Warnings: For this story? Surely not…..

Note: many, many thanks to every one who has been reviewing, and to KS, fearless destroyer of dots, semi-colons and typos!

Chapter 38:

I love Maggie. I really do. Unfortunately, she has a few less than endearing habits, one of which being her favourite way to wake me up in the morning. Coming to consciousness with a dog's warm, moist tongue in one's ear is not precisely pleasant.

'Ugh. Maggie, go 'way.' I mutter.

'You know, I'm starting to get worried about what I'm doing wrong,' a deep, male, human voice informs me. 'You don't want me to kiss you, and then you fell asleep on me last night. Is there anything you need to tell me?'

Oh no. oh no. I actually fell asleep. He'll never forgive that. No one could ever forgive that. 'I'm so sorry,' I gasp, before registering the grin on his face. Miraculously, he's not really upset with me.

'Well, you did have a long day,' he says kindly. 'I was conceited enough to think I might hold your interest, but I guess I was flattering myself.'

'No!'

'Hmm. Maybe not,' he concedes. 'You seem to be..interested in me this morning.'

'I am,' I can't help blushing as Trowa studies the most…interested part of my anatomy.

'How about we see how long I can hold your attention this morning?'

He holds it for a creditably long time. Actually, this time, we manage to hold each other's attention. And afterwards, we just hold each other.

'Didn't you want to…you know?' I ask quietly, wrapped in his arms. Duo wouldn't believe how forward I'm being.

'Of course I did. I do. That was just a taster, honey. We've got all morning, right? We can take things slowly.'

'I like the sound of that.' I trail one finger across his chest, tweaking a nipple on the way. This is amazing. I'm naked, in bed, with my perfect, perfect boyfriend, and flirting with him. 'And I like the way you taste.'

'Likewise.' We share a deep, deep kiss, proving beyond doubt just how very much we like the way we taste. 'Let's see what else you like, hmm?'

Where Trowa is concerned, I apparently like anything he cares to do. Until something under the bed starts to beep insistently.

'Fuck! My pager! I have to call work.'

'Cathy? What's wrong?' As she says something, his expression changes, and he gropes for his jeans. 'Yeah, I know where it is. I'll be there as soon as I can. Right, I'm on my way.'

'What's wrong?' I ask, sitting up in bed and watching him trying to get dressed with one hand while switching off his 'phone with the other.

'That was Cathy,' he says, rather unnecessarily. 'One of the top mares at the Noventa racing stable is having problems foaling. I'm really, really sorry but I have to go. There's no one else; Mark's away, Lindsey's little daughter is sick and Cathy has a clinic this morning. I'm sorry.'

'So am I.' I hope this comes out quite as heartfelt as I mean it to. Judging by the look on Trowa's face as he bends to kiss me, I succeed. 'Do you know how long you'll be?'

'I can't say, really. It sounds like this one's going to be tricky. Do you want to hang around and wait for me, or go home?'

'I think I'll go home.' I say it reluctantly. I don't really want to leave; the futon is deliciously warm and smells of Trowa. But it seems rather forward to stay here without him.

'I'll call you when I'm done, OK?' He takes my face between both hands and kisses me.

'I don't want to go. But, I swear, I'll make this up to you, love.' And then he's gone.

Half an hour later, showered and dressed, I'm driving back home. He called me love. I know it was really just a throwaway comment as he was rushing off, but still. He said it.

'I think I'm falling in love with him, too,' I inform Maggie, who ignores me, in favour of watching the scenery rush past. Still, I know she likes him really. Instead, I twiddle the radio to try to find some nice, sappy music to match my mood.

Everything is perfect. Well, almost perfect. And, after all, he could call me in a few hours and I could be renewing my acquaintance with the futon. The futon and its owner. Or tenant, I suppose, since Wufei actually owns the thing.

A tiny part of me is actually rather hoping it doesn't happen tonight. I want our first time to be perfect. Granted, I'm sure it will be, whatever the circumstances, but we both have work tomorrow. I have essays to mark, and I have to sort out laundry. We'll both have to drag ourselves out of bed early.

I wonder if Trowa would mind waiting another week? It would just be so perfect if we waited until we got to Nova. I've even decided what bedroom we'll have; it has a real fireplace, and a little balcony overlooking the sea, and if you leave the doors open, you can hear the waves. And there's a little skylight directly over the bed so you can lie and watch the stars.

Oh dear. Duo would tease the life out of me if I told him how I have all this carefully planned. It probably is rather silly…but I just want everything to be special and romantic and utterly perfect. On cue, my 'phone rings, displaying Duo's number.

'Quatre, where are you? At Barton's?'

I blink at Heero's curt tone. 'No. I'm on my way home.'

