Sorry about the long time between updates. Crazy life and all that jazz.

I saw in other stories people doing this nifty foot notes thing, so I'm gonna start doing it too. A number in brackets (like this: 1 ) after a sentence or something means that there is a foot note down at the bottom of the chapter to explain mre deeply what I'm getting at. You don't usually need to read the foot notes to understand the story, and most of the time they're just me trying to explain my odd-ball humor or some such thing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing…I wish I did though…starts on day dram about Duo…


Chapter Twelve: Setting a Precedent

Monday morning before homeroom, I was at my locker getting out the books I would need for my morning classes. I suddenly sensed someone standing behind me. I turned and saw that it was Jeff.

"Hey Duo," he said genially, leaning up against the locker next to mine. "What's up?"

"The sun," I replied flatly, standing up.

He chuckled. "I mean besides that." I didn't respond. He sighed. "Duo, Brian and I are wondering why you suddenly don't want to work on the science fair project with us. I mean, what's with the total 180?"

"I told you on Friday, I understand how things here work, and I don't want to be a part of it." I closed my locker and turned to walk away when Jeff grabbed my arm.

"Duo, listen. If you're not part of it, then you're the victim of it. That's how it works with James. If you don't stay on his good side, Duo, you're gonna be the next one getting tossed around like a bean bag."

"Jeff, why would you want to be friends with a guy who treats people like that?" I asked, pulling my arm from him, but not walking away.

Jeff didn't have an answer. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

"That's what I thought," I said, and I turned and walked away.

It's amazing how fast news travels in high schools. I thought word had gotten around fast that there was a new student from the colonies in the school, but news that the same student had refused friendship of the most popular guy in the school traveled at light speed. During History, I kept noticing people sending me strange looks. Normally I didn't mind being the center of attention, but this was definitely attention I was not interested in having. People were whispering to their friends and pointing at me. When I passed groups in the hall, they would suddenly fall silent and wait for me to pass before they continued talking.

After something like that happened for the fifth time, I stopped and turned to the group.

"You know," I said, smiling smugly. "It's probably none of my business, but if I was gossiping about someone, I wouldn't make it so obvious."

My comment was answered with a series of glares, eye rolls, and reddening cheeks.

The lunchroom was even worse. I was getting even more attention than I had the first day I had come.

I sat down at the table Jericho was sitting at by herself. She looked up, slightly startled and raised her eyebrow at me. "You were serious, weren't you?" she asked.

I sent her a questioning look and took a bite out of my sandwich.

"You really would rather be my friend then theirs?" she asked, nodding across the lunchroom to Jeff and James's table.

"Yeah. Why not?" I asked, shrugging.

She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but stopped, shook her head and smirked. "Do you have peanut butter and jelly for lunch everyday?"

"Yeah," I said through a mouthful of food.

She grinned at me and without asking, took the untouched half of my sandwich and traded it with half of her sandwich.

I raised a questioning eyebrow and looked to see what the sandwich she had given me was. It was tuna fish with lettuce and tomato.

"You need some variety in your diet," she said. "No wonder you're so thin. PB and J on white bread doesn't make much more than glue in your stomach 1. At least the tomato on that will give you some vitamins."

"I didn't ask you to be my personal dietician," I snorted, not bothering to hide my amusement.

Jericho frowned. "You should fire whoever is. They're not doing their job. You look like you could stand to gain a few pounds."

I laughed, but secretly I was surprised. The doctor I had seen right before coming to Earth had told me the same thing.

Jericho and I talked about nothing in particular that lunch period. I told her a little about what the colonies, and she told me about the town we lived in. She was obviously not that impressed with the town, but she seemed to enjoy the academic part of school and there was a near by college that she liked. She had taken some classes there, she said, and she was really looking forward to college in a few years. We talked about hobbies and things we spent our time doing.

"I don't really have friends," Jericho said. "So I spend a lot of time on school work. And when I'm not doing school work, I'm usually working on projects."

"What kind of projects?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Depends. You'll have to come over and see them sometime. I think you'd like some of them."

"Okay."

I sat with Jericho during Biology as well. When the teacher verified the science fair groups, Jericho seemed surprised that I was working by myself. Later while we were taking notes, Jericho slid a piece of paper across the tabletop to me. I looked down at it: Why aren't you working with anyone for the science fair project?

I wrote back: Because I was going to work with Brian and Jeff, but I changed my mind. I don't know anyone else to work with. I slid the note back to her when the teacher wasn't looking.

Jericho read it and frowned. A few minutes later, she sent the paper back to me. You could work with me if you want. Two heads are better than one.

I gulped. The idea of working with Jericho made my stomach jump a little. I could, but I thought you always worked alone on projects like this. That's what people say anyway.

I slid the note to her, and it was returned in under a minute. I have worked alone, she had written. …until now. We could set a precedent. First time in the history of the school that Jericho Van Buren willingly works with another person.

