His typing was quick, hurried and methodical as the keys were pressed sharply down into their positions on the glossy white keyboard. Dark blue eyes, reflecting the soft glow of the screen, scanned pages of information in language after language, leaping from Chinese to Russian to the Anglo-Japanese dialect popular on the older colonies, and he took the information in, printing it onto his brain for future reference. A frown thinned his lips, his face flickering with an anger that was kept carefully held beneath his features, prevented from lashing out. He toyed momentarily with the idea of calling Maxwell and getting the former spy's help, but he knew with little doubt the man would rub it in. Clipping the power button on the terminal, he leaned back in the swiveling chair, shifting uncomfortably at the feel of the ribbed plastic spine rubbing his back and the abrasive touch of the cushion at his neck. A stiff plastic chair would be far more welcome, but he technically was forbidden from this sector of the Earth-based Preventers headquarters in any case. Undue attention could prove especially unhelpful.
According to the databases he had been able to hack into - without Maxwell's help, he added mentally - and review, Philip Cortez was barely more than a ghost. The information he had read was more or less the same as that shown in a newspaper, scant facts that hardly formed a skeleton, and it was somewhat impressive that the newspapers had been able to dress it up enough to form the standard five-day, breaking news series. Latino blood, unknown parents, unknown birthplace, age placed at forty-nine, leader of a particularly dangerous drug cartel with mob ties - hell, he thought with a grunt, it was the mob. And, of course, perhaps the most widely known tidbit of knowledge, of gossip, of pity, was his common law wife, an abused girl of eighteen years, and, apparently, a girl he had kept from the age of nine.
At an earlier time, having seen personally that the Dorlian family and their entourage had left safely, he had copied results from blood tests, tissue exams, and such forth from Cortez's wife. Running a comparison through the extensive, multiple databases holding the identities and biological information on individual after individual had proved one niggling suspicion he had:
For all intents and purposes, Aimee Cortez simply did not exist.
--
Requiem: Hymn
--
Nancy Trishmore stared blearily at the green wood of her front door as she shuffled down the carpeted stairs, tying with practiced ease the fuzzy red sash of her white robe. Whispering a peach hand through her orange-tinted red hair, the thick strands naturally crimped and cut at her ears, she idly considered putting an early morning visitor in as the dashing hero of her next romance; with as good as 'The Duchess of Fire' was selling, she might as well take a break from historical fiction and script modern settings. She twisted the lock in the doorknob open and slid aside the chain lock, letting the metal eye strike the doorframe heavily, and she pulled the door open.
"It's two in the morning!" she cried in exasperation, her antique Brooklyn accent straining her words comically, when she saw who it was, her hand settling firmly on her hip as she leaned to the side in a slightly infuriated manner. The snow swirling thickly outside had tainted his untidy black suit with spots of darker wetness, leaving his white button-up clean and his loose tie crumpled from running. He raised a wide, dark chocolate eyebrow and she sighed, thumbing at her grey-blue eyes and opening the door wider, gesturing vaguely for him to come in. "Right, right, it's seven o'clock Heero Yuy time. Musta slipped my mind." She closed the door behind him, placing the chain lock back in place and slipping the doorknob's built-in lock in its nightly position.
"You need a deadbolt," he reminded her in his near monotone, voice surprisingly deep for a man only three inches taller than her petite Irish self. "I could have kicked your door in without much effort."
"And I would've asked if ya wanted to watch classics with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan," she replied in tired banter, leading him into the small, quaintly decorated living room to the left. A long couch with a large armchair at either end faced an average-sized television, an aged vid-phone to its right. Paintings of the covers of her multiple romances decorated the walls, intermingled with photos of friends, pets, and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Umino. Nancy flopped into one of the armchairs, brushing loose strands of hair from her face and watching him as he carefully, smoothly, sat on the end of the couch closest to her, shedding his inky jacket and rolling his white sleeves up to his elbows. "Ya look like my cousin Jim when you're all professional like that," she said matter-of-factly, grinning at his slightly confused expression, his countenance looking more like a teddy bear than usual.
"Of course," he stated slowly, lowering his eyebrow into the usual strict look he had. Heero tapped his honey brown fingertips together as she reached over to the lamp beside him, tugging promptly at the dangling cord peeking from the ridged shade encircling the bulb. While she blinked and paused for a few seconds to let her vision adjust, he remained as blindly alert as always, unmoving, unaffected, unnoticing.
Bastard, she thought affectionately.
"I have a riddle," began Heero, his eyes narrowing as he gauged her reaction to his statement; she adopted as casual an interest as she could. "How do you prove someone exists when evidence says they do not?"
"Find the person," she answered immediately, feeling it might be the only shot she had at playing his convoluting games. The slight quirk at the corners of his mouth showed her she was accurate, by at least some percentage, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "My turn," she chirped, feeling the last bit of sleepiness leave her mind, her face losing its hold on her mask and slipping into the childish eagerness she felt. He inclined his head acceptingly, settling his elbows on his knees and leaning forward in shrouded anticipation. She smiled and finished, "Who are you looking for, 'Ro?"
His eyes flattened, darkening intimidatingly, and he moved his body so he was closer to her, studying her face with a curiously frightening, listless persona on his Japanese features. "Her name is not her own," he breathed enigmatically. "Her story is incomplete and little is known."
Quelling the excited fear in her belly, she moved to meet him, grinning foolishly, her eyes closing and thin red eyelashes brushing her arched cheeks. "You watched 'Dial "M" for Murder,' didn't you? Lovely film, I liked the writer best, o' course, but I'm subjective," she hummed, self-consciously clutching at the front of her robe to keep the swell of her chest hidden. "You'll have to wait until I've made some tea, 'kay?" Pulling back, she stood and brushed at the ankle-long folds of the terrycloth robe, slipping across her carpet to the kitchen. Heero frowned thoughtfully, fingers plucking at the knot in his tie and finally sliding the length of cloth from around his neck, and he drew himself to his feet, smoothing over the front of his shirt and opting to leave his snow-streaked dress shoes on.
The fluorescent overhead light flicked on, she had busied herself in the suitably small kitchen of her compact house, every surface a worn, homey wood. A cabinet was patiently holding itself open as she rummaged through its contents, her heels arching off the cotton backing of her red slippers, and she asked, voice muffled by the cabinet door, "Ya want some? I'm loaded up with orange-flavored and, um…orange-flavored." She laughed briefly, shaking her Christmas tin at him mockingly, her button nose wrinkling up slightly. Stepping back, almost stumbling, she tapped the cabinet shut and clutched the bent tin in her lightly freckled hands, grinning in self-directed amusement.
"Mandarin is fine," he nodded and he tugged two chipped mugs from the drying rack erected lopsidedly beside her cluttered sink. Gingerly moving aside the stacks threatening to topple, he lifted the silver bar of the faucet and tilted it to the left, waiting patiently for the thirty seconds it took for hot water to begin coursing out and listening as Nancy wrestled with the tin, popping the lid off and lifting out two tea bags. Three minutes found them seated at her small double-seated table, a slender rectangle reminiscent of those in the food courts of most malls, dipping mismatched spoons into the slowly coloring liquid. Billowing clouds of amber traced through the water, like veins gradually clustering together to form a darkly clear whole.
