Quatre was happy.

Quatre was just, just jazzed about the entire thing.

He had figured it out. He knew what they had to do.

Quatre cackled evilly to himself, patting himself on the back for a job well done. He made a few phone calls and felt even better. Then he rounded up his buddies, and told them his evil nefarious plot.

"This has officially gone on too long." Quatre told his friends. "And I for one am sick of it. It's time to stop accepting what we cannot change and start changing what we cannot accept."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Wufei asked him in a surly tone. "I thought you said that we couldn't even begin to fight this off until we were charged with something."

"It's all about timing. Back then, we really didn't have anything to work with. And up till now, we've been just sitting around and letting them build a case against us. But now I think it would be faster to build a case against them, instead."

Wufei didn't look too convinced.

"If we can prove that it's a waste of our time and the taxpayer's money, we can get away scott-free. First, we're getting our Graduate Equivalency Degrees. That proves that no one benefits from our being in school at all."

"Umm." Duo raised his hand like he was in class. "I already thought of that, 'cause that's the sort of thing people do when never really have a chance to go to real school. Back when we first got here, I asked the counselor for all of the info on the testing schedules. It didn't work out."

"Was there any documentation of the incident?" Quatre asked him.

"Huh?"

Quatre caught himself, and asked again "Do you have any material proof of what you were trying to do, and why it failed."

"Not that I know of." Duo shrugged. "I couldn't get my hands on anything to begin with. Why?"

"Hmm." Quatre pressed the back of his thumbnail into his lower lip, pondering something. "I may need you to try again, just as soon as I have a way of recording what is happening."

"You want to prove that they're getting in the way of our 'education'." Trowa deduced.

"Uh-huh." Quatre nodded. "It's just some of many rocks they've handed us to throw at them. We've got our severed communication lines, we've got loss of liberties and oppression of culture, heck, we may even be able to put Wufei up one the stand as a victim of sexual harassment."

Wufei and the others looked at him flabbergasted.

"-we should be able to try and blame them for loss of employment and lack of income, and to top it off, we may be able to spearhead an investigation into somebody's accounts and in hopes of coming up with mishandled funds." Quatre spread his hands wide. "With all of this at our disposal, we should be able to make it worth their while to let us go."

"You're forgetting that this is their alternative to prison. And with Heero's actions and all of our usual anti-social attitudes, we don't exactly look like model citizens. That's a fight we just can't win."

"Wrong." Quatre told him. "We, all of us, each have somebody, or several somebodies that should be willing to swear to being our friends. I'm willing to bet that there's enough confiscated postage for each of you to prove it, too."

"What about Heero?" Trowa asked.

"What about him? Quatre brushed it off. "He attacked a man who was known to be one of his greatest opponents during the war. They've fought numerous times in the past, and Zechs always gave as good as he got. If they brushed off us threatening Dorothy, they'd have to let Heero off easy for trying to kill Zechs. Trust me, the worst he'll get is assault and battery. If someone tries to call him dangerous, or even slap him up with a murder charge, we can sue the school for putting Heero, who they're obligated to protect, in the presence of a man who has honestly tried to murder him in the past. We can say it was a sort of self defense. Sure, Heero attacked first, but hey, for all he knew, Zechs was here to finish the job."

"Hey," Duo broke into a big smile. "I'm liking the sound of all of this. This could actually work."

"They sent us here to learn." Quatre told him. "And if there's one lesson our peers should have taught us, it's that if you don't like something, complain, complain, complain."

"For now, all we have to do is play along, keep our grades up, and stay out of trouble."

It was a more composed and collected Quatre Reberber Winner who sat before a large group of adults and contemplated his coffee. The same people from the other day were there, but they were all in a different room, this one small formal dining hall, because there was now the addition of two men in business suits, every teacher who currently had a Gundam pilot in their class, three of his oldest sisters, and more of the school guidance counselors. Quatre claimed one end of the table as his own, and he waited patiently for someone to start.

General Une ruffled her papers.

"We have discussed the matter." She said primly, "and have decided to allow you and the others the benefit of the doubt. Provided you are willing to submit to some basic conditions provided by the school board and the securities committee, no disciplinary action will be taken against your group for your violent actions of three weeks ago."

Quatre finished sipping his coffee and set it down. "I'm listening."

