A.N. December 16th, 3:05pm: There seems to be a problem with Dreamwater (might not be a problem for anyone else, but I can't get in, so it's a problem =P) so this episode is currently on FFN only, and will hopefully be added to my website as soon as possible. One other thing I gotta say: Do NOT do what Duo says he did a long time ago. (You'll see what it is when Heero points out how unsafe it was.) It's alright for fictional characters, but not for you, o-tay? =^_~= There's a slight angst warning, too. And be sure to read my Christmas Challenge at the end of this episode!

Disclaimer: I wrote a letter to Santa Claus and asked for a set of five Gundam pilots for Christmas. He wrote back sending me a 200-page "booklet" on copyright laws and infringement suits, and said there was nothing he could do about it and how would I like a nice Gamecube instead? I'm currently thinking it over...

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Episode Thirty: Open Arms, Revolving Doors

"Horresco referens." ~Latin ("I shudder as I tell the story.")

December 16th, 1901

While on a mission to make a pot of tea, Heero heard voices coming from the kitchen before he reached the bottom of the stairs, and emerged into the thick of a tense conversation between Duo and Doris. The chef was sitting at the kitchen table in front of his box of recipe cards, all hand-written, and Doris was standing over him. He looked more upset than she did.

"I tried so hard at this job, I really did!" Duo whined. "Now because I didn't do a little extra research, I've ruined everybody's Christmas."

"Now, don't be that way, you haven't ruined anything," Doris said in a motherly tone, patting the boy's back. "We'll just buy one from the corner shop. I don't fancy anyone will be able to tell the difference, not if you do a good job with dinner."

Heero only came downstairs to put the kettle on, so it really wasn't any of his business...but still...that forlorn look on Duo's face... "Do I want to know?"

"The plum pudding for after Christmas dinner," Duo mumbled. "I was supposed to start soaking the ingredients on the Sunday before Advent, and that was weeks ago."

Doris stood behind the boy with both hands on his shoulders and smiled at Heero. "He also wasn't aware that there are no plums in plum pudding."

Duo shrugged. "I thought it was strange...nobody sells plums in December, did you know that?"

"...right." Heero resumed his course to the stove with a slight shake of his head, filling up the kettle with fresh water while the odd conversation continued behind him.

"You mustn't feel badly about it, dear," Doris cooed, "I know that you're not exactly an expert in English cuisine. Her Ladyship and Master Treize might not have noticed, but the rest of us know that you're not really a chef by profession."

Terror washed over Duo as he wondered if the facts about his past that had been revealed at the trial were coming back to bite him. "Whaddaya mean!?" he exclaimed, twisting around to look at her. "I haven't done anything heinously wrong in this kitchen, like chocolate-covered broccoli or cheese and kumquat soufflé, have I? I never broke any culinary laws like storing the powdered sugar next to the rat poison, did I?"

"No, no, no, nothing like that," Doris insisted gently, "but face some facts, my boy, a great deal of the dishes you prepare are American. The last chef we had was an expert in pork pies and digestive biscuits. You seem to be an expert in cornbread and cherry pie...not that I'm one to complain, mind you, because everything you make is simply spectacular."

"I know plenty of English recipes!" Duo blurted out bluntly, as if defending his very honour. "Personally trained by a lovely Irish lady with the best kitchen in the world! You said yourself that the manor had never seen shepherd's pie that was as good as mine!"

As Heero turned around after lighting the gas under the kettle, he saw Doris shake her head and cluck her tongue as she reached for Duo's cherished recipe box. She picked out a card at random, read it, and held it up for him to see. "Boston Cream Pie?"

Duo sat back in his chair defensively. "Okay, one recipe out of the whole box..."

She picked out another card. "New England Clam Chowder?"

"....just what are you inferring, that I'm over-enthusiastic about my heritage?" He folded his arms sternly.

"Philadelphia Cheesecake?"

"........well, that...."

"Waldorf Salad?"

"You can stop now."

Heero smiled a bit as he sat down opposite them, remembering how he and Duo collected that last recipe, in person, from the salad's creator himself, after the fiasco in Buffalo that September. Duo was even more excited about that than the fact that their rooms as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel had a little engraved pocket door in between them. The wide-eyed joy with which Duo greeted all of life's little novelties was one of his most charming attributes.

