The splatter of blood on the clean taupe paint of the wall behind the opening to the main room is perfect for an instant, until Allan's body slams into the wall, the inertia of the bullet transferring easily, as physics dictates, and giving enough force to throw him backwards, the back of his head making a wet thud as it impacts with the wall.

They're packing heavy.

So much for Julia's wish of good luck.

Bonelessly, his body crumples to the floor, a single bullet hole right between his glazed, staring eyes. The smell of fresh blood, like newly smelted copper, is heavy in the air of the small alcove. His body is slumped at such an unnatural angle that if I inch my hand forward half a foot or so, I could touch the side of his left foot.

In the breathless quiet, I hear the resounding sound of a slap. "Guns on the floor! Trigger happy rookies outside!" There is a pause, and the shuffle of feet. "Investigator, it's just you and me now."

***

The rest of the day was pretty much a bust. I was too angry to do much more than pace my apartment and set up the paperwork. I really wish the time hadn't been so staggered between when Wufei and I left for our missions, because at least then I wouldn't have to worry about the time difference. I wouldn't have had to go back for my briefcase, and I certainly wouldn't have had to deal with Julia.

I frown and glance at the clock. I toss my baseball cap aside and flop down on the couch, toeing off my shoes before flipping on the television.

The phone rings.

I pick it up, nearly diving off the couch, and almost hurting myself.

"Y-hello?"

There is a little static on the line, as though it's coming from a long distance.

"Sally?"

"Hi, Wufei," I reply, a little puzzled. "What's up?"

From the hesitant pause, I can almost picture him scuffing his foot and looking bashful… ok, so if he did that sort of an action, he would be. "I wanted to apologize… for yesterday. My actions were… inexcusable."

I blink. "Your-"

His voice, when he speaks, is annoyed. "When I kissed you," and harsh. "You've forgotten already?"

I shake my head a moment, until I realize that he can't see that. "No," I say quickly, "It would be… very hard to forget that."

He harrumphs, and I hear Trowa say something in the background, a mere impression of his voice, and Wufei says quickly, "I have to go. Take care on your mission," and, without waiting for me to respond, hangs up.

I stare in confusion at the phone for a while, listening to the dial tone, and then I hang up. The television, in the background, makes noise that I try my best to tune into, but I cannot. After this morning, I'm fed up. I glance at the clock again, yawning. I give up, and climb to my feet, slinking off to my bedroom.

In the morning, at least I can occupy myself. Packing, last minute things. I go to bed, barely taking the time to strip off my sweats, under the illusion that the next day will be better.

*

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The first thing that happened, after letting myself sleep in, was that the buzzer rang. Repeatedly.

I am about to shrug it off and go back to sleep, when the phone rings. Bleary eyed with sleep, I fumble for it. "Hello?" I half expect it to be Wufei again.

"Sorry to bother you so early, Sally," but it isn't. "I know you're leaving on assignment tomorrow, and that you took the day off, but…"

"Hilde?" my voice, even in my own ears, sounds incredulous.

"Yeah," she responds, and I can tell something is on her mind, something is bothering her that she won't say on the phone.

"Hold on, I'll buzz you up," I say, hanging up the phone and forcing myself out of bed. My leg is stiff, and so I hobble over to the wall panel and buzz for her to be let in. I glance at my leg in the mirror, and see that it's a little dry, so I put some of the medication on it, and pull on a robe so that I look a little more decent when Hilde gets up.

There's a knock on the door, and I go to open it.

Hilde Schbeiker is one of the last people I ever expected to show up at nine a.m. with a guilty expression on her face, but here she is. I step aside, wordlessly, and she comes into the apartment. I close the door and motion for her to head over to the couch. She smells of peach lotion, or maybe shampoo, faintly, and takes a seat on the couch, in the slanting morning sunshine.

"I-"

I cut her off, "Tea or coffee?"

"What?" her voice is surprised. Perhaps I am more Chinese than I thought… or at least not as American.

"I'm not awake, and you're upset. Calm down first, and then we'll talk. Coffee wakes me up, and tea will calm you down." She sits back against the couch, uncomfortable on it's softness. It's almost as though she is afraid to feel comfortable here. I busy myself in the kitchen, and come back out with two mugs, and wordlessly hand her the coffee before sitting myself down in the chair across the coffee table from her.

"You can speak now."

