"Realizations"
By Isis cw
Chapter 10
Heero had contained himself only down to the point that he left his guest room at exactly six o'clock, hoping that he would simply slip out the front door and be gone before either of the two caught him. Mrs. Darlian had stated that breakfast was typically at seven. He'd spent half the night trying to figure out if that meant he was supposed to stay for it or if it was merely conversational.
Somehow, he was figuring on the former. The only reason he was still here at all was that he was fighting to identify just how rude he would seem if he was gone when they woke up.
He'd gone through battles with fewer nervous jitters than he'd had in the last twelve hours. Actually, most of his battles.
"Leaving so early, Agent Yuy?"
He mentally cursed. Turning back over his shoulder at the top of the stairs he found Pegan walking happily down the hall towards him. He must have underestimated the man's sleep patterns.
"Mrs. Darlian will be sad not to see you off, but I imagine she will understand." The man's perpetual little smile was in place as he walked around him and began down the stairs himself.
"I'll be late into headquarters as it is," he gave the excuse he'd been prepping for all morning.
"Understandable," the other tossed back. "But the Madam will berate me if I don't offer you something for breakfast before you go. Although, I'm sure you're anxious to be on your way. Mrs. Darlian has always had a good way of holding onto her guests," he chuckled as he descended the stairs.
Heero blinked as he looked after the old man. "Hn."
"Miss Relena takes a bit of getting used to as well," he mumbled as Heero followed him along.
"Still learning," he added, silently sighing to himself.
"Indeed."
He trailed behind the butler into the kitchen before working up a protest. "I really don't need anything. I should be going."
Pegan nodded, casting him a smile over his shoulder that Heero had to wonder at the man for. "Alright." Picking up an apple out of a fruit bowl on the counter the older man tossed it back towards him. Heero mindlessly caught it and looked at the thing. "But at least let me tell Madam I tried," the smile grew.
After last night, Heero was more than willing to let the man have anything he needed in order to skirt around the more 'motherly' aspects of the woman in question. The gesture of something quick, and the painless way that he was attempting to let him go was… nice. Heero favored him with a hint of a smirk and nodded. "Understood."
"There is only one other thing," the older man picked up a stack of items. "Mrs. Darlian wondered if we could send a few things along with you to Miss Relena?"
"Of course," he nodded. Packages were always a problem with her mail's security screenings anyway.
Handing over the papers and books he took them. "Thank you. Have a safe trip, Agent Yuy."
He nodded and tuned away but then thought better of it. "Please tell her, thank you," he stated, wondering again if that was right.
The other nodded happily. "I certainly will. Look after her for us."
The comment, especially out of this man, was enough to place his smirk back up again. "I will," he confirmed back, finding that that thought came easier to him these days.
He left the kitchen again and was out the door soon after.
Heero had called Sally on the way to tell her that he would be in the office late in case anyone was looking for him. Not that he expected anyone would be. Relena didn't have another trip planned until the start of next week.
Of course he figured out he really should have tried Wufei's line first after it was already too late. Sally's first question had been, "How come?" A question Wufei wouldn't have even bothered to ask.
Also mistakenly, he had admitted that Relena's mother had insisted that he stay the night there before traveling back. He'd gotten to listen to her laughed in his ear, and then heard her repeat the story to her partner, adding something that sounded suspiciously like, "Isn't that cute?"
He'd also been privileged to hear a small argument break out between the two before he heard Wufei utter some typical comment. After that he couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard something crash in the background followed by mild swearing.
When Sally quit laughing again and return to the phone conversation she was supposed to be paying attention to, she only mumbled that she would inform anyone looking for him.
He'd hung up the phone and caught himself very close to muttering "women" under his breath.
As it was, he pulled up in front of his apartment complex and collected Relena's stack of items. The rest could go back to his office with him. Figuring he would drop by after she was back from work tonight with the items it could also give him an excuse to check to see when Dorothy was leaving.