"I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a little variety," Doris went on to say, "but it might help solidify your position here if you were to add some more traditional items to your repertoire. Why, I don't even see rice pudding in this box of yours." The glum look returned to Duo's heart-shaped face, and the kindly housemaid patted his back again. "Don't bother yourself with it now, carry on as normal. I'm sure whatever you have planned for Christmas will be divine." With that, she went back into the scullery to finish her morning chores.

Duo sulked and picked away at his fingernails, mumbling. "I can only do what I watched Helen do in her kitchen...I can't know how to cook everything..."

"She didn't mean it as a criticism," Heero pointed out.

"I know, but Helen wouldn't have..." Duo stopped himself and started fiddling with his braid in an agitated state. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be harping on it. Just ignore me."

The kettle on the stove reached a steady boil and began whistling, and Heero rose to answer it's call. With their backs to each other, Duo let his braid fall and stared at his messily-written notecards. At that moment, he wished more than anything that he could show his lost guardian that he was safe and well at last, to stop her worrying, even from above. A thought struck him, perhaps subconsciously constructed out of a need to remember. "Why don't you ever ask about her?"

"Hn?"

"About Helen," Duo repeated. "I let her name slip often enough, but you've never asked me who she was or what she meant to me. Aren't you interested?"

Heero looked up, but continued assembling the tea set on a tray, the fresh, piping hot brew steeping in its delicate porcelain jug. "I'm interested," he said in a flat voice, "but what's yours is yours. The time at which you feel ready to share something like that is for you to decide, not me." When he walked back out in front of the kitchen table, Duo was smiling, but the chef's face fell when he saw the tea set, undoubtedly on its way up to Relena.

"You're busy," Duo groaned.

The butler looked down at the tray, mentally estimated how many minuted had passed since it was requested, and sat down with it, deciding he could spare some time for his friend. "Tell me."

Energized, the braided boy sat up straight in his chair and launched himself down memory lane. "You know after my parents went missing, how I got shipped off to the American embassy, right? Well, they couldn't legally keep me for long, and the police didn't want me, so they had to send me to an orphanage, the one I stole food for later on. Lots of people came in wanting to adopt children, but nobody ever wanted me because I was American. It wasn't that they didn't like me or anything, far from it, they just didn't want any immigration hassles down the line.

"I was pretty much stuck in there until I was eight or so, then I decided to blow that joint. They treated me okay, but older kids have an even tougher time getting adopted, so it was clear to me that I was gonna have to get myself out of there. Big mistake, at first. I didn't have anywhere to go, and I couldn't pick pockets worth beans. Didn't matter, though, 'cause I was determined not to go hungry.

"I remember I was lurking around the High Street, and I saw this lady with long blonde hair and a purple dress...she had a bagful of groceries and stuff sitting on the ground, with the brightest red apples you ever did see, right on top. She was putting a pin in her hat, looking at her reflection in some store window, and she wasn't paying attention..."

Heero actually leaned forward without thinking, not even realizing how wrapped up he was in the story, as Duo began adding broad arm gestures to illustrate his tale. The untouched tea continued to steep a full two floors below where it was supposed to be.

"I crept up behind her, one foot in front of the other, as quietly as I could...and in the space of half a second, I grabbed an apple and ran! I didn't know where I was going, I just picked a direction and burned off what little rubber was left on my shoes...and then I slammed into something tall, blue, and really strong."

"A policeman?" Heero guessed.

"Yep," Duo confirmed, nodding with a smile. "I didn't even hear the lady yell for someone to stop me, and then all of a sudden this big guy in uniform is marching me back to the store window, but when we got there, the weirdest thing happened. The lady takes one look at me and says, in this gorgeous Irish brogue, 'Did I not tell ya to stay where I could see ya? And what blessed pigswill have ye been playin' in to get yerself in such a state? Yer mum's gonna have ten thousand fits when I take you home, young man!'"

Heero was leaning his chin in the palm of his hand by now, thoroughly engrossed; Duo's expert re-enactment of the blonde woman's accent was definitely the clincher. "So you weren't arrested?"

