Bridlewood Manor

by Mitsugi

BACK FROM THE DEAD! (1-2-1) The ongoing saga of a Japanese spy and an American waif, thrown together in a tapestry of espionage, romance and murder in London of the early 1900s, with the fabulous Peacecraft estate as a backdrop for their adventures.

83. Joining You READ THE WARNING!

BIG-ASS WARNING: ...you heard me. What lies ahead is not for the prudish. Semi-graphic sexual content of the shounen-ai variety, but not in a NC-17 you-must-sign-a-waiver-to-read-this kind of way. I'm not upping the rating on FFN because, as some people have quite rightly pointed out, anyone who's made it this far through the story sorta knows what to expect. But I could have upped the rating, so you get an extended warning. I'm soooo deadly serious. Don't go on reading unless you're ready for it. (And you might wanna watch out for a kind of time-distortion, so I can show you the same moment from two perspectives.)

Disclaimer: These characters are used and abused without permission, I admit that. But they enjoy it. :)

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Eighty-Three: Joining You

"Your love is better than chocolate,
Better than anything else that I've tried." ~Sarah MacLachlan, "Ice Cream"

June 4th, 1903

It really wasn't in Wufei's nature to be particularly helpful, but in the back of his mind he remembered his half-hearted promise to Heero, that he would keep an ear to the ground in case there was any chatter about him along Jeffrhyss' lines of communication. He was strangely eager to pass along what information he had gathered, and waited at the top of the stairs for Heero early that morning, pacing anxiously. When Heero emerged from his room, still yawning, Wufei strode right up to him and blocked his path.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked quickly, grabbing the drowsy lad by the arm before he could stumble down the stairs.

Heero wasn't having the best of weeks, and therefore wasn't in the best of moods. He scowled and took his arm back grumpily. "I suppose so."

Oddly, Wufei ignored the truculence of his reply. "It's just that I've been..." He paused, looked down either end of the hall, and resumed at a low whisper. "I've been listening for your name, like you asked me to."

That woke Heero up instantly, and they both looked down either end of the hall again, to make sure they weren't overheard, and then tramped halfway down the steps for good measure. "And?"

Wufei shrugged. "And nothing," he said simply. "I've asked around to all my old contacts, and none of them have heard so much as a peep about you from the higher echelons. I didn't believe it at first...I mean, the thought that you of all people would get off without a scratch after shooting--"

"Keep your voice down!" Heero insisted with a hushing hand gesture.

"I don't see why," Wufei snarked. "If Jeffrhyss doesn't care that you're a trigger-happy lunatic, nobody else should. Just be grateful you're not being hauled in for disciplinary action."

It made little sense. After quite possibly maiming Lord Jeffrhyss, the organization as good as let Heero escape, and he still couldn't work out why, but perhaps Wufei was right. He nodded. "I appreciate the effort."

He nearly got down the stairs again for his breakfast, but Wufei caught him by the arm a second time. "Just a minute..."

"What, another one?"

"I did you a favour, now I want to ask you something..." A third and final time, Wufei looked around for eavesdroppers, then moved closer, to an almost unnatural proximity. "The day you gave me this assignment...was I my usual self?"

Heero was trying to lean away from the boy, but was impeded by the wall, trapped like a frightened gazelle. "How do you mean?"

"I mean...did I say anything...unusual?" Wufei realised far too late after that meeting that he had been babbling about pouncing on Treize in front of the one person with the wherewithal to stop him from exacting his revenge. Now he wanted to assess the damage.

Heero shrugged. "Not that I recall...but I'll admit, I wasn't paying much attention. Why?"

Wufei stared straight into his eyes to make sure he wasn't lying, then slapped him on the back and smiled. "Never mind." He went back up to the second floor of the pub and vanished, and that was that.

While Heero puzzled over the exchange, the telephone rang down the stairs and around the corner, behind the bar. Catherine was there in a flash to answer it, and by the time Heero made it the rest of the way down the stairs, she was standing with her entire weight shifted to one leg, staring at him tiredly. She had the earpiece pressed to the front of her shoulder and a hand over the receiver, to muffle her words from the caller's ear. Her eyes were throwing tiny daggers in Heero's direction. "I'm not lying for you anymore. You got something to say to him, you tell him yourself."

Heero stared at the telephone and took a deep breath. Duo again. They hadn't stood in the same room since before Heero overheard him talking to Helen. Talking about leaving. Heero kept making excuses for not dropping by. It felt terrible, but he was too scared to do anything else. Never in all his years of training had he ever been threatened with being tossed out into the cold if he failed to perform, so these new fears were doubly excruciating. He dropped his head down a bit and took the earpiece from Catherine as she gratefully marched away, then spoke quietly into the device. "Hello?"

"Where have you been?" Duo sounded more desperate than usual. "Every time I call, you're out somewhere, and it's not that easy to get upstairs to talk to you! Why haven't you come to see me?"

"I've been busy," Heero lied, ".....interviewing." The employment agency hadn't come up with anything yet. He hadn't had a single job interview in spite of the fact that the domestic servant market was still booming.

"Well, get your butt over here," Duo demanded. "There's something very important that we need to discuss, now."

I'll bet there is, Heero thought morosely. 'It was nice knowing you' followed by 'I'll send you a postcard now and then.' There was no explanation for Heero's lack of faith, except what doubts were embedded into his poor self-image, to which he was blind. "It's not that easy getting over there to talk to you either."

"Oh, come off it. Every time something goes 'bump', the girls all think it's you and they start panicking. Otto's had the police here three times in the last week over nothing, and he's that close to getting written up for wasting an officer's time. Even if you walk right through the front door, they won't bother investigating, seriously! Just come over and talk to me, please?"

Heero stood for a long time, not saying anything. "It might not be until after dark," he managed at last, giving himself ample time to think about what to say when Duo said goodbye.

On the other end, relying on his faithful lookout to give him the high-sign from down the hall in case Bertram Augustus came near, Duo sighed quietly. "I'll take what I can get," he told Heero, and they wrapped up the conversation quickly after that. Duo fled back down the north hall away from the telephone and collected his lookout, Quatre, pulling him downstairs to the kitchen, where they immediately hung a right and hid in the communal bedchamber.

"Is he coming?" Quatre asked after catching his breath.

"Yeah..." Duo picked a bunk at random and slumped down onto it, sighing again. "I wish he'd just tell me what's wrong instead of..." He shook his head. "I dunno what I'm going to say to him now. I don't think I even know why I bother sometimes."

"Yes, you do," Quatre prodded. "Maybe you just need reminding from time to time. We all do."

Swayed momentarily by sweet wisdom, Duo smiled at a vague patch of blank air near the floor. "You're right, as usual...I just get so frustrated when he goes back to acting like a soulless machine, but...that's still part of what makes him so..." Falling back against the bed, he splayed his arms out to either side and gazed at the ceiling. His voice grew continually softer as he reminded himself of his affection, hugging himself tightly. "He's everything I wish I was. He's smart, he's strong, he's not afraid of anything...he's pure danger and he's everything I've ever needed. That's why I have to find someplace quiet to talk to him...because...I'm, uh...I'm going to ask him.....if he wants to..."

He really wasn't going to say it out loud, but little did Duo know that he didn't need to. Quatre could feel the sensual tension building up in the other boy's body, and at that point, he officially knew more than he wanted to know. Then he struggled, red-faced, for a way to change the subject, but a shrill woman's yell coming from the kitchen changed it for him. "In the name of sanity, what's this!?"

Duo sat straight up, then leapt off the bunk and raced into the kitchen, where Merlyn was attempting to frost a butter pecan layer cake with what she thought was vanilla icing. In one hand, she held a fully-charged pastry bag with a shell tip, and a kind of pale goo was oozing out. Some of the goo was on the cake, and it didn't hold it's scalloped shape at all as it flattened out and dripped down the sides of the golden brown slabs. Merlyn had a dollop of the stuff on her free hand, her face contorted in disgust as she sniffed it periodically to confirm her horrific discovery. Duo looked at the scene and paled with a scream caught in his throat.

Quatre couldn't see exactly what was wrong. "What happened?"

Merlyn stopped to sniff the gunk one more time and wheeled on Quatre with gallons of undirected rage. "Some addlepated twit has filled this with lilac hand cream!"

