Disclaimer; I wish it were otherwise, but tragically they don't belong to me.

Note: Apology for the long delay between chapters, although since I did say I wouldn't be posting at all in June, this one is actually a week or so early!

Many thanks, as per usual to my alpha-plus beta readers, Snow and KS, and to everyone who's been wishing me luck on my course. Only one more week to go...

Proposals, Propostions.

Zechs killed the satellite connection, watching Noin fade from the screen and feeling vaguely guilty. She'd always done whatever he asked, even knowing he could never be what she truly wanted; and he was still exploiting that, asking her to risk her career for his sake. She was to lead the investigation into Quatre Winner's disappearance, and he'd asked her to find some way to keep Trowa appraised of any findings,and to turn a blind eye to his presence on L4. He knew she'd manage to do it; she would have full charge of the case, answerable only to Commander Une, definite proof of how far she'd risen with the Preventers.

After seven years, Noin was still committed to Relena's ideals of peace, while Zechs himself had retired from that particular battleground. The world could take care of itself, while Zechs Merquise devoted himself to the dark-eyed young man who had stolen his soul.

Wufei. They'd made up their quarrel that morning, in the most pleasurable way imaginable, even if they had been interrupted by Duo barging in at the worst possible moment. Well, that wouldn't happen tonight; Wufei's bags had been transferred to the Royal Suite, and Zechs already had delightful schemes mapped out in his head involving the sunken marble bath, and that enormous, ornately-carved bed. There was even a chaise-lounge in the bedroom, and Wufei would look quite deliciously inviting sprawled naked among the silken cushions.

Of course, the setting was immaterial; his lover would still be captivating dressed in sackcloth, or in one of those awful, shapeless Chinese-style garments he'd once affected. Zechs had spent weeks, when they first moved in together, waging a surreptitious guerrilla war on Wufei's wardrobe, and those voluminous tunics and trousers had been the first items to go.

Yes, he would sweep Wufei off his feet in every way imaginable, behind the barred and bolted doors of their suite, and they would forget the world for an evening. Zechs leaned over and rang the ball to summon Carlsson, the embassy butler.

The man arrived, a few moments later, bowing his way into the room. 'Prince Milliardo? The Ambassador wondered if you and Mr. Chang wished to join him for dinner this evening?'

'Not tonight, no; please thank his Excellency and convey our regrets.' Zechs fished a small piece of paper out of one pocket. 'We'll dine in our suite; if you could arrange this.' He handed over the menu he'd planned earlier, carefully composed of all Wufei's favourite foods.

Carlsson nodded, glancing over the list. 'Certainly, your highness. If I might make one suggestion, sir, we do have a selection of excellent vintage champagnes in the wine cellar, if you would prefer an alternative to the Bollinger 171?'

'No, the 171 is fine,' Zechs permitted himself a slight smile. It was a somewhat inferior vintage, of course, but it did have a certain amount of sentimental value and it would make Wufei laugh. 'We'll dine at six.' Rather early for dinner, perhaps, but if things went to plan, they'd be retiring early for a private celebration.

Or possibly just to sleep; he'd been unable to rest the previous night after a couple of hours spent charming the worthy ladies of Sanque, most of whom had known his parents and insisted on sharing their reminiscences of the good old days.

Zechs had eventually managed to stem the torrent of memories by mentioning the art exhibition they'd attended in Sanque, and Wufei's purchase, a truly hideous object that belonged in a fireplace with flames licking around it, but apparently it had some value as the last piece of work carved by some woman before her death. She was no great loss to the art world, in Zechs' opinion, but the women had gushed about her lamentably unappreciated talent, and had been charmed when he'd offered it to lend it for an art show they were sponsoring. With any luck, a genuine art-lover would drop a lighted match in the thing's vicinity and that would be that.

'Of course, Prince Milliardo.' Carlsson bowed politely, making a note on the menu. 'And I've had the floral arrangements changed. The housekeeper wished me to convey her apologies for the roses in your suite.'

Zechs nodded his thanks. Odd how it was always the little things that stirred reminders of Treize. Roses, always. A particular breed of gundog. The ruby glints of wine in a crystal glass. 'Is that everything?'

