Disclaimer: In a chocolate-induced hallucinatory fit, I imagined, very briefly, that all Gundam pilots were mine in perpetuity throughout the universe. Then my blood sugar levelled off and cold, bitter reality set in. =;_;= I gotta go to Wal-Mart and get more chocolate. What's left should be on sale tomorrow. =^_^=

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Episode Thirty-Seven: Change My Direction

"Love has no middle term; it either saves or destroys." ~Victor Hugo

February 14th, 1902

Not long after sunrise, there was a light tapping at Relena's window. Someone was trying to wake her up and grab her attention, which wouldn't have been that unusual, except that her bedroom was on the second floor. She shook herself awake and sat up in her white lace-coated bed, listening to the curious tapping noises, and as she watched the window, sleepy-eyed, little dark specks were hitting the antique glass window pane.

Relena smiled excitedly to herself, remembering what day it was. It's Valentine's Day! It's Valentine's Day and someone's throwing pebbles at my window to wake me up! She threw off the covers and jumped out of bed in her pale pink nightgown, not even stopping to cover her feet as she bounced merrily to the window. How romantic! I wonder who it could be! As if I didn't know... Fluffing up her hair once, she unlatched the window and prepared to greet her one true love on the most romantic morning of the year.

Mind you, if he's chipped that glass, I'll clothesline him. She hefted the window upwards and leaned outside.

"What ho, fair lady!" a chipper tenor voice shouted from the ground. It was a very bright and cheery voice...almost perky...even with a full night's sleep and an entire pot of coffee, Heero was never perky...

Relena squinted at the young man who had pelted pebbles at her window, and was now rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets. "...Marcus?"

"Good morning, m'lady," the tawny-haired youth greeted with a courtly bow. "I just happened to be passing through the village on business and thought I'd stop by to remind you of how beautiful you are."

The girl blushed involuntarily and smiled for a moment, just long enough to remember that she was already spoken for. "Excuse me, Mister Wyndham," she sniffed, looking down her cherubic nose at him, "but it's hardly appropriate for you to address me in such a manner, seeing as how I'm engaged to be married." She thought for a second more and hurriedly clutched at the neckline of her nightgown, tugging it up over another inch of peaches-and-cream skin. "Nor is it proper for me to carry on a conversation in my night attire, so I think now would be as good a time as any for us to part ways, don't you?"

Marcus was only too happy to consent. "If it is your Ladyship's wish, I shall leave straight away! I want nothing more than your happiness, O charming one."

His sudden agreement to leave her alone caught her by surprise, and before she knew what she was doing, she was smiling again. Marcus was a true gentleman. "Well...alright then," she said, slowly ducking back behind the window frame, "and I thank you most cordially for the earrings you sent me for Christmas. They're very lovely."

The young man grinned. Heero had warned him about the earrings, so he was well-prepared to play along. He gave her another courtly bow, this one even deeper than the first, turned, and walked easily away from the country house, whistling.

Relena was all aglow when she shut the window, but disappointment soon set in. Why couldn't Heero have done something sweet and romantic like that? I know he's a bit on the sullen side, even on a good day, but... With pausing steps, she gathered up her robe and slippers, telling herself to be more forgiving of the boy. The day's not over yet. He could be planning a nice surprise for me right now. She couldn't wait. She wanted to see him.

If Otto had caught her wandering the house in a state of undress, she would have caught serious hell, but of course it was worth the risk. She tiptoed down the vacant corridors to Heero's room, gave a pert little superfluous knock while she twisted the knob, swung the door open...

...and the room was empty. The cat was gone, the bed was made, all traces of clutter and disorder had been long since eliminated, and to top it all off, Heero had vanished. All before seven-thirty in the morning. Relena frowned and shut the door, puzzling.

**********

In the nearby village, the dear old lady who ran the quaint country tea room was still getting used to the early morning starts, but she couldn't argue with profits. For the last several mornings, a strange young man with wild eyes and spiky hair was pacing outside her pristine blue and white house, waiting for her to open up for business, often before sunrise. If it were anyone else, she might have refused, but the boy consistently ate what seemed to be his own weight in sandwiches and butter tarts, all while muttering about insomnia and how awful the food was 'back home', so she indulged him as far as his wallet would stretch. It seemed to be indefinite.

