Coming Through the Rye

by Link Worshiper

A lonely and depressed Heero has found his way back to school, unsure of what point life has for him anymore now that Duo has vanished into thin air. But then an odd Preventers agent who knows way more than she should about Duo crashes into his life. 1x2

11. Sparkling Cyanide

Coming Through the Rye

By Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

~ Part XI ~

Sparkling Cyanide

"Um, Professor?" D.B. knocked on the classroom door nervously, daring to peer through the bubbly marbled glass window that was fitted into the wooden door. He could not make out for sure whether or not the classroom was empty or not. The obscurity of the glass made it hard to tell for sure what was inside. He knocked again. "Professor Cawdor, are you there?"

When there was still no answer from inside, D.B. dared to turn the knob and enter the classroom. Standing just on the threshold, he surveyed the quiet science room, the black topped lab tables shinning in the afternoon light streaming in between the half open blinds hanging in the large windows, the neatly organized sink area, beakers and pipettes drying on paper towels nearby.

"I guess I'll just leave this on his desk," D.B. decided, glancing down at the newspaper article he held in one hand. His mother had found it in their hometown paper and sent it to him in the mail, thinking that her son would enjoy reading the article. D.B. had indeed found it to be quite a good read and had thought the column on the uses of animal organs would be of interest to his professor as well.

Walking over to the neatly disorganized desk, D.B. laid the clipping on top of a thick manila folder lying in the center of the tabletop. As was natural for any human, his eyes were examining the objects strewn all over the desktop when he noticed something peculiar about the folder he had just set his article atop. Pushing the newspaper aside, he recognized the now uncovered OZ logo printed across the folder's center. Wondering what such a thing could mean and why his teacher would keep anything related to the now dissolved organization around, he flicked the folder open, figuring that a quick peek while no one was looking could not hurt anybody. He was surprised to find a couple pages stapled together, an essay of some kind that had nothing to do with science at all.

He flipped the thesis over to reveal another report, this one seeming to be a documentation of someone. There were a few photographs paper-clipped to the piece of paper portraying a good-looking young boy of about fifteen or sixteen with long beautiful chestnut brown hair that fell in wispy bangs over his large violet eyes and down his chest in a thick braid. Lifting the top photo up, he found another, presumably of the same boy, though in this picture he looked a bit older. He remembered that face, having seen in so many of the photographs Heero had wallpapered his room with.

"Duo Maxwell," he read the name at the top of the page and skimmed over the general information printed beneath. He knit his brows as he wondered aloud, "Now what does Heero's old friend have to do with my science teacher? I didn't even think a Duo Maxwell attended this school. I'm sure I would recognize a head of hair like that."

Turning his attentions to the actual data sheet, he noticed a few amendments that had been made to the facts there, though gaps in the information there still remained. For instance, the age fifteen had been crossed out with a double line, the number eighteen pencilled in above it, but on the line beside 'Date of Birth:' still kept the typewritten face 'Unknown'. Beneath the heading 'Currently:' a line of typewritten information had been scribbled out. In its place had been written: 'Preventers; stealth operative.' He squinted his eyes and tried to read beneath the jagged line that had been used to camouflage the old information. '(02) Pilot of Gundam Deathscythe (XXXG-01D)/Deathscythe Hell (XXXG-01D2)'

"No way!" he exclaimed when he finally managed to see what it said. He read it again, just to make sure he was not imagining it, before pinching himself, smacking his cheek and then forcing himself through a few reality check questions. "Heero's war friend was a Gundam pilot? I'm amazed. No wonder he's so screwed up in the head."

Things were starting to get very interesting, the jumbled puzzle pieces in D.B.'s head beginning to fall into place. He turned Duo's page over to rest on top of the thesis and went on to the next set of pages. What he saw next nearly sent him falling to the floor in a dead faint. There, on a data sheet identical to that of Deathscythe's pilot, was a full-blown report on Heero Yuy. Photographs of a sour-looking fifteen year old Heero as well as of an equally bitter eighteen year old Heero were paper-clipped to the page. More background information than D.B. could have ever hoped to evoke from his stoic friend had been filled onto the page. His heart felt wrenched into a tight knot when he came across the 'Currently:' part of the form. Scribbled out were the words '(01) Pilot of Wing Gundam (XXXG-01W)/Wing Zero (XXXG-01W0)' and replaced with 'Enrolled senior year at Caelum Academy.' A note had been scrawled hastily in the margin beside that line in another pen. It read, 'Mentally unstable; manic depressed; suicidal.'

