Disclaimer: I know, from traipsing through every store, mall, and boutique in the Greater Toronto Area, that nobody has Gundam pilots for sale. I even offered to pay retail instead of the supposed sale price, but they still said no. Therefore, I cannot possibly own these magnificent examples of manhood, or the chicks they hang out with. Do not sue me. I have no money except that miniscule amount reserved for presents.
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Seventy-Seven: Hello, I Must Be Going
"Tempora mutantur, et nos mutanmur in illis. - Times change, and we change with them." ~Latin AnonymousMarch 25th, 1903
Getting into Morocco was apparently the easy part. Once Trowa returned with the message that Lucrezia was switching allegiances, news which was not well-received by Heero, they begrudgingly untethered their camel, hastily strapped their luggage to her back, and high-tailed it out of the citadel. They didn't know how long it would take for Lord Jeffrhyss' guards to come after them, so they couldn't afford the smallest delay, even to check their direction. As they fled in the middle of the night, Trowa occasionally glanced up at the stars, struggling to find clues that they were indeed headed back towards Marrakesh, but after sustaining so many shocks over the last few hours, he didn't wholly trust his own judgement.
To complicate matters, their camel was only willing to go so far without sleep, and then she plopped herself down on a patch of sandy loam and refused to budge. She was asleep within seconds, and no amount of tugging on the reins would shift her. The boys stood around and stared at the 1200-pound beast for awhile, then made a close study of the darkened horizon. It didn't look like they were being followed, for a start, and they were just as much in need of sleep as the camel, it being a scant few hours before sunrise. Trowa eventually convinced Heero that they'd have to stop and rest sometime or they'd collapse, and that it might actually be tougher for the guards to find them in the wilderness than in the city, where there were thousands of witnesses to everything. If not for the fact that most of their money was tied up in the camel, they would have taken their suitcases and set her free, but she was yet another reason why they should just grab a short nap and continue on in the morning, so that was what they did.
The next several days were full of setbacks, delays, disappointments and general negativity as they tried to get back home. The only person interested in buying their camel drove the hardest bargain of all, so because of desperation for time, they sold her at a slight loss. Then, the train back to the coast was delayed by several hours, because of some problem on the track. Following that, all the boats back to Europe seemed to be booked solid, and there was a two-day waiting list. They used that two days instead to travel further north, and eventually found a fishing boat that was willing to take them across to Spain, for a price. It got them closer to home, but left them practically broke. For days more, the pair slouched their way ever northward, trying to look inconspicuous but always looking over their shoulders until, mostly due to the kindness of strangers, they found themselves on a slow boat to Brighton.
From there, it was hitchhiking all the way back to London, and by the time they dragged themselves up to the front door of Bridlewood, they weren't in the mood to take on any more problems, but as soon as they plodded up the stairs and pushed open the door, which was strangely left unlocked, they didn't have much of a choice.
"...and wearing this greyish-purple waistcoat, right? And.....yeah, I'll hold! Geez..." Not even two feet in the door, Heero and Trowa stopped, and looked at each other. That was Duo's voice, and he sounded extremely frustrated at something. They walked the rest of the way inside, shut the door, set their cases down and hesitantly looked around for hints of Otto's presence, all while moving slowly towards the source of the disgruntled voice. In the north hall, they found Duo, pacing back and forth past the Chippendale table with the telephone in his hands and the earpiece pressed to one ear. He had his white chef's tunic and his denims on, and his hair looked very hastily thrown together in as sloppy a braid as either of the boys had ever seen. When he turned around and started pacing back, he spotted Heero, looked surprised and happy for about half a second, then sighed with his whole body and pressed the mouthpiece of the telephone to his chest as he whispered harshly, "Where have you been!?"
Heero opened his mouth to explain the events of the last week and a half, but whoever was on the other end of the telephone started speaking again, and Duo's attention was dragged away. "Hello? ...what!? ...I just told all this to Constable What's-his-nuts half an hour ago! Don't you people write anything down!? ...okay, okay...he's five-foot-four, I guess about a hundred and forty pounds, light blond hair..."
Trowa paled. One person sprang immediately to mind upon hearing that description, and he rushed past Heero to grab Duo by the arm. "What's going on?"
"...hold on a sec," Duo blurted into the phone, and then he pressed the mouthpiece against his tunic again and looked sadly up at Trowa. "Quat's gone missing."
