Disclaimer: ...what? You think I have time to write a new disclaimer every week? Do you have any idea how busy I am!? =P Fuggedaboudit.

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Sixty-Two: Grapevine

"What are the three most widely-used forms of communication known to man? Telephone, telegram, tell-a-girl." ~Old joke

October 16th, 1902

The postman's burdens were becoming larger and heavier lately, and as Otto habitually collected and distributed the morning mail, he became increasingly suspicious of the plain brown packages being funnelled into the kitchen. Packages coming in meant money going out, and if there was a leak in the seemingly unsinkable ship that was the household budget, the spendthriftery of the chef would be first on the list of things to investigate.

"Delivery for the kitchen...again," the house steward declared acridly, popping out of the servants' stairs with three mysterious boxes.

Duo looked up, grinned, and dropped the potato he was peeling to run over and snatch the packages away. "Great! Thanks!"

Otto hung over the boy's shoulder, looking dour and menacing as the chef unwrapped the top box on the only clear patch of kitchen table that could be seen. "You've been getting an awful lot of those recently..."

"Mm hm..." Duo was hardly listening as he tore through the butcher's paper and extracted one shiny item after another, practically drooling.

"It must be costing quite a lot..."

"Check this out!" Duo exclaimed, twisting around and holding up a hollowed-out flower shape made of metal, dangling from a long handle. "It's one of those timbale thingamajiggers! These are supposed to make great desserts!"

Otto cleared his throat. "What I'm trying to say is that you seem to be over-investing our money in--"

"And I've got a boiled egg-slicer, a citrus zester, some nifty slotted spoons, a coffee pot..."

"We have coffee pots," Otto protested, pointing to the boxy tin canister on the stove.

"Ah, but this is a New England coffee pot," Duo said, proudly lifting the shiny cylinder out of its box. He held it up and singled out each of the classic features for individual consideration. "Note the tapered base, the distinctive slant of the spout, the delicate--"

"You wasted perfectly good money on that!?" the bear bellowed. "What did it cost!?"

Duo paused, slightly offended. "Fifty-five cents, and I'll have you know it was an absolute steal." He paused again. "Plus overseas shipping...plus insurance..."

Otto huffed in annoyance, having to lean one hand on the table. "This is exactly what I warned you against doing," he growled as other random staff members trickled in to see what all the yelling was about. "You keep ordering frivolous things from other countries when practically identical things can be found easier and cheaper less than thirty miles away!"

"I only do the mail-order thing when I can't get exactly what I want locally," Duo said sternly, arms folded.

Otto looked down at an unopened package, and to his dismay, it was only from as far away as Newcastle, so he had one less piece of ammunition. However, he knew where to get more. "What's this?" he asked, planting a thick finger down on the middle of the package.

"Waffle iron."

"You made waffles last week. You have a waffle iron."

That got Duo's dander up to the same level as Otto's very quickly. "Oh, you wanna see what passes for a waffle iron in this house? Huh!?" While Doris, Quatre, and Bethany converged on the opened boxes and began poking through their contents with interest, Duo stormed over to a deep cabinet near the icebox, threw open the door, and extracted a cast-iron monstrosity.

It was two massive blackened jaws, flattish but with some depth to them, held together by a squeaky hinge and levered by a pair of unprotected handles nearly three feet long. The relic was designed for use over an open flame, but when the kitchen was converted to gas, several of the ancient iron utensils were tossed aside into the cupboard in the hopes that someone, somewhere, would find a use for them. It took both hands to lift the thing, and Duo could only cart it a few inches off the floor before dropping it with a heavy metallic clang. He was lucky it didn't crack one of the floor tiles. "There's your stinkin' waffle iron! You should see the trouble it takes to get it up on the stove, and fill it, and cook it...you've gotta have arms like Eugen Sandow!"

Otto snorted and looked away.

"Now, let's have a look at a real waffle iron," the chef said, stepping over the sooty carcass to get to the kitchen table. In a flurry of string and brown paper, the box from Newcastle was swiftly unsealed, and a compact, stylish treasure was unearthed to hushed whispers of awe. "Look at that...I can pick it up with one hand..."

"It's still an unnecessary expense," Otto grumbled.

"Oh, look," Quatre interrupted, taking some aluminum shapes out of the same box. "There's some extra pieces!"

