Dragon Lady: Another chapter here we come. ^_^
Trowa: It's about time. You've been awfully lazy about this story.
Ken: It's why they call her the Queen of Procrastination, Trowa. -_-;; Just look at how she's left so many of my precious stories.
Dragon Lady: ^^;; *coughs* Yes, well, anyway.
Ken: And it doesn't help that she wasn't working on any stories this weekend. You had a three day weekend and you only got ONE of your stories updated?
Dragon Lady: *protests* Hey, this is the weekend before my first school exam. I had some serious studying to do.
Trowa: What?
Ken: Excuse us? You didn't do any studying! Don't even pretend.
Dragon Lady: Yes I did…sort of…
Ken: Liar. Who spent the whole weekend glued to her computer watching Escaflowne episodes?
Dragon Lady: ^^;;; All right, I'm addicted to yet another anime, so sue me. =P
Trowa: You had better not go neglecting my Gundam Wing stories to write for that.
Dragon Lady: I don't think you've got anything to worry about, Trowa, this anime doesn't lend itself very easily to fan fiction. *shrugs* Least I don't think so anyway. No offense to people who can and do write for it. ^_^;; Being a fantasy fan and a lover of all manner of giant robotic suits ^.~ I dearly love that anime now.
Ken: Whatever.
Trowa: Would you please get on with story? ///_-;;
Dragon Lady: Oh, yeah. Right. ^_^;; Hope you people enjoy! Thanks to everyone who reviews!
Ken: Don't forget, this story remains 1x2 and 3x4 yaoi friendly. ^_^v
Trowa: And Dragon Lady doesn't own Lois Duncan's book Down a Dark Hall
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Sinister Shadows
By: DigimonDragonLady
"I just don't understand it," Quatre shook his head helplessly. "Iria said that they haven't been getting my letters. But, Trowa, you know I give at least one to Lady Une every Saturday that she goes down to the village!"
Trowa frowned. "The last letter that I received from my sister, Catherine, seemed to imply that she hasn't been getting many of mine either."
"And what have you two been putting in those letters of yours?" a voice asked from the doorway.
Quatre and Trowa spun around in surprise to see Heero leaning casually against the door frame, with a small satisfied smirk on his lips at their shock.
"Don't you ever knock?" Trowa growled crossly.
Heero shrugged. "Why bother knocking when you've left the door wide open? Not a smart idea if you don't want certain teachers to overhear you, by the way. But I'll repeat my question, what have you two been writing in those letters?"
"What difference does it make?" Trowa asked.
Heero only shrugged again, and Trowa began to get very frustrated with him. "Maybe nothing, maybe something," Heero answered enigmatically.
Trowa narrowed his eyes in irritation, but struggled to remain calm. Weren't they stressed enough without Heero adding to it with his round about answers that weren't really answers at all?
"That I want to go home," Quatre whispered, and Trowa and Heero left off glaring at each other to look at the petite blond.
Heero moved quickly into the room, shutting the door behind him and nodding once to show Quatre that he was indeed listening.
"About my dreams, too. And other things. The little things that make me feel uncomfortable."
"So they aren't sending them," Heero informed them, as if the answer should have been obvious. "They'll send no letter containing any hints, or suggesting that there is anything out of the ordinary going on at St. Gabrielle's."
"But how could they know what we're writing?" Quatre protested.
Heero looked directly at Quatre and raised an eyebrow. "Do you really think that Doctor J is the sort of person who would have any qualms about opening our mail and reading the contents before deciding whether to send them out or not?"
"Why would he want to do that?" Quatre asked in confusion. "Shouldn't he just assume that we're perfectly happy here, until informed otherwise by us?"
"Quatre, its obvious to anyone that J is keeping secrets," Heero sighed at the boy's innocent obliviousness. "Quite probably dangerous and health threatening ones at that."
"You think J would harm us?" Trowa asked sharply. "I thought that we had agreed that the house itself was unsettling, but --"
"We can't assume anything at this point," Heero interrupted snappishly, causing Trowa and Quatre to stare at him in surprise. Heero had always maintained a calm façade when faced with any situation, but now he appeared to slump a little.
"I apologize," he said softly. "I should not have yelled. I was only taking my frustrations out on the two of you, and that isn't fair."
