EIGHT

The restaurant was closed to patrons that day because the hotel across the street had contracted with Le Beau Papillon to provide the refreshments for the fundraiser gala hosted by the Winner Foundation. Carbuncle brought everyone out from the backroom to help with preparing the meals for hundreds of people, so Duo spent the day, along with everyone else, listening to him shouting orders. For once Duo didn't balk at his high-handed behavior, not just because of the kindness the chef had shown since helping him that morning over a week ago when he arrived for work carrying Mia and his few belongings after losing the place he called home. He saw the man in a new light now. Carbuncle – Duo probably wasn't going to think of him as Rogelio – wanted to do the best job that he could for Madame Chantal because she had helped him when he desperately needed it, so he wanted to make everything perfect for her.

Most of the kitchen staff, dressed in stiff, white uniforms, had been sent to the hotel to serve the meal, but Duo didn't join them, partly because he needed to stay back with Mia, but mostly because he didn't want to be recognized by people he knew would be in attendance. There was a set of steps leading to the roof of the hotel where he shared drinks a few times with Madame Chantal in the evening after Mia had gone to bed. From there, yesterday afternoon, he had watched when Quatre Winner arrived to check in at the hotel. His motorcade was even larger than the one that had brought the Vice Foreign Minister, Relena Darlian, earlier that same day. Duo hadn't stayed to watch her because he knew that Heero Yuy would be with her and his eagle eyes would probably spy him on the roof.

Crouching behind one of the large ventilation turbines, Duo had watched Quatre Winner exit his limousine, then reach inside. He expected to see Dorothy Catalonia take his hand, but he drew out a little girl wearing what appeared to be a mismatched set of pajamas and a cowboy hat on her blonde head. Duo had never seen Jamila Winner, the little girl that had caused so much misunderstanding between her parents, but studying her now as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet tugging insistently at her father's jacket, he wondered how nobody could see Dorothy Catalonia in that little girl's face. Her father reached into the car again, and this time when he leaned back, he tucked an infant under his arm and had offered his hand to his wife.

Seeing Dorothy made him think of her gun which he had hidden in an air vent in the room he shared with Mia. Her presence on the colony for the charity event was the perfect opportunity for him to return her gun. He had seen the news story about the workers finding the bodies of the men he had killed in the ventilation shaft and knew that they would match the bullets to Dorothy's gun. He also knew that Dorothy wouldn't rat him out. Helping her meant violating several terms of his probation and she knew it. A smart woman like Dorothy would figure out a way to explain how she managed to lose her gun, and she would be able to get it off the colony after he returned it to her. He wrote a brief note asking Dorothy to meet him at a park several blocks away on the following day, and he sent it with one of the waitresses, asking her to leave it at the desk for her. When she raised a brow in surprise, he explained that he knew her from his time with the Preventers, so she agreed to take it.

After finishing with cleanup while the others were working at the hotel, Duo had the evening off and he intended to spend it with Mia. Since coming to live with Madame Chantal, Mia saw more of him because he spent his break time from work with her. During the day she was never alone because either he, Madame Chantal, Carbuncle or any of the staff on break was there to watch her. Madame Chantal suggested hiring the sister of one of the waitresses as a nanny, but Mia was terrified by the prospect of having a nanny. Duo tried to get her to tell him why, but she would only confide in Madame Chantal. Neither he nor Madame Chantal knew how, but Ellie had once been able to afford a nice apartment and the services of a nanny, and that nanny had mistreated Mia shortly before Ellie lost the apartment. Duo guessed that she was working the same angle on another man that she was on him, and the other man discovered that Mia wasn't his. If she had a comfortable life with that other man, he understood why she resented Duo for being Mia's father. That didn't mean he forgave her for how she had treated his daughter.

Duo hadn't seen Ellie since the day she left with Robert Cameron, but one of the waitresses did report that she hadn't started working in that nightclub in Sector 4. He doubted she even had the job lined up and suspected that she was providing the wealthy businessman with services for which she had plenty of experience. Duo didn't care because he was glad to be rid of Mia's mother. He wished that Mia would forget about her soon because she asked several times a day when her mama would come home, and he didn't like lying to her. Duo thought about telling her she was dead, but Mia would be confused if Ellie showed up one day. The odds of that happening now that she had a rich man to take care of her were slim.