She sipped at her tea and grimaced, motioning for him to avoid doing the same. "It isn't ready, yet," she explained with a smile, dinging her spoon against the side of her mug and licking a droplet off her lip. Heero was quiet, though that wasn't quite an odd experience, but he was expressing contemplation more than brooding, and she cocked her head to one side, curious. "'s up?"
He parroted her spoon, clinking his own against his mug and mulling over what to say before choosing the direct approach. "Why are you and Umino divorcing?" he questioned with something bordering on a lack of tact, glancing about the kitchen he had grown fond of over the years and thanking Umino for wanting a classy apartment more than the friendly home. She blinked and laughed, scooping at her tea, nervously looking everywhere but at him.
"How long have we known each other?" she countered rhetorically, her voice soft. "Three years, right, after that computer convention Umino dragged me to? We kept in touch 'cause ya thought I was good at figuring out crap, and I'd just moved, so I didn't have many friends anywho." She sipped at her tea and smiled, taking a larger sip, and he sipped at his, reminded briefly of how weak he thought tea tasted. "But, y'know, my first friend would hafta be a night owl who liked to drop by at times most people consider meant for a li'l something we like to call 'sleep.'" Sarcasm touched her words and she winked playfully at him. "So, long 'n' short…" Nancy took a disinterested sip and said in a forcibly careless tone, "he thought we were having an affair."
Heero's tea took a two-way trip down his throat, nearly slipping into his lungs before he choked it back up, hiding the startled reflex with his mug and spitting the tea quietly back into the rest of the drink. Her cheeks were bright red and he, while learning how to breathe again, inhaled silently in a calming gesture, setting his mug onto the dark oak surface of the table. She was taking great lengths at avoiding his gaze, choosing, as all people inevitably choose, the most unlikely object to fixate on, her cloudy blue eyes sternly focused on a dimple in the wall highlighted by the dim light.
To be perfectly honest, it wasn't an idea he had ignored; on several occasions, he had shown up at her doorstop in the early morning wanting something other than her surprisingly agile mind, but his sense of morals, such as it was, kept him from wrinkling her cozy life. He had felt a deep passion for Relena Dorlian, one formed by mutual fascination and physical attraction, but Nancy had been a far different case, a loose friendship growing warmer and strangely fulfilling until it became contenting, comfortable, and pleasingly needful to be near. Damn, he swore, unaware that his eyes had turned dark again, though they did not flatten, and he missed her dredge up resolve.
"Now, what was it ya needed help on?" she asked brightly, the pearly, flaming image of friendship.
--~--
*
--~--
"Nice braid," Makoto Kino, COIC of the M-13 Preventers branch office, commented congenially as she thumbed meaninglessly through a thick wad of legal papers, ripping one out of every so often and running it through the hibernating shredder waiting on the corner of her desk, spitting out thin strips into the halfway filled trash can placed alongside the large metal slab. Her own auburn hair, a mix of whipped chocolate nougat and crimson roses, was pulled effortlessly back in an arched ponytail, curling in waves down the back of her tailored blue women's suit.
"Nice ass," Duo replied cheerily, crossing the green carpet patterned into swirling whorls and curlicues. He eased into one of the two stiff fabric chairs facing her desk and fixed a charmingly bright smile at her, a gleaming sliver of white on his tanned face. The knotted tail of his braid struck his thigh as he sat, and he shifted temporarily, working it behind his back before he could adopt a falsely relaxed air, his muscles tensed as he waited for the legendary Kino temper to explode. She was a wonderful woman most of the time, with a mothering personality and friendly nature, but he had also seen her angry, though he had thankfully managed to never be at the receiving end before.
"Not offering," she, in turn, replied dryly, judging the papers left in her hand and, with a shrug, separated them into four smaller piles to be run through the shredder. It was after the first was fed to the hungry machine when she turned to face him, her olive eyes leveling with his and sparkling with crackling anger, a sort of lightning that had him shrinking, hunching over in his seat. Friggin' hell, he thought with amazement, and here I thought only Sally could give that look!
"I was going to break somewhere around ten regulations and simply kick your ass," she informed him sweetly, and he refrained from telling her the odds of her being able to do that were slim, mostly because it had been over ten years since he'd had to keep someone from brutally murdering him and she, thankfully, was uninformed of his past as a pilot. "However," she glared at him, conveying the feeling she still wanted to harm him, "Dr. Chang convinced me it wouldn't solve matters, as it was Lady Une who chose you for this assignment and beaten, bruised, or bloody, you'd have to go back anyway."
"I'm going to assume it wasn't Wufei who vouched for me," he noted out loud and he felt a small burst of relief when she smiled humorously.
"He offered usage of his katanas and an arsenal of explosives I'm not sure he's legally allowed to have on a colony," she admitted, eyes softening a bit from the frightening heat of earlier. "Look, Maxwell, it wouldn't be such a big deal if the patient herself wasn't a big deal. Une and Robertson have both given me explicit orders to not tell you any more, so I can't explain why you have to tread carefully around her." She sighed and massaged her temples, muscles in her jaw jumping in tension as she breathed.
Looking up, she thinned her eyes at him, her simmering anger giving way to concern. "Something big is happening and we need her in the best psychological shape possible, and like it or not, your screwball methods might be one of the few ways to get her that way."
"Gee," he grinned, uncomfortable with the level of seriousness, and he squirmed in his chair, braid bunched painfully at the small of his back, "I'm flattered."
"Don't be," Makoto said bluntly, lowering her hands and lifting a second quarter of the paper, absently tipping it through the whirring blades of the shredder. "General consensus is that Lady Une figured sending an insane psychologist to help Cortez's widow would show her how good it was to be sane."
Duo did a passable impression of Heero's infamous death glare and she grinned cheekily back at him, radiating impish delight and a familial fondness. "Oh, golly, thanks for that boost to my ego," he grumped, pouting purposefully, and she chuckled, finishing off the third quarter with something resembling devilish glee. "Havin' fun offing the paper?" he requested mildly, listening with interest to the delightfully destructive sound of the ripping fibers. Lord, he needed a punching bag or something, because he was sick of not having something to hit.
"Jeff thinks I'm being too friendly with staff," she told him in a voice that was far from the blindly enraged one of the morning, "but I think you guys are too thin anyway. Besides, I like baking things to bring in." A flash of pain struck her face, exiting quickly, the memory of something loved and lost, and he fidgeted with his braid, glancing at the floor, the desk, the shredder, to avoid that emotion he had seen everywhere since his childhood - Aimee exploded into his mind, pain and sorrow and angst and everything bad he had lived through or escaped experiencing, and he felt his lungs freeze, his breath hitching in his throat.
