Chapter 3: La Donna Perfetta

(ch rewritten)

:female:

Propped against the counter, Duo leaned over, snatching a blueberry from the platter under Heero's arm.

A grunt emanated from the messy haired cook and a swift strong hand clamped around a slender wrist. "HEE-CHANNN!" With a groan Duo slunk back, nursing a throbbing wrist. "Was just getting a little bit. I'm hunnngryyy..." and then whining, the braided professional slid into a chair and pouted.

The black haired pilot shrugged, untouched by the whining going on behind him.

"I'll die, you know. Then it'll be your fault," the no-nonsense quip darted to the indomitable back. When there was no sign of relenting Duo sighed. "What's up with Wuffie? He not up yet?"

Heero's brow furrowed and he dropped a four inch round of pancake batter onto the hot skillet, ending the drop with a flourish of his wrist to neatly catch the last drops of batter back into the bowl. Then quietly, the normally recalcitrant pilot asked, "I thought you weren't talking to him?"

Of course Duo would talk to Wufei eventually. It was just a matter of getting over the initial hurt. It surprised Heero that Wufei hadn't made a move yet to patch things up between the pair of them. The lack of communication in their house was nonpruductive.

"Nah, you know what a stick up the butt, Wu-babe can be. I'm gonna love him no matter what, yanno?" A broad grin crossed the heart shaped face and eyes caught a tint of pain as the Preventer leaned back, tucking hands under the braid that dangled behind the chair. "You know how it is. Remember when I told you? I didn't talk to you for what? Three weeks?"

"Four and three days."

Duo laughed away what residual pain was there. "You are simply an extension of that computer you tote around, Hee-chan. But nah, just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

Heero made no reply. In that stillness the pair heard the groggy sound of feet at the kitchen archway. Both he and Duo looked across the kitchen as Wufei came around the corner and stopped at the archway.

"Hey babe!" Duo crowed. "You 'wake? What's up, Wuffie? You had a bad night?" Then after cocking a head to the side, the long haired officer added with a tinge of concern, "You look awful."

Wufei didn't look awful. He looked like death warmed over. And something was wrong with how he stood there, just staring. Something wrong about his overall appearance. It was like looking at a woman with a new haircut before you've noticed the hair cut. Something was new or different about Chang Wufei.

Wufei's face paled. He gripped the door frame for support and breathed hard. Both of his roommates noticed a fine sheen of sweat breaking out over his brow.

Suddenly worried, Duo stood and headed over. Reaching out a warm hand, the long haired pilot murmured, "You got a fever, hon? You really don't look good."

Wufei had woken up with the same sense of displacement from the dearm. After looking around his room he still couldn't quite set into his mind what it was about the sleep he'd had the night before that might have left him so discomfited.

He rubbed his face to clear out the last of the cobwebs. He was real enough. It was just that the colors were off somehow. Or maybe not the colors. Maybe it was... was...

Standing, he crossed the room, going to where his katanas were laying across the bedroom table. Before he'd drawn them he knew. They were wrong; the wrong color, the wrong shape, the wrong weight.

Wufei had a pair of katanas that he had had in his possession for years, family heirlooms. Simple blades, they had no embellishments but were well balanced and did the trick. He'd be more than fine with the simple black leather handled set he kept on his desk.

These however, were what Wufei may have, at one time, wished to procure. With a trembling hand, he slowly lifted one and ran a thumb over it. It was balanced perfectly, with a dragon etched into the jade stone at the pommel. The blade was tastefully done, everything well made and flashing as only the newer blades might do, without the signs of age his blades had. Yet, they were a tad too expensive looking for him. What was this? A gift? A ...

But no. One look at these blades and he knew there would have been no way Duo or any of the others, barring Quatre, could have picked up a set like this. It would have cost a fortune and not one of them had a fortune to begin with. It just fit, somehow, with the wrongness which surrounded him.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, Wufei set the blade back on the desk and allowed himself time to glance over the room more carefully. The katanas had slowly thrust through the paradigm that was his room and now that it lay shattered about him, a trained gaze could see the subtle differences everywhere. Everything was changed yet subtly different.

The dream?

With a groan, Wufei sat heavily onto the chair at his desk and reached for the photograph he feared. But just like in his dream the picture remained off kilter. Here was Heero, Quatre, and beside the Arabian, Duo. Upon that body was the same hardened readiness of a trained killer, yet not as angled, more easily touched and far too touchable in his book. Here also, as he let his eyes dance across the line, were other differences. It had been just the four of them, himself as well. He could recognize the worry, the haggard appearance on his face. Yet it was a different face, though so slight a change that only the owner of the face could have noticed it and he'd still be hard pressed to put a name to what exactly was the difference. He only knew that he had never seen that face in the mirror and he - he wished he might have, just once.