"Ah, now the great realization! I think I'm beginning to understand," D.B. smacked his forehead, leafing the page over. When his gaze fell upon the next sheet, his pale blue eyes rounded, pupils dilating immensely. He had to catch his hitching breath and bite his lip to steady himself as he took in the contact prints of a very provocative roll of film. The yellowish-hued photographs were a series of snapshots taken from a camera that had obviously been stealthily mounted in the ceiling corner of some dingy hotel room. And even though D.B. was pretty sure he was into just girls, the pictures of Heero and his apparent braided lover in the various throws of ecstasy was enough to make his blood run hot and his cheeks flush deep red. The look on Heero's face, that contented passion filled gaze, was more than enough to illustrate to D.B. how complete this Duo could make Heero feel. He could see it in the way they were wrapped around each other, almost felt it like the iron grip Heero kept on the metal bars of the tiny bed's headboard. His was heart yammering in his chest as he examined the way they kissed and touched each other, frozen together eternally in each other's arms upon the glossy page.

Underneath the contact sheet were three more files on the other Gundam pilots and a few snapshots of the blond one and the other brunette with the sad green eyes kissing. He recalled seeing the other boys in some of Heero's photographs as well, and did not doubt that they were bound as brothers to the melancholy Japanese, but still could not help but feel that there was something more to Duo than just a deep love. And despite all that, D.B. barely skimmed through them, quick to turn back to the contact sheet and the pages containing Heero and his boyfriend's personal stats. He had a nagging feeling as if he were intruding upon Heero's privacy. But there was nothing that D.B. could do to tear himself away from the folder's contents.

Suddenly, the sound of the old coppery doorknob turning made D.B. jump nervously back a foot, flinging the folder closed in a nervous haste. His professor stood in the doorframe, eyeing D.B. suspiciously. "Good afternoon," he said mildly, after a jittery silence. "What can I do for you?"

"Oh," D.B. let out a quiet sigh of relief that Cawdor had not seen him touching the OZ folder. "I had just stopped by to leave something on your desk. It's a newspaper article my mom sent me."

"I see," answered Cawdor, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. He walked around the desk and stood a little in front of D.B., bending over the tabletop to examine the newspaper clip. "Hmm," he hummed after scanning the article, "Very interesting. I'll have to give that a better look through later on." He straightened and turned around, leaning on the wooden chair tucked under the desk, his eyes still watching D.B. warily as he spoke. "So what are you here for? The article is a nice excuse, but why dally here? Were you waiting for me?"

"J-Just kind of wanted to talk, I guess," D.B. shrugged, noticing how one of Cawdor's hands had slid back onto the desk and settled atop the OZ folder.

"I see," Cawdor mused, turning around again and pulling out the desk chair. He gestured to the seat, "Well sit down, lad, and we'll talk."

D.B. was more than aware of Cawdor's eyes upon him as he took the offered chair and pulled up to the large teacher's desk. Cawdor strode over to the sink in the back of the lab with large steps, reaching up to one of the cabinets and pulling down a bottle of soda. "Sorry it's a little warm but, would you like a drink?"

"Uh, sure," D.B. stammered uncertainly, his eyes flitting down to the OZ folder once again. It was taunting him, and for a moment, his stomach tightened at the thought of that little brush Cawdor had given the folder earlier, almost as if to entice him. Then D.B. was frightened that Cawdor really had caught him snooping. D.B.'s head snapped up the watch the back of his teacher as he readied the drink for him, just to keep his eyes as far from that OZ folder as possible.

Cawdor pulled a cup from the cabinet where he had retrieved the soda and went about pouring the fizzy liquid into the glass. "So what is it, boy?" he asked, stirring the drink around with his finger before carrying it over to his student, handing it to him over the desktop. "Want to talk about science…. Or perhaps you'd rather talk more about your… friends…?"

"My friends?" D.B. sucked in a breath, his mind jumping right back to Heero.

"Yes, of course," Cawdor answered, taking a seat at one of the lab tables. "High school's a tough time. Kids do weird and stupid things. I won't believe that for a second that you're life is heaven. What's going on? Any problems?"

"True," D.B. answered quietly, fondling the cup in his slightly shaking hands. "I don't know…." He sucked in a breath, unsure if the professor was aware of his nosing around and was trying to trap him or if he was just genuinely concerned. He could hear Hoshi's voice echoing in the back of his head, saying something about how she mistrusted Professor Cawdor. He settled on trying to be ambiguous with his words. "…Sometimes, I worry about a few of my friends…."