"I think," he started slowly, distantly, hearing his voice but not recognizing the texture of it as his, and he knew it was out of place, changing the subject so drastically, logically, neither, "I'm selfish." Makoto gave him a slightly bewildered look, her pink rose earrings dancing with the glimmering overhead lights, her curved body lit from behind by the simulation of a setting sun, thousands of millions of bulbs dimming automatically. "When I read the case files on Aimee, I guess I took the case," he pulled his face into a sour expression, "whatever, was given the case, I went with it 'cause it was a form of therapy for me." His eyes searched her face, expecting further confusion or frustration, something other than the dawning understanding in her youthful, maternal features. "I'm sick of pain."
The final quarter slipped through the shredder, filling the silent office with the sound of tearing, ripping, peaceful, accepted death, and he shuddered, starting to realize why he had so quickly elected to take the task that week and odd days ago, feeling guilt and self-loathing as well as relief and a sense of freedom. How could he help Aimee when he wanted to help himself? Tears stung the back of his eyes and he stabbed his fingers into them, shoving back the memories of a stolen apple and fingers touching his hair, pulling out tangles that had grown for years; it was a war they all fought in their souls, each of the pilots, tapping down demons melted into their cores, and he had nearly forgotten the sensation of losing control. "Dammit," he bit out in a quiet voice.
"Look at that," Makoto said gently, sounding more like a mother than he would ever tell her, "it's not even seven and you've had an epiphany. Chocolate chips be okay for tomorrow?"
--~--
*
--~--
He leaned his head against the wall, sucking air into his lungs deeply as he imprisoned the need to weep, to curl as a child might and let tears coat his face, and he pulled his jacket off in quick, jerking motions, letting the black cloth crumple into a formless swath on the tiled floor of the hallway. Muscles under the red turtleneck shivered, pulsing as they alternated tensing and contracting, and he was relieved to feel the vibration of his cell-phone in the deep pocket of his slacks. Hurriedly digging it out, he flipped it open and, inhaling thickly once more, the carefully air conditioned atmosphere of the basement level stretching his lungs, thumbed it on, bringing the slender plastic to his ear.
"Maxwell," came a serious, dead voice, curt and almost weary sounding, as if the speaker had been forced to do something he desperately did not. A smile burst across Duo's face, an innocently delighted one reminiscent of a boy being contacted by a distanced brother.
"Heero, what's up?" he cheered, turning his back to the wall and leaning back, curving his shoulders and head forward, legs splayed out in front with one ankle crossing over the other. Studying a prominent scar on his sneaker, he felt his demon subside grumpily, falling sway to bonds of friendship, no matter how one-sided they might be at times.
He thought he might have heard Heero mutter, "Bite me," but it was both nonsensical and uncharacteristic, so he merely raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and scratched unassumingly at his chin. "I need your help," he grunted reluctantly, and the muffled sound of someone elbowing a ribcage followed, complete with disgruntled exhale and cruel snickering. "It was your idea," the Japanese man began, voice obscured as he obviously turned from the phone, and a muted female voice replied, with a scuffling sound ensuing before a new, feminine voice took over.
"Howdy!" came the cheerful, albeit tired, woman's voice, a thick New York accent tainting her words in a purely unique and entertaining way, "You're Maxwell, right?"
"Duo," he offered helpfully, speech slipping easily into the practiced rhythms of flirtation and casual interaction. "Duo Maxwell."
"Likes James Bond, only not," she said and he could tell she was grinning, sensing a kindred spirit. "I'm Nancy Trishmore, host of today's episode of 'Heero Yuy Wrecks Another Person's Morning,' curre--" Another ribcage routine followed and she squeaked as Duo merged his eyebrows together, trying to place where he had heard that name before. "Cheater!" she called and then threw in a, "Sorry," for good measure.
"Forgiven if you're as luscious as your voice," Duo responded, shifting his ankles into a mirror of their prior position. At least adjectives would always be with him, he reflected.
"Pervert," Nancy said happily. "'Nyway, Heero's looking for info 'bout that Philip Cortez guy who died whenever ago. Said he hacked into what he could, which I'm thinkin' is sorta illegal, but who cares? He needs you to hack into all kinds of official sounding crap and save whatever wasn't used to death by the media."
"Yes!" the braided man crowed, forgetting he was on the phone with someone other than one of the pilots or those privy to the eccentricities of their bizarre lives. "Something I can do without screwing up!" In the background, he could hear a derisive snort that sounded suspiciously like a Perfect Soldier swallowing a nasty laugh, and he flushed, suddenly reminded he was talking to one Nancy Trishmore. "Um…oops?"
"Don't worry," she said encouragingly. "I do that all the time."
Sheepishly picking at a loose cord of hair tickling the plane of his cheek, he summoned the nonchalant air that had served him well in the past, adopting a reserved look, as if he was weighing his options. "So…what's in it for me?"
--~--
*
--~--
"Shane," Alex whispered, his voice hiccupping from tears and silent crying. He shoved weakly at his twin's shoulder, fingers prodding at the red pajamas and clutching as he pushed again, sniffling, himself stripped of his pajama bottoms and wearing a fresh pair of boxers. Shane mumbled in his sleep, rolling away from the blue-clothed boy, burrowing his head into the comforter and rolling his lips, exhaling softly. "Shane, wake up," he pleaded, rubbing at his eyes and nose, his sleeve dampened slightly. "C'mon, Shane, you gotta wake up!"
After a minute or two of shoving and stage whispers, he shifted onto his back, yawning deeply and blinking his hazel eyes out of sync, adjusting to the darkness of the room and peering with the help of the small plug-in nightlight in a far corner. "Wha'sit?" he asked sleepily, stifling another yawn and flaring his nostrils at a muffled scent. "Whatcha cryin' for?"
Alex hiccupped, turning his gaze downward, his face coloring with embarrassment, and he muttered, regretting, now, waking his brother, "I had'n accident."
Shane's reaction was dutifully that of any young child confronted with a sibling's bedwetting problems, a mixture of horror, mortification, and secret amusement, all coming out in the form of an angry cry. "You wet the bed?" he roared, making a show of tearing the comforter and sheets off his own thin body, jumping off the bed and slipping on his heels, landing painfully on his rear. Rubbing his wounded person, he glared in elated disgust, continuing, "That's gross!"
Bursting into a fresh assault of tears, his light brown face glittering in the yellow glow of the nightlight, Alex wailed, slamming his fisted hands into the mattress. "I didn't mean to!" he protested, shoulders shaking as he cried. "That's why it's'n accident!"
"Ew!" came Shane's reply, and the boy on the floor nimbly leapt to his feet, shooting a venomous glare at his sobbing brother. "We gotta get Mama, bedwetter," he said cruelly. "C'mon." Alex, crying, slid off the bed, his pajama shirt wriggling up his tiny chest, and he trailed behind his counterpart, leaving their large room with only a few hiccups and sniffles betraying their movements. Angrily, the more aggressive of the two pinched him and he yelped, clutching his injured arm and glaring pathetically. "Stop being such a baby!" he ordered, coming to a stop in front of the large double doors of the end bedroom, framed on either side of the landing by tall Gothic windows, sleek panes of glass dyed a rich, clear blue. Hesitating for only a second, he rapped his fist on the right door loudly, curling his shoulders back and thrusting his chest forward arrogantly, his face steeled into a haughty, know-it-all expression.