"It's perfectly all right, Heero, we understand," Quatre spoke gently. "I knew that you had to be feeling the stress as well. Maybe you're feeling it even more because of D--"
He broke off quickly, blushing. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to broach a painful subject."
"But you've seen him, so you understand, don't you?" Heero muttered darkly. "Duo -- he's sinking so fast -- this house is swallowing him whole, and there's nothing that I can do about it!"
Heero sank dejectedly into one of the fireplace chairs and buried his head in his hands, as if in a gesture of defeat. "I don't know what to do now. I just feel so…powerless. Helpless, even. And for the first time, I don't know -- can't see -- the answer to the problem."
"Oh, Heero," Quatre's already bright eyes brimmed with tears at his friend's obvious distress. "I'm so sorry. I only wish there was something that I could do to help…"
"You don't want to see him suffer," Trowa said, after a length, "You love him, don't you? You'd do anything within your power to protect him, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, of course," Heero answered.
"Then I think that it's time that we three sit down and have a serious talk," Trowa concluded. "It's time we lay down our individual hands and put all of our cards on the table."
"You mean compare notes so that we can get the big picture?" Quatre asked. "We do have to know that we can count on each other, at the very least," he nodded solemnly in agreement.
Heero looked up at them. His deep Prussian blue eyes darkened to near black and regarding them with all seriousness. "Where do we start?"
* * *
"So you're saying that your dreams didn't come back once Trowa stayed the night with you?"
Quatre shook his head no, blushing only slightly. "Not at all."
"And what time was this that you got to his room, Trowa?"
Heero was momentarily playing the part of the interrogator of sorts, as he was not as close to this particular incident as either Trowa or Quatre, but they switched roles as questioners and questionees [1] frequently.
"I don't exactly know," Trowa admitted. "I only remember hearing Quatre shouting, and so I went to check on him. I didn't look at a clock, but I'd have to say that it was roughly around two in the morning. Maybe three at the latest."
"So, to put some of these events in order, Quatre and yourself went on a walk late last evening. To account for the rest of the staff, Mr. Treize, Zechs, Ms. Noin, Lady Une and myself were all in the parlor, Hilde was in the kitchen, Duo in his bedroom, and Doctor J in either his office or his own bedchambers."
"Assuming that Hilde stayed where we last encountered her, and that Doctor J and Duo were in their usual locations, that's correct."
"True," Heero nodded and continued. "Quatre then noticed his room light on when he was sure that he had both turned it off and locked his door before going on this walk with you."
"Right," Quatre replied.
"Any chance that you were looking at the wrong window?" Heero asked.
"None," Quatre answered firmly.
"There are only bedrooms up and down the hall there. That wing of the house belongs to the student dormitories. Both the teachers and the servants wings are on the other side of the house," Trowa reminded him. "There should have been no need for anyone to be in any of the spare bedrooms not belonging to Quatre, you, Duo, or myself."
"I'm only checking," Heero shrugged. "We do have to keep our facts straight."
"Granted," Quatre agreed. "Please, continue."
"You two then proceeded immediately inside to Quatre's room, causing quite a commotion on your way, I might add," Heero smirked. "There we found that Quatre's door was indeed locked, as he had left it, and the light was once more turned out."
"And again, the only ones not present were Duo, Doctor J, and Hilde, though I'm pretty sure that it's safe to say that Hilde couldn't have anything to do with any of this; she's only hired help, after all," Quatre said.
"Be that as it may, with a working position here, she might be someone with access to a spare key to your room," Heero pointed out.
"What about the teachers?" Trowa asked. "I know they were all with us when Quatre reopened his room, but what were they doing while Quatre and I were outside? Did any of them leave the room?"
"Yes," Heero nodded. "Zechs left the room once and supposedly went to the kitchen to retrieve aspirin and a glass of water for Ms. Noin, who had complained of a headache. He returned in a short amount of time, not long before you two went running up the stairs, but with both of the items in question for Ms. Noin."
"Interesting," Trowa frowned.
"Why would Zechs want to break into my room?" Quatre asked. "I'm sure that I can't understand his motive."
"You did say that the only thing you could find missing was that sketch that Duo did of you, correct?" Heero asked thoughtfully.
"That was the only thing that I could find that was gone, yes," Quatre answered with a nod. "Nothing else even appeared to have been touched."