That morning, the boy had a guest. The grumpy youth was only halfway through his usual hefty breakfast when a much happier boy with a green frock coat and a shock of tan hair strolled into the tea room for what seemed to be a pre-arranged meeting. He greeted the proprietor warmly and plopped down into a chair opposite the dark-haired boy.

After a moment or two, the grumpy one looked up with a scowl. It should be illegal to look that happy this early in the morning. "Can I get you something?"

Marcus smiled brightly and turned to the owner. "Thank you very much! Tea and toast, if you please," he said in his languid Liverpool accent. The woman plodded away with a friendly nod, and Marcus took some folded papers out of his inside jacket pocket as soon as she was gone. "I think I've found some things that might interest you," he whispered.

Heero nodded, but kept eating. "Go on."

"That Khushrenada fellow is undoubtedly a millionaire, but even the bank's records couldn't provide an exact figure of his wealth." He unfolded the papers and slid them across the crochet tablecloth, face up. It was a complete list of the Count's declared assets.

Heero glanced over the numbers; certainly, Treize was rich, but there was nothing particularly spectacular about that. One item on his list of assets was interesting, though, something marked down as 'miscellaneous sundries, unvalued.' He crinkled his brow and pointed to it. "What's that?"

Without looking, Marcus knew to which item Heero was referring, and gave him a crafty smile. "Ah, that's what I knew you'd find most tantalizing. The Count has a safety deposit box at this bank, though it's really more of a storage room, or a walk-in closet with a great hulking combination lock on the front of it. My father's a good friend of the banker, so we managed to get a look inside. Presently, it's full to the rafters with gold."

Heero finally looked up at that. "Why hasn't it been valued?"

Marcus looked over each shoulder to remind himself that the tea room was still empty, then leaned forward. "The gold has been melted into bars, in the usual fashion, but it's unmarked. They have no mill insignia, no purity rating, nothing! It had to have been refined somewhere, but there's nothing anywhere on the bars to indicate where it was done. To the suspicious mind, that could suggest that it's stolen."

They looked at each other in silence as the elderly lady returned with Marcus' tea and toast. Heero waited until she disappeared behind the sliding pocket doors that led to the kitchen before resuming the conversation. "Could the mill marks have simply been ground off the bars?"

Marcus shook his head. "No, the bars were exactly the right thickness and perfectly shaped. Before presuming that the Count would go to the trouble of melting down existing bars and re-pouring them with no markings, I'd sooner guess that they were made that way straight from gold ore. I knew you'd want to know where the ore might have come from, so I contacted the authorities in all the major gold-mining nations. There have been no reported raw gold thefts on this scale in the last thirty years."

Heero sipped his coffee and mulled over the problem. "So there's no way to tell from whom it was stolen...does the bank realize it may be harbouring stolen goods?"

"From what my father's friend intimated, Khushrenada has half the board of directors in his back pocket. Even if a theft report was filed, he'd be practically untouchable. They'd back him up to the hilt." Marcus saw the other boy's jaw tighten at the prospect of Treize getting away with whatever he pleased, and pulled out the bottom few pages from the stack of paper to cheer him up. "I got something else that might be useful, though...a list of transactions on this account over the past two years."

That made Heero's eyes light up like sparklers. "Very good...that could prove most useful indeed," he purred as he shuffled through the papers, all but drooling over the plethora of numbers and dates.

"I thought you'd appreciate a little extra to make up for the fact that I had to tell father about you...I mean, that you're a secret agent, and all...he couldn't see any way 'round my poking and prying in confidential records without knowing what it was for."

"That's alright," Heero sighed, "sacrifices had to be made. As long as nobody else knows."

Marcus toyed guiltily with his toast. "He told Mum..." A glare was upon him almost immediately. "He has to tell her everything about his day when he comes home from the office, or else she starts thinking he's got a bit on the side, sort of thing...you know how it is...jealous wives..."

"Fine." Heero resumed his evaluation of the numbers, and worked on polishing off his eggs and bacon, hoping that would be the last bit of bad news he'd hear for awhile.

".....Mum told Granny..."

Heero dropped his fork and clenched his fists in frustration. "What did you think 'secret agent' meant? Is there anyone else you'd like to broadcast my presence to? Why don't I just show up at your next family reunion and you can introduce me to everyone at once!?"

