Disclaimer: In a town called Perfect where there's a Walgreen's on every street corner, every author and authoress has their own set of Gundam pilots to love and to squeeze and to show off to all their friends. But we don't live anywhere near Perfect. *realizes she just ripped off a commercial to explain that she's not ripping off a tv show* Dangit.

Warnings: Violence. And I don't mean kick in the shins violence, I mean raving lunatic violence. And Zero-ness.

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Forty-One: Diabolic Absolution

"I will stare into the sun until its light doesn't blind me,
I will walk onto the fire until its heat doesn't burn me,
and I will feed the fire." ~Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Marchand, "Into The Fire"

March 25th, 1902

Heero stood in front of the bedroom window and with a slow hand, reached up and pushed the natty blue curtain aside just a quarter of an inch to peer out at the hedgerow right beside the cluster of cottages. About fifty yards away, standing under a tree, was a nondescript man in nondescript clothes. There were more men just like him watching the cottage on all sides. They were just about the lowest rung on the ladder in terms of the agent hierarchy--the grunts. Grunts wore drab rags and had pale skin and dim, lifeless eyes. Size, shape, gender or mental ability were immaterial; grunts did what they were told.

Just as Heero made eye contact with the grunt, he could hear Duo two rooms away, yelling out the front door at another grunt. "Whaddaya think you're lookin' at, huh!? Why doncha make an etching, it'll last longer! Hey! Hey! I'm talking to you!" Duo slammed the door and stomped into the kitchen, where Wufei was trying to quietly enjoy a cup of green tea. "They're still out there. Can't they take a hint? I mean, what are they waiting for? If they were supposed to come get Heero, why don't they bust in and take him already?"

Wufei sipped his tea. "Would you stop asking that?"

"I can't help it! They're making me edgy!" Duo flopped into a chair at the table opposite Wufei, who, in the absence of anywhere else to stay, was availing himself of another room in the cottage. Duo didn't mind having him there, since he seemed to have had a permanent change of heart, but every time he asked him why he couldn't just return to Jeffrhyss, Wufei avoided answering, and looked rather edgy himself. Whatever the reason, Duo hoped there wouldn't be many more extra bodies staying at the cottage; between himself, Heero, Sally, and now Wufei, they were rapidly running out of rooms. "I thought you said Jeffrhyss wanted him back, no matter what condition he was in."

Wufei shrugged. "It appears I was in error."

"No kidding," Duo scoffed. He leaned back in the creaky wooden chair and folded his arms. "Come to think of it, you haven't been right once about what Jeffrhyss is gonna do next. Aren't you supposed to be his right hand man or something? Or are you just guessing at our expense?"

"I think you're letting your imagination run wild. Don't expect me to read the man's mind."

Duo studied the way Wufei avoided his eyes and sipped his tea with the teacup raised in front of his face, as if he was trying to hide. "You know what I think? I think you're afraid," Duo declared. Wufei's grip on the teacup tightened, but otherwise, he didn't move. "I think that you don't know Jeffrhyss as well as you thought you did. I think you're staying here because you've just seen what he's really capable of, and you don't wanna go back and end up like Heero. You thought, at most, that working for that lunatic only meant getting smacked around once in awhile, but that's not good enough for him...oh no, he's gotta mess with your mind, too. You didn't know that until now, when you're just starting to see that you're in it up to your neck. That's what I think."

Wufei finally met Duo's eyes with a defiant glare. "Alright, I admit, my information about his methods of control was incomplete. I was...disappointed, nothing more."

Duo stared, then laughed bitterly. "Nononono, disappointed is finding out you're not a 29-and-a-half inch waist anymore. You are afraid."

"...shut up, Maxwell."

Triumphantly, the chef smirked. "Don't worry about it. Right now I'm more worried about Heero," he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, though not enough to escape the subject's ears, as he was right behind the bedroom door, listening. "It sounds absolutely nuts, but I think he's having second thoughts about quitting. He keeps talking about 'divided loyalties' and 'irreparable mistakes'...and last night I think I caught him trying to sneak out."

Wufei heard the drop in Duo's voice and was instantly dragged into the seriousness of the allegation. "Are you sure?" he whispered.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and he wasn't there," Duo explained, too quick to notice the other boy's lack of obvious disgust that they were sleeping in the same bed, however innocently. "Snuck into the kitchen and found him opening the front door. I asked him what he was doing and he'd acted like I'd caught him with his hand in the gold-plated cookie jar. Tried to palm me off saying he was just checking to see if those guys were still outside watching the cottage, but I know better. He was trying to leave."

They whispered back and forth about why Heero would try to run away after everything he'd been through, and after all the sacrifices the people around him had made to get him that far. On the other side of the bedroom door, Heero listened to them, cold and machinelike. Even he was barely aware of the battle being waged in his own mind, the see-saw tipping between two powerful forces, two very critical people who were each vying for control of his psyche. The winner was not yet decided.

The furtive exchange taking place at the kitchen table was interrupted by a knock at the door. Hesitant to see which of the vacant-eyed thugs had come to forcibly retrieve Heero at last, Duo slowly rose to answer it. Mercifully, it was only Professor Giorgenson. "Are we all awake and decent this morning?" he asked, poking his giant bespectacled mushroom head only halfway through the door.

Wufei glared mistrustfully at the man, but Duo greeted him warmly. "C'mon in, I'll get you a coffee."

"No no, haven't got time for that now, just ask the delectable Doctor Sally to join us. I've got a guest I'd like to introduce to you all."

Sally heard her name through her own bedroom door and made a timely appearance, dressed again in the blue-gray trousers and neatly twisting her hair out of the way. Duo leaned close to Giorgenson and whispered, "What about Heero? He's still in his room, and he's been acting kinda--"

"I know, son, I know," the Professor said quickly, patting the boy on the shoulder. "Leave him where he is." Duo instantly wondered not only what the man knew about Heero's odd behaviour, but also how he knew; there simply wasn't time to ask, though, as the Professor lined the three of them up in preparation for a short speech. "I'd like you all to be understanding and non-judgemental with this person, because frankly, the first words out of her mouth, you're not going to enjoy hearing."

Sally, Duo, and Wufei, still in his chair, glanced question marks at each other as Giorgenson went back to the door, opened it, and beckoned to someone standing outside. Having spent the last week or more looking at a drably-garbed thug keeping watch every time they looked out a window, they were all wondering if the Professor had dragged one of them in by the ear to negotiate. They were more than a little surprised to see an elegant brunette in a gray cotton dress instead. She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and stepped forward.

"My name is Lucille. I've been sent by Lord Jeffrhyss to find Heero and bring him back."

Duo hated her instantly. "No...way. Just turn the hell around, and keep on walkin'."

"Watch your mouth, mister," the Professor scolded. "She didn't choose to be involved, any more than Heero did."

