Nothing warn-worthy in this episode, just the usual yummy goodness. =^_^=

Disclaimer: My New Year's resolution is to write a good disclaimer! ......right after I lose ten pounds, clean out my closet, buy the Brooklyn Bridge and achieve world peace. The pilots and Peacecrafts below aren't mine, and that's a crying shame.

Suggested Font: Times New Roman
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Episode Thirty-Four: The High Cost of Free Trade

"The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely." ~Lorraine Hansberry

January 19th, 1902

After a week-long separation, desperation and loneliness were causing Duo to run up quite an impressive tab on Bridlewood's phone bill. Once Arthur had explained Mr. Bell's invention and the infrastructure that made it work so well, and gotten him the number to the one and only phone line connecting the country estate to the rest of the world, he called Heero every single day. If the first call hadn't satiated them enough for the next twenty-four hours, Heero often called back after supper. Today's topic was the fleet of 'professional cleaners' that had just arrived, at Treize's order.

"Man, they're the weirdest bunch you ever did see," the chef gossipped, sitting at the little Chippendale table near the front hall. He was crouched up close to the receiver and slightly hunched over, as there was always the danger of someone walking past. "It started out as just four that arrived last night, demanding a hot meal each at the most ungodly hour, and they've been running around the house pretending to 'clean'...never mind the fact that not one of them brought a mop or a dustcloth or anything. Now there's about a dozen of them, and they all keep looking at me like I'm some sort of weirdo."

Many miles away in Hampshire, Heero sat in a round-fronted room where the curved wall was nothing but windows, and sunlight bounced off the freshly-fallen snow, illuminating everything very cheerfully. "Watch them if you can, but don't get too close. Anyone connected with Treize is potentially dangerous."

"Yeah, okay."

"And don't act like some trainee ninja if one of them threatens you, either. I haven't instructed you enough on combat yet."

Duo rolled his eyes and smirked. "Uh huh." He looked around for any stray 'cleaning men' who might have overheard, and went on. "I'll tell you what I've noticed already, some of them don't speak English. Trouble is, I can't figure out what they are speaking, and..." Footsteps approached. "...that's right, a dozen red roses, some daisies, sprigs of green stuff, you know what I mean, and the card should read, 'Thanks for an incredible night, signed, your little gingersnap.'..." Duo craned his neck as a navy-blue-clad workman walked past and disappeared around the corner.

A sly smile crossed Heero's face. "You're welcome, Ginger," he sang.

Duo sputtered laughter into the phone. "Shut up!"

"One of them walked by?"

"Of course one of them walked by!" Duo whispered. "Hey, any one of them could be spying on me, foreign or not. As I was saying...I don't know what language they're speaking, but that's all some of them speak while I'm in the room. It's sorta like German, but not quite. You'll just have to hear it for yourself, if you can."

Heero nodded on the other end of the line. "I've been trying to get away, but Relena keeps finding things for me to do, and she's never more than a room away to make sure I do them. There's a chance I can make it as far as the front gate in the middle of the night before she......mm....mm-hm....ten shillings on Harlequin's Gallop in the fourth race..."

Duo grinned like mad as he heard the faint clink of someone setting a cup of tea down, probably on the table right next to Heero. He waited until his own muted chuckling subsided and nearly choked on the next few words as he laughed. "If the horse doesn't win, can I keep the ten shillings?"

"Baka."

"So she bringing you tea, now?"

"No, she is not bringing me tea.....this is coffee." A clink and a slurp crackled across the line. "Although, it's difficult to tell the difference, the way Elsie makes it."

Duo laughed, then sighed. "Well...I bet she'll be checking up on you every ten minutes now...I should probably let you go."

Nearly a full minute passed without a sound, and without either one moving to hang up the phone. "I suppose so," Heero conceded finally. Not only were their calls getting longer, but it was also taking longer to say goodbye.

"Oh, but before you return to Matrimony Headquarters for china pattern duty," Duo interjected, "do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?"

Heero stared into space with immense gravity. "Every minute of every day for twelve years...and counting."

"Okay, well...do you ever get the feeling that you would be watched if the person or persons doing the watching thought that you'd be remotely worth watching?"

"........try that again in Japanese, maybe it'll make more sense."