She nods, and stares into the tea, looking for courage. "I hate to bother you, like I said…"

"You obviously needed someone to talk to. You left work, I take it?" She's wearing the regular office uniform from the floor she works on. She nods, and takes a sip of her tea. "Well, then it's no trouble. What's on your mind?"

"Duo," she says, looking out the window.

And I wonder how it is that I am so entangled in the life of a man I haven't seen in years. "Duo? What about him?"

"Well… I saw Heero today. I thought it would be all right, but he… he didn't seem to recognize me, when he saw me."

"What's that got to do with Duo?" I ask, puzzled. I've never heard much of the story of this interesting little triangle, personally. Normally, I wouldn't push, but she obviously need someone to talk about it with.

"They… the two of them…" she seems to be struggling to wrap her mind around the right words to say to me.

"Were sleeping together?"

She looks up, as though I wasn't supposed to know that, and nods, "Yes, but… it was more than just that…"

"So what would Heero have had reason to recognize you for?" as I ask this, I am immediately sorry. She cringes. "You must admit, if he and Duo were involved, he might have felt threatened by you." I think back to the picture in Wufei's apartment… Meiran. Even though the two of us weren't involved, aren't, I correct myself, the idea that he had been married or … betrothed, I think he called it, unsettles me, and makes me jealous and possessive… against a dead woman.

"You're right… but when I waved… he just gave me a blank look, as though he had no idea who I was."

"Hilde, when did you last see Duo?"

She stiffens.

***

I strain my ears, forcing my bleeding body to crawl through the door, which someone thankfully left ajar, and back into the back room. Perhaps I'm deceiving myself, but I hear the noise of a clip being checked. It snaps quietly into place and I force my left hand to hold tightly over the wound, so I don't leave a trail of blood.

After Hilde left, I was no longer in the mood to pack. She's got a story that would make a romance novel writer proud, but it's nothing I wanted to think about just then. I remember getting up off the couch, dressing absently, and walking out the door.

I don't remember where I went, only that I didn't see anyone I knew and I didn't speak to anyone at all.

Likewise, the flight to L1 was uneventful. I reread my datasheet on Exian, the company I was going there to investigate, and the areas that were setting off the warning flags in the system that had been designed to investigate the dealings of businesses. At the spaceport on the colony, I was greeted by a man that reminded me very strongly of Wufei, in some way that I couldn't quite determine.

*

"Investigator Po, I presume?" a man of about five and a half feet in height says, stepping up to meet me as soon as I was clear of the spaceport gate.

"Yes, and you are?"

"Allan Yan," he says with an oily smile. If there's anything I hate worse than an egotistical maniac, it's a horny egotistical maniac. Allan seems very much along those lines, and where I can stomach Wufei because of his lack of addition in the later category, I can't quite bring myself to accept Allan. "I'm the contact sent from the Exian Corporation to escort you to the company headquarters and make sure you get everything you're interested in. There's a car waiting, if you'll step this way," he extends an arm and I smile tightly before progressing before him in the direction indicated.

It leads us away from crowds, and I'm suddenly very glad that I chose to wear my uniform pants, despite the slight discomfort of the material encasing my burnt leg, it doesn't give this guy the satisfaction of staring at my legs as closely as I'm sure he'd like to. Once we arrive at the limousine that's waiting to take us to the building that houses the company headquarters, I watch as the driver stows my bags and then climb into the door after Allan, keeping my briefcase close at hand.

"You could have put that in the back with your luggage, Miss Po."

"Investigator Po," I correct, "and I could have, but I'm required to keep the documentation on the case with me at all times. In case of tampering."

"Surely you aren't suggesting-"

"Inadvertent or otherwise. My laptop is in here, and too much jostling in the trunk and it might malfunction."

"You should upgrade to a better model then." His words are patronizing, and I bite back the comment that springs to my lips, almost painfully. Instead, I smile tolerantly at him. He grins stupidly and I fight my groan.

It's going to be a long trip.

***

"You're obviously a smart woman, investigator, I'll hand that to you. We've had other people in here to look into the company's activities before, but no one else has been able to find anything." Footsteps.

I crouch behind a large filing cabinet and force my breathing to calm, remain smooth and even. I hear the rustle of clothing that comes with quick movement and in my mind's eye I can see him drawing his gun on Allan's dead body. He sees that I am not there and steps forward, the heel of one foot slapping the ground in the pool of blood that leaks out of Allan's fatal wound.