Duo shielded his eyes with one hand and tried to sneak out the back on tip-toe.

"You!" Merlyn shouted, twisting around to catch him in the act of escaping. "Did you do this!? Look at that cake now! It's ruined! I can't serve pecan gateau that smells of lilac! Whatever possessed you!?"

Squaring his shoulders, Duo turned around to face her indignantly. If anyone had a right to be angry, after all, it was him. He had carefully searched all the shops for a substance of just the right smoothness and consistency, as per Sally's instructions, gingerly poured it into a disused pastry bag, sifted through a whole box of metal piping tips looking for just the right one that didn't have jagged points for making star shapes and rosettes, and squirrelled the whole package away in his secret drawer, not to be touched again until that glittering, magical moment when he suggested to Heero that it was time they shared their bodies on the highest possible level and Heero said yes. He wasn't sure what would happen after that because he couldn't seem to plan past that one obstacle, but he had a right to leap in without looking, and for that, he needed the treasure that Merlyn had stolen from him. After the disappearance of the big black book, the pastry bag was the only tool he had left. She rearranged his kitchen, usurped his authority, and bored him with endless tales of her own culinary glory on a daily basis, but now she had gone too far. "What possessed you to go snooping around in my private drawer!?"

"So you admit it!?" Merlyn squawked. "My God, man, we have hygienic standards to keep up here!"

"Don't start the lecture until you've answered me! That was in my drawer, on my side of the kitchen, and you had no right to mess with it!!"

Merlyn didn't seem to hear the point Duo was trying to make. She shook her head, making a disapproving cluck of her tongue and stalking right to the dustbin. "I don't know how you expect to get on in the world if you're going to pull stupid stunts like this! If a jar of something breaks, you find another jar to put the contents in, not--" Without warning, she lifted the bin's lid and prepared to dump the pastry bag inside, but Duo flew right across the room in one leap and snatched it out of her hands. In the resultant flash of panic, they both squeezed the bag at the same time, and an enormous stream of lilac hand cream spewed forth, partly in the bin but also partly on Duo, and a great deal on the floor.

There was a shocked silence, during which Merlyn wanted to scream but couldn't because of etiquette constraints. Duo simply inhaled, tensing and straightening up as he composed himself and looked over at Quatre for support. The gardener was staring bug-eyed at the pastry bag, and had been ever since he figured out specifically what it was for. He looked positively paralytic. Finding no help there, Duo looked back at Merlyn just as a blob of cream slid off his arm and onto the floor with a splat. It was an unmistakable signal that to remain there would only bring further dishonour. Duo brushed a slice of hair out of his eyes, coating it with cream in the process, turned on his heel, and walked slowly and smoothly out of the kitchen, heading for the puny cold room where he had made his temporary home. He felt suitably justified in leaving Merlyn with the mess.

Merlyn looked at Quatre. Quatre looked petrified at being left alone with an angry cook. He backed up into the pantry, pretended to look for a snack, and bolted up the stairs the first chance he got.

**********

Sally was the first to admit, years ago, that becoming a doctor would be an uphill battle, but there was just no preparing for days like this. A mother had just brought her young son to her, seeking only a tiny scrap of good news that no other doctor in London would give her, that her child was at all likely to see his next birthday. The boy was afflicted with diabetes mellitus, and was doomed to a diet bordering on starvation until eventually, he wasted away to nothing. Days like this made Sally wish she had stayed at her first job, where the emotional investment was much lower.

She waited until the woman left, holding back tears and towing the child along by the hand, before she shut her front door and gave herself up to tears of her own. They didn't talk much about this at medical school, about what to do when you couldn't do anything. The whole reason she became a physician was to heal the sick, but it looked a lot simpler in the textbooks for some reason. She couldn't save the whole world, so she settled for a pot of herbal tea and no visitors for the rest of the morning so she could save herself.

The tea calmed her down a bit, but she was still a bit puffy-eyed and sniffly when the doorbell rang. Even thought she had ordered herself to avoid all human contact until she had put her professional face back on, she ended up rising to answer it anyway, pausing to sniff once at the mirror next to the door of her townhouse and put a few strands of hair back into her curly up-do before twisting the knob.

Heero was on the front step, facing away from the door and gazing at some point across the busy street. He turned around soon after the door opened and looked Sally in her slightly reddened face, instantly wondering if something was wrong. He swiftly queried his mental catalogue of things to say to women for all occasions, but found nothing he could feel comfortable with saying to his only maternal role model. "I can come back later."

"No!" Sally commanded. "C'mon...you came all this way, it must be something important." She stepped back from the door, and thought momentarily that she would have to drag him in by the scruff of the neck, but he gradually ducked his head and squirmed his way inside. Sally noted two new things about him; one was his change in style, characterized by a tan suit instead of his usual black, and the other was the strange quiet that had fallen over him. "Is this visit business or personal?" she asked, closing the door.

Heero half-turned around in the rosewood foyer, sparsely decorated with china cat ornaments, and could only barely look her in the eye as he shrugged, a bit hunched over. "Whatever," he said in an unusually light tone.

Sally folded her arms over her plain white blouse and squinted. 'Nervous' didn't look good on him at all. She beckoned and led him to the back room where her tiny office and examination room sat in a peaceful corner of the townhouse. Heero helped himself to the first chair he saw and slumped forward on his elbows immediately, while Sally perched on the corner of her desk, observing carefully. The boy sat and stared so long that Sally had plenty of time to finish collecting herself from the earlier ordeal. Here was a chance to redeem herself. "So, what's wrong?"

".....I don't know, exactly. Duo...." His hands twitched, one in the other. "He wants something from me."

If Duo had wanted money, time, or anything else that could be measured in analytical units, he would have said so, which gave Sally a pretty good idea of what the problem was. She held back a smirk. "I've been expecting this conversation for some time. Actually, I'm surprised it took you this long to come tell me about it."

Heero looked up quickly. "...about what?"

Sally smiled at the cagey, prideful way he kept his worries to himself, though showing up at her door at all said much more. "Duo came to me for advice awhile back...advice about some very...personal subject matter." She actually saw Heero's cheeks tint themselves rose as he glanced away. Only then was it clear that they both had the same thing in mind. "I listened to his questions, gave him my best medical opinion, and...that was all, for awhile. I figured you'd be along eventually." Memories flooded back to her of Duo's two separate visits, and especially of the second, when he brought the big black book along as a visual aid. It had been an interesting afternoon of sex education, to say the least. "That is what's bothering you, right?"

Again Heero was fiddling with his hands, looking down at them to study every scratch and crease. "Not as much as..." Every few seconds, he tried to look up at her, but couldn't. It was impeding his progress so much that Sally had to shift him to the red plush chaise longue facing away from her so he could concentrate. She stood behind him, forced him to lie back, and even kneaded his shoulder blades a little to loosen him up.

"Start at the beginning," she nudged quietly.

Amid several little noises of frustration, Heero massaged his right temple where a headache was developing, and began the story. "He's been...regrouping with an old friend," he said, "the one you've been sending packages to."

Sally's eyes lit up. "Helen O'Daly! She stopped by here the other day for a checkup, and I took her off the medication. Nice lady."

"You'd think so..."

"...that doesn't sound encouraging. What do you know that I don't?"

Heero didn't like to put such a negative spin on Helen's good nature, because she still seemed to be a very caring individual. "There's nothing wrong with her, it's just.....she wants to take Duo away to Ireland, permanently...and I think he might go."

"He 'might' go?" Sally swiftly put that together with the shaky-voiced visits and the big black book, and crouched behind the lounger so that she was just looking over Heero's left shoulder, keeping a comforting, motherly hand on it. "And you're worried that if he doesn't get what he wants out of you--"

"He never said that!" Heero snapped, almost angrily defending his friend's character.

"Yes, but that's how it feels anyway, isn't it? Whether he comes out and says it or not, it still feels like a gun to your head...and once you've had that feeling, you can't seem to do anything without worrying about whether or not what you do will make him leave."

There was an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice, just a small, soft wavering, and though he couldn't see it, he could almost hear her eyes glazing over. "One would almost think you'd been through this yourself," he gambled.

