Title: Never Turn Your Back on the Sea (3?)
Section Title: Investigations
Author: Alleyprowler
Rating/Warnings: M for language, violence, and adult subject matter.
Pairings: 3x4x3, 1xR and 2xH.

The air was like milk that morning.

The clouds in the upper atmosphere had cleared away some time during the night and now the winter sun was trying to illuminate the damp earth, but the feeble warmth was only serving to leach moisture from the ground and make the fog so dense that you could practically wind it around yourself like a shroud.

The local airfield was surprisingly sophisticated for being in such an out-of-the-way area. Although it was mostly used for recreational aircraft and the private jets of the resort owners, it was large enough for emergency transport craft and shuttles, as Quatre had discovered when he'd called late the night before. The sleek high-speed, high-range Preventer's shuttle would be able to land here just fine, he was assured, as long as the pilot could land on instruments alone. Quatre smiled. Not many pilots could make a landing in this sort of weather, but he knew Wufei would merely find it an annoyance.

As he'd predicted, Wufei's red and white shuttle came down just as easily in the pea-soup fog as it would have if the visibility had been unlimited. He was only three minutes late, too. Quatre pulled out of his parking space and brought his battered jeep as close to the shuttle as was practical and waited patiently while Wufei went through the post-flight systems check. He would have gotten out of the vehicle to greet his friend in person, but his knee was beginning to throb dully again in spite of the painkillers he had swallowed and he didn't feel like putting weight on it until it was absolutely necessary. Besides, it was warm in the jeep. If he went out into the cold air, he knew that the chills would come back, and he didn't want to meet Wufei looking like a frightened puppy. He already looked bad enough, he knew.

Wufei exited the craft at last, taking a moment to scan his surroundings before setting foot on the ground. Quatre smiled; same old Wufei. Underneath his heavy topcoat, Wufei's posture was ramrod-straight, yet he moved with the same darting, dizzying precision with which he had piloted his mobile suits. It was obvious that he had retained his edge.

Wufei had grown to be a long, lean, whiplike figure with a ponytail hanging in a graceful sumi-ink brushstroke between his shoulderblades, and his eyes glittered as bright and dangerous as black ice. He was a walking, thinking weapon, and Quatre was quite glad they were on the same side.

Wufei jogged toward the jeep briskly with his duffel bag over one shoulder, and Quatre shivered when he saw the little clouds that his breath made in the damp winter air. He buried his chin into the fleecy lining of his parka and braced himself for the blast of cold air that came into the cab when Wufei pulled the door open, but the Preventer closed it behind himself quickly and the warm air blowing from the heater vents cut the chill quickly. "Good morning, Wufei, it's good to see you again," he greeted, smiling.

Wufei turned his sharp gaze on him, giving Quatre the impression that those black eyes were somehow looking right through him, as if he was made of glass. "Morning, Winner. Where are you hurt and how badly?"

Apparently Wufei had never gotten over his distaste for small talk. "I'm not hurt very badly anywhere...well, except my knee. I think I sprained it."

"Show me."

Quatre was a little taken aback by that. "What?"

"Show me this sprained knee of yours so I can tell whether to deputize you or ground you." Wufei repeated with exaggerated patience.

"Excuse me, did you say 'deputize'?"

Quatre's expression must have been amusing, for a corner of Wufei's mouth twitched upward and his eyes narrowed in a smirk. "Yes. If this is Preventer business, I'll have to make you a Preventer, at least on a temporary basis. Otherwise, you're just another nosy civilian."

Quatre ignored the jab. He was, after all, quite content to be a civilian. "Can you do that? Is it legal?"

"It's expedient," Wufei said, which didn't really answer the question. "Now please show me your knee so we can get this thing started."

Not really having any other choice, Quatre rolled up the leg of his pants, turned sideways in his seat, and let Wufei poke and prod around his knee. He pronounced the joint sprained but serviceable, then badgered Quatre into showing him his sore elbow and other, more minor, injuries. When he was finished, he gave Quatre an unreadable look. "You have the luck of the devil, my friend. Most people, having been blown up and knocked off a cliff, would have had the grace to at least require hospitalization, yet you walk away as if nothing had happened."

Quatre shifted uncomfortably under that intent gaze. "I was fortunate."

"You were indeed. Don't push it."

Quatre didn't know what to say to that, so he simply put the jeep in gear and started to drive back to the highway.

"How far away is this Bell Point place?" Wufei asked as he did a quick inventory of his bag.