He walked up the outside stairway to the second floor and down to the last door in the row. Taking his keys from his pocket he stepped up to the door but froze, staring down at the doorknob in front of him. He probably would have never noticed the tiny mark in the dust that coated the metal latch-plate, except that there was a specific reason he never cleaned it.
Heero narrowed his eyes at the little stripe. His lock had been picked. Only one thin line meant that it was an expert job, quick and without the need for more than one try.
Having narrowed the suspects down that far, he added his keys back to his jacket pocket and opened the door, which had been left unlocked. Entering, he found exactly what he expected. A pizza box lay on his coffee table, next to a stack of various other snack-type sacks of items and a couple cans of soda.
Aside from the mess, his couch now had a blanket thrown over it and a pillow bunched half on and half off of it. On top of that lay a suspiciously familiar brunette braid.
There was a lengthy yawn from somewhere under the blanket as he sighed to himself and stepped in, closing the door behind him. "Where have you been?" came the groggy question.
"Why are you here?" he countered, walking through the living/dinning room to the table where he dropped the stack of items in his hand.
"I'm visiting," came Duo's retort. "Except that you weren't supposed to have anything scheduled until next week."
Well, at least he hacked Relena's schedule to check this time. The first time Duo popped by unannounced Heero had come in at two a.m. after returning from a typical mission in L5. The other former pilot had since then decided to leave the door unlocked when he was there as a warning for him not to pull his gun on the first sign of movement in a dark apartment.
"I had a security patch at Relena's mother's to check on."
"Aw, visiting the in-laws?" there was a chuckle. "I bet she's a class-act, isn't she?"
"Hn." Slipping off his jacket, he tossed it over one of the dinette set's chairs and then added his holster as well before walking into his bedroom to change into a clean uniform before heading back to work.
"Hope you don't mind," came the call from the other room as he pulled off his t-shirt. "I made myself comfy last night. Bought groceries again too, since some people in the world do actually eat," Duo grumbled.
Heero had a meal plan through headquarters' cafeteria so he typically stocked very little of anything in the apartment, which Duo typically complained about. Actually, most of what was stuffed into his cupboards was 'groceries' that the other man had brought in during one of his random stays anyway.
Not that this was a habit. It was actually only the third time since he'd joined up that the other man had dropped by. Duo had apparently done the same thing with Wufei once… For some reason he didn't stay though.
"Aren't you supposed to be at work?"
He'd wondered how long that question was going to take to come. "I'm going," he answered.
"Hope you're not slipping, Buddy. I'm starting to get used to your little princess."
Heero stopped, his slacks half zipped, at the comment. Out of sheer spite he threw a glare at the wall between them in Duo's direction before continuing to get changed.
He still had yet to figure out how the two had developed anything to get 'used' to. Relena had made the comment that she talked to Hilde now and again. He supposed that information got passed back and forth.
Tucking his shirt in he walked back out of the room and over to the chair. Duo still hadn't unburied himself from the blanket. The man had a lazy streak now and then when he had the chance, and these little visits were more vacation than anything else.
"How is your ever-loving these days anyway?"
The question paused him again. Duo's comments were typical and nothing new, but the expression come a bit too close to the truth for his comfort this time around. "Fine," he answered instead, slipping the holster into place and taking his jacket.
"Yeah well, any chance that a lowly guy like me could get an appointment? I have a surprise for her."
The lump on his couch moved this time, and Duo finally sat up, stretching. "I can ask," he mumbled, knowing that Relena would want the chance to see him if he was here, but not exactly wanting to bring it up. The last time he didn't tell her that he'd been to visit she'd given him that annoyed look and asked why he didn't bring him by.
Well, Duo didn't usually ask.
"What's the surprise?" he asked, half enthused as he put his jacket back on.
He turned back just enough to see the huge grin spread on the other's face. "She keeps complaining that I never bring Hilde. So…" he absently yanked a thumb back towards his spare bedroom. "This time I brought her."
Heero started, realizing that he'd been caught up enough with Duo on the couch and his own bedroom in the front of the apartment that he hadn't even bothered to notice that the door to the other one was shut instead of usual. Great.