"Now, there's no cause to panic," Marcus said calmly, "Granny promised with her hand on her heart that she wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone." A long pause followed. "And the ladies from her knitting circle said they'd do the same." Heero shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in agony. "Old Mrs. Kretzmaar wondered if you were Taiwanese. I told her I'd ask. Her neighbour's daughter is an anthropological research assistant in Taiwan, and she's unattached, so she might be writing to you soon."

"Marcus, stop speaking."

"Right you are."

Marcus endured many more glares while they finished their breakfast, and smiled innocently at every single one. Now that he had set himself squarely on the path to becoming Relena's new beau, nothing could dampen his spirits.

**********

Duo had arrived in the county of Hampshire the day before, but didn't know where to start looking for the country estate. There was a good chance that the address was at the bottom of a desk drawer somewhere in Bridlewood, but he didn't want it badly enough to risk capture. He knew the general area the house was probably in, and he had the defunct phone number and the owner's name, so he reasoned that these should have been enough to just ask around until he found someone who had heard of the Peacecrafts. It didn't go exactly according to plan, and at nine o'clock at night, he was still wandering the streets of Southampton. He only brought a little money for food and transportation, so to conserve resources as much as possible, he slept in an alley for the first time in ages.

When he woke up the next morning with a backache and a crick in his neck, he drastically envied Wufei, who at least had Arthur's soft sofa to curl up on. He had briefly considered giving him the key to the room at Catherine's pub, but knew Heero wouldn't approve, and thus opted to count on Arthur's resourcefulness in the event that Treize went after them both. Nearly all the gold had been sealed up in the vegetable garden, and if the Count found out who was responsible, he'd be none too pleased.

Determined to travel light, Duo left nearly everything behind, taking only a few essentials that would fit in the pockets of his overcoat, plus his beloved plaid woolen blanket, which had already saved him from near-freezing temperatures the night before. He finally stumbled across the hall of records and found a nice Welsh lady who showed him where the Peacecraft estate was on the map, and the quickest route to get there. Before long, he was in a carriage on his way to a lavish old building called Sutherby Hall.

The driver took him to the front gate first, but the gate was locked. Duo asked to be dropped off at a shady spot on the east side of the property, and decided it was best overall if he snuck up on the house a bit at a time. With his blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, he crept forward without even knowing if he was headed in the right direction, but misery and loneliness wouldn't allow him to slow down. No matter how often he tried to contact Heero, the boy never replied, and Duo swore that as soon as his obligation to the Peacecraft gold was finished, he would go looking for his friend.

After several minutes of slithering across the grounds, he came across a very pretty spot, which he imagined must have been absolutely gorgeous in spring or summer. A massive willow tree, bare of its leaves, leaned heavily over a small patch of moss no wider across than the tree's branches. There were some clumps of tall grass still braving the winter wind, suggesting that in warmer weather, the grass grew tall all around the tree, touching the hanging branches and creating a lovely enclosed herbaceous grotto, where one, or preferably two, could hide unnoticed for hours.

"There's another divot in the lawn that needs to be filled in. Make a note of that, Otto."

"Yes, miss."

Duo panicked. Hiding accommodation for one would have to do. He ducked down behind a clump of tall grass just as the owners of the disembodied voices came marching up over the hill.

"We ought to have some locals scan the grounds for rocks as well. I'd hate to have one of the horses trip or throw a shoe because the estate was ill-prepared."

"I'll organize it, m'lady, as soon as I've seen to repairing the fences."

Duo held his breath, crouched down into a tight ball and prayed for them to walk away as quickly as they had appeared. He stared straight down at the ground, studying the leaves and dirt in nauseating detail, until two shadows slowly closed in on the spot he was looking at. Remembering with a wince that the red plaid blanket was outside his coat instead of inside, he lifted his guilty head, ready to be acknowledged as the garish striped beacon that he was. Otto and Relena were staring down at him.

"Heh...you've got the most fascinating bugs out here in the country, did you know that?"

"Get up!" the girl shouted. Duo scrambled to his feet and scooted backwards a step, clutching at the blanket and expecting to feel Otto's meaty hand on the scruff of his neck as he was unceremoniously escorted out. Relena folded her arms around her thick winter coat and scowled. "How dare you show your face here! I should have you hauled away for trespassing!"

"Now that's not fair, there are other people wandering around this place and you're not giving them grief!" Duo whined.

Relena strode forward, eyes blazing, just about pinning Duo to the tree. "That's because none of them are trying to morally corrupt my future husband!"

