Hey, I'm back! I'm really sorry about taking so long with this chapter, I know it's in bad form to keep readers on tenterhooks like that, but my life has been all too crazy. Between April Vacation and AP Exams, I've just been killing to find time. But here I am! Back with another chapter! Go forth, monkeys, and enjoy!

++

            Last one asleep and the first one awake, such was Quatre's curse. He rolled over on his side, squinting at the clock sitting on the dresser across the room. Seven seventeen. Dammit. He would have groaned, but didn't want to wake Trowa. Speaking of which…Quatre leaned over the side of the bed, propped up on his elbows, gazing down at Trowa. The brunette was pretty much unconscious, his cheek mashed into the pillow, hair sticking out at all angles, Sandrock curled up in a tight, tawny pom-pom next to his nose. It was outright adorable. He almost didn't have the heart to wake Trowa, but if they ever hoped to eat breakfast, shower and dress, and get to church on time he would have to.

            "Trowa…" the blue-eyed boy whispered, running the second joint of his index finger against his companion's cheek. He shifted, groaning, hiking the comforter over his head despite the fact that his feet now hung out at the bottom. Quatre's shoulders slumped in mild annoyance.

            "Great," he muttered. There was a fine line between cruelty and kindness when it came to waking someone up, and Quatre wasn't sure if he should cross over to the Dark Side or not. The Voice of Reason said to be kind; the guy did kiss him last night. Then again, he was starving and he had given Trowa a perfectly fair chance to get up sooner. Okay, maybe one more nice, gentle wakeup call. Then he was going to be evil and tell him the Tallgeese was gunning for his cockpit and he was out of ammo. It never failed.

            "Trowa, wake up. Hey Trowa…"

            "Ti amo (1)," he mumbled underneath the covers. Quatre hardly heard it, and even then could only make out garbled nothingness. But it was sexy-sounding Italian garbled nothingness. And for that alone would he spare Trowa of a cruel awakening. The brunette boy shifted again, emerging from his shell of blankets, face turned up towards where Quatre lay watching him. Perfect angle for a good-morning kiss, he mused. Oh well, here went nothing, Quatre mused to himself. Hey, you're only young and horny once. Best carpe diem and all of that shit while you can.

            He slipped down off of the bed to crouch in the six-inch-wide strip of carpet between bed and inflatable mattress. With painstaking caution he slid onto his knees, bracing himself on the metal bed frame as he leaned cautiously over Trowa's prone form, practically not breathing. Quatre said a quick prayer and closed the gap that separated their lips. He was a little surprised that he didn't screw up and clonk Trowa on the nose or anything, but didn't really belabor himself on this thought too long as he was more interested in focusing on the kiss. It was fairly chaste, a little clingy, and just enough to produce cracks of jade from underneath cinnamon lashes. Quatre backed off as soon as Trowa began to emerge from his catatonic state.

            "Mm, Katore?" he purred, scrubbing his eyes with the pads of his middle fingers.

            "Hi. We've got to get up and get ready for church before we end up with cold breakfast and even colder showers. Okay?" Quatre replied in the gentlest voice he could, that almost sounded husky with desire (at least, in his ears).

            "Mm. I wouldn't mind a cold shower," he said, yawning. "Maybe it'll wake me up."

            They slipped down the stairs into the dining room, where a platter of gooey hot cinnamon rolls oozed creamy frosting onto the tablecloth. Rupert sat at the table in a fuzzy navy bathrobe, reading the Sunday paper, a cup of coffee steaming at his elbow. He glanced up at the arrival of the two young men.

            "Morning, boys. Sleep well?"

They nodded, silently picking up saucers and selecting the cinnamon rolls with the most frosting still on them. Rupert completely understood their lack of answer.

            "There's a pot of fresh coffee on the counter, help yourselves, guys. Oh, and there's milk and juice and stuff if you don't drink coffee, Trowa," he amended.