'There was one small matter, your Highness. The chambermaid who cleaned your suite this morning was rather uncertain as to what she should do with the … tree branches in your bathtub. Do you wish them to remain there?'

'Branches?' Zechs asked dubiously. 'In our bath?' It was presumably some new aromatherapy practice of Wufei's although it sounded somewhat excessive to drag whole trees into the house. Still, he'd been under a lot of stress lately, and maybe he'd needed something rather more extreme than the usual scented oils and candles. 'Leave it for now, Carlsson, and I'll ask Mr. Chang. Is he still on the south terrace?'

'Yes, your Highness. I believe he just ordered tea.'

'Very well.' The south terrace was especially charming in late afternoon; it overlooked a series of terraced lawns, fringed by drifts of daffodils, which led down to the water gardens. With the sun bearing down on his fluid, black hair, the object of his search and all his dreams sat at a small table, surrounded by manuscripts and delicate porcelain.

Zechs watched, quite enchanted, as the slim, graceful hands turned a page of the text and drank in the other man's beauty as he sipped from a teacup. He found his lover a most inviting creature, and took a moment to find the right words to greet him. First impressions were not overrated; Wufei had captivated him from their first meeting and nothing had changed since.

'I know you're there.' Wufei didn't look up, but the faintest flush warmed his cheeks and one corner of his mouth curled slightly, kissably.

'You know how much I like watching you,' Zechs pulled out a chair for himself and leaned over to steal a quick kiss. 'You're looking very academic.'

'Am I?' Wufei offered a slightly distracted smile, removing the spectacles and drifting back to the present from wherever he'd been in pre-colony history. 'Will you have some tea?'

Zechs accepted a cup. 'This is very… civilised.'

'Isn't it? Did you speak to Noin?'

Zechs nodded. 'She wasn't particularly surprised when I told her what Trowa's planning to do. He hasn't been officially charged with anything in Italy, so technically he is free to leave, although he is supposed to keep the Florence Preventers notified of his whereabouts. Noin may be able to pull some strings on L4 to have the restraining order dropped. She seems to think it may be invalid since Winner is no longer there anyway.'

'Thank you for that. Not that Trowa will care about the legal aspect if he thinks Quatre's in danger but he doesn't need to get into any more trouble.' Wufei stroked one finger around the rim of his cup. 'I'm worried about Quat,' he confessed quietly. 'Duo and I were talking about him last night. Perhaps I should have tried harder to stay in contact with him.'

'You did try,' Zechs argued. 'I was there, dear one. You and Duo were constantly trying to arrange a meeting, or even a proper conversation..'

'Perhaps it wasn't enough. He has been a .. very good friend to both of us in the past, and I feel I never really reciprocated.' He sighed. 'What else did Noin say?'

'She'd just landed on L4. I don't envy her that job it's a political minefield, of course, considering who Winner is. Apparently, there are already rumours going around that this has been masterminded by the ESUN, given how much he's been criticising their policies lately. Anyway, she's meeting some of his sisters later, she has a team of agents with her to go through Winner's correspondence and appointments, in case something useful turns up.' He grinned. 'I told her you and Duo said he's been behaving oddly for the past year or so, and that she'd need to analyse that whole time period. She's going to call Une with a request for extra resources.'

'Une's going to love that! Especially as it was suggested by her two least favourite people.'

'I'm sure Noin can come up with a sufficiently plausible reason to convince her.. Relena told her about us, by the way.'

'I think she already knew, love,' Wufei teased, smiling slightly.

'About us planning to make it official. You don't mind, do you?'

Wufei shrugged. 'It's hardly a secret. I've told Trowa and Sally, and you've told the Sanque parliament. What did Noin think?'

'She's happy for us. I did tell her that congratulations were slightly premature, until I ask you properly.' Zechs swallowed a mouthful of tea. 'And until you decide you want to accept.'

'I already know I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' Wufei's dark gaze was very direct. 'Does that count as acceptance?'

'You're quite sure?'

'Of course I am. Mil! You didn't truly think I'd changed my mind, did you?'

'Not exactly. But you have been … rather distracted since we first spoke of it.'

