Where You Least Expect It

By Kay

Author's Notes: Whew, finally got Part Two out... ^_^;; Sorry for the delay folks, I've been super busy lately, and it seems like I have time for about nothin'. Waaah. Oh well, moving on!

(3x4, 2x5 pairings) -- these will come soon, trust me. We'll start seeing hints of Quatre and Wufei in the next chapter, actually. ^_^ YAY! As for Heero, I'm still a tad bit uncertain of what I'm going to do with him. I had an idea, but we'll have to see how it works out...

Please enjoy! And thank you for all the kind reviews, they were much appreciated. *hugs* Orange juice to you all!

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When Trowa Barton was only six, his parents were killed in a car crash.

He vaguely remembers them, or tiny flashes of their faces and voices, at least. He knows he has his mother's eyes and his father's build, but can't explain the strange hairstyle he'd grown accustomed to having. He remembers their funeral, the heavy scent of magnolia clotting the air, and his older sister Catherine's hand squeezing his tightly. He recalls the people who came and said, "We're so sorry, Trowa. I know this must be hard for you."

When he thinks of their deaths, he feels regret and sorrow. But the pain in everyone else's eyes surprises him in every memory.

After all, at least he still had his sister.

And that, hopefully-attentive readers, was his saving grace. Catherine Barton, all curly mahogany hair and exuberant smiles, could have given Duo Maxwell a run for his money in the joy section. Although completely different from her little brother's quiet, simple ways, she managed to raise him to the best of her abilities, and win his love and devotion as a baby brother in the process. Indeed, Trowa's fondest memories are that of watching Catherine slice vegetables for soup in their tiny kitchen, kicking his feet against the chair legs of where he sat.

Despite her attentive and loving care, however, Catherine was not the greatest housekeeper. Of course, no one expected her to be-- after all, she had no time in between taking care of a child and trying to support them with odds and ends jobs. So it was natural to the entire town that the house remain in practically shambles.

Furniture was mismatched and frayed, with Catherine's skirts tossed carelessly over the armrests. Trowa's books lay in piles against the wall in some places, meticulously organized but without much of a place to go besides the floor. Kitchen utensils were scattered throughout the house, sometimes laying under the couch or hall table.

Trowa looked back on these times with a cringe.

After he had moved out, he took great pride in keeping his house organized. Now that he had the room and space to do so, Trowa was almost naturally neat. Things were in their proper place at all times, his books on shelves in a small study by the bedroom, and laundry was done earlier than it actually needed to be. It wasn't that he was obsessive about it, but that he found a certain relaxation in knowing his home would never be the mess his old one used to be.

So it became very, very confusing when the… incidents… began.

Later, he would maintain that it began with the keys. Every morning after that first Tuesday, it started in a pattern that he couldn't ignore.

Wake up, eat breakfast, go to grab car keys-- and fail to find them.

He checked under the table, behind the table, and all along the hallway. Every nook and cranny, each tiny corner in the woodwork, was carefully examined by critical green eyes. Trowa was not in denial, nor was he imagining things, but the simple fact of the matter was, that those keys were disappearing into thin air. He made it absolutely certain that they were on the hallway table every time he came home. Yet the morning would come, bringing the strange vanishing of the keys along with dawn.

And every time he left the hallway, coming back only seconds later-- they would be laying innocently on the table.

It was starting to frustrate him.

When he told Duo, with a low, upset tone, the braided boy merely shrugged cheekily and said, "Cool. So try keeping them in your pockets, then."

After a week of missing his keys every morning, Trowa finally agreed to try the idea. He left his keys in his pockets at all times, even in his sweat pants at night, feeling the metallic bulge dig into his hip every time he turned in bed. Although it was uncomfortable, Duo continually assured him that it would put an end to the mischief once and for all.

When Trowa woke up the first Sunday after doing this… the keys were gone. The pocket was flat. And he found them on the hallway table.

Whatever was happening, it wasn't going to stop. After he realized this, Trowa determined that there was nothing he could do except wait it out. Being a quiet, steady creature of nature, Trowa Barton preferred to leave these things as they were, and grow used to the routine it provided. Soon, he no longer expected to reach for his keys on the hallway table, and instead would walk straight into the kitchen, to come out again and find them there.

That's when the other incidents began.

Now, obviously dismayed that the trick was no longer able to get a rise out of the resident, whatever was causing this switched tactics. Poor Trowa first realized it when he found his laundry scattered over the clean tiled floor of his kitchen-- far away from the washing machines in the basement.

He calmly picked up the articles of clothing… and put them away.

They ended up in the shower-- while it was running cold water over them-- a few hours later.

So he hung them up outside to dry in the summer sun, letting the linens sway gently in the breeze as they draped over his fence. His neighbor, Mr. Zechs, waved politely as he worked.

When he came outside to gather them again, they were strewn all over the grass, and covered in footprints of an undeterminable nature. Slight, tiny ones that jumped across the fabric in funny little patterns. Trowa frowned down at his favorite shirt, now a mess of dirt and frayed sleeves, and found himself at a loss.

It didn't stop there, either-- his kitchen utensils were showing up in the bathroom sink. He has spoons sticking out of the shower drain, slightly bent at the handle, as though someone had tried to put them there without breaking them. And it didn't help his growing unnerved state when he discovered his books shoved in his dishwashing machine. Trowa only figured himself lucky that it wasn't wet enough to do any real damage.

