Hello, readers! My writing is done, now it's just a matter of adding the HTML...more chapters will fly up into place very soon! =^_^=

Disclaimer #1: I don't own GW...*cries*...but if I DID own it, things would be SO different, but then again if "ifs and buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all weigh 300 pounds, so there. =P

Disclaimer #2: I was an English major, so when I write, I write wordy. You have been warned. =P

Disclaimer #3 (last one, I promise): This is a very confusing story. Gomen nasai. Don't get lost. =^_~=

~~~~~~~~~~

Relena stopped just outside Heero's door and drew a slow breath. Girls weren't allowed in this dorm, as a rule, so she was thankful to have made it this far without being escorted out. Even former queens should be allowed to bend the rules now and again.

She knocked. "Heero?" No response.

Opening the door a few inches, she peeked inside and spotted him, eyes glued to his laptop. "Heero..." she sang, "I brought you your dinner!" Relena took his lack of movement as an invitation to sit down and have a chat over cafeteria food.

Balancing two trays on her arms, she nudged open the door with her foot, walked over to the dresser and set down the food. She closed the door and sat down on Heero's bed, looking at him as if he would suddenly get up and start juggling knives any second. He did a good job of ignoring her for the better part of ten minutes until she spoke up.

"Come on, now, this is getting cold! I don't want to eat by myself!" Relena picked up her tray and smiled at him, an innocent, sickly sweet smile that made Heero lose what little appetite he had. He moved the laptop to one side of the desk, with resignation, and collected his own tray, gambling that if he cleaned his plate, she would leave him alone.

Satisfied and quite proud of herself, Relena began nibbling at her macaroni and cheese, and looking around the room. "Duo's not back yet, is he?" she asked out of politeness. She really had no idea why Duo had picked up and disappeared in the middle of the term. She got the impression that the two of them had a fight, but had no idea what it was about. "Well, I'm sure he'll make up for the time he missed sooner or later. I honestly don't know how he manages, with his study habits. Probably some of your better habits are rubbing off on him."

Heero looked up from his only partially-identifiable cafeteria fare. Something told him she meant that as a compliment towards him, but he wished she had phrased it differently. "Hn."

The dinner conversation wasn't much more interesting than that, but Relena saw it all as a rare treat. When she was forced to look at her life and see how much she really had to live for, Heero was coincidentally at the top of the list. She treasured the few minutes here and there that she was able to spend with him, their schedules being such that it wasn't very often they were both free at the same time. Duo's absence had caused her to make a special effort to be there for Heero, deciding that he needed company and a sympathetic ear, not that he made use of either. But still, she persisted.

After dinner, Heero went straight back to his laptop. Relena waited for another half hour, trying to stir the dying verbal embers into a dialogue, unsuccessfully. Saddened, she got up and stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screen. You never have so much time for me as for that thing, do you?, she thought. Sighing, she let her mind wander, skipping over fantasies of being together, and happy, they way she hoped they both wanted. Absentmindedly, she let her hands find their way to his shoulders.

Heero snapped to attention. Some reckless daredevil had laid hands upon his person. Omae o korosu. He slowly turned to look at Relena, face already fixed in a Deathglare, but the sight of her hurt face brought him the tiniest pang of guilt, just enough to look away, pick up his tray and hand it to her with a normal, rather blank expression. "Arigato."

Relena still looked hurt, but took the tray anyway. At least he spoke.

She left him to his precious computer and walked back to her own dorm the way she came, via the kitchens.

**********

Two months after running away from everything he thought he loved, a slim figure in black stepped back onto the campus lawn and eyed the buildings with a new perspective. I know it's all exactly the same as I left it, but... Duo ran a cool eye over the objects and people in his field of vision, mentally applying what he had learned on the beach. If I concentrate, I can see the molecular structure of everything here. He laid a hand on the bark of a tree and studied the branches overhead. What could I turn this into, if I was bored out of my skull? A hot dog stand? A shiny new BMW? Nah, not enough material for that...and too many moving parts to be bothered with. He shifted his gaze to the grass directly below the branches. Not to mention half of the darn thing would be underground.

He thought about going straight to see Heero, but shattered the idea almost immediately. Instead, he meandered across the grounds, looking at this person, and that person, thinking. Any one of them could be susceptible to his new-found powers now. He could make that one think he's a chicken, or make this one think she's falling off a cliff. Oh, the possibilities.

His eyes met those of a delectable young sophomore, and he gave the blond boy a classic Maxwell smirk. The youth smiled back briefly, then continued walking past Duo. The moment he was closest, Duo tugged at his mind hard enough to make him stop and whirl around, looking for the invisible hand that had just reached out and taken a chunk out of his consciousness. Duo grinned at him. "Someone just walked on your grave." he quipped. The boy looked confused, startled, and slightly afraid all at once. He left without saying anything.

Duo had to hold himself back to keep from laughing out loud. It was true! It really was true! The tiny victory made him want to experiment more, but just at that moment, a familiar voice snapped him back to reality.

"Duo! Over here!"

Scanning the grounds, he saw a pale girl in a light blue cardigan waving to him. Relena. Forgetting his experiment for the moment, he walked over to her out of sheer politeness.

Relena ran up to meet Duo and hugged him. He shrank away slightly, but she didn't seem to notice. "I'm so glad you're back! Things...haven't been well." They sat down at a picnic table, far away from distraction.