They stood in the blue-tinged moonlight for a moment, one hunched over and shivering in the aquamarine pool, the other waiting steadfastly. Finally, the door creaked open and their mother, a handsome woman of average height with long wheat-gold hair, patted a hand over her mouth, staring fuzzily at them. Before Shane could cheerfully inform her of Alex's crime, the weeping boy hurled himself forward, wrapping his arms around her bare legs, exposed by the loose tee shirt undoubtedly filched from their father's suitcase.
"I wet the bed, Mama," he told her, his voice apologetic and his tears softening her knees. "I'm really, really sorry, and I didn't mean to, but I did, an' I already changed underwear'n everything."
"Hn?" Relena murmured, her mind still catching up with being forced awake by Noce pushing her to get the door, and when it did, she cooed, bending down to scoop him into her arms with some effort. "Oh, sweetie, that's okay." Rocking slightly, she let him bury his face in her shoulder, still sniffling, and she gestured wearily for Shane to follow her in, patting for the door and moving it shut. "Noce, move over, the boys are sleeping with us tonight." Swept with the knowledge that a rare treat had been presented to them, Shane grinned and ran forward, all but somersaulting onto the bed, landing squarely on his father's stomach.
"Why am I suddenly fifty pounds heavier?" Noce questioned absently, reaching down with his big hand to pat his son's head affectionately, before carelessly hauling the boy off and setting him in the space between the sides of the bed. Relena, with a care her beloved had understandably foregone, gently helped Alex in beside his brother, tucking him under the thick blue comforter and tousling his honey brown curls.
"Our moonlight princes must protect us from the scourge of the darkest dragon," she informed him in a serious tone, winking at the twins, a gesture they almost missed in the pale light of the stars and the ever watchful moon, "lurking in the corner of our cavernous closet."
"Ah," mumbled the dark man, his strong arm coming to rest over the shoulders of the twins, his hand brushing her own shoulder. "That would explain it."
Alex sniffled again, callously passing his hand over his nose, wiping forcefully, and she smiled kindly, seeing Shane drift easily into sleep once more. "Did I ever tell you how I met your father?" she began, kissing the moist cheek of her son, smiling a second time at his slowly shaking head. "Well, I'd already met princes brought by stars and had waltzed with a diamond knight or two, but it was perhaps destined for me to meet, the day my carriage broke on the glimmering highway," and Alex beamed, relishing the poetic feel and medieval twists, "a lowly peas--"
"Watch it," Noce intoned, rumbling voice low and humored. Relena subsided obediently, eyes twinkling with laughter, and her husband shifted, bringing his hand from her shoulder to ruffle Alex's hair, uncannily mimicking her earlier movement. "Did you learn anything tonight?" he rumbled to the small boy, hand sliding back to its place on her shoulder.
"Yep," he replied, a note of slumber edging into his voice. "Shane's a butthead."
--~--
*
--~--
"Damn blow-dryer," Duo growled, glaring evilly at the offending device and scooting the bathroom trashcan over with his foot, dropping it with reluctance into the relatively empty confines of it. He rolled his shoulders, the back of his white tank-top soaked through from the undeniably heavy wetness of his hair, the cloth plastered awkwardly to his skin and his hair threatening to yank him over with sheer weight. "You just have to break when I need to use the computer," he muttered, jerking a drawer open under the surprisingly clean bathroom counter and snatching up several large hair clips, an ensemble of glaringly bright colors and sturdy plastic. Separating a thick clump of hair from the rest, he wound it up, bunching it together on his crown and expending two clips to keep it in place. The procedure was repeated for a total of five more times before he was satisfied and the mess was no longer settled dangerously on his spine, though his shirt was still glued to his back in a decisively unwelcome manner. Studying his reflection and recalling the ordeal of buying hair clips - which, of course, were only carried in the women's department and that always led to fun questions over his sexual orientation, he struck a pose and said breathlessly, "I'm ready for my close-up, dah-ling."
An impatient hum came steadily from his bedroom and he turned on his heel, grasping the doorknob and jerking it shut at his back as he crossed the small hall to his room, ducking through the doorway and hopping over clumps of items, identifiable or not, to the hefty laptop waiting on his bed. Happily jumping on the bed, he picked at his top, peeling it away from his skin with a suction sound and leaving an unpleasant humid feeling on his back. He wriggled his toes under the socks and lifted the laptop to set it, suitably, on his lap, over his gym shorts.
"Let's see how screwed up you were," he muttered, clicking on the search engine at top and swiftly keying in a small government-sponsored organization's website, ignoring the Preventers' files for the time being.
It had been far too long since he'd been able to do something absolutely, horribly, terribly, deliciously sneaky, and he was going to enjoy this.
--~--
*
--~--
Author's Notes: Ami wasn't in this chapter, frag it! I wanted to put her in, but it didn't fit well, so a scene that was meant to be in the third chapter is being pushed further and further off…she will, however, be in a great deal in the next chapter, which I plan on having be the obligatory 'flashback' chapter (one of a few, because it's necessary to explain some of the stuff happening). Look for angst-o-rama, Duo in a rebuilt church, and my complete idiocy when it comes to Catholicism (I'm a Protestant, so, apparently, that's my weak excuse).
I'm placing the timeframe in mid-November, about November 17, and the day just completed in the story is Tuesday, I believe. (I am moving too fast! Must…place…obstacles…in story!) While it would be nice to think the colonies run on the same timetable, I'd doubt it; that's why it's around three in the morning where Quatre lives, and about eight at night on M-13. The colonies also have different simulated weather conditions at different times - it's summer on Quatre's and fall/winter on M-13, while it's snowing on Earth.
Nancy Trishmore, author of several 'Romance of the Week' novels, and possible romantic interest for everyone's favorite antisocial Perfect Soldier is none other than…Naru! As in, Usagi's civilian best friend, for the three seasons before she apparently fell off the face of the planet. *ducks for cover, praying loudly for all explosives to be poorly aimed*
A thousand thanks to Kaiya-chan, who's probably wondering what it is I'm on that has me churning these out so quickly. Muahaha! Inspiration! And quite possibly I'm starting to act like a mature writer, finishing a story and so on. Or maybe I just want to get to steamy scenes…*snorts* That'll be somewhere around chapter, what, twenty-six? *goes dreamy-eyed at prospect of a long story*
Standard disclaimer still applies; what, you think I managed to get both series because of a hefty inheritance left by an unknown relative who apparently knew me? I can only dream so...Distributed to www.FanFiction.net and other fine locations in the Shijie Solar System..
Me likes feedback and you give feedback. Please? They make me a better writer, or...eh, I just like reviews. Review, please, or send e-mails to alien_wolf@sailorjupiter.com.
