Title: Never Turn Your Back on the Sea (11/?)
Section Title: Explanations
Author: Alleyprowler (asbprime )
Pairings: (for this section) 45, 1xR, 2xH
Rating: R for language

Summary: Chapter 11, in which Quatre climbs the walls, Wufei gets naked, Heero makes a pig of himself, Trowa gets a few more whacks with the Clue Bat, Relena acts as Duo's beta reader, Une shows a side of herself we never saw in the series, and there's another cliffhanger, but we're all used to that by now, right? Right.

Quatre was glad he'd let Wufei talk him into wearing the safety harness. At first he'd been quite indignant about it; he had been climbing since before he'd been able to walk, he'd never been in a climbing accident, the facility's safety record was impeccable, and besides, he'd climbed these particular surfaces so many times he was sure he could do it blindfolded, drunk, and in his sleep.

Wufei had listened calmly to his arguments, then handed over the harness.

Now, halfway up the intermediate wall, Quatre was wondering if he should take advantage of it. Sweat was running down his face and ribs, and his muscles were trembling with fatigue. He looked up. This particular wall was a flat vertical, not the one with the slight overhang that he usually climbed, but it seemed to loom over his head nonetheless. The finger- and toe-holds seemed to be spaced further apart than normal. Could the wall have actually grown?

Gasping, Quatre warred a little more with his pride, cursed himself for a fool, and began his slow descent. The wall had been a dumb idea. He'd already spent a solid hour working out with Wufei, doing stretches and hitting the elliptical machines and such, but when he'd passed by the climbing atrium on the way to the showers, the pull had been almost magnetic. He'd needed to climb. Wufei had given him his are you nuts? look, but even that hadn't been enough to knock some sense into him. He simply had to climb, reason be damned.

"Are you okay up there?" Wufei called.

"Fine!" Quatre gasped, feeling for another toehold with his left foot. He caught one, then reached for someplace to put his left hand. He looked down between his feet to gauge how far he had to go and the ground seemed to telescope away from him. He closed his eyes. Great, Quatre. This is the ideal time to develop acrophobia. "Wufei?" he called.

"Yeah?"

"About how high up am I?"

"Ah...I'd say about five meters."

"Thank you." Five meters wasn't so bad. He could do that easily...when he wasn't shaking with exhaustion and drenched in sweat. He took a few deep breaths, coughed a little, and reached down with his right foot.

"I've still got the rope if you need to use the harness," Wufei said, sounding a little testy.

Quatre wondered how long he'd been climbing while Wufei stood around playing belayer and realized that it had been quite some time; Wufei must be going mad with boredom. Moving a little more quickly, Quatre found a toehold for his right foot and took an easy handhold farther down with his right hand. "I'm coming, just be patient."

"Three meters," Wufei called out helpfully a minute or two later.

Quatre was discovering it was actually easier to keep his eyes closed. Every bit of physical strength he possessed was currently channeled into his fingertips and toes. He stuck the toes of his right foot firmly into an indentation in one of the man-made stepstones bolted to the wall and let himself down.

"You look like a spider," Wufei said, sounding faintly amused. "A very large, blond, sweaty spider."

Quatre took in a ragged breath. "Remind me to come up with a witty comeback to that when I get down."

"It's not that far."

Quatre felt around with his left foot for the next toehold and was shocked when, instead of scraping along the cement wall till it found a rock, he found solid ground. Actually, it was a thick layer of wood chips on top of solid concrete flooring, but the point was, it was horizontal. He risked opening one eye. "I'm down?"

"Yes."

Quatre glanced around the atrium and made sure he and Wufei were the only ones there before pushing himself away from the wall and collapsing in a heap. He lay on his back with his arms flung wide and for a while, all he could do was breathe and be grateful he was on gravity's good side. Wufei had evidently found a towel someplace, for he threw it toward Quatre's face and then sat down by his head. "Tired?"

"Exhausted. I don't know why I did that," Quatre panted, wiping sweat from his face.

"My guess is, you wanted to do literally what you've been doing metaphorically all week."

"What?"

"Climbing the walls."

"Uh," Quatre grunted noncommittally. He didn't know what Wufei meant, but he had a feeling he'd regret it if he asked for clarification. He was beginning to feel very, very good, and he didn't want anything to spoil his mood.

"Get up. We need to shower, and I'm starting to get hungry," Wufei said, standing up with enviable agility.

