Title: Never Turn Your Back on the Sea
Section Title: Sundering
Author: Alleyprowler
Pairings: 3x4, 2xH and 1xR
Ratings/Warnings: M for language, references to violence

Two weeks. Two weeks ago Quatre had left his home, only to have his world knocked upside down. Two weeks since all that he thought of as normal in his life had been shaken up and rearranged into strange and uncomfortable new patterns. Two weeks since he had felt anything was constant in his life. Two weeks since Trowa had reached out to him.

Trowa had apologized. He'd sat down heavily at the foot of Quatre's bed when the others had gone away and he'd raked his hands through his bangs, sighed, and muttered that he hadn't really mean the things he'd said. Quatre, in a half-dream due to a fresh load of painkillers in his blood, had simply said, "I understand."

But he didn't, not really, and somehow he'd never gotten another opportunity to talk to Trowa about it. It wasn't that Trowa was inattentive. He was so punctual about mealtimes, medication, and doctor's appointments that Quatre could have set his watch by him, and he wouldn't let Quatre walk very far, lift anything heavy or generally tire himself. He anticipated Quatre's every need and some needs he didn't have, which had been sweet at first, but he honestly thought he would go off the deep end if Trowa asked him if he was hungry or thirsty or cold or whatever one more time. That kind of treatment was really beginning to grate on his nerves. Then, Trowa had decided that he needed to move into the guest room.

Quatre could--and did--sleep alone from time to time, but even during their worst arguments, they had never slept apart voluntarily. Trowa insisted on it, though, saying that sleeping in the same bed might be less restful for Quatre than being alone. It wasn't the case. The fact that Trowa didn't want to sleep with him made him feel like he'd done something terribly wrong.

Quatre closed his eyes. He was beginning to feel a tension headache growing at the back of his neck. Soon Trowa would make his nightly rounds and breeze in to force another sleeping pill down Quatre's throat before hurrying off to his own rooms, and Quatre doubted his ability to slow the purposeful Trowa down long enough to get him to talk.

Not that he particularly wanted to.

He heard footsteps approaching the door, and he straightened up and ran his fingers though his hair in an automatic attempt to make himself look presentable. The footsteps stopped. The door didn't open. Perhaps it wasn't Trowa? "Hello?" he called. "Is anyone there?"

There was no answer. Quatre tried to remember if he'd locked the doors and turned on the alarm system before he'd gone to bed. He probably had; securing the house was as ingrained a habit as brushing his teeth. He held very still for a count of sixty, listening, and when he heard nothing, he relaxed and picked up his dropped papers. It was the house settling. Or maybe a ghost. But somehow, he didn't really believe either of those explanations.

The door creaked again, and he jumped a little. "Who is it?" he said with a little more volume in his voice. When there was no answer, he set his reading material aside and padded on silent bare feet toward the door. Just as he was reaching for the doorknob, though, the door swung open. "Oh, Trowa," Quatre smiled a little nervously, straightening up from his defensive crouch. "You spooked me. Why didn't you just come in?"

Trowa stood in the doorway as if at attention. His spine was rigidly straight and his gaze was fixed on a spot somewhere over Quatre's shoulder. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm fine, thanks. Why didn't you just come in?" Quatre said, stepping back to let the door swing open all the way. He noticed that Trowa wasn't dressed for bed, in spite of the lateness of the hour. He was wearing black slacks and a dark red dress shirt, and he had oxblood loafers on his feet. "You look nice," he ventured.

Trowa bowed his head slightly, accepting the compliment. His left hand rose as if to touch Quatre's face, but it stopped short and dropped back to his side. "You shouldn't be out of bed, it's chilly," he said instead.

Quatre opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn't think of a single thing to say and so he simply crawled back into the bed with the comforter pooled in his lap. Trowa fussed with the carafe and water glass on a table beside the bed and set out a single blue pill. His movements were a little jerky, as if he was feeling nervous about something. "Trowa, is something wrong?"

Trowa went still. His hands curled into fists at his sides. "I-I have to leave."

"Leave?" Quatre echoed, feeling confused.