"That...may be true," Lucille said, slowly rubbing her hands together, "but I don't like the thought of hiding behind the excuse that I'm only following orders. Believe me, if I knew a way to get us out of this...this rat's maze, and I've been racking my brain trying to dream up an escape route ever since Jeffrhyss caught me, I would, but I can't." She gratefully saw that the braided boy's glare was softening; he must have been a dear friend of Heero's to be so wary of her, she reasoned. "I hate the thought of Heero going back to that man as much as you do...but if we don't follow our instructions, worse things may happen."

"Worse things already have happened," Duo said, softly but tersely. "I doubt there's anything left that's worse than what we've alr--" Duo paused when he saw Lucille's gaze widen and focus on something over his shoulder. On that cue, they all turned around and saw Heero, standing in front of his bedroom door in a perfectly straight posture that would have made any soldier positively green with envy.

His physical symptoms, for the most part, had faded to the point where he could get dressed, walk around, and putter at some task or other until Sally was satisfied that the withdrawal period was completed. Today he looked almost normal, in his duty trousers and waistcoat, every shirt button buttoned and not a crease to be found anywhere on his uniform, but Duo knew that he wasn't normal. His eyes gave it away most of all.

"I think if Lucille has come all this way, it would be a shame for her to go back empty-handed," Heero said. His voice was unusually light and ghostly, and his eyes seemed very dim. Based on these two observations, nobody was willing to let him walk out the door that easily.

Sally went over to him and put on her motherly smile, which was surprisingly well-used despite her longstanding reluctance to have children. "Heero, we discussed this. You were very much in agreement that going back would be the worst possible thing you could do."

"Or perhaps a decision made in haste is the worst possible thing I could do," Heero countered, not quite turning to meet her eyes.

"That does it." Duo shoved a chair out of the way and charged, speeding straight for the bedroom door and virtually plowing Heero right through it. Heero stumbled backwards in shock, and the door was slammed shut, effectively barricading the pair of them inside. Two seconds later, the others heard the muffled sound of Duo angrily giving Heero what-for, and to alleviate the awkwardness, they went around their little circle with brief introductions. Wufei was the most aloof to the newcomer, naturally suspicious of an 'agent' he didn't know.

Giorgenson made a casual glance out the window at one of the vacant-eyed grunts. "Add some Margarita mix and we'd have ourselves a party, I'd say."

"They've been watching us for days," Sally said. "There's always at least six of them, and they stand there in six-hour shifts, day and night. They won't talk to us, or acknowledge us in any way. It's like they're waiting for something..."

Giorgenson nodded. "They're escorts. Ideally, in their minds, or what's left of their minds, Heero and Lucille are supposed to walk out that door anytime now, and their job is to make sure Heero is well under control on the way back to the base, given his unstable condition."

Lucille squinted in thought at the way Giorgenson and Dr. Poole seemed to know all about Heero's 'condition', a thing that she herself hadn't been formally advised of. "Does this have something to do with what I saw the day I asked you for help?" she asked the Professor, referring to the day she practically had to carry Heero to Jeffrhyss' cottage before he collapsed altogether.

Giorgenson tilted his head toward Sally and ambled over to the kitchen counter in search of a snack. "Ask the professional."

Lucille looked at Sally, and Sally stuck her hands in her pockets and shifted into lecturer mode. "Heero was being coerced into taking some kind of narcotic, a blend of inhalants most likely based around opium. He's just gone through a gruelling part of the withdrawal process, and now...he's talking about going back, and we can't figure out why. I don't mean to sound judgemental, but I would've thought he'd learned his lesson."

"...inhalants..." The wheels turned quickly in Lucille's head, and soon a brilliant golden light bulb flipped itself on. "Nobody knows this...but I've seen what goes on in his Lordship's compound. I've seen him force Heero inhale something, but until you said 'narcotic', it didn't make sense."

Sally took a giant step forward, eyes intense. "You've seen the actual substance he was being given?"

"He takes it out of these small cloth bags, like flour sacks," Lucille said, nodding energetically. "Then he grinds it up in a bowl and lights it on fire. It doesn't burn with a steady flame, but it smoulders, and he makes Heero breathe in the smoke."

"This is very important," Sally said, gesturing sharply with both hands for emphasis. "Can you get a sample of this mixture out of the base and bring it here?"

While Lucille's face was falling, Wufei stormed in from the far corner of the living room, where he'd been hiding stoically among the woodpile and the knitting basket, and scowled as if personally slighted by the notion. "If I couldn't get you that sample, why do you assume this woman, who we know nothing about, could do any better!?"

"I only know slightly less about her than I do about you," Sally pointed out with her arms folded, "and she knows what the stuff looks like. You didn't."

"Knowing what it is and where it's kept won't help her sneak past the guards with it," Wufei snapped, angrily trying to salvage his dignity. Procuring a few Chinese herbs to aid Heero's recovery had been easy, but not being able to spirit away anything from Lord Jeffrhyss' lab after delivering Heero's message was still sticking in his craw. He retreated a few steps to sulk again.

Lucille lowered her head an inch, already feeling defeat nipping at her. "He's right...I don't know hardly anything about the rules of this game...I'm just a civilian. If his Lordship caught me stealing, I don't want to think about what he'd do."

"It's a gamble," Sally sighed, "but it could really help me figure out what's wrong with Heero. His behaviour is still far from normal, and this mixture of inhalants could be the cause."

"You're not making good medical sense anymore, Doctor," Wufei grumbled from the corner. "Every physical indicator says that the drugs have cleared his system. They can't possibly still be affecting him after the fact!"

"I'd like to make that determination myself, thank you," Sally sniffed. She turned back to Lucille and smiled sympathetically. "I can't force you to do anything to help us, and I know it's a sizable gamble, but the payoff could be enormous if we win."

Over by the kitchen counter and halfway through a hot cross bun with marmalade, Giorgenson made an amused little 'hmph' noise. "Where've I heard that before..." They all looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged. "Nothing, my dear, you just sounded like Jeffrhyss himself just then, talking about potential payoffs. That man loved nothing better than a good gamble in his younger days, and even now, I'd be hard-pressed to say with certainty that he loves anything else at all."

A second light bulb flipped on over Lucille's head, and it outshone the first one by ten thousand watts. She stared straight ahead. "Did you say...Lord Jeffrhyss gambles?"

"Oh sure," the Professor bragged on his associate's behalf. "Horses, greyhounds, rugby, cards, dice, weather, you name it. If it has an outcome of two or more possibilities, he'll bet on it, no question. I'd call it a vice, except he's so damn good at it, he never loses."