Sally smirked again, and slapped his shoulder as she stood up beside him. "What, d'you think I hatched out of an egg this way? A worldly know-it-all who never makes mistakes? I've had my share of relationship blunders, for your big fat information."

The disarming way she could lay things out on the verbal table couldn't help but make Heero smile just a tiny bit, and his overall tension level dropped slightly. "And what words of wisdom can you offer, thanks to these blunders?"

Sally paced and thought before pulling a chair up to the chaise so he could make eye contact as she sat, leaning forward with her hands folded on her knees. "I know Duo wouldn't really smack you with an ultimatum like that, and I think you know it too, but that's not really the issue. If the only reason you'd do something would be to make someone else happy...then don't do it. If you're giving up too much of yourself to avoid abandonment, it's not worth it, and it never will be." Then she leaned back a bit, flicking her eyebrows upward. "Then again...if there are, indeed, other reasons..." The question hung in the air, laden down with innuendo and yet wafting effortlessly between them.

Other reasons... Heero slowly sat up, swung his feet back down to the floor, and faced Sally again, hunched over with thought. "When I look at him...I wonder if that's how I might have turned out if I'd been left with my family, whoever they were. He was the first person I was ever really close to after my trainers cut me loose, and he always seems so...naturally happy. In spite of all the ways he sets himself apart from the world...I've come to think of him as...'normal.' Duo represents everything I'm missing in myself.....everything I should've had from the beginning."

What a concise, calculated, boring way of putting it, Sally thought. She leaned forward eagerly with a catlike smile. "That, and...?"

For all of Heero's pretense at innocence, he saw the smile, and understood. Maybe he didn't quite know how to say it yet, but there was an element of love in the equation, hiding behind the psycho-babble. He smiled back a tiny bit, but turned his head away, blushing again. "That...and," he added in a whisper.

Impressed, Sally reached out and patted him on the knee. "When the time comes, you'll know what to do," she advised. "Just remember...Duo thinks the world of you, and a rejection at this point would be devastating."

Heero didn't point out that Duo wasn't the one who had cause to worry about rejection, and that 'when the time comes' should have been 'if.' He never fully opened up on the subject, but Sally was still able to lend him some courage, enough to look Duo in the eye and find out where he stood. All he had to do was get through to him before Helen led him away by the hand like a naughty child.

**********

Arthur had taken the horses out for a bit of exercise, and that left the miniature barn way at the back of the back yard blissfully empty. Trowa vanished from sight at that point. Nobody could find him, though hardly anyone tried. He was often the least in-demand of all the staff, and recently, that lack of status had allowed him to pursue...other interests.

He flopped onto his back in a bed of soft straw, gasping for air as he slowly inched down from a dizzying physical high. A thin layer of sweat glazed his forehead and throat, and his heart stopped racing over a span of two minutes. Lying there, basking in the afterglow, he swam through a mist-covered lake of secret, giddy guilt, the kind one enjoys after doing something just wicked enough to want to avoid getting caught. Up in the hayloft, he could indulge his most private passions without fear.

"...'lo...Trowa! Are you in here?"

Trowa's eyes snapped open in panic. At no time in human history had any man sat up, brushed bits of hay off himself, wiped miscellaneous moisture from his hands onto the bottom hem of his turtleneck, tucked it back into his trousers, buttoned his trousers back up and hid a particular object in the hay as blindingly fast as he did when he heard Quatre's voice at that moment. He finished re-arranging himself and leaned casually back against the wood slat wall with his hands clamped under his arms just as the gardener climbed a few steps up the ladder and poked his feathery blond head into the loft. "Here you are! Is this where you've been all morning?"

Trowa thought so hard about not swallowing nervously that he swallowed nervously without even knowing it. "Sure, I guess."

Not feeling as though he needed an invitation, Quatre climbed the rest of the way up the ladder and into the hayloft, sitting next to Trowa and leaning against the wooden boards in roughly the same way. Trowa mentally calculated the position of the article he had hidden in the straw, and it was smack-dab between them. He swallowed again.

"I hope you won't think I'm meddling," Quatre said without preamble, "but I'm worried about Duo. It was only natural that he took it hard when Heero left, but I think he's been getting worse lately."

Duo was the farthest thing from Trowa's mind that morning. He shook his head like he'd just gotten off a very tall ferris wheel spinning at high speed. "What?"

"He's missing someone very important to him and it really hurts!" the gardener explained. "I just think we should do whatever we can to help him, since he's done so much for us."

"Um...alright..." Trowa still wasn't sure what all this was leading up to. "What did you have in mind, exactly?"

Obviously, Quatre wasn't going to go into tremendous detail about what Duo and Heero might have gotten up to later that day, which would have constituted a breach of a friend's confidence, so he improvised. "Well...all I'm saying is, if they need some time alone to...y'know...talk...then it's up to us to, um...distract the establishment."

Trowa stared blankly. "Distract the people most likely to fire me for insubordination, you mean."

"...essentially."

"...."

"Okay, maybe not," Quatre chuckled as he propped himself up in preparation to clamber back down the ladder. "It was just a thought, really. Anyway, I've got plants to water, and..." His voice trailed off as he looked down at one of his hands. It had hit something hard just underneath a thick layer of hay. While Trowa squirmed and screamed in silence next to him, he shuffled through the hay and extracted a fairly bulky object, a large black book. "What's this?" the blond boy asked innocently.

Trowa panicked and made a sort of 'blgzt' noise as Quatre opened the book somewhere in the middle. Quatre's eyes bulged, and Trowa wanted to run down the ladder, grab a crosscut saw, run back up the ladder, cut a window out of the hayloft wall, and fling himself out of it. He was staring at those evil pages, full of evil photos of evil people doing very, very evil things to other people, who enjoyed it quite a lot. He would soon want to know what Trowa was doing all alone in the hayloft of an empty barn with a behemoth volume of lewd 'reading material,' and Trowa knew well in advance that he wouldn't have a suitable answer. He was trapped like a bilge rat.

Quatre continued to study the pages of the dirty book with growing disgust, turning over the yellowing leaves as fast as he could absorb their content. "This is...this is shameful..."

Trowa ran both hands through his hair, flattening his bangs against the top of his head in a kind of death grip as he curled up into a ball to shield himself from Quatre's judgement. "I know..."

"It's indescribably awful..."

"I know!"

"...it's the most reprehensible thing I've ever seen in my life!!" While Quatre got madder and madder, Trowa couldn't see the disapproving face he was making, as he had his own cherry red face pressed hard into his knees. Quatre shook his head once. "Why, I could take better pictures than this!"

Trowa's head popped up, and his bangs flopped down. "...'scuse me?"

"Well, just look at that!" Quatre barked, slapping a depiction of the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah with the back of his hand. "The lighting's all wrong, it's underexposed, and there's a motion blur right by this person's arm, see? The photographer should have caught that and made them do it again! And look at this one over here...see, he should be looking into the camera, and she needs some pressed powder to cover up that shiny nose. It's terrible, just terrible..."

For a moment, Trowa wondered if something deep inside Quatre's brain was translating the images from naked cavorters to happy little children picking wildflowers. It was either that, or he was toying with the boy before delivering the lecture to end all lectures. "...you're kidding, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Seriously, you don't really look at that and see nothing but the flaws in the photography, do you!?"

Quatre looked up at Trowa and turned another clump of pages before looking back down. Certainly, he saw lots of things, including the image of a muscular lad, who was not unlike Trowa, leaning heavily over a slender, fair-haired youth not unlike himself, all together on a velvet couch, and the mental picture of the pastry bag full of lilac hand cream kept insinuating itself into the scene without warning. Slowly, he put the opened book down between them, face up at that page, and folded his hands in his lap, trying to disguise a faint smile with thoughtfulness. "Photography is an art form, and I like to see it done right, that's all." That wasn't all, however, and he couldn't stop his own face from showing it. He shrugged. "Maybe I should have knocked before barging up here while you had your..."

Their eyes met. Trowa wondered if Quatre could, in any way, use his abilities to tell what he was doing earlier.

"...hands full."

Yep, he knows. Trowa was just about ready to fall through the floor and die. His face was so hot, he thought his eyeballs would evaporate any second. "Maybe I should get rid of this," he mumbled, reaching for the book.