"Yeah. I can't stay here any more." He met Quatre's eyes briefly, then looked away.

Quatre felt his own hands go as cold as ice. "Are you going to go see Catherine? Is she all right?"

"She's fine. Not her." Trowa said quickly, as if this was something he had thought about and then dismissed as a bad idea. "I'm going to stay with Heero and Relena for a while…until I can make other arrangements."

The constriction that Quatre felt in his chest had nothing to do with his lingering illness. "Are you planning on coming back?" he asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

Trowa shrugged. "I don't know that yet, Quatre. I'm sorry."

"What did I do?" Quatre asked. For the first time since the wars had ended, he felt like crying. "You can at least tell me that."

"You didn't do anything."

"So what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong."

"You're lying," Quatre spat out. He still felt like crying, but now he was beginning to feel angry as well. He held onto the feeling like a drowning man clutches a lifeline. Anything but tears! "If I didn't do anything wrong and everything is all right, then why are you just walking away from me without an explanation?" He paused to take a breath--his chest felt tight. "And don't give me that 'it isn't you, it's me' line, because I'm not going to believe you."

Trowa's shoulders lifted briefly and then sagged in a weary shrug. "In that case, I don't know what to tell you."

Quatre felt the phantom taste of seawater begin to coat the back of his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Cold, invisible fingers squeezed at his lungs, choking him. He felt his breath beginning to come in short, noisy gasps, but he was damned if he was going to reach for his inhaler and show Trowa how deeply this was actually affecting him. Instead, he took slow, deliberate breaths and forced his voice down into the lower, calmer registers he used when he was dealing with particularly pig-headed bureaucrats. It was his father's voice. "Well then, Trowa, I suppose this is closed for discussion since you seem to have made up your mind already. I'm sure you have given it a good deal of thought and have come to the best decision."

Trowa inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. "I think I have."

The cold fingers tightened around Quatre's lungs, but he refused to cough. He could smell the unpleasant odor of wrack and kelp by now, and the taste of seawater made him want to gag. In spite of that, his tone remained even and calm. "Fine. You'll excuse me if I don't see you out." He turned his attention back to the papers in his hand, but he couldn't read the text. The words swam in his eyes, distorted in a film of tears that he didn't dare shed.

"Goodbye, Quatre," Trowa said, and then he turned and exited the room, closing the door firmly behind him. The snap of the latch rang through the room with an air of finality. It was the sound of something severing.

Quatre let go of the lifeline and let himself sink.

The light next to the General Director's office door switched from red to green. Wufei checked the knot on his tie, smoothed a hand over his hair, and opened the door. "General Director Une," he said, standing at parade rest in front of her desk

She wasn't paying attention to him, however. She was holding a strand of her long hair in front of her face and staring at it so intently that her brown eyes were nearly crossed. Even for Une, who had a history of strange behavior, this was rather odd.

She found what she was looking for and tweezed a single hair between her thumb and index finger, pulling it out of her scalp with a quick jerk. Wufei winced on her behalf.

"Look at this, Chang. Look at this!"

Wufei kept his hands behind his back as he leaned over the desk to examine the hair. He blinked in surprise. "It's white."

"You did this to me, Chang!" She let go of the hair, watching sadly as it fluttered to the surface of her desk.

"My apologies, ma'am."

She dropped her head into her hands and began to massage her forehead. "I don't know what to do with you. You recruited two civilians and provided one with a firearm, said civilian shot and wounded a suspect, both suspects were interrogated before being offered legal counsel, the boy was struck in the face and physically and mentally intimidated, Preventer funds were abused...shall I go on?"

Wufei fought the urge to fidget like a schoolchild who has been called to the front of the classroom. "No, ma'am."

She put her hands down on the desk in a more formal arrangement. "You did, on the other hand, catch Yates and his accomplices and have possibly prevented many deaths by poisoning, for which the people of Earth I'm sure would be very grateful if we could afford to let this go public."

Wufei had to take a moment to unravel that sentence. He decided that it still didn't make any sense. "Ma'am?"