"What's up?" Duo asked, fully expecting a status report on enemy movements along the frontline, something like that.

Relena lowered her gaze. "It's Heero."

Great, just what I needed, Duo thought helplessly. Just when I train myself not to think about the guy..."Oh yeah? What's wrong with him, besides the usual?"

"He won't talk to me," she answered, "and I know what you're going to say, he doesn't talk to anyone. But this is...different. I've been thinking about him a lot, thinking we might actually have a...future together. D'you know what I mean?" she asked, not really expecting him to fully understand.

But he did understand. "Yeah, I guess so." He shrugged it off. Dammit, I didn't need to hear that from you.

Relena relaxed a bit, truly finding comfort in talking to Heero's closest friend. She went on for quite awhile about how she felt about him, how she wished he would throw her just some tiny scrap of affection. Like lookin' in a mirror, ain't it? Duo thought to himself.

And then, looking at her troubled face, as her lips moved constantly, uttering sounds he no longer bothered hearing, he had an absolutely wicked idea. They really had more in common than Duo had originally thought when he met the girl; much, much more. His lips curled into a fiendish grin, and when Relena stopped talking long enough to notice, she gasped audibly, nearly jumping off the bench.

"Duo....wh-what...." she stammered.

The grin remained. "How badly do you want Heero?" he asked. "What would you give to be with him?"

"Give?" The girl looked puzzled, and seemed to pale even more in the mid-day sun. "I...I don't understand...but..." She sank her chin into her chest in resignation, fighting back tears. "I would sell my soul."

Duo's eyes widened. Yes! Honestly, he had no interest in her soul, but for his purposes, the container it came in would do nicely. Trying to look the part of the comforting friend, he picked her tiny hands up out of her lap and clutched them gently. "I think," he purred, "I may be able to help you with that."

**********

Duo had a hard time finding someplace on campus that was secluded enough that they wouldn't be seen, but not so restricted that they'd be hauled off by the scruffs of their necks if they were caught there. After much deliberation and dragging Relena up and down the halls by the arm, he decided on one of the group study rooms in the library. There was room for half a dozen people, seated, and a thick metal door designed to keep the noise out. He was betting that it would keep noise in just as well. Shuffling around in a cabinet on the north wall, he took out a few sheets of paper and taped them over the little window in the door, making it impossible to see out or in. By this time, Relena was more than a little nervous, but politeness kept her from questioning these strange actions.

All the while, Duo kept waiting for Shinigami to hold him back and tell him that what he had in mind for himself and the girl in front of him was totally wrong, but no objection came. He leaned against the conference table with his arms folded and his legs casually crossed at the ankles.

"You'd really sell your soul to be with Heero?" He raised an eyebrow at Relena, making it more of an observation than a question.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, sounding genuinely worried now.

He raised a hand to stop her. "Lemmie ask you something. If I told you I could do something that would permanently change the way Heero looked at you, the way he spoke to you, everything...and that all you had to do was hold tight and trust me for awhile...would you do it?" That wasn't entirely correct; it wasn't all she had to do, but Duo was working on a need-to-know basis, and giving out too much information at this stage could sour the deal.

Relena looked frightened, then sad, then slowly nodded, never taking her eyes off him. It wasn't written in stone, or even a verbal agreement, but it was close enough. Duo took a step forward, rubbing his hands together slowly, brows knit in deep concentration. He raised his hands toward her face, and she actually backed up against the wall, startled.

"Calm down, will ya!?" he snapped.

"I-I'm sorry..." Her fear suddenly became overshadowed by her curiosity, and she stood quite still. Duo stood toe-to-toe with her and placed his hands gently around the sides and back of her neck, pushing her chin up so he could look her straight in the eyes. Relena lost herself in those deep, violet pools, unaware of anything except a growing sound in the back of her mind, inching closer...the sound of someone speaking in low, muted tones. After only a few moments, she realized it was Duo's voice, but his mouth wasn't moving. Sounds like Latin, she thought for a moment, but she knew it wasn't.

Dark purple tendrils began to creep into the edges of her vision, as she felt herself sinking...her eyes narrowed as if in pain, pleading against Duo's hypnotic glare. Whatever it was he was doing, she wanted him to stop, but she couldn't force any sound from her own throat. Her arms and legs went numb, her head began to pound, and she could no longer see the room she was in, or anything at all except his eyes. She was suddenly aware of him mouthing strange, alien words, in perfect time with the ghostly voice flooding her mind...growing louder...

Duo suddenly jerked her head forward and crushed his lips to hers. She let out a faint whimper before losing all muscle tone, collapsing against him. A great vortex opened in her mind pulling her away from what she recognized as herself, squeezing and twisting her spirit into a shape it was never meant to fill. Thunder and lightning streamed in from all sides, as well as from within. As the clouds settled and the horrendous din around her faded, she felt pressure against her arms...at least she could feel her arms again. They were lifting something heavy off the ground, something faintly warm, but she couldn't pry her eyes open to look at it. Giving in to fatigue, she crumpled to the floor; there was a harsh ringing in her ears and every nerve in her body felt as if it was on fire. She lay there, shivering in agony, for a long time.

Lying next to her on the dull, flat carpet, was Duo. His entire being was screaming against what he had just put himself through; the experience had been similar for him, but at least he understood it. If he could feel his face, he would have smiled.


~~~~~~~~~~

What did Shinigami teach this guy? =@_@=