9:

"That's disgusting and you know it! Both of you!" And that was apparently all Hilde was willing to say on the matter. A good thing, in Duo's opinion, since neither Heero nor himself were likely to budge on their own opinions until something had to be done about it, and then they would just make up their minds. Until then, there was certainly no point in arguing about it. So Trowa expected them to be monsters? Duo could do that. Had done that. Could do it again, no worries.

That didn't mean he didn't feel the grain of guilt settling in his stomach as he watched her storm out, her footsteps telling him she went to the cargo bay, most likely to blow off some steam. A good thing, again.

Which left him very much alone with Heero. Not such a good thing, though he supposed that was dependent on your view of the situation. He wasn't ready, was the point, and he sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh, trying to think of anything but the man beside him.

"If you keep thinking about Ninja's you're likely to hurt yourself."

"How the holy fuck did you..."

"Don't take any part of the Lord in vain, and because you would have focussed on the first thing you saw when you came in the room instead of focussing on me, and since Wufei was very drunk when I came in I'm assuming that's the first thing you would have taken note of."

"That doesn't mean I was thinking about Ninjas! It just means I was thinking about Wufei, which considering the guys most recent occupation is downright creepy and I demand you take that back!"

But Heero was smirking, pleased with himself and Duo found himself just shaking his head, incredulous. Heero had gotten better at reading people. Reading him, apparently, as if his thoughts had been scrawled across his head.

"Ninjas aren't even around anymore you know..."

"I know that!" He wasn't that stupid and it was just insulting that Heero had felt the need to say so. Only the man was outright grinning now and Duo realised he'd just taken another wild guess at tangents Duo's own Ninja-riddled thoughts might have taken.

"Come on, you have to admit if there was a candidate for a Ninja, Wufei would be your first guess..."

"I don't know, concubine comes to mind when I think of Wufei and hidden occupations..."

Duo just stared at the man, wondering if he'd possibly had a lobotomy or something similar in the years between the Incident and their arrival in the Valley.

"Are aliens real?"

"I have not been abducted," Heero rolled his eyes and chuckled softly. Amused, because Duo was apparently that easy to follow. It grated and Duo suspected he now had his answer as to how Heero kept getting on board.

Somehow he knew everything. Knew exactly where Duo's traps where, how he set about building his defenses and when to move against them. Heero had done his homework, as usual, but Duo had no idea when the mission had become Duo himself.

"So we need to go test these drugs..."

"You're not coming," Heero interrupted immediately and it left Duo oddly silent. Just staring and wondering if he'd heard wrong when he knew he hadn't.

"It's my ship, I sure as hell am!"

"It's Howard's ship," Heero corrected. "He won't mind if I borrow it."

"Of course he won't because he's apparently besties with everyone I used to know!"

"Because you wouldn't let us damn well anywhere near you! But you chose to take the Gig so shut your damn mouth and for once listen to me when I tell you to stay the hell here!" Just like then, only not. Then Heero had listened to all of Duo's protests and begging and eventually had let him come. Had planned it with him, agreed to Duo's alterations to the infiltration, the whole time knowing that when he got to the crux of it all he would just take Duo out of the picture. At least this time he was being upfront about it. Apparently growing up gave you balls, or something.

Heero was taking deep breaths. It gave Duo something to focus on and he did so with single minded determination, watching Heero's nostrils flare in and out...in and out until his own anger was whisked away by the observation that Heero's nostrils weren't that different from a horse... He wondered what sort of pony Heero would be, and if a NInja would ride it.

"You will stay here. I will take Hilde and Wufei and we will test the drugs."

"Marie?"

"Stays with you as leverage," Heero replied so softly Duo found himself straining to hear. As if afraid they might be overheard. As if the Ninja could hear through the gundanium lined walls and blindly sneak Mariemaia away before they could put Heero's plan into action.

"I am not staying here to babysit the teenager you brought here."

"Why not? It's your Gig, isn't it? Retrieve Mariemaia?"

"And you," Duo reminded him coldly and he once again spent a moment fantasizing about just shooting everyone, snapping the happy completion shot and heading home. But it had long ago passed that point. There was Quatre involved now, and Trowa, and maybe even a whole bunch of seemingly important business type people. But most importantly a whole tonne of innocent bystanders were stuck in the middle, and Duo knew that regardless of whatever other reasons he might have he would be staying for them. To make sure at least one lonely little soul in the universe put them first. Or maybe second, depending on just how much of his heart Heero had managed to thaw out. That remained to be seen.

