hadn't been unbreakable. I knew that I could lean on him and that he'd have my back. No exceptions and no excuses.

Today was no different. He kissed me as he rinsed us both off. He toweled us dry. He pulled me out of the bathroom and then tucked himself up next to me in bed.

I spared a thought to ask for the time, but Duo would already know, and he would keep watch. He wouldn't let us be late.

I slept.

He woke me with a caressing hand which ventured up and down my back until I stirred. It's time to go, he told me in perfect silence when his arm banded tightly around me and his lips pressed against my temple. I know, I didn't say as I let out a long breath.

I leaned up for a kiss, the kind that nearly tasted like sun-warmed, salty caramels and made Duo shiver. And then we rolled apart to get dressed.

We still had two hours before liftoff. We spent it going over every inch of the helo. It was this uncompromising attention to detail that had earned us – a pair of pilots fresh out of training – the privilege of transporting the most delicate and volatile cargo: prisoners, evidence in criminal cases, and documents that were so sensitive that transferring them electronically in digitally encrypted files was too great a risk.

And tonight we'd be implementing a flight plan which was inherently more dangerous: a drop off and retrieval in full stealth mode. A future investigation into a suspected illegal weapons manufacturer would hinge on our abilities. Heero and Wufei's team was counting on Duo and I to get them into optimal position for launching their reconnaissance of the compound. They were also relying on us to undetectably swoop in and extract them.

This particular brand of responsibility was a weight I was used to bearing. Only now, as it settled upon my shoulders again, did I realize it had been absent ever since Duo had slid the silver wedding band I now wore onto my finger.

I glanced his way, wondering if he felt it, too, but he looked totally confident. A bit jazzed up, even. I watched him as his hands moved over the helo's controls, checking every switch, bringing up every system stat. Here, on the cusp of a mission, he was undeniably at home.

Another piece of the Duo Maxwell puzzle slid into place. I'd seen this before; I just hadn't realized it was an integral part of who he was.

I broke our usual preflight silence to observe, "You have a lot of experience with this." His brows twitched questioningly. "Taking point," I elaborated.

He paused and a wry grin attempted to sidle its way onto his face. "Yeah. I guess I do." He looked up and into my eyes. "Back in the day."

It said a lot about the kind of lives he and I had lived if we could use the phrase "back in the day" at our age and load it with meaning.

He offered, "I'll tell ya'bout it later if you want."

Of course I did. There was nothing about him that I wasn't keenly interested in. "I'll remind you."

"Thank you, dearest," he snarked playfully.

Well, I suppose that had come out somewhat, ah, nagging. "Did you remember to take out the trash?" I dared to tease.

He smacked me on the arm with his digital clipboard in retaliation.

We finished up twenty minutes before scheduled liftoff, as usual. Normally, we'd sit and talk about mundane topics while we kept a sharp eye out for anything unexpected which might delay us. Once, the girlfriend of one of the guys assigned to Flight Maintenance had dropped by. I'd had my utility knife in my hand before the hangar door had slammed shut behind her. Duo had stepped in front of me, giving me a moment to assess the situation while he'd charmingly interrogated her on who she was and why she was here.

I'd kept watch, wary that she was attempting to supply some kind of distraction for unknown cohorts, but all she'd wanted was to return her boyfriend's cell phone to him. Apparently, he'd forgotten it at her place. Duo had pointed her in the direction of the hangar lounge and that's all that had come of the incident.

"Stand down, baby," he'd purred softly in that tone which never fails to turn me into warm molasses. He'd massaged my knife arm, and I'd slid the blade back into its sheath, unused.

That had not been the first time I'd drawn a knife in response to being confronted with the unexpected and I didn't expect it to be the last. Tonight, however, there were no surprises. We took turns studying the terrain maps and the layout of the manufacturing compound.

"It's kinda too bad we're not going inside on this one," Duo mused with perverse cheer.

I suggested, "If you want an excuse to crawl through ductwork and access tunnels, there's that persistent clog somewhere down our water line. You could take care of that."

He chuckled. "Don't tempt me."

I knew he missed stealth-work – down-and-dirty, dark-and-cramped, dust-and-rats stealth-work – but I was never going to understand why.

According to the mission outline, that was going to be Heero's role tonight. Despite the fact that his partner and a team were going in, the assignment was a fairly solitary one. The four agents on the roster aside from him and Wufei would be little more than lookouts as Heero made his way to the building's computer mainframe to plant a data transmitter and create hard copies of as many incriminating files as he could access in the twelve-minute window he purportedly had between security checks.