After sharing the evening meal with Mia, Teddy and Miss Pinky, Duo gave her a bath, then dressed her in a soft nightgown and tucked her into bed. Madame Chantal wanted to buy her new clothing, but Duo refused to allow her. He did, however, accept the donations that a few of the waitresses had given him of clothing that either their own children or their siblings had outgrown. Duo was saving the money he earned because he wanted to be able to pay for pre-school where she could spend time with other children. Now that he was back in the kitchen, he would be making more money. He would share in the tips earned at the Winner Foundation ball because he had helped prepared the meal. Duo knew that Quatre Winner was a big tipper, so he was looking forward to the boost to his income.

Mia fell asleep during his bedtime story, and having nothing else to do, Duo headed up to the roof where he could watch the guests arriving for the Winner Foundation gala. He told himself that he wasn't watching for Hilde Schbeiker, but it wasn't true. Seeing her with Andreas Becker was going to cause him pain, and yet he eagerly watched for their arrival. He had been hurt and confused when Hilde had abandoned him after the colony police showed up to arrest him. Her father's death must have affected her terribly and he wished he knew why. She had made it clear that she had no affection for him because he showed none for her. What had happened to change her feelings? How had he died? Why did she decide to follow in his footsteps when she had rejected the society in which she had been raised? Duo wondered if he would ever know the answers to those and many other questions he had pondered during five years in prison without hearing from her.

Among the guests crossing the red carpet to the hotel, Duo was surprised to see Ellie with the man who had been waiting for her outside the tower. She was wearing a long, clingy white dress with diamonds around her neck. Duo would say she looked beautiful if he didn't know how rotten she was inside. He assumed her escort was Robert Cameron and Duo wondered how she had persuaded him to take her to the affair. Cameron wasn't a member of the Teuton community, but he had somehow managed to break through their barriers to make the kind of money necessary to move in their circles. The donation to attend the event was so enormous that Madame Chantal commented that even she could not afford it. Duo dared to hope that Ellie would convince Cameron to marry her so that they could get a fake divorce and he could get his military benefits back. But knowing Ellie, she would continue to take his money just to spite him.

By the sudden frenzy of movements that the photographers made in another direction, Duo knew that Andreas Becker had arrived. He was among a group that included Hilde and her mother, an older couple that Duo didn't recognize, and another man Duo had seen in the background of news reports about Becker. The photographers crowding the group seemed to bother Hilde and the older man went to slip his arm around her shoulders to escort her away from the journalists who were shouting questions to her fiancé. Hilde was wearing a sparkling black floor length gown that left the entirety of her back exposed and dipped low in the front. She glittered with jewels, clipped in her hair which she had swept up, in her ears, around her neck and on her wrists. Not that she was any more decked out than the other women in her party, but the Hilde that Duo had known would never have dressed like that.

The Hilde that Duo knew would have reacted negatively to the man that left the reporters behind to catch up to her, putting his hand low on her bare back, his fingers slipping beneath the edge of her gown and sliding up to her ribs. She did not even react even though Duo was disgusted by the possessive display. Men like Andreas Becker saw women as objects and he was proving that she belonged to him. Duo's Hilde would have shoved him away with a well-placed knee to the crotch. Who was this woman he was looking at now? She was like a ghost of her former self.

Watching him stroke her skin as they waited to enter the hotel was too much for Duo when it made him think about them doing the things that he had done with her. He pushed away from the ventilation turbine where he had been hiding, Duo was going to return to Madame Chantal's apartment, find some liquor and get drunk, but he noticed movement on the roof of the hotel. Instinct made him duck behind the turbine again, but this time he scanned the roof where he was sure he had seen something suspicious. There were a couple of hotel security guards stationed on the roof and Duo wondered if they had seen him, but they appeared to be as busy watching the arrivals as he had been. Suddenly a dark form crept up behind one and he was still falling to the ground, his throat slit before the form was scurrying to the other. Even if Duo shouted out to warn the man, he wouldn't be heard over the noise from the street below.