Again, Duo rolled his eyes, and beat his head against the wall with a flourish. "Listen to me, will ya?" he sighed. "I think Wufei's still in the house. Every time I turn around, I can feel these eyes scoping the place out, but only for a second. Other times, I see this blur out of the corner of my eye, like I just missed him zipping around the corner. I dunno what he's waiting for, but I kinda wish he'd get on with it. The suspense is tying my brain in knots."

Heero thought for a moment. At no time during the past week had he seen the faintest glimpse of Wufei, and yet the rival agent had been obsessed with landing the coveted Khushrenada assignment from Lord Jeffrhyss. Why then would he hide him self eighty miles away from Treize? "I can't be sure what he's up to, but keep your distance from him."

"I think he's the one avoiding me, but I'll be careful."

"Good...."

".......well....guess I'd better let you go...."

"...........I suppose so....."

And so began another one of their long goodbyes.

**********

Relena paced semi-patiently across the hardwood floor outside the lounge where Heero was indulging in another one of his wicked phone calls to the bookies', waiting to slap him with another 'evils of gambling' speech as soon as he emerged. Just because he's marrying into the Peacecraft fortune, he thinks he can fritter it all away on the horses? Honestly! Well, I won't have it! She was all fired up for an ambush when Heero stepped out into the hall, and she was close on his heels as he walked away.

"Heero, we have to talk about this gambling habit of yours. Now, I know we're supposed to be sharing everything, but it doesn't actually start until we've been down the aisle, so it wouldn't be very polite of you to assume that I'll cover your losses anyway, because...Heero, are you listening to me? How much have you lost? Answer me!"

He was listening, but it didn't make a bit of difference to him; admitting that he was on the phone with Duo instead of placing bets would have made all the difference, but he wasn't ready to be thrown out of the girl's life just yet. He marched right up to the front door and donned his coat and boots, all the while with Relena poking him and whimpering like a lost puppy. When he wrapped a red scarf hastily around his neck, it finally dawned on her that he intended to leave the house. "Heero, where are you--"

"I'm going for a walk," he snapped gruffly. Saying goodbye to Duo always put him in a sour mood, but Relena was used to thinking that his miserable expression just meant his horse hadn't come up. Still believing that all men needed a bit of space, she stood just inside the door and let him go, but on a deeper level, she was far from content. In London, he was pleasant and charming...some of the time...but since the move, it was as if he'd had a total personality bypass, and she couldn't help wondering what had gotten into him.

At that exact point in time, speed had gotten into him, and brought along its friends, frustration and resentment, just to make it a real party. With a leather-gloved hand clutched at the front of his long black coat, he flew with long, rapid strides away from the house and into the vast grounds that made the country estate famous. When his instincts told him he was too far away to be verbally summoned, he stopped...closed his eyes...took a deep, cleansing breath...and began walking at an easy, strolling pace, feeling a little more relaxed. Like every day of the past week when he needed to escape for awhile, he had no destination.

Heero wandered aimlessly around the estate, spanning hundreds of acres filled with farmlands, rolling hills, hedgerows and little patches of forest. A glittering blanket of snow coated the landscape, and against the backdrop of a bright but overcast sky, it was difficult to tell where the earth ended and the heavens began. There didn't appear to be a soul around for miles. The absolute stillness of the place had for its only accompaniment the occasional twittering of birds and flapping of wings, turning that tiny portion of English countryside into a picturesque tableau of holy serenity.

Heero wondered why he wasn't enjoying it more.

For days after the announcement that the family would run out the winter months in the country, Duo had been so excited, so in love with the idea of having open fields to run in, fresh air to breathe, animals to track and streams to watch thawing when spring came that he could hardly talk about anything else. It seemed terribly unfair to Heero that the person who most wanted to see the country was the only one who wasn't allowed to go, and he found that he just couldn't enjoy the quiet beauty alone. As he trudged through the snow, reaching up just past his ankles, he was almost trying not to appreciate his surroundings, as if to do so would be betraying Duo somehow.

If it weren't for Relena, he could be walking with me right now. If it weren't for Treize, we could have a peaceful life without all these complications. If it weren't for Jeffrhyss, we could just leave...we have enough money to take us anywhere in the world...if it weren't for the mission. Always the mission. If it weren't for that, I'd...

He came to a halt near a grove of fir trees. What would he do if he were free? He quite honestly couldn't answer that, for all he knew how to do was take orders; simply going for a walk was one of the few things he'd done spontaneously and independently his whole life. What would he do? Whatever Duo wanted to do, he supposed.