I did not envy him the assignment. Duo, however, had a nostalgic air about him that didn't dissipate until our passengers arrived.

The other four agents on Heero and Wufei's team were strangers to me, but they looked young. It was entirely possible that they were a decade older than us and had been with the Preventers longer, but they'd never had the weight of an entire colony cluster's wellbeing thrust upon their shoulders. That much was obvious.

Duo and I greeted them with the same indifferent nod we gave our friends. A prolonged greeting with the lead agents might disrupt the team's overall focus, not to mention their group dynamic if they thought for even an instant that the flight crew had "favorites". Perhaps it seems cold, but impartiality is sometimes best.

"Liftoff in five minutes," I said into the crewman headset as Duo nudged the rotors out of their lazy idle and into preflight warm up. "Buckle up and lock down."

Crewmen helmets were cinched in place and harnesses sorted out. Once everyone got done with last minute gear and seat adjustments, I continued, "Drop off is at one-point-two clicks south-southwest of the target's cargo and delivery bay. The gunner—" I lifted a hand to identify myself as such (as per the completely unnecessary and oftentimes moronically redundant Preventer flight regulations). "—will operate the loading door. Seventy-seven minutes until target acquisition and counting."

"Copy that," Heero confirmed after each team member had given him the standard thumbs up in acknowledgement.

And we took off. Precisely on schedule. Duo might not have deigned to roll out of bed on time for a day of WEI busywork but, as Pilot Joseph Cross, punctuality was a matter of pride. Duo and I stayed in touch with our contact at air traffic control until we were well out of the city limits. Over a stretch of uninhabited corporate-controlled farmland, his fingers danced over the controls and, suddenly, everything went silent.

"Do not remove your headsets until you are cleared to do so," I reminded our guests in the cargo hold. Just because the blades no longer chopped through the air so coarsely, that didn't mean that it was safe to expose the human ear to the intense fluctuations in air pressure. There was always a price to be paid for bigger-better-more. In the case of stealth helicopters, the silence could become permanent for the operators and passengers.

Dangers to the inner ear aside, the flight was like a dream. Duo didn't simply pilot the helo, he flew with it. To me, the machine was simply a tool for getting from point A to point B. For Duo, I suspected the experience was almost sacred.

I grinned. That was a colony-born boy for you. And remembering how he'd piloted me only a few hours earlier was one hell of a turn-on.

"Approaching target," Duo announced just as the clock on the control panel ticked off the seventy-first minute. We were right on schedule.

"Prepare for drop," I ordered Heero and the others. I scanned the area for signs of activity. We were in an old industrial district which had been abandoned when the local train depot had closed down years ago. Most of the buildings were dilapidated, skeletal, and dark. In the center of the once-thriving manufacturing center was a cluster of seemingly impregnable concrete structures. I didn't wonder if, seeing that, Duo would envy Heero his task any less; my husband was probably itching to give the place a go himself. The greater the challenge, the more he simply had to conquer it.

I checked my sidearm and unbuckled my harness. I couldn't hear Heero, Wufei, and their team doing likewise, but I could see them going through the motions out of the corner of my eye.

Careful not to touch Duo and distract him from the approach, I climbed between our seats and took up position beside the side loading door. All six agents lined up, clipping their jump cords to the line strung across the inside of the helo's roof. I threaded one arm through the anchored safety strap and reached across to grip the door handle with the other.

"Countdown to deployment," I heard Duo say.

"Standing by," I answered.

"Three… two… one… mark!"

I pulled the door open. Wufei stepped forward and scanned the darkness with the infrared goggles built into his crewmen's helmet, his weapon at the ready. "Clear," he announced and motioned the rest of the team forward for the jump.

One by one, their jump cords stretched, turning a bone-jarring leap into a gentle descent. Heero was the last one out and when he was gone, I braced myself beside the door, gun trained on the darkness, waiting until each agent was safely past the helo's stealth zone. I listened as they reported in and then unsealed their protective earphones. Their helmets stayed on.

I slid the door shut. "All clear," I told Duo and he lifted us away.

Rendezvous was in two hours, so he landed in a distant, forest-encircled meadow to conserve fuel. We maintained stealth mode even with our speech; simply monitoring the team as they breached the perimeter of the compound. The GPS tracking chips in their helmets gave us their position to within a half meter of accuracy.

We were out of range of the air traffic control tower so they did not have any updates relevant to our position, but we kept the line open. Just in case. Via our headphones, we heard the occasional whispered report as the team progressed through their objectives.

An hour came and went. We watched as five blinking dots on the tracking screen took up defensive positions while a sixth ventured onward in a winding path. Duo grinned as he stared at it, stealthing vicariously.