"Yeah, those are inserts," Duo told him. "See, you set these in the bottom half of the iron before you pour the batter in, and you can make circles, diamonds, bars, triangles..."

"Ain't that clever!" Bethany crooned.

"And that's not all! If you put those four little wells in back-to-back, you can make pocket sandwiches! And if--"

"I give up," Otto sighed. "There's nothing else to be done except wash my hands of a foolish little spendaholic like you."

Duo's eyes narrowed, while his right hand closed on the handle of a conveniently available meat cleaver, and the other three servants backed away fearfully. He slowly wheeled on the house steward, who actually shrank a bit under the boy's well-polished deathglare, and the wild and angry flailings of the giant knife. "So I'm a money vacuum, am I? You think you're such a hot shot, flopping around the house and giving orders! I get the joy of chopping up dead animals!" He stomped over to a tall cabinet in a corner and clamped his free hand on the tiny doorknob. "Do you know who has the biggest wardrobe budget of the entire staff? I do! Why? Chopping up dead animals, that's why! It's a filthy, gross, disgusting job! Chickens don't come straight from the farm with their giblets removed! Little lambs and piggies might not come to me in one piece, but they've still got bones and junk sticking out of them! I have to deal with that here!"

The others all scooted away from Duo with icky looks on their comparatively angelic faces. Heero clomped down the stairs with yet another brown parcel for Duo in his hands and stopped as he saw the four of them cowering and cringing in a loose glob on one side of the kitchen. He followed their strained gazes to the other side and saw an angry-looking Duo, holding a meat cleaver in an oddly threatening position. He decided to wait for more information before drawing conclusions.

"You wanna see how I pay for all this stuff before you accuse me of embezzlement!?" the chef snarled, and he yanked open the cabinet door. On the inside of the thin wooden panel, hanging on a peg, was a second chef's uniform, nearly identical to the crisp, clean, whiter-than-white garment Duo was wearing. The difference was obvious; food stains representing every colour of the rainbow and spanning sixteen months were blotched and blurred all down the front of the second shirt. Hundreds upon hundreds of meals must have left their mark.

"Here's where I got the cash!" Duo yelled, pointing at the hideous mess with the cleaver. "I get enough money for a new suit every month, but that's as far as the budget will stretch, you said so yourself! Never mind the fact that the family's net worth just tripled, there's no extra money for any of the new stuff out on the market that I want to cook your meals with! So this is what I have to do...keep using that shirt for all the messy jobs, and save the one I'm wearing now for showing off around the house. How else could I look this tidy all the time?"

He made a good point, and his plan made ingenious sense. It now seemed logical why Duo always appeared fresh as a daisy in a perfectly white tunic, though nobody had ever wondered how it was done. Otto looked uncomfortably to the side, trying to salvage the tattered remains of his authority. "Well...that...can't be very hygienic."

"Nobody's died yet, have they?" Duo shot back snidely, perching his cleaver hand on his hip with the blade sticking outward. "Anyhow, I give it a good boiling in bleach once in awhile, and you can't argue with results. By making do with what I had, I managed to put the extra clothing allowance in a cookie jar, and even after using it to buy all those gadgets and gizmos, the house is still up four pounds and change. I've got it all figured out. Check my receipts against the books if you don't believe me."

Otto was well and truly beaten. All he could do was grumble something to the effect that people should tell him such things up front instead of turning every minor discrepancy into a big flaming production, and then he shoved past Heero up the stairs in a hasty escape. Duo exhaled deeply, shutting the cupboard, putting the cleaver away, and running both hands through his bangs as he calmed himself. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was having his intellect questioned, to say nothing of his integrity.

The two housemaids scurried away as well, and Heero strolled over to the chef with the extra package. "The postman had to make two trips," he said offhandedly, unaffected by the skirmish. "He just dropped this off for you."

Duo perked up right away and rushed to read the label on the enticing brown box. As he realized what it was, his eyes lit up like firecrackers, and a jubilant grin spread across his face. "Yes! This is it! This is the one I've been waiting for!" He grabbed the package out of Heero's hands and hugged it.

"What is it?" Quatre asked.

Duo tightened his two-armed grip protectively, with a ravenous gleam in his eyes that suggested the item was not purchased with the cookie jar funds. "This.....is mine."

Heero and Quatre looked blankly at each other.