Suddenly, he became very interested in where he was and how far he had walked, and looking around, he was surprised to find that he had strolled almost all the way to the front gate, albeit down a very convoluted path that had burned up a good hour or more. But still...right outside the front gate...must be wishful thinking.

He was just about to turn around and head back when a faint clattering and rustling sound touched his ears and steadily grew. Watching the front gate intently, for it was the only spot along that portion of the property line that wasn't so heavily treed that one couldn't see the road, he saw a carriage pull up and stop. It was a grand and beautiful thing, though its wheels were slightly splattered with mud from the dirt trail leading up to the front gate. The door to the carriage opened, and out stepped a young man in a green frock coat, fawn trousers and tall black boots, with a shock of tan hair and no hat for the cold. He walked up to the closed gate and looked in Heero's direction, being the only person immediately visible.

"I say!" the gentleman called out in a posh but casual voice. "Could I have a moment of your time, sir!?"

Heero thought about it, weighed a conversation with a total stranger against going back to the house, and crossed the fifty or so yards remaining between himself and the gate.

The tawny-haired gentleman smiled warmly as Heero approached, in between blowing on his gloveless hands and rubbing them together briskly. "Thank you kindly," he said with a small shiver. He was even less prepared for the weather than Heero was, without a scarf or even an overcoat. "I wondered if you could tell me if this is the Peacecrafts' estate. Have I come to the right place?"

Heero fought the impulse to simply point to the giant wrought-iron 'P' decorating the gate, but admitted to himself that it wasn't 100% conclusive evidence to an outsider. "You have."

"Oh, brilliant!" the young man chirped merrily. "Um...I know it's an awful cheek, showing up uninvited, but could I possibly have a word with her Ladyship?"

Instantly suspicious, Heero narrowed his eyes at the stranger. "May I ask why?"

Not being terribly strong-willed, the gentleman was easily intimidated and spoke very deferentially about his business. "It's rather delicate, actually...I want...I want her to explain something to me. I'll understand if she doesn't wish to see me, but if she would just tell me what I've done wrong..." The young man heaved a hopeless sigh and proceeded to shamelessly spill his guts. "I sent her a small token of my most honourable affections at Christmas, and not only have I received no word of either acceptance or rejection, but I now hear that she's gone and promised her hand to someone else! I don't know what to do, but I can't give up on her without at least hearing from her own lips why she would do this to me!"

Heero looked away.

"It's not as if I'm unsuitable to court her Ladyship, or so I thought," the stranger rambled on. "My uncle is an earl, Granny was a duchess, and my father is an important Swiss banker with connections from here to--"

At the words 'important Swiss banker,' Heero's ears perked up, and he was struck with an interesting idea.

"--simply marvellous estate in London, with stables and a riding school, even! So it's not as though we're without means, far from it! But from what I've heard, she's betrothed to one of her staff! What on earth could she be thinking!?" The poor boy was all but hysterical when he finished, or stopped long enough to catch his breath, as he struggled to fathom why he had been turned down.

Heero pressed forward, treading carefully around the man's battered ego. "This...token of your affections...was it a diamond ring?"

The young man gaped. "How did you know that?"

As the pieces of the puzzle fell rapidly into place, Heero cringed. "She did receive it...but she thought it was an engagement ring...from me."

The stranger's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and after sputtering with rage for a few seconds, he lunged at the bars of the gate, grasping and shaking them with a cold, white-knuckled grip. "You swine! Why, if I weren't a gentleman, I'd--"

"Gentleman or not, that wouldn't be the cleverest of moves," Heero warned, stone-faced. Something about the boy's glare alone put the fear of God into the stranger, and while he didn't let go of the iron bars, he calmed down considerably. "Now...there is an explanation behind this, I assure you. If you'd like to have your driver come back for you this afternoon...we can talk." Heero approached the gate, and the stranger practically jumped away from it, watching as the boy unlocked it and opened it wide enough for one person to step through.

The tawny-haired youth eyed Heero with trepidation, then made a hand signal to his driver and walked through the gate. The carriage and its well-groomed horses pulled away and disappeared down the tree-covered lane. Heero led the stranger across the estate after locking the gate, but rather than take him anywhere near the house, he took him towards a cluster of cottages used by the farm workers. Along the way, they introduced each other; the young man's name was Marcus, and he had roots in England deeper and thicker than the tallest oak tree. Heero gave the stranger his name and 'occupation,' concentrating hard on precisely how much information to give away.