After eleven minutes and twenty-some-odd seconds in one position, Heero's signal began a retreat. He rejoined the others and they began to pull back the way they'd come. Reassuring silence continued to undulate sinuously over the satellite connection.

And then…

Nothing.

Heero, Wufei, and the others were utterly still, totally silent. Hunkered down just inside the cargo bay doors. We waited another ten minutes for the order to standby for pick up. Nothing came.

I looked up as Duo reached for the controls. I didn't ask what he was doing. I knew he wasn't going in for the retrieval. There was no way the team would be in position by the time we flew over that meadow. The only explanation was reconn.

"Proceeding to assess the situation," I said into the headset.

There was no answer on the other end. Heero and the others were being very, very quiet. That was good because it meant that they hadn't been discovered yet. But it was also bad because they could not tell us what they needed from us in order to complete the assignment safely.

If I'd thought Duo flew like a dream before, it was nothing compared to how he handled the helo now. He drifted us past the southern face of the compound like a dandelion seed carried by a summer breeze, staying low and just beyond the reach of the motion-sensitive security lights.

I used our pair of night vision binoculars to take stock of the scene. A line of semis had been pulled up to the cargo doors. Each was backed into a bay like a key in a lock. The only exit was a single service door and it was manned by an armed security guard.

It was pretty obvious what was in the process of happening. The cartons of stock in the bay were being loaded up for transport and delivery. And with each passing minute, the team trapped inside was losing cover. I glanced down at the tracker screen and noted their positions. They'd moved back, further away from the door they should have been heading for. They were running out of places to hide.

They needed a diversion.

I scanned the area as Duo completed a silent lap around the installation, and I made a choice.

I didn't dare use the comm. link any more than necessary; the team's position was too precarious for me to distract them. I signed to Duo.

I'm going down.

His hands remained steady on the cyclic even as his eyes widened. I signed once more. Circle around again. Drop on west side.

I saw his jaw clench in the dim light from the illuminated gauges, but he didn't hesitate. He started the second pass. I checked my gun again and shrugged out of my harness. This time, when I squeezed between our seats, I touched his shoulder.

The cargo hold was dark, but my night vision goggles helped me locate what I needed with minimum fuss. Duo and I hadn't stocked flash grenades with any particular purpose in mind, but I was glad we had.

"In five…" Duo said.

I slung the pack of explosives over my shoulder.

"Four…"

I clipped a jump cable to my belt.

"Three…"

I reached for the loading door and braced myself.

"Two…"

The door slid open soundlessly.

"One…"

Darkness rushed past.

"Mark."

I jumped. The line slowed my fall until my feet made contact. I disconnected the clip with a tug on the release cord and rolled into the shadows. Coming to a stop, I unsealed my earphones and listened. I didn't hear a thing as Duo took off. I only felt a brief rush of wind.

Although I didn't know how much time Heero and the others had before they were discovered, I didn't rush. I moved methodically, glad that I'd studied the compound layout and security features so carefully. That knowledge led me along a comfortingly dark path. I stayed out of the detection zone of the motion sensors as I came at the south wall in an easy lope. Using the bulk of the semis to work the blind spots to my advantage, I selected one vehicle and began my approach.

The truck cab was empty and the guard by the service door hadn't spotted me when I'd stayed low – almost crawling – across the open space. He wouldn't be able to see me now, not with semis on either side of me. The truck door had an electronic key pad to which I did not know the combination. Nor did I have time to hotwire it. I moved further back, to the rear of the cab, and fitted myself between it and the trailer.

My fingers sought out the thin metal sheeting which provided the rear wall for the cab. And then, with my knife in hand, I started in on opening it up like a can of sardines.

The black coating on the knife made it a nearly soundless process. I made three long cuts in the shape of an "H" and then, bracing my shoulders back against the trailer, I pushed them inward with my feet. When the metal sheeting had bent just enough, I tossed the pack of flash grenades inside and wiggled my way in after them.

Hotwiring the truck from the inside was simple. Attracting attention as the engine rumbled to life and the wheels started turning was even easier. I pulled out of the bay without clearance or care for what was going on in the trailer. Slouching low in the driver's seat, I ripped through the gears, gaining speed, and aimed the truck toward the west side of the building.

Impact in ten seconds. "Team, prepare to move out," I said into the headset and began the countdown.

It was all down to timing now. I braced myself.

Search lights were sweeping toward me. I held my course and braced myself.