Very slowly and with great depth of concentration, Lucille smiled. "I can get you your drug sample, Doctor Poole. Probably by tonight." The others looked surprised, but she didn't give anyone time to object. "Keep Heero in the house. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Lucille flew out the front door and vanished. None of the vacant-eyed grunts followed her, Giorgenson noted, because she didn't have Heero with her. He thought briefly about following her to make sure she was alright, especially if she had some scatterbrained scheme up her sleeve. Scatterbrained schemes, however, were the very best kind, and the newly-found determination in the woman's voice further served to convince him that she was finally ready to deal with Jeffrhyss on her own.

**********

In retrospect, Duo wished he hadn't slammed the door so hard, but he couldn't help it. Many months' worth of frustration was finally getting to him, and he could no longer hide his anger under a cheery smile. He wheeled around and stomped to the centre of the bedroom as Heero nonchalantly went to the window and stared outside.

"Alright, a joke's a joke, but this talk about going back, it just isn't funny anymore. What's gotten into you lately!? Maybe I'm imagining things, but it sure sounds like you can't wait to get away from this place!"

Heero continued to stare out the window. "I just think it might be a mistake for me to stay here, that's all. It contradicts my orders."

"I'm starting to really worry about you," Duo said, shaking his head. "I fought so hard to give you a little taste of freedom here and there, and you act like it's nothing! You were supposed to trust me by now, but all you can talk about is going back to that psychopath 'master' of yours! Doesn't our friendship mean anything anymore? Don't I mean anything to you!?"

Heero said nothing. He stared almost hypnotically out the window at one of the grunts keeping watch, and didn't move an inch.

The only thing keeping Duo from feeling hurt and rejected was the iron-clad belief that there was currently something very wrong with Heero, something that was affecting his behaviour and higher reasoning functions. While Duo was pondering what it could possibly be, a darkish blob squeaked out from under the bed, drawing his attention downward. It was Shadow, of whom Duo had seen very little lately. It appeared as though she had been hiding under Heero's bed, and poked her head out during a lull in the unidirectional conversation to see if the coast was clear. When she spotted Heero by the window, she started taking a few tiny steps towards him, then stopped and dashed back under the bed. She seemed...afraid.

Duo thought about the little cat's actions, but they didn't make sense. Something about Heero was making her terribly nervous, and yet she didn't want to leave his presence completely, else she would have been scratching at the kitchen door all day to get out. Not only did it seem remarkably similar to the way Duo felt at that moment, but it further cemented his theory that the boy wasn't right. Animals were very psychic, in Duo's opinion, and if Shadow thought something was wrong, then something probably was. He decided to humour him for the moment.

"What if we asked Jeffrhyss to come here instead? Then you could stay here and fulfill your orders. How would that be?"

Heero clenched both fists and looked menacingly over his left shoulder, his glare approaching maximum power. "You're trying to trick me into staying. You want to keep me here against my will."

Duo shrank away from the glare. "Hey, if it's a bad idea, just say so, don't get all bent out of shape," he said in his most appeasing voice.

"When I finally lose patience with you, it would be wise to stay out of my way," Heero growled. Without another word, he turned back to the window.

Now it really did hurt. Duo wrapped his arms around himself and looked at the floor. Even if there were mysterious forces at work, knowing didn't make the moments any less painful. "If...you are really, honestly...having doubts about...about us...you can talk to me about it. I won't hate you for it, I swear. Nothing you could do could ever make me hate you." A long two and a half minutes of silence ensued. "So, what, you won't talk to me at all now?" Again, silence. Duo sighed and left the room, shutting the door softly so Heero could be alone with his window.

When he got back to the kitchen, he saw that the new girl, Lucille, had left. He regretted being mean to her, because she was only doing her job, and now that she was gone, he regretted not apologizing to her, but at that particular moment, there were worse things. Sally looked up at him from her slouching position at the kitchen table, and Duo shrugged. "I don't know what to do anymore."

"If you want my second-rate dishwater excuse for an expert opinion," Giorgenson said, leaning halfway out the kitchen window with his lit pipe, "what you should do is nothing at all. My guess is there's a mental battle going on in that room. If you go and try turning it into something else, you'll get nothing but trouble for your trouble, mark my words."

Duo looked at the Professor, then at Wufei, who offered no input, then at Sally again. Even if there was some kind of tug-of-war match going on in Heero's head, after the way he'd been acting, Duo was no longer sure that Heero would pick him instead of Jeffrhyss. He tossed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the bedroom. "Anyone know if there's a key to lock that door with?"

**********

Deep underground, in the well-concealed belly of the Isle of Wight, Lord Jeffrhyss awaited the return of his pretty puppet and his wayward agent. Inwardly, he laughed and scoffed at the hundreds of naive vacationers who visited the island each year, royalty and commoners alike, without having the faintest clue at what lay underneath, but that could only amuse him for so long. Soon, he grew impatient, and it was to the benefit of all parties concerned that he heard two distant sets of doors opening and closing, heralding someone's arrival.

The lab door opened next, and two grunts showed Noin in. To his Lordship's surprise and irritation, she was alone. "Where is Heero?" he demanded gruffly.

Noin took a few steps into the cluttered lab, recognizing too well the scarcely controlled chaos in which the man always worked. She clasped both hands in front of her and lowered her head respectfully. "I was unable to retrieve him." A white lie at worst, an embellishment at best. Noin could live with that.

Jeffrhyss, however, could not. He snatched his cane and waded through a sea of boxes punctured with icebergs of books on his two peg legs to stand in front of her. "You failed?"

"It was a mistake. An erroneous calculation."

Jeffrhyss grumbled and plodded away.

"A bad gamble," Noin added with emphasis.

The old man stopped, then turned. That last remark was not amusing. "I beg your pardon?"

Noin looked up, directly into his round black spectacles. "It was never certain that Heero would consent to come with me, therefore it was a bad risk sending me there at all."

"Not certain!? Of course it was certain! He could not have resisted the pull of this place!"

"It's alright to admit you were wrong," Noin said in a sickly sweet, condescending tone. "Not everybody can accurately predict human reaction. You'd have an easier time predicting how much rain will fall, and on what days, and on which side of the mountain...although you'd have a hard time beating me at that game." She turned and strolled to her left, admiring some of the architectural drawings on the walls. "Or maybe I'm just a better gambler than you are."

Behind her, his Lordship seethed. "How dare you presume to be better at anything than me! You'd still be running from town to town, smuggling yourself across every border in secret, and filling up your days with menial tasks while you waited to be captured if not for me! I gave you purpose!"

"Well, you pretty much wasted what purpose I had today," Noin said. "If I was in charge here, I wouldn't have bothered chasing after something unless I was at least fairly sure I could get it, and while we're on the subject, I don't think of being your secretary as a particularly gratifying purpose. I could do a lot better if not for my circumstances."