"Ah, yes, Heero. I see you've become rather close to him lately." His face was completely unreadable as he stared intently at D.B. A rather frightening smirk crossed the professor's face; "He's a very interesting person. What a mystery that boy is! I've watched him closely for a long time now. I wonder though, do you know anything about the real him?"

"What do you mean by 'real'?" D.B. inquired. "Are you saying the Heero I know is a lie?"

"Not at all, my boy," he answered. "Heero has evolved over the years. His experiences have shaped him into the disturbed youth you know today.

"Disturbed!?" D.B. was distraught and offended. "Heero is not in the least disturbed, Sir! He's just very confused. I feel… I feel kind of bad for him."

"Oh so your friendship is what is the lie," Cawdor mused, stroking his bearded chin as he casually twisted and perverted D.B.'s words. "It's pity that keeps you by him. You feel bad that the rest of the school has enough sense to keep away from him."

"But Sir," D.B. protested, "I think that's half the reason as to why he is so depressed. He may seem cold and distant, but I think he values friendship highly. I think he loves the feeling of being wanted and cared for. That's why I think he loved Duo, this boy he knew back during the war. He loved Duo because Duo loved him, you know? Duo loved him for who he was, made him feel whole. So no, Sir, I do not pity Heero Yuy. Rather, I am jealous that he could have someone in his life that loved him so completely, so passionately and so genuinely. Even if he doesn't totally understand it himself."

"Duo?" Cawdor let his hands drop to his side, catching that brief mention of the great pretender. "Duo Maxwell?"

D.B. had no choice but to assent to Cawdor's musing. "Yes, Sir, that's him."

"Pilot 02," he murmured darkly as he walked around the desk and stood behind D.B. He reached over his shoulder and flipped open the folder, whipping pages over until he found Duo's file. "This one was a pain in my side for so long. As was Heero Yuy!"

"Why do you have files on Heero?" D.B. blurted out, unable to contain it any longer, especially now that Cawdor had opened the folder and was looking over it.

"He was a Gundam pilot, didn't you know?" Cawdor commented blandly, as if it were the most obvious piece of information in the world. "So was his ratty boyfriend, Duo Maxwell. God, together, those two made more trouble than they were worth for OZ."

"They saved the world from OZ," fired back D.B., setting down his glass with a slight bang. "They suffered for all of us! They are nothing less than heroes! All the Gundam pilots were!"

"They are outlaws and terrorists who should be locked away so they won't cause any more trouble," Cawdor grumbled. Then he added with a shudder and a grimace, "Not to mention that four out of the five of those nuisances were queer."

"What's wrong with that?" D.B. was a little annoyed. He may have admired Cawdor, but when it came down to it, he cared for his friends more. And no matter who it was, if someone was insulting those he held dear, D.B. was not about to sit around and take any kind of crap. "So long as it makes you happy and it's not hurting anybody, then why should anyone care whether or not you're in love with a boy or a girl or whatever?"

"Because it's not natural. Then again, those boys are not natural. I should hate to think of them as anything other than pond scum," he snarled cruelly, flipping past Heero's folder to the contact sheets and tugging out a few photographs of the other two lovers, laying them nearby. Cawdor stood up straight again, leaving the folder open for D.B., "Look at that disgusting display. It's repulsive how slutty your pilot 02 was especially. Look what he did to your precious friend Heero." He pointed to the contact sheet, gesturing to the sequence of photos near the top that portrayed the two of them stumbling into the room, lips all over one another as they tottered towards the bed. "Hell, he's even made the overly-cautious perfect Wing Zero pilot forget to check the place over for bugging equipment. Good thing he didn't. All the more blackmail for us."

"Who do you mean?" D.B. had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he had been sucker punched and thrown out on a street curb to pick himself up.

"OZ, of course." D.B. did not even have to turn around to know that there was a malicious smirk cut into Cawdor's rough face. "What do you think all this information is for? We watched those simpering little pilots like hawks during the war—it was my department—and it's good that we did. We had enough research on the brats to keep full surveillance on them from the second the first war ended to this very day."

"OZ is gone, Sir," D.B. stated firmly. "Why would you care what these guys are doing now? Don't you think they've been through enough hell? Everyone has! Can't you just forget them? None of them have hurt a single person in years! No one even talks about the Gundams much anymore!"