The same counselor that had been at the last meeting cleared his throat. "The faculty and staff are under the impression that your behavior was primarily the result of trauma induced by your experiences in the war. We are mandating that all five of you attend regular therapy sessions to alleviate your symptoms."

"I disagree." Quatre said. The entire room took in a breath. "But in the spirit of getting along, and for the purpose of proving you wrong, I see no reason not to. The others won't have a problem with it either." And that same collective breath became a group sigh.

"Do you know this for sure?" General Une asked. "Have you talked to them?"

"Not about this, no. But we function as a team."

They accepted that, but still looked uneasy.

"Next item." The General said. "You are to immediately halt and desist in your nighttime journeys off school grounds."

Quatre looked confused. "Beg pardon?"

"Don't play innocent." The Principal said. "We are well aware that at approximately four-ten every morning you exit school grounds for dubious purposes. You admitted as much at our last meeting."

"We never did any such thing."

The principal protested. Quatre made no move to halt his blathering, and instead waited until he was done to continue what he was saying before he was so rudely interrupted.

"The school owns the land for a mile and a half into the forest. While we were not on any part of the main campus, we were well within school grounds."

The principal gaped at him.

"We looked it up." Quatre offered by way of an explanation.

General Une took charge again. "I think we can assume that by "don't go off school grounds" that they really mean "don't go into the woods anymore."

Quatre nodded. "We can live with that."

"So you all will agree to no more sparring?"

"I never said that."

"Campus rules clearly state that fighting is an offence punishable by suspension." The principal said.

"We don't 'fight', we spar."

"There's no difference."

"Yes there is. There is a very big difference."

"I'd bet that the board is mainly cracking down on you guys going off campus. I'd bet if you started practicing somewhere more reasonable they'd let you continue." The PE teacher said. The principal gave him a dirty look, like he wasn't supposed to speak.

"I think that sounds acceptable." Said one of the board members in the business suits. "For liability reasons, you'd need someone to keep an eye on you. It would be like a club."

"Moving on." The General said. "You are hereby ordered to speak in a more accessible manner."

"Huh?"

"It's a matter of politeness, and a means of getting you all more involved with your peers." Said one of the counselors. "you lot have a habit of excluding people by talking in foreign languages. Now, we understand that you're probably very proud of your language skills, but the bottom line is that it's not healthy. And people tend to wonder if you're talking about them behind their backs of hiding something when they can't understand you."

"So just because the rest of the world is stupid, we're supposed to watch what we say?"

"Far from it. In fact, part of your rehabilitation will be having to make a conscious effort to speak out. Just do it in a language that all of present company can understand. Let your classmates in on the joke, share the gossip, chew the fat, etcetera etcetera."

"Hmm." Quatre didn't like it, but he couldn't object.

"Consider this training for real life." Said General Une. "You need to learn to get along with other people outside your little clique."

Quatre just continued nodding.

"We want you to get more involved, so we're asking each of you to join at least one club."

"What about lacrosse?"

"Yes, that's all very well and good, but you came to that as a group. We want you to consider outside interests."

"Which clubs do you want us to join?"

"You can choose."

"But we did choose. And we all chose none."

"But as individuals-"

"Each and everyone looked at what was available to us, and none of us saw anything of interest. We may have all decided the same thing, but we reached that decision by ourselves. Same thing with lacrosse; basketball was boring and football didn't really make any sense to any of us."

There was a moment where the adults considered this, and only the movements of coffee mugs was heard.

"If the boys are forming some sort of 'fighting club,'" the coach reasoned, "then that should count as another extracurricular activity, shouldn't it?"

"Some how I doubt that very many students are going to be willing to getup before dawn to get beaten up." Said the principal. "They will be just as isolated as before."

"So the club will take place later in the day." Said the General "Moving on." She shuffled her papers again. "You and the others are required to attend social functions and gatherings."

Quatre couldn't bite back a loud groan. "How did I know this was coming?"

"Surely you understand the importance of teaching your friends how to behave in such a setting." Une lectured him "You, I'm sure, would be perfectly comfortable in this particular situation, but the others would do good to take advantage of this opportunity and learn some class and refinement."

"What makes you think that they can't act classy and refined?" Quatre tilted his head in confusion.

"They've never shown any signs other wise."

"I could say the same about many of my classmates." Quatre said snidely. "But once again, you're forgetting that Heero lied and cheated his way in here, waltzed around sowing chaos and disorder, and sill everybody was kissing his feet, because they all loved him just that much."