"No, leave it," Quatre said softly, stopping the other boy's hands and covering the book with a layer of straw. There was something both funny and strange about his smile as he did so, a knowing grin that refused to pass judgement for fear of being excluded from all fun in the future. "I've got plants to water," the gardener said pleasantly but firmly, and with a final grin, he levered himself onto the ladder, climbed down, and left the barn, carrying his friend's most illicit secret with him.

Trowa waited for twenty heartbeats or more before moving, and then it was only to brush away the hay covering the book. He stared at the open page and saw shadows of himself and Quatre in the dimly-lit scene. The young man who most closely resembled Trowa was quite muscular indeed, and it actually made him squeeze one of his own biceps in envy, and then pout as he judged himself to be substandard.

I don't know, though, a vain piece of his psyche prodded from within. You've got potential...put a little work into yourself and that could be you.

Trowa dog-eared the page before burying it in the hay again, but kept thinking about it for a long time after he left the barn.

**********

Relena didn't need the aggravation that she was getting lately, having to drop what she was doing to follow up on some offhand rumour that drove her mad to the point where she could no longer concentrate, but life was like that sometimes. She was sorting out the latest problem from the small lounge in Sutherby House that had the telephone in it, grumbling into the receiver as she paced with the phone in both hands. "I hope you can explain to me why I had to hear about this from Mrs. Burkitt who runs the annual Strawberry Social," she barked across the line. "It was humiliating!"

At the other end, Otto held the earpiece at arm's length during the times of intense squawking, and the tinny noise of Relena's complaint flooded the north hall of Bridlewood. "I'm sorry, but I just didn't see the good in pestering you until we had concrete evidence," he said.

"Nonsense. If there was a prowler in the yard, I should have been the first one informed of it. Has he actually broken in? Or did he just frighten the staff? Do the police have any leads?"

Otto paused. His theory about the phantom prowler who had yet to be caught or even identified was a frightening one, but Relena insisted on knowing every detail. "The police haven't spotted him."

"Well, do something about him yourself then," she demanded. "Leave lights on in every room, set bear traps around the house if you have to, but I want rid of him as soon as possible! We simply cannot afford to be burgled right now!"

"...we may want to be careful in how we deal with this man," Otto said after another long pause.

Relena stopped pacing and blinked. "And why is that?"

"Because I don't think we're faced with an ordinary prowler," Otto explained. "We can't know for certain...but I think it's..."

When Relena heard the suspected name of the prowler, she paled, and a thousand conflicting feelings crashed into each other in her mind. She stared out the window, barely moving. "...are you sure?"

"Based on the housemaids' descriptions of him...quite sure. It could be he's still bitter over being sacked, or he could have some other motive...either way, we ought to tread carefully. The first step is to convince the detectives that he's trying to harass us, and once they find out where he hides during the daytime--"

"No," Relena refused.

"...Miss?"

She took a deep breath and let it out with her eyes closed. Somewhere along the line, it turned into her private battle, and it was imperative that she fight it her way. "Don't involve the police. I want to deal with him myself."

"That would be highly unadvisable under the circumstances!"

"I don't care. I'm coming straight over, and I'm not leaving until I've had a word with him. If he's really skulking around the house, he'll talk to me. Trust me." That was the last of Relena's tense exchange with Otto. Without his unneeded approval, she slipped out and boarded the next train to London, making up an excuse to her brother. She was going to settle things with Heero once and for all.

**********

Duo might have had mixed feelings about Helen's motives, but that didn't stop them from having an enjoyable few days together. Otto agreed to offer her one of the guest suites for her stay, and Merlyn was only too pleased to take over the bulk of the kitchen duties while Duo took his guest sight-seeing. Together they strolled up and down the same streets they used to visit, and with Helen's guidance, they even found the very same store window the young woman had been gazing into when a scruffy little boy with long, braided hair crept up and stole a shiny red apple from her shopping basket. It was an emotional moment for both of them.

Helen agreed to give Duo as much time as he needed to decide about going back to Ireland with her. She understood the magnitude of the decision, but also tried to subtly sway his opinion with remembrances of their happy days together running the flower shop and taking picnic lunches down to the riverbank. Most of their time was spent talking about the old days while, in the background, they visited all the famous tourist spots together.

As the afternoon wore on, they found themselves at a little flagstone church with a name that went something like 'Our Lady of the Covenant.' At Helen's urging, they went inside, and found a peaceful atmosphere to contrast with the bustling city sights they had been exposed to all day. Dimly lit by glowing candles at the front, row upon row of shining maple woodwork invited them forward, past a scattered handful of others who had come to wait their turn for confession. As a matter of honoured routine, they both lit a candle and offered with it a silent prayer. They always lit candles for the same person; Duo for the birth mother he had never known, and Helen for someone dear to her that she let down in a terrible way. Neither one knew the name of the person they sought in prayer, only that they existed, and neither one ever really talked about who they were and why they were so important. It was just implied. After extinguishing their tapers, the pair stepped quietly back down the carpeted centre aisle, Duo first, and they both made a brief genuflection before the symbol of the cross before ducking down one of the highly polished pews and taking a seat.

Once or twice they glanced at each other, first with an air of panic and then with embarrassed smiles, as if they were both trying to open a can of conversation but too scared to cut their hands on the razor-sharp lid. After awhile, Helen tried to poke a relatively safe, small hole through the imaginary tin, clearing her throat and nudging Duo with a well-intentioned elbow. "...it's nice here, isn't it?"

"Mm-hm," Duo hummed, smiling and nodding.

"D'you ever miss that little whitewashed church with the rose bushes all down the front path?"

"...yeah. Yeah, I do, sometimes," said Duo. "And the way that gargoyle of a curate used to check the pockets of everyone under thirteen in case we tried to smuggle pea shooters and catapults into the service..."

They laughed together. "He never caught you with anything, I made sure of that," Helen affirmed, poking him in the knee.

"Yeah, by not letting me have any fun!" Duo chuckled back.

"Well, I had to protect my wee treasure, didn't I? If I'da left you to the mercy of them other filthy little ragamuffins, you'd've come home with all sorts of wicked ideas..." It was the best possible segue into the topic at hand, so she took it. "You do know that...that I did ev'rythin' I thought best for your sake...and I know that you're a good person with a good heart, and if you've picked up a few bad ideas from the wrong crowd...I know it's really my fault because I was too ill to take care of you properly."

Duo was frowning two words after the tone of the dialogue changed, and looked away gruffly. "Helen, don't..."

"I think your friend is very nice," she said quickly, trying to recover. "A bit odd, maybe, but nice. I just want to know.....how did he convince you to be his--"

"I can't talk about this here," Duo snapped, angrily but quietly, and as he spoke he leapt up off the pew.

"Please, don't!" Helen whispered, leaping up also. She lightly touched a hand to his arm through the sleeve of his threadbare brown tweed suit, still experiencing a sort of time shock at how fast her darling was growing up. "The last thing I wanted was to upset you."

"I'm not upset, I just..." He avoided her eyes fiercely, certainly not wanting to upset her either. This had been coming for some time, and neither one had wanted to ruin the lovely holiday, but Duo had always known it couldn't last. "I can't do this," he muttered. "Not here.....not in a church."

With that, he scooted down the length of the pew towards the outside aisle, turned, and fled the building. Helen went after him, pausing at one point to gaze after his retreating form, but once outside she easily caught up with him. He was pacing along one of the front steps that led down to the square, hands in his pockets and eyes on his shoes as he traced the foot-wide stretch of concrete. When she got close enough to speak to him, he surprised her by launching the first assault on neutral ground, stopping to stare into her sea blue eyes. "I told you once before that none of this was Heero's idea," he growled with stern courage. "It's not his fault, it's not your fault, it's not anybody's fault because it just happened."

"Duo, nothing 'just happens'!" Helen cried. "The Good Lord gave us free will for a reason!"

He just couldn't believe she was throwing that in his face again. With a slow, single shake of his head, he transfixed her with an earnest gaze from only two feet away. "Haven't you ever been in love?"

