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Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters or references. I'm just writing this for fun!

Notes: Several people have asked about Heero's jumpiness. I mentioned this in Chapter 5, its shell shock. That's what shell shock is. War veterans have survived and done some pretty nasty stuff in the course of their duty. Imagine normal people, your friend or neighbor, having to commit these horrible acts in a war. Think about what that would do to your physique. Umm, okay, stretching the truth a little here with Heero's scar. I'm thinking that he got it before he became a pilot. But even if an injury like that luckily didn't catch the spinal cord I'm guessing it would take you at least over a year to recover and probably more.

Chapter Seven

(Midnight Games)

He stayed out of sight the next day, hiding from the questioning eyes and pitying looks. At the moment he was skulking in the walls. He slid sideways gripping for hand holds in the narrow space. His back was pressed against one side of the wall, his nose brushing against the other side. He shut his eyes and held a sneeze when he dislodged more dust into his face. Then, creeping and crawling he made his way along to his destination. It was no different from any other part of the wall, except for the smell. Burnt flesh, a stench he knew well. He held up a tiny thumb light and scanned the insides of the wall. There it was, he reached out with a gloved hand to finger the two exposed wires, knocking the charred carcass of a rat off the ledge it had rested on in the process. He pulled the new wires from an all-purpose satchel hanging from his shoulder, along with a few other tools and began rewiring the chewed area. He hoped no one would turn the power back on while he was working, but at the same time he didn't really care if they did. Granted electrocution would not be his first choice of death. High voltage running through the body, burning away his insides. He looked down to where the dead rat had fallen far below; it hadn't hit the ground for a very long time. He wondered how quickly it had died after biting through the insulation. He turned back to his work. He wouldn't mind dying from a fall though. If it was high enough he'd perish the second he hit the ground, enjoying a brief flying sensation before hand.

This train of thought continued for most of the day. He doubted he would die of old age. Yet it really was remarkable how many countless ways the human body could be injured and disposed of. Pushing, pulling, burning, snapping, drowning, aging, freezing, cutting, sickening, starving, impaling, crushing, suffocating, exploding…

He sat on the second story balcony railing looking over the huge entryway and slowly drummed his fingers on the banister. The kids were trickling through the doors with the last day of school before winter break finally over. Perhaps someone would even manage to shoot him in a fatal place eventually. Though that seemed rather unlikely. Caltha was late. He began scraping at the varnished wood with his thumb. Most likely he would end in a fight of some kind, perhaps stabbed through the back, his spinal cord severed. Or perhaps there would be an accident. Crushed by an on coming transport, with his brains splattered across the pavement. Maybe she finally took the hint and decided not to come look for him anymore. What if something had happened to her? He realized the hall had emptied awhile ago. He had a perfect vantage point over the front doors and entryway, and there was no one coming in or running out. At a protesting creak he loosened his grip on the railing and folded his hands in his lap.

The clock on the far wall read half an hour past the time she should be back. In a nearly hypnotized state he watched the long hand move around to the twelve, a full hour past. What if she was lost, or hurt? She might be lying on some street corner bleeding to death in the cold, or being pulled along by the rush of the crowds trampled beneath uncaring feet. She was so tiny; she couldn't fend for herself. He licked his suddenly dry lips and blew his hair out of his eyes. At the sound of walking feet he tore his eyes away from the clock and zeroed in on the woman who had appeared in the hall, Anna. He pushed off the banister he'd been sitting on and dropped to the floor in a crouch in front of her. She gave a shout and dropped half the files she was caring.

Anna took several deep breaths, from the diaphragm, to calm herself while Odin stood. Then she swatted him fiercely on the shoulder with the files she still carried and snapped.

"Don't scare me like that!" Odin ignored her outburst.

"Caltha is seventy-three minutes and twenty-seven seconds late," he stated. Anna blinked, then tried to withhold a smile. That poor boy, he'd been waiting for her for over an hour, with no idea.

"Odin, " her smile broke loose "Caltha's kindergarten class went for a field trip to a farm today. They won't be back until evening." Odin considered himself an idiot. Of course she wasn't missing, there would have been an uproar if she was. Idiot, he mentally hissed to himself while he handed her back the files he'd made her drop and trudged back up the stairs, berating himself all the way. Anna watched him go with some amusement, and some wonder. Maybe there was hope for him after all. Not that I believe in hopeless cases she reminded herself as she walked away.

