The Shores of Eire Author: Toki Q Aramis

All right, minna-san, hopefully the format didn't get screwed up this time. If this works, Tokia, I owe you one! Thanks.

For everyone who has tried to read this and found it too annoying, I hope it's easier to read this time around.

Plot: The G-boys are on vacation, but they'll find no relaxation in the abandoned country of Ireland, where ghosts roam free and the banshee's wale is as deadly as ever. This is very much AU, and non-yaoi, I read it but can't write it, besides this plot requires that Heero, Duo, and Wufei be straight. Quatre and Trowa can be gay if you want, it just isn't really in the story. Plus if you like Relena, don't read this, she doesn't get Heero, she might not even show up, and if she does I will kill her off very quickly and bloodily followed by much rejoicing.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own them, I looooooooooooooooove them, but cannot feasibly hold claim to them. So please don't sue me, all you'll get is a roll of duct tape and a few dried roses.

Chapter 1 Return to the past . . .

The boys entered the Irish castle, and put their bags down in the main hall so they wouldn't have to lug them around with them when they looked for rooms. It was like something out of the Middle Ages (it nearly was). The island country had been devoid of human life for over two hundred years. The reason had been lost in the centuries of shuffle, but it was still avoided like the plague, which is what the boys needed. The docs had promised them a vacation on a desert island (ha ha ha). They didn't mention that by 'desert' they meant 'deserted by humanity for reasons unknown'.

Duo was quiet, too quiet, and had been since they got off the boat. Usually the least stoic of the five pilots, he had now out-silenced even Trowa, but after a sea voyage of listening to his endless complaints of motion sickness, most simply enjoyed the silence. Quatre on the other hand was worried. Duo hadn't been still this long since a head wound last summer. That time he was nearly dead, and that worried Quatre all the more now. Something was wrong, he just couldn't figure out what it could be.

Suddenly, Duo stood and left the small chamber they had all chosen as a common room. Wufei raised an eyebrow at his abrupt exit, but made no move to stop him. Quatre, on the other hand, followed his braided companion without a word.

He followed him up several flights of stairs until he finally entered a large study. Quatre entered the room slowly, wondering how Duo knew where he was going. Heero was the only one that had bothered to explore the castle yet, and they hadn't seen him since he'd started out half an hour ago. He found himself in a cluttered room, obviously it had been left in a hurry. Stacks of parchment still lay on the desk. Several sheets were scattered on the floor. Two of the walls were filled with loaded bookshelves from floor to ceiling. The wall between them, opposite the door, held a large, bay window with a wide ledge.

Upon this ledge sat Duo. He turned to Quatre slowly. The blonde boy gasped at what he saw. Duo's eyes had paled to a dead white, and he had a pallor to match. He looked like a week-old corpse. He opened his mouth to speak, but the voice that issued forth wasn't Duo's. It was a low bass that shook the room, and even the thick Irish brogue couldn't mar his words.

"Leave! Leeeaaaavvvve ye weak little nothin'. This isle donna belong to the likes o' ye ennamore, It belongs to the spirits ye forsook. Leave or die and join us, inse—"The threat continued, but Quatre didn't stick around to hear it. He turned and ran blindly down the corridor. He didn't know where he was going or what he was looking for. He skidded to a halt in front of one room. He'd seen movement inside. He peered in, hoping it was one of his friends, and that this one wasn't dead and yelling at him. He peered around the door and saw a lock of brown hair and the tip of a yellow shoe.

/~\~/~\~/~\ Heero had stumbled onto the small library while he was searching for places they could sleep. It seemed to be filled with books about ghosts and magical creatures of Irish legend. Most of them were written in Gaelic, but a few were in English. He had just found an aged volume that seemed to be a history of the castle, when he heard someone running down the hall. He saw Quatre peering cautiously around the door before he walked in slowly. He was shaking and obviously frightened. He spent several minutes just staring at Heero's eyes like he was trying to figure out who he was.

Then he sighed and almost collapsed. He caught himself on the side of the desk before Heero could reach him.

"Duo . . . .eyes . . . .. insect . . . . yelling." He managed to gasp out a few intelligible words, but none of that made sense.

Heero had no idea what it meant, but he knew if it had rattled the other boy so badly it couldn't be good. He looked Quatre in the eye and spoke slowly, in an attempt to calm him down.

"Quatre, where is Duo?"

The smaller boy took another deep breath and turned to lead Heero down the corridor. His mind was racing, what could have happened. What did Duo's eyes have to do with yelling at insects? And why was Quatre so gripped with fear?

They stopped in front of a large wooden door that was half closed. Quatre nodded at the door but wouldn't go in. As Heero reached for it, the door slowly swung open on its rusting hinges. It was a bit like the library he had just left, but with a large window opposite the door, and a bigger desk in the center of the room. His partner was sitting on the window's ledge staring out at the overgrown gardens below.

"Duo, Quatre said there was som—"

Duo turned dead eyes toward Heero. His mouth stretched open and he emitted a hellish scream, like the banshees of Irish legend. As he screamed, a strong whirlwind blew through the room, knocking books off of the shelves and sending papers flying. It centered around Duo, and lifted him high into the air directly above the desk. A white mist slowly separated from Duo's limp body and disappeared, along with the wind, dropping Duo onto the desk with a resounding thud.
/~\~/~\~/~\
"Daijoubu desu ka?"