"Her Ladyship has become...unusually attached to me, for a servant, that much I'll admit," he began, "but she's mistaken to believe I'd return her feelings. This engagement you've heard about is entirely an accident."

Marcus squinted and shook his head, having gone back to rubbing his chilled hands together. "Barking mad.....how the devil do you get engaged by accident?"

Heero hesitated slightly, then gave Marcus a detailed account of how he believed their gifts to Relena got switched, including what Trowa had guessed happened after a snarling fight between a certain cat and dog knocked the presents off the tree. As Marcus listened to the elaborate tale, there were still several things of which he was hardly convinced. "But for the engagement to be official, you must have proposed to her! Ladies don't just slip a ring on their finger, say 'we're getting married' and start making out the guest list! That's not the way these things happen!"

Heero slowed down, and stopped. That was exactly the way it had happened. He was only following orders, after all. Marcus stopped and turned around to face Heero, who shrugged. "I'm not currently in a position to disappoint her." When Marcus gave him a questioning glance not to be rivalled by anyone, Heero took him straight to the nearest cottage in the cluster and knocked on the door. A farmhand occupying the cottage opened the heavy wooden slab, recognized Heero as the future lord of the manor as he had been introduced upon his arrival, and quickly stepped aside, bowing his head reverently. Heero waved his guest inside, and after finding a secluded sitting room and shutting the door, they each took a chair at a creaky wooden table.

Heero rubbed his chin, pondering, then looked up at Marcus. "Just how important is your father?"

Marcus sat straight up in his chair and beamed proudly. "He's a top executive at one of the most prestigious Swiss banks, I assure you! And he doesn't just deal in cash, but gemstones, precious metals, commodities...that's where I got that ring in the first place, although I never meant it to be a promise of marriage, certainly not." He propped his chin up with one elbow and stared into space.

Slowly, Heero clasped his hands together and nodded. "Miss Relena's uncle--"

"I mean, if I were to get someone an engagement ring, it wouldn't be a diamond anyway! Diamonds are so common nowadays, everybody's got one! No, I'd give an emerald for that purpose, they're much more precious in my eyes."

Heero raised an eyebrow, let a few seconds pass, and continued. "Her uncle is under investiga--"

"Is that what she would have done to me if she knew the ring was mine? Assume we were getting married? I intended nothing of the sort! Not that marrying her would be completely out of the question, but one naturally expects that two people would want to get to know each other first! I'm all for social order, but you can only take the concept of arranged marriage so far before it's no longer viable and productive, as my father would say!" Marcus paused at last, ever so slowly looked back across the table at Heero, and was met with a sharp, burning glare.

"Have you finished?"

Marcus blushed. "...sorry...I do tend to run off at the mouth a bit. Pray continue."

Heero set his jaw and readjusted himself in his chair before taking the lad up on his dubious offer. "What I'm about to tell you must stay between us, and you will not tell anyone anything that you hear in this room, especially not Miss Relena. I've been living as her butler for several months, but it's not my real profession. I was dispatched to investigate her uncle, the Count, which made it necessary to take a domestic position in the house. For security reasons, I have to stay close to both of them while reporting back to my superiors, which is why I've let her believe that this engagement is genuine."

Marcus bulged about the eyeballs again, and gripped the tabletop. He swallowed. "Bloody 'ell..."

Heero's eyebrows flew off his face. The stranger may have professed to be wealthy beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but on some other level, he was common as muck and proud of it.

Marcus cleared his throat and composed himself, whipping out a handkerchief and daubing his forehead with it. "My apologies, sir, I don't know what came over me," he said. "So, what's he being investigated for, this fellow?"

Heero blinked, then steeled his features into a stony mask. "It's classified. I couldn't tell you even if I wan--"

"Are you from Scotland Yard?" Marcus asked, leaning forward excitedly. "Ministry of Defence? United States Secret Service? You do sound awfully American, if you don't mind my mentioning it."

Again Heero glared, but with wide-eyed confusion at the assault of questions. "It doesn't matter who sent me. The point is--"

"But how do I know you're really a representative of the authorities and not just an extremely clever con man?" Marcus interrupted yet again. He slapped the table and held out an upturned palm to Heero, glancing away haughtily and waggling his fingers. "Come on. Let's see some I.D."