A peculiar, visible pain welled up in Helen's eyes, and all at once she turned away, making Duo think he'd touched a nerve, and also making him wish he hadn't. He became frightened that he might have hurt her, and began reaching out a hand to her shoulder, but before it got there, she finally spoke. "I made a mistake," she said in a trembling voice. Confused, Duo stood there and waited for more.

"I knew what kind of life I wanted when I was younger than you are now. Ev'rythin' was laid out before me, plain as porridge. I never had any doubts, and I never feared bein' alone, or sick, or poor.....and then I threw it all away because I made a mistake!"

Still uncertain, Duo gently took her by the arm and turned her around. Two shimmering ribbons of tears painted her cheeks, and she was unable to hold them back as she continued her story. "I gave me heart away when I was too young an' too foolish to know any better, and it changed ev'rythin'! I don't want you makin' the same mistake! You've got to come away with me, please!"

Now, Duo understood a little better. Never in all their seasons together had she ever mentioned a misguided love affair or the damage it did to her life, but it clearly happened. Silently, he hugged her as a simple reassurance that he recognized the loving concern she harboured alongside the effort to break up his own relationship. When he drew back from her, though, no amount of sympathy for her past injuries could dissuade him from walking the same path, if it was indeed the same. Long before he spoke, she could see his answer in his eyes. "I can't."

"...but you must..."

Smiling, Duo shook his head. "I don't know what you went through, but what I've got isn't some throw-away deal where you only stay when everything's rosy and then take off at the first sign of trouble. He's not like that, and neither am I. What we have is real, and whether it's right or wrong isn't up to me. We need each other...and I can't let him go just like that. I'm sorry."

Somehow, seeing him so confident and sure in his bizarre love enabled Helen to dry her tears. "I'm not going to convince you, am I?" she asked.

"Not this time," he answered, clasping both her hands and stepping close to lean his forehead against hers. It was the first time he was tall enough to do so. "Are you angry?"

"Oh..." Helen reached up and stroked his cheek in a motherly way, smiling sadly. "I could never be so angry that I'd stop loving you, not for a minute. I'll still worry about you...and I've not given up on turnin' you away from this mad quest of yours...but if it all goes wrong, I want you on my doorstep, first thing, you hear me?" It seemed as thought she'd had his final word, and by rule, it was almost time to go. "Don't be so long in comin' to visit me either. I at least want to see you for Christmas."

Almost surprised at how easily she backed down, Duo reached around and gave her another long squeeze. "I'll even bring my own fruitcake," he promised. "...and, um...I won't...bring him along, not if you don't want to be reminded..."

Helen sighed into his shoulder and stroked his hair. "Like I said...the Good Lord gave us free will for a reason. I can ask you to live a certain way, but I know I can't tell you. Bring 'im if you want, or leave 'im if you want. Just come home safe."

Duo couldn't argue with that. The subject was closed for a little while, with the understanding that either of them could open it up again in the future, but now it was time to pack up Helen's things and send her on her way. It would still go down in the books as a perfectly lovely visit.

**********

Getting into London was an unforeseen nightmare. Relena had to cope with a ticket takers' go-slow at one train station and a lost luggage fiasco at the other. One little old lady clogged up the platform with policemen for thirty-five minutes on the suspicion that one of the porters had pinched the bag with her jewellery case in it. The bag was found unpilfered on another platform, but it still added to the delays that stood between Relena and her rightful argument. It was dusk before she got to Bridlewood, and if not for her steely determination to confront the so-called prowler, she might have turned back.

When she arrived, a horse-drawn cab was just leaving. She couldn't tell whether there was anyone inside, but it had definitely been parked in front of her house. She made a mental note to ask about it later, but there were more urgent matters. As she stepped out of her own hired vehicle, the front door magically opened as the new butler she had never met anticipated her arrival with clockwork accuracy. He greeted the lady of the house and took her shoulder wrap of French lace, after which she got straight to the point. "Assemble the staff in the front hall, please," she said, fluffing up her hair in a business-like manner as soon as her arms were free.

"My apologies, Miss," said Bertram Augustus. "Had I know this was to be a formal visit, I would have gathered them earlier."

"It isn't, I just want them where I can see them." She continued a few steps north and called out, "Otto!"

Just as Bertram Augustus vanished to carry out his orders, Otto appeared from the depths of the house, still unconvinced that Relena was doing the right thing. "I can't talk you out of this, can I?"

"Absolutely not. He obviously wanted my attention, so, now he's got it." She was all business as the first few servants were herded into the foyer, and it wasn't long before she took charge completely, lining them up in her preferred order while Otto stood by and worried in his own way.

At the back of the house, oblivious to the round-up, Duo was looking out Quatre's window in desperate contemplation. If Heero came through for him by actually showing up, he still wasn't sure where to meet him. Even though he made light of the dangers of actually entering the house, he knew they were real, and if he put Heero in a position that got him arrested for trespassing, he'd never forgive himself. At the same time, Duo would be in plenty of trouble if he vanished from the property, under the new rules. There had to be some other place they could go, some reconciliation between being alone and being safe.

Then, as he watched the sky over the back yard turn from light summer violet to a deeper periwinkle, his eyes landed on a potential solution: the hedge maze. His face lit up. Nobody ever went in there. It might just give them enough cover to have a serious discussion uninterrupted. Dashing out of Quatre's room, he blasted around the corner to the dinky cold storage, gathered up his fluffy plaid blanket and what was left of the lilac pastry bag, and flew out the back door the second he saw that the kitchen was empty. He threw repeated glances of panic over his shoulder at all the windows in the west wall of the mansion, but saw no one observing as he scampered across the thirty or so yards between the house and the hedge maze.

As luck would have it, Heero was studying the front facade of the house from across the street at that very moment, and the first thing he noticed was the cab waiting at the end of the front walk. Could I be too late? It must be waiting for Duo and Helen...who else could it be for? The boy couldn't have yet known that Helen left in a separate vehicle several minutes earlier, and it was more the pity.

He made his way along the north wall to the back of the house, stopping to peek in the window of the cold storage, just in case Duo was there, but he wasn't. Then he crept around to the kitchen, ducking underneath the other windows as he went. He couldn't see anybody, which was most peculiar. While he crouched in front of the window by the washbasin, he wondered for a moment if he could locate Arthur anywhere on the grounds, just to prove that somebody was still about, for the house looked deserted. He twisted around for a look at the spacious lawns by the diminishing daylight, turned back to the window, and found himself looking directly into the eyes of horse-faced Grace.

Heero yelped and fell backwards, startled by the stringy-haired blonde's sudden appearance. Knowing that she would surely sound the alarm, he scrambled away from the window in a frenzy to escape. Grace, who was still staring out the window over her gigantic nose, needed a little extra time to process the information. She looked to either side for a minute or two, thinking as hard as she could until she gradually decided that she had just seen the prowler. Then she screamed.

It was a pathetic, airy little scream with no 'oomph' to it whatsoever, but it was loud enough for Duo to hear from the hedge maze, since the kitchen window was slightly ajar. He navigated the twisted puzzle until he reached the entrance, and could see the house. Heero was flattened against the wall, wondering which way to run. Duo put his hand to his mouth and gave a shrill whistle, which showed Heero a target to run to, and run he did. There was no Grace at the window as he sprinted into the hedge maze. For the moment, he was in the clear.

Heero allowed himself to be led deep into the leafy labyrinth, to a spot far into the north-west corner, where they looked at each other and laughed. Once that reaction slowed down, it became real to them that it was the first time they had seen each other in more than ten days. Duo was the first to break the long silence. "Howdy, stranger," he joked sadly. "...I wasn't sure if you'd show up."

Even in the rapidly fading light, it was easy to see that Heero was badly troubled, though anyone other than Duo might never have known the difference. "We need to talk."

"Yeah," Duo agreed nervously. "I guess we do." And so the dialogue began.

Back in the front hall of the house, Grace had finished retelling her account of what she saw out the kitchen window, while Pearl patted her hand to steady her. Otto was more sure than ever that the police should be summoned, but again, Relena disallowed it. Then, while the two of them were still standing off at a distance where they could make a plan of action without the staff hearing, she looked over the line and noticed something was missing. "Where's our illustrious chef?" she whispered to Otto, more or less knowing what the answer would be.