Letting his thumb run over the picture, Wufei tried to go back and figure on what else there had been. What other reason?

The possibility of what might have led to this was so far fetched that he simply could not allow himself the time to think about it. Instead, he stood, realizing with his internal clock ticking, that he was late to breakfast, and stumbled downstairs to face what he now considered to be a living nightmare.

"... simply an extension of that computer you tote around, Hee-chan," the chipper voice making its way to his ear left him breathing easier. For a moment. Then, again, the strangeness came back and he stiffened, hearing how even though it remained like velvet and heat, there was an undertone, like some exotic spice long hidden from mankind, that was wrong. " But nah, just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

He wasn't sure if he heard anything beyond that. Duo... or not Duo but someone very much like Duo, was grinning at someone very much like Heero. Swinging her legs, the person who was like but unlike Duo twiddled a fork on slender fingers and raised violet eyes painfully similar to look into his. That mouth moved, just as beautiful as ever, and Wufei could hear nothing but his heartbeat roaring in his ears.

As the Duo-person stood, Wufei felt his body stiffen, flush, and his heart beat stopped, leaving him in a cold sweat. No. There was no mistaking it. Duo was ...

A warm hand reached out to his brow, traced down across his temples. Shocked, Wufei focused, discovering those blue violet eyes on his and with a strangled cry stepped back, swiping across the air as he slapped that hand out of the way. Instantly however, he felt sorry for it when the Duo-like eyes darkened in pain.

"Sorry Wu," Duo grumbled as she turned and stumped across to her seat. "Forget I asked, kay?"

"Wufei," came the soft, cool voice that Wufei recognized. He looked up, stared into the almost exact copy of Heero eyes but saw something harder, more distant there and balked once more. Heero turned the pancakes, then leaned against the stove, holding his spatula lightly in capable fingers. This time, Wufei didn't shy away from the sound of his name.

"Wuffie? You okay?" came the soft query from the table and this time, Wufei, still voiceless, managed a negative head shake.

"Hn." Heero nodded to the table near Duo and those infinitely worried violet eyes. "Sit."

Everything around him tasted too much like the war all over again. Everything but the person at the table. Wufei followed the directions automatically, unsure yet how to process everything that was in his brain. He wished he were a tad less strong, then he'd have the option of fainting. Heaven knew he felt as if he could right now.

Duo, scooting the mint green kitchen chair (weren't they blue?), looked her friend over. Worry on her face. "Shit, sorry Wuffie. I didn't realize how bad off you were. Sorry for snappin' atcha.."

Wufei began to shake his head to say it was okay, but the words froze in his throat as he looked up and once again met the eyes he knew so well and yet did not know. His sight turned tunneled, the only thing he could see was violet. He wondered if he was still breathing.

"Whoa, buddy. What's going on?" Duo stood and moved around the table this time, hesitantly touching Wufei's face. "Wu-babe, you're... cold!"

Worry flared in those eyes. Duo was worried. No, couldn't have Duo worried. There were a lot of reasons not to let Duo get worried. It was bad for h- .

Wufei decided maybe pronouns weren't necessary right now. No, he had Duo's worries to concern himself with. That was something he could recognize. It was the same, unchanged from anywhere else, wherever else it was that was not this somewhere else he was in. "I-I'm sorry." His voice sounded rusty. "I think I just had a really bad night."

"You look like it's a bit more than a bad night" Duo frowned. "I know we've been having a rough go of it, but you know I care about'cha. I'm not going to let my stupid broken heart get in the way of our friendship, okay? Look," she sighed in exasperation, "just because I went and confessed doesn't mean anything has changed."

"C-confessed?" Wufei stared. It hadn't been this Duo who had confessed. This Duo was wrong. Wrong in very important places to be the same Duo who had confessed. A few rather instrumental places, actually. "What confession?" He felt his world starting to tilt.

"What confe- jeez Wufei, you're really out of it, aren't you?" And at that, Wufei lost the right to make Duo not worried anymore. Duo was frightened now. "Dang, Hee-chan, better call us in. And don't give me that shit about being on time for work. Sounds like we've got an emergency. When Wuffie here can't even remember me telling him I loved him..."

Wufei gaped at the beautiful - yes, beautiful - alien before him. Loved him? But - but, this was the wrong - the wrong Duo. This Duo was a - a -

His last thought before things tilted completely and he slid off of the earth's surface, was, "- a... woman."