At this point, the only thing keeping Heero from reaching across the table and tearing out the man's throat was that his chatterbox ways vaguely reminded him of Duo, but it wouldn't protect him indefinitely. Heero very calmly folded his hands, and with a tiny smile that held back enough rage to divide between ten Dobermans with some to spare, made his case in a sweetly sing-song voice. "If I'm a secret agent, and if I'm carrying papers identifying me as a secret agent, and if I can't stay awake every hour of every day in a house full of people, it won't be a secret for very long, will it?"

Marcus wilted under the force of Heero's maniacal smile, and shrank back in his chair. "...you might have a point there." Heero brought a finger to his lips, and Marcus took the hint, nodding quickly and lowering his eyes respectfully.

"We both want something," Heero resumed slowly. "I want to continue my work as instructed, and I can't do that if I break off the engagement, because her Ladyship obviously wouldn't want me around in such a case. You want a chance to court Relena, and I'm clearly in the way."

Marcus folded his arms and scowled slightly. "So it would seem."

"There may be a way we can help each other," Heero suggested, and the stranger's expression brightened. Concentrating on something buried deep in his memory, Heero took a notebook out of his inside coat pocket, and then his trusty experimental retractable pen, and wrote down a series of numbers. He tore out the tiny page and handed it to Marcus. "What do you make of that?"

The tawny-haired youth looked over the numbers and dashes, and seemed to understand them. "It could be a bank account number...I've seen a lot of numbers like this in my time."

"Might it be something your father could interpret?"

Marcus squinted. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I discovered that number in the pocket of the Count's dressing gown, and I've been to every bank from here to Wales and not one of them could identify it as belonging to them. If Relena's uncle has a Swiss bank account, I need to know what's in it. Fluid assets, stock holdings, safety deposit boxes, everything."

"Oh.....oh, I don't know about that," Marcus worried audibly. "It might not be from my father's bank at all...and still, customer confidentiality..."

Heero cleared his throat and leaned forward on his elbows. "The sooner I get my information, the sooner I'll be out of the picture, and the sooner you'll have to comfort Relena over her broken engagement."

Marcus' eyes took on an almost ravenous gleam, and he smoothed out the piece of paper lovingly, his golden ticket to an afternoon of tea and sympathy with his dream girl. Customer confidentiality be damned! He knew he could get anything he wanted out of his father, even if it meant bending the law, and get it he would! "I'll do it."

The boys rose and shook hands, exchanging crafty smiles. Marcus thanked Heero profusely and left the cottage in a jubilant mood, eagerly saying he'd show himself to the front gate. Heero sat back down at the sitting room table, put his head down on his folded hands, and exhaled with a long, frustrated groan. What a total idiot, he thought. They're perfect for each other.

**********

While they waited for their afternoon tea, Relena continued to give Dorothy the grand tour of the country estate. It was a sprawling two-storey mansion, lavishly decorated in French Rococo and filled with artistic treasures from all over the world. There was hardly a square inch of wall space anywhere in the building left unornamented, as befitted the styles of the 1700's when it was crafted out of marble, stone, and exotic woods. Not only were the rooms more numerous than at Bridlewood, but most were at least twice as big and five times as detailed, with richly coloured frescoes on the 14-foot ceiling, gilded wallpaper and regal-looking plaster mouldings on the walls, and rugs of the most intricate and beautiful designs that still managed to look new like the day they left the Orient. There was so much to see in each room that the grand tour was only half done, even though the girls nibbled away at it each day.

"And this," Relena said, stepping through a pair of heavy gold and white doors with dramatic flair, "is the ballroom."

Dorothy inhaled sharply at the magnificent sight. It was absolutely cavernous, and made Bridlewood's ballroom look like a pool cabana. Five massive chandeliers were suspended from well-secured golden ropes, indicating that they still needed to be raised and lowered by hand, for the purpose of lighting the candles. The south wall was a mass of windows with a few doors leading out onto an extensive patio, and the well-polished floor made even the indirect sunlight all but blinding. Dorothy averted her eyes safely to the chandeliers. "I'm surprised you haven't converted this place over to electricity as well."

"I think that in a lovely old house like this, one can go too far with the modern conveniences," Relena said, strolling around the room languidly. "Some things, I'm glad we changed, like adding an icebox to the kitchen, and modernizing the bathrooms..." She came to a slow stop and folded her hands, looking out the window at nothing. "...but I'm starting to regret having a telephone."