Trowa perked up slightly. "I'm addicted to coffee, actually. The Noventas don't drink it; all they have is a little tin of instant for me to drink. It is like drinking Roman sewer water."

            "I promise, this is high quality coffee imported for me by burly Arabian men who know their java."

The brunette boy stumbled his way towards the coffeepot, while Quatre and his father leaned heads together conspiratorially.

            "How'd last night go?" he whispered.

            "I told Trowa I was gay, he said he already knew," Quatre confessed. "And he gave me a good-night kiss. Nothing big, mind you, but it was on the lips so…I think he likes me, Dad."

He nodded. "Good. I like him, he's a nice kid."

Trowa passed the father approval rating, as well as the Mad Five's torture test. Well, all Quatre needed now was a confirmation that Trowa did indeed like him and was not just stringing him along, and he was golden. It was stupid to think that he didn't at this point, but Quatre was habitually paranoid.

            Trowa stumbled in again, a mug of coffee in each hand. For a moment there, Quatre and his father assumed both were for him. That was before Trowa nodded at his blonde host and handed him one of the steaming mugs, already creamed and sugared. This seemed a little suspicious, but as Quatre took an experimental sip, he came to the conclusion that the coffee had been doctored exactly to his specific tastes.

            "Trowa, how'd you know what I liked in my coffee?" he inquired, picking up his cinnamon roll. The Italian boy seemed to blush and shrink back behind his bangs.

            "I didn't. I like mine that way, and put it in both mugs, forgetting I poured one for you," he answered shyly, emphasizing his response with a yawn.

Rupert chuckled quietly behind his newspaper, flicking the page with a thumb. "Well boys, eat up so you can get a head start on the shower runs. I'd like to leave the house by nine-fifteen at the very latest, if that's all right."

The two young men nodded, but Quatre still seemed slightly confused.

            "Dad, how're we all going to fit? The Tahoe just barely seats all of us, so…"

The dark-haired patriarch cracked a grin, lowering his paper. "The girls will take the Tahoe. The three of us will go in my car."

An audible clunk sounded in the dining room as Quatre's jaw dropped to the table…actually, it might have just been Trowa's knee bumping the underside, but it'll do. Rupert owned a sleek black Beemer, one that never left the garage and was hand-polished on a regular basis. To drive in the Winner Beemer was a special privilege that only came about on special occasions or emergencies where a car other than the all-purpose Tahoe or the little junk buckets the girls had was necessary.

            Due to this new circumstance, the two young men began tucking into breakfast with a greater gusto, wolfing it down in hopes of finishing quickly and dressing even more quickly, so that they might be able to leave the house early and go for a pre-church joyride around Duxbury, where the church was located. It was about twenty minutes away and in one of the more snobbish, wealthy towns on the South Shore. To be jetting around the posh Washington Street in a glossy BMW when you're from backwater little Plympton was a big deal.

            "Go on up, I'll get your dishes," Rupert offered once the two teenagers had eaten enough to satiate them until the coffee hour after church. Quatre scrambled to his feet skirting around the corner and bombing up the stairs with heavy footfalls, Trowa clumsily following. Mr. Winner almost held the brunette back for a moment to give some sort of imposing fatherly warning on the outcome of anyone who deemed himself foolish enough to hurt his only son, but decided at the last minute that he was both too tired and too trusting of the boy to do so. Besides, if Quatre found out, patricide would be on the list of things to do that evening.

++

            Trowa was graciously given the rights to the revered First Shower, and as he darted into the bathroom shared by the multitude of Winner siblings, he offered Quatre a smile of gratitude and maybe something more than that. He also threw a quick kiss onto the blonde boy's cheek as somewhat of an afterthought as he shut the door behind him. While he stood outside the door waiting for his shot at warm water, Quatre pondered the newly noticeable flirtatiousness in his Italian friend. Newly noticeable in that he either hadn't been paying too much attention to it at first, or that Trowa was getting more showy in his methods. More likely a combination of the two. At first he came to the conclusion that his crush had not been entirely sure of Quatre's homosexuality and played it safe until he was certain…though he almost immediately threw that theory out considering the fact that he practically had a neon 'QUEER' sign flashing overhead. It wasn't until Iria staggered out of her room and issued a garbled greeting that he decided Trowa had been nervous about being more open, more flirtatious, just as he had been (and still was) nervous about being less paranoid and bolder.