Duo swallowed, his gaze darting between the pair. "So, Heero's alright? He's not sick or anything?"

"I don't see that he's any concern of yours," the girl sniffed.

"He's my friend! I have a right to know how he's doing!"

"He's doing just fine," Relena spat back. "He's relaxed, he's fit, he's perfectly happy, and he most certainly doesn't want you nosing around and ruining everything for him!"

Duo flinched backwards, looking hurt, and glanced desperately at Otto for confirmation. As yet, the burly house steward didn't have all the facts of the situation and really didn't want to take sides in the argument. He just stood there rather stiffly, trying to politely ignore all the fuss in true British fashion. Duo turned back to his employer with doe eyes. "Five minutes. Just gimmie five minutes to talk to him. Please."

Relena's chilling stare showed no signs of warming up at his helplessness. "I shall give you five minutes to get off my land, Mr. Maxwell, and if you're not gone by then, I'll set the dogs on you."

As she whirled around and stalked daintily in the opposite direction, Otto leaned to his right and proved that he was listening after all. "M'lady, we don't have any dogs."

Relena sighed, exasperated. "Do I have to think of everything? We're hosting a hunt in less than a month's time, there must be dozens of foxhounds in the neighbourhood! Borrow some!"

They walked swiftly away, and only Otto tossed a confused look of semi-concern over his shoulder at Duo, who leaned against the willow tree, wondering how much truth there was in Relena's words. Could he really be happier without me? Is that why he hasn't answered any of my letters? ...no, I'd be a pretty lousy friend if I didn't trust him more than that. Something else must be going on...

"Some piece of work," a snide baritone voice said from behind him. Duo yelped in surprise and jumped away from the tree, spinning around with his arms already raised in a defensive blocking position. He was more than bewildered to see a strange, bespectacled man leaning halfway out from behind the massive tree trunk, with poor clothes, a smouldering pipe, and thick grey hair that billowed out from his head like the cap of a giant mushroom. His voice would have been closer described as American than British. "So that's the infamous Lady Peacecraft, eh? Quite a resemblance...hair and eyes, anyway. Don't know about the attitude..."

"Who are you?" Duo asked on a reflex.

The mushroom-haired man looked at Duo and grinned through his moustache, as if seeing him for the first time. "Giorgenson's the name," he said, stepping out from behind the tree and extending a hand.

Duo hesitated, then walked up and clasped the hand timidly. "Maxwell."

Giorgenson nodded. "Duo Maxwell, isn't it? I do believe I've seen your picture in the paper!"

A faint smile of pride teased at Duo's lips, and with good reason; it was only a small local edition, anyway. "Really? Cool! I didn't know they delivered that paper this far south!"

The old man's moustache twitched above his grin. "They don't. I just have...connections. Pity the photo didn't show your hair. Most unusual, that is." While Duo automatically pulled his braid over his shoulder and preened at it lovingly, the old man pressed on. "I see you're having difficulty getting into that young lady's house...something about her not letting you in to see your friend? I hope you don't mind my accidentally overhearing, but that was only due to the fact that I was deliberately listening to every word."

Using his natural street urchin instincts, Duo could tell right away that this was a pretty tricky customer. "Yeah, well...thanks for your concern, but I've got it covered. The whole thing's pretty complicated, anyway, you'd probably get a headache from it."

Giorgenson's grin grew much wider. "A headache? Grand! Lewis Carroll had a migraine when he wrote 'Alice in Wonderland'! If you tell me all your troubles and give me a real blinder right between the eyes, maybe I'll discover another planet or cure the common cold! Lay it on me!"

Giorgenson folded his arms and leaned against the tree, ready to receive, and Duo couldn't help but laugh a bit, but he wasn't giving out details that easily. "Well, I'm sure you could achieve the same effect by getting plastered. Pub's that way." He pointed in the direction of the village and began walking away.

"Suppose I could get you inside."

Duo stopped. The old man's voice was clear and confident, and it really didn't sound like he was bluffing. Inch by inch, Duo turned around and looked him straight in the shiny round spectacles. "Are you serious?"

Giorgenson pushed himself off the tree and walked past Duo, tapping the side of his hawk-like nose in a sign of secrecy and heading south. Duo followed out of voracious curiosity, and the two of them hiked for a good ten minutes across the grounds until they came upon a cluster of cottages. A gruff-looking character was stacking wooden crates just outside, and Giorgenson strode up to talk to him with a very neighbourly 'How do!'