"Nope, she totally snowed him into thinking she was my governess or something," Duo said proudly. "That was Helen. She said that as long as she saved my rear end from the authorities, I might as well carry her shopping for her. Turns out she was finishing off a holiday in London, and she was buying some souvenirs to take back to Ireland, and some snacks to eat on the ferry. She asked me if I'd like to come with her, to live somewhere new with all the food I could eat...and I said yes. She even let me keep the apple."

Heero didn't want to sound disapproving, since it all turned out for the best, but it slipped out anyway. "Duo, that was very dangerous. If that had been someone else with less than honest intentions--"

"Yeah, yeah, it could've been a lot worse for me, I know," Duo admitted sheepishly, "but it was okay, because someone upstairs was watching over me the whole time. Those years in Ireland were the best times I ever had before coming here. Helen had a flower shop with a little apartment over it, and she took in all the strays off the street...dogs, cats...me..." He grinned momentarily, but then his cherubic face became sullen, and his bright amethyst eyes clouded over. "Then one day, a couple of years ago...Helen got really sick. She could hardly get out of bed, and I had to run and get Dr. Walsh, but as soon as he saw her, he sent me out of the room and wouldn't let me back in.

"More men came, and they were all talking at once, with these big words I'd never heard before. They filled all the cupboards with food, took me out of the house, and tacked a sign up on the door. Then Dr. Walsh gave me a message from Helen--she didn't write it down because she knew I couldn't read--that she said I had to go away and never come back, or I'd get sick too...and...that she loved me." Duo's eyes misted over, but from a lifetime's abhorrence of useless tears, he refused to cry. "She waved goodbye to me from her window, trying to look brave, and I tried to be brave for her, too. I waved back, and then I left...went back to England and began my life of crime," he finished with a humourless smirk.

Heero was respectfully silent for awhile, thinking about the sign the doctor posted on Helen's door. Quarantine, he thought morbidly. "Did you ever hear from her again?"

Duo's silence held a thousand words of anguish that spared him the hurt of answering directly; apparently Dr. Walsh hadn't held out much hope for her survival at the time of her diagnosis, whatever she had fatefully contracted. The pitiful story brought about strange stirrings in Heero, feelings of sadness and protectiveness that he never knew he was capable of. His friend had been abandoned far too many times in life, and it made Heero want to lavish even more attention on the boy, to make sure he finally felt secure and wanted. "Are we still on for this afternoon?" he asked casually, half trying to change the subject.

The chef brightened a bit. "Yeah! Lookin' forward to it!"

Relieved that the emotional damage Duo's narrative seemed to have done wasn't permanent, Heero nodded. It was then that he remembered the tea set; Relena was supposed to have received it several minutes ago, but it seemed like Duo needed it much more. He poured him a cup of tea and opened a fresh package of chocolate-dipped shortbread to perk him up, but Duo felt better just knowing he cared.

**********

Shareefa's death after the nighttime ambush left Quatre devastated and unable to work; it was a small bit of good fortune that there was six inches of snow blanketing the estate, eliminating most of the work he might have done. His time of ritual fasting was all but over, but even during the evening hours when food and drink were permitted, he couldn't eat anything. The experience tore a massive gash through his soul that swallowed up his appetite along with every other bit of seasonal cheer that came his way.

Trowa was naturally very concerned, but allowed the boy some time to mourn before prodding him to eat something. He crept into their room around mid-morning, carrying a simple bowl of soup and crackers, and was dismayed to find his friend in the same weakened, dishevelled state as he'd been in for the past week. On top of that, he was still in bed.

"Quat? Are you awake?"

"......mmrf..."

Trowa sighed and put the soup on the bedside table, then sat down on his patient's bed as the grief-weary gardener pulled himself up into a sloppy sitting position. Worn out from head to foot without any accomplishment to show for it, he leaned heavily against Trowa and made his first effort that morning to actually open his eyes.

"Do you think you could manage a little soup today?"

Quatre forced out a tiny smile for the other's benefit. "Maybe just a bit."

Trowa smiled in return and helped him hold the soup bowl as he sampled some tentative sips, but the meal was only a few spoonfuls old when they were unexpectedly interrupted. "Hello? Is anyone in there?" A stiff rapping at the door accompanied the haughty female voice, whom they both identified unpleasantly as Dorothy. She pushed the door open without being invited, and Trowa was on his feet in a flash, setting the soup bowl on the card table and dashing to the doorway, blocking her progress.