And then—

The sound of the truck smashing into the concrete wall roared across the night like thunder. Or perhaps that was the sound of my gun discharging, blowing out the passenger-side window. Flipping the safety back on, I tucked the gun in my waistband, reached for the window frame and boosted myself out of the cab. I pulled myself onto the roof of the vehicle, leapt up to the top of a single-story addition to the concrete monolith, and sought out a shadow.

I could hear footsteps closing in on the ground. The search lights illuminated the bashed and still growling-chugging-hissing truck with its cargo guts trailing behind it over the concrete drive. I drew my weapon, sighted through the broken window, and fired.

I covered my eyes to protect them from the chain of blindingly bright flashes I'd just set off. I didn't wait around to see if anyone was going to notice me. I used what hand and footholds I could to get myself onto the roof of the main structure.

"Pick up at north wall," I panted at Duo, sprinting for the corresponding side of the building.

"Moving in."

I reached the edge of the roof just as the black helicopter rose like the Grim Reaper before me. And then, with a maneuver that I'd seen once in a big-budget action film (and now recalled that I'd scoffed at for being pure sensationalism and wholly impossible), Duo swung the helo about and all I had to do was dive for the still-open loading door.

I took the step that would launch me to safety.

That's when the sound of gunfire finally rang out.

It was close.

CRACK! zzzmmmm…

Very close, which meant Heero and the others were probably in the clear. I jumped.

CRACK! CRACK!

Ping! Ping!

Shit. The helicopter had taken fire. Une was going to kill us.

CRACK!

BANG!

I tumbled into the cargo hold. "Clear!" I reported and Duo got us out of there so fast my head was spinning. I pulled myself up and pushed the loading door shut – we'd move faster with it closed – and stood by, waiting for Duo to order the team's retrieval, then I reached up to seal my earphones back in place to counteract the rapid changes in air pressure.

The world continued to tumble and blur and I knew it wasn't because of Duo's piloting, which meant it had to be me who was unsteady. Had I been hit? I didn't feel any pain, didn't see, smell, or feel any blood, but that was no indication. Adrenaline is nature's most perfect mask and only time could crack it.

Well, I wasn't dead yet. I focused on that and my vision began to settle.

Duo disengaged the stealth mode in order to leave a false and obvious trail leading away from the compound. Once we were just over a forested ridge, he silenced the craft again and circled back to the field. Wufei was counting down their progress in an attempt to make the extraction as smoothly timed as possible. I felt the helo hover in place before starting to lose altitude. Duo commanded, "Retrieval on my mark – coming in fast!"

I didn't doubt it.

"Mark!"

I threw the door open, reached for the nearest flak jacket, and hauled the body attached to it into the cargo hold, then the two of us each grabbed a second, and then I left those three to manage the remaining half of the team. I had a gunner seat to take.

I scanned the area with the night vision binoculars, but I didn't see any sign of antiaircraft missiles. The compound security forces had been mustered and were starting to scour the surrounding area in Jeeps, but they wouldn't find anything in those old, moldering buildings.

They might, however, find the transmitter that Heero had gone to such care to install. Well, there was always the hope that he'd gotten out with the hard copy motherload in his pocket. We wouldn't know until debriefing, at any rate, and it was too late to do anything about it now if he hadn't.

I put it out of my mind.

Eighty-two minutes later (the wind had picked up and added air resistance to our return flight), we touched down on the Preventer tarmac. The rotor blades, no longer in stealth mode, slowed. The crewmen helmets came off. No one offered any congratulations.

None were deserved. We'd fucked up.

Duo and I slumped our way out of the helicopter. The sun was just beginning to rise and, in the glow, I counted two bullet hits on the side of the helo. They hadn't breached the skin, so it looked like an easy spackle job for the repair crew. In short, it could have been worse.

"Holy fuck!" Duo hissed and I was completely confused when he reached for the helmet tucked under my arm and just stared at it.

"What—?"

He dropped it to the tarmac and suddenly he was tearing at his flight gloves, tossing them carelessly aside and his fingers were in my hair. "Oh thank God," he sobbed, his voice dry and broken. He examined my scalp like he was expecting to find and read braille there amongst the hair follicles.

I glanced down at my helmet as it finished its bounce-and-roll across the concrete. It bumped against the side of my foot and I saw what had set Duo off. There was what appeared to be a hole in the back of the otherwise unbroken dome. But no, it wasn't a hole. Something had gouged a hole and lodged itself in there. Suddenly, I realized why I'd been so disoriented after I'd made that leap into the helo's cargo hold.

I'd been shot.