"OZ is not gone, boy!" Cawdor exclaimed, loud enough to make D.B. jump. "You think we dissolved the second we lost Commander Trieze? The end of one leader means only the succession of another. Lad, OZ has been in full operation all these years, gathering data, watching, waiting…."

"Waiting for what?" asked D.B. nervously, almost afraid for the answer. Things were fitting together all too well.

"For the perfect time to remerge OZ with the new Alliance's government!" Cawdor walked around the desk, slamming his hands on the tabletop fiercely as he stared D.B. straight in the eye. "OZ never died, my boy. And could you imagine my shock when I saw Heero Yuy walk out of the admissions office last year? I thought that it was too good to be true. I should have realized that he would be skipping around from school to school, just the way he used to. Why, I used to do the exact same thing! Who would ever expect an old professor to be doing reconnaissance for the world's greatest organization! Just the same, who would expect a brooding fifteen-year old to be the mass destructive pilot of the notorious Wing Zero! I've seen Yuy in many of the school's I've hidden out at, and his face always haunted my dreams. I wanted to make sure I found him again and made him pay for destroying OZ at its prime!" He calmed slightly and added thoughtfully, "I must say though, I'm surprised he's stayed in one place so long anyway."

"From what he tells me, he's looking for Duo," D.B. stated resolutely, knowing that masking Duo's name would not keep Cawdor from guessing who he meant. He was suddenly beginning to see why Hoshi and Sora did not take to this man very well. Why had they seen what he had not?

"Of course he is," Cawdor got that haughty look on his face again. "And I'm sure he's figured out by now that the sneaky little thief is with Preventers, hiding out here, in this very school, scouting out me, no less! But it doesn't matter. They don't have anything to pin on me and even if they found something, the school will back me. I'm totally safe here."

"Duo is here?" cried D.B., a surge of excitement rattling his heart. He knew that news such as that would make Heero so happy. And he wanted so much for Heero to be happy….

"Yes, watching Heero from dark corners and shadowy hideaways," Cawdor said ominously. "I don't know exactly where he's set up shop, if it's even on campus at all, but he's been hanging out here for quite some time. The second I saw him, I knew from that tatty long braid of his, he was slinking around in the gloomy hallways of the school, watching everything that moved around here. Don't worry about it though. He won't be getting back to Preventers with anything about me."

"Appearances sure can be deceiving," D.B. muttered, reaching for his discarded drink. He knocked it back in one shot, ignoring the completely devilish grin on Cawdor's face.

The sound of someone jiggling the locked doorknob stole Cawdor's attention. Before he could react, three gunshots resonated on the other side of the door, splintering the lock in the door to pieces. Without warning, the door flew open, and all at once, two things happened. One, D.B.'s glass fell from his lax grip in an explosion of splintering shards upon the floor as he gagged and covered his mouth with both hands, trying to force the bile back down his throat. Two, Duo Maxwell stormed into the room, out of breath, like he had been running all the way from the theatre to the classroom, before making a wild leap at Cawdor in an effort to grab him and pin him to the floor.

"What the hell are you doing young man!?" Cawdor barked at the braided Deathscythe pilot as he tried to wrestle his arms away, pretending like he had no idea he knew Duo was. "Unhand me! This is assault!"

"And that is poisoning," Duo snapped, jerking his head in D.B.'s direction as he pressed the muzzle of his gun against Cawdor's temple. The boy was convulsing now, his eyes glazed over and bloodshot, his mouth caked in the stomach fluid that was now streaked across the front of his red shirt. "Did you really think that you could get away with killing someone, Professor?"

"Do you think you could prove it, 02?" was the hasty retort, hearing the slight click of the trigger being slightly drawn back. "You have no evidence or record that I was ever here. The only other person who knows D.B. was here is him! Everyone is supposed to be at the lecture. No one knows I'm here except for you. And who are you? A ghost? No one knows you're here either!"

"Not a ghost, I'm Shinigami," Duo snarled back, twisting Cawdor's arms in a painful position behind his back. "Don't you dare forget it, pal. I'll be the one who takes your life away."

"If you get out of here alive," Cawdor threatened, trying to jab Duo in the stomach with his elbow. For such a slim person, Duo was holding his own quite well. "Ha, not like anyone would even miss you. You're just a shadow. No one knows; no one cares that you exist! I could kill you and no one would be any wiser! Preventers would get over it. They have plenty of agents. One little casualty won't bring them to a grinding halt. I bet you'd give your soul to change the course your life took, you murderer!"