'Is everything all right?'

'I'm fine. What's wrong?'

'We need you to call over. As soon as you can.'

'What? Oh, God, is there something wrong with Duo?'

I can hear a brief scuffle on the other end of the 'phone, and then Duo is talking to me.

'No, nothing like that. We need to tell you something; that's all.'

'At this time on a Sunday? Can't it wait? I was planning to take Maggie home and then…'

'It's about Trowa,' Heero cuts in. 'Quatre, we found out something that we think you should know.'

'Oh, not this again!' I groan. 'Please, just give it a rest. I don't need this right now.'

'Let me talk to him!' Duo interrupts. 'You're no good at this, Heero. Listen, Quat, just call over, OK? We'll make you breakfast.'

Twenty minutes later, I pull up outside their house, still fuming. Why am I so incapable of refusing him anything? I just want to clear up whatever their latest bizarre theory is and go home and wait for my boyfriend to call me.

They are both waiting at the front door, wearing matched expressions of concern. Even Shin, sitting at Duo's feet, looks slightly worried. Which is a difficult expression for a border collie to achieve.

'What's all this about?' I demand, following them into the kitchen. 'Honestly, I don't care if you've discovered that Trowa's a pregnant alien or something. He's my boyfriend and I'm happy and he makes me very happy and…'

'He doesn't exist,' Duo says flatly.

'What?' Oh, no. It's finally happened. Heero's managed to infect Duo with all his bizarre conspiracy theories about the universe and my best friend has gone insane. Maybe they can get to share a room in the psychiatric hospital? 'Duo, you're being ridiculous. You know Trowa exists. You've met him. You've been to his home. Of course he exists!'

'That's not what he means!' Heero glares at his partner. 'I told you to let me handle this! Quatre, you'd better sit down and I'll tell you. Listen, Odin's been trying out a new software package over the weekend. It pulls up information from all sorts of databases, public and private, and gives a full profile of someone's life.'

'Isn't that illegal?' I wonder. I like Odin, I really do, but he's worse than Heero. And he has some very strange friends. When I go to his house for chess tournaments, I'm always afraid one of them might shoot me for beating him.

He looks a tiny bit uncomfortable. 'Not really, no. It doesn't give out any information that can't be found out in other ways. Anyway, that's immaterial. He ran Trowa through the system and nothing came up. Nothing,' he repeats impressively.

'That doesn't mean anything! There's probably some sort of glitch in the programme. You said yourself it was new. Besides, what was he doing researching Trowa?'

'He just needed some names, and he had Trowa's on file from when he did the DNA analysis. Quatre, he thought it was a problem with the system too, but he'd already looked up the three of us, plus Zechs and the girls and it worked perfectly.'

Bah, I can't believe they dragged me over here for something this trivial. 'I wish you'd tell Odin to stop using me as a guinea pig. In this country, people have a right to personal privacy.'

'You don't have anything to hide, do you?' he asks curiously.

'That isn't the point! And this whole thing is ridiculous. You can't claim Trowa doesn't exist just because some stupid computer has a bug in its system.'

'It's not just that,' Duo says. 'Odin thought it was a problem with the software, but all the other names had come up perfectly, so he ran Trowa's name through a few other databases and nothing came up. No records at all. Nothing.'

'So? You're being paranoid as usual. I'm not sure if Trowa was even born in Sanque. He might not be registered here at all.'

'That doesn't matter.' Heero shakes his head. 'Even if he was born somewhere else, Quatre, he's living and working here now. There would have to be some record of him. Driving license, social security number. A work permit if he's not really a Sanque citizen. Something.'

'Are you making this up?' I ask suddenly, wondering if it's one of Duo's jokes. So- called jokes.

'No, we're being serious.' Duo holds my gaze. 'Really, Kitty Quat. I was sure Odin had just goofed up somewhere, but he's checked everything. Even combinations of Trowa's name, initials and stuff, and he found nothing.'

'This is insane! Quite insane. He has a job, a sister, I even know his best friend a little bit. Look, you know where he works. Why don't you just hack into their personnel database and look at his records.'

Oh, God. I can't believe I just said that. I'm as bad as they are. But this is…getting a little scary. I don't really believe all of this, obviously; there has to be an innocent explanation. I just…can't see it at the moment.

'We already did,' Heero sighs. 'And nothing. There are four vets employed there; three women and one man in his fifties. No mention of Trowa.'

'Of course he works there! It's where we first met. This is all a stupid misunderstanding. What are you implying; that he's conned everyone in his entire life, including his sister? Or that they're all in on this…deception or whatever you think it is? Why the hell would he do something like that? Do you think he's a terrorist or something?'