Upon hearing the news, Trowa's skin began to crawl, and he wandered away a few feet to think, clutching a handful of his dusty clothes just above his heart. There were many reasons why a person could vanish from sight, but Trowa instantly felt that he knew what was wrong, and what drove the gardener to flee his erstwhile home. Oh no...what's he done? I told him we were fine, didn't he believe me? He must not have felt able to leave while I was around, so he waited.....oh, Quat, why didn't you believe me?
Behind him, Duo had resumed arguing with the desk officer at the police station, and Heero was leaning against the back of a chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. "...I don't know if he's a landed immigrant or not! What difference does that make anyway!? Missing is missing!" The chef was becoming increasingly exasperated at the way the information he sent over the phone line seemed to get lost when it hit the officer's ear. "Is he over eighteen? ...I don't know...does he have to be? ...well, I was just asking!! Why don't you send someone over here instead of making snide remarks at me, huh!?" Whatever the officer said next cheesed Duo off pretty badly; he slammed the phone down on the table, hurling the earpiece down so hard that it bounced, then stalked away a few feet. "Useless people!..."
Calmly, Heero hung up the earpiece properly, effectively ending the call. This was all he needed. "How long has he been gone?" he asked without looking up.
"Since you left," Duo answered without turning around. "Hilde said he was just going out for awhile, and he told her not to worry about him, and that was the last anyone heard. I keep calling the police, but they haven't done anything yet, because technically, if he just walked out the door and left, he isn't a 'missing person.'" Gradually, he looked over his shoulder at Heero, desperately in need of a hug but too burdened with complications to think about a happy reunion. "That isn't all you've missed either."
Heero took a step or two forward, already glaring. "Break it to me gently, I've had a rough week."
Duo whipped around and went into gradiose explanatory mode, his hands in the air to punctuate his speech. "Okay, well...a few days ago...Thursday. Thursday morning, Otto comes barging in all of a sudden, lines us up, and he starts pacing, like this..." He clasped his hands behind his back, stood up as tall as he could, puffed out his chest, and walked back and forth past Heero a few times, making a great show of looking down his nose at him. Then he stopped suddenly. "...and he starts barking on about how disappointed Relena is in all of us because we've let the house run to ruin, and how things are going to be different, and how if we don't like it, we can just leave! And since then he's been advertising for more staff in the post office and the newspaper!"
"He's not replacing you, is he?" Heero asked, looking suddenly concerned.
Duo stuck his hands in his pockets and gazed off to the side. "No, seems my job's safe for the moment. Yours, on the other hand..." He looked up, and was able to see that this did not come as a surprise to his friend. That was very disturbing. "What happened? Things have been wrong here before, but...not like this."
"Is Otto here now?"
"He's out."
Heero nodded thoughtfully, then glanced over at Trowa. He seemed lost in a world of his own, and didn't appear ready to be disturbed after hearing the news about Quatre. "Maybe I have time to clean up first, and then I'll tell you the epic saga..." He dragged himself up the stairs and vanished, but only for a little while. He would soon have to pack his things, after all.
**********Quatre's routine hadn't changed much over the past couple of weeks. He got three square meals a day at nine, one, and six o'clock sharp, and while he never got to choose what was served to him, it was always leftovers of whatever Lady Une was eating, so that much was difficult to complain about. Boredom was a key component of his day; the attic room had been fixed up fairly well as a living space, with a bed and a desk and even its own bathroom, but that was about it. Storage boxes and spiders were his only companions. At least the tiny window was facing east.
At that particular moment, he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with the window in it, staring across the tiny room at his reflection in a tall, free-standing mirror. He had his knees propped up at an angle, his arms resting on his knees, and his hands clasped together in mid-air; he had been that way for three hours straight. His half-eaten breakfast of French toast and a fancy folded omelette lay on its plate a foot or two away, because he found he just wasn't getting as hungry as usual anymore. He just sat there, and sat, and sat, staring at himself in the mirror so hard that eventually, though he refused to believe it at first, his reflection blinked when he did not. He stared a bit harder, and the reflection turned his head a little, eyeing Quatre at a bit of an angle. It was another half hour later, at least, when the reflection spoke.
"How long are you going to sit there?" it said.