'Well, life has been…rather hectic since we first spoke of it,' Wufei echoed. 'But everything that's happened since then has only served to convince me just how very lucky I am to have you. I love you. I always will. And it does scare me, sometimes,' he swallowed, his dark eyes deep and soft as velvet midnight, 'that I can no longer imagine my life without you.'

'I know. Truly. I don't want to rush you into anything if it's too soon.'

'I've said yes, Mil,' Wufei squeezed his hand. 'Stop that, or I'll start to think you're having second thoughts.'

'Never,' Zechs said fervently, leaned over to kiss Wufei's sweetly curved lips. 'I've wanted you from that very first moment I saw you?'

'Masochist, aren't you?' Wufei took Zechs' hand and kissing the ring finger of his left hand. 'I seem to remember slamming you against the wall, and trying to throttle you.'

'I did rather like the first part,' Zechs purred. 'And you considerately left me just enough air to ask you out.'

'Blackmail me into accepting, rather; threatening to hit on Duo if I refused. Oh, I forgot, Duo called, while you were talking to Noin.' His brow creased slightly. 'I said Trowa had 'phoned, looking for him, and I'm not sure it was a good idea. You know how he feels about Quat; he'll probably want to go to L4.'

'He wouldn't do anything that stupid,' Zechs reassured him. He stood suddenly, standing behind Wufei's chair and sliding both hands under his lover's hair. 'And even if he wanted to, Heero wouldn't let him.'

'I suppose.' Wufei let his head drop forward, as Zechs' fingers began to unravel knots of tension in his neck and shoulders. 'Ah, that's good. Thank you.'

Zechs smiled, kissing the top of the shining dark head. 'It's pure selfishness on my part, love. I have plans for this evening and I'd rather you didn't have a headache.'

'How did you know?'

'You've got that little frown, just here,' Zechs touched one fingertip to the little furrow between the dark brows. 'And you've been sitting out in the sun all afternoon, squinting at unintelligible writing. And you're worried about your friends.' He kissed Wufei's forehead. 'We'll sort it out. Noin will keep an eye on Trowa and Heero won't let Duo out of his sight.'

'That's the one good thing about them going out together,' Wufei muttered. 'Yuy won't let him do anything illegal, at least.'

'Did Duo say how they were getting on?'

'All right, apparently. They're having ice-cream.' Wufei made it sound like he was describing some unspeakable perversion. 'I should have talked Duo out of the whole idea. He has more than enough to worry about right now without Yuy turning his life upside down.'

'It is Duo's choice, ultimately.' Zechs spoke a little tentatively. It had been made very clear to him that morning that Duo was primarily Wufei's territory and that any infringement would be considered an act of blatant hostility.

Wufei snorted. 'You know what he's like. Even after what Heero did, I think he still harbours all sorts of ridiculous notions about how they were soul-mates. Ridiculous,' he repeated emphatically.

'They were both very young, 'Fei. I'm sure they both made mistakes. But people can change. The first time we went out, you said that I'd made mistakes and paid for them. Don't you think Heero deserves a second chance?'

'It isn't remotely the same! You were incarcerated and treated appallingly. Heero been getting on with his life quite happily for years and he's never given Duo a second thought until now.'

'Dear one, what happened between the two of you? I know you were friends once. You even worked as partners in Preventers.'

Wufei's lip curled. 'Hardly that. We worked together on a couple of assignments, nothing more. We were never friends.'

'Then why are you so opposed to them getting back together?' Zechs argued. 'If Duo truly thinks that being with Heero may make him happy, and Heero wants a chance to try, why not let them have another chance?'

'Because you don't know what it was like,' Wufei snapped. 'You didn't see Duo after they'd broken up. No one did! Not even Quat; I was the one who had to put him back together.'

'He was on the rebound after Heero,' Zechs said gently. 'It's how some people deal with it. He went off the rails a little, that's all. He's told about it.'

'He told you what exactly? That he was drank a little too much, slept with a few strangers, took drugs once or twice?' Wufei's lip curled. 'Oh, I'm sure he made it all sound very entertaining. He wanted to die, Mil, because he couldn't face living without Heero. He'd promised Quat not to kill himself, so he went out looking for someone else to do it.'