His 'friend' burst out laughing and flopped back on the couch, a simple tank top covering his chest. "I know what kind of concerned host you are, so don't worry. I figured we'd annoy you last night, which you skipped out on, annoy her tonight, and be off tomorrow morning."
Heero mentally sighed. "Hn." Heading for the door again he opened it. "I need to drop some things off to her tonight anyway. I'll see if she's up for more company."
"More?"
He smirked to himself as he tossed the sentence in as he closed the door. "Dorothy's here too."
Hilde sat shock still in the elaborate sitting room in Relena's estate attempting to decide how much offense she should be taking to her boyfriend's continuous outbursts. She sat on the couch beside him with her tea cup in her lap, trying for the world to figure out how to hold the thing so she'd look even half as refined as the other two women in the room.
Relena sat in a chair across from her; her own cup neatly nestled in her hands as her friend stared at the two in question as well. Heero boredly eyed them from his place at the end, nearest to the closed door.
Duo was beside her, but his attention was attracted by the constant bickering remarks thrown back and forth with the Lady Catalonia, that she'd been introduced to when they arrived. Still not having placed this woman, she was absolutely sure that she had seen her before though. And apparently the two longest-haired members of the group had a few past issues.
"If I had your family tree, I'd be cranky too," Duo snipped, haughty in his own right from their 'discussion.' "You're all a bunch of psychos."
The Lady sat, as always through the whole thing, unperturbed by the offensive statements, with a smirk and narrowed eyes as she sipped at her cup with utmost care. She sat properly with her ankles crossed under her in the chair at the opposite end of the coffee table, facing Heero, but her attention was typically turned to Duo. "Actually having a family tree can have its uses though," she mumbled back.
Hilde internally cringed for Duo's sake. Bringing up his past and lack of family was a hurtful thing to do. How this woman even knew these types of things, she had absolutely no idea. Although from that comment, she would assume that the Lady didn't know the whole story.
Duo, however, brushed it off, which surprised her again. "Better than drawing straws with the rest of your cousins to see whose turn it is to blow up the world this week."
The pale blond actually snickered, apparently having fun with this. "I imagine you've drawn the short stick a number of times yourself, Mr. Maxwell. Brains, wit, charm… looks."
"You take that back!" he snapped.
"Which part?" she raised an oddly forked eyebrow.
Duo shrugged, "At least the looks." He smiled, knitting his hands behind his head and leaning back into the couch cushions with his eyes closed.
"Um… Would anyone like some more tea?" Relena interjected into the most 'friendly' of pauses between them.
"Only if it wouldn't be a bother," Dorothy politely asked, setting her empty cup on the coffee table they surrounded.
"Normally I don't touch the stuff, but this ain't bad," Duo commented, and Hilde wondered if she should check for a temperature. He hates tea, she couldn't even get him to try hers, but he'd swallowed this in two gulps.
"Well, I'll be right back then." Relena smiled and hastily rose to her feet, picking up the teapot and tray from in front of her, and quickly heading for the door.
Heero rose to open it for her since her hands were full.
"I don't really think I can take that back," Dorothy mused to herself as the quiet settled just a second as Relena slipped away.
"What do you mean you can't?" Duo asked incredulously.
"Even I'm not that good of a liar," she tapped a finger to her chin.
"Why you snotty little…" he trailed off in agitation. Hilde just looked on wide-eyed and then up to Heero, who still stood in the opened doorway, for help. He turned to meet her eyes just a second before blinking in abandon and following after Relena instead, comically closing the door on her pleading look for him to come back.
She turned back to the two name-callers wondering how in the world she was supposed to get these two separated by herself. What she found stilled her even farther as the two both watched the door swing shut out of the corners of their eyes. Once the click of the latch was heard they both darted over in their seats, just about smacking foreheads as they each leaned over the arms of their respective furniture.
"What'd you get?" Duo asked in half the voice he'd been using most of the evening.
Lady Dorothy broke the first genuine smile that Hilde had seen out of her yet, but her eyes twinkled with absolute mirth. "I'd be happy to tell you, but it seems I had to swear not to," she quietly replied.