"I'm not letting you shoot up Wufei," Heero explained softly. "I won't do that to you." But he'd leave him there to shoot up Mariemaia? How was that any better? Unless he already believed Quatre and Trowa were good, and there really was a cure. Which was the nicer story to believe, but Duo wasn't all that fond of 'nice'. It just wasn't that believable.

"Okay...so I'm what, taking your ship over?"

"The Reincarnation's faster, and if you set us up for a run we have the perfect cover."

He would need a reason to request a run to the right colony but that would be easy enough. A girl. Every good story involved a girl. The story was already forming and he just nodded, getting up because there was no time like the present and if they wanted to get moving he would have to set up the run soon. Fast off the back of his first success. Eager...It would look completely natural. Fine, that was doable.

"It's not a babysitting gig," Heero admonished, a pleading note in his voice. It made Duo look down at him and actually listen. See the smile there and the trust.

"You might need to explain that?"

"Someone has to find Barton," Heero pointed out, getting up himself and leaving first, heading to the bridge and Duo just stood there, staring at the doorway and wondering if it was maybe, just maybe a joke. Because Heero was actually willing to leave him alone to find Barton knowing there was still a fifty chance he would kill him on sight. Drug trafficking, life annihilating fucker that he was, even if he'd supposedly had good reason for his actions. And that was debatable.

He forced himself to move, going to his room and grabbing a few weapons to stash conveniently among his clothes and checking he was dirty enough to pass muster before heading out. Visibly, and he hated that. Having to waltz out and whistle and act like it wasn't the stupidest thing to do. Allow attention to fall on him, to be seen sneaking his way through the lanes and alleys of the Valley to the gunrunners. Speaking in too hushed, excited tones, still high on the adrenaline of it.

He left with a lecture about not spending all his dough at once and a confirmation of a small run to that colony that needed to be made. The crates would be ready for collection that night and he could leave as soon as it was on board. It was all so easy Duo wanted to cry, but it also reminded him that Heero had read him just as easily as he had read Old Duke. Heero, the guy who used to get confused by party invites. Just what had happened to him, anyway? Was it Relena's influence? Because that was just creepy.

But then he went back to the Diner to try and get some more out of the waitress, or whoever he could find there willing to talk. It was a bit of a hike from the gunrunners and he took the long way, meandering as if looking for a place to spend some of his dough, just like he'd been told not to. He even tried to proposition a hooker for good measure, making sure she would remember just enough that she could say he had been there, but recall nothing else about him.

Had he actually said this had gotten fun, when they first realised Trowa needed their help to be found? He distinctly remembered saying it and wished he could take it back. Absolutely nothing about any of this so far had been fun. It had, in fact, been a royal pain in the behind. Way worse than Relena! He kicked a piece of awning down the street in frustration and winced when he heard a yelp, turning to see what he'd hit, knowing full well it was a person and just not wanting to acknowledge it. Yet.

"The Valley is a maze, the maze is in a Haze..." Duo sighed and slunk back a little, as if the man disgusted him. Not hard when he sort of did, but this time he didn't seem as out of it. Sure he was repeating the same old rhyme but now when Duo looked at him he seemed to see him, even with the silver shining in his eyes. His teeth were yellowed but no longer looked ready to fall out of his face. His face was old and weathered, but there was a hint of clarity to it that had been buried in the shock of his appearance the first time Duo had seen him. It wasn't something he thought anyone would ever notice, just small, subtle hints that Duo noticed now because he was looking for them. Because he'd let the dirt and grime in so far that he was noticing now when it wasn't dirty enough.

He wandered closer, not surprised when the man's singing grew more insistent, the same song, the same words but jumbled differently each time. He watched the hands reach for him and sidestepped, staring at the black chalky substance engrained in the man's skin. Too powdered to be the grime of years. Engrained, certainly, but less than it appeared.

Frowning, Duo knelt nearby and studied the man, who quieted quickly and stared back in his direction, a vague look on his face as if aware Duo was there but unsure exactly where. That he was blind, Duo didn't doubt; his eyes had the sunken, shrunken cast of an addict but he was also certain the man knew he was there. Felt his eyes on his insides, as if he were being looked into.

"Don't let Chinny scare you off. Just an old addict. We let him hang around for scraps at the end of the day."

Duo looked up at the voice and nodded as if he'd simply been intimidated by the old man and forced himself to look away, smiling up at the woman. Not the waitress from the day before, prettier and less infested but perhaps on the fast lane to that lifestyle anyway. She could have been Marie, trying to protect a friend and struggling to survive in hell. That hit hard but he forced it down.

When he dared steal a glance over his shoulder 'Chinny' was looking straight at him, and for a moment it looked like he held up three fingers. But it could have been a wave, a salute, or a thousand other gestures or nothing at all.