"What do you want?" the coachman snarled.

"There's no need to get all huffy," Dorothy protested, "I'm just here to deliver a message."

"Fine. Deliver it and get out."

Dorothy snorted and looked over his shoulder at Quatre's slumped back. "Lady Une would like you both to visit her at her estate, at your earliest convenience."

"Why should she want to see me?" Quatre asked dully, without turning around. "I've already turned down her offer of employment."

"It's nothing to do with that, I assure you," the girl said. "She's very concerned for your health and well-being, as am I, and she just wants to make sure you're being well looked after. Both of you."

Slightly angered by her persistence, Quatre stood feebly and propped himself up on the bedside table, giving her a moderate glare. "You only want to make sure my inheritance is well looked after, don't try to deny it! I have nothing to say to either one of you. Now, please go."

Trowa folded his arms and looked down at her. "You heard the man."

Dorothy looked mildly insulted, but not all that surprised. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and eyed them both craftily. "She's not going to take 'no' for an answer very easily, I feel it's only fair to warn you. If she wants to have a word with you, she'll have it. You really don't have a choice in the matter, but don't forget that she at least tried to be polite." The Baroness spun on her heel and stalked daintily away, leaving the boys to wonder about her message.

"What could she possibly want this time?" Trowa mused quietly.

"I don't know, but I don't have the energy to think about it right now," Quatre mumbled. As he turned around, preparing to flop back on his bed, he got a look at himself in the mirror, a gaunt figure with slightly sunken cheeks and a constant tremor in his arms and legs. The anger he felt for Dorothy was suddenly re-directed at himself, along with shame for allowing such rapid deterioration to occur. Enough of this! Moping isn't going to bring Shareefa back, and it's not going to protect me against Dorothy and Lady Une either! If father could see me in this state, he'd be appalled. "Where's the rest of that soup?"

Trowa grabbed the bowl off the card table and handed it over with a broad smile.

**********

Relena had never been an impatient person. There was no need to be; all her meals arrived on time, all her servants were only a bell-ring away...at least, that was how things used to be. The morning tea she had asked Heero to bring never arrived, then she didn't see him again until lunch, and he was in such a hurry to go out for the afternoon that they hardly spoke two words to each other. The afternoon outings were getting to be a daily habit with him, and it was finally affecting his performance, as he wasn't home in time to serve tea. Now Relena was developing a taste for impatience.

Too many of her strategies to get closer to Heero had failed. She invited him to take his meals with the rest of the family at the dining room table, but he insisted on keeping to the servants' kitchenette with the dumbwaiter and cutlery cabinet for company. She offered him a private room on the third floor, conveniently located quite near hers, to compensate for the cramped conditions and total lack of central heating in his own room, but he politely declined, saying it wasn't his place.

It's as if he feels unworthy of whatever 'honours' I wish to give him, she thought as she paced up and down the front hall. Maybe he feels intimidated, socially, and doesn't feel he can measure up to my standards. What absolute nonsense! Poor boy...I'll make sure he knows that I'd never let a silly thing like class come between us.

Magically, the door opened at that very moment, and the two missing servants sauntered across the threshold in a very relaxed mood, brushing snow off their thick woolen coats. Duo was laughing and chatting with one hand dipping in and out of a bag of sweets, and Heero was actually talking back to him. A conversation! Relena felt a pang of jealousy as she heard more words pass between them in five seconds than Heero had spoken to her in two days. He also seemed to have had an arm around Duo, perhaps steadying him on the slippery front step, but it gave her an icy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"...but seriously, how often does that happen in real life? Guy meets girl, girl meets villain, villain ties girl to railroad tracks?"

"I think it was meant to be a satirical examination of the film industry as a vehicle for social expression."

"Whatever. The chase scene was cool, though..."

They hadn't noticed Relena's presence yet, and she startled them after some startling thought invaded her mind. You went to the pictures? With him instead of me?? "Heero, you're late."

The boys were right in the middle of hanging up their coats, and froze at the unexpected noise, but Heero was well-prepared to take the blame. "Forgive me, m'lady, but I seem to have misplaced my watch," he said humbly, unbuttoning his jacket to reveal no watch and chain. "It was entirely my fault that we lost track of time." He deliberately omitted the karate lesson that ran long, plus the shopping spree in the candy store and the leisurely walk along the Thames while the sun was setting.