Beyond the initial greeting, Duo's ears couldn't decipher a single speck of what was said, for both old men lapsed into a rough, guttural country dialect that was in every way worse than the thickest Cockney Duo had encountered on the streets of London. It was only English in the most academic sense. After much discussion and several glances in Duo's direction, Giorgenson shook the man's hand and walked back over to his young acquaintance; he wore a look of triumph as he grinned and rubbed his hands together briskly. "It's all fixed!" he declared.

Duo blinked numbly. "What's fixed?"

"The natives are friendly! Him and his missus work on the home farm belonging to this estate. They'll let you stay here awhile until you get yourself sorted out with your friend and her Ladyship, and they've even agreed not to tell anyone you're here. C'mon in!" Giorgenson spun around and led Duo by the arm into the man's cottage, exchanging nods with the farmhand, who came in after and spoke to his wife in the same colourful gibberish. Giorgenson chatted to them a while longer and turned to Duo again. "As long as you have some kind of useful skill to help around the house, they don't mind how long you stay. What can you do, kid?"

There was really only one answer. "I can cook..."

"Fabulous!" Giorgenson crowed. "They'd like a double order of Belgian waffles for breakfast tomorrow, and I'll have a Spanish omelette if you can manage it." He smirked once, then slapped Duo in the shoulder and bolted off to the side. "Guest rooms are this way!"

Duo could only give a bewildered smile of gratitude to the genial couple as he was pulled deeper into the cottage. It was a darling little place, with several extra bedrooms that didn't seem to be in use; the couple living there were middle-aged, so Duo guessed that their children were all grown and gone, and that they'd be glad of some young company. To the chef, it felt like a suspiciously good opportunity; he had sworn that he wouldn't go back to London without seeing Heero, and if he couldn't manage it that day, at least he'd have a roof over his head and a place to sleep. Almost too good to be true.

At the moment, he wasn't overly concerned with the timing of his good fortune; he was much too preoccupied with who this bizarre Giorgenson person was and why he was so keen to help him stay close to Heero. Suspicion and curiosity were having a fierce battle inside him, and neither one was winning.

Duo was shown into a nice little room with its own fireplace and a comfy sitting area. The plump farmhand's wife scurried in to light a fire for the boy, who gratefully started peeling off his outer layers of clothing to coax the warm air closer to his frigid skin. He sat in front of the fire in only his shirt and trousers, rolled up his sleeves, took off his shoes and socks, and wiggled his toes to restore the nerve endings to working order. Just as he undid the first two buttons of his shirt to adjust the silver chain around his neck, for he preferred the clasp to be centred at the back, Giorgenson came up close behind him and spoke quietly. "Stand up a minute."

Duo looked up, then stood, still keeping close to the fire. The mushroom-haired man relit his pipe and looked him over, up and down. Next, he made a quick swirling motion with his left hand. "Turn around." Again, Duo obliged, but with much confusion, looking wide-eyed at the old man as he seemed to be making a detailed visual record of his boyish physique.

After completing a full circle and receiving no explanation for it, Duo looked down at his partially-dressed self and back up at Giorgenson. "What?"

Giorgenson inhaled slowly, lost in his thoughts for a moment. "Mon frère," he began regally, "you are going to succeed where I once failed. I can feel it, right down to the soles of my shoes...you will achieve something I never could...pulling a human soul back from the brink of living death." He puffed on his pipe a few more times as Duo squinted at him. "You'll also be shorter, but we're no more than what the Good Lord made us."

Duo shook his head dizzily. "I don't understand."

"Never mind that, now, never mind that," Giorgenson said quickly, waving it off and glancing at his watch, "I've got to be going soon, actually. I've got errands to run all over the place, so I'll see you in about a week's time, and then I'll tell you more. Till then, stay in the cottage, don't go out for any reason, and no matter how much it stings, resist the temptation to go running up to that big house like Sherman charging on Dixie to see Heero. Believe me, I know it hurts, but at this stage, it's not worth jeopardizing the mission." With that, he whirled around and strode quickly out of the room. Duo nearly fell over from shock.