Wufei shivered. Duo had almost succeeded twice, that he knew of. He'd found him passed out in an alleyway that first time, half naked and off his head on who-knew what-drug? He would have been dead of hypothermia if he'd been left there all night.

He'd almost accomplished it, the second time. Christmas Day 197. They'd spent two hellish days waiting outside the ICU until he'd finally stabilised; Wufei and Trowa and Quatre, all of them reliving the nightmare of what had happened the previous year.

'Fei?' Zechs' hands stilled; a warm, light presence on his lover's shoulders. 'I didn't know it was that bad.'

'Well, now you do,' Wufei snapped, standing abruptly and whirling around. 'And there is no way I'm going to let that happen to him again. 'I mean that, Milliardo. I'll be in the library. Alone.'

The memories were back in full spate before he'd even crossed the terrace; memories of those first months with a still raw and healing Duo Maxwell that were inextricably linked with the equally painful recollections of his abrupt departure from Preventers…

Two years almost, since he'd first put on the Preventers uniform and for the first time, he didn't hang it up carefully. Instead, it got kicked it under the bed. Oh, he'd retrieve it at some point, no doubt, and have it cleaned. Old habits died too hard.

He'd felt such pride, the first day he'd put it on. Pride, and a sudden renewed sense of belonging and purpose. Everything else was gone; everything that had sustained him during the War.

The right side of his closet held his row of Preventer uniforms, all neatly cleaned and pressed; nothing he'd ever wear again. On the left side hung his other clothes; formal clothing for official receptions and the like, and the loose, Chinese-style outfits he preferred to wear when off duty.

Nothing seemed quite right.

Eventually he chose an outfit he had bought for an undercover assignment. Duo had helped him pick it out; dark denim jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. The sort of clothing a student might wear; a young man with no more pressing worries than an overdue assignment. It made him look oddly young.

Wufei closed the door on orderly rows of uniforms, wondering what he could do with them. They were hardly the sort of clothes he could bundle up to donate to charity.

It hadn't been - altogether unexpected. Commander Une had been less than happy when he'd requested assignments that didn't involve him spending more than a night or two away from home. He'd stopped the exhaustive overtime so he could spend more time at home with Duo.

There had been complaints, both from fellow agents and commanding officers. No one could fault his performance, but his attitude apparently left a lot to be desired. He'd dutifully yawned his way through a couple of seminars on teamwork and cooperation, and promptly forgotten them.

Oh, the writing had been on the wall but he'd assumed he could keep his head down and survive the next seven or eight months before he took up his place at university.

The best laid plans…

He still couldn't believe what he'd done; just walked out of the Commander's office while she was still in mid-tirade. She'd covered insubordination, and was just getting her teeth into his assault on a superior officer when he just snapped. He hadn't actually said anything; just handed her his badge and his gun and he'd left the office with her still threatening disciplinary procedures and criminal charges.

Had Heero felt like this; the last time he removed his uniform? Hardly. After the terrorist attack on the first anniversary of peace, he'd decided to stay on with Preventers for a couple of months, both investigating the incident and implementing stringent new security procedures for Relena.

He'd finally resigned with honour, and the gratitude of Relena Peacecraft. There had even been a ceremony to honour his achievements; Commander Une had presented him with a medal and a smile and Relena had kissed his cheek in front of the world's media, glowing with pride.

There had been speculation about those two since the War ended, of course, but no concrete evidence. Not until she'd given him that very public kiss and Heero had taken her hand. The photographers had gone into a feeding frenzy; pictures of the couple gazed out from every newspaper the following day, accompanied by florid, sentimental prose.

Not one mention of Duo, then two months in a coma and kept alive by machines and Quatre Winner's money.

Wufei made his way downstairs slowly, averting his eyes from the disaster area that was Duo's bedroom. Even after four months of living together, he found it beyond belief that one person, who didn't even have a lot of possessions, could generate so much sheer chaos.

For the first few weeks after Duo had moved in, Wufei had scarcely seen him. He'd been secretly been dreading another presence invading his home, his sanctuary, but it was the least he could do, after everything Duo had been through. And Quatre had asked him and he'd crumbled at the imploring look in those soft blue eyes.