"It's about twenty minutes north of here." Quatre squinted into the fog and flipped on the windshield wipers to try to clear away some of the condensation. It didn't help much. Visibility wasn't more than two or three car lengths ahead. "Maybe thirty," he amended.

"Pull over."

Quatre shot an apprehensive glance at his passenger as he pulled onto the soft shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"Not with me." Wufei opened his door and jumped out, slamming it shut behind him. Quatre watched in bewilderment as he jogged around to the driver's side of the jeep and pointed to indicate that he wanted Quatre to move to the passenger side. Quatre carefully maneuvered his abused body over the driveshaft hump and settled into the seat, gasping a little as a bruise on his calf accidentally brushed the top of the gearshift knob.

"Wufei, what are you doing?" he demanded as Wufei pulled the driver's side door open and hopped in.

"Driving," Wufei said with an infuriating smirk. "What does it look like?"

"But you don't even know where we're going!" Quatre objected.

"No, but you do. You can navigate. I'm not about to sit here and watch you wince every time you have to use the clutch."

"I wasn't wincing, I was..." Quatre stopped and tried to think of a better word for what he was doing. Every time he had to let out the clutch he felt a sensation like a cold, poisoned dagger trying to pry his off kneecap, but he wasn't wincing, he was... He couldn't come up with a better word, so he decided to change the subject instead. "Wufei, this is my jeep. I'll drive it."

"It's not yours, it belongs to Island Rentals," Wufei replied, pointing helpfully to a sticker affixed to the corner of the windshield.

Quatre glared at the sticker as if it was the source of all his troubles. Perhaps it was. If the company had been out of heavy-duty vehicles that day and had only been able to offer short-range electric economy cars, this whole thing wouldn't have happened, would it? "It did belong to that rental company, but in case you missed it, Mr. Observant, there's a rather large dent in the door right here and I thought it would be easier to just call the rental company and buy the damn thing rather than explain how it got that way. So this is my jeep." His voice broke on the last syllable and he started to cough.

"Are you all right?" Wufei asked, sounding genuinely concerned rather than smart-assed for once.

"No, I'm not all right!" Quatre snapped. "I'm tired, I hurt, I don't feel well, and I'm just slightly freaked out by the fact that someone tried to take my life yesterday."

A short, embarrassed pause grew into a long, embarrassed pause as Wufei processed the information. It had been a long time since he had heard Quatre sound like that. He was normally a pretty level-headed person, at least by Wufei's standards, and if he did have occasion to raise his voice, it was usually to shout out orders or convey important information. But now he seemed almost angry. His face was white except for a few bruises and the hectic flush on his cheeks, his breathing was rapid and shallow, and his hands were balled into hard, bony fists on his lap.

No, not angry. Distressed. 'Freaked out', if you wanted the vernacular. Wufei understood that, or at least he knew how to cope with it, which amounted to the same thing.

First, he calmed himself. He took a few deep, slow breaths and forced his hands and feet to relax – with no tension in the extremities, there can be no tension in the torso. Control the physical signs, and the emotion itself will disappear. Wufei couldn't remember where he head heard that, but it had served him well over the years, just as it served him well now. He felt the tension leave his neck and shoulders like stagnant water from a drain. "Quatre," he said as soon as he felt calm again, "this will all turn out okay. I'm here to help, both as a Preventer and a friend."

Quatre slumped against the seat and closed his eyes. Aside from a few coughs, he repeated Wufei's breathing exercise, and his shoulders relaxed a bit. "I know that, Wufei. I didn't mean to be difficult, I'm just a little concerned about that phone call. Now that I've had time to think about it, it seems sort of weird, but I can't quite remember how..."

Wufei hung his head. "I can confirm the date and time of the call, but the actual contents are not recorded on either local or EarthSphere Communications privacy codes. Unless you've actually recorded the transmission yourself, we will have to disregard—" he was cut off as Quatre gasped loudly.

"I did!" he exclaimed.

"You did what?" Wufei sat up straighter in his seat and pushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

"I recorded it! I recorded part of the conversation!" Quatre was nearly glowing with the thrill of realization.

"You did? Voluntarily?"

Quatre's eyes lit up so brightly that they rivaled the sky and the sea on a sunny day. "Of course, voluntarily! I need to track every financial transaction with my accountant, so I nearly always record Duo's calls. We're listed as business partners to my academic advisor and I used to record every conversation we had over rare metals, but that got too cumbersome, so I put his calls on manual screening so I could separate his social things from business things," he stopped himself short and shook his head slightly. "Wufei, the point is that I've saved that call, both audio and video."