Grinning, I wrote back: Sounds like we're a team. So, what's our project gonna be on?

Jericho read my note then shrugged. She didn't write the reply, but instead leaned closer to me when the teacher wasn't looking. "We can talk about that later," she whispered.

I nodded and silently wondered when later would be.

The week passed without too much problem. I still missed the colonies and my friends like there was no tomorrow, but Jericho made my homesickness less severe. She was kind of a quirky kid to get right down to it. She was smart, and she didn't hide it, but she didn't show it off either. She liked to laugh and joke, but she could handle very serious conversation too, something I still had a problem with. I could stand only so much of a serious conversation before cracking a joke or making a sarcastic remark. During history, Jericho excelled in the discussions, asking questions or supplying arguments. She could hold her own in a debate. She was nice and polite, and she was pleasant to most of the other kids in the school, even though they usually ignored her or glared at her. The only people she openly despised were James and his closest circle of friends. Several times in the halls she would be tripped, shoved, or have the books knocked out of her hands by one of James' lackeys. She would glare at them, sometimes mumble something under her breath about them, and then keep walking as if the whole hall wasn't laughing at her. If I had been her, I would have hauled off and clobbered the jerks that harassed her, but she never did, and she held me back the one or two times I nearly jumped one of them.

"Why don't you ever let me get at them?" I demanded one morning when she held me back from punching the lights out of one of James's lackeys.

"You're a foster kid," she replied. "If you got into a fight, you'd be blamed, and then you'd be sent away. They don't like foster kids around here. They really don't. This town is big on keeping up appearances, and foster kids aren't exactly known for having the best reputations."

During lunch, Jericho spent a lot of her time working on homework or reading. The books she read were really strange, and it was never the same book two days in a row. The subjects she read on ranged from Physics to literature to history and culture and back again. A lot of the books looked old and worn, and even fewer of them had any pictures or an easy-to-read print size. But she practically soaked up the information like a sponge.

We decided that on Friday, Jericho would come over to the Christopher's after Diana got home so that we could toss around ideas for the science fair project together. Diana got home around three-thirty. I hadn't taken Benny for a walk, so I took him along while I went to get Jericho.

The Van Burens house looked rather large from the street, but as I walked up the front walk to it, I realized it was huge. It wasn't just a Victorian house—it bordered on being a Victorian mansion. There was a tower on one side of the house that reminded me of a castle from a fairytale. I rang the doorbell, and it sounded like an old doorbell with the electric buzz and everything.

Megan answered the door. "Hi Duo. Come on in. Bring Benny too."

I stepped inside and she closed the door behind me. Megan took Benny's leash from me. "Jericho's in her Atrium," she said. "She asked for me to send you back there when you got here."

"Her…Atrium?" I asked. "What's that?"

Megan smiled. "Go into the library," she said, pointing to a door at the end of the hall, "And go through the door on the other side of it. That'll take you right there."

"Oo...Kay," I said, slightly nervous. Megan laughed, assured me that there was nothing to be scared of. She and Benny then disappeared through a door.

I went through the door she had pointed out to me and found my self in a large room. The walls were all lined with bookcases, most of which were full of books. There was a fireplace at one side of the room, and a beautiful set of easy chairs, a couch, and a fainting couch were placed about the room. At the opposite side of the room from the hall door was another door.

I went through the door and it led me into another room, this one also full of bookshelves. This room had a few desks though, with books open on them and papers strewn everywhere. Stopping at one desk, I recognized Jericho's handwriting covering one of the pieces of paper. The book it was lying on was written in French. It looked like Jericho had been taking notes on different vocabulary words in the book. Another desk contained a large atlas of the world. I flipped through it and saw that Jericho had marked up a lot of the maps with different colored lines and dots. She had marked them using a very specific system, but the abbreviations she had used made whatever she had meant by the marks a mystery to me. On the window seat of the huge picture window in one wall there was a sketchpad. I picked it up and looked through it. It was full of sketches of trees and flowers in the front, but the later pages were full of what looked like sketches and blueprints for some sort of hang glider or something.

There was yet another door on the other side of the room. Hanging on the door was a hand-painted sign that read "Please ring bell". A rope hung at the side of the door. Reaching over, I pulled the rope and heard a clanging bell sound from the other side of the door.

"Coming!" I heard Jericho's voice call from somewhere beyond the door. A few moments later, the door opened. "Come on in!"

I stepped through the door and took a deep breath of surprise.


1) It's true. PB&J on white bread isn't good for you. Peanut butter is really high in fat, and white bread doesn't have any nutritious value to it. It seriously makes flour paste in your stomach. And Jelly is really high in sugar and low in anything else, so that just makes a sticky goop mess in your stomach too. Tuna fish is a lot better for you—if you ignore the fact that eating too much of it will give you mercury poisoning…but that's another foot note