'I think he wanted to get close to you.'

Oh no. Oh, no. This is just getting insane. Even more insane. 'Please. Tell me you're not serious. Why the hell would he do something like that?'

'Because of who you are,' Duo puts in quietly. 'Because of who your family is.'

'You think he wants to …abduct me? That's crazy. Apart from anything else, my parents would probably be quite happy if I vanished, so I can't imagine them paying out any ransoms.'

'Quat, just chill, OK?' Duo slides an arm around my shoulders, and I shiver. The last person who touched me like that was Trowa. Who may not be who he says he is. 'We'd pay any ransom for you, wouldn't we, Heero?'

'If anyone ever hurt you, Odin and I would destroy them,' Heero tells me.

'Um..thank you.' I say politely. This is getting more surreal by the second.

'We don't know what the fuck is going on,' Duo says quietly. 'Maybe there is some sort of explanation. We're just worried about you. And we need to find out what's going on with Trowa.'

Heero pushed the heavy, unruly bangs away from his forehead. 'There are actually a few reasons why he might want to get close to you. You are very good friends with the Prince and Princess of Sanque, after all. Maybe he's trying to get to them?'

'Stop it! Just fucking stop it, all right?' I shove Duo away, and watch their eyes widen at my little outburst. 'I'm a friend of Odin's too, aren't I? Maybe Trowa is trying to get to him through me? Have you thought of that?'

Heero's face actually drains of all colour. Ah, he apparently hadn't thought of that particular scenario.

'He doesn't mean that,' Duo says quickly. 'Listen, babe, why don't you take the dogs into the garden for a minute? Let me talk to Quat, OK?'

Once Heero has left, the dogs trailing behind him, Duo comes over and pulls me into a hug.

'This isn't some sort of stupid wind-up, is it?'

'Hell, no. I wouldn't do that to you. I know how much you like this guy.'

'I think it's gone beyond liking at this stage,' I admit, and he sighs.

'Yeah, I kinda suspected that. Did you sleep with him last night?'

'No. I meant to, but things kept going wrong.'

'What?' Duo gives me a curious glance. 'Even if you've forgotten what to do, I thought he'd know.'

'I haven't forgotten! We just kept getting interrupted.' At the time, I was close to screaming with frustration; now, maybe it's for the best that it didn't happen. I have no idea what to think.

The stupid part of me that has watched far too many horror films with Duo is suggesting that Trowa is a demon who wanted to have sex with me so he can suck out my soul.

Although maybe it's not much more ridiculous than the theory that he's a kidnapper.'

'I'm sorry, Quat. I'm really sorry we had to tell you all this shit. But you're my best friend. You're the most important person in my life, besides Heero and I care about you. We're going to sort this out, I promise. We just need to find out what exactly is going on. You know what Heero's like; he sees government conspiracies in the colour of the sky, but there does seem to be something sketchy going on. Maybe you should just ask Trowa straight out what it's all about?'

'No way!' Heero, who's obviously been listening outside, snaps. 'He's not going anywhere near Barton, or whoever he is, until I say it's safe. Understood, Quatre?'

I nod, silently. I do know I should object to this display of high-handedness, but it's actually rather warming to know he cares about me that much.

'Wait a sec,' I say, desperately clutching at straws. 'You said Odin checked out Trowa's DNA against all these criminal databases and there was nothing. Doesn't that mean he's not a criminal?'

'Or that he's too clever to be caught,' Heero says sourly.

'I think that you should talk to him, Quat. Just ask him what's going on and see what he says.'

'And how exactly do I bring up the subject?' I ask sarcastically. 'Tell him that my best friend's boyfriend stole a blood sample from him and that his stepfather's been running background checks on what's probably an illegal tracking system?'

The three of us study the table in silence. This is not…how I wanted today to turn out. If Cathy hadn't paged Trowa, we'd still be in bed together.

'Cathy!' I exclaim. 'We can ask her. We can find some way to bring up the subject and..'

'If she's involved, she'll let Trowa know we're on to him. And if she's not, then it might be dangerous for her.'

'Oh.' I spend a few more minutes gazing the knotted pine table. This isn't happening; this can't be happening. I'm a music teacher. I have a quiet life. I don't know how to handle this sort of thing.

'I think I need to talk to him.' I say finally, before Heero comes up with any bright ideas about torturing Trowa to get answers.

He nods. 'Not alone. In a public place, with us both as backup. And I want you to wear a wire.'

This is all stupid. I can't believe how stupid it is. I'm falling in love with Trowa. I trust him. I trust him not to hurt me. He's been nothing but patient and considerate and gentle; he doesn't deserve that I doubt him.

Except I trust Duo and Heero, too. And they're worried about me.