Indeed, while the pranks were highly annoying, they didn't do enough harm to seriously anger him. Instead, Trowa found himself at a loss, a dead end in the road. What does one do to an invisible tormentor? It wasn't like he could just ask it to stop.

Besides, he'd tried it three times already.

And each time he did, he found coffee grounds in his bed.

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"Duo… Duo, I don't know what to do."

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Trowa looked pleadingly at his best friend, anxiety written in his jade eyes, and the way he ran his hand nervously through his thick brown hair. After three weeks of endless pranks, misplaced items, and a disturbing amount of harmless vandalism, he was at his wits end. The last straw that broke the camel's back had been coming home to find his classical records taped to the ceiling.

Messing with the appliances was one thing. Fooling around with Trowa Barton's prized music collection was quite another.

"I don't know what to tell ya, buddy," Duo muttered, sighing as he looked at the ceiling. "This is a little outta my league, you know? It's getting really weird now."

"I thought that was your forte."

"What? Strange, mischievous spirits?"

Trowa shook his head, an amused expression on his handsome features. "No. Weirdness."

Duo laughed at him, flipping his braid behind his shoulder with an air of carelessness. "Weirdness, yes. Strange, mischievous spirits? Hell no. You'll need someone who knows what they're doing for this sort of job."

Trowa sighed, leaning against the counter of the bookshop's register placing, and glanced around at the empty store. The Once Upon a Bookstore had been slow all day, with business down to a trickle. It was lucky, however, that he had the chance to discuss his predicament with Duo instead of working.

Absently searching outside the clear, glassy windows for prospective customers, Trowa murmured, "I have no desire to walk up to a stranger and tell them someone's been messing around in my house. Besides, it's impossible that it's any realistic sort of creature. Many of these pranks are impossible to do without my knowledge."

"I told you it's poltergeists," Duo pouted. His deep purple eyes twinkled mischievously, though, and soon the pout morphed into a full-fledged grin. Waving a hand, he gleefully announced, "I can help you there! Back in New York, my forte, as you call it, was taking care of ghosts. I was in the business, man."

The tall, green-eyed boy frowned as his friend. "I thought you were in the mechanics business?"

"Well, that too."

"I thought you said you didn't deal with strange, mischievous spirits."

"I don't," Duo replied haughtily, stubbornly sticking his chin higher in the air. There was nothing the braided young man hated more than doubt on his abilities… of which there were many, although that will come in time, my readers. "I deal with ghosties. The transparent dudes. The dead. Spirits are another thing entirely, they were born that way, not sent to be in that state. It's like faeries and brownies and stuff. They aren't dead, just whimsical creatures already."

Gaping slightly at his best friend, Trowa's mind whirled with the fact that he didn't know this until now. "You were… a ghost hunter or something?"

Duo shrugged impishly, narrows shoulders burned slightly lobster red from the summer sun outside the store. "Or something, yeah."

"Hm."

Duo stuck out his tongue. "Oh, cut it out. It's true. I rang around with a gang of ghost chasers, kinda. It wasn't for very long, but wow, it was the time of my life…" A dreamy expression crossed his pale features. "The suspense, the action, the ghosts… it was amazing!"

Sighing, Trowa considered his options-- which contained just leaving things the way they were, asking Duo to perform some odd ceremony involving sacrificial bone jewelry to get rid of the ghost, or moving out altogether. As he loved his home, the third option was cancelled. And he couldn't very well not do anything, so the first one was also.

Which left him with one.

"Alright. Can you come over and help tomorrow?"

Violet eyes shined with happiness and gratitude, as Duo nodded excitedly and bows. "I promise, Trowa, I'll get rid of the thing! Or at least make contact. Or at least see some really, really awesome and crazy stuff!"

"That's so reassuring," Trowa responded dryly. Being a man of silence and solitude, he wasn't even sure Duo had ever been to his home before. The idea caused a slightly nervous trill in his senses, to have anyone else intrude on his sanctuary. On the other hand, he told himself quietly, someone already has.

Meanwhile, while Trowa pondered whether his decision was wise, Duo was getting himself hyped up. After happily drowning the Cola can he'd been sipping from for half the morning, he rocked back and forth on his heels, grinning manically at his best friend's worried posture.

"Don't worry, Tro. They used to call me Shinigami… I was the best!"

"Shini…?"

"Shinigami. The God of Death." Duo winked. "It'll be just like the old days for me, back in New York, with the gang. Like riding a bicycle again, y'know? All I have to do is get back on, and I'll know exactly what to do."

Somehow, yet not surprisingly, Trowa already regretted this action. Yet he nodded approvingly, storing the concern in the back of his mind, and agreed to meet Duo at noon tomorrow in his home.

It would prove to be the best thing he'd ever done.

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To Be Continued... in Chapter Three, where Duo discovers, no, it's not a ghost, and no, trying to exorcise them will definatly *not* work. Poor Duo... ^_^;;

More of Duo's odd past will be revealed later in the story, including why he's here in the first place, when he obviously loved New York. A *lot* will be revealed. Stupid story's gonna take forever. *sigh*

Thanks for everything! ^_^

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