"What I mean," she said, taking a deep, steadying breath, "is that we are having a devil of a time keeping this out of the media. Yates was a prominent man in his colony, and there have been many questions and speculations as to his whereabouts."

Of course there would be, Wufei realized. "I see, ma'am."

"Do you, Chang? Do you?"

Wufei thought it would be wise to hold his tongue over what was obviously a rhetorical question.

Une sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. "You're one of my top agents, Chang, and you've been a great asset to the Preventers. You're sharp, conscientious, and your instincts are uncanny. But..."

Wufei sighed inwardly. There was always a 'but'.

She pushed a form across her desk. "Look, here's the list of complaints that Morrison gave me. Recruiting civilians, check..."

"Winner and Maxwell are hardly..."

"Yes, yes, I know that all too well, but the rest of known space doesn't need to know that, do they?"

"I suppose not, ma'am."

"Issuing a firearm without a permit, check."

Wufei shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, desperately wanting to say something in Quatre's defense, but he knew the Lady wasn't going to tolerate any more backtalk from him. He kept his mouth shut.

"Physical and mental intimidation of a suspect--that's a BIG check. That young boy is suffering from post-traumatic stress and Raleigh Yates is still in the hospital recovering from that gunshot wound..."

"It was a flesh wound!" Wufei burst out, unable to hold back any longer. "And all that boy is suffering from is his own cowardice! Ma'am," he added as an afterthought.

The frighteningly calm look Une gave him made him bite his tongue. "Agent Chang, since you are not a doctor, I will ask you to keep your medical opinions to yourself." She pulled the papers back to her side of the desk and began to tear them into long, thin strips.

The action didn't reassure Wufei. "Ma'am? What are you doing?"

"Chang, you and I both know that most of the charges against you in this report are irrelevant, so I'm dismissing them. However, since no one but you and I know the real report, I am going to have to take disciplinary action against you. Both of our careers depend on it."

Wufei saw her point. If the complaints were simply dropped with no follow-up, it would look terribly suspicious for both of them. If the complaints were actually addressed, then both of them would be forced to tell the truth about the Gundam pilots in order to keep Wufei out of prison. This was the best compromise. "I understand, ma'am, and I accept any punishment you see fit."

Une finished shredding the report and smiled sweetly. It made her look younger and guileless and very pretty, and Wufei didn't trust it one bit. "Surrender your Preventer credit chip," she said.

Wufei felt his cheeks grow warm as he took his wallet out of his pocket and fished around for the chip. In hindsight, his two-day spending orgy seemed rather childish. "I apologize for misusing Preventer funds, ma'am, but I--"

She waved her hand carelessly. "I understand. I imagine you wanted one last fling before you were fed to the wolves."

"Well spoken, ma'am."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Chang. You're also on suspension. For a month. On three-quarters' pay."

Wufei blinked again. He wasn't sure he understood. He was getting a full month off duty and his pay was being cut temporarily from quite generous to merely tolerable. "Ma'am? Forgive me, but that doesn't sound like much of a punishment."

Her smile turned cheeky. "Did I forget to mention that you'll be losing your housing subsidy while you're on suspension?"

That was a hard blow, but not totally unexpected. Wufei did some quick mental calculations and decided he'd have enough left over to pay the full rent on his apartment if he dined in more often and didn't purchase any luxuries. "Understood, ma'am."

"And your Preventer's retail discount will be closed to you for the duration," Une said, still smiling sweetly.

Damn. There went the food and clothing budget. Wufei raised his chin and nodded bravely. "Accepted, ma'am." He supposed he could do his own laundry and buy food at the farmer's market. He knew how to cook and wash clothes, after all. Sort of.

"And I'm afraid that if you want to keep your insurance, computer access, and vehicle you'll have to pay for it yourself. That comes to..." she paused while she typed away rapidly on the keypad of her computer. Her eyes widened in mock shock. "Oh dear. I'm afraid it's two thousand sixty credits for the month."

Wufei could feel the blood draining from his face. According to his calculations, that left him with a grand total of ten credits to his name. "Ma'am?"