"Thank you, God. Thank you thank you thank you—"

Duo's voice, Duo's claw-like fingers pulling at my hair, Duo's body fitting itself against mine right here in the middle of the launch pad woke me from my shock. I reached for his wrists.

"I'm fine," I told him.

I reached for his waist and pulled him closer.

"I'm fine."

He pressed his face against my neck. He was panting so hard I thought he was going to pass out.

"I'm fine."

But if that bullet had struck six inches lower or I'd leapt six inches higher, I'd be paralyzed from the neck down… or dead. I shuddered. My hands fisted in his flight suit jacket.

Heero hesitated to follow Wufei and the team inside. When he glanced our way, I met his gaze without flinching.

"I have to report this," he informed us, his gaze dropping to the helmet at our feet.

I nodded. "Do whatever you have to do." I could not care less. I was standing here, feeling Duo in my arms. That was all that mattered.

The director didn't agree with me when we handed in our reports twenty minutes later.

"Gentlemen, what positions do you hold here with the Preventers?"

"We're pilots, ma'am," Duo replied in a subdued tone.

"Yes, that is correct. Do pilots improvise missions, Mister Cross?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do they concoct and implement rescue attempts?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do they blow up the property of potential suspects?"

"No, ma'am."

"How very interesting that you managed to do all three in the span of fifteen minutes."

She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the leather-trimmed ink blotter.

"First, last, and only time, gentlemen, or there will be no more live-op assignments for either of you. Ever again."

I suppose we deserved that. Looking back on it, it was easy to see now that we should have trusted Heero and Wufei to guide their team into the building's ductwork to await a better opportunity for extraction. They may have had to spend all day in there, but they could have maintained the integrity of the op. We'd had no proof that lethal force would be used on them even if they were discovered. Although, now, I felt we could argue convincingly in favor of that theory.

I thought of my crewmen's helmet. It had saved my life and now it was evidence against us, evidence that Duo and I had backslid into that all-or-nothing mindset that had gotten us both through the war. We weren't at war anymore.

For the first time, I wasn't really sure what we were doing, what we were supposed to do, who we were supposed to be or how we were supposed to fight.

"Understood, ma'am," Duo responded in the same, peculiarly demure tone of voice.

"Do not report for duty today or tomorrow. If Internal Investigations has questions for you, answer them."

Duo nodded and stood. I blinked at nothing at all for a moment and then I felt his hand under my arm and he was pulling me to my feet.

I'd almost abandoned Duo. I'd almost never had him in my arms again. The kiss we'd shared just eight hours and three minutes ago had almost been our last.

All I could think of was everything that had almost been destroyed because of a mistake in judgment.

When I took note of our surroundings again, we were inside our housing unit and Duo's hands were working the fastenings on my clothes open with delicate precision. I sighed out a breath and let him maneuver me out of my gear and sit me down on the edge of the bed. He handed me my sleep pants and then dumped his own clothes on the floor. We lay on the bed together, wrapped around each other in silence, but neither of us could sleep. I couldn't stop my arms from winding tighter and tighter around him – so tight I knew I was bending his ribs – and then forcing them to loosen… only to gather him chokingly close yet again.

He didn't complain. He pressed kisses to my neck, my shoulders. "Trowa," he whispered over and over, his hands sliding into my hair at the back of my head again, searching for the bullet hole, the fractured bone, the clotted blood that wasn't there. "Please, Trowa…"

I blinked. My eyes felt strangely hot but not itchy from lack of sleep. They felt… swimmy. Was I crying?

"Please?" I echoed dumbly. I couldn't recall ever hearing Duo say that word to me with his voice pitched so… so… I had no words for it.

"I… Please." And then his mouth covered mine.

Every breath I'd taken since I'd jumped off of that roof and into the helo solidified in my belly and burned away the numbness. The wobbly, floating disorientation that had started clinging to me from the moment I'd seen the bullet smashed into the back of my helmet simply evaporated into steam. Suddenly, I was on fire.

I groaned, fairly screamed into his mouth as I kissed him roughly, deeply. He tugged at my arms and I lunged on top of him, his legs wrapping around my hips. He rocked against me as I devoured him. Every writhe, every whimper was that please all over again.

He pushed my flannel pants down my hips. I reached for his shorts. I didn't know where they ended up, but they were gone and there was nothing but skin between his soul and mine.

"I love you," I gasped. I loved him more than anything. More than anything.

"Have me," he rasped, opening his eyes and looking up at me.

Our gazes connected and, just as suddenly as the frenzy had swooped in and caught us both in its maw it subsided, calmed. I relaxed against him, smiling. I brushed my fingertips over his face, reading him by touch. "I do have you," I reminded him.