Anyone who didn't know Wufei well would have thought he looked unaffected by that revelation, but Quatre could see the slight widening of his eyes, the upturn of the corner of his mouth, and the setting of his shoulders and knew he was very happy to receive that information. "Ah-ha. We might be able to download it from here if you have all your retrieval codes and a hefty credit chip—"

"That I have," Quatre said, grinning.

"But I'm afraid my laptop needs a new battery, and I don't suppose..." Wufei peered out the fog-beaded windshield at the unrelieved expanse of dripping evergreens, "there's an electronics shop around here?"

Quatre coughed into his fist, but he was still grinning. "No, something even better. Put the jeep in gear, Wufei, we're going to Neil's General Store, the island's answer to all you consumer needs from fishing bait to peanut butter."

Wufei looked mildly disgusted. "I don't want bait or peanut butter, I want an XC-class rechargeable battery."

"I'm sure they have it, Wufei," Quatre assured his comrade. "And even if they don't, they can order it. Now hurry up, I want to get some cough medicine. I think I have a cold."

"Roger that," Wufei said, and pulled the jeep back onto the highway.

There was only one general store in the little town, but it was the kind of place that stocked everything from lingerie to light bulbs. You could wander the aisles for hours and stock up on practically everything you might need for a stay at one of the little resort houses that dotted the area. There was even a post office tucked into one corner, staffed by a dozing octogenarian with a white beard that fell nearly to his waist. He appeared to have cobwebs on him, but that might have been Quatre's imagination.

"Do you suppose they have batteries here?" Wufei asked, dubiously eyeing the rather dusty merchandise on the worm-eaten wooden shelves.

"Why wouldn't they?" Quatre replied with some surprise. To his eyes, the place was a wonderland of efficient marketing, and a welcome change from the small and extremely specialized shops that tended to crop up in the Colonies. Back at home, if you wanted a loaf of bread, you went to the baker. If you needed new socks, you went to the sock shop. If you were looking for a screwdriver, you went to the hardware store. A full shopping list usually meant at least two or three hours of walking from tiny shop to tiny shop, which was why he usually left that job to Mrs. Charles. This place was wonderful. "Look, they're probably over there," he said, pointing to an aisle full of stationery supplies. "I'm going to go find some cough medicine and I'll meet you up front."

Wufei, still looking doubtful, walked toward the indicated aisle while Quatre headed for the section that sold patent medicines. He had already been there late the previous night to pick up some pain relievers for his injuries, and so he knew that the over-the-counter remedy selection was vast, but he wasn't prepared for the sheer volume of boxes and bottles that were waiting for him. There had to be at least twelve types of cough syrup, half that many types of medicated lozenges, and another six brands of throat spray, all of which looked like legitimate ways of beating the common cold into submission. Quatre blinked at the array and shook his head. "They're probably all the same thing anyway," he muttered, and he grabbed a large bottle of something off the shelf simply because he liked the purple color of the label.

Wufei had found his batteries after all and was paying for them at the cashier's counter when Quatre caught up with him. "I'm ready to go," he said, plunking the bottle down on the counter and reaching for his wallet. "Just give me a second to..."

Wufei snatched the bottle up and began to scrutinize the label carefully. "Oh, no. Not this." He looked up at the cashier, who regarded him with a sleepy sort of indifference. "He's not buying this crap," he said in a tone of voice that suggested that the cashier was personally responsible for Quatre's misguided choice, but the cashier merely shrugged and went back to his magazine. He spent four months of the year dealing with tourists, and in spite of the official-looking jacket, Wufei was just another townie to him.

"Wait, what's wrong with it?" Quatre asked, but he found himself being dragged along by his sleeve back to the patent medicine aisle with a speed that made his sore knee begin to seriously complain.

"Everything is wrong with it," Wufei said, waving the bottle in front of Quatre's nose. "Quatre, that stuff is all alcohol and red dye number 40. If you're going to be of any use, I need you to be sober."

Quatre muffled some coughs against his sleeve; his chest was beginning to feel heavy and swampy and he just wanted to grab something to fix it and go. "So what do you recommend?"

Wufei put the offending bottle back on the shelf and picked up a different brand. "What kind of a cough is it?"

"A really annoying one."

"Very funny. Is it the tickle in the throat kind, or the deep in the chest kind, and are you coughing up much phlegm?"

Quatre winced. Phlegm. He did not like to believe that his body produced something that sounded so utterly gross. He could accept the usual liquids and solids and gases that the human body excretes, but somehow the word 'phlegm' had always sent a pang of revulsion through his stomach. "I'm a little bit congested," he admitted grudgingly.