Misca waited for her friend to come out of her trance. She was worried about her behavior of late. In the two hundred twenty-seven years that the blonde witch had known her, she had never been this distant from every one for more than a day or two. Sixteen years was too long to mourn anyone. 'And she's gotten so thin.'

"Hai, daijoubu. You really love that language don't you."

"It's the only thing I know that's older than I am. Will you tell me
what's wrong?"

"Oh, I'm alright, but the spirits are restless." Her dark-haired
sister's answer relieved the ancient witch.

"What is it this time: banshees, trolls, or hobgoblins?" The last was said with obvious distaste. Misca was tired of shuffling the country's inhabitants for the sake of a few disgruntled ghosts, but she was glad that was the problem. She remembered the days when her friend's silences meant something much worse.

"None of the above."

"Pixies?" They were her last hope that this was going to be easy.

"Humans."

The blonde looked shocked for a second, and then burst into a nervous laugh.

"You won't believe this, but I thought you just said there were humans in Ireland."

The younger witch stood there, blank-faced, a trick she had picked up from the last human to visit the emerald isle. "I did."

/~\~/~\~/~\

Wufei and Trowa stood up in alarm as Heero entered the room carrying Duo's limp body, with Quatre trailing behind them still wide eyed and shaking. They cleared the luggage from a sofa and helped Heero arrange his unconscious burden. Quatre pulled a small bottle of smelling salts from his bag and handed it to Heero; unwilling to get too close to his fallen friend.

"What did the baka do this time?" Wufei asked trying to cover any concern by sounding annoyed.

"Wufei, just shut up and help me wake him up. I only know a little more than you do, so you can't have answers till he's conscious."

"My apologies." Wufei sounded more curious about Heero's emotional display than apologetic, but Heero didn't really care if he meant it or not. His main concern was Duo. His best friend had just fallen eight feet out of midair onto a hardwood table and he didn't even know how it was possible, let alone why. He opened the bottle of smelling salts Quatre handed him and held it under Duo's nose, not really knowing anything else to do except wait, and he hated to wait.

Suddenly Duo began to stir, coughed weakly, and tried feebly to push the bottle away. Quatre took it and put it away as Heero and Trowa propped Duo up in a pseudo-sitting position.

"What happened, and what am I doing here?"

"Maxwell, what's the last thing you remember?"

"Who's Maxwell, and who are you guys for that matter?"

Heero sat down on the floor . . . hard. Everyone seemed to be in a state of shock. They'd all seen soldiers with amnesia, but never one they knew, never one of their own.

"So you don't remember anything." Quatre had gone from frightened friend to parent mode, while the rest of them went further into panic.

"I 'member plenty. My name is Duo Solous, my mommy's name is Qahlen, my daddy's Roan, and they live with my aunts on the other side of the forest. And whoever you are, you shouldn't be in this castle the ghosts don't like people, actually they don't like anybody, but 'specially not people."

"He must have hit his head harder than we thought. He's fallen into some sort of delusional state, maybe a childhood fantasy or something."

"Hey, Blondie, you don't have to talk 'bout me like I'm not here, Aunt Misca does that and it drives me crazy, maybe it's a blonde thing." Duo crossed his arms and tried to sit up a little further, but he got dizzy and thought better of it.

"Duo, how old are you?" Heero asked, hoping to figure out his friend's strange behavior.

"I'm six and a half." Duo said proudly showing them on his fingers.

"How old was he when Father Maxwell found him?" Quatre asked Heero, hoping he had more information than the rest of them.

"He was guessed to be about seven, he had no memory of anything up until six months before entering the orphanage."

"So he may just be remembering what he lost ten years ago."

"That doesn't make any sense, there aren't any castles on the L2 colony, he wouldn't know where he was, and he wouldn't know this place was haunted."

Wufei and Trowa both raised querulous brows at that last word.

"He was possessed by a ghost, who yelled at Quatre about not belonging here, dropped Duo eight feet onto a table, and disappeared, which is why he doesn't remember anything."

"Eon O'Shea," Duo yelled at the ceiling, "You promised Momma you wouldn't do that anymore!" The room shook in response. Duo cringed.

"He's right, we shouldn't be here, I'll take you to my house, Momma will know what to do with you." Duo jumped up to go and immediately collapsed back onto the couch. "Or maybe not."

Quatre sat down on the edge of the sofa next to Duo and pushed a lock of hair out of his face. "Don't worry about it, Heero and Wufei will go find your mother for you."

Heero nodded while Wufei glared at Quatre for daring to volunteer him for anything, let alone a fruitless search for a dead woman that more than likely had never set foot on this planet.

/~\~/~\~/~\

"I can't believe you agreed to do this."

"Hn."

"I can out silence you any day, Yuy."

"Hn."

"This is a waste of time."

"Hn."

"I know your vocabulary extends beyond 'Hn'. You proved it earlier."

"Your worse than Duo, but the same solution should still work."

Wufei heard a very loud ripping sound, followed by another.

"Heero what are you—" Wufei suddenly found it very difficult to speak, as there was a strip of duct tape over his mouth. As he moved both hands to remove the obstacle, Heero grabbed them both deftly in one battle-scarred hand, taped them together, and turned to move on.

"Hmmm Hmmmmmmmm HMM!!"

"Come on. We've got a lot of ground to cover before nightfall." Heero resumed walking toward the forest as a very baffled and bound Wufei followed quickly behind him.

/~\~/~\~/~\