"Quatre, stop that."

Quatre turned away from his examination of the night sky. He couldn't see anything in the darkness but a vague silhouette, but of course he recognized the voice. He had thought Trowa was asleep. "Stop what?" he asked.

Trowa stepped closer. "Stop thinking whatever it is you're thinking and come inside."

That made Quatre angry for a moment: Who was Trowa to presume to know what he was thinking and to tell him to stop? Then he took stock of himself: He was alone on the trampled grass outside of Trowa's vehicle, in the middle of a chilly October night when anyone with any sense would have been in bed, and he was thinking some pretty ridiculous thoughts. Trowa was right, it was time to stop.

"All right," he murmured, and followed Trowa inside.

Trowa, instead of leading him to the bedroom as expected, slid into the small kitchen banquette and gestured for Quatre to do the same. Although Quatre didn't care for the inquisitorial setting and would much rather have slid between the sheets and at least pretended to sleep, he took a seat opposite Trowa, who studied him for a long moment before asking, "Did you have one of your...visions again?"

"They're not visions, Trowa," Quatre said.

"Well, whatever it is you have when you're absolutely convinced that I'm dying every time we make love."

Trowa sounded slightly testy, and Quatre knew it was for a good reason. He was being absurd. No, he was absurd. He had allowed his imagination to not only run away with him, but to grow Vernier engines and rocket him halfway across the solar system. "I didn't mean to make you angry," he said quietly.

Trowa reached across the table and took Quatre's wrist in his hand, squeezing it with almost ferocious strength before letting go. "I'm not angry, you idiot, I'm worried," he said, equally as quietly, but much more intensely. "I thought you were going to talk to someone about this."

Oh, yes, the psychologist issue. Damn.

It wasn't that Quatre had anything against the profession. He didn't. He had even tried a few sessions with a therapist when stress bothered him, and felt he had benefited from it.

On this particular issue, however, he was reluctant to consult a professional. What could he say? That his sexual life was quite satisfactory, but that he couldn't fall asleep afterwards with the man he loved because he was convinced he had killed him? And then further explain that he had once intended to do just that? And that he had had the means to do so? And that had damn near succeeded? And that it was a blue-eyed miracle that he actually hadn't after all?

What could someone make of that--that he had a fear of commitment?

"Trowa, I love you," was all Quatre could think of to say.

"I know. Me, too."

It wasn't the most passionate declaration of love ever, but it still hit Quatre hard because it was true: true as stone, true as space. His shoulders sagged as he let out a breath; he was suddenly overcome with physical exhaustion and emotional attenuation.

"Come on, let's go to sleep." Trowa said, and led him to bed.


Life at the circus began early. Animals needed to be fed and exercised, costumes mended, props repaired, muscles warmed and limbered for the first performance at eleven o'clock. Trowa slid out of bed before dawn, obviously taking pains not to disturb Quatre, and silently padded off to the kitchen to begin his day.

He need not have bothered. Quatre had not had a restful night, and he woke as soon as he felt Trowa begin to stir beside him. He stayed in bed anyway, gazing out the bedroom window at the fading stars. It looked like it was going to be a clear morning.

Presently it occurred to him that he hadn't seen Heero since Heero had commandeered his cash and car keys the evening before. He sat up, intending to go look for him, but at that moment Trowa returned to the room carrying two mugs of something fragrant and steaming. "I thought you were awake," he said, setting the mug down on a little table beside the bed. He reached out and smoothed Quatre's hair, which was probably sticking up in ridiculous directions after a restless night. "Can't you get back to sleep?"

Quatre shook his head. "Have you seen Heero?"

"He's sound asleep on the couch."

Quatre couldn't quite make out Trowa's expression in the dim light, but he was certain Trowa was not happy. "Is something wrong?"

"He's sound asleep on the couch," Trowa clarified. "It's not more than five steps away from the kitchen, but I was able to make coffee and a couple of calls without him springing up and shoving a gun up one of my nostrils. The only reason I'm sure he's still alive is that he's snoring."

"He only sleeps deeply enough to snore when he feels completely safe. Maybe he's comfortable here."

"Maybe you're right." Trowa sounded doubtful, though. He took a long, thoughtful drink of his coffee. Quatre did the same.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Quatre said after a moment. "You'll be back at eight, right?"

"Perhaps before," said Trowa. Eight o'clock was when the first burst of morning activity calmed down enough for the human contingent of the circus to sit down to some breakfast.

"Okay, and if he's not, maybe you could call your doctor back to have a look at him."

"I'll ask her." Trowa sat down on the mattress, gave Quatre a brief, coffee-flavored kiss, and stood back up. "I have to go now. You know where to find me if you need anything."

Quatre nodded, and Trowa left with the soft swoosh of his leather coat flapping behind him.


Quatre considered trying to rest a little more, but his curiosity and concern drove him from the bed. He got up, threw on a discarded robe, and made his way to the front of the vehicle.

Heero was curled up on a section of the wide, deep sofa, sound asleep under a colorful jumble of knitted blankets. He was snoring through parted lips, but it was a quiet, peaceful kind of snoring. He looked very relaxed. The vertical frown line that had almost become a permanent wrinkle in his brow had smoothed. He didn't seem to be unwell.

Quatre reached out to touch him, but before his fingertips made contact he let out a startled gasp as a hand snapped itself closed around his wrist. Heero was awake. Awake, aware, and seemingly intent on fusing Quatre's radius to his ulna.

"You shouldn't try to touch me when I'm sleeping," Heero said. "You could get hurt."