"Zechs is Duo's art teacher, or patron teacher, as it were," Trowa said. "Maybe he wanted that sketch because it could show him something that no one else could see about Duo's new talent."
"Possibly," Heero's eyes narrowed. "In any case, if Zechs only went to get Ms. Noin aspirin and stayed in the kitchen, where Hilde was for the entire length of time that I estimate him to have been gone, his alibi is easy enough to check."
"Then that would leave Doctor J," Quatre concluded.
"No," Heero said sharply. "There's still Duo left."
"But, Heero --"
"We can't rule Duo out as a possibility," Heero said firmly. "He and Doctor J were the only two on the second level, and Duo's bedroom is definitely close enough for him to get in and out of Quatre's room before you two came back."
"Heero, don't you think that if Duo had wanted his drawing back he would have asked me for it?" Quatre asked meekly.
"And Duo doesn't have a key to Quatre's room. But Doctor J, being headmaster, would be the most likely --"
"Duo wouldn't need a key to get into Quatre's room," Heero interrupted Trowa. "It wouldn't take him any time at all to pick a lock, even those old fashioned ones that they've got on our doors."
"Duo knows how to pick locks?" Quatre asked incredulously.
Heero nodded. "He's very good at it. Very fast and incredibly thorough. I'm not sure that even an expert locksmith would be able to tell that a lock had been tampered with after Duo was done with it."
"Where did he learn --"
"That's not the important part," Heero cut off Quatre's question. "The important thing is that he knows how and has the ability to do it."
Quatre nodded in understanding and tried not to let Heero's bluntness upset him too much. He could tell that Heero didn't intend to make it sound like he was outright accusing the person he loved, but at the same time he was struggling against writing him off and showing favoritism.
"So, we can ask Hilde, if she was in the kitchen, about Zechs, but what about Duo?" Trowa asked.
"We search his room," Heero answered calmly.
"Oh, but, Heero!" Quatre protested. "That's a gross invasion of his privacy!"
"We can't just come out and ask him," Heero argued. "If he had taken the picture dishonestly do you think he would admit it to us?"
"Duo told me once that he never lied…"
"Never outright lied, no, but he can find ways of dancing around the questions." Heero sighed. "Look, it's not that I wouldn't want to believe him, but Duo has changed. You've seen it too, and you haven't known him half as long as I have. I know everything there is to know about him, from how he broke his first bone to how he's terrified of fire. I'd want to believe him more than anything in the world, but what if he's changed so much that he doesn't even care if he's lying anymore?"
Quatre and Trowa were silent.
"We have to find out the truth, no matter what," Heero reminded them. "Doing this might be something that could save Duo, and I'm willing to take any chances necessary to do that. I know that it would be unfair to expect you two to do the same and feel as strongly about this as I do, but I can ask, will you help me?"
Quatre hesitated, glancing at Trowa before nodding.
"How do we go about doing this?" Trowa asked.
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[1]. Is "questionees" even a word? Well, I don't care if it is or not, dammit. If Tolkien and Dr. Seuss could make up words then so can I! ^^;;
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Dragon Lady: Well, there's another chapter finished. Boy does this story still have several chapters to go. o.O
Ken: *snickers* Your problem, not mine.
Trowa: Don't you remember how much you loved this story when you started. It was your first semi serious gw story.
Dragon Lady: Yeah, I still love this story. ^_^ I just like some of my others a little better. ^^
Trowa: *shrugs* Your call.
Dragon Lady: *giggles* Whee, but that chapter was so much fun to write! Who else here thought it started to sound like a game of clue?
Trowa: *raises eyebrow*
Ken: It did?
Dragon Lady: ^^;;; Well…I thought so. How funny, the house even lends itself to a game of clue. I say it was Lady Une in the parlor with the knife!
Ken: Um…dl…nobody's died in this fic…
Dragon Lady: Oh, right. I knew that. ^^;;; Still.
Trowa: *sighs in exasperation at DL's flaky behavior* Review, please.
Ken: It would be much appreciated.
Dragon Lady: Or maybe it was Duo in the bedroom with the rope!
Trowa: *blinks* Really? I bet Heero wouldn't mind that.
Dragon Lady: Ack! Trowa! *gets nosebleed*
Ken: *snickers*