"Haze. It's so sad, you know?" She seemed to be the only person in the Valley who thought so but Duo winced like she'd hit on one of his dirty little secrets and tried to not look back again. Maybe he knew someone who'd ended up the same, it was up to her to make the assumptions.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Uh yeah...something hot to drink?" Because his bones were feeling cold, and at least if it was hot it meant at some point it had been boiled and the germs should be good and dead.

"Sure thing, I'll be right back."

He hadn't specified non-alcoholic but it would have made him too memorable if he had; made him stand out. So he knew he was just as likely to get heated rocket fuel as a coffee. Whatever worked, though he was hoping being on a makeshift colony reached by space vessels meant rocket fuel was have more value than coffee and at least not be available in every side street diner in the Valley.

He found himself stealing glances at the walls, looking for more clues but the only image with Trowa in it was the one he had noticed the first time. He didn't stare at it, but he felt as if it were staring at him. Accusing, because it was his Gig now, to find Trowa and figure out if the man should die or not. His fingers were just getting itchy. It had been a long while now since he had taken a life, six months at least, and every time since the war it had been a necessary side effect of a Gig, and the guy had always been bad. Like black hearted, rot in hell bad. Leftovers from the war that shouldn't have made it to the Incident.

Trowa's gaze seemed to glare at him from the wall and Duo found himself watching him right back, looking for the clues. This was the image of Trowa that had stuck in his head since he arrived, Trowa the drug dealer, tainted by the mask he had left with the whore. His clothes were typical Valley, a conglomerate mix of leftover military madness caked in dirt from the here to the moon and back and mixed in with some old casuals like the torn and ragged flannel Trowa had on, sleeves cut to reveal the skin tight military issue thermal shirt beneath. And muscle. Bulging, ridiculous muscle. Duo had to slave to get what he had, and he was damn proud of what he had, but Trowa had that effortless genetic thing going on. It really wasn't fair.

The man was strong. Had to be, to do what he was doing, but there was more to it than that. Trowa had grown into his tall frame, filled it out and then some. Quatre had matched him in height but where Quatre was all lean lankiness, Trowa was a brick wall. His build matched his personality, if Duo was honest, but he wasn't honest all that often.

"That's Bloom," his waitress mumbled, putting a steaming cup down in front of him that at least smelt a little like something that might resemble coffee. But it was alcoholic, he could smell that too and being able to smell it didn't make him feel too positive about drinking it. But he sipped it thoughtfully, blowing at the steam on top and making appropriate gasping noises he didn't even need to fake because rocket fuel as a guess hadn't been that far off.

"Christ, what the fuck is that?"

"Chef's personal recipe," she laughed and looked like she agreed with his assessment. But they both knew he was going to drink it.

"He looks mad."

"Mmm...I wouldn't want to meet him," she mused, looking at the photo. There was lust in her expression but he believed her. Whatever she knew about Trowa, she didn't want to meet him. But then, she wasn't an addict. But there was more to it than that.

"I've seen him a few times...in real life? He came in here once, but I didn't have to serve him. But you can just feel when he's watching you. It's dead creepy, like he sees everything? I felt like my skin was going to fall off my bones..."

Duo knew the look. They all had it, to some extent and he didn't think being a drug trafficker would take the heat out of it at all. Worse, he thought he might understand where some of the heat in it would have come from anew.

He sipped his 'coffee' as she walked away and stole adequate glances at the picture as if he was just thinking on what she had said. Which he was.

Wufei had been captured in their pursuit of a cure. Whether it had been part of the plan or not, it wouldn't have sat well with Trowa. Some of that rage in his eyes stemmed from that knowledge alone. Then it was this place. It did things to you, made you harder and colder and sank into you like the air was poisoned with something defined simply as 'the Valley'. That was scrawled across Trowa's features as well. But in amongst the dark and the evil was that grain of something that was just Trowa. Hurt and lonely and struggling to survive against odds.

Infiltrating. Learning. Calculating. Why did the bastard have to go so deep? They'd always said one day he would get himself so deep into something he wouldn't be able to get out again, and now here they were. Duo had always promised when Trowa got to that point he wasn't going to be the one to drag him out of it, and now he was doing just that! Hell, he'd even gone and dragged his boyfriend out as well, and paid a million credit for the privilege. They were going to be paying back every cent.

But where was he now? The picture on the wall just told him he'd been there, it didn't help him actually find the bastard. He needed to go through Heero's research and the files again, but he didn't want to spend more time with the man than was necessary. Wanted alone time to think, and maybe Heero knew that and was leaving him behind again because of it. That really wasn't helping, even if he was grateful he wasn't going to be the one to put Haze in Wufei. To see the look on the man's face when he realised what they had planned.