She rested her chin on her clasped hands. "Is there a problem, Mister Chang?"

"I..." He stopped and swallowed. He was a resourceful person, he could get through this. Somehow. "No, ma'am. There's no problem."

Une gave him a strange look from beneath her eyelashes. "It's during difficult times like these, Wufei, that we should remember that we can always rely on our friends to see us through."

Wufei wondered what the hell she meant by that statement, but his head was still reeling too much to sort it out. "I'll keep that in mind ma'am. If there's nothing else, may I be excused?"

"Certainly."

Wufei couldn't get to the other side of the door fast enough.

Trowa didn't move when he heard the French doors behind him open and close. He knew who it was. He remained as he was, hunched over with his arms folded on the railing of the balcony and stared out at the growing shadows.

"You must really like this view," Heero said. "You've been staring at it for two days now."

"It's nice," Trowa said with a shrug of indifference. It was nice, he supposed. Instead of a formal lawn, the Peacecraft estate had a natural meadow, which was, at this time of the year, full of startlingly bright alpine wildflowers. Wizened, stunted evergreens sprang up where they could get a roothold in the thin soil. Granite bedrock showed through the grass in several places, which lent contrast to the riot of vegetation.

He jumped when he felt something cold and damp touch his arm, and he looked around to see that Heero was offering him a bottle of beer. "It's local." Heero said as if that was the highest praise one could possibly bestow on a bottle of beer, and for all Trowa knew, it was. Living with Quatre had taught him a great deal about wines, but very little about beer. When he didn't take the bottle right away, Heero made an impatient noise. "I can vouch for it, Trowa. Stop looking at it like it's going to bite you."

Trowa accepted the bottle and took an experimental sip. It was bitter and dark, but he thought it was good. It matched his mood. "Thanks." He peered out from under a curtain of hair at his host and nodded his approval. At first glance, Heero hadn't changed much since they had first met. He was a little taller, his face had matured, and he'd developed better dress sense, but those were superficial things. What struck Trowa most was the change in Heero's attitude. He was no longer the coldly analytical and single-minded soldier he had once been. He had a pensive air around him these days, as if he spent a lot of time observing and analyzing the world around him. Heero was obviously a man who had a lot on his mind.

"So what made you decide I needed a beer?" Trowa asked.

A corner of Heero's mouth twitched up and his eyes took on a slightly amused aspect. "I didn't. Relena did. She thought we needed to do something called 'male bonding'."

Trowa nearly spat out his mouthful of beer. "Male bonding?" The phrase sounded vaguely kinky to him, but he wisely kept that thought to himself. Heero hadn't changed all that much, and he liked his teeth the way they were.

"Guy stuff." Heero said with a shrug. "Shoot some pool, drink beer, belch, scratch ourselves...you know."

Trowa flipped his hair out of his eyes and stared hard at his friend. Perhaps Heero had changed in more ways than he'd thought.

"I think she was joking about those last two," Heero continued, "but we do have a pool table. I can show you how to play if you like."

Trowa moved to go sit in one of the wire-frame chairs on one end of the balcony and set his beer down on a matching small, round table. "Thanks, but I don't feel like playing games."

Heero sat down opposite him. "Yeah, I can tell that." He took a long drink of his beer. "I thought it wouldn't hurt to try, though."

"It was a noble effort," Trowa said, nodding Heero's direction.

Heero saluted back with a brief smile. "If you don't feel like playing a game, maybe you'd like to talk."

"Talk? About what?" asked Trowa, glancing up from his contemplation of the label on his bottle. The condensation on the glass had loosened the adhesive and one corner of the paper was starting to curl up.

"About what's been bothering you so much that you felt had to leave your home, even though that decision has obviously made you miserable," Heero said bluntly.

Trowa felt like he had been slapped, but he didn't allow himself to show Heero how stung he felt. "Heero," he said, "how would you feel if Relena got hurt, and got sick, and almost died because you weren't there to protect her?"

Heero considered his friend's question carefully. "I'd feel awful."