"Can I borrow your room for a minute?" Duo asked the stunned gardener.

Quatre shrugged slowly. "...sure..."

"Great! Don't either one of you move!" In a flash, the chef dashed out the north door to Quatre and Trowa's room, leaving confused looks behind him.

After a moment or two, Heero smirked a bit, then put on his business face as he turned to the treasurer of his little spy group, putting his hands in his pockets. "We've got the meeting room at Catharine's from one to three-thirty this afternoon, so we might as well lunch there."

Quatre nodded. "What's on the agenda?"

"Training exercises," said Heero. "Before we decide on what we should do, we ought to figure out what we can do, and improve on it."

"Seems reasonable," Quatre agreed. "What kind of trai--" He quickly snapped his mouth shut when a fast, light set of footsteps flew down the stairs. Hilde emerged from the stairwell, paused at the bottom, looked at the mute boys looking at her, and smiled sweetly.

"What are we all talking about down here?"

"Nothing," said one.

"Nothing," said the other.

Hilde thought. "Uh huh. I just came down to get a drink of water."

"Okay," said one.

"Go ahead," said the other.

Having a private conference room at the pub was a godsend, for the boys sometimes found it exceedingly difficult keeping their affairs secret from the rest of the house. It was as much for the safety of innocents as for anything else, and Hilde was a sweet girl who didn't deserve to be dropped in the middle of their problems. She fetched a glass from the cupboard and went to the tap in the basin, giving it a twist while keeping both eyes on the mysteriously silent lads. "So...what's new?"

Once more, Heero and Quatre looked blankly at each other, but they were saved from making feeble excuses by the disembodied voice of Duo floating in from the hall. "Are you guys ready?" he sang.

With a bit of surprise, Hilde joined the other two where they stood near the table, and the trio made general noises of preparedness for whatever point of interest Duo was about to put before them. With a long, artistic flourish, Duo stepped out of the shadows and slowly strutted around in a circle, and it didn't take long for the others to notice what was different. The chef had swapped his duty trousers for the contents of the package, a pair of snug-fitting pants made of a dark blue fabric that none of them could easily identify. Finally, he stopped and posed. "What do you think?"

Hilde laughed. "What are those?"

"They look like overalls," Quatre guessed, ducking his head a little bit to study the garment without strictly ogling.

"Yeah, well, aren't they missing the top part?" the girl went on, pointing.

"They're only supposed to go this high!" said Duo as he hitched up his tunic to show that the new pants ended at his waist. "Don't you laugh, either! I saved up a long time to order these! A direct purchase from the exclusive factories of Levi and Strauss!"

Hilde moved in closer and crouched at Duo's side, while he kept looking at the other two, especially Heero, for signs of approval. Next, Quatre stepped forward, leaning over and pointing vaguely at the chef's denim-clad posterior. "What are those metal dots?"

"Rivets."

"Why would anyone rivet pants together?"

Duo's mouth flapped open and closed again, as he was rapidly running out of answers. "I don't know, because...because the ad in the catalogue said it was stronger than stitching."

"But these are stitched," Hilde said melodiously, dragging a finger down the outside leg seam. "And why would they use orange thread on blue fabric?"

Duo frowned. "It's not orange. It's gold."

"Looks orange to me," said Quatre.

"Heero," the chef whined, "settle this for me, will ya? Is this orange or gold?" He turned directly away from Heero to give him the best possible view of the double stitching on the back pockets, and at that moment, Heero's eyes seemed glued to the spot. He took a long time to answer the question, however. "Heero?"

Finally, Heero looked up. "Hn?"

"What do you think?"

Heero wasn't sure what he thought. In fact, there were a lot of conflicting thoughts bouncing around in his cranium, blending together into a pleasant buzz. He blinked innocently. "I think...they look like they fit just fine."

Duo's eyelids dropped to the halfway mark. "The stitching, Heero."

"What about it?"

"Tell me what colour you think it is!"

Heero pondered as quickly as he could, looking back down at the thin, bright lines. "Orange?"

Quatre and Hilde laughed and slapped Duo on the shoulders as he flippantly declared theirs a hollow victory, for he believed he looked better wearing blue serge cotton than either of them could look in the finest furs. To top off the slight bruises to his ego, Trowa came in next, stepping through the back door in his brown fall jacket with the lamb trim around the collar and cuffs. He'd been hard at work raking leaves that morning and expected a mugful of something steamy to bring the circulation back to his fingers, but he never anticipated comic entertainment to go with it. He took one look at Duo's denims and gaped. "What are you doing wearing those?"