Odin returned to his vantage point on the second story railing and watched the clock. The hands moved slowly but surely, the light outside became that pre-dusk quality and still he sat. He shifted position once when his leg went numb, but other then that he never moved. He looked like a dejected gargoyle, forever on the lookout. Not until he heard the bus come to a stop outside and they came skipping through the doors did he come alive. The other two ran for the kitchen at once, but Caltha stopped to look left, then right, unsure where she should start looking first. Odin cleared his throat to call her attention, the sound echoing through the empty hall, and Caltha came running. She bounded up the stairs babbling all way without a stop for breath about the things she saw that day, giving extra descriptions of the trip in the horse drawn sleigh. Odin sat on the banister and began to pick the straw out of her hair, actually listening to what she was saying.

~~~~~

"I'll take two,"

"Dealer takes one, your bet." Neon scratched the back of his neck, looked at Jinx, looked back at his cards and tried to look impassive as he made his bet. Jinx smirked and punched the pillow behind his back, he met the bet. Jinx called and they both showed their hands. Neon winced when he saw his friend's hand and showed his pair of two's. Jinx gave a whoop and quickly shut his mouth. The two late nighter's stilled and watched the door to see if Jinx had won the bet only to give away the game. The only sound was the usual snoring from the far bed. Neon punched Jinx in the arm

"Moron," he hissed. Jinx rubbed his arm and collected his winnings with glee. Neon started shuffling the deck, "again?" he asked. Jinx looked at him,

"What do you mean again, you've got nothing left to bet with."

"Awe, common man, ya know I'm good for it!"

"Riiiight. You still owe me five from last week, and am I ever gonna get my shirt back?" unaware of their silent eavesdropper they continued to argue in whispers.

"I'm tellin you, ya wouldn't want it anymore. It's got…." Odin lay on his back in the dark. For some reason listening to them bicker was making him intensely lonely. It reminded him somewhat of the way Wufei and Duo used to argue, albeit less violently. It was, he realized, easier to be alone when you weren't surrounded by people. Maybe that's really why I've always stayed away, he thought. He turned his head to watch the two boys to his right, Neon trying to appear reliable and Jinx not believing a word of it. It was just easier to stay away and not be constantly reminded of just how different he was. Odin thought back to all the little speeches he used to give himself. He used to think it was better that he stay away. He used to tell himself that he was a danger to people and they would be safer if he wasn't there. He used to tell himself lies. All those things he used to believe now just sounded like lines he had memorized out of a database. They were just words and held no meaning.

He was utterly still for a complete minute, he just lay there in shock at this epiphany. It had hurt less that way, he realized. It had hurt less to believe that he had to keep them safe, than to feel like he watched from the other side of the glass a world he could never dwell in, because he couldn't be normal. He rolled over onto his side to face the verbal combatants properly.

It is a very scary thing to have lived your life in misery and sorrow, and then suddenly, to start to wake up. It is rather like growing up in a small dark room and unexpectedly finding a door into the daylight, without ever imagining that such a thing could exist. Odin felt his insides curl. Perhaps none of it is true he thought. If what I thought was true about staying away isn't true, then maybe being on the wrong side of the glass isn't true either. At this point he was beginning to flounder in his knew thinking and his scientific mind took over. The best way to answer any question is to experiment, he thought. So, he reached under the bed for the stash of nighttime snacks he collected to quench his ever-present hunger and shuffled over to the boys on the next bed. Jinx and Neon looked up and gaped at him when he dropped the bag of snacks into the 'pot'.

"I will pay Neon's debt… if you teach me the game." No one made a sound. Neon looked like he was trying to swallow a horse pill. No one moved. Jinx reminded him of some small animal sniffing about for danger, unwilling to move out of it's hole. Nothing happened. Impasse, the experiment was a failure. Odin nodded, disliking the abrupt feeling of his heart falling into his stomach. He took back his bag and turned away, intent on going back to bed.

"Hey…" Odin looked back over his shoulder. Jinx was still looking suspicious but he glanced at Neon and asked. "Do you have anything sweet in there." Odin felt the corner of his mouth pull upward. He nodded and upended it on the bed.