Trowa nodded. "That's how I feel. Awful. Whenever I think about him and what could have happened, I get so scared that I want to run screaming. There were times when I was convinced I was going to lose my mind." He closed his eyes and winced a little. The admission of his strong feelings was something he had been trying to avoid, which was why had chosen to turn to Heero for shelter. In his experience, Heero believed in following emotions; he didn't believe in prying them out of people. It was almost like a personal code of ethics with him to refrain from judging other people's private thoughts.

That was why it startled the hell out of Trowa when he said, "You got scared, so you ran away? Since when are you such a coward, Barton?"

Trowa bristled. "Excuse me?"

Heero sat back comfortably in his chair and kicked his feet up on the little table between them. "Got your attention, didn't I?" he said with a crooked little smirk.

Trowa regarded his friend with a wary eye. "How much of that stuff have you had to drink?"

Giving a small, careless shrug, Heero held up his beer bottle and misquoted, "In cervesia veritas. I figured it would open you up."

"I should have known. That's one of Quatre's favorite interrogation techniques." He picked up his half-empty bottle with a sigh. "Might as well get this over with then," he said before tipping it to his lips and draining it in four large swallows.

Heero chuckled softly. "My intention was to open you up, not let you get sick all over my balcony. Slow down."

Chastened, Trowa began to tear the label off of the front of his beer bottle. He was convinced that if he got the entire square of paper completely off the damp surface of the glass without tearing it that he would get through this conversation without breaking down. That was the last thing he wanted to do. He knew that it didn't really matter and that Heero wouldn't think any less of him if he did lose control, but Trowa would think a little less of himself if that happened, and he wasn't very pleased with himself to begin with. He didn't know if he could stand another blow to his self-esteem.

"You're thinking about something." Heero observed.

Trowa glanced up at him, found he couldn't quite meet his friend's eyes, and went back to staring at his bottle. "How do you do it, Heero? How do you cope?"

"I don't quite get what you mean."

The label was now halfway off the bottle, and undamaged. "It seems to me that we're in the same situation as far as our choice of life partners goes. We've both chosen people who are far more social than ourselves, who are highly visible, and who are seen as enemies by very powerful people. We're responsible for their safety, which can be threatened in so many ways…" Trowa stopped and cleared his throat. There seemed to be a lump in it. "There are so many ways that both Quatre and Relena could get hurt that I just can't get my head around it. When I was a kid I used to think that I was pretty good at protecting people, but now that I've grown up some, I'm starting to see how impossible it is to protect even one person."

Heero was silent for so long that eventually Trowa looked up to see if he'd fallen asleep. He hadn't. His dark blue eyes were wide open and staring hard at his friend. "Trowa…you have issues."

Trowa snorted. "Tell me about it."

"I will tell you about it." Heero leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, nearly invading the large bubble of 'personal space' that Trowa nearly always protected himself with. "You are possibly the most egotistical person I've ever met."

The paper label that Trowa had been so meticulously peeling from his nearly empty bottle tore in his hands. "What?"

"Do you even listen to yourself?" Heero asked with what might have been incredulity, but it was hard to tell with him. "You're beating yourself up because you aren't some all-knowing, all-seeing avenging angel type from a Gothic romance whose life duty is to protect some kind of fragile little demigod who was born to save the world. No wonder you're depressed."

That did it. In a flash of anger, Trowa shoved his beer bottle down onto the concrete floor of the balcony, where it shattered into several sharp pieces. The yeasty dregs of beer tainted the cool evening air. "I didn't come here to be insulted, Yuy."

Heero ignored the glass, the noise, and the outburst. "You're just a human being, you know. So is Quatre. So are Relena and I. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's nothing to be particularly proud of, either."

Humiliated by his childish show of temper, Trowa retreated to the safety of taciturnity. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play dumb with me. It's a waste of time." Heero said sharply. He seemed to regret it almost immediately, took a breath and continued on in a calmer tone of voice. "Look, I know we're covering a touchy subject here. Your anger is perfectly understandable."

"Perfectly understandable," Trowa said sarcastically, looking at the mess he had made at their feet. He desperately wanted something to fidget with.