"Oh, don't tell me you've got a problem with them too..."

"You can't be seen in something like that!" Trowa exclaimed, actually exhilarated that his past experience was finally making itself useful. "Those are for manual labourers! Farmers! Coal miners! Lumberjacks!"

"I'm not exactly blue-blooded, don't forget..."

"You're not strictly working class either," said Trowa, folding his arms. "Even I have to dress a little better than the average horse-keeper because of who I work for. Sure, we don't get out much while we're on duty, but when visitors come over, they're supposed to see us at our best."

"I don't see what's wrong with them!" the chef hollered.

"Duo, socially, they're only a small step above rags."

Quatre turned to Trowa with a grin and whispered as he walked past. "I bet he would wear rags if they were American-made."

It wasn't a very good job of whispering, and smirks and tittering giggles permeated the air. "You're all just jealous," Duo snapped in a bratty fashion, and followed the statement up with a sharp display of his tongue.

"Fine," Trowa chuckled as he rummaged through the cupboards for something to snack on. "Just don't let Relena catch you wearing those, or she'll have the fit to end all fits."

That was funny for a moment or two, but after the laughter subsided, they all soon remembered that their employer-in-absentia hadn't been seen, nor heard from, in a fortnight or longer. It broke up the party somewhat, and three out of the group eventually wandered off to attend to other things, things they could control. That left Duo and Heero alone in the kitchen. Duo went back to the counter to finish peeling the potatoes, and Heero went with him.

"You know...what really rots my socks about this whole thing is that as long as Relena's locked up in her ivory tower, we can't confront her about that little stunt she pulled," Duo complained, furiously scraping the paring knife against spud after spud, sending bits of peel flying in all directions. "I feel like somebody should've yelled at someone by now. Me yelling at her, her yelling at you...I don't care who gets it anymore, but I just feel...I don't know...like I've been cheated out of my day in court, so to speak."

"I can't imagine she's up there hiding just because she's afraid to face me," Heero thought out loud, leaning back a bit to avoid the barrage of potato peels. "That's not her style."

Duo sighed forcibly. "Well, it's not my style to fly off the handle like I did with Otto, but not being able to have it out with that girl is incredibly frustrating." His peeling action slowed, and his shoulders slumped as he peeked behind the curtain he had drawn over the truth, just to get him through the days and hours. "You remember what Sally told us...she could have killed you."

Heero glanced around for a brief security check, then put an arm around Duo. "Could have, but didn't. Even so, it may be a good thing, in the end. I never saw until then how sloppy I've gotten lately, and maybe I needed a good swift kick to remind me that I'm not infallible." He gave Duo's shoulder a comforting squeeze, then let go to gather up some of the scattered potato peels. "I'll be more careful from now on, I promise."

"You'd better." Duo's expression gradually softened, and he stole several grinning glances at his friend. "So be honest...you think these pants look good on me?"

Heero stood back a long pace and made a twirling motion with one hand. Duo eagerly complied and did a slow, precise pirouette, after which Heero stuck his hands back in his pockets and nodded. "I think I like them," he said honestly, for he could not remember ever seeing anything like them before, and something so unique could only be justifiably worn by someone as unique as Duo himself.

"I knew you had exquisite fashion sense after all!" Duo crowed. He happily peeled the rest of the potatoes with grace and good humour, feeling somehow validated by Heero's opinion, and feeling fiercely proud of his 501 Blues.

**********

Very suddenly, the afternoon's tranquility was shattered by a pained, desperate voice. "I know you can hear me up there, now why won't you come down and talk to me!?" It was the pitiful sound of Marcus Wyndham, standing at the bottom of the massive main staircase and shouting upwards to Relena, who was hiding herself quite well on some upper floor. He was clutching a wrinkled letter in one hand.

"I implore you to conduct yourself with a little more dignity than that," said Milliardo. He had been first to the front door when the doorbell rang, and was the only thing preventing Marcus from charging straight up the stairs and finding Relena himself. "My sister hasn't come down from her room for days, and she's not likely to, either, if she has to listen to your warbling."