Relena appeared to ignore his excuse as she marched over to Duo and handed him a thick stack of neatly-addressed envelopes, the invitations to her Christmas party. "Run these down to the postbox, then get straight to work on dinner. It's almost five o'clock already!"

Duo groaned inaudibly and took his coat back off the coat rack. "Yes, miss." He shot an apologetic glance at Heero, took the envelopes, and left.

Once the meddlesome chef was out of the way, Relena beckoned Heero to follow her. "I'd like a word with you," she said in a low, strong voice. She led him into the parlour and stood apart from him, leaning on the piano and staring off into space. A strange chill fell over the room as she gathered her thoughts and began to speak. "I don't think you should be spending so much of your time with the cook."

Heero nearly staggered backwards. "Excuse me?"

"It's not that I disapprove, specifically," her Ladyship affirmed, "but if you have any interest in improving your social standing, it would behoove you to spend less time with the staff in general. I've given you several opportunities to mingle with London's elite, but you keep backsliding time and again, and I know you can do better. You're talented and charming, and you could go as far as you want to in life if you would just start associating yourself with the right kind of people."

"M'lady...we both know that would hardly be appropriate, given my position in--"

"But don't you ever feel a need to rise above that position?" she asked emphatically, whirling around to face him. "Haven't you ever dreamed of something better for yourself? Something better than serving drinks and polishing silverware?"

This Relena was even more different than the last Relena Heero had seen. Taken completely by surprise, he gave her a dumbfounded look and a slow, undeliberate shrug. "I have no reason to be discontent with my life the way it is, m'lady."

"That may well be," she said softly, walking delicately towards him, "but I have my suspicions that you're holding back from your true potential because you're a little bit intimidated by the people you have to serve."

A lesser man might have broken down in peals of hysterical laughter, but Heero stood his ground. "Indeed."

"Now, I don't want to embarass you about it, but I think you should hear this." She stepped even closer, suddenly within a carefully-measured arm's length. "I know that many people of my social stature would frown on servants aspiring to join their ranks, but our family isn't like that. Father told me himself that wealth isn't nearly as important as character, and he made sure that I learned to look very closely at a person as a person, and not as a bank account, especially when choosing my friends.

"He even went so far to say that he wouldn't object if I married a man belonging to a lower class, so long as he was a good man and that we loved each other honestly." She smiled. "Do you understand?"

Heero wasn't sure how to answer that. He understood the words as they floated across the strangely shortened distance between her lips and his ears, but something about her smile and tone indicated that there was more being said than mere words. Nevertheless, he wasn't getting out of there until she felt her point had been made. "Of course, m'lady."

"Good." She took the last step forward that she was able to take; any closer would have resulted into two bodies occupying the same space at the same time. Still grinning at how easily she had gotten her way, she used both ivory hands to straighten Heero's tie. "So you see, you mustn't let class be an obstacle to the things you really want out of life. Now, it's getting very late, so go set the table for dinner, alright?" She patted him on the shoulder and sent him about his work, after re-extending the invitation to eat in the dining room.

Watching him leave, Relena thought to herself how unenthusiastic Heero seemed at being liberated from the normal constraints of the working class, but she felt certain that the core meaning of her lecture would sink in eventually.

**********

It was never social awareness or timidity that kept Heero from joining the upper crust of the house for any meals, just as it wasn't superiority that prevented him from eating downstairs with the staff. He always ate alone in the little prep room just off the dining room, and expected that he always would. During his training, he never had company at mealtimes; his rations were brought by one of his keepers, and as an exercise in obedience and restraint, he was not permitted to eat until the person had left, no matter how hungry he was. Dining alone felt normal to him.

After years of repetitive behaviour such as this, Relena's invitation didn't carry a great deal of weight, and by the same token, Heero didn't let it change the way he conducted himself in the dining room. He laid out the four meals with his usual efficiency and care, then retreated once again to the kitchenette, all the while feeling Relena's hopeful eyes following him, waiting in vain for her invitation to be accepted.