He finished his drink with a heavier heart than stomach, though his stomach felt like it's walls were melting and he left the waitress a good tip, but not exorbitant. Just enough that she would easily admit he had been there, but that there was nothing else really memorable about him.

"The maze is in the haze!" Chinny was chanting on the front steps but he grew quieter, whispering it under his breath creepily as Duo skulked past, sneering at the man but also observing. Seeing the way his head tilted to the side in a way that was growing all too familiar because Wufei did it too. Tracking, always listening for small signs of things that normal people didn't even notice. The tiny details that aurally told you where people were and where they were going.

Only Wufei was sane, and mentally unscathed by Haze. Chinny was supposed to be destroyed by it. Duo recalled the whore and her limited sense of self and turned away, not wanting to see it any more. Thinking on was already going to give him nightmares.

Wufei was in the cargo hold when he came in, doing tai chi or something like it. He moved with precision, a he always had but there was more to it now. Duo watched the way he moved his head, subtly allowing the braids to chime in very particular places while his feet scraped the floor in a way they never had when he could see. Feeling out, listening to the echoes of his own noise, sensing distance and placement. It had to have taken endless hours upon hours of determined practise to retrain himself. Discipline Chinny didn't have. At least, didn't have now but the man was old and who knew what he had done in his youth. Perhaps Chinny had once been like Wufei?

It wasn't a kind line of thought and Duo left Wufei to it, moving past without bothering to say anything and going to his room, aware of Heero and Hilde talking softly on the bridge and just not wanting to have to talk about anything. Feeling raw, and in all honestly ill from his 'coffee'. He would have done anything for a shower. To be clean. He suspected the dirt he felt wasn't entirely on the outside and that didn't sit well with him at all. He didn't want to look at his reflection and see the poison from Trowa's face staring back.

Laying on his bed, staring at his ceiling, eyes closed, breathing calm. What does the sun feel like on your face? Warm. Bright. Let it sink in, all the way in to warm iced bone. Sink through until you forget the cold clarity of calm. Soothe away the discord, just feel the warmth.

He woke to the smell of real coffee, and to Heero sitting at his small desk, bent over his laptop, looking frustrated and so very absorbed. It was a familiar sight and Duo took a moment just to enjoy it. He knew not many people were ever allowed to see Heero in what Duo liked to think of as preparation mode. They got to see the guns blazing, brazen, determined and cocky madness but not the subdued, dedicated soldier internalizing the mission. This was the Heero that Duo had originally fallen in love with, hunched over his computer for endless hours each night in whatever hole they found themselves hiding out in, trying to decide the best move for the next day. Duo liked this Heero because nothing was set in stone; because of the uncertainty.

"You're awake."

"No shit." Duo rolled his eyes and rolled off the bed, sighing at the smudges he left on the nice sheets. Howard was definitely footing the cleaning bill for that. Or replacement bill, since it didn't really look all that cleanable. It would stain, definitely.

"Howard will pay for it," Heero muttered, shaking his head as if he would never have thought about it. He probably wouldn't. He probably had a damn maid, or Relena did. Whatever.

"Have I developed a muttering habit where every thought I have spills out all over the place without my noticing for your enjoyment?" Because it was a little creepy that he seemed to know how to read his mind. It was one thing to call him Superman as a joke, it was quite another for there to be actual evidence for it.

"You sneered at the sheets...I just followed the line of thought you were most likely to follow based on the fact you hate cleaning and paying for things you don't feel responsible for. Actually, you just hate paying for things in general," he amended.

"I work hard for my money! I shouldn't have to spend it!"

"Then why earn it?" He seemed genuinely curious, even turned away from the laptop to watch him while he tried to figure out the answer. It was frustrating because Duo didn't really have an answer.

"I just like seeing a big number when I look at the account balance," he muttered, mostly to himself because he knew how stupid that sounded. It wasn't like he needed the money, at all. He could build whatever he needed from any pile of scrap and sell it for food if he needed that. He could scrape by anywhere, even the Valley. He didn't need the money, he really did just like challenging himself to see how much money he could get. It was more a game than anything now.

"It's your security blanket," Heero corrected and Duo knew he was right. Knowing what it was like to not have money there if you ever did need it made it damn hard to let go of when you did have it. Especially if the cost wasn't justified. It still rankled that Heero knew it.

"Your coffee's getting cold," Heero noted, pointing to the cup he had put by the bed and Duo found himself staring at it, as if unsure how it had gotten there when it was obvious Heero had made it for him. But that was the weird part. Heero. Making him coffee. He didn't want to enjoy it, because tomorrow it wouldn't happen and he would miss it and that ache was unbearable.