"Wait a minute!" the boy shouted, running after him. A million fires of astonishment spontaneously ignited inside his brain all at once. What did he know? Where did he come from? He chased the man all the way out the front door, calling after him. "What do you mean!? What do you know about the mission!?" He stopped at the door, remembering the warning not to set foot outside the cottage, but he was still far enough outside to be standing barefoot in the snow, shaking...not from the cold, but from fear. The strange man walking rapidly away from the cottage knew Heero, knew about his profession and his purpose, and that made Duo very frightened. "Who are you!?" he hollered at the finish.

Giorgenson was either too far away to hear him over the wind, or chose not to answer; Duo guessed it was the latter. Shivering all over, he slowly turned and padded back into the cottage, heading straight for his adopted room where his warm plaid blanket was. He wrapped himself up in it and sat down in front of the fire again, hearing Giorgenson's words echo to infinity. I've got a really creepy feeling about that guy...but he said he'd be back to tell me more. I'd better be here when he decides to show up...if he decides to show up.

He heard a shuffling noise to his right, and looked up. The local couple who had taken him in were standing in his new bedroom doorway, smiling at him. He got up off the floor, folded his blanket and set it neatly on the bed, and they were still there, smiling. He put his socks, shoes, and waistcoat back on, and they were still there, smiling. Lastly, he walked out past them to take a look at their kitchen, and every time he looked up, they were right there, smiling.

Uh huh. He smiled back. That's really creepy feeling number two... Duo had to get on with earning his keep, so he began taking inventory of the nice couple's pantry. All the while, they were standing just off to the side, smiling at him. Duo smiled back again. Well...at least he was right about the natives being friendly. And so, after bugging his eyes out at the pantry door, he went straight to work.

**********

When Heero went out for his usual walk from the country house to the golden, glittering land of abject escapism, the mood on the estate was different than the day before. Relena had been tailing him all day long, throwing him wide-eyed glances of anticipation...but what could she have been waiting for? Heero couldn't fathom it, and didn't care to try, choosing instead to run away for the evening, turning up the collar of his long black overcoat against the wind.

He retraced a route similar to the one he took the day he bumped into Marcus, and in spite of his best efforts to forget life in general, it all came rushing back to him, and he suddenly felt worse for remembering the predicament he was in. Months ago, when faced with doubts about himself, his performance, the mission, or anything in between, all he needed to do was take out the little slip of paper he always carried, on which was written the five-phrase mantra given to him by Lord Jeffrhyss. It was designed to focus and calm him, but it hadn't worked properly for a long time. Heero slowed to a halt facing west, near a familiar clearing with no buildings or wooded areas, and took out the piece of paper one more time, desperate for consolation. He unfolded it from his pocket and read his master's words with steady eyes and a clear mind.

'Peace comes from harmony. Harmony comes from oneness. Oneness comes from obedience.
Obedience brings about order. Order brings about peace.

Nothing happened. He felt no rush of serenity, no balancing of his mental gyroscope, and none of the other benefits that Jeffrhyss had touted year after year. The words left him feeling just as dead inside, and just as desperate to hang onto something vague and shapeless that he couldn't identify. He was now defenceless against whatever it was that was chipping away at his efficiency; he knew it couldn't be the strange substances Jeffrhyss was forcing on him, because he had already adapted to the new mixture, and the initial symptoms had gone.

The sun was setting on a less than pleasant day, and he stood in the same spot, deep into the front grounds, watching the fiery orb sink below the horizon. While the sky in the west was still faintly streaked with brightest blue and deepest purple, he held the paper up to eye-level and tore it, slowly and mechanically rending it into thumbnail-sized scraps and tucking each piece into his palm. When the cyclical words were no more than confetti, he stretched out his arm and opened his hand to the wind, letting the winter breeze catch the pieces and scatter them beyond his field of vision. When the last scrap disappeared, he put his hands back in his pockets and stood there awhile longer, until the sky was starry and black.

The next gust of wind that brushed delicately against Heero's back carried with it something unexpected, something that made him look up with hope for the first time in days--the sweet scent of a home-cooked meal. If I didn't know better...I'd swear that was Duo's turkey noodle casserole. It could have been a hallucination, or even wishful thinking, but he knew Duo's cooking better than a Smith and Wesson catalogue, and even though reason told him it was highly unlikely, something in him that was stronger than reason truly wanted to believe in the heavenly aroma wafting on the breeze.