She laced her fingers together and looked him square in the eye. "And I suppose you have some valid excuse to not acquiesce to our request?"

"Excuses? I don't give excuses. I give reasons." And he ticked his reasons off one by one on his fingers. "Duo has a girlfriend back home, Wufei's still in mourning over his late wife, I'm facing an arranged marriage, and Heero's repelled by large crowds. That leaves Trowa. Quite frankly, a quiet guy like Trowa would sooner shoot himself in the foot than suffer the embarrassment of singling out a girl, asking her to go with him, and then going through all the trouble of getting ready and actually attending."

"Chang was married?" someone asked.

At this point General Une put her forehead in one hand and said in a terse voice. "Do you plan on deflecting all of our conditions or are you going to actually pretend that you have some sort of respect for this assembly?

"That depends. Are the rest of your conditions this ridiculous?" Quatre shot back.

Une didn't look like she was enjoying herself. Quatre felt a little bad for giving her such a hard time, and had to remind himself that she was probably only here because she was trying to help them by giving a commanders view on how to handle some wayward soldiers.

The principal took over reading to Quatre the list of demands. "While we're on the subject, it has come to the attention of the faculty and staff that three of your friends are not in compliance with the male dress code. Haircuts are mandated, and must be carried out expediently, or penalization will commence.

Quatre smirked to himself and thought 'there he goes again, trying to sound like he swallowed a dictionary.' That smile grew slightly when he remembered that he owed this man no such debt of gratitude as he did the General.

"You will be mandating no such thing." Quatre said simply. "The only way you would be able to legally enforce such a rule would be if we, like most of your students, had signed any of the usual paperwork upon admission to this school, promising that we'd obey your rules and such. However, as coming here was not anything that any of us wanted or intended to do, no such documents were signed." Yes, Quatre could act quite the little prince when he wanted to. "Further more, should you attempt to enforce such a ludicrous principal, legal action will be undertaken."

"Are you flat-out refusing to obey the rules?" principal seemed to puff up, and several of his peers were looking ready to jump out of their seats.

"You must realize what you are asking." Quatre said in his normal, even tone. "You want me to go back to our rooms and tell two of my teammates that they have to cut off personal features that reflect personal, religious, and spiritual beliefs that they've held since childhood. And then you want me to turn around and tell poor Trowa that he's not allowed to use his bangs to hide all those unusual scars anymore."

"You can't possibly expect anyone here to believe that Duo Maxwell belongs to a religion that requires him to have hair going down past his waist! We just won't stand for this."

Quatre didn't so much as waiver. "Try me."

Une started to get up. "If that is all.."

"No, it is not all!" the principal was still glaring at Quatre. "Effective immediately, all of you are being assigned rooms with new roommates from outside your little clique."

'He's bluffing.' Quatre thought. 'He has to be.' 04 scanned the faces of those present. 'Okay, so he's making it up as he goes. But from the looks of things, he's going to get his way.'

"If that's the way you want to play it, then fine." Quatre said, again haughty, even, and calm.

The principal shot him one last glare and checked his watch, calling out the time and 'meeting adjourned.

"I'd expect them to try and find some way of questioning the rest of you individually sometime soon. Especially you, Trowa." Quatre turned to look at the boy sitting on the bed with him. "General Une isn't trying to cause trouble for us, but she has a job to do, and a personal interest in figuring you out."

"Bah." Trowa waved him off. "She doesn't scare me, let her come. I don't have anything to hide."

"Sorry about the rooms, guys." Quatre apologized for the millionth time. "I probably should have been a little more agreeable."

"Hah! It's not your fault. And if my hair is what's at risk, I can put up with a lot more than a little thing like a new room." Duo tried to cheer him up.

Quatre still looked glum.

"Hey, its no big deal." Duo insisted. "So we get broken up. Its not like we're not going to see each other in class. We'll just divide Heero's things among us and remember that it'll all be over soon."

"Don't you think someone is going to notice that all of Heero's stuff disappears? Trowa asked.

"Doesn't matter." Wufei grumbled. "I'd be more worried about why Heero's still missing. Don't tell me that I'm the only one who noticed that he should have been back a long time ago. A little itty-bitty thing like a few broken bones never kept the Perfect Soldier down for very long before."

"For now we'll have to trust Une." Quatre was still glum.