Not knowing what the killer intended, Duo did know that he was the only one who had any chance of stopping him. He dashed across the roof and nearly fell down the stairs in his haste to get to the gun he had hidden. He was hampered by having to move quietly so he didn't wake Mia, but he managed to get the gun without making too much noise. He walked calmly and quietly through the room, then charged back up the steps.

Worried that the killer had slipped into the hotel from the roof, Duo was surprised to find the man near the edge. In his hands he held a high-powered rifle that he was pointing down at the red carpet where Duo saw that Andreas Becker and his group had not yet entered the hotel. Fearing for Hilde's safety, Duo raised the gun in his hand and took careful aim. He only had one bullet left, so he had to make it count. The killer was lining up his target through his scope, but he didn't have a chance to pull the trigger before a red dot appeared in the middle of his forehead and he slumped forward over his rifle. Duo watched anxiously for a moment, his heart hammering in his chest almost not believing that he had not missed. But he didn't have more than a moment to reflect on what he had just done because there were shouts and he saw Preventer agents pouring onto the roof, probably alerted when the hotel guards stationed there did not check in.

Tucking the gun behind him, Duo dropped to a crouch behind the turbine and after a moment he peered around the side to see a man that he knew well. Wearing a tuxedo, Heero Yuy was squatting beside the man Duo had killed, carefully examining the body. Before he could investigate for long, colony police arrived, and Duo watched as a territorial pissing match ensued between the Preventers and the police before Heero gave up and left the police to investigate. When he was sure he wouldn't be seen, Duo crept across the roof and hurried down the steps.

After returning the gun to its hiding place, Duo alternated between pacing the living room and stopping to check for any report on the info net about what had happened on the roof of the hotel during the charity gala. There was nothing in the news, and when Madame Chantal returned in the early hours of the morning and was surprised to find him awake, he thought she might say something about the presence of the police, but the only thing she had to say about the gala was that it had been a success for the restaurant and that Quatre Winner had personally presented them with an enormous gratuity. Duo didn't know what to make of the silence about what had happened on the roof of the hotel. He was sure that the killer was planning to assassinate Andreas Becker and he couldn't imagine a man like Becker not using the incident for political gain.

The restaurant was closed the following day because most the staff wouldn't have had much of a chance to rest after working nearly until sunrise. Duo helped with cleanup, and when that was done, he told Madame Chantal that he was going to take Mia to a nearby park. She told him it was a good idea, especially since she was going to rest most of the day and didn't want Mia to have to be quiet for her. Duo didn't point out the Mia was usually reserved, that her most rambunctious would be considered good behavior for another child. Before he left, Madame Chantal reminded him that Rogelio was going to come in to the restaurant specifically to teach Duo how to make one of his signature soups, so he shouldn't be gone more than a couple of hours.

Duo and Mia walked to the park that was several blocks away, and when they arrived to find dozens of children climbing on the equipment, screeching as they chased each other, Mia held Duo's hand tighter and crushed Teddy and Miss Pinky to her. Duo looked around the park and saw the couple he had come there to meet sitting on a bench at the far end in the shade of a tree with bushes behind them. None of the shrubbery was real - that was reserved for the Teuton sectors of the colony – but it made the park look like any park on Earth.

There was a stroller beside the bench where Dorothy and Quatre sat watching their daughter trying to do a handstand. The little girl was wearing what appeared to be a tutu over a pair of pants that looked like the bottom of a costume of some sort of animal. Duo had a hard time believing Dorothy would let her daughter out in public wearing such an outfit, but she was watching her with an indulgent smile.

As he drew nearer, Dorothy saw him first and the look on her face was anything but welcoming. Quatre noticed that her attention had been drawn away and he looked towards Duo also. He didn't look any friendlier, and Duo wondered if it was because of what he had done with Dorothy's gun or whether he was still smarting because Duo had helped Dorothy run away from him.