            "Do you have enough bottles of shampoo in there?" Trowa joked as he stepped out of the bathroom, steam trailing behind him. Quatre would have loved to make a witty retort, had he not been staring at the young man like a slack-jawed idiot. There stood the model for every Classical Greek sculpture he'd ever had to endure watching in a blurred slide show on Mr. McCarthy's whiteboards, clad in naught but a rather short blue bath towel that somehow got splotched with flamingo pink, possibly from an accidental bleaching or the color running. It didn't matter, though, because the towel was the last thing Quatre was focused on. Practically washboard abs, taut stomach, muscles so well-defined you could probably bounce a quarter off of them, skin evenly tanned and gleaming with water, cinnamon bangs slicked back so they practically touched the nape of his neck save for a few stray pieces that brushed dashingly across his forehead, high cheekbones, handsome Romanesque nose, and those jade green eyes that threatened to betray him.

            "Katore?"

Close your mouth before something flies in, a helpful voice in his head ordered.

Quatre blinked, trying to break free of the morass-like spell that had been woven in the air around him.

            "Shower, right. I'll be out in a couple of minutes," he dithered, stumbling over himself to get in and slap the door shut behind him. The water would most certainly be running cold for his shower, though the image of Trowa sans everything but that splotchy towel had been burned into his mind. Though he thought of himself as hardly the equivalent to that body, Quatre decided he'd just have to return the favor.

++

            Trowa smiled to himself as he contemplated his reflection in the mirror, trying to decide whether to leave two or three buttons undone on his celery, forest and white-striped dress shirt. Either way, the pendant his sister had given him in the airport, the first thing he put on as soon as he'd closed Quatre's door, stood out in stark contrast against the forest green of the shirt he had on underneath it. It was nothing fancy, the pendant, a silver reproduction of a Roman coin bearing the profile of the great Caesar Augustus suspended on a braided silver chain. She said the coin was lucky; he was counting on it.

            "Hope you don't mind me getting dressed in here too," Quatre said briskly, hurrying into the room and shutting the door with the slap of his fingertips, "but my sisters kicked me out almost as soon as I got out of the shower."

Trowa caught sight of him in the mirror, but whipped around when he noticed that his kindly blue-eyed companion had just gotten him back for the little display of earlier. There was Quatre, wearing nothing more than a slightly ratty pink towel (all that he could find), his fine blonde hair plastered to his skull like a heavy cap. A bead of water dripped from his chin. Definitely three buttons, Trowa decided.

++

            The two young men finished dressing and stuff quickly, without speaking much to each other, though Quatre swore Trowa was muttering in Italian again. They hurried down the stairs together, narrowly avoiding the monstrous catfight that was taking place in the hallway between several of the sisters…neither of them could tell how many or who; it was mostly a flurry of blonde hair and sharp fingernails. Rupert was waiting in the kitchen, making out the offertory check. He glanced up at the teenagers as they strode casually into the kitchen, an impressive pair of figures. Trowa looked incredibly handsome, Quatre at his side, clad in a lightweight camel-colored sweater and corduroys the color of pale sand. He nodded his approval at the two them, sealed the check into the appropriate envelope, grabbed his keys, and then ushered them out to the garage.

            "Goodbye, girls! I expect to see you all in church, so there will be no going back to bed as soon as we leave, do I make myself clear?" he hollered on the way out the door. There were several responses, all of them garbled but still loud enough to determine that none of the remaining Winner children looked forward to going to church.

The three men climbed into the sleek black car, the two boys sitting in either window seat in the back, yawning and blinking owlishly.