"But I need to hear her explain this to me!" young Marcus cried, shaking the letter rudely in Milliardo's face. "A few weeks ago, our...friendship...was perfectly pleasant, and nothing seemed to be wrong! Now all I get is a letter saying she can't see me anymore and I don't understand why! I must speak with her!"

Milliardo could think of more than one reason not to encourage fraternization between this semi-stranger and his angelic sibling, for he hadn't been able to decide on his suitability when the youngsters met, but then even if he helped the boy, there was no guarantee that Relena would even open the door. "She won't speak with anyone at the moment. My advice would be to go home and wait. Perhaps this is just a phase."

Marcus' eyes narrowed. "I say," he began in a noble but threatening tone, "this isn't down to you, is it?" The rabid glare he got in return for that little gem made him cower slightly, and he backed away, heading for the door. "Alright, I'm going...but you can expect to see me again. Don't give up on me, 'Lena! Whatever's gone wrong, we can work through it!" Downtrodden, Marcus slumped forward and left the house, but all the way home he kept thinking, kept searching his memory for any small thing he might have done to offend his lady love.

While normally Milliardo would have treated any young man seeking to court his baby sister like a barbarian at the gate, he was oddly compelled to think of the sudden rift simply as more evidence that Relena was going downhill fast. Ever since the night of the engagement party, she had been hiding in her third floor suite and wouldn't come out, not even for mealtimes. Doris was the only one allowed near her bedroom door, and only to set trays of food down on the floor, walk away, and pick them up again later when they rematerialised empty. At least she's eating, Milliardo thought yet again as he climbed the stairs, but this can't continue.

He went straight to her door with the intention of knocking to wake the dead, but saw a thin crack of light around the perimeter of the door, something that hadn't been seen for many days. It was clear that she had ventured out of her cave while Marcus was there, perhaps even as far as the landing, but on her way back she forgot or refused to lock her door. Cautiously, Milliardo pushed it open and stepped inside.

It was logical, since time was constantly moving forward, that Relena was older than she had ever been before, but her brother was mildly shocked at how she actually looked older for what he believed to be the first time. She sat in a Queen Anne chair with her stocking feet tucked up underneath her, leaning one elbow on the armrest and barely touching a finger to her chin as she gazed out the window. Next to the fireplace, which she must have been lighting all by herself, Frederick lay curled up in a basket with his nose drooping sadly over the side, determined not to leave his mistress' side except for his daily walk in the park with Trowa.

What startled Milliardo most was the state of the room itself. Every horizontal surface was littered with books, both open and closed, apparently snatched from the manor library in the dead of night. A glass jar with a tight-fitting lid sat on the vanity dresser, in the spot where the cold cream and eau de parfum once stood; it was filled with edible dry goods, such as biscuits and crackers, reserved from her meals to make up a secret stash that could sustain her for a day or two if the family dared try to starve her out of her room. Most shocking of all was the state of the bed, strangely stripped of all the rosy pink frills and ruffles. The afghan, the lace shams, even the dainty canopy had been removed, and everything pink was piled in a corner of the room, leaving only white sheets and bare pillows on the bed. All embellishments seemed to have been banished from the queendom.

Milliardo was almost afraid to approach her, in case she had lost her mind--and it certainly appeared to be so. It took a great effort to walk over to her chair, watching in silent anguish as she displayed no movement, nor even any awareness that he was in the room. "You left your door unlocked," he said quietly.

"I didn't realize," she whispered after a long pause. She sounded tired, and rightly so, if she had been staying up all night every night reading instead of getting her beauty sleep. Just looking at some of the titles sent a chill through her brother's body, as he read names like Plato, and Socrates, and St. Thomas Aquinas all around him. She just didn't mix with a crowd like that...at least, not the Relena he thought he knew.

"Mr. Wyndham was asking for you."

"I know."

Milliardo drew up another chair and sat a short distance away from her; she continued to stare out the window, unmoving. "Far be it from me to meddle in your...friendships," he said, using the word as hesitantly as Marcus had, "but if all this trouble was caused by a bit of failed romance, then--"

"Oh!" Relena barked suddenly, her voice rife with exasperation and stress. "I can't waste time and energy thinking about romance! It's far too trivial!"

Her brother sighed deeply, feeling distinctly like he wasn't getting anywhere. "I'm at the end of my rope with you. Now, you can stay up here as long as you like, you can mope and feel sorry for yourself as long as you like, but starting now, I'll be doing it with you. I won't leave this room for anything, and you and I will have to share what little food comes through the door, for as long as it lasts."