Quatre stopped breathing, listening to the empty room and wondering if he had imagined the sound of his own voice talking to him. He hadn't felt his mouth moving, but he had distinctly seen his reflection's lips forming the words, as clearly as if he had done it himself. That didn't compute. "...what?"
The reflection folded its arms and looked rather offended. "Sorry, it just looks to me like you've given up."
"I haven't given up!" Quatre shot back. "I'm just...sitting for a minute. Can't a man sit and let his breakfast digest in peace anymore?"
"You need some fresh air," the reflection scolded, wagging a finger at Quatre. "You're going a little nutty in here by yourself, did you know that?"
Quatre scoffed at his reflection. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm just a bit confused lately, that's all."
"Confused?" the reflection laughed. "Um, no. 'Confused' would be you walking into a restaurant and asking for the kosher menu. This is a full-blown identity crisis."
"Shut up! No it's not!" Upon realising that he had just shouted at thin air, Quatre blushed and ducked his head a bit. Maybe he was experiencing a touch of cabin fever, come to think of it...but that was no reason for his hallucination to speak so rudely to him. "What's your point?"
The reflection actually stood up at that point, and walked purposefully to the edge of the reversed space behind the glass, stopping right at the mirror's surface without going through it. "Nobody's looking for you, and it's your own stupid fault. If you want out of here, you're going to have to do it yourself." Then, the reflection quickly pointed an arm to his right, which was Quatre's left, at the closet in the corner of the room. "Now, get up and get back to work!"
"Yes, sir." Meekly, Quatre rolled over onto his knees and gradually stood, then started walking over to the closet. First, though, he paused, walked over to the mirror while his now obedient reflection copied his movements, and raised a hand to the glass. He knocked on it lightly, and the reflection knocked on the other side at the same spot and at the same time. It wasn't moving by itself or talking back anymore. Quatre eyed the mirror suspiciously as he walked away.
Over in the corner, in the wall perpendicular to the wall with the window, was a linen closet of sorts, with flimsy shelves that had been tacked up with four nails each. The very day he had been captured, the gardener had searched for a means of escape, and the only moderately interesting thing in the room had been the old linen closet. After removing the shelves and hiding them under the bed, he knocked lightly on the inside and detected a hollow space behind the right-hand wall, possibly the closet of the next room. It was strange, seeing so much closet space when free-standing wardrobes were the fashion, but Quatre didn't ask questions. Starting that day, and working on it a little bit at a time throughout the weeks, he had been chipping away at plaster and paint on the interior right wall of the closet, hoping to eventually break through to the other side, wherever it led him.
The reflection was right; his time was much too valuable to waste sitting around moping. He crawled back into the closet and set to work again, widening the gouge he had carved out of the little wall. Breaking through the plaster lath was difficult, but the metal forks and knives that always came with his meals were a great help. The rest was down to patience, and time.
**********"...and so we ended up stranded in this Spanish monastery, and the monks had to call in a favour from the local beet farmer to take us as far as Valencia on the back of his cart, and it was just...hitching rides all the way to the coast." Heero looked nice and neat, all cleaned up in a fresh suit, but he still sounded terribly tired, and recounted most of his sad tale while leaning heavily over the kitchen table, with his head propped up on one set of knuckles. "It was the only way we'd have enough money to cross the Channel." Duo and Hilde were huddled around him, and Shadow had sauntered under the table and jumped up into his lap, but he still couldn't quite relax. The clock was ticking.
"And Jeffrhyss never caught up with you?" Hilde asked without thinking.
Heero lifted his head and let the hand propping it up fall to the table with a slap, glaring. "I'd hardly be here talking to you if he did."
While Hilde blushed and smirked and looked away, Duo sat rather solemnly, slowly going over the facts out loud with his eyes plastered down on the tabletop. "So...if Otto's already looking for a new butler...that must mean..."
With an inaudible sigh, Heero confirmed what Duo was thinking but didn't really want to hear. "He fired me."
"So...what're you going to do now?"
"I can't stay here. He'll probably have me arrested if I'm not gone by the time he gets back." As Heero leaned back in his chair a bit, Shadow sat up on her haunches and kneaded the front of his shirt with her paws, purring. "I shouldn't stay anyway...this is the first place Jeffrhyss' guards might look for me, and I can't put anyone else at risk because of my mistake."