Otto noticed the absence too, for the first time. "His behaviour has degraded severely the past few days," he offered as an explanation. "He could be anywhere."

Many possibilities floated through Relena's mind, but if Heero was around and Duo was missing at the same time, the first vision that popped into her head was the one she least wanted to see. There was the theory that Heero was never holding the manor hostage to fear at all, that he was just sneaking in to see an 'old chum', though she knew that river ran much deeper than they let on. "I'm going outside," she announced suddenly. "Send everyone to their rooms and tell them to lock their doors. I don't want any interference."

"Relena, I am warning you, don't do this," Otto whispered harshly, taking a risk both by addressing her informally and by shaking an angry finger in her face. "Let's just leave it for now and get your brother up here in the morning."

"No! I want Heero gone, but I don't want him dead!" she replied. "And that's just what could happen if we're not careful. My brother's temper has no place in this...and, I'm sorry...but neither do you." She stalked away down one of the side halls, preparing to strike out into the unknown of the back lawns.

Otto grunted in frustration at having his hands tied, and took it out on the staff, lumbering up to them with flames in his eyes. "Everyone to your rooms, and stay there!" he bellowed before stalking off somewhere else. The servants were more than a little shocked and worried, but Trowa, Quatre and Hilde shared glances of fearful understanding. As the group was shuffled into the nearest servants' staircase by the butler, the trio took the first opportunity to slip away once his back was turned and have a quick conference.

"They're both out there somewhere, aren't they?" Hilde whispered.

"I'd bet money on it," said Quatre, mindful of which words to use. Out of the three of them, Trowa was the only one who didn't really know the depth of Duo and Heero's relationship, but Hilde still thought she was the only one with privy knowledge, and it was a struggle for the gardener to keep it all straight in his mind about who knew what. "We really shouldn't let Relena go out there and disturb them while they're trying to talk. Who's with me?"

"Quat, I know you want to fix everyone's lives for them," Trowa suggested, "but they're big kids now. They don't need our help."

"Well, I happen to think they do!" Quatre countered. "Someone has to stop that girl from interrupting them, and do it fast, because we don't have that many acres here, and it won't take her long to search them all."

Hilde was dubious. "At night? In the dark? I bet if she sees her own shadow, she'll run a mile. I'm with Trowa, leave them alone and they can deal with Little Lena themselves."

Trowa raised an eyebrow at Quatre, and it only made him more frustrated. "Fine, I'll do it myself." Before the other two could lodge a protest or even grab his arm, the sprightly boy was out of their reach and headed for the patio doors on the main floor. Unable to see the urgency, they opted to retreat to their respective rooms and wait, for they were sure he would be back inside within a matter of minutes, and ready to see things their way.

**********

Duo was attempting to absorb what he had just been told. It took some arm-twisting, but he finally got Heero to admit why he was being so distant. "Say that again, slower, so I can make sure I heard it right."

Already worried that he had irreparably insulted his friend, even though he firmly believed he was right, Heero swapped gazes between Duo and the grass. They could only just see each other, but a sliver of moon was out, and it was as dark as it was going to get for the rest of the night. Heero perceived it as being much darker, on some level. "I heard the two of you talking," he repeated. "I heard her say she wanted you back in Ireland."

"And...from this, you gathered that I was leaving forever and wasn't even going to say goodbye? Why would I do something like that?"

"Why wouldn't you? You knew her long before you ever met me, and it must be better for your health to get out of the city, and..." His reasoning was getting a frosty reception, from the look on Duo's face, so he stopped speaking.

As it had always been, Duo had a knack for spotting aspects of people that they couldn't see themselves, and he walked up close to Heero, giving him a sad stare. "You really don't think much of yourself, do you?"

Heero had imagined that he would be accused of not trusting Duo, so this was a small shock. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Only everything," Duo said with a shake of his head. "I used to think you were this unshakeable rock of self-confidence, but I'm starting to see cracks in the foundation. What in God's name convinced you that you're not enough to keep me here? What made you lose faith so fast?"

It was a slower process than it seemed. The views of the world had been chipping away at Heero's sense of security for weeks. Even setting aside what society would think of them, which was far down on the scale of importance, he knew what happened to people who started out as friends, became lovers, failed at being lovers and could no longer be friends. If it was anything like it's portrayal in books, he wasn't sure if he could handle it if it happened to them. He felt much worse equipped to deal with the sudden loss of his soul mate, and at the same time had little doubt that Duo would soon find another, being so happy and likable and alive. He knew all of this, but didn't know how to voice it, and merely gazed up at his friend with worrisome eyes. "Duo, what if...what if this just...doesn't work for us?"

Duo seemed to understand the intricacies of his doubt immediately, almost as if he had suffered through them as well, but was strong enough to set them aside for the rubbish they truly were. "Now, you listen to me...and I expect you to be able to repeat this verbatim ten years from now, right to my face. I don't care what happens between us, or how often or how seldom or anything. We've been friends this long without it, so we must have been doing something right all this time." He stood toe-to-toe with Heero, placed his hands on either side of his face, and forced him to make long, steady eye contact, through which no lie or deception could travel safely. "I, will, never, leave you. Do you get that?"

The words washed over Heero from the top down, and waves of sudden relaxation made him shift downwards with his whole form. He had been a fool. It wasn't Duo who was jeopardizing their friendship with deceit, it was him, and once he saw it, he also knew how to make it right. "That's what I needed to hear," he said as he grasped Duo's hands and lowered them. Duo looked at him with delighted anticipation, and a second later, Heero dove forward and planted a firm kiss on his lips. The chef let out a happy little moan and smiled into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Heero's neck. Their embrace eventually calmed down into an extended stare, and they seemed to be speaking to each other with only their eyes.

Hoping they both had the same idea, Duo slid a hand down Heero's chest and stepped back a bit, then turned to lean down and pick up the fluffy plaid blanket, which he shook out and laid down on the grass. Their shoes came off, and soon they were lounging side by side, glancing between each other and the stars in the sky. Duo took a deep, shaky breath which he enjoyed for its nervous energy, shrugged his shoulders up and down slowly, and looked at Heero with a sweet hopefulness. "I don't think they're coming to get us, do you?"

Indeed, if the police were coming, they probably would have been there by now, Heero thought. "Not really, no." The admission set them free, and he pulled Duo by the back of his neck into another kiss, a slower, deeper one than the first. Duo poured more of his energy into it, and they sat up on their knees, still entangling their lips as their hands dared to roam freely about their new playgrounds. Duo began toying with the buttons of Heero's waistcoat, and when one of them 'accidentally' opened, he laughed. Heero pulled back and smirked at the challenge, tired of playing the innocent. He had Duo's white tunic off within seconds, deciding to show him what he had really learned at seduction school.

Duo was soon pressed flat on his back into the blanket, bare from the waist up. It was a warm night, warm enough to be wearing much less without suffering the consequences. Still in possession of all his own clothes, Heero crawled up beside Duo, bent down at the waist, and inhaled deeply from the spot where Duo's shoulder met his neck, then kissed the spot, running his hands up and down Duo's unprotected arms while he hummed happily. Then, holding the boy's shoulders down to the ground, Heero kissed a trail across his neck, down the centre line of his chest, and veered to the right. Duo suddenly gasped and moaned, arching his back as Heero's tongue hit a sensitive spot. It was quite nice, he thought, but he never once saw it in the big black book, which he had pored over intensely before losing it. He wondered if perhaps the nicest things weren't in the book at all, meaning that the two of them could touch and explore each other in any way they wanted, and it was all good.

He grasped the collar of Heero's jacket on either side of his neck so that when he crawled back up to kiss him on the lips again, he slipped himself almost right out of it. The jacket was flung aside to land next to Duo's tunic, and the matching waistcoat soon followed. The beautiful sounds Duo was making brushed against Heero's ears like butterfly wings, and the resulting impulse made him slip a hand underneath him, looking for the end of his braid so he could unravel it. Pretending to make it easier for him, Duo sat up quickly and used the element of surprise to roll Heero onto his back, and sit on him, laughing. Heero pretended to struggle against the assault, laughing as well, but Duo quickly grabbed both his wrists and tied them together with his own hair. Chuckling at his helpless prisoner, he ran a hand slowly up Heero's chest, working each of the buttons open in turn, and then slid both hands up and down the exposed flesh in a warm, frontal massage, feeling every ridge and bulge of lean muscle along the way. The loose knot of hair soon fell apart, but Heero made no move to free himself, letting his hands drop away at his sides as he enjoyed the soothing attention with his eyes closed.