They probably would have lain into him if they didn't have children with them. Duo hadn't brought Mia as a buffer any more than Dorothy and Quatre had brought their children for the same reason, but they served as one anyway.

Quatre rose from the bench and moved around his daughter who had fallen on her backside and was swiping her blond hair from her face. He held out his hand and Duo wondered if he should put the gun in it or whether he should shake his hand. He decided to shake his hand.

"Maxwell. Under other circumstances I'd say it was nice to see you again."

"I might say the same under other circumstances." Mia had moved closer to him although she was watching Quatre's daughter curiously. "This is my daughter, Mia."

Quatre turned and held out his hand to his daughter which she took after doing a somersault that had Mia's eyes widening. "This bear princess is my daughter, Jamila."

"Don't be silly, papa! I am a gorilla princess."

"You are wearing the bottom of a bear costume," pointed out Dorothy with a sigh.

"Because you wouldn't get me the gorilla costume!"

Duo couldn't keep from smiling at Dorothy's annoyance.

"Jamila, say hello to Mia," she ordered her daughter.

Jamila went to stand before Mia and she made a charming curtsey. "Hello, Mia."

Duo thought for a moment that Mia wouldn't say anything, but then she said, "Would you like to meet Teddy and Miss Pinky?" She released Duo and thrust the toys out before her.

"Ooh! How do you do, Teddy and Miss Pinky?" Jamila curtseyed to them before turning to look at her mother. "Mama, can I show Mia the fish in the pond?"

Before Dorothy could respond, Jamila seized Mia's hand and tried to tug her away, but Mia resisted. She looked up at Duo. "Can I go, papa?"

He was so overwhelmed with joy that she wanted to play with another child that all he could do was nod. Duo watched with a lump in his throat as Mia handed Miss Pinky over to Jamila and the two girls ran away holding hands towards a fountain pool into which other children were peering.

"They're not going off to university together," remarked Dorothy with amusement.

Duo sighed. "Mia doesn't have friends."

"You're lucky you still do," said Quatre as he returned to the bench to sit beside Dorothy.

Remembering the purpose of their visit, Duo stepped forward and he reached behind to take the gun from the waistband of his pants, but he suddenly found his wrist seized and his arm wrenched upward as the gun was yanked away.

"I'll take that," a deep voice said into his ear and he knew that the man causing him no small amount of pain was Heero Yuy.

Duo looked ahead at Dorothy. "Why would you turn me in after what I did for you?"

Heero released him and shoved him forward. "She didn't turn you in."

Duo rubbed his arm and turned around to look at Heero. He wasn't dressed in his Preventer uniform but was wearing dark pants and a dark leather jacket. "Before you take me in, I have a request to make of Dorothy Catalonia." He looked at her. "You owe me."

"I certainly don't," muttered Quatre, and Duo knew that he resented him for helping Dorothy outrun him.

Dorothy laughed and rubbed her husband's thigh. "You know you enjoyed the chase. It gave you a chance to bond with Heero."

Heero's brows rose, but he didn't say anything. Duo suspected there was a good story behind that remark, but he would never have a chance to hear it as he spent the rest of his life in prison.

"As for you, Maxwell, I think I paid my debt to you by lending you my gun so you could shoot up the colony with it. By my count, you didn't leave any bullets."

"I didn't waste any," he pointed out. "And I didn't need to hold it for you in the first place. If I'm going back to the dungeon, I'm never getting out now. The least you could do is make sure my daughter doesn't get put in an orphanage."

Dorothy stood and reached out to put her hand on Duo's shoulder. "I'll take good care of her, Duo, and I might even bring her to visit you. She'll never want for anything and I'll give her the best education money can buy."

"Cut the crap, Dorothy," said Heero. "Just keep an eye on his daughter while we take a walk."

Heero grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the Winner couple who were smiling at each other as if they had just pulled off a prank. "You mean I am not under arrest?"

"I don't work for this colony," Heero told him.

