Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters, plot ideas and the mental trauma some readers might suffer as a result of reading one of my fics. Thanks to all those who have been reading and reviewing this fic, I love to hear from you. Enjoy this latest update and have a great day.

Burning Question

Well it would be putting mildly if it were said that the people of Preventers reached badly to the news that Lieutenant Instructor Chang was dating General Instructor Noin. In fact it would be more accurate to say that all hell broke loose once people realized the implications of the way the now infamous match in the gym between Chang and Peacecraft had ended. Being smart, well educated people it didn't take people long to put two and two together and realize that Wufei was the exotic, motorcycle riding hunk all the girls had been sighing over. Needless to say the female population wasn't at all pleased to find out that their so called motorcycle sex god was in fact their gruff, chauvinistic, strict instructor, who excelled at making their lives miserable in training. Needless to say they stopped sighing over him and instead turned their minds to more pressing things, like figuring out what the hell Instructor Noin saw in the guy. The male population of course was thrilled with this and didn't waste any time rubbing it in that the girls had been sighing over their instructor which the female population didn't appreciate at all and consequently blamed their instructors for. Wufei of course was just glad they'd stopped sighing over him and was glad that they were back to thinking he just had to be the spawn of Satan. Noin on the other hand, having always been popular was unused to the hostility from her female students while her male students didn't seem to care one way or another.

Of course their students weren't the only ones upset with them at the moment. Duo was still furious with Wufei, after two whole weeks because his friend had denied him the privilege of being able to blab the whole thing after having to keep quiet about it for so long. Since Wufei kissing the socks off Noin had pretty much blown that surprise Duo could be found sulking and glaring at Wufei often, much to Wufei's amusement. Lady Une had been a little blown away by the news too and had called Noin up to her office, just to confirm that the rumors were true. When Noin had admitted to her that the rumors were true Lady Une had called Wufei up too and given them both an hour long lecture on how they were to behave while in the work place seeing as Wufei was of lower rank then she was. This of course had mortified both of them but they'd sucked it up as best they could. Thankfully the other Gundam pilots, even Duo, had gone out of their way to act as a shield between the newly discovered couple and the rest of the Preventers. Thankfully a lot of people were afraid of Heero and Trowa so generally when either told someone to go they couldn't get away fast enough. Milliardo was of course covertly bombarded with attention too but he wasn't called the ice man for nothing and people soon gave up trying to get even a peep out of him about what was going on. Relena and Sally went out of their way to play referees but since neither of the three main characters in the drama were talking the Preventers soldiers soon gave up trying to make anything of it and moved on. Of course the fight in the gym for Instructor Noin remained as a new piece of Preventers lore that was to remain in circulation long after the players involved left the organization in retirement. The poor, lowly but handsome instructor fighting the terribly rich, handsome, genuine prince for the hand of the warrior maiden General Noin was a story that wasn't going to be forgotten any time soon it seemed.

February rolled in without a fuss and everyone went about their business, leaving the now accepted couple of Instructors Noin and Chang alone. For the moment anyway. That, unfortunately was going to change soon. Being the keen observers that they were, especially now the pilots had picked up that something was going on with Wufei. None of them could put their finger on what it was that struck them as off but there was definitely something. They'd asked Noin and she'd agreed with them but had had no more luck then the guys trying to figure out what was going on. When asked point blank Wufei just shrugged it off as nothing and with the exception of Noin told everyone else to bugger off. They ignored him of course but that didn't really surprise him in the least. He knew them as well as they knew him after all.

"You know, Wufei...you owe me for not keeping your promise to let me tell everyone that you and Noin were a couple." Duo began, taking a seat beside Wufei who was visiting to give Quatre a list of popular and important sites to see since Quatre had asked for help in planning for his trip to China for a business meeting. Quatre unfortunately had been on the phone when Wufei had arrived leaving him temporarily in Duo's clutches.

"There's nothing for you to add to the gossip mill." Wufei said with a dark look, annoyed to have to wait and at Duo in particular. Technically there really wasn't anything, at least not yet, Wufei silently amended. He was up to something but there was no way he was telling Duo about it or anyone for that matter. If things didn't go the way he was hoping he wanted to keep knowledge of it to a minimum.

"You're up to something, Wu-man. I know you are." Duo said as he poked Wufei in the arm, a determined look on his face. "You know I'm going to keep harassing you until you tell me. You know how annoying I can be, pal. Don't make me pull out the big guns."

"Or I could just shoot you and end it now and spare myself the trouble of your future company."

"No one's shooting anyone. At least not in the house." Quatre said with a shake of his head as he walked into the room, surprised to see Wufei there. For obvious reasons Wufei had been avoiding Duo whenever possible. "Thanks for coming by the way, Wufei. You didn't have to go out of your way to bring that list, especially already."

