Notes for this section: Pardon the wonky science.

December 26 AC 199

I knew it. I knew it. I knewitIknewitIknewit. As soon as Heero got his hands on that chip thingie, I knew it had something to do with my little brother's craziness. It's ugly and corroded-looking, but Heero says it was designed to break down like that and that it's partly organic and yadda yadda I can't concentrate on stupid details! GODDAMMIT!

[later]

I just ran five laps around the compound, took a cold shower and ate an entire bag of tortilla chips with extra hot salsa. I'm okay now. I think. I can read Heero and Sally's notes without screaming, anyway.

Anyway, the chip that they took out of Quatre's head is some sort of chemical sandwich—it was composed of layers of different chemicals that either suppressed or enhanced certain neurotransmitters in Quatre's brain separated by some sort of slowly decaying organic substance. Heero's notes say that the stuff between the chemical pockets was designed to release a different chemical once every eighteen months, approximately. He and Sally think there may have been as many as five cycles. The only one left seems to be a substance that pretty much stops serotonin production and causes a deep depression in its victim, among other things.

The long and short of it is, someone has been tampering with Quatre's brain ever since early puberty, beginning with God-knows-what and ending with a suicide drug.

That someone is going to die—slowly, painfully, and in a highly creative manner.

December 26, AC 199

I had no idea that Quatre could curse fluently in six different languages, but he can and he did when Sally and I stopped by the hospital to explain our findings. It was quite impressive. He went on for about five minutes non-stop and never repeated himself once, as far as I could tell. He only stopped when Sally reminded him that it was impolite to curse in front of ladies.

"Well, what would you do under the circumstances?" He snapped at her, but he did calm down a bit. Long enough for Sally to give him the folder on our research, anyway.

After ten minutes of absolute silence while Quatre absorbed the information, I could tell that Sally was as edgy and as bored as I was, so I dragged her off to the cafeteria for an early lunch.

I was quite surprised that Sally Po liked eggplant Parmesan as much as I do—but I digress.

We had gone over the chemical components many times together. The first one was mild in comparison with the others and merely raised aggression levels a bit. It didn't affect his basic personality aside from making him wish to fight for what he thought was right. We checked our roughly sketched timeline and figured that it had kicked in about the time that he had disinherited himself from his family's wealth. This was just before or just after he had met the Maguanacs, but that bit is sketchy.

The next wave of disintegration took place right after the war had started in earnest. At this point Quatre was just beginning to realize that he was not alone in defending the colonies, and he would have wanted to know that he had allies. The empathy-dampening neuronics were released at this time. His natural ability to sense emotion was very definitely being held back at this point. I suppose it was a mercy on his part.

The next big phase came after he had been forced to destroy Sandrock. It was yet another aggression-enhancer, and it could not have come at a worse time. Not only had he been forced to self-destruct, but he'd witnessed his father's and his sister's death in the same week. No wonder he had been so strange during the ZERO incident…not that I don't forgive him. ZERO was too much for me at first, and I don't have the excuse of grief and strange brain implants to exonerate me.

I am not searching for pardon. I went into my battles with my eyes wide open.

My goal was to destroy my enemies. That was what Dr. J trained me to do, and according to the research Sally and I did, the foreign object in Quatre's head kicked in at about the same time my training ended. But who were our enemies at that point? The Alliance? OZ? Romafeller? Cinque? Ourselves? There were too many enemies/allies…and…

I cannot remember.

I think I've blocked that part out.

Getting back to Quatre…the empathy would have almost been back to its normal levels after we got back to Earth and met up with Count Townsend, although Sally suspects that it may have been muted somewhat. I remember him being rather depressed at the time, though fully functional. He was reasonable and seemed normal—or what passed for normal then—during that time. I would not have left him alone to protect Relena at her Cinque Kingdom school otherwise.

Crap. If only I'd known that he needed protection more than she did.

December 26, AC 199

Great, now Heero's under sedation.

I suppose I should try to explain.

Sally called me at 23:04 and asked me to come look after Heero and Quatre, since they had both apparently given in to some sort of emotional breakdown and would not let anyone come near them. Anyone who tried to get into the Preventer's infirmary got Heero's sidearm up one nostril with a complimentary 'omae o korosu' thrown in. Hell, even I got that greeting.

It took me almost 10 minutes to disentangle myself from Trowa's arms, for one thing. I swear, sleeping with him is akin to sleeping with a horny octopus. He has far too many hands for a normal person. Plus, that enormous furball that he calls a dog was sleeping across my legs and would not be roused. Wasn't it bad enough that the stupid animal had developed a serious case of intestinal gas from eating Maxwell's so-called Cajun turkey?

Anyway, I finally extracted myself from my lover and his mutt without waking either of them (a minor miracle in itself), got dressed, and slipped out of the beach house without further incident.

Sally was more than happy to see me, in spite of the lateness of the hour.

"Wufei, if you can make those two see reason, I'll personally see to it that you and Trowa get a week off in Paris on the Preventer's tab." Were her exact words.

"You will have to provide boarding for that stupid dog, too," I told her. I always like to raise the stakes when I know I'm winning. "I'm not spending a weeks' vacation in the company of that flatulent, crotch-sniffing animal."

She only nodded. "Agreed. Please go in." She pushed a button on the console of her desk and there was a faint whirring noise. "Third door on your left," she said," I'm sure you know the way."

I nodded as crisply as I could given the crick in my neck I always got when sleeping on Trowa's shoulder, and I marched down the hallway to the room where my strange friends were quartered.

Well, I got halfway down it, anyway. That was when Heero jumped out from behind a doorway and assaulted my nostril and threatened to kill me.

"Heero, cut the melodramatics." I said with as much dignity as I could muster with a .45 automatic pistol up my nose. "I just wanted to see you and Quatre."

He slowly released his iron grip on my middle, and then just as slowly removed the gun from my person. His eyes flicked left and right, checking for enemies. "Okay. Come with me." He said, and dragged me into Quatre's room by my collar.

Then things started to get seriously weird.