(Side Note: Right...thanks to Damia-san for pointing out the problems with formatting; apparently, when I uploaded it, either the school computer or FanFiction.net screwed up my Notepad file, deleting the spaces breaking off the sections. I had that problem the same day uploading stories in a different account, but was able to avoid it by using '--~--' for whatever reason, as a simple '*' was doing nothing. I'm working on the Spanish, too, 'cause I need to know what I'm doing...*sweatdrops*)
According to the databases he had been able to hack into - without Maxwell's help, he added mentally - and review, Philip Cortez was barely more than a ghost. The information he had read was more or less the same as that shown in a newspaper, scant facts that hardly formed a skeleton, and it was somewhat impressive that the newspapers had been able to dress it up enough to form the standard five-day, breaking news series. Latino blood, unknown parents, unknown birthplace, age placed at forty-nine, leader of a particularly dangerous drug cartel with mob ties - hell, he thought with a grunt, it was the mob. And, of course, perhaps the most widely known tidbit of knowledge, of gossip, of pity, was his common law wife, an abused girl of eighteen years, and, apparently, a girl he had kept from the age of nine.
At an earlier time, having seen personally that the Dorlian family and their entourage had left safely, he had copied results from blood tests, tissue exams, and such forth from Cortez's wife. Running a comparison through the extensive, multiple databases holding the identities and biological information on individual after individual had proved one niggling suspicion he had:
For all intents and purposes, Aimee Cortez simply did not exist.
--
Requiem: Hymn
--
Nancy Trishmore stared blearily at the green wood of her front door as she shuffled down the carpeted stairs, tying with practiced ease the fuzzy red sash of her white robe. Whispering a peach hand through her orange-tinted red hair, the thick strands naturally crimped and cut at her ears, she idly considered putting an early morning visitor in as the dashing hero of her next romance; with as good as 'The Duchess of Fire' was selling, she might as well take a break from historical fiction and script modern settings. She twisted the lock in the doorknob open and slid aside the chain lock, letting the metal eye strike the doorframe heavily, and she pulled the door open.
"It's two in the morning!" she cried in exasperation, her antique Brooklyn accent straining her words comically, when she saw who it was, her hand settling firmly on her hip as she leaned to the side in a slightly infuriated manner. The snow swirling thickly outside had tainted his untidy black suit with spots of darker wetness, leaving his white button-up clean and his loose tie crumpled from running. He raised a wide, dark chocolate eyebrow and she sighed, thumbing at her grey-blue eyes and opening the door wider, gesturing vaguely for him to come in. "Right, right, it's seven o'clock Heero Yuy time. Musta slipped my mind." She closed the door behind him, placing the chain lock back in place and slipping the doorknob's built-in lock in its nightly position.
"You need a deadbolt," he reminded her in his near monotone, voice surprisingly deep for a man only three inches taller than her petite Irish self. "I could have kicked your door in without much effort."
"And I would've asked if ya wanted to watch classics with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan," she replied in tired banter, leading him into the small, quaintly decorated living room to the left. A long couch with a large armchair at either end faced an average-sized television, an aged vid-phone to its right. Paintings of the covers of her multiple romances decorated the walls, intermingled with photos of friends, pets, and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Umino. Nancy flopped into one of the armchairs, brushing loose strands of hair from her face and watching him as he carefully, smoothly, sat on the end of the couch closest to her, shedding his inky jacket and rolling his white sleeves up to his elbows. "Ya look like my cousin Jim when you're all professional like that," she said matter-of-factly, grinning at his slightly confused expression, his countenance looking more like a teddy bear than usual.
"Of course," he stated slowly, lowering his eyebrow into the usual strict look he had. Heero tapped his honey brown fingertips together as she reached over to the lamp beside him, tugging promptly at the dangling cord peeking from the ridged shade encircling the bulb. While she blinked and paused for a few seconds to let her vision adjust, he remained as blindly alert as always, unmoving, unaffected, unnoticing.
Bastard, she thought affectionately.
"I have a riddle," began Heero, his eyes narrowing as he gauged her reaction to his statement; she adopted as casual an interest as she could. "How do you prove someone exists when evidence says they do not?"
"Find the person," she answered immediately, feeling it might be the only shot she had at playing his convoluting games. The slight quirk at the corners of his mouth showed her she was accurate, by at least some percentage, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "My turn," she chirped, feeling the last bit of sleepiness leave her mind, her face losing its hold on her mask and slipping into the childish eagerness she felt. He inclined his head acceptingly, settling his elbows on his knees and leaning forward in shrouded anticipation. She smiled and finished, "Who are you looking for, 'Ro?"
His eyes flattened, darkening intimidatingly, and he moved his body so he was closer to her, studying her face with a curiously frightening, listless persona on his Japanese features. "Her name is not her own," he breathed enigmatically. "Her story is incomplete and little is known."
Quelling the excited fear in her belly, she moved to meet him, grinning foolishly, her eyes closing and thin red eyelashes brushing her arched cheeks. "You watched 'Dial "M" for Murder,' didn't you? Lovely film, I liked the writer best, o' course, but I'm subjective," she hummed, self-consciously clutching at the front of her robe to keep the swell of her chest hidden. "You'll have to wait until I've made some tea, 'kay?" Pulling back, she stood and brushed at the ankle-long folds of the terrycloth robe, slipping across her carpet to the kitchen. Heero frowned thoughtfully, fingers plucking at the knot in his tie and finally sliding the length of cloth from around his neck, and he drew himself to his feet, smoothing over the front of his shirt and opting to leave his snow-streaked dress shoes on.
The fluorescent overhead light flicked on, she had busied herself in the suitably small kitchen of her compact house, every surface a worn, homey wood. A cabinet was patiently holding itself open as she rummaged through its contents, her heels arching off the cotton backing of her red slippers, and she asked, voice muffled by the cabinet door, "Ya want some? I'm loaded up with orange-flavored and, um…orange-flavored." She laughed briefly, shaking her Christmas tin at him mockingly, her button nose wrinkling up slightly. Stepping back, almost stumbling, she tapped the cabinet shut and clutched the bent tin in her lightly freckled hands, grinning in self-directed amusement.
"Mandarin is fine," he nodded and he tugged two chipped mugs from the drying rack erected lopsidedly beside her cluttered sink. Gingerly moving aside the stacks threatening to topple, he lifted the silver bar of the faucet and tilted it to the left, waiting patiently for the thirty seconds it took for hot water to begin coursing out and listening as Nancy wrestled with the tin, popping the lid off and lifting out two tea bags. Three minutes found them seated at her small double-seated table, a slender rectangle reminiscent of those in the food courts of most malls, dipping mismatched spoons into the slowly coloring liquid. Billowing clouds of amber traced through the water, like veins gradually clustering together to form a darkly clear whole.
She sipped at her tea and grimaced, motioning for him to avoid doing the same. "It isn't ready, yet," she explained with a smile, dinging her spoon against the side of her mug and licking a droplet off her lip. Heero was quiet, though that wasn't quite an odd experience, but he was expressing contemplation more than brooding, and she cocked her head to one side, curious. "'s up?"
