Chapter 11

Author's Notes: If you're still here, thank you. I am a bad author. I want to finish this story. I really do. Thanks for swinging by for another installment! There will be more (really!).

Day 3 4:30 PM

Duo and Quatre were back at the hotel, Quatre having tired rather quickly after the Boneyard incident, and now they were lying on their beds. Quatre had almost considered going to the pool, but the very thought of water made him a bit queasy. So they had opted to rest, the TV off and the curtains closed.

"Disney really takes a lot out of you," Duo chuckled dryly.

"Yeah," Quatre snorted, "I'm breathless."

"Wonder if we would be this wiped out if these accidents hadn't happened?"

Quatre buried his head deeper into his pillow, "Well we probably would have gone on more rides, at least."

Duo rolled his eyes, "Heero and his stupid sanctions. I paid to ride rides, not sit around."

"I paid to ride rides, too, not be squashed by them," Quatre grinned, feeling slightly more jubilated. He had yet to tell Duo his big news.

"I guess you don't get what you pay for."

"But we did find some pretty cute guys."

"Pretty overprotective, you mean," and then, rolling on his side, Duo finally asked, "so, how did your afternoon with Tall and Antisocial go?"

"Stop teasing him," Quatre chuckled.

"He's not even here! C'mon, tell me, what did you guys get up to?"

"Well we certainly didn't go running around playgrounds."

"You missed out on a lot of fun. So if you guys didn't do anything remotely exciting, what did you do?"

"Oh, we experienced plenty of excitement," Quatre said lightly, trying not to let a smile break over his face. That would be a dead giveaway.

Duo, ever the gossip sponge, whined, "C'mon, what'd you do? Don't tell me Trowa let you on a ride! That's not fair! You actually nearly drowned! Heero's just freaking paranoid."

"We went on a ride – of sorts."

"What, you got asked to ride on a parade float? Or did you go on another one of those boring nature trails?"

"We went on a trail, yes."

"I should have known. Animal lovers."

"We did a lot more than watch the animals," Quatre winked.

And then, Quatre watched the pieces fall into place. Duo's eyes widened so that his eyebrows were pushed up high above his eyelids; any farther, and they'd reach his hairline. His mouth dropped open into an 'o' shape, his vocal chords completely silent for once.

Then Duo wasted no time in scrambling over to Quatre's bed and they sat across from each other, Duo shoving Quatre hard in the knee, "What'd you guys do? What happened? Tell me everything!"

Quatre blushed faintly, "Well, um, I had my first kiss."

Duo sat back and whistled, "No way!"

Duo playfully pushed his shoulder, "Good for you, Quatre. It's about time. If I'd known the magic would loosen you up, I would've taken you here years ago!"

"I don't think its Disney, I think its Trowa. He's wonderful."

"Now don't go waxing poetry on me yet, you've known the guy for a total of three days," Duo ran his hands through his hair, laughing, "Wow, Quatre, I never would've thought you'd kiss someone so early in the game. He hasn't even taken you out on a proper date yet, let alone met the family!"

"Shut up, I'm not that bad," Quatre said, "the best part was that he didn't stop at just one. He gave me another four."

"No shit," Duo gaped, "he's more aggressive than I thought."

Quatre thought back to the kiss and before that, the encounter at the tiger pen. Trowa definitely had a forceful, powerful side to him that he kept hidden under layers of silence. But thinking that that sounded too poetic, he didn't tell Duo his observations.

"So, how do you feel? You're all grown up now, Quatre," Duo placed his hands on his knees, but didn't look playful or snarky.

Quatre shrugged, "It's just a kiss. It's not like I've lost all my childhood innocence or anything. Honestly, you had your first kiss when you were what, five?"

Duo thought for a moment, before smiling softly, "Oh yeah! I went around kissing all the girls in the children's home. Everyone always thought I'd grow up to become some sort of womanizer."

Quatre held his stomach as he laughed, "And now look at you!"

Duo scratched his chin, "And then there was Solo."

Quatre sat back in his pillow.

"In fifth grade we were the best of pals. He gave me my first true kiss. Wonder what ever happened to that kid? He got adopted before me and moved away somewhere."

"Did you ever try to find him?"

"No. Thought about him a lot, though. We were really close, kind of adopted each other since no one else wanted to adopt us. Sometimes I miss him. I just hope he's happy, you know? I have everything I've ever wanted. I've got a great father, a flexible job working for Howard, and a friend like you. I don't need anything more. I just hope he has the same things I have or more."

"I hope so too. Any friend of Duo Maxwell is a friend of Quatre Winner."

Duo smiled, and then as if clearing his thoughts, he shook his head slowly, "Now how on Earth did you get me to take a stroll down memory lane? C'mon, you just had your first kiss. We should be out celebrating not getting all teary-eyed."