His remark reminded Duo of what had happened the night before. "I didn't hear anything about the shooting on the roof of the hotel last night. And based on what I heard from ... well..." Duo didn't want to get Madame Chantal in trouble by mentioning her name.

"You mean from Madame Chantal, your employer? I saw you hiding like a rat on the roof of her restaurant, so I asked her about you and when she didn't give you up, I managed to encourage a few of your co-workers to admit to working with you."

"Encouraged?" Duo imagined him threatening to investigate their pasts.

"I should have said that Relena did," he admitted with a frown. "She says I'm too menacing."

"You, menacing?" Duo chuckled and Heero glared at him. "So Relena chatted them up?"

"She is the Vice Foreign Minister. People like your co-workers get over-awed by her if she shows them an interest."

"Is Relena one of your agents now?"

Heero raised a brow. "I wasn't expecting you to be smart-mouthed after hearing about your meeting with Triton Bloom."

Duo blew out his breath. "Damn! I knew talking to him was a mistake. He's working for you, isn't he?"

Heero nodded. "He travels extensively throughout the colonies and Earth, so he sees and hears a lot, and in his line of work, nobody suspects that he is an agent. Although I would like it better if he hadn't become a celebrity."

Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Mia and Jamila had left the fishpond to return to Dorothy and Quatre, but Mia didn't seem to notice that Duo was gone because she was bent over the stroller with her new friend admiring the baby. He looked back at Heero.

Before he could speak, Heero asked, "Did you shoot the assassin?"

"Didn't you get the ballistics report?"

"No, but the police beat down Dorothy's door at an ungodly hour to ask her the same questions they already asked about how she had misplaced her gun. She's not happy that her excuses for your actions make her look like a bungling fool and I don't appreciate her behavior reflecting poorly on the Preventers. Now getting the gun off the colony is going to prove problematic."

"Just tuck it in with Miss Relena's lingerie," suggested Duo with a smirk. "I doubt colony police will check her things."

Heero's brows drew together. "I would rather you not mention her lingerie."

Duo snorted at the hint of jealousy in the other man's voice.

"But that's not a bad, if not simplistic, solution to the problem."

"How's she going to feel about having a murder weapon smuggled out with her unmentionables?"

"I'll deal with it."

"Does that mean you are going to wrap her panties around the gun?"

Heero grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him forward. "Stop talking about Relena's underclothes."

Duo met his gaze, restraining the urge to laugh. "Not going well with her? I would have thought you guys would be married by now."

Heero released him and Duo straightened his shirt. "I asked her when we were celebrating Dorothy and Quatre's wedding, but she said she didn't think we were ready. I took that to mean that she thought I wasn't ready because since then she's been hinting now that we should."

"Proposing to her at someone else's wedding probably made her think you were doing it because you felt compelled." Duo shook his head. "If you don't watch it, she's going to wake up, open her eyes to get a good look at you and realize she could do better."

"I didn't hunt you down to get relationship advice."

"You didn't hunt me down. I practically gave you an invitation by sending that note to Dorothy." Duo shook his head. "Another stupid mistake. I should have just dropped her gun off at the front desk for her."

"I want you to come back to work for me."

Duo raised his arms so that his tattooed wrists were before Heero's face. "Can't do it. I can't leave the colony for five years. By then I'll be gray-haired and arthritic."

"You'll be thirty."

"Life takes its toll here," Duo said with a sigh, and then he glanced back at Mia before saying, "I couldn't leave Mia. She doesn't have anyone but me." And he didn't have anyone but her.

"What about her mother? When I was here for the trial, you didn't mention anything about her."

"I don't want to talk about her mother. There's nothing between us. She doesn't want to have anything to do with Mia and that's fine by me."

"What I want is for you to work undercover for me here, on L2. There's something rotting on this colony and with your contacts, I'm hoping you can find out what it is."

Duo's brows shot up. "Did you clear this with my probation officer?"