At last, she looked at him, angry and mortified.

"Who knows, without me there to manage the estate's money, we could last for weeks, even months before we go broke...or...you can tell me what's bothering you and we can both get on with life." He sat back, swung one leg casually over the other, and folded his arms with vehemence and fortitude.

Relena dropped her feet to the floor, rammed her elbows into her knees and hid her face, reaching up with both hands to squeeze her bangs tightly through her fingers. Eventually, as she relaxed her hands and slowly straightened up, her expression was that of one who had been to hell and back several times a day for two weeks. "If I tell you..."

".....yes?"

"...you can't ever tell anyone else! Not the police, not Lucrezia, not a single soul!"

"And why not?"

An eerie thing occurred, something which Milliardo hoped never to see again. Relena's face contorted into a maniacal grin and she laughed, just a few times in short, bird-like spurts. She was coming unhinged. "Because no one in their right minds would ever believe us!"

Now fighting a queasy feeling that started at the top of his head and cascaded down, Milliardo reached out and clasped her hand in his. She looked down and then back out the window. Whatever she knew was weighing heavily on her, even more than the death of her father, or her temporary loss of a brother to the war. He knew whatever was to come would take some time, and the healing process would take even longer, but he was more than willing to commit, and he pled with his eyes for her to unburden herself.

And she told him everything.

**********

The afternoon meeting at Catherine's Place started out very chatty. A leisurely lunch was shared by the young group of five while they shot the breeze and gossiped, but when the dishes were cleared away, the work began. They were steadily getting better at holding such meetings efficiently.

"...need to look at several things in the weeks ahead, particularly the end of the Cinq Association's fiscal year. We have records from the last thirty or so end-of-year summits, and based on past locations, we may be able to extrapolate the site of the next one." In the plush meeting room with the fine furnishings and the rich green wallpaper, Heero plucked a rolled-up map of the world from an upright cluster, housed by a cardboard box. He rolled it out over the table, and as they all held down a corner or a side, they could see that someone had already gone to great lengths to mark it up. With a curt nod, Heero handed the lecture over to Trowa, who was in charge of all maps and navigation.

"The summits rotate between five continents, but always seem to gravitate towards the Atlantic," Trowa explained. "The farthest point east, as far as Giorgenson's notes indicate, was Bombay in 1892. As you can see, the locales have moved in a clockwise circle around the ocean, jumping from town to town without ever stopping in the same place twice."

As a marvellously clear illustration, there was a series of red dots marked on the map, each labelled with a year, and connected by a long, spiral line, also in red. The dots dated back to the very year Cinq was founded, in Brussels.

"Have you figured out where the next one is?" asked Quatre.

"Not exactly," Trowa admitted. "Based on the pattern to date, it could be anywhere in a three-thousand-mile radius covering big chunks of Europe and parts of Northern Africa."

"We've got time to work on it," Wufei said, leaning back in his chair. "If nothing else, we've got to narrow it down as much as we can, because even the agents going along for security won't know until the last minute where they're headed. Getting clues from the organizations won't be easy."

Heero looked down at the map, his hands folded together overtop of Greenland. "I've never been to a fiscal summit, have you?"

Though his eyes were lowered, they all knew Heero's question couldn't have been meant for anyone but Wufei. He looked down at the map as well. "No, but I met the favourite pet of my old master once, and he told me all about them, just to show off. Delegations from each of the five sectors gather to compare their achievements and declare a winner. Leaders like Lord Jeffrhyss can pick any of their staff to accompany them, but...I was never chosen."

"Well...that matches what the Professor wrote down in his journals," Duo said sombrely. "I guess he won't be going this year either."

Quatre reached right over Australia to pat Duo's arm. "We don't know that he's dead, he could still be out there." Duo didn't seem cheered by the speculation, so Quatre took it upon himself to change the subject. "I think I've got some good news, or maybe just a good idea, if anyone wants to hear it..."