"Finally!" he whisper-cheered. "How badly can you not tell me?" he went on, a smile tickling his lips.
The other woman gave a low chuckle. "I've heard rumors about Relena's non-pacifistic side, and I have been given every indication that she'd be willing to go back to that for me."
Duo gave her a triumphant grin. "OK, OK, just tell me it's good," he coaxed instead.
At this Dorothy sighed. "The usual suspicions only, I'm afraid. But it's taking longer than I expected to even get that much out of her."
"She's a tough cookie when she wants to be," he shook his head. "But nothing good?" came the hopeful question.
She apologetically shook her head; the length of her pale blond locks falling over one shoulder. "Nothing incriminating yet. I've got another day or so, though." Looking back up she glanced at the door and then back. "What about you?"
"Yeah, right," Duo sighed, collapsing back to slump on the couch and stretching an arm out around Hilde's shoulders. "You've got the easy one. Besides, he wasn't even here last night," he complained.
The Lady frowned at him. "You're going to have to try harder," she accused.
"Hey, do you want to switch?" he snipped back.
She shrugged, moving back to her normal sitting position. "You're the one he likes."
"You actually think that man likes anybody?"
She propped her chin up gracefully with an elbow on the chair's arm, and then batted her eyelashes at him. "Well, we hope he likes someone."
They both laughed at the comment. Hilde, for her part, sat very still and very quiet; afraid of breaking whatever alternate dimension she'd just been thrust into. One minute they were—verbally—going for each other's throats, the next they were conniving together like school kids. What's wrong with these people?
"Hilde, Babe, you alright? You haven't said much," he asked looking up at her from his slouched position.
She blinked at him.
"Oh dear, I don't believe she's used to us," the Lady put in from her chair.
She blinked at her too.
"Babe, come on, Cat and I are just joking. We just needed to get the two out of the room for a while," he smoothed, flashing that good-natured smile of his.
"Um, OK," she responded, still a bit beside herself.
"Oh. Was I supposed to be joking?" Dorothy asked, mockingly taken aback.
Duo turned to give her a bitter look. "Down, Wicked Brows, or I'm going to call Quatre and tell on you."
Hilde balked at the name but resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.
Dorothy merely returned a confused expression. "Why does everyone assume that's actually going to intimidate me?"
"Hey, what's the deal with this week-long get-away you two were on that I keep hearing about?" Duo grinned at her instead, his same Cheshire expression coming back.
"It was not a get-away," she rolled her eyes. "Miss Relena can make as much out of things as you can," she waved it off.
Miss Relena…Then it finally clicked. Hilde snapped her attention back to the woman in question, finally placing the long, flowing, platinum blond hair and the odd eyebrows with a couple snippets of conversation she'd overheard. Imagining her seated there in a green uniform and black boots, Hilde had her answer. "That's it," she whispered to herself.
She hadn't realized that she'd interrupted Duo's attempt at a remark to her last comment. Closing his mouth again he turned to look at her instead. "What's it?"
She mildly cringed, realizing too late that the information she'd pieced together might not be the best thing to bring up considering she now recognized that that uniform meant the Lady here wasn't necessarily on the same team back then. "I…" she stalled before Duo gave her a look to keep going. "Sorry. I just figured out where I know you from," she tried instead, turning to look at the woman casually looking back at her.
"Me?" she blinked. "I hadn't realized we've met before," Dorothy added, obviously searching her memory now.
"We haven't really 'met,'" she explained. "I think we've just crossed paths."
Duo looked back and forth between the two. "You have?" he seemed confused.
Hilde smiled at him, and nodded, knowing that he wouldn't get the hint to shut up and leave it at that.
"Where?"
Of course he wouldn't, she mentally sighed. "I think I saw you aboard Libra," she said, trying to make it sound friendly, and hoping against hope that Duo already knew that bit of information.
He didn't seem fazed by it, but Dorothy started. "I imagine that could be, if you were onboard," she reasoned.
"Yeah, Cat here was a bad guy," he explained with a yank of his thumb in her direction. "We're hoping she's converted," he added, cracking a laugh.