Quatre hadn't noticed any tears in Duo's eyes. Maybe he was talking about the ones that were shed in the inside. Quatre squeezed Duo's knee, "Alright, let's go celebrate."

So Duo and Quatre went down to the End Zone Food Court and pigged out on ice cream and sundaes before heading back up to bed, falling boneless into their soft pillows.

Day 4 9:00 AM

There was no question about going to Animal Kingdom for the fourth day in a row. The ticket taker finally stopped them and asked them what was going on.

"You guys trying to be Animal Kingdom experts or something? You've been coming here practically all week."

Duo grinned at the old man, quickly taking note of his name tag, "We just like seeing you every day, Bert. We come here just to pass through your turnstile."

"You can work it for me, if you like," Bert gave them a wide smile, his face erupting into a mass of wrinkles.

"Wouldn't dream of it; I couldn't possibly take you away from your ticket machine."

"Suit yourself," Bert said as the next person in line came forward, "but I expect to see you tomorrow morning."

"And you will," Duo waved as they left.

As they meandered through the now familiar park, Duo pulled out the map, "Let's see. We haven't hit a lot of the bigger attractions due to our injuries, but there might be some shows we could check out-"

"We can go on the Kali River Rapids," Quatre suggested.

"I think you got enough water yesterday."

Quatre glared at his best friend, "I'm doing better. My throat isn't that sore anymore, and while I ache, the River Rapids doesn't seem to be too jarring."

Duo pursed his lips and looked heavenward, "Quatre, I know this was supposed to be our getaway and you want to enjoy it to the fullest, but your safety has been comprised on every ride. I really think we shouldn't-"

"Duo," Quatre sighed, "are we going to have this argument every time I want to do something that involves even the tiniest bit of risk? Walking is more dangerous than the River Rapids. You don't need to babysit me Duo. I'll tell you when I've had enough."

Duo groaned, "If I come back home with you in pieces, your father is going to kill me."

"No he won't, because I'm eighteen and can take responsibility for my own actions. It's me he'll get mad at."

"Only you'll be dead, so your father is going to take his anger out on me."

"Oh stop it; let's just go on the ride. And then we can meet up with Heero for lunch. Doesn't he eat at the Restaurantosaurus?"

"He said he and Wufei have lunch there every day they're at work; but I don't know if he'll actually be there because he still hasn't given me his phone number."

"I'm sure he'll give it to you soon. You can wring it out of him using your Charm."

"I won't have to wring it out of him; he'll be serving his number to me on a silver platter."

The Kali River Rapids was in-between the Maharajah Jungle Trek and Expedition: Everest. It was a raft ride that carried its passengers along the Chakranadi River in Asia. Duo and Quatre lined up with the other people trying to escape the heat, even if it was only mid-morning. As they passed the entrance a Disney employee, counting the people as they entered the line, stopped them.

"Here," he handed Quatre a red card on a lanyard, "take this up to the front for me? It's encoded with the time I'm giving it to you. This'll help us estimate the wait time for the ride. Hand it to an employee on the loading deck."

"Sure," Quatre said and slipped it around his neck.

As they left the employee turned away and began speaking into his walkie-talkie. Quatre couldn't hear what he was saying.

They could tell when they were nearing the loading platform, the smell of water and damp leaves, wood and clothes reached their noses. Then before them was the river, circular rafts bobbing along its surface and docking at a circular rotating platform. They walked down the wooden walkway to the loading dock. A woman greeted them where the walkway met the platform and Quatre handed her the card. She looked at it and momentarily held the line as she ran the card through a machine. She looked around carefully before directing them to a raft which had just floated out of the holding area. Another employee was waiting for them by the raft.

"Sorry for the wait," she said, "we're adding more rafts to the queue because traffic is picking up. Yours is the first one being introduced to the line."

She looked them over, judging Quatre and Duo's weights and the weights of the people who were riding with them in the twelve passenger ride. She carefully situated them and watched them buckle their lap belts. There were six sections of seats, two seats to each section. Duo and Quatre ended up sitting across from each other with a round orange handrail separating them. The rafts were decorated with as much detail as the Everest ride. Mock backpacks, camping and rafting gear were strapped to the back of the seats. Patterns rimmed the siding. After the customary warnings about ride safety, their raft began to climb up a 90-foot hill. Quatre's grin slipped off his face, and Duo cackled quietly. Quatre shot him a nasty and Duo began to cluck and beat his arms like a chicken, much to the amusement of the others in the raft. The man next to Duo, however, only managed to crack a whisper of a laugh. He was rather busy muttering prayers under his breath as he fumbled nervously with his rosary. Quatre felt absurdly glad that he was not the biggest chicken on the ride.