...nonsense. Duo is miles away. It's only my imagination. As soon as he convinced himself that he could just smell someone else's turkey noodle casserole somewhere on the estate, he felt awful again, especially since he'd probably missed dinner. Not knowing what to do next, he headed back to the house.

**********

All of the rooms for use by the family at Sutherby Hall were lovely in every conceivable way, and any one of them should have brought a smile to one girl's face, but it was a wasted effort. Relena sat alone in a parlour close to the centre of the house, staring blankly into the fire. The most romantic day of the year was almost over and she had stuck to Heero like glue hoping for some small gesture, some token of his affection to settle her disturbed mind, but nothing came. She wasn't just hurt, she was devastated, and for the first time, she was having serious doubts about her forthcoming marriage.

How could he be so blind as to ignore such an important day in our relationship!? Doesn't he think!? Doesn't he care!? I waited all day for something, anything, even a kind word...or a smile... She was beginning to realize that she would wait in vain. It was worse than Heero simply not being of an affectionate nature, now he was being downright cruel.

When Marcus came to my window, I didn't think it would be the nicest part of my day...he really knows how to treat a lady.

She looked down at the glimmering diamond ring on her finger and twirled it around; she was rapidly slipping down the steep slope towards complete despondency, but she would not cry. Now she was too angry to cry. She deserved better than this sort of treatment from her betrothed, and was determined to know why he had changed. I'm going to give him until the Hunt Ball to make up his mind what he wants, and if he isn't ready to commit by then...well...I don't know what I'll do...Uncle Treize is coming home tomorrow. Maybe he'll know.

Relena sat in front of the fire for the rest of the night, having instructed that she wished to be left alone, unless Heero came to see her, which he didn't. As the hours ticked by, she barely even noticed that her wandering thoughts were moving farther from Heero and closer to Marcus.

**********

Trowa, Quatre, and Hilde were becoming quite used to travelling in a pack, united in their new goal of discovering the reasons behind Heero's recent behaviour. When Quatre sensed that the ex-butler was headed back to the house, they all flocked to his point of entry, the kitchen. The trio stood in a far-off doorway and observed Heero tramping into the kitchen and going straight to the pantry; he seemed to be looking for something, albeit disinterestedly, and finally found a chocolate layer cake sitting innocently on the counter. Soon Heero, the cake, and a fork were all sitting at the kitchen table together, and he began munching away at it as if in a trance.

The trio briefly discussed which of them should go talk to him, for a Heero in a bad mood was a dangerous animal. One round of paper-rock-scissors decided that Trowa was the 'winner', and he cringed as he walked into the kitchen and took a chair opposite Heero at the large wooden table. The boy's mood looked even worse close-up than it did at a distance as he picked away at the cake, and it honestly made Trowa a little bit nervous. Somehow sensing that he needed backup, Shadow leapt out of nowhere and sat on the table between them.

Trowa watched Heero for a full minute, during which he wasn't acknowledged. "So.....how's it going?"

Heero shrugged and kept toying with his dinnerless dessert. It was lopsided, irregularly frosted, and wouldn't have been at all appetizing if it weren't chocolate. Clearly a crime against cuisine perpetrated by Elsie; still, just being a chocolate cake made it something Duo would have pounced on had he been present.

"...cake any good?"

"Terrible," Heero said flatly. He continued nibbling, as if the quality didn't matter.

Trowa watched a few more forkfuls disappear; Heero's head hung over the cake and the fork dangled limply when it wasn't in use. He didn't look at all well. "If it's that bad, why are you still eating it?"

Heero shrugged again. "I don't know. I'm not even hungry." Another forkful vanished, and he scowled slightly. "Duo could have done much better."

Now Trowa longed to steer him away from a touchy subject, and looked around the kitchen for a distraction, finally noticing that there was something different about Shadow. She was wearing a pretty new collar of black satin with a tiny silver bell hanging from a loop of red thread. Trowa drew Heero's attention to the collar and raised both eyebrows. "That's nice...where'd she get it?"

Heero swallowed the mouthful he was working on and seemed to brighten as he looked over at the little grey cat. "I bought it for her in the village this morning. I was just there killing time, really...and a woman in one of the shops asked me if I was looking for something to give to 'a special girl' in my life. I wasn't sure what she meant, so I thought about it for a while, and...well...Shadow's a girl..." He finished with another shrug and started back in on the cake.