That was reassuring, and she smiled at his laugh. "Duo, don't be mean."
"At least someone tells him that," Dorothy commented as he gave both of them dirty looks. Brushing him off she turned back. "Although, I'm curious now about you, Miss Hilde. And not only about your poor taste in men anymore," she threw in.
"Keep it up, Cat," he grumbled.
"Oh, save me from the big bad Grim Reaper," she laughed.
Hilde found herself laughing as well, but she wasn't sure if it was the comments, the fact that they had had her completely fooled about their intentions before, or about Dorothy's own high pitched cackle. "I was originally on the wrong side of these guys too," she admitted once they all calmed down. "But once I found out what he was really fighting for, I sort of had a change of heart."
"Yip. I'm just too cute for the ladies to interrogate." Duo laid this head back on the couch and closed his eyes, the cocky smirk in place.
Hilde elbowed him in the ribs to get the expression off his face. "You most certainly were not," she snipped. Turning back to Dorothy she caught the amused expression on her face. "I was a new recruit for the Alliance when I stumbled over Duo. After that, I 'made a nuisance of myself' trying to get into trouble for him."
He made a face. "I said that once, and you'll never forget it, will you?"
"No, I won't," she confirmed.
"Well, woman after my own heart," Dorothy commented, chuckling at the two.
"Nope, not even if you had one," he refuted her. "Hilde here's a sweetheart."
Both women rolled their eyes. "Anyway," she shook her head. "I ended up on Libra looking for a way to help out."
"After being specifically told to stay put," he grumbled.
She kicked him this time instead.
"But she was very helpful," he quickly added, reaching down to rub at his shin.
"Oh?" Hilde looked up to see the curious eyebrow raised on the other woman. "And what might that have been?"
She giggled nervously. "How sore are you about all of that?" she sheepishly asked.
"Not as sore as Quatre was," Duo snuck in. Dorothy turned a bitter look to him and he seemed to relent with a cringe. "Well, got to get a guy's attention somehow."
"Don't tell me you had to pull a gun on him too," Hilde laughed out loud at their little inside joke before she noticed both split eyebrows raise this time. "You don't want to know," she commented quickly.
"Yeah, anyway, Hilde here was the one that snuck Libra's schematics out from under your nose," Duo quickly finished, tossing her a wink as he squeezed her shoulders with the arm around them still.
She smiled at the slight show of pride in him for her, although he was ready to kill her himself for it back then, she knew. "That's actually when I met Relena, on Libra," she added, turning back to the Lady.
She stopped when she saw the frozen look of surprised on Dorothy's face. Duo noticed too and they exchanged a look before they turned back to her. "What?" he asked.
She blinked back the expression before lowered eyes from them to the coffee table in front of her not saying anything a moment.
"Lady Dorothy?" she questioned. "I'm sorry if we said something—"
She stopped when the other looked back up at her, the cool gray-violet eyes finding her dark blue ones and pausing again. "I am the one who owes you an apology, Miss Hilde," she stated.
Hilde understood a look of determination like that very well by this point in her life. She knew that an expression like that hinted at deep hurts, remorse and a desperate desire. This woman was no different from herself, from any of them really. And she did not interrupt whatever it was she wanted to say.
"You took a space Taurus and cruiser and blasted out of the holding bay on your way back to the Peacemillion," she seemed to want to clarify.
Hilde nodded, and Duo looked back and forth between them again, confused.
Again, her eyes lowered. "Then I'm afraid I was the reason that the Mercurius and the Vayeate were sent after you." The silence hung a moment, and not one of them bothered to acknowledge the opened door or Relena and Heero's return.
"The two battle data programmed models," Duo quietly clarified. "Not just a couple mobile dolls." Hilde felt the tension go through his arm that he had around her shoulders. "You specifically sent those two suits after her?"
His voice was still quiet, but Hilde felt incredulous anger flare up in him and she specifically readied herself to intervene if he let it get the best of him.