"Yeah, but… now I wanna give you more," he whispered. He drew his foot up the back of my leg. "Trowa, please."

Oh, God.

I couldn't refuse him, not when he was asking, which was something he'd never made me do. Always offering, giving. I could not point to anything in my life that would have earned me the right to have a lover like him. And he was giving me everything.

I didn't ask if he was sure, I could see that he was. When I leaned down and kissed him, he reached for me almost frantically, but I kept it gentle and soft even though my skin was starting to sizzle again from the inside out. I couldn't keep my hands still; there was simply too much of him laid bare for me to know. And I had to know him. All of him.

With a kiss to his jaw, I sat back and just touched him, felt him. He was sprawled out before me. I reached for the necklace and pendant at my throat. Trust. This was what Duo's total and complete trust looked like: lips that invited a kiss, limpid eyes that pleaded for infinity, dexterous fingers which alternately petted and clutched at my thighs.

I reached forward and eased the band off of his now-crooked ponytail, spilling his hair across the pillow. There. My Duo.

I didn't offer to stop if he wanted me to. If there was any indication that he was uncomfortable at all – at any point in time – I'd stop. I'd find a way. I was the master of my body, and Duo, with his soft tone pitched just so which melted the soldier back into my psyche, was the master of me.

He braced himself up on an elbow, leaned over, and opened the bedside table drawer. A brand new bottle of lubricant and a condom bounced onto the bed beside my knee.

I smiled and teased, "Is that an invitation?"

"You've had your invitation," he retorted. "It's time to RSVP."

I laughed. I loved him too much sometimes.

"Comfortable?" I checked, combing my fingers through his hair, brushing my thumb against his cheek, his lips.

He nodded. I picked up the bottle of lubricant. I kissed him as I massaged him, nibbling at his gasps and soft mewls, marveling at the heat of him there. His hands clutched my shoulders, his hips nudged against me hesitantly. I was in no rush.

"Mmm, darling…"

He was so quiet as I sampled his skin, moving down his chest, over his belly, and then lower. So eerily quiet, but not contained. Not tense. The restless motions of his feet against the bed covers and his panting breaths somehow made it sacred.

Sacred. Yes. When I slid into him, that was the first word that came to me.

"Duo," I mouthed, groaning. I was never going to forget the feel of him – us – like this. I was never going to forget how he looked now with his eyes drifting shut and hands reaching for me. I was never going to forget his sighing breath, the flutter of his lashes, the way my name tumbled past his lips.

He groaned long and deep, pushing against me and tilting his hips just so.

"Nuh!" I informed him, my fingers curling, digging into the bed sheets. His hands moved over my shoulders, down my chest and belly where they paused and I watched as he pressed one palm to my skin and ventured further, his fingers brushing against me – us – where we were joined, communicating with that one touch a kind of silent wonder.

Collecting his hand, I moved it to my hip as I lowered myself over him until our chests were brushing. I met his gaze as I waited, fully inside him – waited as patiently as I could despite the fact that his heat was destroying me – for him to give the command to proceed. He took a deep breath. He let it out. His arms wrapped around my shoulders.

"Feels safe," he told me, and then he rocked against me.

His observation tugged my lips into a smile even as the motion of his body forced a moan up my throat. How odd that he could be so right and yet so wrong at the same time. I suppose it was up to me to show him that.

I started slow, but he was too irresistible for me keep it so simple for long. Nuzzling his neck as he whined pleadingly with every thrust was heaven, but there was more that I wanted to give to him. I sat back and grasped his hips, initiating a searching rhythm meant to locate one thing.

He gave a strangled shout when I found it. Found it, and focused on it. There. Just there. He could feel it. I could feel him feeling it. I could see it, too, in the way his teeth clenched and his fingers dug into my forearms and his hips rolled endlessly up and up and up to meet mine. Within a few moments, he was gasping for breath. My heart was pounding, thundering so loudly I felt bruised on the inside all the way up to my eardrums.

"Aah! My—my Duo—!"

"Tr-trowa… Baby! Please, baby. Please."

I didn't want it to end, but I needed the release. He needed the release. Frantic, abbreviated moans and desperately clutching hands demanded it. I reached for the bottle one more time, drizzled cool liquid over my fingers, and then wrapped my hand around his hard length.

"Nnnuh!" he called, a sampling of imminent victory coloring his voice.

Where opening his body to me had been a confession, this was absolution.

I picked up his clutching hand and guided it to my face so I could smell him, lick the inside of his wrist, feel his calluses against my ear and cheek. The scent and taste and feel of him jerked something deep inside me, like a hook caught around the base of my spine, and suddenly I was surging into him again and again, harder and harder. His thigh muscles tightened, his back arched.