Duo didn't like the sound of that one bit. He'd waited weeks for Heero to return, at the very least so he could get a decent night's sleep at last. "Where will you go?"
"I'll stay at Catherine's tonight, until I can think of something better," said Heero, sounding unpleasantly resigned to it. There wasn't a great deal of discussion about it after that, and he was mildly surprised that Duo didn't protest more, but the chef had been in the business long enough to know that some things had to be done for the good of the mission, and those were the things he had to bite his lip and suffer through.
During a lull in the conversation, Trowa plodded down the stairs and went immediately for his coat. He didn't look well at all; in fact, he looked downright sickly, as he was finding more and more new ways to blame himself for Quatre's departure. He buttoned himself up while looking outside at the light drizzle that had started, then half-turned his head towards the others. "I'm going to go check with his sisters.....see if he's turned up there or something..." he muttered. Hilde followed him out the back door with an umbrella, offering as many kind words as she could, leaving Duo and Heero to stew in the resultant fog of despair.
Long after he was gone, while the pair of them were still sitting in silent contemplation, Duo slumped forward and rested his head on his folded arms. "Poor guy..."
Heero thought about it for awhile, then shook his head. Nothing made any sort of sense recently. "Did Quatre give any indication at all why he had to leave? Did it have anything to do with his family?"
"No idea," said Duo. "I should've kept a closer eye on him. I think maybe he wished he could've gone with you, but so did I, and I never felt the need to run off like tha--"
Even from several rooms away, on a different floor, they clearly heard the front door opening and almost slamming shut. Then a booming male voice shouted for Doris. Heero and Duo looked up at each other. Otto! they seemed to think at each other across the space between them, and they jumped up out of their chairs and ran light-footed up the servants' stairs, hoping to make it to their room before Otto found them and exploded.
They made it up to the second floor landing, and then had to leave the security of the stairwell to make it the rest of the way. Otto was nowhere to be seen, so they tip-toed down the hall towards their room, known to Otto as Heero's room alone. Things were going well until they opened the door and saw Otto himself, standing in the doorway as if he had been waiting for them, arms folded and looking as stern as ever. The boys actually jumped a bit, and Heero, forgetting until just then that he was still carrying Shadow, handed her off to Duo and then glared at the house steward. "I was just going to pack."
Otto stared at him with burning hot eyes, then took out a pocket watch, glanced at it, and stared again. "Fifty nine minutes, forty-five seconds."
Heero pushed past him and into his room, crouching down to remove his old, battered suitcase from under the bed. Otto slowly stalked out the door and past Duo, who glared at him a bit as Shadow flattened her ears against her head and growled. "'Hello' might've been nice," he snarked daringly.
Otto pausing to lean forward and back the chef up a few inches. "Fifty-nine minutes, twenty-seven seconds." Then he left.
For the next little while, Duo reluctantly helped his friend gather together his meagre possessions for relocation to a new environment. He had been looking forward to a happy reunion and a big hug so badly, and now he was being deprived of both. It didn't seem fair. During their work, they made idle chit-chat about how life in London was going, because neither really wanted to discuss what could happen next. If Jeffrhyss was dead, or even injured, Heero's safety was greatly in question, but it all seemed to big and monstrous to think about.
Duo found Heero another old suitcase from the attic to carry the overflow, and when they had finished packing, they marched downstairs to the foyer, where Otto was waiting with one eye on his watch. As his final gesture, Otto held the door open for Heero on his way out, and even as Hilde came scampering in from the back of the house to see the boy off, she was stopped cold by the gruff man's presence, and not a word was spoken by anyone. Heero didn't even waste a glare on the man, he just strode outside with his head held high and his dignity intact, the same way he had entered the house nearly two years previous. Otto locked the door behind him, and departed the foyer immediately afterwards. Duo, who was still carrying Shadow in his arms, snarled after him as he scratched the cat behind the ear. "I know someone who's getting liver for dinner," he said, and he didn't mean Shadow. Hilde put an arm around him and patted his shoulder sympathetically as they made their way back to the kitchen.
No one else had bothered turning up to see Heero off, though it was just the housemaids left anyway. He told himself he didn't care, that the housemaids had been more trouble than they were worth since the very beginning, and that he was better off not seeing them, but somehow that wasn't enough. It would have been nice to see a few more friendly faces...not required, just nice. He felt as though he were forgetting someone all the same...