The consensus was affirmative, and the others all sat up a little straighter to hear what the Executive in charge of Psychological Warfare had to say. He lifted up his corner of the map, took out a plain beige manila folder, and opened it, indicating right away that he had done some additional research. "It's about the tontine, and how Treize, Dorothy, and Lady Une are all involved. I was giving it some serious thought while I was looking through the Professor's files, and there's a chance I've come up with someth--"

Behind them all, there was the sudden rattling noise of someone trying the doorhandle, followed by a quiet knock. This confused everyone, for they had specifically asked not to be disturbed while their meeting was in session. Being the lucky one who was closest to the door, Trowa rose to answer it, after Heero's silent nod of approval. He only cracked the door open the tiniest bit, but a dainty foot was quickly wedged into the space to keep it from being closed again. To the boy's surprise, he found himself face to face with Sally Po.

"Let us in, you chauvinists!"

"Yeah, let us in or we'll bust the door down!"

"In a very delicate, feminine way, of course."

Heero jumped up and bolted to the door while Trowa leaned frantically up against it. "What are you doing here!?"

"What most people like us are doing here," Sally said, "having a bite to eat, mentally undressing the male customers, and, from time to time, placing bets on how long it would take for you five bozos to wake up and invite us to join you." Behind her, Lucrezia and Hilde bunched up protectively, while Duo and Quatre bunched up behind Heero, mostly to protect the deadly secrets spread out all over the table. Wufei just stayed in his seat and feared the worst.

"You mean you followed us?"

"The hallway is the last place we should be discussing this, so if you don't mind..." With a mighty shove, Sally pushed the door in and just about knocked Trowa over, not to mention crunching the other boys backwards so quickly that they were just about tripping over each other. In the blink of an eye, the door slammed shut behind the Amazon trio, who folded their arms in unison and looked each of the lads in the eye...except Wufei, who continued to look away. There was an unpleasant burning heat creeping up the back of his neck.

"We'll come straight to the point," Lucrezia said regally. "We know all about your secret society, your troubles with organized crime, and your rampaging yet ill-prepared vigilantism. We've come here to tell you something very important."

"We want in," said Sally.

"And we want in now," said Hilde.

Though Heero could have feigned total ignorance with amazing quality, he worried that Sally in particular was too sharp to be fooled. "I don't think you know what you're saying."

Sally shook her head. "You'd like to believe that, and that's just sad. Lord Jeffrhyss...the Cinq Association...Count Khushrenada and the Peacecraft gold...the possible reasons behind the McKinley assassination...we know it all."

The boys paled. Nobody knew what to say.

"The thing of it is," said Lucrezia, decorating her hip with one hand and gesturing animatedly with the other, "we just can't accept that the five of you would decide, all on your own, to form a mercenary group against what is probably the most dangerous bunch of control freaks to appear in our lifetime, and you never once considered asking us to join."

"I assume you need people with valuable skills," Sally continued. "I say there are few assets you could possibly need more than a physician, a tactician, and an extra part-time thief, so you can't have ignored us based on our abilities."

"And you need people who can keep a cool head in a crisis as well," Lucrezia went on, "and after being under lock and key in Jeffrhyss' cottage for any length of time, I should think I've got a head that could chill molten lava."

Sally shrugged with her eyebrows. "And I don't mind the sight of blood, so I'm on the stable list too."

"And I do your laundry," Hilde added, pointing to the centre of her chest proudly. "We fear nothing."

"So what are we left with?" Sally asked. "It's not our talents that made you look the other way, nor our temperaments, nor our general willingness to put up with all your little quirks on a regular basis, so that leaves only one logical possibility left."

Lucrezia clasped her hands behind her back. "You didn't ask for our help because we're women."

Hilde made a 'tch tch tch' noise while shaking her head. "You guys are in sooo much trouble."

The four boys who were standing actually hung their heads a little, until Heero made a last-ditch attempt at diplomacy. "We meant no insult, I promise you. We were only trying to protect the people who weren't involved."

"Weren't involved?" Lucrezia said forcefully. "You've got a short memory! Jeffrhyss tried to blackmail me, and turned me into his office girl! I'm already involved, and I plan to stay that way until I get some payback for it!"

"And you've also forgotten an examination I once gave you," Sally added, "after which I told you specifically that I intended to hold someone accountable for the way you were treated. Not only that, but the entire philosophy of this 'Cinq Association' is an offense against everything I stand for, the Hippocratic oath most of all."