"Don't be a smartass when I am being completely serious. Between the filthy underbelly of the colony and the closed society at the top, there is a lot going on that could threaten the security of the Earth Sphere United Nations. If you haven't been watching the news, I'll inform you that there are two very important positions with the Earth Sphere that are opening on the colony. Colony governor with absolute authority over the colony and colony representative to the Earth Sphere congress. The wrong person filling those positions could open a pipeline of rot that could spread to other colonies and Earth."

"You think I can help? I don't know how. I'm just a salad chopper at a fancy restaurant."

"One that can cap an assassin from a thousand feet in the dark."

"I can't carry a gun and I can't go anywhere without scanners reporting my every move," Duo reminded him.

"Come to the Preventer field office tomorrow in Sector 6. I may have a solution to the problem."

"The authorities will ask why I was there," Duo told him.

Heero gave him a half-smile and put his hand on his shoulder. "I'll tell them that you were visiting with an old friend. And if you need someone to watch your daughter," he nodded his head in the direction of the bench where Dorothy and Quatre were sitting watching Jamila demonstrating a handstand to Mia. Duo hoped Mia didn't try it because she was wearing a dress. "Jamila Winner will be happy to have a playmate while her parents are staying on the colony."

The prospect of taking control of his life again thrilled Duo, but he was anxious because he had more than himself to think about.

"You can't possibly make enough money to live on chopping salads," Heero pointed out, sensing his reluctance.

Duo grimaced as Mia tried to stand on her head, and as her dress fell around her ears, Jamila Winner held her legs. "I can't risk my life when Mia depends on me."

Heero reached into his jacket and withdrew a card that he held out to Duo. "If you change your mind, you can contact me with this number." When Duo didn't take the card, Heero tucked it in his shirt pocket. "The offer stands as long as I am on the colony."

Without another word, he walked away, and Duo returned to Dorothy and Quatre.

"Look what I can do, papa!" Mia did a cartwheel that was anything but graceful, but Duo was delighted.

He was going to tell Mia that they should return to the restaurant, but Jamila grabbed her hand. "Let's go climb!"

The two girls hurried away to join the other children on the playground equipment, and he watched as Jamila guided Mia through the different activities until Dorothy spoke.

"What did you tell Heero?"

He looked at her. "What could I tell him? I can't take the risk that I could leave Mia without her father."

"I understand," Dorothy said with a nod. "She's a charming girl, but I think you may have sheltered her too much."

Duo made a sound of disgust. "What do you know of my circumstances? I haven't had a choice."

Dorothy glanced at his wrists. "It looks like you made a choice."

He wasn't going to explain to her that the charges against him had been fabricated. Dorothy only knew a world far different from the one he lived in. "I need to get back for work. And Mia is probably getting hungry."

"Leave her with us," suggested Quatre who had listened to their exchange without comment. "Jamila is enjoying her company. We'll drop her off when we return to the hotel. If you're worried about her, here's our number." He handed Duo an embossed card.

Duo was anxious about leaving Mia, but he trusted Dorothy and Quatre and he didn't want to deny her the opportunity of playing with other children. He tucked the card in his pocket with Heero's. "I appreciate you offering, and I'm not going to turn you down. I don't take her out often enough."

"Don't get bent out of shape if she ends up with a skinned knee," remarked Quatre. "Jamila has had more than her fair share." He gave his wife a side-long glance. "And the first dozen or so were life or death situations for Dorothy."

She slapped his shoulder. "You weren't any better after leaving her care to nannies."

"I had better get going," said Duo with a smile. "Take care of my daughter." He went first to the playground, and Mia went to meet him, disappointment in her eyes that they were leaving so soon, and when he told her that she could stay with her new friend and that she should behave for Dorothy and Quatre, she thanked him with more restraint than Jamila who whooped with delight.

Duo left the park with a spring in his step. He had gotten rid of the gun and was confident that the recent killings could not be traced back to him, had a boost to his confidence from having Heero Yuy offer him a job, and he had a chance to see Mia happier than he had ever seen her doing things that other children did. He was sure nothing could ruin his day, not even Carbuncle nagging him about his cooking.

But when he returned to Madame Chantal's apartment he found her waiting for him with a message. Ellie had been arrested and she needed him to get her out of jail.