He parroted her spoon, clinking his own against his mug and mulling over what to say before choosing the direct approach. "Why are you and Umino divorcing?" he questioned with something bordering on a lack of tact, glancing about the kitchen he had grown fond of over the years and thanking Umino for wanting a classy apartment more than the friendly home. She blinked and laughed, scooping at her tea, nervously looking everywhere but at him.
"How long have we known each other?" she countered rhetorically, her voice soft. "Three years, right, after that computer convention Umino dragged me to? We kept in touch 'cause ya thought I was good at figuring out crap, and I'd just moved, so I didn't have many friends anywho." She sipped at her tea and smiled, taking a larger sip, and he sipped at his, reminded briefly of how weak he thought tea tasted. "But, y'know, my first friend would hafta be a night owl who liked to drop by at times most people consider meant for a li'l something we like to call 'sleep.'" Sarcasm touched her words and she winked playfully at him. "So, long 'n' short…" Nancy took a disinterested sip and said in a forcibly careless tone, "he thought we were having an affair."
Heero's tea took a two-way trip down his throat, nearly slipping into his lungs before he choked it back up, hiding the startled reflex with his mug and spitting the tea quietly back into the rest of the drink. Her cheeks were bright red and he, while learning how to breathe again, inhaled silently in a calming gesture, setting his mug onto the dark oak surface of the table. She was taking great lengths at avoiding his gaze, choosing, as all people inevitably choose, the most unlikely object to fixate on, her cloudy blue eyes sternly focused on a dimple in the wall highlighted by the dim light.
To be perfectly honest, it wasn't an idea he had ignored; on several occasions, he had shown up at her doorstop in the early morning wanting something other than her surprisingly agile mind, but his sense of morals, such as it was, kept him from wrinkling her cozy life. He had felt a deep passion for Relena Dorlian, one formed by mutual fascination and physical attraction, but Nancy had been a far different case, a loose friendship growing warmer and strangely fulfilling until it became contenting, comfortable, and pleasingly needful to be near. Damn, he swore, unaware that his eyes had turned dark again, though they did not flatten, and he missed her dredge up resolve.
"Now, what was it ya needed help on?" she asked brightly, the pearly, flaming image of friendship.
--~--
*
--~--
"Nice braid," Makoto Kino, COIC of the M-13 Preventers branch office, commented congenially as she thumbed meaninglessly through a thick wad of legal papers, ripping one out of every so often and running it through the hibernating shredder waiting on the corner of her desk, spitting out thin strips into the halfway filled trash can placed alongside the large metal slab. Her own auburn hair, a mix of whipped chocolate nougat and crimson roses, was pulled effortlessly back in an arched ponytail, curling in waves down the back of her tailored blue women's suit.
"Nice ass," Duo replied cheerily, crossing the green carpet patterned into swirling whorls and curlicues. He eased into one of the two stiff fabric chairs facing her desk and fixed a charmingly bright smile at her, a gleaming sliver of white on his tanned face. The knotted tail of his braid struck his thigh as he sat, and he shifted temporarily, working it behind his back before he could adopt a falsely relaxed air, his muscles tensed as he waited for the legendary Kino temper to explode. She was a wonderful woman most of the time, with a mothering personality and friendly nature, but he had also seen her angry, though he had thankfully managed to never be at the receiving end before.
"Not offering," she, in turn, replied dryly, judging the papers left in her hand and, with a shrug, separated them into four smaller piles to be run through the shredder. It was after the first was fed to the hungry machine when she turned to face him, her olive eyes leveling with his and sparkling with crackling anger, a sort of lightning that had him shrinking, hunching over in his seat. Friggin' hell, he thought with amazement, and here I thought only Sally could give that look!
"I was going to break somewhere around ten regulations and simply kick your ass," she informed him sweetly, and he refrained from telling her the odds of her being able to do that were slim, mostly because it had been over ten years since he'd had to keep someone from brutally murdering him and she, thankfully, was uninformed of his past as a pilot. "However," she glared at him, conveying the feeling she still wanted to harm him, "Dr. Chang convinced me it wouldn't solve matters, as it was Lady Une who chose you for this assignment and beaten, bruised, or bloody, you'd have to go back anyway."
"I'm going to assume it wasn't Wufei who vouched for me," he noted out loud and he felt a small burst of relief when she smiled humorously.
"He offered usage of his katanas and an arsenal of explosives I'm not sure he's legally allowed to have on a colony," she admitted, eyes softening a bit from the frightening heat of earlier. "Look, Maxwell, it wouldn't be such a big deal if the patient herself wasn't a big deal. Une and Robertson have both given me explicit orders to not tell you any more, so I can't explain why you have to tread carefully around her." She sighed and massaged her temples, muscles in her jaw jumping in tension as she breathed.
Looking up, she thinned her eyes at him, her simmering anger giving way to concern. "Something big is happening and we need her in the best psychological shape possible, and like it or not, your screwball methods might be one of the few ways to get her that way."
"Gee," he grinned, uncomfortable with the level of seriousness, and he squirmed in his chair, braid bunched painfully at the small of his back, "I'm flattered."
"Don't be," Makoto said bluntly, lowering her hands and lifting a second quarter of the paper, absently tipping it through the whirring blades of the shredder. "General consensus is that Lady Une figured sending an insane psychologist to help Cortez's widow would show her how good it was to be sane."
Duo did a passable impression of Heero's infamous death glare and she grinned cheekily back at him, radiating impish delight and a familial fondness. "Oh, golly, thanks for that boost to my ego," he grumped, pouting purposefully, and she chuckled, finishing off the third quarter with something resembling devilish glee. "Havin' fun offing the paper?" he requested mildly, listening with interest to the delightfully destructive sound of the ripping fibers. Lord, he needed a punching bag or something, because he was sick of not having something to hit.
"Jeff thinks I'm being too friendly with staff," she told him in a voice that was far from the blindly enraged one of the morning, "but I think you guys are too thin anyway. Besides, I like baking things to bring in." A flash of pain struck her face, exiting quickly, the memory of something loved and lost, and he fidgeted with his braid, glancing at the floor, the desk, the shredder, to avoid that emotion he had seen everywhere since his childhood - Aimee exploded into his mind, pain and sorrow and angst and everything bad he had lived through or escaped experiencing, and he felt his lungs freeze, his breath hitching in his throat.
"I think," he started slowly, distantly, hearing his voice but not recognizing the texture of it as his, and he knew it was out of place, changing the subject so drastically, logically, neither, "I'm selfish." Makoto gave him a slightly bewildered look, her pink rose earrings dancing with the glimmering overhead lights, her curved body lit from behind by the simulation of a setting sun, thousands of millions of bulbs dimming automatically. "When I read the case files on Aimee, I guess I took the case," he pulled his face into a sour expression, "whatever, was given the case, I went with it 'cause it was a form of therapy for me." His eyes searched her face, expecting further confusion or frustration, something other than the dawning understanding in her youthful, maternal features. "I'm sick of pain."