~~~~~

"And lots of royal cards is a good thing?" Jinx nodded warily

"Depends on your hand, but yeah, paint cards can be a good thing," he answered. Neon promptly folded. Odin smirked, the game wasn't that hard to play, it might even be boring without the bluffing. He was playing it dumb with the other two and watching their bets. There were several different tells he'd seen in the last games that gave information on the worth of the other hands. How much a person bet and when, small twitches in the face that gave away a good or bad card, and playing styles. Odin had won with his bluff by chasing Neon out of the game. They showed their cards, he was right, Jinx had a lesser hand. Neon dropped his head with a groan and swore at Odin's hand; he could've beaten him. Odin pulled his winnings into a pile by his feet and started chewing on one of the sweet, rubbery, brightly colored… things, as another game began. Neon had called them gummy worms. Odin supposed he should have waited to use the trick later on when the pot was bigger, he had just given himself away and wouldn't be able to use it again.

Jinx dealt out the cards proclaiming it a changing game. When the second round came Odin chose not to get one or two new cards. His cards were all throw-a-way's and made nothing so there was no point. Instead he watched closely as all the faces on his E-cards went to static and changed. According to Jinx most people didn't let their cards change in a game unless they had nothing. It was risky he explained because you didn't just get new faces from the standard poker deck, but from every game deck the cards had been programmed with. You could end up with all Go-Fish cards. So unless you were lucky it was usually a lose, lose situation. You had to meet the standard bet but if you had nothing and got no useful poker cards when they changed your hand was lost. Odin wasn't lucky, not at cards. He was smart. Neon had said that a third of the game was luck, a third was bluffing and a third was cheating. And cheat he did. It didn't help though, he still lost, so did Neon.

~~~~~

"This is it, my lucky game, I can feel it in my scars!" Neon guffawed and quickly slapped a hand over his mouth to hide the sound. Jinx had been saying that this would be his lucky game since he'd hit his losing streak about an hour ago. The others were wondering whether his luck was good or bad.

"Heh, what scars?" asked Neon, "the ones from old pimples?" Jinx laid down his cards, face down.

"Is that a challenge?" Neon just laughed. Jinx glared and stuck out his thumb. The others blinked and looked closer, they still couldn't see a thing until Jinx pointed out the nearly invisible line to them. Neon laughed,

"Watcha do? Cut yourself while choppin onions?" he sat back snickering and lifted up his foot proudly. Jinx leaned away from the foul smelling foot looking at it warily.

"So?" he asked. Neon was slightly miffed that he also had to point out his scar. "Man, put your foot down, that so-called scar isn't worth the smell!" Jinx gagged.

"So lets see what you got, baby face!" Neon growled. Jinx pulled off his socks,

"Glass and who knows what else!" he exclaimed proudly. Jinx's feet were covered in a thin latticework of scars. Most of the noticeable ones were on the souls of his feet, with a few stretching up the sides.

"Go'in with out shoes through city wreckage never did no one no favors" Neon agreed, "but I can still beat that." He pulled his T-shirt sleeve up to show a large patch of pebbly looking skin on his shoulder.

"Road rash, I was dragged along for a good while before I could climb up that jeep." Odin looked at Neon, curious.

"Why were you trying to climb onto a moving jeep?" he asked quietly. Neon opened his mouth to answer, paused, and closed it again. He licked his lips and muttered for Odin to mind his own business. Then turned back to Jinx.

"Give up yet?" he asked. Jinx shook his head and said,

"Beat this!" he pulled back the hair that was falling in front of his right ear to reveal a long curling scar. It started somewhere past his hairline and arched around the ear heading for the back of the neck. It looked like something had nearly taken his ear off. "Flying shrapnel from a MS explosion in the city," he said proudly. Neon was less impressed then he would have liked. "Piece of the cockpit actually stuck in the door after it flew past my ear… it still had parts of the pilot on it." no one said anything for a time, there wasn't anything to say to that. Eventually Neon cleared his throat and brought them all back to the matter at hand.

" Check it," Neon said, and pulled up the left leg of his sweat pants, exposing an extensive scar of his own. The thick, ragged white and purple line crawled up his leg, starting behind the ankle and going up to the side of his knee. Jinx gave a low whistle, that explained Neon's constant limp. It looked like it had been badly treated too. There were several large dents in the leg where parts the flesh had been eaten away and healed over. Jinx made sarcastic grin, intent on keeping some humor.

"Fall in a junk pile or something?" Neon frowned and said nothing. Odin looked back and forth between the two as they compared their 'Wounds of Glory'. He was bored. He had seen worse scars during the war. Many soldiers were sent home with entire limbs missing. He wanted to get back to the game. He had a good hand and he had run out of gummy worms. It didn't look like they would be getting back to it anytime soon though, at least not without help. Odin heaved a great sigh and pulled off his shirt. Jinx and Neon became very quite as he turned around to give them a full view of his exposed back.

"Shit…" whispered Neon. They stared at the six or seven old shot wounds and the horrible dark gash down Odin's back that came out from his hair, down his neck and spine to end in a messy notch in his lower back just next to his spinal cord. Jinx reached out and cautiously poked one of the bullet scars. Odin stiffened and pulled his shirt back on. Turning to the other two he asked,

"Shall we continue?"