"You are not in charge, and you never will be!" Jeffrhyss boomed, clomping angrily toward her. "Mine is the superior mind! In your most fanciful daydreams, you could never hope to best me at the basic tasks on which the success of this organization rests!"

Noin turned around and smiled. "That almost sounds like a challenge."

Jeffrhyss harrumphed in contempt. "As if I'd waste my time."

"Well, I can't fault you for that. I can see how losing to a subordinate female would be very humiliating."

The proverbial last straw had been arrived at. Jeffrhyss became livid, an unusual occurrence indeed for such a stable and reputedly superior mind, and he stomped around the lab railing on and knocking things over, but unlike previous tantrums that were much less severe, Noin didn't bat an eyelid. She stood very calmly to one side, looking over a blueprint for a theoretical flying machine, almost ignoring him. Finally, the proud old soldier halted his rampage and demanded her attention by ramming the floor heavily with his cane.

"Choose your game! Choose now and we'll see which of us has the right to be called 'master'!"

Noin made a great play of searching the room for something to bet on, thought she had made her choice long before she set foot back in the compound. She sauntered over to the current centerpiece of the lab, his Lordship's gleaming chessboard with the finely-crafted pieces, carved from rich, exotic woods. "Would you consider a wager on a game of chess?"

Jeffrhyss snarled and smirked at the same time. He hobbled over to his chair, sat down, and began resetting the board, pulling the pieces back from their spots on the battlefield and placing them in their traditional starting positions. "What shall we wager?" he asked, considerably calmer and more confident than ever.

Noin perched opposite him in a red plush chair, leaned back and crossed her legs, propping an elbow up on the chair back and looked quite confident herself. "If I win...I want my freedom."

Jeffrhyss thought, then grunted in agreement; he didn't waste any energy at all wondering how he could replace his pretty puppet on such short notice, because it simply wasn't going to happen.

"And...I want two bags of the herbal blends you give that boy twice a week. One of the new mixture and one of the old."

"What would you do with that?" Jeffrhyss scoffed. "You have no idea what it does or how to use it!"

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea," Noin sang dreamily. "I know it keeps him coming back, and if it works on all young men, I could easily walk out of here and have an infinite supply of lovers who would keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed, and who would never be able to leave me."

Fulfilling his Lordship's stereotype of the wicked rich woman, disenfranchised from her decadent lifestyle and just waiting for the ideal male target to leech off of, was easy. Not only did he believe her, but he was laughing on the inside, because both mixtures were tailored to Heero's physiology and likely wouldn't work as well on anyone else except a close blood relative, of which he had none. Blinded by the pain of damaged pride and loss of face, Jeffrhyss wasn't thinking clearly about the wager; if he had been, he might not have agreed so easily. "And if I win?"

Noin looked away furtively; this would be her biggest gamble ever, and it had to be right, first time. "You know all about my little situation...you know about my family, all those wealthy Greeks, high class, high expectations, won't take 'no' for an answer...you know that they expect me to marry a man I don't love, and forsake the man I do, just to increase our influence in the world, and you know that I've put every earthly comfort at risk by refusing them..." She leaned forward over the chessboard and drew a slow, deep breath. "Were you aware of exactly who I'm supposed to marry? He's a Rockefeller, you know. Very well off. Put our two families together, joined at the legal hip 'till death do us part, and it all amounts to quite a tidy sum." Next, she began examining her fingernails daintily. "If you win, I'll go through with the wedding. I'll transmute myself into a Rockefeller, and I'll get you that money...not to suggest that you're having a cash flow problem, but a few extra millions wouldn't go amiss, now would it?"

Jeffrhyss leaned back and stroked his beard, leaving the hook on his cane. "Can you prove to me that he's a Rockefeller?"

"Not without putting him on the boat and bringing him straight over here from America...but if you doubt what I'm saying, just concentrate on my family by itself. I'm sure you had our assets calculated down to the last drachma fifteen minutes after we met, so judge for yourself. Wouldn't our small fortune be a sufficient boost for you even if I didn't get married?"

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

"And if the unthinkable happens and I can't embezzle enough to keep your coffers filled for even a day, I'd offer myself as insurance, and I'd remain in your service for as long as you wished. Either way, you win, because at the very least, you'll have shown me up badly and put me in my place." Noin propped both elbows on the table, laced her fingers together and set her chin down on her hands, arching an eyebrow. "So how about it?"

He had to admit, all that for one game of chess was a pretty good deal. The simple bonus of proving to the insolent female that he would always be in control, and was wholly deserving of that control, was quite the sweetener. He nodded. "Acceptable." He put his good hand down on the centre of the chessboard and twirled it slowly until Noin had the light-coloured pieces in front of her. "Ladies first."

A quick surge of adrenalin flooded her veins as she realized her captor had taken the bait; she straightened up in her chair and delicately picked up a pawn, preparing to start the game. "I should warn you, before you make your first move," Jeffrhyss said, resting both his hand and his hook on the cane," that no one has ever beaten me."

Noin paused just a moment, then set the pawn down two spaces ahead. "Understood." I certainly know how you feel, she thought as she planned her next seven moves, with a minimum of four defensive permutations each. No one has ever beaten me either. Not even Milliardo.

**********

Relena knew that if someone saw her and saw where she was going unescorted, there would be questions, but not one of the myriad of excuses bobbing around in her skull seemed totally believable, even to her.

I could say I'm out picking berries...if there were any berries to pick. Or I could say I'm on my way to the village for a loaf of bread...that's plausible, considering Elsie's bread is the consistency of leather. Maybe I could say I'm surveying the property looking for places to have a quaint, romantic picnic for two...that is...if I had anyone to eat with, which I don't. I hate this.

After all the neglect, all the empty days and nights waiting for Heero to return and lying to the everyone when she said she didn't care, she was finally going to sneak out to see him. She knew he was hiding in a cottage somewhere on the grounds under a pretense of illness, but pride prevented her from asking the trio of servants who knew which cottage it was to show her the way. She would accomplish this task on her own or become hopelessly lost trying.

Apart from that minor detail, she had her escape all planned out. She would slip out at dinnertime, while everyone was busy either serving it or eating it, which would still leave her some time left to get back before dark. Her clothes for the journey would be some old, ratty floral prints in greens and browns that she had found in the attic, complete with a crocheted shawl, so that anyone spying her walking around would assume she was one of the labourers. Once outside, she would ask a few locals if there was anyone new hanging around that fit Heero's description, and would avoid Otto at all costs, since she didn't have a convincing excuse to explain any of her recent behaviour.

The last thing she needed was an excuse to actually see Heero. She was prepared to give him just one more chance to repent and recommit himself to her, but of course, she couldn't walk in just looking like she was desperate to talk to him, which she was. She had to make it look like she was just passing by on some unrelated errand, lest the boy's ego become overinflated like a fat man's bicycle tire. That would never do.