            "Oh, come now, don't tell me you're tired!" the mustached man teased. "You better wake up quickly, you don't want to miss a single minute of Father Marrone's sermon."

Quatre rolled his eyes. Father Michael Marrone had a tendency to run at the mouth when it came to speaking at the pulpit. He would go on for a good fifteen minutes, rambling about anecdotes that had more to do with agitating the Red Sox fans (he being a New Yorker and a diehard Yankees buff) than about the Word of God.

Speaking of which…you're all sitting there wondering what the hell is going on, aren't you? You're probably saying, 'now wait just a minute, I thought Quatre was Muslim!' The answer, friends, is that the author has no idea what goes on in the Muslim religion, therefore, she is sticking to her guns…the Episcopal faith. If this bothers you, don't worry; this part is not going to be a lecture on theology. Church is a large part of people's everyday lives, and as this is a story about everyday life, Quatre must attend church. All right, so now that we've established that, we can proceed. Sorry for the holdup.

The Beemer cruised along at a casual speed, Sunday Morning Jazz filtering through the speakers, alto saxophone and bass sending wild strains into the cool morning air as the bullet of an automobile cut through the low-lying fog. Rupert glanced at his passengers through the rearview mirror, smiling. Quatre and Trowa were facing one another, their knees practically knocking in the well between the two rows of seats.

"I don't know, Trowa. It doesn't sound right," the blonde was saying.

Trowa shook his head. "You are doing fine. Try it again."

Quatre sighed, fiddling with the seatbelt. "Sono nell'amore con Anthony, ma gli non ho detto ancora (2)."

            "That's right," he replied softly. "Soon you will speak Italian like a professional, and you can come visit me in Firenze after I go home."

Rupert tapped the brakes. "When do you go home, Trowa?"

            "A little after the Fourth of July. I am not looking forward to leaving, Italy is so boring compared to America."

Quatre was about to ask Trowa what it was he'd just learned how to say when the car came lurching to a halt, throwing them both forward against the seatbelts. He let out a sharp gasp as his body tried to continue going forward, but felt a strong arm fling out to the side and brace him.

            "Sorry about that," Mr. Winner said, glaring into his mirrors. "Jackass came bombing down the road and didn't use his turn signal, almost hit us."

The Winter Street intersection they were trying to navigate across at the time was notorious for severe and often deadly accidents. And with all of the moronic and reckless drivers there were in the world these days, one had to be especially careful when trying to proceed through a four-way such as this one.

++

            The church parking lot was practically empty when the Winners' BMW pulled in, which left a selection of choice parking. Rupert expertly parallel-parked in a space right near the entrance, giving his passengers a smug smirk as he climbed out of the car. Quatre merely shook his head in mild annoyance, he and Trowa making their exit as well. The three of them passed through the front doors of the church, where they were immediately handed parchment-colored Orders of Worship by one of the ushers.

            Lia ran by in a shapeless linen robe, a crude wooden crucifix banging against her chest, her dark hair streaming out behind her. "Morning! Quatre, go find Sandy, she's been looking for you!"

There was no need to move. Just as Mr. Winner left to secure a pew, an imposing blonde woman came around the corner. She was a large woman, perpetually a deep tan, and had the habit of wearing shorts year round, coupled with striped knee-high socks and clogs. She gave an almost mocking smile at Quatre, who stood there with an almost terrified look on his face.

"Hello there, Quatre. I was wondering if you could do me a favor…but I see you have a guest with you, so I won't bother asking," the woman, youth coordinator Sandy Burdick, stated.

Quatre shook his head. "Oh, no Sandy, we'll help out. It's no problem, right Trowa?"

            "No," the Italian boy agreed.

Sandy looked momentarily hesitant. "Well, if you're sure…there's nobody available in Crib Care this morning at all. You two want to hang out down there? There's no church school, so if any kids show up I'll keep 'em busy in the next room, but I know there'll be a lot of little ones."