Panting-keening-teeth-gritting, I watched him shatter, watched as he shattered me, shattered both of us into nothing but broken pieces of souls and, after a few mindless breaths, I felt the jagged edges melt and meld back into one again, seamless and indestructible.

I braced myself above him on trembling arms and petted his forehead, his chest, his hip and thigh. "All right?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, a happy smile transforming his entire being, lighting him from within. "You are."

That hadn't been what I'd meant and I knew he knew it. I leaned in for a kiss. This one tasted of heated apricots with a mingling of cloves.

I reached into the drawer for a hand towel and took up his usual task of cleaning up. Skin dry and bodies separated, I collapsed beside him, rolling him into my arms. Sleep stopped avoiding us and I felt him slip into unconsciousness moments before I joined him.

A strange feeling of being bare and unburdened woke me. I opened my eyes, shifting and seeking warmth and weight amongst the covers, but I was alone. The sun was setting; its rose-tinted light was seeping into the room through the closed window blinds. Duo wasn't in sight.

I hurriedly located my sleep pants on the floor, shook them out of their tangled ball, and pulled them on. My heart pounded. My throat felt dry and sticky. Where the hell was Duo and why had he left?

I wasn't sure I was going to like the answer to the second part of that question.

The bathroom door was shut and, in the darkening room, I noticed a strip of light beneath the bottom edge. I knocked softly.

"Yo. You're up!" he called out.

He sounded fine. Normal. That disturbed me. If what I thought I knew about Duo was true, then he shouldn't be fine and normal after asking me to make love to him.

But the only way to confront the fallout was face-to-face. I pushed open the door.

Duo was sitting on the long bathroom counter in his shorts from this morning with his feet propped up on the closed lid of the toilet seat. In his lap was a memo pad. His fingers pinched a pen between them. Crumpled sheets were scattered around him like the windfall of ideas that they undoubtedly were.

"What's all this? Another shopping list?" I teased, moving to the toilet and, scooping up his feet, I sat down. I tucked his toes up against my hips and balanced his heels on my thighs. Gripping his calves, I leaned forward and looked up at him over his bare knees.

He grinned at me. "A shopping list? I guess you could say that."

I waited, massaging the muscles beneath my hands.

"The thing is," he began after a few minutes, "I can't let last night's mission be the first, last, and only time, no matter what Une says."

"Hm?" I prompted, lifting a brow in inquiry.

"What if something goes wrong again? That's, like, our team. I can't just sit back, as per regulations, and do nothing!"

I knew he couldn't. He wasn't capable of that. "But we can't be caught, either."

"And there's the rub," he agreed, giving me a look as he passed the memo pad to me. I took it and flipped through the pages, reading in his scribbles and diagrams a variety of contingency plans. They weren't going to be nearly as dramatic as what we'd pulled off last night, but these wouldn't leave any proof of our interference behind.

"That's what I love about you," I told him.

"What?" he asked, giving me that damn charming, crooked grin of his. "How brilliant I am? How devious and sneaky?"

I set the memo pad down on the counter and stood up, my fingers sliding against the tender flesh behind his knees and lifting them apart so I could stand chest-to-chest with him. "Everything," I answered.

His hand hooked around the back of my neck and we moved toward each other for a kiss: tart cherries and vanilla. When he leaned back, I braced my arms on either side of his hips and met his gaze. "This morning," I said, not even letting him so much as think of avoiding the issue. "Are you all right?"

Duo blinked. Took a breath. "Yeah, I'm great. It was, uh… good." And then he winced.

I was immediately sorry that I'd asked.

"No, wait," he backpedaled, grabbing onto my biceps as if I was going to storm out of the room. I wasn't, but I didn't object to his attempt to prevent me from doing so. "I mean, I… It was better than good. Kind of too good. It's like…" I waited, breath held. "It's like… free fall. Pure free fall."

Which explained why he wasn't exactly hauling me back to bed for an encore. Duo, for all his supposed chaos and spontaneity, was all about control. He preferred to roll with the punches and come out on top. He was driven to show up the people who underestimated him. He thirsted for the power to define his own destiny.

I glanced down at the memo pad and smiled. So that's why he'd gotten out of bed. He'd just needed some time while he worked out his options. Our options. These scribbles were our future if I agreed, and I probably would. I doubted I'd have any major objections. There would still be risks, but we would find a way to minimize them. Yet, I also knew there would be no compromising Duo's need to be a good point man, to always bring his people back safe and sound.