Just when the halls were empty, she went to the lounge and unlocked the world globe with the decanter of brandy inside. The letters she had been storing there, all with Heero's name on them, were safe and accounted for; she scooped them out and closed the globe up again, then went back to her room. There, she combined the first stack of letters with the second stack, socked away in her dresser drawer for the last two weeks. Duo's mysterious letter from Ireland was somewhere in the middle of the stack.

I'll just happen to be strolling around looking for him so I can give him his wretched letters. He won't know I wanted to see him unless I want him to know. And if anyone sees me and asks what I'm doing...well...I'm sure I'll think of something.

Satisfied that her plan was the finest, most excruciatingly brilliant bit of strategy she'd ever given birth to, she stretched out on her bed and nibbled on some social tea biscuits, awaiting the dinner hour, when she would spring into action.

**********

The battle was waged for hours, many brutal, tiresome hours that left Lord Jeffrhyss surprised and strangely impressed. The fair Lucrezia knew dozens of standard strategies and defences, as well as several very innovative moves for which he had to formulate some very quick defences to avoid losing key pieces. As yet, there appeared to be no clear winner.

Noin was equally impressed by the man's overall battle plan, and the importance he placed on the seemingly lowliest of pieces. Even after several hours, more than half of his pawns had not yet moved, as if he was guarding them especially carefully, and Noin found that most puzzling. Also, she had noticed early on in the match that each piece had something written on the bottom. The discovery was very furtively made when she accidentally knocked over one of his Lordship's bishops. She saw a light patch with a dark squiggle on the underside, but couldn't read it. The very next dark mahogany piece of his she took, she palmed under the table, and saw a bleached circle on the bottom on which was written someone's name. She didn't recognize it.

When Noin trapped Jeffrhyss into relinquishing one of his closely-guarded pawns, she leapt on it, and smuggled it under the table the moment he wasn't looking. The pawn she had taken bore the name 'Chang Wufei' and while she wasn't absolutely certain, she was fairly sure that was the rather rude Chinese boy she'd been introduced to earlier. Later on, she captured another pawn and flipped it over almost immediately. This one had 'Heero Yuy' written on it. Hoping the third time would be magically uncharmed, she took a peek at one of her own light-coloured pawns and saw 'Duo Maxwell' written in pencil. She didn't catch the braided boy's last name when she met him earlier, but how many Duos could there be in a small area? The game was becoming filled with too many glaring coincidences to be considered random at all, and she trembled at the thought of turning over either queen for fear of finding her own name underneath.

"My dear Lucrezia," Jeffrhyss cooed spitefully, "we could wrap this up in time for dinner if you are ready to concede."

Noin looked intensely at him, still fired up for another hour at least, if necessary. "The game doesn't look over to me."

"I feel that it's only sporting to warn you that, by virtue of your overworked knight, you'll be in check in thirteen moves."

Noin glanced over the board, calculated what needed to be calculated, and nodded. What Jeffrhyss said was quite true. "And I feel it's only sporting to warn you that you'll be in check and mate in nine moves."

Jeffrhyss balked. "What!?"

"The Avandia Gambit. Bishop to king's knight three, knight to king's bishop four, rook to king's knight one, bishop takes knight, rook takes bish--"

"No! Once the knight is threatened, queen to king's bishop three, then--"

"Then you'll hasten your demise," Noin said softly. "Your leading pawn will have to advance to protect the queen from my rook. My last pawn, which could have taken your pawn earlier, will capture it en passant, leaving a gaping hole in your defences. Two moves beyond that, your queen will be lost." To illustrate, Noin turned the board forty-five degrees. "See it now?"

Jeffrhyss stared at the playing field from the new angle until his hair hurt and his eyes itched. Then he saw it, a chance of defeat so miniscule that he never even considered it. Lucrezia Noin had beaten him, fair and square. He clenched his only fist and jerked his head away from her and her loyal troops of fair rubber tree wood, boiling over with unleashed fury.

Noin stood up gracefully and looked dispassionately down at the pitiful man. "You did agree to my prize," she reminded him.

The old dictator shuddered with rage and lashed out at the chessboard, scattering the remaining pieces over the already cluttered floor. "Take it and go!!" He curled over his cane with his hand pressed to his forehead, not wanting to see the vile, deceptive female ever again; still, a bet was a bet.

Noin walked over to the cupboard where she knew Heero's herbal treatments were kept, and opened it. Inside were two shelves full of small canvas bags, each group bearing a different set of numbers and symbols. She took one bag off of each shelf, untied them to ensure that they at least looked like different mixtures, then tied them back up and took them to her cell. Once there, she took her suitcase out from under her rock-hard Spartan bunk and loaded it up with all her belongings, everything she had taken with her when she fled Greece, and fled her family's wishes. Lastly, she packed the two small canvas bags on top and buckled the bag shut, taking one last look at the drab room and deciding that she wouldn't miss it one bit.

When she walked back out into the lab on her way to the main concrete corridor, Lord Jeffrhyss hadn't moved. In a strange way, she pitied him, but that was as far as she was prepared to go. She strode out of the lab, preparing to boldly look the guards in the eye and dare them to challenge her official release. Suddenly, she was feeling pretty lucky.

**********

Relena detested the sight of herself in the peasant's rags she was wearing, but they did their job. Using a shawl and a kerchief to cover her honey blonde locks, she passed by several lower class workers during her flight from the house, and not one of them pegged her as lady of the manor. Unfortunately, though some remembered seeing Heero as far back as the day of the hunt, she couldn't understand a word they said. All she could do was walk in whichever direction they pointed, because their dialect was incomprehensible.

While she walked, she became amazed at how beautiful the country estate was becoming. She had brought the family there in the dead of winter, and after an agonizingly long wait, the grounds were finally greening up, and wildflowers were poking fresh new shoots up out of the soil. Relena became so wrapped up in the beginnings of beauty all around her that she almost didn't notice a very substantial clue that appeared on her right--a little cluster of cottages belonging to the grounds keepers.

For the hundredth time, she asked herself if she was doing the right thing, then took the stack of letters from the pocket of her green gingham apron and kept going. She had walked so long that the sun was beginning to set, casting a fiery red glow over the countryside and reminding her of how late it was. As she neared the cottages, one began to stand out from the rest, but not for its picturesque garden or quaint thatched roof. People were shouting, doors were slamming, and curiosity drew Relena right to the front door to take just one tiny peek.