"You need an expectorant, then. It'll help clear out the phlegm." Wufei looked over his shoulder when he heard the faint gagging noise Quatre made. "What?"

Quatre's expression was the very picture of disgust. "I just don't like that word. It sounds so...slimy."

"What, phlegm?" Wufei asked. A wicked gleam came into his eyes as Quatre nodded. "Okay, I won't say phlegm anymore. How about snot? Are you okay with snot?"

Quatre glowered at his companion darkly. "I'm going to start getting annoyed with you in a moment."

"Fine. Mucus it is, then," Wufei said, turning back to the task at hand. He seemed rather surprised when a bottle of aspirin bounced off his head. "Oh, that was really mature, Winner," he snarled, picking up the bottle and putting it in its proper place.

"Yeah, and so is baiting me when I'm tired and cranky. Frankly, I think you deserved it."

"That does it, you're taking a nap on the shuttle. If you're going to behave like a two-year-old, I can certainly treat you like one."

Although a nap actually sounded like a splendid idea, Quatre was in an argumentative mood and felt compelled to rebel against it. "Oh, please, Wufei, that patriarchal attitude might scare your cadets, but...hang on a second, where are we going?"

Wufei answered while he read ingredients on every single type of cough medicine on the shelf. "First we're going to Bell Point, of course. I want to see if there's any of that explosive left, or anything else, for that matter. After that, we're going to get a good, hot lunch. I'm starving. I don't suppose there's a good place to eat around here?"

Quatre thought about the cozy little café with its elderly furniture, roaring fire, and comforting smells of hot coffee and old books, and sighed wistfully. "Yeah, I know a place," he said. He didn't tell Wufei that once he got there and parked his butt in one of those old-fashioned overstuffed chairs in front of the fire it was going to take a goddamn crowbar to get him back out, but then Wufei didn't need to know that.

"Good. After that, we're going to pay a little visit to Duo."

Quatre suddenly felt exhausted. He sat down on the floor and leaned against an endcap display of a type of soda he'd never heard of, sighing wearily. "Wufei, I don't really feel like being dragged all the way to L2 right now. I understand why you want to question Duo, but why do I have to go along as well?"

Wufei's dark glare clearly indicated that he believed Quatre had taken leave of his senses. "Quatre, someone just made an attempt on your life. If you think I'm going to let you out of my sight until this mess is cleared up, you're nuts."

Quatre bristled. "Oh, so now you're my babysitter?"

"You can think of it as protective custody if it makes you feel any better."

"It doesn't."

"Fine. I'm your babysitter. And if you give me any more attitude about it, I'll arrest you."

Knowing that Wufei wasn't the type to make idle threats, Quatre held his tongue and waited till his companion had finished his perusal of the medicines.

"This should do," Wufei said a few minutes later, startling Quatre out of a light doze.

"Oh. Oh, good," Quatre said, trying to sound more alert than he really was. He accepted the bottle of clear syrup Wufei handed him and pushed himself to his feet. "Let's get going."

The solid white wall of morning fog had cleared to wisps and tatters by the time they got to Bell Point. Mist floated across the tarmac like bits of ghostly winding shroud as Wufei brought the jeep to a halt in front of a line of three traffic cones. They weren't standard traffic cones; they were shorter, wider, and a hell of a lot less battered than the ones used by road crews. They were obviously the kind of cones that were packed in a standard driver's emergency kit. "Sealing off the scene?" Wufei asked, raising an eyebrow at his passenger.

"It's the best I could do under the circumstances," Quatre replied. His voice was a bit muffled since he had his lower face buried in the fleece collar of his jacket. He looked cold.

"Although I'd doubt anyone would come by a tourist trap on the off-season, I suppose it was a reasonable precaution. Good thinking." Coming from Wufei, that was high praise indeed. Quatre merely nodded.

Wufei maneuvered the jeep around the cones and drove at a sedate pace to the end of the point. One or twice he had to oversteer due to the buffeting winds that drove across the unprotected piece of land, but they got to the lighthouse without incident.

Wufei parked in the middle of the road, parallel to the little white house, and frowned out the windshield at the blasted hand truck and packing crate bits that littered the road. "Well, it seems no one has touched anything. That's good." He wondered briefly why he was speaking in such a low voice. It was as if he was afraid of being overheard, but who was here to spy on them? The gulls?

Quatre kept his voice pitched low also. "I didn't think anyone would come out here since it's marked a dead end, but you never know. Bored teenagers will go anywhere."