However, Duo had been a perfect guest, keeping mainly to his room when Wufei was home. It had been a relief, for those first few weeks, and then unsettling. Oh, he'd seen behind the elaborately-constructed Maxwell façade during the war, when they'd shared a cell, had seen glimpses of the real Duo, but he'd never imagined this wraith who wafted silently about his house.

Duo made an obvious effort to be polite and pleasant when they did meet, but it was obvious, even to Wufei, that he was merely going through the motions, that the spark just wasn't there anymore. It had taken a over a month for him to realise that Duo needed him, that someone needed him for the first time since Treize had chosen him to end his life.

'I was just about to call you. Dinner's ready,' Duo was standing at the kitchen table, unpacking a couple of brown paper bags. 'I got take out, I guessed you wouldn't feel like cooking tonight.'

He fetched a couple of plates from the dresser, and rummaged in the drawer for chopsticks. The limp was hardly noticeable now, thirteen months on, except when he was very tired. Over the past weeks, he'd been making what he called great strides (Wufei hadn't known that was a joke until Duo explained it) in his physiotherapy, and Wufei felt he deserved a little credit for that.

A few weeks before Christmas, he'd arrived home unexpectedly early, and found Duo sobbing on the couch. His physiotherapy session had gone badly; Duo had pushed himself too hard and collapsed. Normally, he would have mortified for Wufei to see like that; but that day, he'd cried on his shoulder while Wufei patted his arm awkwardly and assured him that of course, it would get better; that there was no question of him ending up as a cripple in the gutter.

He'd started to teach Duo the principles of Tai Chi that night, and enrolled them both in a gym with a full-size swimming pool and a programme of beginners' classes. After Duo's first class, where the instructor had touched Duo's arm to correct his stroke and Duo had half drowned them both, Wufei had taken over the swimming lessons. And somehow, somewhere along the way, they'd become friends.

'What did you order?' Wufei regarded the brown paper packages with some trepidation. Duo's taste in food could be - unusual. At least it didn't look like one of those awful pizzas he liked so much.

'Relax, 'Fei. I got those steamed dumplings you like, and that chicken and noodle thing you always order after a mission. And a side order of bamboo shoots.' He lifted the lid of one of the plastic containers with a flourish. 'I asked them to shove in a couple of beers as well.'

'You know I don't drink.' Wufei sat down, absurdly touched that Duo had remembered his favourite foods.

'Wu, after what you've been through today, I don't think one beer is going to hurt. It's just imported stuff with hardly any alcohol content.'

Wufei took a tentative sip. The taste wasn't overly unpleasant, but the bitter, yeasty smell made him shiver. It reminded him of those bars he'd had to visit when Duo had been going through that - phase, conjuring up memories he wanted very much to forget, of obscene suggestions, and men touching him.

'You OK?' Duo was looking at him, eyes full of concern. Those terrible bruises on his throat had almost faded, after five weeks, but he still looked fragile, the shadowed, purple eyes huge in a too-pale, too-thin face.

'I suppose.' Wufei made an effort and began to spoon noodles onto his plate, grateful for his friend's presence. At least he wasn't totally alone if Duo was there. 'I just - I feel like…'

'Like you've lost the whole focus of your life? The one thing that kept it all together?'

'Something like that.' Wufei swallowed a mouthful of chicken, trying to remember when he'd last bothered to eat.

'You haven't, not really. You were planning to resign anyway and go to university in the Fall. You can still do that.'

'I'll probably be behind bars by then,' Wufei said glumly. 'I told you what Une said, didn't I? She wants to lock me up and throw away the key.'

'No way,' Duo said firmly. He made a couple of attempts to snag a dumpling with his chopsticks and gave up, using his fingers instead. 'She won't want the publicity. Looks bad for Preventers if their poster boy gets hauled up in court for beating up a senior officer. Especially if the officer in question had been on the take from drug smugglers and was trying to sabotage a mission to cover his own tracks. Une was just tying to scare you.'

'She was right, though, about some things. I should have followed procedures instead of taking matters into my own hands.'

Duo shrugged. 'It's the best thing that ever happened if you ask me. And it's about time you got out. It's not as if you were happy working there.'

'No,' Wufei conceded. 'But I felt - useful.'