Trowa looked to the side and bit his lip. Heero didn't know about Valentine's Day. Should I tell him? .......nah. "It's...very nice."

"Is there something strange about today?" Heero asked, frowning and waving his fork in the air. "Everyone seems to be acting differently, not just here, but in town. Have I missed something?"

"Well...uh..." Trowa cleared his throat, struggling for words. "There are just some days when everyone wants to do something nice for someone they love...it's not that unusual, just a widespread, simultaneous show of affection profited from by the chocolatiers and the greeting card industry. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Have you done anything differently today?" Heero asked innocently.

Trowa's eyes sprang wide open, and he stopped halfway to looking over his shoulder to where the other two members of his team were hiding in the shadows. "N-no," he stammered, turning a bit rosy around the ears, "I wouldn't even know what to do...or if I should do anything...and the day's almost over, too...hm..." His tone of voice drooped sadly, and his shoulders slumped forward. Suddenly, a light bulb flipped on in his brain, and he saw why a perfectly normal, healthy, intelligent person such as Heero would sit in the dankest room of a fabulous house, eating himself into a diabetic coma. Trowa got up, walked over to the cutlery drawer, got himself a fork, and dropped into the chair on Heero's right. They were both taking chunks out of the second-rate cake now, with the exact same depressingly blank expression on their faces.

Watching from the far-off doorway, Quatre shook his head. Rescuers aren't supposed to join forces with the victims! He could feel their sorrow, but could also tell that only one of them knew what was wrong; Heero was just down and didn't know why, but something specific must have just happened to upset Trowa. I suppose I'll have to talk to both of them now.

Just then, Trowa said something to Heero and got up from the table, walking back to Quatre and Hilde's hiding place. The petite housemaid was gone. He looked to either side of the blond boy and whispered, "Where'd she go?"

"Got bored and went to bed," Quatre whispered back. "She really didn't like seeing Heero so miserable anyway, I could tell. Did you find out what's wrong with him?"

"Um, not totally," Trowa said quickly. He scratched the back of his head nervously, feeling his ears getting redder by the second. "Listen...do you wanna, maybe...go sit out on the terrace and do some stargazing with me? It's a clear night tonight, so I could show you some constellations...and maybe some old navigation tricks from my navy days...what do you think?"

"I'd love that!" Quatre gasped excitedly.

Trowa paled and smiled at once. "Really?" The other boy nodded, smiling as well. Within minutes, they had forgotten all about Heero and were heading to the front hall to fetch their coats before spending some quality time together under the stars.

At the kitchen table, Shadow had begun playing with her catnip mouse, and Heero had tired of the mediocre cake. He shoved the remnants aside and drummed his fingers on the tabletop briefly. If Duo were here, he'd think of something ridiculous to do. Uncounted minutes slipped by, and no ideas came to him; somehow he expected that. Without the random element Duo brought into his life, he just couldn't function, and as he consciously realized this, he gradually became ready to accept that he missed his little brown mouse.

Once again displaying her prowess for reading Heero's mind, Shadow padded up to him with the tail of her catnip mouse between her teeth and set it down next to his folded hands. She looked at him sympathetically, and he picked her up right away, cuddling her against his chest as she purred with contentment. "Wrong mouse," Heero said quietly, "but just what I needed all the same." Shadow meowed.

Only a few hundred yards away, from his borrowed bed in the farmhands' cottage, the real brown mouse curled up on his left side and stared out the window at the stars, wrapped snugly in his plaid woolen blanket. At the edge of sleep, he mumbled into his pillow, already dreaming that Heero was beside him.

"...love you..."


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Thirty-Eight: Giorgenson returns to Duo's cottage with information, the amount of which and the nature of which will slam a bolt of lightning squarely into the centre of Duo's world.

*hearts flying around head* =^-^= Sweetness! Okay, so certain people didn't get together for Valentine's Day, but at least they're in the same county now! Yay! And I know I used some words and phrases that really don't belong in 1902 (heck, I just do that sometimes because it sounds good--it's called poetic license) and Rachel really fought me on "broadcast", but dammit, I wanted it. *tears billowing out from side of face in giant waterfalls* This whole pairs figure skating thing has just put me in a really pissy mood, and I took some liberties with the language in this episode to make me feel better. And I do. =^-^= Somewhat. Whee. So anywho, mark down February 23rd for the next Episode. Now, go forth into the world and spread love! =^o^=