Hilde took a few gentle steps forward and made friendly busywork of brushing the lint off Heero's jacket, shyly avoiding his eyes. "I'd just go bananas if something happened to you, to any of you, and I never knew why it happened or whether any good came from it. I don't want to read your names in the back of the newspaper someday. I want to help, and if I can't help enough, then I want my name next to yours."

All of them, Heero especially, were humbled. He briefly reached up to grasp Hilde's arms, gave them a squeeze as he coaxed her to make blushing eye contact, then turned to his team. "All in favour?" he asked quietly. Four hands went up, slowly and reverently. No tiebreaker vote was needed. He tilted his head to the side, bright-eyed. "Welcome aboard."

The trio erupted into girlish cheers, and they jumped up and down, giving each other congratulatory hugs. Then, Sally cleared her throat and turned to the boys, all smiles. "Now, we're all eager to see what you've been cooking up, but we're just going to go have a sub-committee meeting while we powder our noses, and maybe order some desserts on the way back. Wait for us!" As swiftly as they arrived, they marched back out again, to some unknown female hiding place, leaving the boys staring in utter awe--at what, they weren't quite sure.

As they came to, Heero slowly turned and put both hands on the back of his chair, stiffening his arms and forcing his shoulders up as he looked over the faces of his supposed compatriots. The addition to their team was all well and good, but there was still a security issue that had somehow been overlooked. "Gentlemen...it appears that we have a leak."

Everyone looked at everyone else, and three out of the four faces surveyed showed absolutely no guilt whatsoever. Wufei was slouched all the way down in his chair with his chin resting on his chest, and looked defensively from left to right. The other four gradually converged on him until he finally cracked. "It wasn't my fault!!"

"What wasn't your fault?" Heero asked, glaring slightly.

Wufei sputtered and shrugged until the truth jumped out of his mouth just to get away from his general jitteriness. "She forced it out of me! There was nothing I could do to stop it! You know what women are like!!" He thought about that, letting his eyes land on Duo. "Well, some of you."

Duo glared.

"You mean Hilde dragged it out of you?" Quatre asked in disbelief. "Everything about our plans and the papers we found in Giorgenson's--"

"Yes, everything! Happy now!?"

Trowa looked puzzled and curious, both pleasantly and unpleasantly at the same time. "How...exactly...did she..."

"I'm in no way obligated to discuss that," Wufei snapped, bouncing his leg up and down on the ball of his foot underneath the table.

Duo smirked, clearly impressed. "She'd make a good agent, wouldn't she?"

Heero ignored the witticism, reaching up to his right temple and pressing inward. He could feel one of his headaches coming on. "Let's just hope nobody else knows," he said.

**********

Late that night, when the rest of the house was soundly asleep, two figures were staring out their respective windows, pondering majestic truths about the universe that they shouldn't have had to bother with in their positions. Relena stayed in her room, nibbling on crackers and reading by candlelight, and Milliardo stood by his balcony and stared, just as she had done.

He looked over to his left in the dim blue light of nighttime in autumn, and saw that Lucrezia hadn't stirred from his absence. She had been rather tight-lipped about what she had done with her day, but he wasn't bothered by that; something far worse was happening to them in his own mind. He vaguely understood now why Relena felt she couldn't deal with Marcus' attentions, knowing what she knew, and now her brother, knowing what he knew, felt an uncomfortable coldness towards his lover. He wanted to distance her from the horrible truths he was suddenly saddled with, and thought for a brief and terrifying moment that she might be safer without him.

A reality check forced that thought out of his head almost immediately. No matter what Relena had heard from Treize, there was always and most certainly the possibility that he was lying. While Relena got the impression that he was telling the truth, Milliardo knew that she was probably far too young to be an accurate judge of character. What he needed to do was speak to Treize himself and get what he claimed were the facts, and then find routes towards corroboration.

When faced with the enormity of the situation, it seemed impossible.

Milliardo and Relena would continue to lose sleep for the foreseeable future.


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Sixty-Three: Combat training begins for the Bridlewood Eight, and Heero gives Quatre the green light to put his mystery plan into motion.

Sorry for the delay! =@_@= That was a very, very, very long day I just lived through, so because of general tiredness, I'll keep this short. Next episode. October 25th. Historical notes coming. Stuff about Levi's and Victorian musclemen. Bridlewood index. Update soon. Cookbook. More recipes. Sleep. Need. (I've told you what's coming, now guess where I'm going! =z_z= ja ne!)