Heero forced himself to open his eyes and rouse his body from sleep, regardless of the throbbing pain that threatened to burst out of his head. Taking a deep breath to calm his headache, Heero rolled over on the cot set up in Relena's billiards room.
A light bed was set up next to his cot, not but a foot away from his. The warm wool blanket was pulled up to her chin, and Heero could barely see the top of Jinx's head and dark hair from behind the thick covers. As he looked at what little he could see of her, Heero noticed a lighter brown braid that peaked out from beneath the blankets. Carefully, he sat up slowly so as not to disturb his headache any more than necessary. From this position, he could make out the other lump in the blankets. That lump named Duo.
Heero's eyes narrowed as he gazed upon his best friend in bed with Jinx. But then his expression softened. He recalled hearing her screaming in the night, and no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to wake himself up to comfort her. Duo must have been there, he reasoned slowly, trying not to jump to false conclusions. He must have held her and stopped her crying.
As he shifted his position, his leg lightly bumped into something on the edge of the cot. Heero looked down, seeing Jinx's hand gripping the frame rail of the cot. Her grip was so tight that even in sleep her hand remained securely fastened to his bed. He brushed his fingers over her knuckles. That proved it. Jinx may have accepted comfort from Duo, but she still reached out to have Heero. Literally.
Stiff from resting for so long, Heero stretched, fully extending every part of his body was far as it would reach in every possible direction. It felt painfully good to work his muscles like that. After his catlike procedure, he gently unhooked Jinx's hand from the rail of his bed and slid it back under the warm covers of her own bed.
Jinx stirred in her sleep from the movement, which in turn, made Duo stir in his sleep. Duo was the first to wake fully, sitting up on the bed and looking guilty after he noticed Heero.
Duo smiled at pilot 01, ashamed at having slept next to Jinx last night. He didn't mean to stay there. Only until she was comfortably asleep, and then he would have left and gone back to the couch.
"Hey man," he whispered, not wanting to look Heero in the eyes.
"Morning," Heero answered. "Sleep well?"
Duo showed his discomfort by rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, unsuccessfully trying to knead the knots he felt there. "Truthfully, no. She had a nightmare last night."
"I figured that out when I saw you here," Heero admitted. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief and was happy that his reasoning had been correct.
Jinx moaned a little as she groggily opened her eyes. "Heero," she said softly too him as she focused on the person in front of her. The same hand he'd returned to her side came out from under the blankets, reaching for him.
He took her hand in his and bent down to kiss it. "Good morning," he told her as he moved the blanket away from her face and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "How do you feel?"
She stretched out her legs and stretched while still laying on the bed, her back pushing against Duo's knee. "Been better." Noticing the knee in her back, Jinx lazily raised one arm above her and reached around behind her to see what was there. Her fingertips came in contact with Duo's chest and she moaned out Duo's name before pulling her hand back and curling up into a tighter ball on the bed.
Heero moved closer, leaning over her on the bed. He took a grasp of her shoulder and gently shook her a little. "Come on, Jinx, we need to get up. I'm sure everyone's worried about you. Let's go show them that we're ok."
"Mm kay," she replied in a childish voice. Heero grabbed a hold of her offered hands and pulled her up to a seating position on the bed with her legs dangling off the edge.
Sally must have dressed her in clean clothes, he noted. Jinx was now wearing pajama pants that tied around her waist and a simple white over shirt. Now that he thought about it, Heero looked down at his own body, noticing that was wearing similar garb. Slowly, he let his eyes roam over her, overwhelmed by the fact that they were both alive and relatively unscathed save for a few burns on his back and her shoulder and arm.
Jinx noticed Heero looking her over, and smiled to cover her slight blush. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, smiling wider than Duo had ever seen the stoic Perfect Soldier smile. "I'm just happy."
* * * * * * * *
The first thing Wufei noticed when Duo, Heero, and Jinx walked into the breakfast room was the silly smile on Heero's face. The second thing he noticed was that Heero held Jinx's hand as they walked. Strange, he thought, since Duo slept in the same bed with her last night.