"I was in the neighborhood." Wufei lied, getting to his feet as he picked up the sheets of paper he'd brought with him. "Would you like to go over the list?" Wufei asked, his eyes meeting Quatre as he silently added that he needed to talk to him about something. Alone.

"Yeah, sure. That would be great." Quatre said with a easy smile, receiving the message perfectly, "Duo, if you need either of us we'll be in my office." Quatre added, his look to Duo saying clearly that Duo was to behave himself and that eavesdropping would be a severely punishable offense. Once he was sure that Duo got the message loud and clear Quatre and Wufei headed into Quatre's office, Quatre being sure to lock the door behind him before taking a seat across from Wufei. "So what's really up?"

"I..need a favor." Wufei said as jammed his hands into his pockets.

"Okay...what sort of favor?" Quatre wanted to know, raising an eyebrow. It must be a pretty important favor if Wufei didn't feel comfortable talking about it in front of Duo. Then again Duo was like a cat in front of a mouse hole now, just waiting to pounce on some new bit of gossip to redeem himself in the gossip pool. His rep had taken quite a hit with the whole Wufei/Noin deal, especially since he was friends with both of them.

"I need your help..setting up a dinner." Wufei said, looking down at the ground rather then at Quatre. It made it a little easier to ask. "For Valentine's Day."

"Ahhh...a romantic dinner for two at home?" Quatre ventured to guess, smiling when Wufei's cheeks began to get just a little bit pink. Bingo. So that was why his friend had seemed off, he'd been trying to figure out what to do for Valentine's Day and had finally broken down to ask for help. Poor guy.

"Yeah...I'm...well I know what sort of food and stuff but I'm not sure..how to set the scene.. exactly. You know more about that sort of thing than anyone else I know." Wufei said gruffly, forcing himself to meet Quatre's eyes on the principle of the point. "I thought maybe you could give me some pointers."

"Sure, no problem." Quatre said as he got up and going over to his desk came back with a pad of paper and a pen. "Okay, so you want it at the cabin right?" When Wufei nodded Quatre wrote that down. "It's a good idea, it won't be hard to get her there since I take it this is going to be a surprise?"

"That's the plan anyway. She's going with Relena and Peacecraft to a conference on the thirteenth and staying over night but they'll be coming back late evening the next day if everything goes as planned." Wufei said, relaxing now that he knew he had Quatre on his side. He couldn't screw this part up too much if Quatre was there to supervise. "I'm picking her up at the airport."

"So as low key and relaxing as possible would be a good idea. She'll be tired and looking forward to getting off her feet and enjoying being home." Quatre said with a thoughtful look, tapping his pen against his cheek before looking at Wufei questioningly. "What are you getting her?"

"Getting her?" Wufei said with an edge of panic coming into his eyes. He didn't want to talk about that at all. He didn't even want to think about it for that matter. "It's all picked out and everything. I don't need your help for that part."

Narrowing his eyes Quatre smiled to himself and simply nodded, pretty sure he knew what was going on now. "Okay then. So I take it you want to go classy rather then funny romantic?"

"Funny romantic?" Wufei repeated, his turn to raise an eyebrow. "You mean like the time Duo got it into his head to serenade Hilde, if you can call his croaking singing, in the middle of the night?"

"Well I'd call that more an attempt at funny romantic." Quatre said with a faint snicker, thinking back on that occasion fondly. Duo had gotten quite a bad cold as a result of that little stunt. "What I meant was are you going for the tasteful flowers, china and champagne or would you rather get a bit more creative?"

"Like what?" Wufei asked wearily.

"Well...for instance..."

February 14th

"Hey." Noin said as she walked over to Wufei, a smile on her face as she let go of her carrier to wrap her arms around his neck for a welcome home kiss. "I missed you. Sorry we're late."

"No problem." Wufei said with a smile, returning the kiss before taking her carrier in one hand and her hand in his other. "Ready to go?"

"Oh yeah." Noin agreed with a tired smile. "So did they manage to fix the problem with your water heater while I was gone?" For the last two days before she'd left Wufei had been staying with her since his water heater had begun to act up and he'd had problems getting someone since the first guy he'd hired hadn't shown up on time.

"Everything's all right now. We'll head back there if it's okay with you. Dinner is waiting." Wufei added as an incentive since she looked worn out enough to want to just go to her house which was closer.

Tired what Noin wanted to do was go to bed but it was Valentine's Day and she'd already screwed it up having to go to that stupid conference. She'd tried to get out of it but there was really no one else qualified enough to have taken her place, especially since her presence had been requested. Wufei had gone to the trouble of making her dinner, she wasn't going to disappoint him, especially since she'd screwed things up enough as it was. "Dinner sounds good." Noin said with a smile, squeezing his hand as the two headed to his car and after stowing away her stuff in the back the two headed off to his house in relative silence since Wufei, thankfully had told her to rest until they got there. Happily putting the seat back Noin was soon contentedly cat napping and did so all the way there.