Inside, things were going very, very wrong. Through the kitchen and towards the back of the cottage, there was a plain wooden door; standing near it was a funny-looking gray-haired man with a pipe, who seemed strangely familiar. Without warning, the door flew open and three very alarmed people ran out. Wufei, of all people, ran out first, with a dark gray cat tucked under one arm and a gun in his opposite hand. Sally Poole followed him with a startled and confused look, and also an empty syringe. Lastly, Duo ran out and pulled the door shut behind him, looking terribly frazzled. Wufei put his articles down on the kitchen counter and rushed to help Duo keep the door shut while he fumbled for the key, for there was someone on the other side of the door, angrily pulling on it, trying to get out.

Duo finally locked the bedroom door and leaned back against it, panting and struggling to catch his breath. The funny gray-haired man walked up to him with long strides, snuffing out his pipe. "What happened in there?"

"I think.....he's royally.....ticked off.....at us," Duo gasped between breaths.

"We tried talking him into leaving the country for awhile and he went nuts!" Wufei said.

Sally stepped forward and showed Giorgenson the empty syringe. "This could've knocked out a racehorse! Anyone else would have been put under instantly, but he's got some kind of immunity to it! It didn't have any effect at all!"

Something very powerful slammed into the door from the other side, and Duo was pushed off it by the force of the impact. "Ohhh, no, I think it had a very definite effect," Duo said, looking nervously at the door. "It made him angrier."

A massive voice built on unfettered fury screeched through the door and made them all jump. It was a long string of angry-sounding Japanese, punctuated with the sound of fists and feet beating on the wooden slab. Eventually, the voice lapsed into English, as if anyone needed a translation by that point. "Open this door or I'll smash it to pieces! Do you hear me!? You can't keep me in here! My master won't allow it! Let me out!!"

Relena's eyes went wide. Heero! What are they doing to you!? She wanted to rush in and put a stop to whatever it was, but it was all too frightening, and all she could manage was to open the front door and slip surreptitiously inside. Fortunately, everyone was much too busy to even notice she was there.

Duo crept forward, wringing his hands. "Now Heero, you may have taken some of the things we said the wrong way, and we just want you to know that we forgiv--"

A fresh round of pounding started, and Duo jumped back. "Kisama! Open this door right now! I'll tear this place apart if I have to!"

Duo bit his lip and turned to the others with his hands in his pockets. "Um...suggestions?"

"This was the strongest tranquillizer I had," Sally said, dolefully gesturing with the syringe. "If he won't respond properly to that, I don't know what else I can do."

All their quickest thinking wasn't quick enough, for the next sound they heard was glass breaking. Duo's eyes bulged. "The window!" He ran back to the door and shoved the finicky brass key back into the lock with Wufei and Sally right behind him. Relena slipped further inside the cottage and ducked under the kitchen table just as the gray-haired man turned in her direction.

"I'll try and nab him from the outside!" he shouted as he ran past the kitchen table and out the door. Relena exhaled softly with relief.

More glass was falling to the bedroom floor and shattering. The door cooperated at last, the they all rushed inside. Sure enough, Heero was pulling jagged pieces of what was once a window pane in its happier days out of the rickety frame. Duo and Wufei raced to the window and grabbed the boy by an arm apiece, and Sally wrapped both arms around his torso as they tried to wrestle him to the floor. Relena very timidly crawled out from under the kitchen table and followed them in; nobody had noticed her presence yet.

In the purest sense of the definition, Heero wasn't Heero anymore. A foggy, inscrutable pressure that had been building up inside him for days finally blew, turning him into a wild, snarling animal with the strength of five, thrashing around in the grip of three weak and pathetic jailers. When he looked into their faces, he didn't know them, and yet something else inside him kept saying he should, especially the one with the purple eyes.

Relena circled the knot of frenzied limbs in the middle of the room and brought both hands to her face, looking and feeling like a terrified rabbit but too enthralled with the scene to look away. Without even realizing it, she drew closer and ever so slowly stretched out a willowy arm between the other arms restraining Heero, reaching out to him. The caged monster saw Relena's face amidst the blurs and shouts. He saw the blue eyes, the fair hair partly hidden by a bit of cloth, and the delicate features that had drilled their way into his consciousness since the day he saw their likeness in an ink drawing almost a year ago. A red-hot flame grew behind Heero's eyes as he stared her down.

...I'm here because of you!!

He lashed out and shoved the girl away with tremendous force. She careened into the wall with a little yelp, dropping the stack of letters. Wufei caught the offending arm and wrangled it back under control, but before any of them could realize what happened, and to whom, the counterfeit peasant girl skittered away, holding a hand to her mouth where she had collided with the wood panelling. Relena ran straight out of the cottage, never to return, and once she was far enough away that she could no longer hear the struggling, she took her hand away from her stinging lips--it had a light coating of blood.

Many yards away, 'Lucille' was heading triumphantly back to make her delivery, and saw a poorly-dressed girl running away from the cottage, but thought little of it. As Lucille neared the cottage and saw the state of bedlam, she forgot all about the girl and hurried inside. "Doctor Poole? she called out nervously.

Sally backed out of the bedroom, throwing quick glances over her shoulder at Lucille. "Stay back," she warned quietly. She was only able to whisper because it had suddenly gone terribly quiet.

Lucille held her suitcase up and pointed to it. "I got it," she whispered back. Sally's eyes lit up, and she ushered Lucille into her makeshift lab, barricading the door behind them so they could work in relative peace and safety.

In the bedroom, things were quiet, but more tense than ever. Heero had broken free and was sizing up his opponents. Duo stood in front of the door and Wufei guarded the window, with Giorgenson peering in while picking broken glass up off the lawn. The three youths were crouched low in fierce battle stances, eyeing each other.

Duo held his hands up in careful appeasement. "Heero...stop and think for a minute. Is this normal? Is any of this how Heero Yuy really spends a Tuesday afternoon? Think about it! You don't do anything without a good reason, so what's the reason for this!?"

Heero growled and shot him a bloodthirsty glare. "Get out of my way."

Duo shook his head once. "No. You're better off with me than with Jeffrhyss, I'm sure of that. If you can look at your sorry self in the mirror, and think about what your life was like before you met me, and still think you belong somewhere else, go ahead and leave." He assumed one of the fighting stances Heero had taught him and closed his fists tight. "But you're going to have to go right through me to do it."

To his surprise, Heero took him up on his challenge. He lunged at Duo and sparked off a karate match unrivalled by any of their practice sessions. Wufei was in awe, watching Duo match Heero blow for blow, blocking every punch and kick with blinding speed. Gradually, however, both boys were tiring, and Wufei felt compelled to help. Between the two of them, plus Heero's growing fatigue, they had him pinned to the floor within minutes, but he still struggled until a piercing, authoritative voice cut through the noise.

"Heero!" Sally shouted from the doorway. Heero looked up through a mesh of his own mussed-up hair and saw her, crouched before him and shaking a little ceramic bowl a few inches from his face. "See this? This is what you want, isn't it? You want it? Hm?"