"It's just glass. It'll sweep up. Here, I'll even get you another bottle to break." Heero's chair made a scraping sound as he pushed away from the table and rose to go inside.

"You don't have to…"

Heero cut him off. "I need another one. This isn't easy for me, either."

Relena was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a salad, when Heero was making his beer run. He hadn't really noticed how bad his mood was until he saw her standing there, her light brown hair tied back casually in a loose pony tail, humming some popular song to herself while she diced celery. Seeing her like that made the black cloud hovering over his head begin to break up and blow away.

"Lena," he said by way of greeting. He put an arm around her waist and squeezed briefly.

She flashed him a smile that faltered a bit as she studied his expression. "Is everything going all right?" she asked.

"I guess so." He squeezed her waist again and planted a kiss on her ear before turning toward the refrigerator. "We're doing the male bonding thing you suggested and it's getting a little uncomfortable."

"I take it that you got Trowa to talk a little, then."

He twisted the top off of a fresh bottle of beer and handed it to her, then fished two more out of the refrigerator. "I'm still working on it, but I don't know how well I'm doing. I'm not really cut out for this kind of thing, Lena."

"I know, Heero." She sighed softly. "It's never easy to try to deal with someone else's problems." She stopped and lowered her gaze to the floor. "But Trowa came to you because you're honest and because he trusts you."

Heero shook his head. "I don't think so. I think he came to me because he thought I would just leave him alone and not ask him any difficult questions."

Relena thought that over quietly. She was, after all, the one who had suggested that Heero try to get Trowa to actually talk about his problems rather than mope around the estate like some clinically depressed ghost. "You may be right," she admitted. "I don't know him as well as you do. But still, Heero, he has been a very good friend to you and he's saved your life more than once."

Heero nodded once in reluctant agreement before offering his wife an ironic smile. "Life was so much simpler when it was just allies and enemies, wasn't it?"

Relena echoed his smile. "Welcome to the real world, my dear."

Wufei laid his head down on his desk and wondered how he had come to this.

Sixteen days ago he had been gainfully employed as an elite peacekeeper with power, influence, and a strong support system. Then he'd been demoted to a glorified copy boy. Now he was on the verge of being homeless.

He drew a deep breath and raised his head slightly to look at the computer screen. There was a spreadsheet displayed there, full of numbers as spreadsheets are wont to be, and the number at the very bottom was shown in red with a negative sign in front of it. As far as negative numbers went, it was quite large.

He whimpered ever so slightly and looked up and down the EXPENSES column. He supposed he could do without unlimited Ultranet access for a month, and if he walked everywhere and skimped on food and power usage...damn, who am I fooling? I need a loan or a miracle.

The red light on his vidphone began to blink rapidly. Wufei stared at it for a while, wondering if the bill collectors were after him already, before he realized that he knew the name and number of the caller. He sat up straight and pressed the button that received the call. "Chang here. Hello, Winner."

The video did a slow fade-in, revealing Quatre from the shoulders up. "Hi, Wufei. I'm sorry to call so late, but I haven't had an update in a few days, so...ah, how are things going?"

Wufei nearly smacked himself on the forehead. "I'm sorry, Quatre, it's been rather hectic lately and I completely forgot."

"Oh. I didn't mean to bother you. You look...stressed. Are things going badly?"

Wufei tried to sit up straighter and look more professional, but his efforts seemed worthless once he got a better look at Quatre's uncombed head and unsmiling mouth. "I could ask the same of you. You look like you've been pulled through a jet intake backwards."

Quatre ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. It did nothing to settle the blond tangles. "I have a feeling we're both in the same boat. Why don't you go first?"

Wufei figured that his pride could take one more blow before he resigned himself to living in a packing crate for a month. He turned his laptop around so that it faced the vidphone camera. "Director Une decided that I needed to be convincingly disciplined. This is the result."

It didn't take a financial genius to see Wufei was in deep, deep trouble. "Wow. I'd hate to see what happens when she's really angry," Quatre said, sounding impressed.

"Yes, well before I make a completely undignified appeal to you for a loan, I suppose you'd better tell me your problems."