He took it carefully, as if the cup might sting, but it just warmed his hand and when he sipped it the coffee was strong and the water warm like the sun he'd been imagining when he fell asleep coming back into his bones.

"There's a crate to collect tonight with the delivery instructions for the colony the drugs are being released from in the first shipment. We just need to make sure Hilde's signed on for the first delivery and you're good to go."

"She was making the arrangements earlier," Heero agreed, sounding pleased and Duo knew he was just happy the framework of a plan that made sense was coming together. Neither of them liked trying to figure out Trowa's plan and go along with it. Much more comfortable to say Fuck You Barton and do their own thing.

"You got any ideas where I should be looking for Barton?"

"I've been running through recent circus performances and I found Trowa's, but he's not with them. They've done seven performances this week on L4, but Cathy hasn't been on the show list for any of them."

"Because she hasn't got anyone to throw knives at," Duo deduced and sighed. If he wasn't with the damn circus he could be anywhere.

"The circus took a day longer to reach L4 from it's previous port than it should have, and after looking into it further I found it's a pretty common occurrence. Most would assume it's slow ships but..."

"But Trowa upgraded those ships right after the war. They're state of the art," Duo recalled. He'd asked for their advice on security measures and Wufei had even helped design some new cooling system that helped the drives run at maximum capacity for longer. Putting his spiffy new engineering degree to work right in their faces. Had they been planning this back then? Bastards. Duo was glad he hadn't bothered to contribute and had taken a Gig a few billion miles away instead.

"The last crossover would have given them enough time to get a ship to the Valley and back before they arrived at L4."

"But Trowa's not with them," Duo pointed out, so why the stopover to the Valley? Unless of course you had orders to only wait a day and go on to L4 if Trowa didn't show. That was very old school Barton, covering the Circus if anything went wrong on the illegal end of things.

"But he was with them for the shows last week," Heero noted, pulling up a picture on a blog from the circus' previous shows. Sure enough there was Barton, mask on, pinned to the wall by a slew of knives, Cathy in her element looking as stunning as ever at the forefront.

"Is his hair curled?" Really? "Is that makeup?"

"Duo!" Heero snapped and Duo sighed, shrugging because he was just making the joke to by himself the time he needed to process the information and they both knew it. Old habits and all that. It was more reflex than anything these days.

"So you think he's here?"

"It's possible. I think his ship is here somewhere, even if he's not."

"Find the ship, find the man," Duo mused. It was getting fun again. He really had to stop thinking of hunting down Trowa Barton as fun. Not that he was hunting, that wasn't the word he would use, not out loud anyway. Attempting to procure the whereabouts? Seeking out?

"Are you going to be alright?" It wasn't the question he had expected Heero to ask and it froze his thoughts, leaving the coffee hot in his belly and heat in his face. For once not anger.

"I don't think it's me we need to be worrying about. You're the one who's going to be on a ship alone with a concubine Ninja, a redhead and a Nazi."

"Hilde is not a Nazi!" But it was damn funny to hear Heero defending her to him of all people.

"Wait until she yells at you for something that's entirely not your fault," Duo countered and he got up, moving to get a better look at Heero's screen, seeing the drug release notes and various other notes pinned to the screen about Quatre's wonder drug. A lot about Quatre himself too, which was only smart but it still hurt somewhere within that they had been brought to a point where they had to investigate friends. To use old companions to see if they were still worthy, or if they'd changed allegiance.

He started packing a bag, shoving the bare necessities in and trying to ignore the way Heero watched everything he did. Learning him in a way Duo didn't want to be learnt. But Heero would be Heero, better to just ignore him and do what had to be done.

"I'll drop the guns off an hour before your scheduled departure," he said softly, checking he had Heero's timetable memorized. His hands were sweating, not a good sign but he'd at least had some sleep. Nerves he could handle, sleep deprivation was the killer.

"Duo..." Heero's hand slid down his arm, fingers wrapping loose but firm around his wrist to tug him around until he was staring at Heero, face to face and lips oh so very close. His whole world turned blue, drawn into all too familiar eyes. His own mouth felt dry and his chest suddenly full and empty at the same time.

"Be careful," he heard himself whisper and it didn't sound like his own voice at all but something in Heero softened and his fingers stroked gently up to his shoulder and cupped his cheek before warm lips pressed against his own.

Then Heero was gone, striding out the door, leaving him to do what he had with one parting gift of words.

"Security code for the Cathedral is Scythe02." Duo stared at the wall for a long time before scowling.

"Who the hell names a ship the Cathedral?"