"Even if I still have a soul to give, I wouldn't change a single choice I've made." Duo hissed. He seemed to have hit Duo where it hurt. The most devious enemies were the ones who attacked neither the body nor the mind, but the heart. " And Heero would miss me," Duo breathed hoarsely, ripping Cawdor's arms back harder, jamming the gun painfully against his head. "He's no fool. He'd figure it out soon enough and murder you in cold blood. You kill me, and I'll keep a place warm for you in hell!"

"I'd love to see him try," Cawdor returned coolly, before delivering a monstrous kick at Duo's shins, catching the longhaired assassin completely off-guard and causing him to release his grip on his captive's arms. The gun flew from his grip and slid with a clatter across the floor. Cawdor came back at Duo and dealt him a fierce elbow in the eye, dizzying and blinding Duo for a brief moment. That moment, however, was all Cawdor needed to capture Duo in a strong headlock, crushing down on his windpipe as his arms squeezed tighter around the former Deathscythe pilot's slender neck. "But to tell the truth, that boy is in such a mental disaster, I doubt he could really pose a threat anymore."

"O-Oh that's where you're w-wrong," Duo choked out, hands grabbing wildly at his captor's iron arms. "He's even m-more treacherous when he's c-crazed. Mad, bad, a-and dangerous to k-know."

"If I'm lucky, he'll kill himself before the month is out," Cawdor growled unkindly. "I hate that boy. I hate him almost as much as I hate you, Duo Maxwell." He crushed down harder, trying to strangle the Preventer agent to death.

"Hey, one q-question," Duo stammered, squinting his eyes shut tight.

"Make it good, you little shit," Cawdor swore at him.

"Why'd ya drug D-D.B.?"

"Kid knew too much. Didn't mean to kill him, per se, but an overdose always runs that risk. You should know that you little pickpocket," Cawdor answered smugly. "It was bad enough he had been spending time with Yuy, but walking in here found him poking around my files on you brats, which is an invasion of privacy, I might add. God knows what he's found out and he's become a liability. I can't have him leaking information about me or you stupid Gundam punks to all his little friends. What an uproar that would be, don't you agree, Maxwell?"

Duo could feel the life fleeing from him as it became harder and harder to breathe, not even with enough air inside his lungs to spit out a witty comeback. His sight was blurry and it looked to him like his skin was glowing, almost as if his soul was diffusing into the air around him. His eyes were darting wildly around the forlorn classroom, looking for some kind of weapon or some means of escape. Then he found it, glittering on the floor in a spread of glittering shards across the floor. Summoning all his strength, Duo ran forward, dragging Cawdor along with him, who still held his arms tightly around Duo's neck. Maneuvering himself down low, he managed to send Cawdor careening into the chalkboard at the front of the room with enough force to crack the black slate and escape with only a long bruise down his arm. While the professor took a few minutes to get orientated with his surroundings again, stumbling dizzily about for a bit, Duo was scrambling on the ground, a large piece of glass pressed in his palm. Taking his chance, he raised his hand up and smashed the deadly slice of glass into Cawdor's head. It managed only to slash his flesh apart into a gruesome looking wound, but it bought Duo enough time to snatch his gun and make a quick escape out the window, scaling the drainpipe just outside to the safety of the roofs above.

Chang Wufei slammed the door of his dark blue Preventers' jeep with an irritated grunt. His assistant and the forensics officer who had come along with him jumped nervously after him, afraid of his dark mood. Arms locked tensely at his sides, his fists balled up tight, he made his way up the front stoop of the school, throwing open the front door with the same force he had just exerted on his poor car. Standing in the front lobby, his two companions just behind him, the disgruntled Chinese man scoured the room, looking for the main office or a hall that would lead him in that direction.

"Um, Sir?" his assistant piped up quietly from behind. Wufei whirled around on her, his face red and his cheeks puffed with irate fury. She crawled back inside herself and murmured something about the location of the office in question, pointing demurely to her left.

He flew back around in a complete circle, his black boots squealing on the floor and leaving black skid marks in their wake. He stalked in that direction, waving a curt signal to his associates to follow as he grumbled something under his breath that sounded very much like, 'Goddamned braided baka….'