Quatre clutched his freshly-released arm to his chest. He was fairly sure he wasn't actually hurt, but the speed and ferocity of Heero's grip had made him nervous and he wanted to get the appendage as far away from striking distance as possible. "Yes, I see. I'm sorry."

"What did you want, anyway?" Heero asked.

"I wanted to know if you were all right. Trowa said you hadn't moved at all this morning and it worried me."

Heero pushed the blankets down to his waist and sat up. "I was tired. I felt cold, too. I suppose I was sleeping more soundly than usual." He pushed the blankets completely aside--mercifully, he was still wearing Trowa's boxers--and removed the bandages from his punctured thigh. The wound looked utterly insignificant now, just a small scab the size of a pinhead. There was no bruising, no redness. Quatre reached out to touch it. The skin around the wound was cool and smooth, uninflamed.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, pressing gently.

"No."

"Do you feel all right otherwise?"

"I feel..." Heero paused and held his hands in font of him, palm up. He stared at his fingers intently for a few moments, and when they didn't do anything out of the ordinary, he let them fall into his lap. "I don't know."

"Try, please." Quatre's heart was beating too hard. It wasn't like Heero to be hesitant with words.

"I know my body, Quatre. I've always known exactly what it needs and when and how to keep it in the best condition I could under the circumstances. My body and my mind are the only things I have, and now they're changing."

Quatre sat down near Heero's feet. It wasn't an entirely voluntary movement. The wild, fearful look in Heero's eyes was like nothing he had ever expected to see in one of the most self-controlled, self-contained human beings he had ever met, and it shook him. "Changing how?" he asked through lips gone suddenly cold.

Once again, Heero looked down at his hands. The ring finger of his left hand twitched once, twice, then it spasmed so that the fingertip nearly touched the palm while the other fingers remained relaxed. "Stop it," Heero said in a harsh whisper. His hands crumpled into fists. "Stop it."

"Heero? Who are you talking to?"

Heero had closed his eyes, and his face was a mask of intense concentration. Tiny beads of sweat had gathered on his brow, and he was breathing furiously through his nostrils, almost fighting for air. Quatre laid a hand carefully on one clenched fist. "Heero, please. You're scaring me. Do you need a doctor?"

Slowly, Heero's fist unclenched. Quatre tried to take his own hand away, but Heero grabbed it. Without opening his eyes, he laced his fingers with Quatre's. "I do need a doctor, Quatre," he said, and his calm voice was at odds with his tense, sweat-slicked face. "Not here, though. We need...discretion. Someplace safe. Isolated."

"Isolated? Do you think you're in some kind of danger?"

Heero opened his eyes. He raised his head and looked directly at Quatre. In a moment of disorientation, Quatre wondered if Heero had gotten into some sort of drug that dilated his pupils, or maybe the morning light wasn't as strong as he thought it had been. Heero's irises had always been dark, but they had always been distinctly blue. This was no longer so. It took a bit more staring before Quatre could make out greyish radial striations in his irises, which were now black.

"Quatre, I can see...everything."


It took Quatre a while to understand what Heero meant by "everything", and though it turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration, it was odd enough to make him very, very nervous.

As it turned out, Heero had spent half the previous night wondering why he couldn't turn the lights off. It didn't matter which switch he flipped or which rheostat he turned, the light level remained the same. Late at night, with all the lights off, he could still make out every speck of dust, every spider lurking in a secluded corner, every fingerprint on the surfaces of Trowa's relatively immaculate kitchen.

Quatre, of course, wanted to test it before he got down to panicking in earnest, so he dragged a reluctant Heero into the bedroom, pulled the blackout curtains, and shut off the lights. He felt about blindly on Trowa's nightstand till he found a paperback book. "What's this?"

"A book. You're holding it upside down."

Quatre turned it upright. "Can you read the title?"

"The author is Justine Roth. Never heard of her. The title is The Night Mare. That's two words, not 'nightmare'. The cover art is a chalk drawing of a horse. Or maybe a big dog."

That got a rather uneven laugh out of Quatre. "Trowa has a thing for weird horror novels. Okay, what's this?" he asked, holding up what felt like a wristwatch.

"Watch. Mechanical. Brown leather band, gold bezel, Roman numbers on the face. There's a little window showing the day of the week beside the three and another window under the twelve showing the phases of the moon. It's presently six fifty-seven on a Wednesday and the moon is about three-quarters full."

Quatre set the watch back down on the nightstand. It rattled a little; his hands were shaking. "Heero, I can't see a damned thing."

"Is it really that dark in here?" Heero asked.

"A cat would have a hard time navigating this room." Quatre pulled the curtains open, winced at the nickel-colored light from the sky, and then looked back at Heero. "Is that better?"

"Better than what?" Heero seemed to be genuinely puzzled.

"Can you see more or less than when the curtain was closed?"

"The same."

"Wow." Quatre sat down at the foot of the unmade bed. His mind was racing, rapidly flipping through different options, the possible consequences of each action, and the logistics of following through on each action, and calculating the probability of a satisfactory outcome. It was a little like being hooked into ZERO.

"I need a doctor."

"Yes, I know," Quatre said rather impatiently, "I'm thinking."

"Your sister is a doctor, isn't she?"

"Irea? Yes, she is." Quatre's crazily-fluctuating thoughts stopped abruptly and homed in on her. She worked in anatomical pathology at a hospital associated with the largest university in the L4 cluster. Quatre didn't keep up with the specifics of her job, but he knew that she was fairly senior and well-connected. If nothing else, she would be a good place to start. "Do you want me to take you to her?"

"I'm already packed."