Heero calmed himself and stared at the contents of the bowl, which was a pinch or two of brown and white powders, with dried leaves mixed in. When presented with the choice of two very similar bags from Lucille's suitcase, Sally arbitrarily chose the one with the numeral zero printed on it in red ink; it happened to be the newer of the two mixtures and was an extremely fortunate choice, though Sally didn't know it yet.

"What's that stuff?" Duo asked breathlessly. He was more than a little disturbed by how totally transfixed Heero was by the substance.

"This is what Jeffrhyss was using on him. It may be the only thing that'll get him under control again," she said.

"You can't give him that!" Duo exclaimed. "We just got it out of his system! We can't get him addicted again!"

"Now that I have enough of it to work with, I can wean him off it properly. It won't hurt him." Sally stood up, took a match out of a copper container on the mantlepiece, struck it against the firebrick, and lit the contents of the bowl. The mixture smouldered evenly and gave off a thick wisp of smoke almost immediately. Heero's starving eyes followed her every move as she stepped closer carrying his salvation.

At that point, Lucille looked away; she'd seen that process many times before, and didn't need to see it again. She walked to the kitchen counter and leaned against it, folding her arms and glancing at the door just in time to see Giorgenson's grand re-entrance with two large handfuls of glass shards, which he promptly deposited in the dustbin. "Don't want any bunny rabbits cutting their paws on that, do we?" he said.

Lucille arched her eyebrows in agreement, then looked to her left; Duo and Wufei were now helping Heero walk dizzily to the kitchen table with an arm around each of their shoulders. They sat him down and propped him up while Sally extinguished the small fire and set up some glassware and chemicals on the table. Heero was now perfectly calm, but dazed and unresponsive, and potentially still vulnerable. Lucille couldn't think of anything she could do to help until her eyes wandered to the counter beside her, on which she saw a smoke gray cat, licking its paws and sitting next to a handgun. Nice ornament, she thought, picking up the gun without hesitation. "Is this Heero's?"

Duo looked up and begged with his eyes for a decrease in complications. "Yeah, uh...be careful with that, okay?"

Lucille looked the gun over and whistled in admiration. "Whoa...a genuine double action, self-ejecting, nickel-plated Adams & Deane six shooter! This is the one with the reversible ejector mechanism so you can shoot with either hand! I didn't know they made this in a .32 calibre!"

Now they were all staring at Lucille as she tossed the gun expertly from hand to hand, aiming at a spot on the far wall using one eye and then the other. Though Heero was not participating, this prolonged stare easily qualified the cottage for a large painted sign that would read 'Official House of the Staring People,' for which there was a darling spot outside next to the birdbath.

Lucille looked outside at the grunts keeping watch, waiting for her to betray her true loyalties and deliver Heero to them, and frowned. "I think it's time we sent a message to our ex-employer," the brave brunette said. Before anyone could stop her, she aimed the gun out the kitchen window at one of the grunts and squeezed off a shot. The bullet cracked the air and splintered the bark of the tree against which her chosen grunt was leaning, just an inch above his head. The grunt shivered, then ran off to warn the others, and soon they were all scampering away to tell their master what had happened. Gratified, Lucille put the gun back down on the counter and smiled, quite proud of herself.

Giorgenson rolled his eyes behind his spectacles. "Showoff."

While Sally studied the mysterious mixture at the table, Duo folded his arms on it and put his head down, exhausted. Wufei wandered back into the living room and collapsed into a sofa, also exhausted. Sally didn't like the look of Heero's eyes at all, and decided to run some chemical tests on the strange substance before proceeding. She separated some of the mixture into components, spooned a bit of white powder into a shallow dish, and set it on the table next to Duo's resting head. "Pour some water into that dish for me, will you?"

Duo groaned, but didn't move.

A moment later, Sally took the dish back, and it had a bit of water in it, as requested. "Thanks."

Duo lifted his head an inch. "For what?"

"For putting water in the dish."

Sally continued to work, oblivious to the confused stare coming from Duo. "But I didn't."

They both looked at Heero, who was seated between them and looked idyllically docile for someone who had just tried to flatten four of his closest associates. Playing on a hunch, Sally set another dish on the table and eyed Heero suspiciously. "Pour some water in this dish too, please."

Heero smoothly picked up the pitcher of water and poured the exact same amount into the second dish as he did into the first. He put the pitcher down and dropped his hand back into his lap, all without blinking more than three times or looking at the items he was manipulating. Sally thought fast. "Heero, count backwards from ninety-nine in increments of thirteen, and stop before you reach zero."

Heero rattled off the numbers in one breath. "Eighty-six, seventy-three, sixty, forty seven, thirty-four, twenty-one, eight."

Sally waved a hand in front of Heero's face; he didn't move. "Hypnotics!" she breathed.

Duo blinked. "Say what?"

"This mixture is mostly opium, but there are a lot of other things in it that I haven't identified yet. One of those extra ingredients may be a hypnotic drug of some kind, chosen specifically to induce a trance." She sat back and thought for a minute or two, during which Duo was more than patient. "I think I'm starting to understand Lord Jeffrhyss' methods now," she said, tapping the ceramic bowl with her fingertip. "This is a dual-stage control mechanism. The first stage is the narcotics--the subject experiences excruciating physical withdrawal symptoms that compel him to always return for his next dose. If that fails, the second stage kicks in--post-hypnotic suggestion that was programmed into him at an earlier date, commanding him to return even if the first stage is ineffective. Mind you, this is only a theory."

Frightened by the prospect, Duo waved his own hand in front of Heero's face, and shivered when he saw that his eyes were totally vacant and without focus. He was indeed in a trance. "Geez...that sure would explain a lot..." For an instant, the temptation to command Heero to cluck like a chicken was unbearable. I could even tell him to kiss me and he'd do it...mmm, better not, though...too many witnesses. I'd catch hell for it later.

"Every time Jeffrhyss gives him this...whatever this is, he can reinforce the programming, alter it, add to it, whatever he likes." Sally cleared her throat and addressed Heero authoritatively again. "What is your objective?"

"Collect reconnaissance on Treize Khushrenada," Heero answered blandly.

"What are your default instructions if security is compromised?"

"Return to base."

"And if return is prevented by...by the people around you?"

Heero paused. "Lethal force is authorized."

Sally and Duo shuddered as one, but soon Duo found a bright speck in an otherwise bleak afternoon. "You know what? ...he's been fighting his programming all day. His gun was in his room for days before anyone thought to swipe it, and he never touched it to hurt any of us. Even when he was battling me just now, I could tell he was holding back...sure, he was amazingly fast, but he wasn't hitting me that hard. All this time, there's been a voice in his head telling him to bash our heads in and run away, and he couldn't do it!" Duo sighed heavily; it felt good to smile again. "Heero...who's your best friend in the whole world?"