The final quarter slipped through the shredder, filling the silent office with the sound of tearing, ripping, peaceful, accepted death, and he shuddered, starting to realize why he had so quickly elected to take the task that week and odd days ago, feeling guilt and self-loathing as well as relief and a sense of freedom. How could he help Aimee when he wanted to help himself? Tears stung the back of his eyes and he stabbed his fingers into them, shoving back the memories of a stolen apple and fingers touching his hair, pulling out tangles that had grown for years; it was a war they all fought in their souls, each of the pilots, tapping down demons melted into their cores, and he had nearly forgotten the sensation of losing control. "Dammit," he bit out in a quiet voice.
"Look at that," Makoto said gently, sounding more like a mother than he would ever tell her, "it's not even seven and you've had an epiphany. Chocolate chips be okay for tomorrow?"
--~--
*
--~--
He leaned his head against the wall, sucking air into his lungs deeply as he imprisoned the need to weep, to curl as a child might and let tears coat his face, and he pulled his jacket off in quick, jerking motions, letting the black cloth crumple into a formless swath on the tiled floor of the hallway. Muscles under the red turtleneck shivered, pulsing as they alternated tensing and contracting, and he was relieved to feel the vibration of his cell-phone in the deep pocket of his slacks. Hurriedly digging it out, he flipped it open and, inhaling thickly once more, the carefully air conditioned atmosphere of the basement level stretching his lungs, thumbed it on, bringing the slender plastic to his ear.
"Maxwell," came a serious, dead voice, curt and almost weary sounding, as if the speaker had been forced to do something he desperately did not. A smile burst across Duo's face, an innocently delighted one reminiscent of a boy being contacted by a distanced brother.
"Heero, what's up?" he cheered, turning his back to the wall and leaning back, curving his shoulders and head forward, legs splayed out in front with one ankle crossing over the other. Studying a prominent scar on his sneaker, he felt his demon subside grumpily, falling sway to bonds of friendship, no matter how one-sided they might be at times.
He thought he might have heard Heero mutter, "Bite me," but it was both nonsensical and uncharacteristic, so he merely raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and scratched unassumingly at his chin. "I need your help," he grunted reluctantly, and the muffled sound of someone elbowing a ribcage followed, complete with disgruntled exhale and cruel snickering. "It was your idea," the Japanese man began, voice obscured as he obviously turned from the phone, and a muted female voice replied, with a scuffling sound ensuing before a new, feminine voice took over.
"Howdy!" came the cheerful, albeit tired, woman's voice, a thick New York accent tainting her words in a purely unique and entertaining way, "You're Maxwell, right?"
"Duo," he offered helpfully, speech slipping easily into the practiced rhythms of flirtation and casual interaction. "Duo Maxwell."
"Likes James Bond, only not," she said and he could tell she was grinning, sensing a kindred spirit. "I'm Nancy Trishmore, host of today's episode of 'Heero Yuy Wrecks Another Person's Morning,' curre--" Another ribcage routine followed and she squeaked as Duo merged his eyebrows together, trying to place where he had heard that name before. "Cheater!" she called and then threw in a, "Sorry," for good measure.
"Forgiven if you're as luscious as your voice," Duo responded, shifting his ankles into a mirror of their prior position. At least adjectives would always be with him, he reflected.
"Pervert," Nancy said happily. "'Nyway, Heero's looking for info 'bout that Philip Cortez guy who died whenever ago. Said he hacked into what he could, which I'm thinkin' is sorta illegal, but who cares? He needs you to hack into all kinds of official sounding crap and save whatever wasn't used to death by the media."
"Yes!" the braided man crowed, forgetting he was on the phone with someone other than one of the pilots or those privy to the eccentricities of their bizarre lives. "Something I can do without screwing up!" In the background, he could hear a derisive snort that sounded suspiciously like a Perfect Soldier swallowing a nasty laugh, and he flushed, suddenly reminded he was talking to one Nancy Trishmore. "Um…oops?"
"Don't worry," she said encouragingly. "I do that all the time."
Sheepishly picking at a loose cord of hair tickling the plane of his cheek, he summoned the nonchalant air that had served him well in the past, adopting a reserved look, as if he was weighing his options. "So…what's in it for me?"
--~--
*
--~--
"Shane," Alex whispered, his voice hiccupping from tears and silent crying. He shoved weakly at his twin's shoulder, fingers prodding at the red pajamas and clutching as he pushed again, sniffling, himself stripped of his pajama bottoms and wearing a fresh pair of boxers. Shane mumbled in his sleep, rolling away from the blue-clothed boy, burrowing his head into the comforter and rolling his lips, exhaling softly. "Shane, wake up," he pleaded, rubbing at his eyes and nose, his sleeve dampened slightly. "C'mon, Shane, you gotta wake up!"
After a minute or two of shoving and stage whispers, he shifted onto his back, yawning deeply and blinking his hazel eyes out of sync, adjusting to the darkness of the room and peering with the help of the small plug-in nightlight in a far corner. "Wha'sit?" he asked sleepily, stifling another yawn and flaring his nostrils at a muffled scent. "Whatcha cryin' for?"
Alex hiccupped, turning his gaze downward, his face coloring with embarrassment, and he muttered, regretting, now, waking his brother, "I had'n accident."
Shane's reaction was dutifully that of any young child confronted with a sibling's bedwetting problems, a mixture of horror, mortification, and secret amusement, all coming out in the form of an angry cry. "You wet the bed?" he roared, making a show of tearing the comforter and sheets off his own thin body, jumping off the bed and slipping on his heels, landing painfully on his rear. Rubbing his wounded person, he glared in elated disgust, continuing, "That's gross!"
Bursting into a fresh assault of tears, his light brown face glittering in the yellow glow of the nightlight, Alex wailed, slamming his fisted hands into the mattress. "I didn't mean to!" he protested, shoulders shaking as he cried. "That's why it's'n accident!"
"Ew!" came Shane's reply, and the boy on the floor nimbly leapt to his feet, shooting a venomous glare at his sobbing brother. "We gotta get Mama, bedwetter," he said cruelly. "C'mon." Alex, crying, slid off the bed, his pajama shirt wriggling up his tiny chest, and he trailed behind his counterpart, leaving their large room with only a few hiccups and sniffles betraying their movements. Angrily, the more aggressive of the two pinched him and he yelped, clutching his injured arm and glaring pathetically. "Stop being such a baby!" he ordered, coming to a stop in front of the large double doors of the end bedroom, framed on either side of the landing by tall Gothic windows, sleek panes of glass dyed a rich, clear blue. Hesitating for only a second, he rapped his fist on the right door loudly, curling his shoulders back and thrusting his chest forward arrogantly, his face steeled into a haughty, know-it-all expression.