            "That's fine, we don't mind at all…you don't mind, do you, Trowa?"

He grinned. "I'm very fond of children, it will be fun." The large blonde raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him before Trowa genially extended a bronzed hand. "I'm Trowa Barton."

            "Sandy Burdick. You an exchange student?"

            "Yes, um, from Italy."

She nodded. "All right, then. Just keep those kids under control, I'll be around if you need me. And thanks again."

Quatre shrugged, motioning for Trowa to follow. "Maybe there won't be too many."

++

            The hallway containing the classrooms, one of the original sections of the church, was located below the parish hall. It was always cold, slightly dank, and dimly lit, the red-and-black checkerboard tile seeming to extend for miles. The whole hallway seemed like a walk on death row, the door at the very end of the corridor leading to the electric chair rather than the shed and playground out back. Fortunately, the crib care room was the first on the right, preventing the need to walk any further down that eerie passage.

            "It's so tidy," Quatre remarked. "That'll change in about two seconds."

The room was bright, a mural of Noah's Ark spanning across the back wall in a riot of color. To the left of the door was a changing table, a rocker, and a bunk for those who needed a nap. To the right, a small table and set of chairs, a bookshelf filled with chunky wooden puzzles and storybooks, a small slide-tunnel, and a swing. A line of rocking horses and those springy activity center things stood against the back wall, facing the shelves of toys. The toys were as old as Quatre, perhaps older, and generations of parishioners had christened them with their drool. Trowa stood in the middle of the room, almost directly under the ceiling fan, and took it all in slowly.

            "This is…we have nothing as nice as this at home."

            Before long parents began bringing their children down, babies with names that could only be found in a wealthy suburban community like Duxbury; Cammack, Bela, Jane-Ellen, Teddy, Laning. Oh, there were relatively normal-sounding names as well, but it was those yuppie names that always got Quatre. Diaper bags and labeled bottles were part of the transaction of child-to-caregiver as well, and these were all stacked up on the bunk. Quatre clipped the plastic gate to the doorframe, ensuring that none of his charges would have the ability to escape. Now it was only a matter of time before somebody started to cry.

            "Cammack and Jane-Ellen usually cry a lot, and Teddy hits," Quatre said, setting a rosy-cheeked toddler named Maggie onto a blue rocking horse, pushing his hand down on the runner to set her steed at an even canter.

Trowa nodded, sitting cross-legged on the ground. "Then I'll have to be careful."

            The duo of babysitters chased their half-dozen or so charges around the room, acting like a pair of children themselves as they played with the kids. Most of them could walk, some of them were speaking, all of them were still in diapers. Quatre hoped God would be merciful and he wouldn't have to change one of those squirming, writhing creatures. He turned for a moment, getting Stephen down one of the chunky wooden puzzles from the bookshelf. When he turned again, Bela was handing Trowa a plastic elephant.

            "What's the elephant say?" Trowa coaxed, making the elephant trot across the carpet. The little girl smiled.

            "Cow cow."

            "No, elephants don't say 'cow cow,' they go like this…" and the usually quiet Italian boy proceeded to make the loudest, most obnoxious, most elephant-y sound possible. Bela squealed, clapping her hands together, grinning a gap-toothed grin. Quatre was laughing as well.

            "What if she gives you the giraffe?" he managed to ask around his giggles.

Trowa grinned. "Then I will be in big trouble, eh?"

               Surprisingly, no one cried more than the initial first five minutes. The kids scampered around happily; scooting dump trucks across the floor, dragging out all manner of toys, and demanding Trowa hold them. Quatre spent more time watching him than he did the babies, the handsome young man swinging someone high into the air, whirling her around until her little shiny shoes flew off her stocking feet and crashed against the wall. The time honestly seemed to fly, and it didn't help that Quatre fell asleep for about fifteen minutes, rocking a baby in his arms. Little William snuggled right up to him, the warmth and weight and the motion of the rocker putting the both of them right out. He didn't wake until Trowa gently shook him, kindly informing him that Mrs. Phinney wanted her son back. 