"What do you mean?" Dorothy asked.

Relena sighed and pouted in her usual way. "It's Heero and Uncle Treize. One of them is always on the telephone! If we had two, I'd never see either of them! I can't drag Uncle Treize away from it, even for a game of cards, because he always has a business call to make, and I can hardly spend time with Heero because he's forever on that thing, placing bets on horses! I can tell he's losing all the time, too, because he's always in a rotten mood once he finally gets off the line. If you ask me, we'd be a much happier family if we just got rid of it."

"Well, I know better than to say I told you so, but I can't say I'm surprised about Heero," Dorothy sneered. "Common is as common does, dear, that's all there is to it."

Relena frowned. "Do you want the rest of your tour or don't you?"

The Baroness covered her mouth with one hand and did little else to mask a jeering giggle, but finally curtsied a respectful apology to her Ladyship, and they were on their way again. Relena, fully back to playing the tour guide within a matter of seconds, led her guest in the opposite direction from the round-fronted lounge where the telephone resided.

She was quite right in suspecting the device would be occupied, for at that very moment, Treize was making another one of his furtive 'business' calls, long-distance. He kept a close eye on the door as he spoke into the receiver in low, deep tones. "Peacecraft is his name. A captain in the army, recently promoted, fair hair and blue eyes. I want him...taken care of as soon as possible."

Just then, Heero returned from his lengthier-than-expected walk, removed his outerwear, and walked slowly and numbly towards the same lounge. He needed to talk to Duo. He needed to hear the relaxing buzz of Duo talking in his direction, chattering a mile a minute like he used to do. He needed to cancel out each and every one of Marcus' inane words with an equal or greater number of Duo's. Then maybe he'd get around to telling him about the deal they struck...

As Heero closed in on the lounge, Treize kept talking to his long-distance contact, unaware of what was stalking down the hall at a steady pace. "Well, if our closest man is in India, it'll have to be him, then. You have my authorization to furnish whatever weapons necessary to the enemy, but you make absolutely sure that Captain Peacecraft loses his next major battle.....and have our man make an accurate count of all British casualties, for the recording of my feats. It may be of interest to someone later on..."

It was during a pause in Treize's conversation that Heero bounded around the corner and stopped just two feet inside the room. The boy looked genuinely surprised to see Treize there, and the Count scrutinized the young intruder's expression for any signs that he had been listening to the private call from the beginning. Indeed, he had not, and was so wrapped up in wanting to hear Duo's voice that he didn't even notice the husky baritone coming from that room until it was too late. Heero backed out the door, an inch at a time, never breaking the bi-directional stare in which he had become trapped, and finally walked away.

Treize glared at the empty space where the boy had stood for a long time. ".....yes, I'm still here. No, a telegram will do, but send it right away." The Count ended his tele-meeting quickly, before anyone else decided to barge in on him.

Heero really didn't feel like following up on the odd encounter anyway, so Treize needn't have worried; the boy felt he'd done more than enough for one day, even though it still had a good eight hours left to run, but what to do next was a problem. Serving tea was out, because he was no longer on the payroll. Hanging around the kitchen was out, because there was nobody there he particularly felt like talking to. Spying on Treize was out because he just didn't feel like it, though he didn't quite know why. He was out of ideas, and so retreated to his room.

Shadow was waiting patiently for him, in the bedroom Relena had let him pick out from a very extensive collection of architectural marvels. It was one of the smallest rooms in the house, but it still reflected the overall grandeur of the mansion. Heero wasn't sure why he wanted that room above the others, although being fifty yards away from Relena's room was a definite plus. As he walked inside, picking up Shadow when she scampered across the rug to greet him, he studied the room's central feature, a massive curtained bed made of rich dark wood, like something out of Dickens' Christmas Carol...and then it came to him in a flash.

He liked the bed curtains. They were of an exquisite purple velvet, soft and clean from being well taken care of by the local staff. The deep violet colour he found most enticing, and he couldn't recall ever liking something for purely trivial reasons such as colour and texture before. The curtains reminded him of something, but he couldn't think what.

Heero looked out the window and instantly calculated the number of minutes left before dusk, according to the position of the sun. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd picked up a random book off a nearby shelf, one from the gilt-edged Kipling collection that Duo had given him, kicked off his shoes and curled up on the bed, with Shadow cuddled against his shoulder and the book propped up against his knees. Flipping through the first few pages, he came across the title--'The City of Dreadful Night.'