A light, gentle rain began to fall, but the warm air remained. Duo untucked the rest of Heero's shirt from his waistband, feeling electric pulsations at the point of their close contact as he moved this way and that. He was straddling his tiger just above the knees, and felt the front of his trousers beginning to tighten around him as Heero actually reached up and put both hands on his thighs. It gave him an idea.

He pulled the hair tie from the end of his braid and unravelled his wavy brown locks, just for effect, knowing that it was exactly what Heero was most curious to see. Then he unbuttoned Heero's trousers instead of his own, stroking the area with his other hand as he watched his tiger tensing up all over. In a voice that was neither concerned nor accusatory, but whimsically curious, Heero asked, "What are you doing?"

Duo smiled down at his hands as he worked. "Something I don't need a book for." As he pried away a layer of camel-coloured cloth, Heero felt a small rush of relatively cold air, and then the surrounding warmth of an adoring hand as Duo reached inside and grasped a handful of soft flesh. He shuddered, but did not object. Duo treated him with immense care, squeezing and massaging gently until the handful swelled and stiffened. Heero began taking deep gulps of air as his mouse was able to coax the most inconceivably magnificent sensations out of his body, and at the point where he should have heard the voices of his instructors in his head, demanding that he turn back from the luxurious plateau, he heard only his own tiny groans, and some of Duo's as well. The talented, well-practised hand built up an ever-mounting pressure inside Heero that was screaming for release, but Duo knew exactly how long to drag it out, to force the maximum effect, hopefully without being a tease. He found himself rocking faintly, following the hypnotic rhythm of Heero's heaving chest. His victim lashed out with both hands and grabbed nothing but two large clumps of blanket, while his eyebrows knit and his lips dried out from rapid respiration. He wouldn't hold out much longer. It was cruel to prolong his suffering. Duo's hand movements changed, finally nudging Heero across the threshold to his finish, a volcanic explosion of forbidden pleasure. Heero cried out, unable to hear himself for the pounding of his veins, rising up off the blanket as far as his posture would allow.

Just then, his enraptured face was the most beautiful thing Duo had ever seen, and he nearly cried. Heero had been alone in himself, a prisoner in his own body for so long that neither one knew if he could ever break out of his mental shell and fully join the human race, but just then, it happened. So paralysed by the sweet sight was Duo that he forgot he was even really there instead of in some glorious dream world, and when he remembered, he dried his hand off on a corner of the blanket and crawled up Heero's side to lie right up next to him, resting his head on his shoulder. Somewhere off in the distance, there was the odd sound of a girl shouting something, but they were both too wrapped up in their moment to listen to her words or even notice she was there.

Duo didn't want to let Heero go to sleep just yet, there was too much to talk about. Taking Heero's arm and wrapping it around himself, he snuggled closer and kissed his neck, even while he pressed his own swelling into Heero's side, trying to keep the tight, tingly sensation alive a little while longer. "You really didn't know what it was like...did you?"

Heero was only just coming out of the trance, and the mist stopping falling down on them at last. He needed a moment to register Duo's question in his mind, then squeezed the boy closer to him as he reminisced. "When your captors keep telling you things about yourself for so many years...that 'this shouldn't happen that way' or 'that shouldn't be happening at all'...you believe them." He rubbed one of his wrists where he was typically tied to his bunk at night, examining it as if he expected to find fresh rope burns. "They couldn't have allowed me to find out what it was like...they couldn't have controlled me if they did, and if you don't have to rely on them for every last scrap of comfort or absence of pain...the control is gone." Heero shut his eyes tightly, not wanting the horrid memories to intrude on this exquisite moment. "They'll use every trick they have to keep you under their thumb...and even if you get away and start to think they were misleading you all along, it's hard to get their voices out of your head."

"Try," Duo said, and he rolled up on top of Heero again, sitting on his torso so he could stroke his chest lightly. "Stop listening to those maniacs. They've done enough damage, don't you think? Start listening to me instead. We could have such a great time...all the time...if you'd just let yourself..."

Heero decided all at once that Duo had an excellent point, and pushed himself up off the blanket so he could flip Duo onto his back and lie heavily on top of him again, eliciting from him the most delicious moans yet. Heero's hands travelled everywhere, stroking every part of Duo they could reach, and eventually divesting him of the rest of his clothes. It took Duo by surprise, and he gasped at the sudden thought of lying there, nude, illuminated solely by starlight, but he saw that Heero was looking only into his eyes, and that warmed him so much that he scarcely noticed his own nakedness after that. Heero moved in for another long kiss, resting his full weight on Duo's midsection and shifting it as he pulled his arms around Duo to cradle his shoulders. Pulling his mouth away slightly, Heero slowly caressed one whole side of Duo's face with his own, moving towards his ear to ask permission, "...aishite-mo ii?"

Duo shivered, but with a beaming smile. He nodded and hugged Heero tightly. "...hai..."

Whatever happened between them after that would not be found out by anyone. Someone had come very close to discovering them, but they never knew it, and fate saw to it that they were left undisturbed for a long time.

**********

Quatre sprinted up one hall and down another, taking the most direct route possible to the rear patio entrance, where he guessed that Relena would be venturing out from. She was there, staring out the French doors with her hand on the knob, working up the courage to actually set foot outside. Making the most of her pause, he ran straight up to her. "Miss, wait!"

Relena jumped, then turned to glare at him with a hand on her jolted heart. "What are you doing here? You should be in your room!"

"I don't think you should go out there," the gardener said, huffing and puffing. "It's not safe."

"I know that, and I'm going anyway."

She turned the handle and started to pull the door open, but Quatre leaned on it with one arm, shutting it again. "Just think about this for a moment, please? There is a dangerous stranger out there, and if I may say so, it is not a lady's job to secure her home against intruders. The police should be dealing with this, not you." At the same time he was hoping the police would turn their collective nose up at the job, because he didn't want to see Heero in trouble with the law any more than Relena did, if that was why she insisted on challenging him solo.

"It's not your job to tell me what to do either," she snapped before shoving him out of the way and flinging the door open. She was out on the patio in a flash, looking around for movement, but Quatre was hot on her heels. He ran ahead of her as she wandered south towards a clump of bushes large enough to hide several people, and skidded to a halt in front of her, making her scowl even more.

"Right!...if you don't get back in that house right now..." Quatre hung the phrase in mid-air, along with a warning finger similar to Otto's, then shrivelled up a little under the girl's fierce glare, but slowly recovered. "...I'm...going to...carry you back inside and lock you in your room." As soon as he said it, he understood what Trowa meant by his reluctance to challenge his superiors. It was scary. The way she was looking at him was scary. The way his stomach was doing flip-flops was scariest of all.

Relena folded her arms. "I don't know what you've been drinking, but save some for me, because I'm going to need it soon."

Like the answer to an unspoken prayer, Quatre felt a tiny drop of water on his face, and then another, and then another. There was a very fine, misty rain falling from the sky, and he raised his hands to collect the droplets while giving Relena a bold, defiant, 'See?' look. "It's raining. You'd better go in before you catch cold. Go on...shoo..."

The girl didn't even dignify that with an answer. She turned on her heel and walked off in the other direction, continuing her Heero hunt. Quatre dropped his arms down at his sides, momentarily glad that he hadn't been relieved of his duties, but at the same time irritated that she wasn't taking him seriously. He began to doubt whether it was worth the trouble after all. The others could have been right...Heero had stood up to Relena before, and he could theoretically do it again, and if Relena happened to see something she shouldn't, it was her own fault.