"Laddie!"
A semi-hushed voice calling out from Heero's right as he walked by the corner of the mansion jogged his memory. He stopped, looked up, and saw Arthur standing by the side of the house in his overalls and cap, looking like he'd gotten a head start on the spring planting in Quatre's absence. Not wanting to get the man into trouble for speaking to an outcast, Heero glanced briefly at the front door to make sure Otto wasn't watching, then walked up along the hedge to meet the kindly carpenter, setting his cases on the ground when he was safely out of sight.
"It's a bad business," Arthur said in a worried tone. "What wi' you gettin' the sack, an' little Quatre gone missin'...feels like it's got Treize's dirty fingerprints all over't."
"Part of this is my own fault," Heero admitted, "but if I can't figure out where he's disappeared to..."
"You'll not give up on 'im, will you?" Arthur asked solemnly.
Arthur had always been fond of Quatre, like the grandson he never had, and he was just as worried as everybody else put together that he had vanished without saying goodbye. "Certainly not," Heero declared with confidence.
With one hand, Arthur removed his cap, exposing his pudgy, balding head, and the other hand he extended to Heero. "Take care, Laddie. An' keep in touch."
Heero clasped the hand and shook it, etching into his memory the face of the first person at Bridlewood to show him genuine kindness. Then he picked up his bags, walked back down to the street and melted into the city, concentrating on nothing else other than putting one foot in front of the other until the rampant chattering in his head quieted enough so that he could think.
**********Digging with his trusty butter knife, Quatre had slowly scraped away enough of the inner closet wall to open a half-inch hole to the other side. It was pitch black. That was actually a good sign, because if there had been any lights on in the other room, it would have been much harder to sneak into it once the hole was large enough. That was the first ray of hope he'd seen in a fortnight, and he was clinging to it for dear life. Even so...once I get into this other room, it's going to take some hard work to sneak out of the house without being noticed. Now I wish I'd paid better attention when Heero gave us that two-hour lecture on how to beat squeaky floorboards.
Footsteps approached. Quatre froze long enough to recognize this fact and hastily pulled himself out of the closet, shutting the door silently. He ran to the bed, wiped the plaster dust off the butter knife using the innermost blanket, and set it down on his lunch tray just as the door to his prison cell opened. It wasn't time for any scheduled meal deliveries, so the arrival of Lady Une's snooty butler was a complete surprise.
As per usual, the balding man nudged the door open with his clenched right fist, which perpetually held a little pearl-handled Derringer, discreet but deadly. It was trained on Quatre the second the door was opened, and would remain so until it was closed again. Inching icily into the room, the butler made quite sure that the boy was well away from the door, and then stepped aside to let a couple of burly brutes enter next. Unarmed but still determined to have their way, the brutes marched forward, grabbed Quatre by an arm apiece, sat him down in the chair that belonged to the writing desk, and tied his wrists to the arms of the chair with coarse twine that bit into his thinned cotton shirt cuffs like barbed wire. This was far from the usual routine, so even while Quatre glared nastily at his assailants, he knew something monumental was about to happen.
"Ready, m'lady," the butler called out in a slow and stuffy voice, and in walked Lady Une, as if by magic. She hadn't bothered putting on her finest gown to make a royal visit to the dusty old attic, so she looked a little plainer than usual in a pale cream and viridian striped dress, but her face was still made up to the fullest. She strolled in delightedly with her dainty hands clasped behind her, and was followed closely by her beloved fiancé, Treize. He looked as if he had just sauntered up the stairs on his way to do something else, with a dark casual suit and a folded newspaper under one arm. He was also halfway through a cigar.
"See, darling? He's perfectly alright up here," Une cooed to her lover. Walking behind the writing desk chair, she gazed up and down at her little captive, quite proud of herself.
Treize stopped so he was framed exactly in the doorway, making a menacing picture indeed. "Well, well, Mister 'Sagheer'.....it seems you've been keeping secrets. Naughty gardener!" He flicked his cigar out of habit, and the red embers landed a little too near Quatre's foot for comfort. "I'm sure if you told me from the start that you were the heir to a fortune, we would have become great friends instead of...oh, how would you put it, my dear?" he finished, turning to Une.