Shaking, I lift my wrist and glance at my watch.

I am resigned to playing cat and mouse. I can't focus my scattered wits enough to come up with a plan, and I'm unarmed and cornered. Eventually, he's going to find me.

All I have left to hope for is that Wufei or Trowa finds me first.

A little longer.

***

I am on my way to bed, the third night on L1, when I make a decision, I search through my briefcase and find Heero's number. Tomorrow I get shown the accounting office, and I'm sure I won't be able to find anything in the computers. Their organization, if guilty of breaking the arms laws, is well grouped together, I haven't found a shred of anything that would implicate them, and the only person I can think of that could find anything is in the place I just left.

I dial. It rings.

"Hello?" a gruff voice picks up. I wince, having forgotten the time difference between here and there.

"H-Heero?" I try, feeling a lot sillier than I did when I decided to make this phone call. I get a positive 'hn' out of him, and so I continue. "I remember that you said if I ever needed your help…"

"Let me guess, it's got to do with computers, doesn't it?" his voice, though it could be condescending and patronizing, is merely bemused. I guiltily admit it, and he asks for a destination. "When do you need me there?" he asks, and I can imagine him chewing on the end of a pen and checking his schedule.

"Day after tomorrow?" I ask hopefully.

He coughs once and then says, "I was planning on taking some time off anyway. It's good to stretch the legs now and then."

"Shall I take that as a yes?"

"Hai," he says, and for a minute I imagine that voice, low and seductive, as Duo must've heard it. It sends a shiver down my spine that I try very hard to ignore.

"Thank you, Heero," I respond.

"See you in a day or so," he says, and without even a goodbye, he hangs up. Very like him, from what I recall and know. His treatment of Hilde is puzzling, however. I'll have to ask him about that when I take him out to lunch once he's here. And it might even get Allan to stop breathing down my neck.

I set the phone down and stretch out on the hotel bed. I must admit the Preventers put up for a nice room, for once, probably to keep up appearances that I do this all the time and am very particular about-

My phone rings.

I open my eyes and stare at the spackled ceiling. Who could be calling me at this hour? I narrow my eyes as the phone rings a second time, Allan, most likely.

"Po," I say as I pick it up, "go ahead," my voice sounds more exasperated than I've let on being in the past couple days, but my mood is shattered as I hear a little chuckle on the other end of the line.

"Don't you ever answer your phone with a simple greeting, Sally?"

"Wu… Wufei?" he's the last person I expected to hear from.

"How's your mission going?" he asks casually, as though he's calling to tell me that he got a piece of mail that was addressed to me instead of asking me about life threatening stuff.

"Slow," I mutter, running my free hand through my hair to disentangle it from the now-messy braid.

"You sound a little… ruffled," he says, voice suddenly much softer and more caring. "Is something… wrong?"

He certainly seems to have recovered from whatever mood he was in when he called me last time. I could almost picture him biting his lower lip and scuffing his shoe in the dirt when he called last time, now it's almost as if he's… mellow.

"Nothing for you to worry about. The mission is going fine… no complications, as of yet, but then I can't really find anything amiss. So I called in a favor."

"A favor?" he seems, at the very least, interested to hear who it could be.

"Heero's going to come after I have access to the accounting section and work a little of his computer magic, since it's not really my forte. He'll be flying in late tomorrow."

There is silence on the line for a while, and then he says, "I see."

Noise in the background again, and he says something very quickly in Mandarin to someone, "Sally, I've got to go… but I just wanted to say-"

The line cuts off, as though someone has just hung up while he still had the phone in hand. I stare puzzledly at my cell phone for a long while, letting the dial tone fill the silence of the room until the operator hangs it up for me, and then I set it aside, turning to glance out my window and pull my knees up to my chest. The comfortable room suddenly seems very empty, and rather cold. I pull the terrycloth robe closer around me, and hug my legs to my chest. After a minute, curiosity, and the hour, catch up with me, I rise and trail around my suite, turning off the lights until there is only one left on, at the bedside on the night stand. I pull back the covers and let the soft robe fall to the floor, climbing into bed and arranging myself comfortably.

"What were you going to say, Fei?" I whisper before reaching over and turning off the last light, going to sleep.