Wufei had received a call from one of Une's people at four in the morning, summoning him into headquarters for an emergency. Apparently the mission Wufei had entreated Duo Maxwell to take charge of had gone horribly wrong. A student's dead and dismembered body had been found stowed away in a back dumpster behind the school by one of the school's janitors. Word had been from Duo that he knew the murderer was their ex-Ozzie, but he had nothing but his story as proof of that fact. And since no one outside of Preventers was even supposed to know that Duo was doing surveillance work at the school, there was no easy way to go about bringing about justice. So that left Wufei little other choice than to gather together a small team and head out to the location to handle the cleanup work.

As they made their way down the hall, pushing through the ocean of very tense students streaming through the halls on their way to their Monday morning classes, Wufei brushed by a familiar face. "You," he hissed dangerously, grabbing the student by the arm and dragging her off into an empty classroom around the corner. His assistant and the forensics officer tried to follow, but he waved them off, telling them to continue on to the office to ask permission to do their work.

"Look, Wufei, before you say anything, let me just try to—"

He cut her off with strong words and a threatening fist. "Look, let me just get this out in the open. We are officially screwed, okay? You got that? Screwed! Do you know how big a mess we're all in? We are up to our asses in shit because of this little slipup. Everyone back at headquarters is working double time to, one, get this all under control and, two, cover it up from the media. We are dead in the water!"

Hoshi looked indignant, giving a little snort as she crossed her arms and tried to avert Wufei's unwavering angry stare. She let out a heavy sigh. "Alright, so we messed up. Big deal. We can fix it, okay?"

"Easier said than done," Wufei snapped moodily.

"Hey, it's under control here, 'Fei-'Fei, so buzz off," Hoshi shot back, making sure to enunciate each syllable of the pet name.

"A civilian is dead," Wufei snapped at his agent, more than a little pissed off. "I don't call that 'under control.'"

"I…." Hoshi stopped, admitting defeat. She knew that they had messed up big time and there was no real excuse for it. They had not been fast enough to dig up enough evidence against Cawdor to arrest him before he did something like this.

"The mission got messed up, end of story," Wufei held up his hand, a large exasperated sigh escaping his lips. "Now let's try and fix this. What do you suggest we do? My team and I will try to make it happen. The students are probably already in a state of shock and fear. We don't want to alarm them any more. I heard rumours buzzing through the halls left and right on my way here."

"Good call, Wuffers," Hoshi said sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. She and Wufei may have argued more often than not, but she considered him a great friend and admired him more than she would ever say to him aloud.

They sat in stony silence, staring at each other scrupulously. Wufei's arms were crossed over his chest, eyes forward and daunting as he scanned Hoshi over, waiting for her to say something. But when no words came, Wufei could feel himself starting to lose patience. At long last, the usually talkative Preventer agent's silence was beginning to bother him immensely, and he ended up taking out his frustration in the complete wrong way. It was not that he was angry at Hoshi herself in particular, but at the whole situation in general. It tended to make his mood swings very traumatic. "And you," he started, "could make the call of using your time her effectively, for a change. It's when you start screwing around that things like this happen. You've lost sight of your mission and now look; there's hell to pay."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Wuffy?" Hoshi sounded downright pissed and bewildered by his sudden outburst.

"Don't you use that sarcastic tone with me. It doesn't work anymore," he snapped at her, as if she was his child and he was scolding her for some juvenile crime. "You know exactly what I mean."

"I do?"

"Damn straight," he bit back. "Look at you, sauntering around here like you're back in high school, ready to ask someone out for the godforsaken prom. You're not here to be in school. The war and your time with Preventers has taught you everything you will ever need to know about anything."

"Not everything," Hoshi sucked in a breath as she glowered at her superior. "But yeah, what're you trying to get at? Go on. For once, I'm listening."

"We have to upgrade a mere scouting mission into a murder case," Wufei said, delivering his words like punches into her pride. "There is no time for you to be…."

"Yeah?" Hoshi seemed almost hurt, like she knew what he was going to say. "Go ahead and spit it out. Or have you lost you're nerve?"

"This…. This is no time to be flirting with Yuy!" he finally roared, his hands curling in fists over his eyes. "He should be the least of your worries!"