They shared a brief mutual grin at that. In spite of – or perhaps, because of – their 'traditional' upbringing, Wufei and Quatre were no strangers to teenage rebellion. There were times when you simply had to escape parental authority and go do something stupid and dangerous, and Bell Point seemed to be an apt venue for such things. It was isolated, obscure, and forbidden, which were the three things that attracted young rebels in droves.

Wufei's grin subsided as he scanned the area. He didn't see any of the litter that he associated with young people on the street or on the shoulder. Aside from the curled shards of aluminum packing case and the scorch marks, he didn't see any litter at all. That in itself was odd. Even on a fresh construction site, he would have expected a few food wrappers, cigarette butts, or piles of sawdust. Here, there was nothing.

He glanced at his passenger, who was staring out the windshield apprehensively. "You stay here," he said, not liking the haunted look in Quatre's eyes. It spooked him. "I'll go take a quick look around."

"You won't find anything," Quatre said cryptically.

Wufei, caught in the middle of opening the jeep's door, turned his head sharply to the right. "What do you mean?"

Quatre shook his head as if he had lost interest in the subject. "Nothing. Go ahead and do what you need to do."

"Hand me my bag, please," Wufei requested. The large duffel bag was still in the passenger side footwell, held against the firewall by Quatre's knees. Quatre pulled the bulky bag free and settled it awkwardly on the gearbox while Wufei opened it and rummaged around inside. He pushed aside extra clothes, spare uniform jackets, toiletries, maps, rations, and other unbreakables until his fingers brushed the nylon surface of his evidence kit. "Ah, here it is," he said, pulling the square bag free. He closed the top of the duffel bag and helped Quatre shove it back down on the floor. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised, tucking the kit under his arm.

"All right." Quatre sank down in his seat and pulled the hood of his coat over his head.

Wufei pulled his own hood up after he exited the jeep; the wind bit hard as it gusted across the unprotected point, and it stung his cheeks and ears. He set the black nylon case down on the vehicle's hood and unzipped it on three sides, opening it to reveal a compact yet thorough traveling crime lab. Thank goodness for President Neilson's decision to route most of the Khushrenada fortune into the Preventers! Wufei would have signed on even without the generous perks and fancy equipment, but having both bolstered his efficiency and helped to make him one of their most vaunted assets.

Wufei snapped a pair of dark purple latex gloves onto his hands and grabbed several heavyweight plastic bags from a caddy on the right side of his case. He took a whitespot-ultraviolet flashlight from its snapring holder and stuck it in his front coat pocket. He looked over the rest of the kit, took a palm-sized video camera and decided that was enough to begin with. He zipped the bag closed and went to the epicenter of the blast area.

He was certain Quatre knew what he was talking about when he described the explosives and the detonation device, but Wufei knew that physical evidence was necessary in a case like this. He crouched down low on the wet pavement and scooped up several shards of burnt casing with his gloved hand, depositing them in the heavy plastic bag. He sealed the top. Forensics could examine it later.

Next, Wufei crossed the street and entered the opened door of the visitor's center. He didn't need to turn on his flashlight to see that the interior was just a bit too neat, but he turned it on anyway. The ultraviolet component of the light might reveal something.

It didn't. No blood, no fingerprints, nothing. It was as if the small house had been sterilized and teleported into place whole. "What the hell?" Wufei said quietly. He studied the windows and doorframes and saw nothing but hotwelded nails, neatly mitered joints, and plumb-straight angles. A single spiderweb high in the corner of one window was the only thing out of place in the strangely pristine walls. It was covered in tiny silver beads of water from the fog.

Wufei took the video camera out of his pocket and murmured his observations and suspicions while recording the visual evidence – or lack thereof. He walked out of the building into the sunlight, which was beginning to dim from yet more rain clouds, and filmed the blast site, then went to the section of guard railing that had been torn into wickedly sharp metal curls by a flying piece of packing crate. It must have been where Quatre went over. Wufei leaned cautiously over the edge to get a better look, and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.

The drop wasn't sheer at this point, which was probably what saved Quatre's life, but it was still pretty damn steep. Wufei could see a streak of disturbed earth and loosened scree that marked where his friend's body had slid the fifteen meters or so to the bottom of the cliff, but since the tide was in, it was difficult to gauge the real distance. Powerful-looking waves crashed against the bottom of the cliff and sent up spume so high that he could feel droplets of cold water on his own face.

Feeling a little shaky, he raised the camera again and recorded the drop. "And this is where Winner was blown from the clifftop while trying to get behind the jeep for shelter. I'd estimate a fifteen to twenty meter drop...and I know I'm not supposed to editorialize on these recordings, but if he was a cat, he'd be on his ninth life by now.