"Trowa left me two days ago."

The lack of preamble made the words register in Wufei's brain about two seconds later than they should have, and it took him another two seconds to formulate a reply. "Why?"

Admittedly, it wasn't a good reply.

"It wasn't me, it was him." Quatre was obviously trying to sound ironic, but there was a rough edge to his voice and he couldn't quite pull it off.

"Oh."

"He's staying with Heero and Relena."

"Why?"

"I guess they're too discreet to ask too many questions. I don't really know."

"That could be," Wufei said. He thought about Une's odd parting words to him a couple of days previously: It's during difficult times like these, Wufei, that we should remember that we can always rely on our friends to see us through.

She had known. Less than a day back on the job, she had known. Damn that woman.

Quatre went on: "It wouldn't be so bad, except Mrs. Charles--our house manager--is on family leave and Rashid won't let me come back to work so I'm not exactly speaking to him and Duo and Hilde are really busy and I don't really have anyone close enough to vent to, and I suppose that's why I called so late. I needed to get it out. I'm sorry, Wufei. I'll SecureMail you two thousand credits in the morning. Good night."

"Wait!" Wufei nearly shouted.

Quatre froze with his finger bare millimeters away from the cutoff button. "What is it?"

"Don't send me any money. I can cover my rent for the month."

Quatre's finger retreated a little more. "Yes, but you can't cover anything else. How will you live?"

Wufei smiled. Perhaps Une wasn't as demented as he'd thought. "After all I've been through, I think I deserve a vacation. The least you can do is let me stay with you till I can go back to work."

Quatre blinked twice. "You want to come over here?"

"Sure. I need a damn break, and it sounds like you could use some company. Any objections?"

"Well...I suppose not."

"Fine. I'll be there in twelve hours."

"But--"

Wufei hit the cutoff switch and went to his bedroom to pack.

"Here."

Trowa came out of his own thoughts at the sound of Heero's voice. He looked up to see that his friend had a couple of beers in one hand and a whiskbroom with a dustpan in the other. He took the former in one hand and looked questioningly at the latter.

"You threw the bottle; you clean it up."

That was fair enough, Trowa supposed. He carefully picked up the larger pieces of glass and deposited them in the dustpan before using the broom to sweep up the loose splinters.

Heero watched as he settled down in his chair. "You asked me how I coped," he said as he twisted the cap off his bottle.

"What?"

"Before I made you angry, you asked me how I coped knowing that Relena could be targeted at any time. I never got around to answering you."

"I see." Trowa swept the last of the glass into the pan and set it aside for later disposal. "So how do you do it?"

Heero took a sip to wet his throat. "I do my best to keep her safe. The short list is this: I practice self-defense with her on a regular basis; I make sure she's wearing her body armor when she makes public appearances; I hand-pick her security staff; I personally inspect all of her vehicles; and I stay close by her side when I feel we're in a high-profile situation."

Trowa nodded at the familiar-sounding list. "Yes, those are pretty much the same things Quatre and I do. It still didn't help him when he nearly got killed during a routine business transaction and then got so sick playing vigilante."

"Playing vigilante? That's an interesting choice of words coming from you."

Trowa had the sneaking suspicion that he was about to let Heero make him angry again. He took a calming breath of the cool, fragrant evening air and let the growing tension in his neck and shoulders melt away. "There was no need for him to get involved in catching Ervy and Yates. Wufei and Duo could have handled it."

"Maybe, but they felt that Quatre had a right to be involved and they welcomed his help when he offered it. They trusted him…unlike you."

That hurt. Trowa tried to keep it out of his face, but the accusation was so sudden that he couldn't help flinching. "I do trust him," he said mulishly, and began to pick at the label on the new bottle again.

"No, I don't think you do. I was there with you two at the hospital when you tore into him. You treated him like he was incompetent and stupid, and you belittled him in front of his friends, which must have hurt him. Then you implied to me that he couldn't even take care of himself, and yet now you say you trust him? You can't have it both ways. Pick one."

Trowa had nothing to say to that. It's true…God help me, it's true.