They neared the crest of the hill, where giant statues and shoots of water greeted their presence. They then glided down a short knoll, and the water in the bottom of the boat sloshed over their sneakers. Quatre slid to the side in his seat as they twirled down a calm water passage looked over by leafy green trees and tiny stone temples.

Quatre gave himself a pat on the back. He wasn't feeling nervous at all, even this close to water. As a matter of fact, he wished for more of its cooling drops as their raft rounded a bend and they were greeted with the choking smell of burning wood. Instead of tropical trees surrounding them and shielding them from the sun, a pile of smoking lumber lay piled on barren, plant-less ground. Their raft had just moved into a mock logging site, where trees were burning and a dirty truck was clinging to the side of a hill, creaking dangerously. It was already hot and humid outside, but somehow the Disney Imagineers made the surrounding area scorching. Quatre was extremely glad when the raft passed under an arch and left that part of the ride behind.

Of course, that victory was short lived. They had just passed under the arch and Duo, who was facing the direction of the oncoming track, crowed with glee and pointed to what was awaiting them. The man strapped in next to Duo, however, blanched.

"Holy mother of God," the man whispered; his face was white and his eyes wide.

The ride jerked and jolted and Quatre found himself whipped around so that his seat was facing sideways, all his body weight held in by the strap around his waist. Then Quatre nearly lost the contents of his stomach. The raft began to fly down an immense drop and Quatre grabbed frantically for the orange bar in front him. Water surged around them, engulfing the sides of the raft, and Quatre's fingers slipped from the metal grip. They were just beginning to pick up in velocity when with a thud their raft reached the end of the drop, running into the mass amounts of water lying in wait at the end of the plunge. The collision sent a surge of water flying over the entire raft and the impact caused the passengers to jerk against their restraints. Quatre felt his body leave his seat. But he wasn't pulled back into it. Something slapped him in the arm as he catapulted forwards; he threw out his hands in front of his face as he pitched forward into the boat. With one hand he grabbed the orange bar while his other hit the watery, rough surface of the bottom of the raft. His nose was inches from a person's foot.

"Shit! Someone stop the fucking ride!"

He looked up and Duo was already fumbling with his wet seatbelt. A young girl had started to cry and a woman was trying to get to her cell phone to call 911.

"I'm fine," he repeated shakily over and over, pausing in his litany when the raft shuddered as it encountered jets of water sprouting up from underneath the ride.

"It's okay," the man next to him said and reached forward to grab his arm, stabilizing him.

Quatre was frozen in place, finding safety in his white knuckled grip on the raft.

"That was the last drop, we're just going to go through some sprinklers and underneath a bridge, and then we'll be done," the man continued.

Duo was still in his seat, if only because the man next to him had his arm in a death grip, pleading him not to stand up.

"I'll be fine you twit," Duo hissed.

"Oh God, we can't lose both of you! If you stand up, you'll be thrown outside the raft!"

"He's right Duo," Quatre said, sounding a lot braver than he felt, "two unbuckled passengers walking around on the raft? No, we'd better not try to disturb the weight balance. Besides, you could be a safety hazard. I'd rather not have you falling onto me or off the raft onto the tracks."

Duo's mouth clamped shut and he gave Quatre a fiery glare.

"Here, let's get you back into your seat," the man next to Quatre said, still gripping his arm.

"I think I'm safer on the floor," Quatre said, liking the fact that he was surrounded by many people and seats. His own seat was quite exposed.

The other passengers looked at each other, as if trying to reach a consensus.

"The ride is almost over, another minute and we'll be waiting to get off," the man continued.

Still, he kept Quatre firmly in his grasp, something Quatre was quite thankful for.

So for the next minute Quatre was on his hands and knees on the raft, kneeling in inches of cold water, feeling the contents of his stomach slosh around. He was freezing and soaking, though all the other passengers were as well, as that was the intent of the ride. However, none of them looked as if they were about to fall out of their seats. They were all safely secured, even the rather large woman to the far left of him. Why had his belt broken?

They pulled up at the loading dock and waited as the boats in front of them began to unload, making room for new passengers. It was only a matter of seconds before someone noticed something was off.

As their boat pulled up, the employee ready to assist them froze in his steps. He carefully regarded Quatre, his seat, the belt, and then Quatre again. He blinked his eyes and squinted, as if needing confirmation that Quatre was, indeed, on the floor and not in his seat.

"This young man's seatbelt snapped during the ride," explained the man grasping Quatre's arm, "but perhaps we should get out of the boat? The line is moving along quite rapidly."

The young employee immediately awoke from his stupor and called to, Quatre could only assume, the lead operator, "Call management! A seat belt snapped on raft 44, we need to get it out of the line immediately and notify the engineers."

Quatre stood on his own, even though the employee looked decidedly nervous about that, "If you're injured you can stay put. We'll hold the ride."