Heero was still missing when the school was infested with non-denominational and non-religious holiday ornaments and decorations. Songs about winter and snow and 'peace on earth' were found in various media, and half of the population disappeared for several hours after classes let out for the day, flitting off to the mall like sugar-plum fairies.

The door to the men's room burst open, and was slammed shut once Wufei dove through it. He was pressed up against it and fearfully glanced around the room, eyeing the staring young men who were using the facility. They parted like the red sea when he sprinted across the room to the other side, and scrambled up the wall to the narrow horizontal windows that were near the ceiling. Against all odds, he managed to get one open and squeeze through, something that would have been impossible for most people, and had been much easier two years ago, before he had began developing such a thick layer of muscle.

No one moved to close the window after him, but one boy got up on his tiptoes and peered outside, watching the strange Chinese boy hastily retreat across the snowy terrain.

Towa was studying in his new room when the window opened from the outside and Wufei jumped in.

"It's begun." He said breathlessly. "Phoradendron flavescens! Viscum album!"

None of this rambling made sense to any of Trowa's three roommates, but the other ex-soldier dropped his books and his jaw in shock.

"We have to warn the others!" Wufei insisted, and then the two of them leaped out of the window. From the fourth floor. Onto cobblestones.

Trowa's new roommates dashed to the windowsills, but there was no sign of either of them.

The Principal called an emergency meeting, consisting of himself, General Une, and the lone Gundam boy who seemed to have been commissioned as liaison between the adults and the former terrorists.

"Let's make this quick." The General said when she strode into his office, looking mighty ruffled about something. "I do have other obligations and duties." She fixed him with a fierce look, one he tried to ignore. "What's this all about?"

"I have received several very disturbing reports all over school, and many are worried that the same insanity that gripped Mr. Yuy has taken hold in the rest of his little clique." The Principal said in a condescending tone. "And Mr. Winner here is going to tell us exactly what is 'going on'."

Quatre seemed to mirror the General's annoyance with this, he looked like someone had been ruffling his feathers, too. "It's like this. Wufei just isn't from around here, so there's bound to be some cultural differences and misunderstandings."

"Go on."

He seemed to be having some trouble finding words to express himself. "It's Christmas. Or the holidays, or what ever you want to call it. He isn't familiar with some of the customs and practices. Neither are the others, for that matter."

The general tapped her foot impatiently, towering over him from where he sat.

"Some girls…er…presented him with mistletoe." Quatre glanced at their faces, but neither was catching on, other than the understanding of the culturally and seasonally intended implications. He had to enlighten them. "Mistletoe is poisonous." Again he glanced around. "I've used it myself, when I'm trying to make a death look natural, at least until the autopsy."

The General finally got it. "So he thought they were trying to poison him."

"He thought they were trying to poison him, get rid of him, so he trapped them all in their own lockers, fled through the men's room, and proceeded to round up the rest of you with tales of how the time had come for all of you to make your escape and head for the hills." The Principal said dubiously.

"Uh…yeah…pretty much."

The General buried her face in her hands. She sucked in a noisy breath, and her shoulders shook. She dissolved into giggles, and finally, unable to hold it in anymore, burst out laughing.

"It's not funny!" Quatre said, offended for the sake of his friends.

Tears began running down her face. She doubled over and had to grip the side of the Principal's desk to keep from falling over completely.

"And what about they others?" the Principal said over the loud guffaws.

"None of them made the connection to inane romantic practices either." Quatre said stiffly. "They were all ready to start pulling out too. I had to explain things to them."

This seemed to make it all even funnier, but before too long the General seemed to be coming to her senses. They watched her as she took off her glasses and cleaned them, still snickering and hiccoughing. "I can't wait to tell the gals at work about this."

"That's rather unprofessional of you." Quatre informed her

"Pish-posh. They all just want news of Chang, they consider him a friend. And I'm sure Sergeant Po will be delighted to hear that he sees foreign advances akin to death-traps."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Quatre said flatly.

She replaced her glasses and peered down at him, the barest traces of a smirk at the corners of her mouth. "I think it best that it stay that way, at least for now. But you see, we were right to send him here. You lot really need to learn how to behave in the real world." She squared her shoulders and marched out the door. Quatre glanced over in the direction of the Principal, then followed her out, and made his way back to the dorms, muttering about how none of this was really worth it.