"Now where the hell do you come off, storming in here and telling me how to do my job, huh?" Hoshi blew up in his face, letting all her annoyance at Wufei, the Preventers, her life, everything, just shower over him like burning ash and embers. "Last time I checked, Chang Wufei, you were back at headquarters, all cozy behind your desk, filing paperwork. Oh yeah, some friend you are. I thought the Gundam pilots were supposed to be close, like a family. Yeah, some family, Wufei. Some fucking great family that turned out to be. You knew exactly where he was and when. You had the freedom to visit him any time you wanted and yet, you just left him alone. If anyone had even known, had even begun to fathom the torture Heero has been putting himself through all these years, you'd be ashamed to ever look him in the eye again, knowing that you did nothing to console him. But no-o-o-o. The great Heero Yuy doesn't need anyone. He can take care of himself. Always had, always will, right? Bullshit! He's alone, dammit, and it's killing him!"

Wufei flinched physically with every verbal lash she threw at him, knowing in his heart of hearts, she was right. He tried to argue that he had kept tabs on Heero's whereabouts through Preventers, but that did nothing to calm the raging Hoshi. She was on a roll, and she was not about to stop.

"Yeah well fuck all that!" she snarled. "Fuck Preventers and all that crap! When Heero spent a week in the hospital after he tried to kill himself for the, what was it, sixth time since the war ended, where were you? Hell, you probably didn't even notice that he had been racking up a suicide attempt count. You probably didn't even notice how damn depressed he was until he had fucking bloody slashes all the way up from his wrists to his elbows! When they moved him from recovery to the fucking psyche ward, where were you to tell him that it would all be okay, and that his friends were there? No one was there for him, Wufei. No one except for one person and you know damn well who that was, even if Heero was too drugged up to know it."

"Hey, look I tried to help out as much as I could. Tried to redeem myself," Wufei argued. "I'm the one who arranged all those meetings. I'm the one who got this whole mission together just so that—"

"You can stand there and make excuses all day," she said coldly, "but that won't change the past. You can stand there and yell at me and say I screwed up, but when it comes down to it, all that we can change is the future. The past is gone. All you can do is use it to mold what tomorrow will bring."

"But I…."

Hoshi fell silent, staring down at her canvas shoes for a moment before raising her gaze to meet Wufei's eyes. She looked very nostalgic, like she might have flooded the room with her tears in a moment's notice. "Have you…. Have you seen him lately, Wufei?"

He shook his head in the negative.

"You should see him, Wufei," she whispered into the air so quietly, it almost was not spoken at all. "You should see what three years of living in dark shadows and beating his head into walls has done to him. He's grown thin and pallid. He hardly eats; he's irritable and gloomy; he doesn't sleep, and when he does, he has nightmares. And his eyes… Oh Wufei, you should see his eyes. They seem always sleepy and empty, with dark circles underneath. He has this sad look to him. He's not the hard professional bad ass he used to be. He… he cries himself to sleep, cries when he's alone…. Nowadays, he's always crying…."

"I had no idea…." Wufei shook his head, aghast. Yes, he had known that Heero had been sent to the hospital for a suicide attempt, but that had been so near to the end of the war, he had blamed it on the empty useless feeling that had consumed every soldier involved. He had figured that someone like Heero, someone that only knew how to be a soldier, a soldier and nothing more, would snap. He had almost been expecting it. He never expected that it could be that Heero Yuy, the human, not the soldier, had wounded himself with Love's arrow.

"This is more than just a murder case, Wufei," Hoshi went on, her voice calming a bit and regaining a more steady tone. "The boy who died was my friend. He was Heero's friend. This is tearing him apart more than you could ever hope to understand. He feels as though he's been touched with a curse that kills and destroys everything he gets close to. He's cracking, Wufei. He tries to be hard and unfeeling, but he's failing. Day by day, you can see it. And you know what? One of these days, he's just not going to get up. He's just going to stop functioning. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is that I don't even think he would care. So do you see now why I have to just do this my way, Wufei? I can't have you in here making a big professional deal out of it. I have to do it the way I've always dealt with things."

Wufei smiled somewhat. "I guess that is why I wanted you working on this mission in the first place."

"…And don't lie, Wufei. It doesn't become you," Hoshi finished her rant softly, her voice low and somewhat ghostly. "You know damn well why you were so avid about this mission in the first place, Chang Wufei. You know damn well that more than half of it was an excuse to send…." She trailed off, looking beyond Wufei to the person who had just walked into the classroom.

Wufei turned to look over his shoulder at whatever had caught Hoshi's attention. He was shocked to find Heero standing in the doorway, mouth falling slack a bit with shock, eyes widened with suspicion. As a former soldier, Wufei could see the rotors clanging around behind Heero's glassy oriental eyes, summing up and weighing out the situation. But it was in this observation, that Wufei noticed the damp sheen to those miserable sapphire eyes, and it was then that he understood. He understood what Hoshi meant when she said that Heero was a broken soul.