Wufei remembered how Relena had run into the breakfast room earlier that morning, giddy and talking fast about how Heero was available. Nonsense, Trowa told her sternly, insisting that Heero and Jinx were together. Not true, she grinned at him, not true at all. Just look, she said, Heero's on one bed, Jinx and Duo are together on the other. Together. Trowa just shook his head, with a sympathetic look in his eye, while everyone else crept to the doorway of the billiards room. They all peaked inside, and there they were: Duo under the blankets with Jinx while Heero rested on the other bed next to them.
And now here they were: smiling at each other while Jinx held onto Heero's hand and not Duo's. Wufei wondered what was going on between these three. Was that woman messing everything up between two friends? Then Wufei remembered, Trowa spoke to him and Quatre of her nightmares last night, though Trowa never mentioned what had caused her to cry out in her sleep so violently. Duo must have crawled into bed beside her to comfort her and keep her quiet.
Heero moved a chair closer to Jinx's at the table, and Duo sat down on the opposite side. Relena was getting upset.
"What's going on?" she asked forcefully, stopping everyone from shoving their latest forkful into their mouths. "What is wrong with you, Heero?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Relena," he replied calmly.
"Yes you do, Heero. Last night that girl slept with Duo, and now you're the one holding her hand? What's going on?" Relena asked, planting her hands on the table and standing up.
A sly smile crept across Heero's face as he considered playing a cruel joke on Relena. What the hell? he thought to himself. I might as well do it. "What's the problem with that, Relena?" Heero said with an innocent tone of voice. "Duo and I are best friends."
"But Heero," she insisted, "Duo slept with her last night. I came in there this morning and saw them still curled up together. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Why should it? Duo and I are best friends. That means we share everything together. Absolutely everything." He leaned over and gave Jinx a kiss on the cheek to clue Relena in to what he meant by 'everything'.
Duo had to keep a hand over his mouth, pretending to eat something, in order to stifle the outburst of laughter he felt welling up inside of him. Wufei, too, had to look away from Relena's surprised face to keep from laughing and spoiling the joke. Even Trowa's mouth curled at the edges as he fought the urge to smile at their naïve and gullible hostess.
Relena spun around and glared at Duo, once she regained some composure. "Duo Maxwell, is this true?"
"Of course, Relena," he said, fighting harder than ever to keep from laughing. "Heero doesn't make a habit of lying."
Sally's giggling could be heard from his right where she sat at the table. Hilde, too, seemed to be in on the joke and had to keep a hand over her mouth. Only Relena fell victim to Heero's uncharacteristic trickery.
"And Relena," Duo continued, relaxing into his part of the intrigue and pretending to be more serious. "Didn't I tell you never to call her 'that girl' again?" He stood up from the table and took a few menacing steps in Relena's direction.
* * * * * * * *
Relena nearly plowed into Quatre and Catherine as they made their way to the room behind the kitchen. Confused by the upset and panicking girl who ran past them and to her quarters, Quatre led Cathy to the breakfast room and walked into a room filled with outbursts of laughter.
Wufei and Sally were hugging each other for support as they laughed, trying not to fall onto the ground. Duo and Hilde had already fallen and were attempting to climb back into their chairs as their eyes teared. Jinx had her head down on the table as she laughed, trying to find composure but failing each time she recalled the look on Relena's face. Oddly, even Trowa was laughing out loud. Heero just sat back, a broad smile on his features, with his arms crossed over his chest in pride.
"What's going on?" Quatre called to Heero, trying to be heard over the hullabaloo what was known as 'his friends'.
"Just a joke on Relena," Heero answered. The laughter was dying down and Duo helped collect Hilde from the floor and sat her back into her chair. "Where have you been?"
Quatre shook his head, knowing that Duo would fill him in on the juicy details later on. "Went to pick up Cathy from the hospital. She'd broken her hand yesterday and they wanted her to stay overnight to make sure there weren't any complications from the bombing – smoke inhalation or what not." He pulled out a chair next to Trowa, offering it to Catherine. She sat next to her brother, a slight blush on her cheeks after Trowa raised an eyebrow at her. Quatre, too, blushed a little now that the attention was turned on his and Cathy's return from the hospital.