'Big deal. They treated you like shit and you're better off without them. Come on, Wu,' he cajoled. 'It's not that bad. This way you get to start your courses now, instead of having to wait 'til next September.'

'I can't. I know the university does take late admissions, but not this late. It's January; I've missed almost half the year.'

'Yeah, right,' Duo scoffed, ladling more bamboo shoots onto both their plates. 'Like they're going to refuse you after you aced all the entrance exams. You'll probably have to take some extra classes and make up the coursework, that's all.'

'How do you know all that?'

'I called Ellie when you were upstairs. You know her; the English girl in my physics class. She was here last week doing a project with me, remember? Well, she works part time in the Admissions office, doing filing and stuff, and she said they make exceptions for special cases. They'll be so glad you're not going off to Oxford or somewhere that they'll put down the red carpet for you. No problemo. You're sorted.'

'Really?'

'Really. It'll be great. We can eat lunch together and study in the library and I was thinking we could join the scuba diving club. They do great trips at weekends.'

'Duo! You couldn't even swim three weeks ago and now you want to go diving?'

'I had a really great coach,' Duo clinked his beer bottle against Wufei's. 'It'll be OK, Wu. I promise. You're going to love being a full-time student.' He grinned suddenly. 'And if you occasionally drag yourself out of the library, there're lots of cute guys around too.'

Wufei snorted at that. 'I hardly think so. I will be concentrating on my studies, not looking for a …a boyfriend.'

'You know, after all the soul searching you did being gay, it'd be a shame if you didn't actually get around to doing something about it. Seriously, see if you like the practice as much as the theory?'

'Duo!' Wufei's face flamed, vaguely conscious that Duo was being outrageous on purpose, finding a way to distract him from his other troubles.

Duo only grinned at him. 'Who was he, by the way? You've never told me.'

Wufei looked up, chopsticks poised halfway to his mouth. 'Who was what?'

'You know.. The first guy you fell for.' Duo rolled his eyes. 'In my experience, most gay guys have an epiphany when they see some hottie bend over.'

'Oh!' Wufei could feel the colour rising and took another swallow of beer. God, this conversation!

It was Heero.

Of course, he couldn't say that to Duo. He couldn't ever say that to Duo.

'It was - during the War. Trieze Khushrenda.'

'No shit!' Duo, far from being repelled or shocked, looked almost admiring. 'Old 13 himself! Bit old for you, wasn't he? Cute though, in that fancy uniform. Anything happen? In all those duels you two fought?'

'No! It was - it wasn't like that. I admired him; I tried to convince myself it was his code of honour, his skills as a warrior. That there was nothing else to it.' Wufei spoke resolutely, trying to quench that tiny voice in his mind that whispered …otherwise; trying to forget the shame he'd brought on his name and his ancestors, feeling an attraction to someone who was both male, and an enemy, and trying not to think of the man's magnetism, his charm…

'Yeah, right.. Well, he wouldn't be my type, but I can see he had this certain - something. And he was gay so he was actually a pretty good choice.'

'Treize was gay?' Wufei choked on a piece of shredded chicken. Treize!

'Duh! You really didn't know? He was shacked up with sexy Zechsy Merquise for years.' He grinned at Wufei. 'What about Zechs? He's cute.'

'Who?' Wufei asked, buying time. Dear gods, was Duo planning to ask about every man either of them had ever met?

'Oh. Six.' Duo said, elaborately slow and careful. 'You know. The Lighting Count. Zechs I'm-so-hot-my-Mobile-Suit-doesn't-need-thermal-flares Merquise. Or Peacecraft. Whatever.'

'Oh, him! No, too far too much hair,' Wufei teased, reaching out to flick Duo's braid. 'And he's in prison, isn't he?'

'Yeah,' Duo sobered up instantly. 'That place, what's it called? Liosgard. Poor sod. I've heard stories about that place. Might have been kinder just to kill him. Still, maybe he's lucky to be alive.'

'We all are,' Wufei said carefully. 'I thought - after the War - we would be tried. That if we survived at all, we would be treated as war criminals, after everything we'd done.'

'That's why you joined Preventers, right? To make amends. Heero was like that. You're like him in some ways, you know.'