A lightbulb lit up in Quatre's brain. Was he really that worried about giving Heero and Duo time to be alone, or was he more concerned with Relena's feelings? He glanced after her, wandering around aimlessly under a midnight blue sky in a flimsy dress and satin shoes that wouldn't stand up to the rain, and seriously wondered if he was doing this to protect her instead. She really was a good, kind person when she wasn't being a shrew to her servants, and even then she was probably under more pressure than anyone knew, so it was only natural that she be a little cranky once in a while. There was so much Quatre didn't know about the upper classes that it was easy to imagine her as a sad, misunderstood person, just trying to get along with the world despite the world's efforts to knock her back time and again. He felt sorry for her, at times. The next thing he realized was that this feeling was far from new; he had felt sorry for her when her father died, and when her staff deserted her, and he had been there for her. More importantly, she had wanted his comforting presence, and that felt nice. Before he knew what he was doing, he was walking towards her, while her back was still turned as she continued to search the grounds, keeping within running distance of the house just in case.

The path to Relena's position took Quatre close to the hedge maze, and as he neared it, a strange feeling came over him. He had definitely felt it before, but struggled to remember when. It was a warm, pleasant tugging in his belly, and it grew even when he stopped and stood still. Squinting in confusion, he brought a hand up to his chest and rubbed the spot just above his heart, and just then, a feeling of pressure began building up inside him, with a giddy tingling and a chorus of other enjoyable sensations. Then he recognized it; he had felt this way when he had nearly walked in on Duo and Heero in the kitchen late one night as they shared a small moment of passion over hot cocoa. If it was happening again...

The sensations changed suddenly, becoming more intense by a hundredfold. Fierce bouts of second-hand ecstasy were flooding his sixth sense from an indeterminable direction, and within moments, he could no longer stand up. He fell to his knees as his heartbeat quickened and his breathing deepened, clutching a handful of shirt and propping himself up with his free hand. Then he gradually straightened up, wobbling faintly and staring at the sky. There were beautiful colours everywhere he looked. The manor and its lands had disappeared. Even his sense of self was vanishing under the tidal wave of indescribable pleasure. It grew more and more powerful until, at the absolute apex of rapturous joy his nervous system could withstand, there was a final, massive jolt of energy that sent him reeling. He leaned all the way back until his thrown-back head was nearly touching the ground, and he gasped in the rain that trickled down onto his face and chest. At that very same moment, there was a powerful cry, from somewhere in the hedge maze, the primal scream of a battered soul dying and a new, gloriously alive one being born in its place. It was this transmutation from an emotionally barren carcass to a vibrant human being created out of love that blew out all of Quatre's inner circuitry and left him sprawled out on the grass.

Relena heard the cry first, and looked at the hedge maze second. It sounded like Heero's voice in a way, but it was frighteningly foreign to her ears. At first she thought he was in pain, but then doubted her analysis, not knowing why. Thirdly, as she turned around, she saw Quatre, lying almost motionless on the lawn, except for his heaving chest. She inhaled sharply and ran to him, crouching immediately beside him and shaking him by the shoulder. "What happened!? Can you hear me!? Tell me what's wrong!"

Quatre could hear nothing for several seconds, but he was aware of a warm body somewhere near him. In that drunken state of borrowed delights, he saw no reason why that body, whoever it was, wasn't experiencing the same thing he was. He wanted to make a connection with the person, and that drove him to do a very silly thing. Looking up at the blur that was actually Relena, he pushed himself into a sitting position, blinked groggily once or twice, and then pushed himself onto the anonymous body, toppling it over into the grass. Relena squealed with shock, and then made a muffled noise of protest as Quatre abruptly pressed his lips to hers in a chaste but unexpected way. She paused without knowing why, and then remembered herself by shoving him off her and slapping him across the face. Perhaps she just would have liked a little more warning before being kissed, but perhaps not.

Picking herself up off the ground and frantically brushing grass off her dress, Relena dashed back into the house and slammed the French doors so hard that the panes of glass rattled in their frames. Quatre took a moment to wake up, once the external stimulus had stopped, and then he wondered why his face hurt. Then he wondered what he was doing on the ground. Then he wondered where Relena was, and finally asked himself if he had just blacked out. He was unable to recall any of what just happened. He had chased after Relena for a bit, then thought about comforting her long ago when the house was all but empty...then nothing. Puzzled beyond belief, he stood up and wobbled into the kitchen in search of some coffee.

Relena was unable to comprehend any of it. She made straight for the front hall where Otto and Bertram were instructed to wait for her, and arrived before deciding what to tell them.

"Did you see him?" Otto asked as soon as he caught sight of her coming down the hall. "Is he going to leave peacefully? I can still have the police here in ten minutes."

Those were good questions, Relena thought to herself, staring blankly. Heero had suddenly been shoved out of the picture. "Never mind that now, I'm going home. My shawl, please, Bertram."

Otto looked dumbfounded. "But the trains have all stopped by now! It'll cost a fortune to go back by carriage at this time of night!"

"I don't care! I wouldn't stay in this house tonight if you paid me!" The butler brought Relena her wrap, and she tossed it around herself haphazardly. She was about to burst back through the front door and vamoose without another word, but soon decided she would have to leave the men with some show of confidence, just to quiet them for the short term. Swallowing once and putting her managerial face back on, she turned around at the door, clasped her hands together at waist level and looked authoritatively at the two servants before her. "Gentlemen...I'm only going to say this once. There is no prowler." She left them with that cryptic remark, trotted down the front walk, got back into the cab, and rolled away.

**********

There was very little energy left for the boys to expend, but it was used up in a good cause. An unmeasured amount of time later, they laid curled up together on the blanket, facing the same direction with Heero cuddling Duo from behind. Their trousers were safely back on, but looked rumpled, as if they had been tossed into a corner or even caught by an outstretched limb of the surrounding hedge. The gentle rain had long since stopped, and the warm air went with it, leaving the pair unprotected against the coming chill of night, but they didn't seem to care.

Heero had one arm snugly coiled around Duo's waist, pressing them tightly together, while the other hand was stroking through the damp, loose chocolate tresses of his unravelled braid over and over again. Nearly asleep, the last of Duo's concentration was focused on lapping up the attention, but when a cool patch of air dove between the high hedges and swirled around them, he gave a tiny shiver. Heero caressed the pale shoulder right in front of his chin, and kissed the back of Duo's neck, humming. "Is my little mouse cold?" Duo wriggled and squeaked as a reply, smiling as Heero tightened his grip on him. There couldn't have been a more perfect slice of summer evening, even without being polluted with the scent of artificial lilac.

It was late, and they were contentedly tired. Heero couldn't possibly send Duo back into the cramped little hole he was currently calling a bedroom; he nuzzled his neck just underneath his ear. "Come away with me," he whispered, referring to the pub. Catherine wouldn't have locked the doors yet, and the clientele would be so drunk by then that they would scarcely notice the two of them slipping upstairs.

Duo groggily sat up, pulling Heero along with him. He nuzzled Heero back with a stupid grin. "Well, I dunno...what've you got for breakfast over there?"

"Anything you want," Heero said, and he meant it. He would climb the Alps to bring back ice to make ice cream with, if that was what Duo wanted. They each laced a hand together, still coming down from their dizzying peaks of enjoyment, and kissed one more time before getting up, gathering up their clothes, and making themselves presentable enough to walk down the street without attracting too much attention. Heero shook grass off the plaid blanket before rolling it up, while Duo searched the square of lawn for his hair tie and pulled his tangled locks back into a loose ponytail. It was getting late.

Once Relena was gone and there was no fear of retribution, Otto and Bertram argued back and forth about what to do with the prowler situation, then went out back with two lanterns and searched the grounds thoroughly, but whomever they expected to find was long gone. The prowler and his partner in crime had vanished, joyfully, into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Eighty-Four: Problems carry on for the rest of the world while Duo and Heero bask in their new-found happiness. Dorothy confronts Treize and demands to know what her place is in his plans, the Cinq Association selection committee sends out a shocking memorandum, and a shift in power is revealed (or covered up?) at the heart of Lord Jeffrhyss' organization.

....... =D *eats a candy cigarette* Was it good for you? *grinz* I want you to know, this was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever had to write...not that I didn't enjoy it. =^_~= But I have to push my own envelope, and that of the story as well, so I hope not too many of you think I went too far. Probably, more of you think it was a long time coming. Either way, I'm anxious to hear what you have to say about it. And it's NOT THE END, by the way...next episode, barring a technological disaster like the one we had this week, will be on June 13th (it's a Friday! eeek!).