++

             "Well, that's the last of them. Let's clean up and go get some cake and coffee before all of those kids do," Quatre sighed, tossing a teddy bear back into the corner with the others. They jammed what toys they could onto the shelves, threw out the pictures that the little darlings had scribbled with fat crayons, hit the lights and shut the door behind them.

            "Thanks, Trowa."

            "It was fun, like being at home with all of my little cousins again," he replied, running a hand through his bangs. "Only without my mama saying, 'Anthony, if you bounce Elena like that one more time, she'll throw up all over you!' like she always does."

They bounded up the stairs and into Sprague Hall, bypassing the kids crouching in the corner, petting Johnny Cat, the church's aged and decrepit mascot. The cat had been at the church as long as most of the parishioners could remember, found by their rector curled up in the nativity crèche a very long time ago. Lia waved a greeting from where she was chatting with her two favorite babysitting charges, Erika and Luisa.

            "There you are!" Rupert called, strolling over. "I was wondering what happened to you two."

Quatre smiled. "Sandy asked us to help out downstairs. You should have seen Trowa, those kids were all over him."

            "They were cute…but not as adorable as Katore and William falling asleep in the rocking chair together," he quipped. "I was almost afraid to wake them up."

Rupert laughed, crumpling a napkin in his hands and glancing up at the clock on the wall. "Your sisters have gone off to French Memories for lunch, so why don't we head home? I'm sure your family's getting anxious to have you back, Trowa."

The problem was, Quatre didn't want to give him back. And if he was having this much trouble sending Trowa back to his house in Kingston, he'd die when the day came that Trowa had to go home to Italy. His heart started to hurt.

++

            "Thank you for everything, I had a wonderful time," Trowa said, nodding to Mr. Winner and the girls as he headed towards the Noventas' waiting car. Quatre accompanied him, carrying the brunette's gray fleece blanket.

            "Thank you, Katore. I'll see you in school tomorrow, eh?"

            "Yeah, tomorrow, Trowa. Bye."

Their hands touched as Trowa took his blanket, and Quatre felt a jolt of something…probably static electricity. The fleece fell to the driveway, and as Trowa bent to pick it up, Quatre could smell his shampoo. Trowa had used his shampoo that morning…that was his personal scent on him…wouldn't that technically make him Quatre's? He'd ponder that train of thought later, he decided. Blanket in hand, Trowa gave him a brief hug and a peck on the cheek. "Bye."

            Kali and Clio stood next to their baby brother as he watched the Noventas' Escalade pull out and drive off. His shoulders were shaking.

            "Damn, kid, you've got it bad for him!" Kali remarked. "You better hurry up and tell him before you fall all to pieces."

Clio nodded. "Mm-hmm. Because otherwise, we're just gonna have to tell him for you, and you don't want that to happen, right?"

Quatre said nothing, staring at the road blankly. Of all the people in the world to get caught up in the middle of something akin to a sappy chick flick, why did it have to be him? And what's more, if love was supposed to be wonderful, how come he felt so wretched?

            "Oh Trowa…" he sighed. "This just sucks."

++

(1) "I love you."

(2) "I am in love with Anthony, but I haven't told him yet."

Things are certainly heating up around here, huh? Question is, when the hell are these two gonna hook up? Who knows? I sure as hell don't!

While I'm rambling, GoldenRat pointed out that "Quatre really seems to angst a lot in school fics." Yes, he does indeed. And why is that? Because teenagers angst about stuff all the time…and I should know, being a teenager in a high school setting. You should see my little sister, she has something new to angst about every day. So Quatre getting all emotional over a guy like Trowa is commonplace and certainly not out of character for the average teen.

Next Time: Homecoming's getting closer, and the rest of the gang is about to take matters into their own hands. Wufei and Heero are about to wage an all-out gym class smackdown, and Quatre just wants everybody to piss off. Sounds like trouble!