"I'm actually feeling a little sick. Can I leave the raft please? I'm not injured at all."

The employee hesitantly nodded and then assisted Quatre out of the raft. Quatre thanked him after feeling reassuringly hard ground beneath his feet. The other passengers soon followed. The employee told them in the most polite terms to leave, with the exception of Duo, who stayed because he was Quatre's traveling companion.

"Management will contact Safety. I expect they'll make a report. Shouldn't be too bad. With no injuries or casualties, this probably won't reach OSHA."

The employee could've been talking in tongues to Quatre. He had little idea what OSHA was, but knew that he feared only one word: report.

"Do I have to stick around to make a report?" Quatre's voice faltered.

The employee looked at him with raised eyebrows, "Well, yes. That's protocol, isn't it?"

Quatre and Duo exchanged glances. The last time they had been on a ride, they definitely hadn't gone through this procedure.

A dour, pudgy man soon arrived on the scene, hastily urging Quatre and Duo off the moving platform and into a small office. The little man began to make his report, and by the end of it, Mr. Daigonegellwas the first person in the Disney Parks to realize that Quatre Raberba Winner was visiting.

Day 4 12:30 PM

Quatre and Duo walked about as if in a daze, arguing things out, trying to make sense of what had just happened to them, wondering how their perfect vacation was continually being derailed.

"That Mr. Daigonegell is going to cause some sort of trouble, I just know it," Quatre hissed as they wandered around pathways, heads down and voices muted, "did you see his face when I gave him my name? Quatre Winner, son of the Senator Winner, is here is Disneyworld and not even the tabloids know! I bet he can't wait to get on the phone, tell the papers, tell his family, tell my family. What if he decides that me being injured is a good reason to get in contact with a very influential man? Do you know my dad wants to run for President?"

"Look, I think you're blowing things out of proportion here. First of all, you're paranoid, because your father doesn't know you're here, so you're terrified he's going to find out somehow – which he won't. You're eighteen! Mr. Daigonegell is under no legal obligation to contact your father. He didn't even ask for your father's contact information!"

"Anyone can get in contact with my father – he's a fucking Senator! He has all kinds of phone numbers and e-mail addresses posted everywhere. Sure, it might take a while to get through to him, but if it's an emergency regarding me…."

Quatre trailed off, before ending with, "My father is going to kill me."

Duo continued on a different train of thought, "I'm surprised this hasn't happened before, with the reports and all. I mean, the first accident we were involved in was a lot more serious than a snapped seatbelt. And yet I don't remember Safety being contacted."

Quatre began to feel uneasy, "I don't know what's going on Duo. It's like Disney is going Topsy Turvy."

"You don't think," Duo stopped suddenly in his tracks, "that someone's trying to sabotage Disney?"

Quatre looked at him blankly, "Sabotage…Disney?"

"Yeah, blemish their record or put them out of business or something?"

"And all of these sabotage efforts somehow happen with me involved?"

"No, I mean, maybe the staff is corrupted or something. The life guards weren't watching the pool, Safety wasn't notified or didn't care to come down to the Dino ride, and the only reason Safety was contacted here was because of that one employee. Remember, the one who first came to our boat? The others didn't look to happy about his pushiness, did you notice?"

"No," Quatre said dryly, "and what you're proposing is ridiculous. A huge number of staff is in on some secret scheme to bring down the very company that employs them, and no one else has caught on?"

Duo pouted, "It's sure better than your idea. You think some secret operative – a blond guy with no fashion sense – is conspiring to bring you down even though no one was informed you were coming here?"

"Duo," Quatre suddenly stopped, nearly keeling over in his realization, "Duo – tons of people know I'm here!"

Quatre took out his wallet and thrust his tickets at Duo, "Look, the tickets are in my name. The guy who takes our tickets at the entry knows that I'm here. And the room! The lady who checked us in at the hotel, she saw my name on the computer, saw both our names listed on our reservation."

Quatre covered his face in his hands, "Oh my God. I'm doomed"

Duo lightly bumped against his shoulder, as if the physical contact could reassure him, "I'm sure it's against Disney's privacy policy to suddenly scream to the world 'look who's visiting!'. I hardly think you have to worry about the hotel lady running to the tabloids."

"Weren't you the one who was just saying the staff is part of a conspiracy?"

"Against Disney, not against you."

Quatre had to slump down against a bench, "Duo, that belt was cut. After the ride, I looked back at the seatbelt. It was a clean break – no fraying. Whatever made that seatbelt snap, it wasn't old age."

"So you're saying that someone cut the belt with a knife before you went on?"

"Not all the way through, obviously. But someone probably cut a little into the belt, and then my weight made it snap apart completely."

Duo shook his head, and then began smoothing his jaw with his hand. Quatre let him think in peace as they walked to the Restaurantosaurus.