Duo clapped Quatre on the shoulder as he walked behind the Arabian to get more food from the kitchen. "Glad you're here to take care of the ladies, Quatre. What would we do without you to take care of the lovely Cathy?"
"You'd take care of her yourself, Duo," Quatre retorted, a little embarrassed now that everyone seemed to know he liked Catherine.
Duo shook his head vigorously as he came back from grabbing something in the kitchen. "Nope," he said lightheartedly. "Heero and I have our hands full sharing that one." He gestured in Jinx's general direction.
Wufei spit out his milk, and the whole room erupted again into uncontrollable laughter.
* * * * * * * *
Heero was busy teaching Jinx everything he knew about the cockpit of her mobile suit. She was in the pilot's seat, taking in every word he said. Heero was sitting on the floor between her legs, turning his torso around to face her while his legs dangled out of the open cockpit.
Wufei was putting the finishing touches on his new thermal weapon – a type of curved sword with streaks of energy along the blade. The Arabic-like sword was about half as long as Wufei's mobile suit was tall.
Trowa had succeeded in modifying the existing long-barreled gun on the mobile suit into a larger and meaner version. How he accomplished that, no one would ever know.
Duo struggled with his new scythe, finally able to make his new suit wield it as efficiently as Deathscythe or Deathscythe Hell would. His mobile suit practiced using the scythe as he cut up more pieces of the rubble of Relena's palace. It was a constructive way to expel some anger, he decided.
Quatre spent his day with Catherine. Securing his heat seeker sitar blades to the back of his new suit took all but thirty-four minutes. At the moment, he and Catherine were walking through the back yard of the palace, watching Duo as he practiced with the homemade scythe.
"Quatre?" Catherine's sweet voice called to him.
He looked into her eyes. "Yes, Cathy?"
She stopped walking. "I just wanted to know something before you go." Cathy's dragged her foot back and forth across the ground, conveying her nervousness and uncertainty.
"What is it, Cathy?" Quatre asked, taking her hands into his. She looked up at him, and he soon found that he lost himself in her light blue eyes. He wanted to hold her close, kiss her lips and breathe in the scent of her. But he held back.
"I just wanted to know what … what is going to happen after you leave."
Quatre thought a minute before answering. "I was planning on coming back, to you if at all possible."
Cathy's eyes sparkled as she looked at him. "Really?"
"Of course," he assured her, giving her a light kiss on the lips.
Quatre wanted to find a bench and sit down. His lips tingled from their contact with Cathy's and he wasn't sure if he had the strength to continue standing. Catherine wrapped her arms around his neck and gave Quatre a hug, holding him close to her. Quatre placed his arms around her waist, basking in their awakened feelings for each other.
* * * * * * * *
"Someone's hitting on your sister," Duo said over the radio to Trowa's mobile suit.
Trowa glanced down from his open cockpit, seeing Catherine embracing Quatre. He climbed up into the pilot's seat in order to answer Duo. "Yeah, I see that."
"So whatcha going to do about it?" Duo asked, the teasing tone creeping into his voice as he bugged Trowa.
"Nothing."
"Nothing? You are going to let Quatre kiss your sister and do 'nothing' about it? What's wrong with you, man?"
"Nothing is wrong with me. Is it wrong to let Catherine find happiness? Is it wrong for Quatre to finally be with someone who cares more about him than his money? Is it wrong for me to wish happiness for both my sister and my best friend? Besides, Quatre knows who her brother is. He wouldn't dare hurt her, ever."
Duo nodded on the screen. "Yea, I guess you're right. But you're talking like you knew they liked each other. You seem prepared for all of this."
Trowa nodded back. "I was. I did know that Catherine liked Quatre. It was obvious in the way she always asked about him when I left unannounced from the circus and reappeared days or weeks later. And each time I saw you guys, Quatre would ask how she was. I was quite prepared." Trowa smiled a little to himself, seeing the happiness radiate from two of the people he cared most for. "And if they hadn't of done anything about it – I think I would have locked them in a closet together for a while."
Laughing, Duo signed off and continued his practice, hoping that Heero and Jinx were as happy at this moment as Quatre and Catherine were.