"What's really ironic is that if you have been in his shoes, you would have done exactly the same things he did. Wouldn't you?"

"I would." Trowa said quietly, feeling defeated.

Heero must have picked up on his tone of voice or his slightly slumped posture, because he leaned across the table and put a hand on Trowa's arm. "There wasn't anything you could have done."

"I'd have pulled him out of the action sooner. He was ill!"

"Trowa, the type of infection he has doesn't become acute for several days. None of them realized how sick he was until he collapsed. Even Wufei thought it was just a cold, and he's had all kinds of medical training since joining the Preventers. Besides, do you really think either of them would have let Quatre go on if they had suspected he was really ill?" Heero's tone had turned slightly accusing once more.

That thought honestly hadn't occurred to Trowa before. Duo, loyal to a fault, would rather cut off his own braid than let the man he loved like a brother endanger himself unnecessarily. Wufei would definitely not have let Quatre remain in the action if he'd thought he was seriously ill or injured. "So, are you saying that maybe Quatre himself didn't realize how sick he was?" he asked, speaking very slowly.

"He didn't know." Heero said. "I asked him."

"You did?"

Heero nodded. "He was more concerned that his injured knee might slow him down than anything else. He wasn't worried about what he called 'some stupid cough', he was worried about catching the man who had tried to kill him and ruin Duo's reputation."

Trowa, not knowing what to say, took a long drink of his beer and then cradled the bottle to his chest. Heero chuckled at him.

"I see that you're having an epiphany about your boyfriend, lover, or whatever you call him."

"Partner," Trowa said absently. The label on the bottle had suddenly become fascinating again. He was indeed having a few second thoughts about Quatre's motivations…and his own. "He's my partner."

Wufei strolled toward the townhouse slowly, taking time to admire the fresh green of the grass and the white flowers on the dwarf apple trees. Spring could come even to the Colonies if one was able to afford it.

He climbed the three steps of the broad front porch and shrugged the strap of his duffle bag higher on his shoulder. A plaque by the white front door had the address stamped on it, and underneath in bold copperplate lettering were the names T. Barton and Q. R. Winner. At least Quatre hasn't scratched his name out yet, he thought with some amusement, which quickly turned into a vague sense of guilt. He was supposed to be helping, not making fun.

He rang the doorbell and heard the chime of it faintly through the thick wood, and took a step back while he waited. Presently the door cracked open just wide enough to allow a cautious eye to peer through it. "Wufei?"

"You were expecting someone else?" Wufei asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, sorry. I lost track of time. Come in." The door swung wide open, revealing a rather dark entry hall and a rumpled figure standing just inside. Quatre wasn't smiling, as he usually did when greeting someone. His baggy, bottle-green corduroy trousers were wrinkled, his clashing blue pullover appeared to have coffee stains on it. His hair was frankly greasy and hung in limp strands around a face that still hadn't seen a razor in several days. Wufei was alarmed.

"Quatre, are you all right?" He put a hand on Quatre's shoulder.

Quatre nodded and headed off toward an arched doorway to the left of the entry hall. It was the main living space on the ground floor, a big, comfortable room with a sound system, a large video screen, a collection of books, and well-made but casual furniture. Wufei slipped his shoes off before he entered and set down his duffle bag and laptop case, propping both against the wall in the entry hall.

"Come in, sit down," Quatre said in a dull, almost robotic voice. "Can I get you some coffee? I think Mrs. Charles left some scones or something in the freezer if you want, or I could heat up some--"

"Quatre, shut up."

Quatre's teeth clicked together audibly as he closed his mouth.

"Are you well? I want an honest answer."

Quatre nodded slowly. His gaze shifted down and to the right, indicating that he was telling the truth, but with some reservation.

"Has your strength returned?"

"Mostly." Quatre looked back up, meeting Wufei's eyes.

"Is your knee giving you any trouble?"

"It's stiff on cold mornings, but it's almost healed."

Wufei smirked, satisfied that Quatre was indeed well enough for what was coming. "Good. Think fast." He balled up his right fist and threw a punch at Quatre's face.

TBC