As always, there was a fifth tray waiting for him in the dumbwaiter; he set it on the rickety wooden table and glanced over the contents, seeing more evidence of a clever and very pleasant trend. Over the past week, Duo had consistently been giving Heero better food than the rest of the family was getting. Relena and the others had chicken soup and bread rolls that evening, but Heero had real herb-roasted chicken with oven-browned potatoes and a glass of the good wine that Treize had hidden for himself in the china cabinet behind the soup toureen. It was nice...a secret sign of friendship and caring concern, probably due to the well-documented fact that two hours of karate burns more calories than a day of dusting knickknacks and pouring sherry.

The nicest surprise came at dessert, after Heero had passed out four crystal dishes of crème brulée and festive gingerbread. Lifting up the last silver dome on his tray, he found a pair of exquisitely crafted gingerbread men. One had blue eyes made out of icing and a green 'H' piped across its middle, and the other had purple eyes and a green 'D'; the 'D' cookie had three narrow strands of gingerbread woven into a braid and poking out of the side of its head. The true marvel of engineering, however, was that the two cookies had been cut, shaped, and baked as only one, joined at the arms to make it look like they were holding hands. Both cookies were smiling little pink icing smiles.

It was an invitation, without question, but with added subtlety and a lot less pressure; he couldn't help but appreciate that. He picked up the plate of gingerbread, tiptoed out so as not to alert the diners of his departure, and quietly went downstairs, where he was met with several questioning glances and one big smile from the master baker.

Heero walked around the table, with a slight smile of his own, and stopped at the extra chair next to Duo. "I got your message."

"And looky here, there just happens to be an empty spot waiting for you. What a coincidence." Duo grinned at his own ingenuity as Heero sat down and centered the plate between them. They broke the gingerbread men apart, and each boy nibbled on his respective cookie while the rest of the servants trickled out in pairs, unknowingly leaving them to enjoy a sacred comfort zone that neither one could find in anyone else.

Quatre didn't like it. "Look at those two," he whispered to his cinnamon-haired bodyguard as they peeked out from behind the pantry door. "Whatever's going on around here, they're both in on it. I can feel it! What is it they don't want to tell us?" Energized by lingering suspicions and the first full meal he'd had in a week, he wasn't about to let the butler get away with one more day of lies and secrecy. Trowa hung his head; all he really wanted was for Quatre to get some rest and calm down.

Fate intervened in the form of a light tapping at the back door. They observed Heero rising from the table slowly, then moving a little faster to open the door once he recognized the strawberry blonde woman standing behind it in the snow. When all three of them began muttering in muted tones and looking shiftily over their shoulders, Quatre had seen more than enough. He slipped away from Trowa, who made a late grab for his arm and missed, and marched back out into the kitchen. Everyone looked up at once.

"We want to know what's going on in this house," the gardener declared fiercely. "You two aren't the only ones who have to live under this roof with Treize, and if there's danger here, we have a right to know what it is."

The three at the table looked past him to a rather shell-shocked Trowa, who nodded and shrugged at the same time, then looked back at Quatre in unison. "We know something's up," the blond boy continued, "and we want the facts right now, or we'll.....we'll, um....we'll think of something really unpleasant to make up for it, sooner or later! Won't we, Trowa?"

Trowa froze and stared. Duo smirked and ducked his head a little. Heero raised an eyebrow, and the strawberry blonde woman seemed very impressed. "Fine," Heero said after an elongated pause, "and you can donate the use of your room so we won't be overheard." With that, he swept past them all and disappeared into Trowa and Quatre's room. After exchanging blinks and greetings with the snow-covered Dr. Poole, they followed him.

Within seconds, they had each found themselves a chair in the double bedroom, except Duo, who sat cross-legged on someone's bed--he wasn't sure whose. Heero shut the door firmly, then turned to Sally. "You can tell these two everything you were about to tell myself and Duo, but be prepared for some questions."

"......okay." Sally settled comfortably in her chair, unpinning her hat and setting it on a nearby table, then looked over the four faces in front of her, displaying varying degrees of patience. "I'll start at the beginning. More than a year ago, Lord Peacecraft was visited by a French doctor taking over for Ben Pritchard, the family doctor, and was diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia after a ten-minute examination." Her distasteful tone on the words 'ten-minute' was a clear hint that she didn't approve of the exam's brevity.