~~~~~

The three of them were sprawled across Jinxes bed staring at the ceiling. Neon stuck out his tongue and looked down his nose at it to check the color, a nice yellowish orange. He sighed and stretched, sticking his tongue back in.

"Man, I want a fix!" Neon whispered. Jinx snorted

"I thought you said you weren't gonna touch that stuff any more?" He asked. Neon rolled over and sat up.

"I'm not, don't mean I don't want one," He answered back. Jinx rolled his head around to look at him.

"But you can't because they're still checking through your stuff,"

"Shut up. What, ya don't crave smokes anymore?"

"No I do, but those are easier to get," Jinx said. Neon snickered and looked at Odin

"Easy to get and he still gets caught with 'em," Neon said. Odin looked up at Neon's upside down profile and asked

"So what did you take?"

"Anything that would fry his brain." Jinx answered before Neon could speak. Neon started chewing on another piece of gum, blue this time. Odin figured he must be trying to get his tongue to be green, for some strange reason. He had discovered it was better not to inquire about motives with Neon.

"Just smoke?" he asked, turning his head in Jinx's direction. Jinx nodded and sat up

"Mostly," he said, keeping his answer vague. Jinx crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look Odin straight in the eye. Failing that he settled for staring at the bridge of his nose. "What about you, you ever take any thing?" Odin's eyes unfocused and he seemed to go a long ways away, into a past they couldn't see. He didn't speak for a long time. The only sounds were the snoring from across the room and Neon's loud chewing.

"No," he finally answered. Jinx raised his eyebrows

"Never?" he asked, somewhat incredulous.

"No," Odin repeated, his gaze sharpening on Jinx. "I never needed outside substances to feel numb."

"What about booze?" asked Neon "you ever gotten drunk?" Odin shook his head

"No." Jinx and Neon looked at each other.

"Whoa," said Neon. "Well you've at least been around the Dens right? Wine women and waste?" again Odin shook his head.

"No, I didn't stay in one place very long."

"Huh, hey Jinx?" Jinx didn't look up from his card shuffle.

"Yeah?"

" You still got that deal go'in?" Jinx took a coin out of nowhere and flipped it across his knuckles,

"Yeah." Jinx tossed the coin and palmed it. He chewed on his lip and looked at Odin. The general out look was one that said he didn't care much about his appearance, but even with the casual position he still looked sinister, with eyes that seemed like holes in the dark. He'd blend in no problem. "We'll let you know next time we go Den hiding, you can come if you want."

"Ya gotta watch yourself com'in back in though," Neon added. "If anyone smells somethin' on your breath it'll be hell! Especially if Ethan finds out" Odin nodded absently. He'd been watching Jinx for the last few minutes palming cards and coins, from who knows where, up one sleeve, back to the other, through the pockets, ears, nose, mouth and from hand to hand. Despite his quick eyes he could barely follow the careful movements and Jinx never did the same trick twice. With a tiny flick of the wrist the whole pack of cards came shooting down his sleeve into his palm and he did a waterfall shuffle, the cards falling from one hand to the other with a little flapping rustle. Then the deck disappeared again and Jinx began flipping coins in its place.

"Where did you learn that?" he asked curiously. Jinx stopped and quickly pocketed the coins.

"Uh, just around."

"Jinx's been do'in that stuff forever," Neon added "but the day he finally pulls a naked woman out of a hat is the day I'll be impressed." Jinx let the cards fall from his hand into a line across the bedspread then flipped his line of cards backwards like domino's and stacked them.

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