Dorothy's eyes narrowed, but she still didn't look up. "At the time, I was merely suggesting the best course of action to eliminate someone I knew had to be a spy. And one, I assumed, of considerable skills if they were partnered with the group of you," she explained herself but quickly went on. "I'm not justifying my tactics; I'm stating that I'm sorry. I am assuming that you… sustained injuries."
"You bet she had injuries!" Duo's voice raised and she felt him physically coil, ready to pounce if he got the chance. "You could have killed her!" he finally shouted.
"Duo, please." Relena interjected at the same time that Hilde specifically grabbed the side of his shirt, ensuring that if he tried to get to his feet, she wouldn't let him.
Hilde's immediate reaction was to be angry with him for being angry with Dorothy. But when the woman raised her eyes to meet Duo's, Hilde saw unflinching determination again. "That was the point," Hilde cut in before the other could say anything more. "It was a war. You can't blame her for it now," she reprimanded him.
Duo finally turned back, the anger leaving his eyes as he found hers, worry etched far deeper. It was the same worry that she knew was borne out of his affection for her, and she loved him for it. She always had.
But she had been a soldier as well, and she knew what it was like to regret actions, even ones that had been the only correct choice at the time. Turning away from him, she looked around to meet Lady Dorothy's cool expression. "You don't owe me anything. You did what you had to, and I understand that."
Duo opened his mouth to say something but Hilde returned a glare to his look to stop him before he made this worse.
"I appreciate that. Thank you, Miss Hilde," Dorothy calmly stated, turning her eyes away once more. "I must say I'm thankful we didn't succeed."
Hilde broke a smile for the comment and nodded, elbowing Duo again who gave up his indignant feelings and slumped back to his original position. "Yeah, well, still a good thing I was there," he verbally patted himself on the back.
Relena visually sighed and then pasted up her politician's smile, sitting the tea tray on the coffee table. Heero specifically moved to his place again, warily eyeing the group.
"Of course it is," Hilde admitted. "For the three thousandth time: of course it is," she rolled her eyes.
Relena held the door to the sitting room open as Dorothy and Duo argued their way out of the room. Dorothy's haughty laugh echoing as Hilde comically shook her head. "We should really do this more often," she teased as her friend moved in to give her a hug.
She laughed and nodded against her shoulder. "Actually we should… we'll just leave them both somewhere else."
"Just not together," Hilde sighed, pulling away to show her a smile. "Call me, alright?"
Relena smiled with a nod. "I promise."
Hilde gave her one more hug and then walked out the door, out shouting the other two who hadn't managed to make it down the hallway yet. "Oh, would you two shut up!"
She had to raise a hand over her mouth as she laughed, listening to them slowly move off.
"She started it."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Just can't tolerate not having the last word, can you?"
"Bring it on, cockroach."
"Oo, what are you going to do, braid my hair so we both look pretty?"
"That's it!"
"Ow, ow! Hilde, Babe. Ow!"
Dorothy's genuine laugh was enough to make Relena crack up again, not daring to step out in the hall and find out what was going on. Turning beside her, she looked up at Heero, finding him with a hopeless expression, which really struck her funny coming from him.
He regarded her evenly as she laughed, and she took the chance to slip in to hug him. "Maybe I should insist harder that they stay here tonight," she recommended.
She felt him sigh against her as his arms wrapped warmly around her. "They need to be separated."
Relena giggled at the thought. When they had left the room to make some more tea, she had asked him if he felt they should be worried about the two. They had been a bit catty with each other on Mars too, but not like this. Heero had responded, "Hn. I'm not so sure anymore that Duo can take her."
He'd actually had to take the teapot and the cream off the tray she was carrying for her before she dropped the whole thing as she laughed. The two had poked a little fun at the two as they sat in the kitchen, being cautious of revealing anything to the cameras… as always.
Which reminded her that the three were out in the foyer, monitored, and a little less likely to remember that they were being watched out there. She moved back, intent on saying they needed go too, but missed her chance.
Heero used the move as an opening, and before she knew it, she found his warm kiss on her lips. Surprised beside herself, she remembered to close her eyes and retuned his tenderhearted touch.