"This 'Dr. Laval' has no office in England, and when I contacted the Parisian medical board, they were either unable or unwilling to provide me with any information about him. Without any visible credentials or even a second opinion, he prescribed digitalis, and obtained the pills from some back-water chemist who isn't even in business anymore. I tracked down an apprentice who worked at the chemist's for a few months, and with a little bit of monetary persuasion, he remembered Dr. Laval coming in just after the new year with a man named Wagner, who spoke to the chemist in German." Duo squirmed uncomfortably as he saw the pieces falling together, but Trowa and Quatre were still very much in the dark.

"This Wagner fellow was given a full bottle of digitalis pills, even though the apprentice knew they had come to collect another full bottle just two weeks previous. That amounts to several megadoses of a very powerful drug in the hands of a man who had only been employed at the manor for a few months." Sally sat back and shrugged. "Four weeks later, Lord Peacecraft was dead. Draw your own conclusions."

Trowa couldn't figure out why Duo and Heero were so calm, like they had been expecting such gruesome news. "I don't understand...why didn't the family doctor step in? And what does any of this have to do with Treize?"

"Pritchard didn't know any of it was happening," Sally said, taking an envelope out of her purse. "He came into a sudden windfall of money and took a year's leave of absence in Australia. Laval was required to send him a report of his diagnosis, but it didn't reach Pritchard in anything resembling a timely fashion. Look at this..." She handed the envelope to Trowa, who pored over the contents and passed it along, while Sally elaborated on her point. "I 'obtained' that from Pritchard's office...while his back was turned. I'm fairly sure he won't miss it. It's pretty straight-forward, just a standard account of the examination performed on Lord Peacecraft."

They all read the form letter and found nothing particularly suspicious about it, aside from sloppiness and quick work, but when the envelope and letter fell into Heero's hands, he spotted something extraordinary. "....postmarked in Bangkok?"

Sally nodded. "Nobody in their right mind sends a letter from England to Australia by way of Siam. Compare the envelope to the letter. The envelope is like new, but the letter looks like it's been through the war, and the postmark is dated nearly eight months after the letter. I believe it was bounced all over the globe, being opened and re-wrapped in a new envelope at any number of points along the way. It made sure that Dr. Pritchard didn't get the news about his patient's heart condition until it was too late to take action, all while making it look like a simple case of misdirected mail. When he got back to England, Lord Peacecraft was already dead, and now he seems to be avoiding this house for fear of a malpractice suit...he knows he shouldn't have left the country. Just getting into his office to talk to him was like pulling teeth."

"Can't the police do anything?" Quatre asked, feeling his new-found strength fly from him.

"I doubt it," she said. "The trail's gone cold. Laval disappeared right after the funeral, and there was no coroner's inquest to determine whether his Lordship was even sick at the time of his death. I can't say for sure whether he had a heart condition or not, but I feel safe in guessing that the cause of death was digitalis poisoning."

As he handed the envelope back, Heero fielded Trowa's second question. "The man named Wagner, whom Quatre should remember as the previous butler, was secretly employed by Treize. Dr. Laval and the chemist might have been as well."

"Plus who knows how many postal workers all over the world," Duo remarked snidely.

Quatre swallowed. "All those months...he was taking pills he didn't need..."

"And Wagner was increasing his dosage bit by bit," Sally added. "I wish had better news for you, boys...but it's pretty clear what's been going on, especially if Treize is, or is about to be named, the legal caretaker of his half-brother's estate."

Heero was indeed hoping for better news, if only for Relena's sake, but there was no denying the obvious. "Lord Peacecraft was murdered."

**********

The household settled down for a peaceful, wintery sleep at last, and one by one, lights were turned out and wishes of sweet dreams were exchanged throughout the manor. Down in the cellar, Trowa and Quatre were tucked into their beds and listening to the wind whip snow against the window panes, but the noise wasn't keeping them awake as much as the terrible things they had heard in that very room a few hours previous. Was Treize really a murderer? Was Relena in danger? What would he do to them all if he discovered Heero's investigation? Question after question was whispered between them, but no answers were found.

"Do you think Heero's telling us everything he knows?" Trowa asked softly.