By the time they'd arrived she was completely out of it and didn't even stir when the car came to a stop outside the house. Getting out Wufei took her luggage in first then leaving the door open slightly went back for her. Opening her door Wufei undid her seat belt then lifting her into his arms shut her door with his hip before walking up the snowy path and into the house. Closing the door Wufei looked down at her for a moment then shaking his head carefully got his boots off before heading up the stairs to his room. Thankfully he and Quatre, well mostly Quatre, had come up with a Plan B in case something like this happened. Setting her down on the bed Wufei undressed her then putting her into a nightgown tucked her in and collecting her outerwear headed out, closing the door carefully behind him. They had work tomorrow so he could only let her sleep so long anyway, otherwise her sleeping pattern would be even more screwy then it already was. Putting her stuff away Wufei headed into the kitchen to check on the food and rearrange a few things.

Waking up of her own accord two hours later Noin blinked, sitting up in bed as she blearily looked around her, trying to get her bearings. Groaning she flopped back down on her pillow, scrubbing her hands over her face. Damn, and usually it was the guy that totally destroyed the supposedly most romantic day of the year, Noin thought with a sigh as she sat back up, absently noticing that he'd put her in her nightgown and tucked her in. How long had she been out, Noin wondered, turning her head to check his clock, doing the math in her head. Only about two hours, that wasn't too bad. She just hoped dinner wasn't ruined. Throwing the covers off Noin slid out of bed and after rustling up her robe walked towards the door, absently tying her belt before she came to a halt, her eyes having caught sight of something strange on the carpet. A lot of something strange, Noin thought as she bent down as she picked up one of the rose petals that formed a trail leading to the stairs. Going all gooey inside Noin smiled and followed, wondering absently just how much of this had been Sally and Quatre's ideas. There was no way Wufei had thought of all this all by himself. Following the petals down the stairs they led down the hallway towards the kitchen. A romantic dinner, Noin speculated, sighing girlishly that he would humiliate himself by going to all this trouble. She knew he thought romance, especially romantic gestures were for idiots and this was too romantic for his comfort level. He'd likely been completely mortified once he realized just what his friends were helping him plan. Chuckling at the thought Noin walked into the kitchen, her apology all planned when she stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn't the elegantly set table for two, or the flowers and champagne that had tears welling up in her eyes. No, it was the kitchen walls. Instead of the hideous green color he'd insisted on keeping just to annoy her and Sally it was now a cheerful, welcoming red with white borders. He'd painted it exactly like she'd wanted him to in the first place.

Tears sliding down her cheeks Noin didn't even hear Wufei come in from the cloakroom where he'd been checking on Patch. Seeing her, the tears in her eyes Wufei carefully closed the door behind him, walking over to stand beside her. "Do you like it?" He asked hesitantly.

"I love it. There never was any water heater problem, was there?" Noin asked as she looked over at him, her eyes shining.

"Of course there wasn't and if there had been I would have fixed it." Wufei said as he jammed his hands into his pockets, a nervous habit that he had recently developed when it came to Lucrezia. His hand closing around the object of his torment it took all of Wufei's training to remain cool and collected. This was worse then waiting for a hidden sniper to take a shot at you. "I know how much you hated it."

"Now everything's perfect." Noin agreed, hugging her arms around her stomach, finally noticing the rest of the fancy set up that Wufei and Quatre had worked so hard on. "Absolutely everything."

"Almost everything. There's still one thing missing."

"Oh, what?" Noin asked, turning to face him with a curious look. "Because from where I'm standing this couldn't get any more perfect."

"It would be perfect...if it were our house."

"Our house..." Noin repeated, her eyes going wide as his meaning hit home. "Are you..Wufei, are you asking me to live with you?"

"Of course not...well not exactly." Wufei corrected as he pulled his hands out of his jacket pocket, one holding a jewelry box tightly in its grasp. "I'm asking you to marry me." To Noin's utter shock Wufei got down on one knee, holding out the box to her as his eyes met and held hers. "I never thought I'd do this, that I'd ever want to do this for that matter. But I love you, Lucrezia and there's no getting around that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you..because you are my life. Will you marry me, Lucrezia?"

Dropping to her knees in front of him Noin took the box from him, flipping the lid open with trembling hands to stare at the beautiful ring shining back at her. Her eyes filling with fresh tears Noin turned her eyes back to Wufei's, seeing in his dark eyes anxiety, fear, hope and most importantly love. Overwhelming and eternal love. For her. Just as those same emotions were reflected in hers. Overcome with it all she launched herself into his arms, wrapping herself around him as they fell backwards. Burying her face in his neck Noin held on tight, only loosening her grip long enough to shift her head to whisper a single word into his ear. Yes.