Her Ladyship smiled cattily. "A birdkeeper and a little pigeon with his wings clipped?"
"You're wasting your time," Quatre snarled. "Back home there are plenty members of my family left who won't be so easily captured, and could never be killed. They're going to take our case to the highest court possible and have the tontine dissolved, so there's no way you'll see one penny of it." At this point, he was willing to say anything to detract attention from those members of his family who were living just across town.
"Somehow I don't think so," Treize shot back, stepping forward and leaning right down into Quatre's face while perching his cigar hand on the back of the chair. "Understand that I make my livelihood doing this sort of thing...tracking people down, extracting what I want from them, and discarding what remains."
"You can't keep it up forever. One day you'll make a fatal mistake, and then someone's going to lop your head off to pay you back for all the pain you've caused. My family probably won't even have to do it...I'm sure you've made more than enough enemies who would love to see you get your comeuppance."
From behind, Une stroked the boy's face and hair lovingly. "Now, stop that! You mustn't upset yourself...unhappy thoughts can lead to poor health, and we want to keep you in top condition if we want to win, don't we? We can't claim the money if you're dead from a stress-induced heart attack, can we?" She paused suddenly, then swooped lower to examine the top of Quatre's head as she ran her fingers through his hair. The feathery blondness stopped about an eighth of an inch above his scalp. "Ooh, look at that...your roots are showing!" she chirped, wide-eyed.
"Get off!" Quatre barked, jerking his head away sharply. Une sniffed at him and walked away, pretending to be offended.
Treize raised a forked eyebrow at the exchange, taking another long drag of his cigar. "Well, I suppose now that I've seen your state of health and confirmed your identity, I can get back to my newspaper." He turned and sauntered out, with Une close behind, and that was that. The burly brutes untied Quatre under the watchful eye of the butler, who was eventually the last to leave. The gun was pointed at him until the very last second when the door latched shut, and suddenly, the boy was alone again. A key clicked in the lock, and the ordeal was over as quickly as it had begun. Une had just wanted to show off the present she had procured for her man, and she would be soaking up his accolades for days to come, but they hadn't won yet.
There were less than two hours now before someone would be coming up to collect the lunch tray and replace it with a dinner tray. Quatre picked up the knife, went back to the closet, and resumed scraping.
**********Catherine was naturally saddened by the news that Heero had lost his job, but was nevertheless glad to have her favourite tenant back. Since Wufei was still in his old room, she offered him one of the newer suites over the renovated wing. It was a bit more spacious, and the decorating was top-notch, but even though he put a grateful face on for Catherine's sake, on the inside he just couldn't get enthused. Bridlewood felt like home to him; during his abscence, he actually missed it. Now he had no idea where he belonged.
Trowa was still there talking to Quatre's sisters when Heero arrived. The cinnamon-haired boy looked distraught in a restrained sort of way, as if he was trying to be brave for the girls' sake, but they were soon just as worried as he was, for they hadn't heard a peep out of their brother since before he disappeared. Heero joined in their debate for awhile as they tossed around theories, but after a short time, the girls seemed too despondent to carry on. Their family had been through too much torment to have very much faith about anything, and it showed; Hessa began talking about 'what a good brother he was,' and the twins skittered away somewhere to cry together. Yasmeen was in no mood for tears, however. She sat in a corner, limbs folded and eyes terse as she stared at nothing. It was difficult to tell how quickly the wheels in her head were turning, but she was hardly the type of person to take an attack such as this lying down. Somewhere in the back of her head, she was already hatching a plan.
Eventually, Heero tired of the discussion and retreated to his room to think. He flopped on his new bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time, trying to piece together what might have been going through Quatre's mind, or what might have been cleverly placed into his mind to make him more vulnerable; he wasn't ruling out kidnapping, not by a long shot. Dinnertime rolled around, but he didn't have much of an appetite, and he lolled around his room well into the night, constantly looking at the clock and imagining what Duo might be doing at any particular moment. It was very soothing to think of him.