.......dreadful night.....

"Mew," Shadow squeaked hopefully, putting a paw on Heero's cheek.

Heero glanced down and managed a small smile for the little cat, scratching her neck and feeling a bit better for it. "These really would be dreadful nights without you to talk to...not that I'd want anyone else in here to see me talking to a cat..." Shadow wasn't insulted by the remark, and purred to prove it. Heero took a long look at the opulence and splendour surrounding them and sighed to himself. "Ah well...if you're going to go crazy and talk to the animals, you might as well do it in style."

The pair nestled snugly into the pillows and began reading, if only to catch a few moments' solace before they were called down for dinner. No house was big enough to help them hide from hunger.

**********

That tingly feeling at the back of Duo's neck stayed with him all day. He was more than positive that Wufei was skittering around inside the walls, and he was torn between needing to put four thin but solid walls around him for protection, and desperately wanting to know what the Chinese boy was up to. In the end, however, reason was victorious, and as soon as the workers had left for the night, he gathered up everything he had and went looking for something more secure in the way of a bedroom.

Wanting to make the move from the attic to finer quarters, he discovered a clever way to do it in one trip. First, he scouted out a nice, unused guestroom on the second floor, one with absolutely no secret passages around it, according to the blueprints. Next, he went to the attic and put on every piece of clothing he had, all at once; he could only take baby steps after that, but it left him with an empty carpet bag that was sufficient to carry the rest of his belongings. A little discomfort was worth it to make sure Wufei didn't decide to switch tactics and hide himself in Duo's new digs while he was carting boxes back and forth. That simply wouldn't do. I'm so smart, I amaze even me.

Duo crept down the servants' stairs with his beloved blanket draped over his shoulder, forced to pay exquisite attention to every squeak and creak along the way. Gee...it's kinda spooky, being in this big place all by myself. Well, okay, I'm not really by myself...but knowing Wufei's in here somewhere, watching me...makes it a lot spookier, come to think of it. S'like being in a haunted house where the ghost ain't quite dead yet.

Duo reached his new room and shut the door firmly behind him. He took off his excess clothing, then looked in the wardrobe, looked under the bed, looked behind the writing desk, and knocked on all the walls before he was satisfied that there was no one in the room with him. To make sure things stayed that way, he shoved a tall chest of drawers in front of the door, impressed with how strong he'd become in the past several weeks.

I know who I've got to thank for that, he thought, rubbing his arms and smiling faintly. Mechanically, he changed into his black pajamas as usual, but somehow he wasn't expecting any better a night's sleep than he'd had all week long. Another bleak night spent cold and alone was nothing to look forward to. Still...I'm tough...I was alone for years before now...I can handle this...

He turned out the light and climbed into bed, scrunching the plaid woolen blanket around him under the covers, and was dismayed that the already-faded scent it carried, a mixture of cinnamon, sugar, and Heero, from the night they snuck downstairs at 3am to make frosted cinnamon rolls, was all but gone. There was nothing left except his imagination to delude himself with that he wasn't alone, and he unconsciously pulled a pillow close to his chest and wrapped his arms around it tightly. I can handle this. Only nine hours and seventeen minutes until sunrise.

You'd never know this room had heat, 'cause I'm freezing!

Nine hours and sixteen minutes...

I wonder if Heero's missing me like I'm missing him.

Nine hours and fifteen minutes...

I can handle this...

Nine hours and fourteen minutes...

.....Heero......I'm cold.....


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Thirty-Five: Treize escapes back to Bridlewood, but Heero is unable to follow, due to Relena's increasingly demanding nature. Duo must be trusted to monitor the Count's activities, but he's already got a full plate dealing with a creeping menace in the walls. What is Wufei's master plan?

*sniffle* My poor darlings! :( Dangit, now I've made myself sad on a Saturday night. This calls for a night out. =^_^= *puts on her dancin' shoes* Oh yeah, I've listed A.G. Bell as the inventor of the telephone, despite modern-day speculation that he wasn't the first to string two coffee cans together from one treehouse to another, but as far as the people of 1902 were concerned, he made it to the patent office on time, so he's going to get credit in this episode. Count on Episode 35 for January 27th. Ja ne! =^_~=