They stood in the blue-tinged moonlight for a moment, one hunched over and shivering in the aquamarine pool, the other waiting steadfastly. Finally, the door creaked open and their mother, a handsome woman of average height with long wheat-gold hair, patted a hand over her mouth, staring fuzzily at them. Before Shane could cheerfully inform her of Alex's crime, the weeping boy hurled himself forward, wrapping his arms around her bare legs, exposed by the loose tee shirt undoubtedly filched from their father's suitcase.
"I wet the bed, Mama," he told her, his voice apologetic and his tears softening her knees. "I'm really, really sorry, and I didn't mean to, but I did, an' I already changed underwear'n everything."
"Hn?" Relena murmured, her mind still catching up with being forced awake by Noce pushing her to get the door, and when it did, she cooed, bending down to scoop him into her arms with some effort. "Oh, sweetie, that's okay." Rocking slightly, she let him bury his face in her shoulder, still sniffling, and she gestured wearily for Shane to follow her in, patting for the door and moving it shut. "Noce, move over, the boys are sleeping with us tonight." Swept with the knowledge that a rare treat had been presented to them, Shane grinned and ran forward, all but somersaulting onto the bed, landing squarely on his father's stomach.
"Why am I suddenly fifty pounds heavier?" Noce questioned absently, reaching down with his big hand to pat his son's head affectionately, before carelessly hauling the boy off and setting him in the space between the sides of the bed. Relena, with a care her beloved had understandably foregone, gently helped Alex in beside his brother, tucking him under the thick blue comforter and tousling his honey brown curls.
"Our moonlight princes must protect us from the scourge of the darkest dragon," she informed him in a serious tone, winking at the twins, a gesture they almost missed in the pale light of the stars and the ever watchful moon, "lurking in the corner of our cavernous closet."
"Ah," mumbled the dark man, his strong arm coming to rest over the shoulders of the twins, his hand brushing her own shoulder. "That would explain it."
Alex sniffled again, callously passing his hand over his nose, wiping forcefully, and she smiled kindly, seeing Shane drift easily into sleep once more. "Did I ever tell you how I met your father?" she began, kissing the moist cheek of her son, smiling a second time at his slowly shaking head. "Well, I'd already met princes brought by stars and had waltzed with a diamond knight or two, but it was perhaps destined for me to meet, the day my carriage broke on the glimmering highway," and Alex beamed, relishing the poetic feel and medieval twists, "a lowly peas--"
"Watch it," Noce intoned, rumbling voice low and humored. Relena subsided obediently, eyes twinkling with laughter, and her husband shifted, bringing his hand from her shoulder to ruffle Alex's hair, uncannily mimicking her earlier movement. "Did you learn anything tonight?" he rumbled to the small boy, hand sliding back to its place on her shoulder.
"Yep," he replied, a note of slumber edging into his voice. "Shane's a butthead."
--~--
*
--~--
"Damn blow-dryer," Duo growled, glaring evilly at the offending device and scooting the bathroom trashcan over with his foot, dropping it with reluctance into the relatively empty confines of it. He rolled his shoulders, the back of his white tank-top soaked through from the undeniably heavy wetness of his hair, the cloth plastered awkwardly to his skin and his hair threatening to yank him over with sheer weight. "You just have to break when I need to use the computer," he muttered, jerking a drawer open under the surprisingly clean bathroom counter and snatching up several large hair clips, an ensemble of glaringly bright colors and sturdy plastic. Separating a thick clump of hair from the rest, he wound it up, bunching it together on his crown and expending two clips to keep it in place. The procedure was repeated for a total of five more times before he was satisfied and the mess was no longer settled dangerously on his spine, though his shirt was still glued to his back in a decisively unwelcome manner. Studying his reflection and recalling the ordeal of buying hair clips - which, of course, were only carried in the women's department and that always led to fun questions over his sexual orientation, he struck a pose and said breathlessly, "I'm ready for my close-up, dah-ling."
An impatient hum came steadily from his bedroom and he turned on his heel, grasping the doorknob and jerking it shut at his back as he crossed the small hall to his room, ducking through the doorway and hopping over clumps of items, identifiable or not, to the hefty laptop waiting on his bed. Happily jumping on the bed, he picked at his top, peeling it away from his skin with a suction sound and leaving an unpleasant humid feeling on his back. He wriggled his toes under the socks and lifted the laptop to set it, suitably, on his lap, over his gym shorts.
"Let's see how screwed up you were," he muttered, clicking on the search engine at top and swiftly keying in a small government-sponsored organization's website, ignoring the Preventers' files for the time being.
It had been far too long since he'd been able to do something absolutely, horribly, terribly, deliciously sneaky, and he was going to enjoy this.
--~--
*
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Author's Notes: Ami wasn't in this chapter, frag it! I wanted to put her in, but it didn't fit well, so a scene that was meant to be in the third chapter is being pushed further and further off…she will, however, be in a great deal in the next chapter, which I plan on having be the obligatory 'flashback' chapter (one of a few, because it's necessary to explain some of the stuff happening). Look for angst-o-rama, Duo in a rebuilt church, and my complete idiocy when it comes to Catholicism (I'm a Protestant, so, apparently, that's my weak excuse).
I'm placing the timeframe in mid-November, about November 17, and the day just completed in the story is Tuesday, I believe. (I am moving too fast! Must…place…obstacles…in story!) While it would be nice to think the colonies run on the same timetable, I'd doubt it; that's why it's around three in the morning where Quatre lives, and about eight at night on M-13. The colonies also have different simulated weather conditions at different times - it's summer on Quatre's and fall/winter on M-13, while it's snowing on Earth.
Nancy Trishmore, author of several 'Romance of the Week' novels, and possible romantic interest for everyone's favorite antisocial Perfect Soldier is none other than…Naru! As in, Usagi's civilian best friend, for the three seasons before she apparently fell off the face of the planet. *ducks for cover, praying loudly for all explosives to be poorly aimed*
A thousand thanks to Kaiya-chan, who's probably wondering what it is I'm on that has me churning these out so quickly. Muahaha! Inspiration! And quite possibly I'm starting to act like a mature writer, finishing a story and so on. Or maybe I just want to get to steamy scenes…*snorts* That'll be somewhere around chapter, what, twenty-six? *goes dreamy-eyed at prospect of a long story*
Standard disclaimer still applies; what, you think I managed to get both series because of a hefty inheritance left by an unknown relative who apparently knew me? I can only dream so...Distributed to www.FanFiction.net and other fine locations in the Shijie Solar System..
Me likes feedback and you give feedback. Please? They make me a better writer, or...eh, I just like reviews. Review, please, or send e-mails to alien_wolf@sailorjupiter.com.
(Side Note: Right...thanks to Damia-san for pointing out the problems with formatting; apparently, when I uploaded it, either the school computer or FanFiction.net screwed up my Notepad file, deleting the spaces breaking off the sections. I had that problem the same day uploading stories in a different account, but was able to avoid it by using '--~--' for whatever reason, as a simple '*' was doing nothing. I'm working on the Spanish, too, 'cause I need to know what I'm doing...*sweatdrops*)