The Urchin: Part Seven

By Banshi

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The next day found them rounding up available funds from some of Duo and Trowa's "war chests", as Duo had called them. Between distributing food and asking around about police, there was little else they could do.

Between the two of them they still couldn't get the kind of money they needed for ID's on such short notice, and they had no idea what to do about the "home address" angle.

The word had gotten out to the kids, both about the mandate and that Duo and Trowa were trying to help. Some even brought mail that was being delivered to abandoned buildings, giving some leeway with the ID requirements.

It wasn't enough, but it was a start. Two days before deadline, only half of the neighborhood kids had ID's. Leslie and her staff had helped out by taking kids to precincts all over town and acting like concerned parents. The places were so swamped that nobody noticed that the same little old lady was bringing in different children three times a day. At least, Duo hoped they were too busy to notice.

Benjamin had been one of the first, and one of ten to have Duo's home address on their ID cards. The kid had taken that as an invitation, and when his clinic bed was needed, he moved onto Duo's couch, which moved Trowa back onto the second futon in Duo's room. Once, Duo commented that maybe he shouldn't have bothered moving when the boxes got cleared out.

Trowa had replied by asking the braided one if he had any extra futons for the other nine children. It had been fun watching Duo rush around in a panic.

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Duo was absently chewing on some beef jerky, watching Trowa and Ben try to organize lunch with the next-door rugrats. He was supposed to be coming up with a brilliant plan to get ID's for the rest of the kids, but so far all he had thought of was that Trowa looked absolutely gorgeous in the fake-twilight.

He shook his head to clear it, silently berating himself for inappropriately-timed drooling.

As far as he could tell, they needed at least two more permanent addresses and over two-hundred credits. The last round of children had nearly bled his resources dry, and the deadline was tomorrow. There wouldn't be enough time for him to transfer the funds from his sealed accounts. He banged his forehead on the table, and let it stay there, trying to get himself to think. He was moving to bang his head again when a quiet voice interrupted him.

"Don't do that. Giving yourself a concussion won't help anybody." He looked up and met Trowa's deep green eyes, shaded with concern. It made his heart leap and a cold stone drop into the pit of his stomach.

"I just don't know what to do. The deadline's tomorrow and there aren't any more mailing addresses in this area, and I only have forty credits left." He felt proud of himself for keeping the whine out of his voice, even if it didn't fool Trowa.

"Then we call in the big guns."

"I know, we should be getting Quatre, Relena and them into the picture, but too much attention is bad. They'll be looking very close at everything in the neighborhood, and that could put the kids in danger." He felt helpless, and he hated feeling helpless.

"So we call Quatre and Wufei, and tell them to be covert."

Duo opened his mouth to point out how that wouldn't work...and closed it again when he couldn't think of anything. After a moment he opened it again.

"It's so simple, it can't possibly have been that simple." He looked back up at Trowa's eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. "Why the hell didn't I think of that!"

He felt a grin stretch his face and knew he was showing off all of his pearly-whites. Then he bounced out of his chair and over to his friend, throwing his arms around his tall friend and planing an enthusiastic kiss on his mouth. All without realizing what he had done, he let go and bounced away, muttering to himself.

"Beautiful genius, that is brilliant! I'm going to go call Quatre." And he left to do just that.

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Trowa found himself standing alone and in shock in the middle of the kitchen. His lips tingled, and he was finding it hard to breathe.

Well, he hadn't expected that.

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continued in part eight