'I'm nothing like him!' Wufei snapped, and then flinched at the look on Duo's face. 'Sorry,' he muttered, touching Duo's hand in a quick apology. Any mention of Heero was always a mistake; he cast about quickly for a way to distract him.

'I don't know if I can…' Wufei paused, willling his throat muscles to relax. This was so very difficult. 'Those places you go to…to meet men. I can't do anything like that.'

'I wouldn't let you! Not for one fucking minute. Look, Fei, just 'cause I'm screwed up, you don't have to be like that. It - doesn't have to be like that. And I there's no way I'm letting you do that sort of stuff.' Duo twiddled with the end of his braid. 'You know it doesn't have to be like that, right? Just think of Tro and Quat; the way they feel about each other. You deserve something like that.'

Wufei nodded uncertainly; disagreeing would only lead to more discussion, and Duo was probably right. He hadn't had the …best introduction to gay culture; he certainly couldn't imagine the refined, fastidious Quatre Winner in any of those places.

'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' Duo said suddenly. 'Quat 'phoned when you were in the shower. So did Sally.'

'They know what happened? Already?' Wufei wondered, aghast. Stupid question; of course, they would. Sally had left Preventers the previous year, but she still had plenty of friends working there who would keep her in touch with the gossip grapevine. And Noin would probably have told Trowa.

Duo nodded. 'It's OK. They're both on your side, you know that. I said you'd call them back when you'd got a few things sorted out. You should call Quat before it gets too late on L4 though. You know how he worries.'

'I will.' Wufei tipped back his beer bottle to reach the dregs. Maybe it was the alcohol, or Duo's company but he felt slightly less - frozen, than he had earlier. And the thought of talking to Sally and Quatre didn't seem quite so appalling. Neither of them would judge him, and Quat, who'd been trying to get him to resign for months, would probably agree with Duo.

'When you're cleared for space travel, we should really go to L4 and visit them. Would you like that?' he offered.

'Cool,' Duo beamed. 'It'd be nice to see them when I'm not in a hospital for a change. And I really want to see their new place.'

'Perhaps during the Easter vacation?' Wufei suggested. It felt odd, making plans that he could carry out on a whim, merely for pleasure. Odd but good. 'I'd like for us to be all together again.'

'Yeah,' Duo twisted his braid around in his fingers, eyes fixed on the table. 'I'll go call Quat, OK? I'll put you on in a few minutes.'

Wufei rose to tip the remains of his meal into the trash, silently cursing his own stupidity. What an idiotic thing to have said. Perfect, Chang. It had all been going so well and he'd had to say something like that. Only five weeks since Duo's last - incident, and he was still so very brittle. Still so obsessed with Heero. 'All together again', he'd said, without even thinking what it meant.

He'd known Duo's first Christmas without Heero would be hard for Duo. Christmas hadn't been celebrated on L5 and Duo didn't seem to care about the holiday, so they hadn't made any plans beyond a special meal, and then had spent over an hour talking to Trowa and Quatre by vid phone. Otherwise, they'd watched movies and eaten their way through the massive stockpile of junk food Duo had been stockpiling and very carefully avoided any mention of what had happened the previous year.

Duo had been a little quieter than usual; he'd talked privately to Quat for fifteen minutes at the end of the fourway conversation and gone off to bed shortly afterwards.

Wufei hadn't even known he'd gone out until the call came from the hospital. Duo, of course, still refused to speak about it, but Wufei had talked to the medical staff, and read his chart, and surfed some truly repulsive sites on the internet. It made him sick, to think of Duo submitting to those things. Duo, who couldn't bear any restraints, who didn't even like to be touched without notice.

Of course, there had been appalling amounts of drugs and alcohol in his system; he'd apparently been too far gone even to use something called a 'safe word'. Quat had somehow managed to kill the story before it reached the media, and convinced the doctors to register Duo's injuries as resulting from an accident, but they all knew that Duo had gone out that night wanting to die; that he'd tried living in a world without Heero for twelve months and couldn't do it any more.

Wufei hadn't understood back then, not really. He hadn't known what it would be like to have one's life so completely bound up with another person's; had found it an unimaginable, distasteful idea that he might ever give so much power to anyone else. And now it was a terrifying thing, to consider what his life might be like without Zechs in it.