"End of report by Chang Wufei, the sixth of February AC 206, Bell Point case, coordinates enclosed," he finished in a rush. Wufei simultaneously shut off the camera and turned around, not wanting to see any more of the cliff. He began to walk toward the jeep with his eyes fixed firmly to the ground.

"Wufei?" A faint, almost dreamlike voice called.

At the sound of his name, Wufei looked up. Quatre was there, standing between himself and the jeep, and Wufei felt his blood chill. Quatre, standing in the foreground of a harsh landscape, seemed colorless, insubstantial, hard to see. The sky, the road, the rocks, the trees, even the jeep stood out in sharp relief compared to the ghostly-looking figure in front of him, and Wufei wanted to raise his hands to ward off the apparition.

"Wufei?" Quatre asked again in a clearer voice.

The wind gusted and a shred of fog between them blew out to the sea. Quatre came back into view, pale but just as real and solid as ever. It was just some damn mist, you coward! "Yes? Is everything okay?" Wufei asked.

"Fine, I was just wondering if you were finished. You were standing over that drop off for an awfully long time."

Wufei began to put his things away busily, using the action to conceal his shudder of unease. "I was trying to gauge the distance to the bottom, but the tide was in so I had to wait for a break in between waves," he half-lied. "I figure it was about twenty meters. What do you think?" He looked at Quatre's face and realized that the blond man knew he wasn't telling the truth, but wasn't condemning him for it. Oh no. If anything, Quatre was just as spooked as he was.

"I think it's not important right now," Quatre said. His teeth were chattering slightly. "I also think we ought to get out of here. There's nothing more to see."

Wufei took one more sweeping look at the point. He snapped the latch of his kit closed and tucked it under his arm. "You're right. There's nothing to see here. Let's go."

In the twenty minutes it took to drive back to the sparsely-populated area that was called a town, Wufei remembered that he was very hungry. Or rather, a low growl from his stomach reminded him. "Quatre, isn't there a restaurant here? I thought you said something about one earlier."

Quatre shook himself out of a light, uneasy doze. "Oh, I forgot about that," he said in a sleep-thickened voice. He yawned, coughed harshly, and pointed straight ahead at a blinking red four-way stoplight. "Turn left here. This is the main street."

Wufei braked for a moment at the light, then wheeled the jeep to the left. There was no traffic on the street, main street or not. "What's it called? What am I looking for?" he asked, his dark eyes scanning both sides of the deserted road, which looked dark and blurry from behind the slowly swishing windshield wipers. There were quite a few businesses set up here in the middle of nowhere, he noted, but most of them were tourist-oriented and were dark and abandoned deep in the pit of winter.

"The place is called 'It's My Treat'," Quatre said as he stared out of his window. "It has a red and white checked awning, and I think it's between the cinema and the--oh, there it is!"

Wufei guided the jeep across a street that would have been packed bumper-to-bumper with cars in the summer, but which was now deserted. Most of the businesses were deserted too, at least temporarily. The neon signs on the bookstore, the tiny gallery, and the gift shop on that block were dark. The real estate agent across the way had their sign on, but it flickered uncertainly in the winter gloom. The only solid and cheery light came from the small establishment in the big brick building in front of them, the one with 'IT'S MY TREAT' painted in exuberant gold letters on a condensation-fogged picture window.

"Is this it?" Wufei asked, bringing the vehicle to a stop in front of the restaurant.

"Yes, this is it," Quatre affirmed.

Wufei parked the jeep neatly in front of the building, keyed off the ignition, and let himself out into the cold, dark, damp air. "It's the only restaurant?" he asked.

Quatre, who already had his hand on the old-fashioned hook-and-thumb-bolt door, nodded with a smile. "Yes, I'm afraid so. Unless you want to go back to Neil's General Store, that is."

Wufei did not want that. "No, I'm sure this is fine. Lead on."

Quatre led on, but it was Wufei who entered the establishment first. He examined the blackboard menu above and behind the cash register with a critical eye. A very fat woman in a bright red apron was arguing with a skinny teenage boy in the serving area, and both were speaking in a language he could not understand. Wufei scowled and slapped his hand sharply on the counter. "Hello! Service!"

The fat woman and the teenaged boy both jumped and stared at Wufei with identical expressions of pure shock. Wufei noted the family resemblance between the two and concluded that they were grandmother and grandson. The grandmother was the first to recover; her fat face was immediately wreathed in smiles as she bustled to the cash register. "Good afternoon, gentlemen! What can I get for you?" she asked in a voice that was strangely breathy and girlish for a woman of her size.