"I think there's more," Quatre replied slowly, "but I don't think we need to know the rest. I just get the feeling that whatever else he's keeping from us really isn't any of our business. We found out what we needed to know about Treize and that's enough for now." He paused and listened to the pitter-pat on the window for awhile, then let out some of the guilt that had been burning him since that evening. "I should have known something was going to happen to his Lordship...I should have noticed something odd about Wagner. He was never really part of the family, he isolated himself, he was secretive...and I never saw it. I never got close enough to him to realize what he was there to do..."

"Please, please don't blame yourself for this," Trowa begged. "It's not your fault. There was nothing you could have done.

"You don't know that. You're just trying to make me feel better."

"Is it working?"

Again Quatre paused, and this time he smiled faintly. Trowa was trying, after all; it was more than many people would have done for a sickly wretch like himself, he thought. "A little."

It did help; no problem or worry felt so large when there was someone to share it with, and they went to sleep confident that whatever strange developments arose from that evening's discovery, they could figure it out together. Several floors above them, another pair of weary workers was having a similar conversation, under much more rugged conditions. Duo and Heero were huddled close together under very insufficient blankets in the coldest room in the house, and neither one really minded the indignity of it. It was well known that people in the country often doubled up to keep warm, since few had a fireplace in the bedroom, so necessity made it alright on some level. Just like below, the questions were flying, but mostly in one direction.

"Why did you let those two in on what Sally found?" Duo asked to the darkness.

"Don't know," Heero answered sleepily with his eyes closed. "Your gingerbread must have put me in a generous mood."

"Can we trust them?"

"I expect so. They have nothing to gain by revealing what they've been told."

Heero's firm tone was enough to convince anyone that he was right, and Duo trusted his judgement implicitly. He curled up under the blankets, buried his elven nose a little further into the well-worn shoulder of Heero's green and black pajamas, and felt momentarily secure that everything would work out alright. "More lessons tomorrow?"

"Hai.

"Mmmmm.

A rare thing happened that night; all the servants fell asleep before Relena, who was sitting up in bed listening to the winter wind and wondering if Heero really understood what she was trying to tell him without actually saying the words. Long after she turned out the light, she was replaying their conversation in her head, trying to imagine how he would interpret it.

It wouldn't hurt to drop a few more hints between now and the party, but gently. I have to help him overcome his insecurities, for my sake, for the manor's sake...and of course, for his own...but I must do it gently, or I might scare him off. Like Dorothy said, men hate to be pressured. With a solid decision in mind, she smiled to herself and sank down below the downy pink and white lace covers of her canopy bed and drifted off to dreamland, seeing her wonderful new future as rightful Lady of Bridlewood with her one and only Heero by her side.


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Thirty-One: The famous Bridlewood Christmas gala brings in a massive crowd of wealthy revellers, as it always has, and Relena asks her guests to share in the memories of her family, grimly depleted by death and war. There's music, dancing, presents and food in store, but it couldn't possibly be all smiles and sunshine. It looks like an ordinary Christmas party, but unseen forces are at work that will turn it into a gathering none of the household will ever forget.

Okay, here's a special Christmas Challenge for all my readers (well, those with a kitchen and a camera, at least): Remember those darling little gingerbread men I described? I'd love to see just how creative and artful my readers can be (call me crazy) so this is what I'd like you to do, if you choose to accept my challenge. Bake two gingerbread men, holding hands and smiling, exactly the way they appeared in this week's episode. Send me a picture of your fabulous work, and I'll post it on my website! Can you do it? =^_~= All you aspiring bakers out there, now's your chance to shine! Email me a pic of your very best gingerbread Duo and Heero and gain the envy of your peers! ...aaaaaand the next episode couldn't come out any other time but *drumroll* Christmas Day! *crowd cheers* See you then! =^_^=

A quick word about Duo's recipe cards...the Kraft company might contend that real Philly Cheesecake didn't come about until the advent of their Philly Cream Cheese around the time of the first world war. I contend that, since cheesecake is reputed to have been invented by the ancient Greeks, and since pasteurized cream cheese appeared on the scene before the turn of the century, that it's entirely possible that genuine Philadelphia Cheesecake was around much sooner than Kraft fans would have you believe. New York Cheesecake existed in the mid-1800's, as reported by a prominent American cheesecake company, so it's not totally beyond the reach of the imagination. =^_~= Coming to the Bridlewood section of my website will be a recipe index cataloguing all of Duo's tastiest dishes for you to try, so stay tuned!