I loved everything about Duo, but this was one of the highlights: Duo didn't settle for second best, for almost good enough.

That's how I knew he loved me.

"Um, look," he said, bringing my attention back to him. He was still endearingly nervous but I was already two steps ahead of him, anticipating the next words out of his mesmerizing mouth. "Are you gonna be OK if I, uh… I mean, maybe I won't ask again for, y'know, that... not for, um, a while."

I smiled, suspicions confirmed. "It's fine." I lifted a hand and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "If you never want it again, it's fine."

"But you…"

"I…?"

"Uh, really liked it."

I didn't deny it. I hadn't been as vocal as when he was inside me, but I'd loved every moment of it, loved taking care of him the way he has done for me time and time again. What he needed to understand, though, was— "I liked that I was with you. That's all."

"That's all?" he checked, always wary of taking anything at face value.

I gave in and allowed my niggling irritation to rise to the fore. "Would you want something you knew I wasn't going to enjoy?"

"Well, no, but it's not that I didn't like it, it's just that—"

Now I soothed him. "There's a time for it – a specific set of circumstances – and last night was one of those times." I studied his eyes, focusing on one and then the other and back again. "Just like you never offer to do the same for me when we're here." That was true. It was always non-invasive intimacy while we were on the job, and I preferred it that way. Only during our days-off when we took the airbus to Galway and drove out to the house did we dare more. The house was our place. It was safe and comfortable. I could leave the soldier on the doorstep and let my husband take care of me.

He let out a shaky breath and I saw that I'd been understood. "It's just… I want you to know," he stumbled awkwardly, his hands moving to play with my bangs, "that's probably not gonna be the first, last, and only time."

If it was, it was fine. I could imagine what letting go like that must demand of him. I could imagine that the life lessons he'd learned as a child wouldn't permit him to seek that kind of vulnerability out readily. That was one of the reasons why I admired him so much. He was so strong and giving, trying so hard to learn how to lean, to be my partner in everything, but I wasn't out to change who he was. I'd fallen in love with his pride and stubbornness and independence, his protective streak and fierce loyalty. If those aspects of him were somehow diminished, he wouldn't be my Duo.

"OK," I said.

"I don't…" He paused, swallowed, and gathered his courage. "I don't want it to be the first, last, and only time," he clarified with such openness it made my heart swell with pride and hope and everything else that no one ought to be capable of inspiring in someone like me, but he did.

"Then it won't." I kissed him again, tasting peace and promise. "It's dinnertime," I informed him, reaching for his hands and pulling him off the counter. "Lasagna, if I'm remembering the menu correctly."

"I'm pretty sure you are," he replied, grinning widely as he strolled past me and into the main room to get dressed.

I scooped up the memo pad from the bathroom counter and followed after him. Before pulling out some clean clothes to wear, I slid it into the bedside table drawer. Later, after a full stomach and a cup of coffee, we'd have a talk about what was on it.

And I'd be adding a few ideas of my own.

NOTES:

The term "helo" for "helicopter" was pinched from a military-based RPG/virtual gaming site. I have no idea if this is current or recognized military jargon. Apparently, it is used in the film "Rules of Engagement" and in several episodes of the TV series "NCIS"… not sure if that's a point in its favor or not.

So, Trowa is not perfect (the "soldier" – i.e. The Silencer – is kinda freaky), but he is painfully honest with himself. It might seem strange that Trowa doesn't have a problem saying "I love you" but, to him, he's just stating a fact and Trowa (in the original series or in the TooT!verse) has never shied away from facts, no matter how inconvenient or painful. Trowa sees past pretenses so well that it's sometimes hard to write him because he seems so damn omniscient and unflappable, but luckily he has this "live and let live" philosophy which makes him stand back and watch events unfold even while knowing that others are making mistakes (and he interferes after the fact, only to run damage control). Not many people are able to do that, but Trowa feels that people deserve the consequences of their actions, be those consequences rewards or punishments. How does that factor in with him creating a diversion for Heero and Wufei's team? Well, it's his and Duo's responsibility to bring them back to base safely. So Trowa has to weigh the agents' rights as free individuals against his own responsibilities with regards to their wellbeing. (Complicated, huh? But that's Tro all over for ya.) Well, that's my take on him… which will perhaps get rehashed in a novel-length fic in the future. We shall see.

"First, Last, and Only Time" and its two direct sequels ("The Unseen" and "Patron Saints") lead up to the next story in the TooT!verse: "Tag and Other Backyard Games" BUT there are several other short fics that will get sprinkled in here before we get to the sequel.