Wufei scanned the blackboard menu. "I'll have the hot chicken sandwich on Russian rye. No onions. Side order of home fries. Large black coffee and a bottle of water"

The fat woman scribbled down the order frantically. Wufei leaned over the counter to make sure she'd gotten it right, nodded in satisfaction, then pushed Quatre forward.

"And what would you like, dear?" the woman asked, smiling at the blond.

Quatre sneezed abruptly. "Excuse me," he apologized, taking a paper napkin out of a dispenser of the counter to wipe his nose. "I think I'll have the same thing he's having."

The fat woman frowned and made a clucking sound with her tongue. "You sound like you could do with some chicken soup, dear. Would you like that instead of the potatoes?"

"That's fine, thanks," Quatre said with an embarrassed smile. He ducked his head and sneezed again.

"And maybe some orange juice instead of water," the fat lady suggested.

Quatre nodded his assent. "That's fine, ma'am. We'll be in the back room if that's all right."

The fat woman beamed. "Of course, dear. Make yourself at home."

"Most of the magazines are less than ten years old," added the teenager in a voice that dripped sarcasm. The fat woman whipped a dishcloth out of her apron pocket and belted him across the head with it.

Wufei smiled darkly at the exchange, then turned his attention to Quatre, who was leading the way toward the back of the café. It was, indeed, a very cozy and inviting space, if perhaps a bit dim and gloomy. A fieldstone fireplace took up one wall. Wufei was surprised to see that the crackling fire was built out of real wood – cedar, from the smell of it. He felt a sense of wonder that such a small business could afford such a rich luxury, but then he remembered that he was on Earth and that wood was pretty much taken for granted, especially in these vast stretches of protected lands.

Quatre sighed noisily as he threw himself into an armchair close to the fire. "This feels great," he murmured in sheer relief, kicking his booted feet up on a cracked leather ottoman.

Wufei selected an overstuffed loveseat to sit in, mainly because it had a low, battered oak table in front of it. It wasn't very close to the fire, but he could still feel the heat coming from it as he rummaged through his duffel bag for his laptop. "You do realize that that woman talked you into at least five credits' worth more lunch than you really wanted?" He found his laptop and his satellite modem and set them both down on the table.

Quatre cracked one eye open and smiled. "I think my budget can afford the strain, Wufei. Thank you for your concern."

The modem snapped neatly into a port on the back side of the laptop, and Wufei turned the compact computer on. "It's your money. But I guess the chicken soup and the orange juice might help your cold," he added reluctantly as he typed in his password.

"I don't like potatoes much anyway."

"Er, I guess this is yours, then" said a third voice. Both Quatre and Wufei looked up to see the teenaged boy hovering over them with a serving tray. He had a soup bowl in one hand.

"I ordered the potatoes, yes," Wufei said, and barely spared a glance at the boy as the bowl was set down on the table in front of him.

"Oh, that was fast," Quatre said. He accepted the bowl the boy handed him with a smile.

The teenager set down a bottle of water, a glass of orange juice, and two thick ceramic mugs of hot coffee on the low oak table. "No problem. Hope you feel better soon, sir," he said with a nod in Quatre's direction, and hurried off to the front of the café to answer his grandmother's call.

As Quatre sampled his soup, Wufei leaned over his laptop and tried to establish a connection between his finicky satellite modem and the ICC database. He laughed out loud when the metallic bi-bi-oom! sound of a secure connection registered. "Ah, I think I have it." Wufei grinned as he typed in Quatre's home access number. "What's your retrieval code?" he asked out loud.

Rather than answering aloud, Quatre got up and typed it in himself. "The walls have ears," he said in what was supposed to be a spooky horror-movie voice.

"You're a riot," Wufei said dryly, "you really are." He turned down the volume control and scrolled through the short list of saved messages and calls. His dark eyes widened slightly when he saw the timestamp. "Ye gods, did he really call you at quarter of six in the morning?"

"I guess he forgot about the time difference," Quatre said with a shrug.

"That's thoughtless even for Maxwell."

"He was excited," Quatre said, evidently needing to cover for his friend. Wufei aimed a glare at him, but Quatre had turned his attention back to his soup for the time being.

"Fine. I'm going to replay it." Wufei touched the PLAY button on the screen and watched the silent exchange with interest. He backed it up and played it again, and again.

He only paused it when the teenage boy set a tray with two sandwiches and a plate of home fries down on the table, along with two slices of warm apple pie. Wufei looked at the pie slices, each of which was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and looked up at the boy. "We did not ask for this pie," he said in a low, dangerous voice.