Before he could drift further away, there was a light tapping at his door. It could have been just about anyone, and most of the possibilities were at least somewhat threatening. Instantly on his guard, he sat up and eyed the door menacingly, but contrary to his normal instincts, he didn't make that lightning-fast grab for his gun. The vile thing had been cleaned, polished, and put away in its case the moment he had the room to himself, and he wasn't keen on taking it out again after his little mishap. That meant he would have to face whatever was on the other side of the door the hard way. He stood up and walked ever so silently to the door, taking so long that the person knocked again, a little louder than before. Finally, Heero grasped the door handle, pulled the wooden slab open a crack, and was met by a pair of sad violet eyes on a cherubic face. Blinking in surprise, he opened the door the rest of the way and sighed with relief.
Duo smirked a bit. "Hey."
"Hey," Heero returned gratefully. He stepped back, wordlessly inviting the other boy in, and closed the door behind him once he was inside. Then he noticed that Duo was carrying his old carpet bag, the one he found in the attic and adopted on a semi-permanent basis. It was bulging with unknown things, so obviously the chef had been packing as well. Heero looked shocked and worried. "Duo, you haven't quit have you?"
"Nah," he said, tilting his head a bit. "Thought about it...but then I thought about what you'd say if I turned down a perfectly good paycheck."
Heero was pleased to hear that Duo had more sense than to throw away a steady job when the unemployment rate was still soaring. Nevertheless, he pointed at the bag. "So, what's all this?"
"Um...I was...sorta wondering...if maybe I could crash here tonight." Suddenly Duo felt all nervous and tingly, like the first night he offered to let Heero bunk up with him after the kittens were born. It was a good feeling, in a way, a fun sort of tugging sensation right around his bellybutton. "Don't worry, nobody saw me coming up here, and I'll be gone first thing in the morning, so nobody'll see me leave either. I'll kinda have to be up at the crack of dawn, to get back over to the house and make breakfast!"
Taking it all in, Heero glanced down and smiled a bit. How noble Duo could be when he really tried! It would mean a lot of extra work for Duo, traipsing back and forth between Peckham and Regents Park, but the simple offer itself was just what Heero needed to boost his spirits. Still, before he could let his friend make such a sacrifice, he had to make sure it wasn't being presented without proper thought. He glanced over at the bed, which was hardly large enough for one person, let alone two, then looked back at Duo. "There's...not much room..."
"I don't care," Duo said, putting the bag down with a smile.
"...and there's no snacking in the middle of the night, either..."
Duo crept forward, standing toe-to-toe with Heero, and wrapped his arms around the other boy's waist, still smiling. "I don't care."
Feeling a rush of warmth, Heero's arms curled slowly around Duo completely under their own power, and he began to feel more and more at home. "...it'll be more running around for you...and you'll have to be out every morning at the crack of dawn, and--"
"Heero! ...you're not listening." Duo hugged him tighter and leaned his head on his shoulder. "I hardly got any sleep the whole time you were gone, and when you didn't come home after a week, it was ten times worse! I didn't know what happened, or if you were alright..." He lifted his head and leaned it against Heero's, just so that the tips of their noses were touching cutely. "I can hear what you're thinking...that I'd be safer at the manor with Jeffrhyss tracking you down...but you know I can't stay there when you're stuck half-way across town. It'll be okay, I promise.....don't send me away..."
He couldn't have sent Duo away, even if he tried. All the time he was gone, he had been worrying silently in the back of his mind that something was wrong with the way he felt about Duo, that he was only running towards him because he was actually running away from something else. All the time he was gone, he had been waiting to get back home and test the theory, to hold Duo close and find out if the feeling was real, or if they had been kidding themselves all this time. Hoping desperately that the former was true, he held both arms snug and flat against Duo's back, pulled him nearer, and kissed him...a long, soft, good-to-see-you kiss, the one they should have been able to share the moment Heero returned. The irritating feeling of not belonging anywhere was gone, for home was wherever Duo happened to be, no matter what size or shape the space came in. As for the physical pull between them...it felt real enough, for now. Following the kiss, he pulled back a bit and tugged playfully on Duo's braid. "I didn't get any sleep either," he whispered.
It was a puzzle how they did it, but somehow they managed to both squeeze into that one little bed for the rest of the night.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Seventy-Eight: Heero and Duo find their new routines to be a difficult adjustment, and someone takes the law into their own hands on Quatre's behalf.
Heyaz! =^_^= If you're reading this at FFN, please swing by my website and answer a quick poll, it's reeeeeally important. And for everyone, next epiode will arrive on April 4th, so enjoy the sights, sounds, and *snifffff* smells of Spring until then!