"Hoshi?" he murmured, stumbling a bit as he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him softly. He leaned on the door, staring past Wufei at his other friend. "You're with Preventers too? Is everyone here… undercover?"

"No," Hoshi said in a much kinder tone than she had used on Wufei, brushing past him to walk over to where Heero stood. "No, it was just me."

"Oh," he let out in a gentle breath. He paused, thinking quietly to himself, before speaking his thoughts out loud again. He was speaking solely to Hoshi, as if Wufei did not even exist. "So that's how you could tell me so much about what Duo has been doing with Preventers all this time. I see now."

Wufei arched a brow as if he were surprised that Heero knew of Duo's presence in the school, as he glowered at Hoshi's back, a little annoyed at her for hinting at the whereabouts of the mission's most crucial player. He wondered to himself just how much information Hoshi has filled Heero in on. Suddenly, he burst out his musings, unable to keep them in his troubled mind any longer. "That was a mistake! Who knows what could have been heard! What if this murder is related to some information leak!"

"This murder had nothing do with an information leak, you fool!" Hoshi exclaimed, pounding her fist into her hand. "This murder was about getting back at Wing Zero's pilot!"

Wufei arched a slender ebony eyebrow curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that D.B. was a friend of Heero's!" Hoshi explained, pointing a finger at the taciturn pilot. "He was trying to indirectly mess him up. You know that all OZ members hate the Gundam pilots, but most of all, they hate the Wing Zero and Heero. You know it's true, Wufei."

"Can you… please stop yelling at each other?" a soft voice requested. Wufei and Hoshi looked up to see Heero staring at them, his eyes silently entreating them. "Don't talk about D.B. that way, in the past tense. D.B. was this, and D.B. was that. He would hate that. I hate that. We can't change anything that's already happened, so stop acting like you can."

"I-I'm sorry, Yuy," Wufei stammered, taken completely aback by Heero's tone. He had never felt such a melancholy around Heero before. The Heero he remembered was strong and proud, not this quiet lost little boy. It was almost like he had grown up too fast and was now reverting back to his youthful self. Wufei began to wonder what kind of life Heero had led to make him so sad. He hated seeing a friend and honoured comrade fall apart this way.

"It's okay," he said quietly. "I just wish there was something I could do to help. I… I don't want to feel so helpless anymore."

"You are not helpless, Heero!" Hoshi exclaimed stepping between the Japanese boy and his fellow ex-pilot. "You are still just as strong as you were years ago. Don't forget that part of yourself, ever! If you do, I can bet that Duo will kill you! Don't you ever change from the Heero Yuy he once loved!"

"You should just kill me now then," Heero muttered. "I've changed so much I don't think Duo would be able to recognize me anymore. I don't know who I am anymore. Something's been raped and taken from me."

"You're just flying on an ill wind, Yuy," Wufei said quietly from his spot behind Hoshi. Heero looked past her to see his Chinese friend leaning on one of the desks, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the light peeking between the blinds of the window dance across the floor in narrow slits. He looked up to meet Heero's muted gaze. "A warm zephyr will blow beneath your wings in time once again and carry you beyond the clouds."

"Wufei…."

"Don't doubt that Duo will know who you are," Wufei whispered, his voice so faint and still, it seemed he had not spoken at all or as if it was the voice of a complete other entity. "Duo would never forget… who you are. And you would do best not to forget that, Heero Yuy."

Eh, sorry for the slight sappy bit there at the end, but I wasn't sure how else to wrap it up.

Mmm, randomly, can I say that the new Harry Potter book sure did not fail to amaze me even more than the past four! They just keep getting better and better.... Jeezus, it was impossible for me to put it down! I was reading it every second I had the chance, at the dinner table, in the bathtub (*blush*), jay-walking across Conneticuit Avenue... you name it! It's just so... I mean... like... wow.... It's been so long since I'd read a Harry Potter book fresh, I'd almost forgotten that sense of enchantment that JK Rowling manages to evoke upon you when you read it. And even though there are some books I personally like better, I can't help but feel that there is definately something magical about Harry Potter. They're just so creative and always keep you guessing, something there for everyone, kids to adults!

I think I'll just end this by saying, Harry Potter, Miss Rowling, my crooked pointy witch's cap off to you! You taught the world how to love reading again. And that, in my opinion, is the greatest magic of all.