Again Heero paused, and hearing Duo's voice seemed to soften his own. "You are."

Duo smiled even wider and threw his arms around Heero, nuzzling the side of his face and thanking the magic smoke for making him tell the truth. "I'll take that as an apology. If you wake up zonked out of your mind, I'm not likely to get one any other way."

With the sudden physical contact, Heero started blinking faster, and his head lolled forward with a little moan as he brought an unsteady hand up to rub his eyes. Sensing the change in his aura, Shadow leapt from the counter to the table, sniffed around Heero a bit, then meowed and curled up comfortably in front of him, giving him her official 'all clear.' Sally made a note of what it took to break the trance, and Duo slung Heero's arm around his shoulders and dragged him to his feet. "He probably oughta lie down now," Duo guessed. "Don't worry pal...I'll take care of you." Sally enjoyed a relieved smile as they left, but soon after, Duo came back, alone, looking slightly miffed and holding what looked like a stack of letters. "What are these?"

Sally shrugged. "They aren't mine..."

"They're addressed to Heero..." Duo held them out, and Lucille stepped forward, recognizing her own handwriting with a frown.

"They're from Lord Jeffrhyss. He kept calling Heero back and got no reply, that's why he sent me...but they were sent to the house. I don't see how they could have found their way here."

Duo snorted in anger. "Maybe I don't know where they came from, but I know where they're going!" He walked to the nearest fireplace, lit a fire, and tossed the letters in, not bothering to look all the way through the stack to see what else was there. Soon, all the letters had been incinerated beyond recognition, including the letter he really should have looked at first, the one addressed to him. "Good riddance. And now, if you'll all pardon me, Heero's feeling a bit woozy and needs someone to tell him what day it is." With that, he went back into the bedroom and shut the door, although it needed a little encouragement ever since it was warped out of its natural shape.

While Lucille and Giorgenson talked amongst themselves about where she'd be staying since she had no home to go to, Sally wandered into the living room and sat down next to Wufei, who had been strangely quiet. He didn't acknowledge her, but didn't shoo her away either. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Wufei lowered his eyes. He was far from alright. The boy had laboured for months under the faulty assumption that Lord Jeffrhyss was a harsh but just man, fighting for some noble cause, but he was too concerned with seeking vengeance from Treize to bother asking what that cause was, and never stopped to really look at what was going on under his nose. The man was a monster who cared nothing for the welfare of his toys, and if Wufei didn't get out soon, he felt sure he'd be next. Still, there was no need to reveal squeamishness and fear to anyone, least of all her. "I'm fine."

Sally knew he was lying, but let it slide. She slapped his knee in a friendly fashion and stood. "If you want to talk, you know where I am." To his relief, she left him to his sulking, and also to the first of many hours of 'what ifs' that were bound to change his outlook on life.

**********

Back in her room, safe and sound, Relena estimated the extent of the damage caused by Heero's unexpected attack, and it was minimal. She had a split lip, and would have it for a few days, but everyone was so used to her hiding in her room that no one was likely to notice, especially if she wore a dark lip colour to venture outside. She had also gone without dinner, and planned on sitting at her white wicker vanity with the tiltable mirror, staring at her reflection for a long, long time.

Though it didn't yet show on the outside, Relena had grown up a lot in the last hour or so. She didn't cry, and she didn't feel sorry for herself as she might have done before, but instead she tried to look at the whole incident like an adult and decide for herself what had really happened. She had seen many strange things at the cottage, but there was one piece of the puzzle that she couldn't get out of her mind.

I saw the way he looked at me...like he hated me...and he was strung out on something, Lord only knows what...the drink must not have been enough for him. Is it going to be enough for me, if I marry him?

A gentle knock came at her bedroom door, and her hand flew to cover her mouth instinctively. "W-who is it?"

"Bethany, Miss. There's a person at th' door for you."

Relena swallowed. If it was Heero, she was staying in her room, and that was that. "Tell them to go away!"

"But it's Marcus Wyndham, Miss. 'E wants to know if you'll accompany 'im to th' spring fair in th' village."

Relena's eyes widened slightly, and her gaze snapped back to the mirror. Marcus! ...oh, but he can't see me like this! She swallowed. "Tell him...tell him I'm ill, but that'd I'd enjoy seeing him in a weeks' time, in London. Tell him I would very much like him to visit me then."

Bethany paused, quietly repeating the message to herself and committing it to memory. "Yes, Miss."

"And Bethany?"

"M'lady?"

"Tell Otto to begin preparations for our return to Bridlewood," Relena said, straightening up regally in her chair. "It's time we were getting back home."

"Yes, M'lady."

**********

Early that evening, Duo had lit a fresh fire in the fireplace of his borrowed bedroom, and propped a dozy Heero in front of it to warm up, since there was no longer a window to stop the chilly night air from getting in. He made a mental note to find some planks of wood to nail up to the wall the next day, but for now, he wasn't moving, not for anything. He kept Heero cradled close to him as they sat in front of the fire, wrapped up in their favourite plaid blanket, and as the hours wore on, Duo grew sleepier and Heero grew more coherent. Eventually, their positions were reversed, and Heero had Duo bundled up and cuddled close to him instead.

The events of the day were hazy, disjointed, and confusing. Heero's memory was fragmented, and all he could reliably pick out was a vague memory of being very cruel to Duo, the last person in the world he wanted to hurt. As they sat by the fire, Heero had both arms wrapped tightly around his precious mouse, with one hand curled around the boy's neck and jawline, slowly stroking the side of his face with his thumb. He stared into the writhing orange flames long after Duo had fallen asleep, declaring to himself that his captivity was ended.

I have come through the fire.....and I'm stronger than I was before. Never again will I be anyone's slave, not while there's a breath left in me. Duo stirred in his sleep, and Heero clutched him closer, burying his nose in the soft chestnut hair and inhaling deeply.

Never again.


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Forty-Two: Surprises are in store when the family heads home to London. Heero receives a piece of jewellry that never belonged to him, Quatre receives a shock concerning his family, and Treize receives a phone call that puts a smile on his face even the Cheshire Cat would be proud of.

Wheeee! Happy dance! *dances* Curled up in front of the fire is a great way to end any episode!! And boy, am I glad I finally got to show Noin for what she is, a very strong lady. Sorry for the delay, but the timing had to be perfect. =^_~= And I hope nobody minds how much I'm messing with peoples' nationalities in this series...Noin got Greece instead of Italy, Dorothy got Italy instead of Spain, and Trowa got Spain because he looks so HOT in matador pants...*aherm* pardon me, lost my head there for a minute. =9_9= Now down to business. *gets out her calendar* We shall be returning to Bridlewood on the 3rd of April. Hope you all get some nice goodies from the Easter Bunny! =^_^=