"I know, but Grandma insisted," the boy said, undaunted. "It's free."

"I see." Wufei looked at the pies and noted the way that the vanilla ice cream was drooling over the crusts in a slow melt. He swallowed thickly. "Thank your grandmother for us. We will not be requiring your services again today."

The teenager shrugged. "If you say so," he said, and went to the front of the café.

Wufei watched the boy until he had disappeared behind an industrial-sized freezer, then he picked up his sandwich. It looked okay. It smelled okay. He took a tentative bite and thought it tasted okay. He swallowed. "Quatre, eat," he ordered.

Quatre, who had been lying against the thickly padded armchair staring at the fireplace as if hypnotized, sat up straight. "What is it?" he asked, picking up his mug of coffee.

"Food first." Wufei gestured to the low table. "Then I've got something to show you."

Quatre picked up his sandwich and performed the same quick inspection that Wufei had before taking an experimental bite. His eyes locked onto Wufei's as he ate. "I can't tell from your expression whether you're relieved or worried," he said after a few minutes.

Wufei was surprised; he had forgotten how good Quatre was at reading body language. "Both, actually," he confessed.

"So I take it there's good news and bad news."

"Yes. I'll tell you all about it once you eat your lunch." Wufei stared pointedly at the mostly-untouched sandwich in Quatre's hands.

Quatre didn't roll his eyes, but it certainly looked like he wanted to. He knew, however, that trying to argue with Wufei was akin to butting one's head against a brick wall, so he quietly finished his meal (minus the soggy apple pie), and waited patiently for Wufei to do the same.

Finally Wufei wiped his fingers on a napkin and turned his attention back to the laptop. He patted the cushion next to him to indicate that he wanted Quatre to sit next to him, and once the blond was settled, he began a frame-by-frame replay of the call.

"This is definitely Duo," he said, pointing to the staticky image on the screen. Quatre nodded, taking in the fuzzy image of a grinning man wearing a black cap and a pair of safety goggles. One of his hands was raised in an unmistakable Duo-gesture, and he could see the gold glint of a chain inside the collar of the t-shirt Duo was wearing, the navy blue one with L-2 HELLCATS silkscreened across the chest in fiery orange letters. Duo was a huge supporter of his favorite baseball team. A bit of his braid could be seen to one side of his neck.

"Okay, that's Duo," he agreed.

Wufei fast-forwarded a few seconds, to a point where the video feed became fuzzy with static. "This is not Duo. Look closely."

Unlike the first image, this one showed Duo face-on to the camera, wearing a cap, navy t-shirt and yellow safety goggles. On the surface, the face looked the same as the one in the previous image, but Wufei felt Quatre start in surprise and nodded in satisfaction. "You see the difference?"

"Yes, of course." Quatre's finger hovered over the image, pointing out anomalies. "His face is narrower across the cheekbones, his front teeth are longer, his eyes are a different shape...oh, there's that," Quatre said, pointing at something in the background. "That gate behind him, wasn't it open in the last picture?"

Wufei rewound to the previous image. He hadn't noticed it at first, but the gate in the high metal fence surrounding the salvage yard was wide open in the first picture and closed in the second. He screencapped the two images and set them in the upper right hand corner of the small monitor. "Now, some more..." he said as his fingers tapped the fast forward and rewind buttons with an uncanny speed and precision. He collected a dozen relatively clear images of 'Duo' along with the fuzzed-out images of the real Duo and stacked them side-by-side on the edges of the monitor.

"Oh no," Quatre whispered, leaning in close to examine the tiny pictures. "Why didn't I see it before?"

Wufei placed a reassuring hand on the blond's shoulder "You saw what you wanted to see, Quatre. You saw what you expected to see."

He knew that Quatre saw the same things he did. The face in the crude disguise of a cap and safety glasses was similar to Duo's, but not the same. The background was a bit different. Even the color of the Colony lighting was subtly different. The clear yet moveless images of the man in front of them were clearly Duo Maxwell, but the moving and static-filled images were just as clearly someone else.

Wufei, feeling the shoulder beneath his hand beginning to go tense, spoke to his deputy in a low voice. "It seems the perpetrator had either a very close resemblance to Duo or had hired someone who was. I need to find that out. Duo may be in danger."

"Yes...I understand." Quatre cleared his throat and tensed his muscles in an effort to stop shaking. "But can we call him before we go to him?"

Wufei raised an eyebrow. "We could, but I thought Duo was used to your drop-in visits."

Quatre nodded. "He is, but I need to warn him. I think I recognize that face, and if I'm right, he's not safe."

TBC