Well, he was certainly growing bolder with this. Here in her house, the group of their friends, who would love to 'accidentally' find out about this, nearby, and with the door open no less.
She mentally kicked herself for letting those types of thoughts go through her at a moment like this. She really missed him when he softly moved back from her, feeling like she didn't get to savor it.
Relena opened her eyes, looking him in the eye before he could move away again. His soft look of affection stared back at her just a moment before he disentangled himself and she slowly followed him out of the room, her heart feeling warm and fuzzy.
There had been plenty of insinuations from the group about the two of them tonight, but nothing that brought up too much. She'd easily batted down the random assortments of comments. Hilde had been able to keep Duo pretty much in check, and Dorothy had… Well, come to think of it, Dorothy had been quieter than normal about that section of things.
Relena had really expected her and Duo to team up against them. But, her friend had sworn that she wouldn't tell what she'd discovered last night, so maybe she was keeping her participation low. Maybe she was really being sympathetic to her. That was a nice thought… unlikely, but nice.
Actually, except for the bickering, Dorothy had been quieter than usual about everything tonight. Of course, the idea of bringing up her past, and especially meeting someone face to face that had been hurt because of her… Relena wondered if she should bring that up with her later, or let it go.
Truthfully, she didn't know enough about the tense conversation that they'd walked back in on to understand whether or not to worry. Duo had shaken it off rather quickly. And Hilde had specifically given her her forgiveness. Relena just wasn't sure how much she could really delve into Dorothy's emotions over some things.
But maybe someone else could…
Filing that away, she followed Heero out into the foyer where the other three were still going at it. Hilde sighed loudly from between the two, one hand clutching onto Duo's braid and the other raised in case Dorothy stepped in too close. She gave them a weary look as the others stopped to watch their approach.
"Welp, it's been fun, Princess," Duo acknowledged her, totally flip-flopping from just having stuck his tongue out in Dorothy's direction.
"I hope you have a safe trip back tomorrow," she smiled, still feeling sorry for Heero having to play host after this.
Stepping up, Duo wrapped her in a giant, surprise hug and squeezed her up to her toes before he set her back down. "Take care, Beautiful," he leaned back to look down at her with a wink. "Don't trust these security types more than I do," he nodded beside her to where Heero was standing.
She returned a smile and a chuckle as he pulled away from her. Hilde stepped up to give her a hug again as well, shrugging hopelessly at the display.
Relena squeezed Hilde again but looked over to where Duo was attempting a one-armed hug on Dorothy now. "No hard feelings, Cat."
"Not yet, there isn't," she eyed him cautiously.
"Ah, come here," he announced catching her and forcing her into a full hug before she could step out of the way.
Dorothy rolled her eyes at them over his shoulder. At least until he squeezed her hard enough to get a squeak out of her. One quick jab with her fingers into his ribs put a decisive end to that though as he jumped back.
The rest laughed at the two as she glared at him and he shook his head. "Cranky, I tell ya."
Hilde switched with him as she left Relena's hug. She moved to respectfully shake hands with Dorothy and add a couple words of her own. Duo quickly did a head count and then opened his arms, mockingly acting like Heero was next… until he was met with another glare, and a not so polite gesture towards the door instead.
Crestfallen he did as instructed and opened the door and walked out. Hilde quickly followed and Relena barely heard the annoyed growl from Heero as she tried to keep her laughter down. "Goodnight," she smiled at him.
"Night," he answered back. "Dorothy," he nodded to her as he slipped out the door.
"Agent Yuy," she returned. When the door clicked shut, Relena turned to look at her remaining friend. But Dorothy held an odd look on her face as she seemed to consider something. "Well, it is getting late. I believe I will turn in," she said instead, not hinting at what was on her mind.
"Alright. Goodnight, Dorothy," she stated instead, figuring it wasn't something she could ask about here anyway.
"I know all those people, I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them." – Mark Twain :)
AN: If anybody else thinks that I butchered Hilde, I'm sorry. And if anyone has a good Hilde-type resource, I could sure use it. She's never been a favorite character to me, but she is fun. :)