Quatre labored to his feet somewhat more slowly. The quivering in his muscles had stopped, but now they felt loose and wobbly as he took off the harness and hung it on its hook for the next climber. He would probably ache like hell the next day, but for now he felt no pain, only the reckless high of an endorphin rush. He'd done it. He'd deliberately taken a risk for the first time in far too long, and he'd done it. The thought made him laugh out loud.

Wufei gave him a sidelong glance. "Are you cracking up, Winner?"

"No, no," Quatre assured him with a grin. "I'm just glad to have both feet on the ground again."

Wufei pushed open the atrium door and led the way across the lobby toward the showers and locker room. "Considering you spent three weeks in bed and haven't done anything more strenuous than play tourguide since, I'd say you did a pretty good job."

"Thank you, but I didn't really spend three weeks in bed. Trowa wasn't that bad, he was just..." Quatre trailed off with a wince. "Excuse me while I change the subject to something less excruciatingly painful."

Wufei threw him a wry glance over his shoulder. "Allow me to do it for you: You need to go back to work."

"What, now?" Quatre said. He followed Wufei into the locker room and wrinkled his nose as the smell of damp soap, shampoo, mildew, disinfectant and body odor hit him in the face. He hated that smell. It turned his stomach sometimes.

"No, not this second," Wufei said, "but soon. This is the very worst time for you to let your mind go idle; you need to be doing something productive or else it's going to rot."

The image of a rotting brain did nothing to help the faint queasiness Quatre was already feeling. "Wufei, could you be less graphic?"

"I could, but I won't," Wufei said, striding toward the back row of lockers, which were reserved for guests. "I'm going to be as graphic as I need to be if it gets my point across."

Quatre followed him even though his own locker was somewhere nearer the showers. "I see your point, but Rashid's got me off the duty roster for another two weeks, and if I just show up on a job site before he thinks I'm ready..." Quatre shuddered theatrically.

Wufei sat down on a bench and began to remove his clothing. "What's he going to do, send you to your room without supper?"

Quatre refused to take the bait. "That's a fairly accurate description, actually. You don't know him, Wufei. He's a good man and he has a generous heart, but he's not the type to forgive and forget. When he found out what happened to me, he gave me a lecture that would have made Heero go weak at the knees--I don't know, somehow he got it into his head that it was my fault--"

"Which it wasn't," Wufei said, stripping off his t-shirt.

"Yes, I know, it just happened, but that's not going to change his mind. He's angry that I let myself get hurt and this is his way of punishing me."

Wufei hooked his thumbs into the sides of his shorts and pulled them down, along with his underwear, tossed them aside, and began to rummage in his nylon sports bag for his toiletries. "He's not being rational, then. He's wasting a good worker for no good reason. Sure, you might not be in top physical form, but there's nothing wrong with your brain. There must be some kind of paperwork that you could have been doing, blueprints, schematics, or whatever the hell it is you use."

"Three-D modeling," Quatre said automatically.

"Yes, that. You could have been doing that. Why didn't you?"

Because I deserved to be punished, said a little voice in his brain. He hated those little voices; they seemed to come out at the least expected moments, bound and determined to undermine his self-esteem. They were like landmines; shattering, crippling things that nearly paralyzed him with self-doubt.

Wufei grabbed his shoulder and gave him a brisk shake. "Whatever you're thinking about, stop it. This doesn't need to be difficult. Just give Rashid a call and ask him for some light work to do till you're fit to take on your regular duties. How can he say no?"

Quatre gave him the merest of smiles. "Quit being so reasonable, Wufei. You're ruining my sulk."

"Anything to get that wounded puppy look off your face," Wufei said. He relaxed his hold on Quatre's shoulder and gave him a push. "Go on, hurry up and take your shower. We have things to do today."

"Like what?" Quatre asked, puzzled.

"A haircut, for one thing," Wufei said. He reached out and tugged at a sweat-stringy lock of hair falling over one of Quatre's eyes. "You're starting to look like Maxwell's dog."

Quatre pulled his head away, feeling a bit slighted at being compared to a huge, gangly mutt. He flattered himself that he had a little more breeding and manners than that, and he drew himself into his Master Winner stance as he demanded: "Where are we going and why do I need to have a haircut for it?"

Wufei's dark, sharp eyes cut him like obsidian shards. "You need to talk to Trowa."

When he'd been a child, Trowa had heard an absurd and possibly apocryphal story about one of the first real-language translation programs. When fed the English phase, 'out of sight, out of mind', the computer had apparently translated it into grammatically-correct Russian, but when the phrase was re-translated into English, it had read, 'blind and insane'. Trowa had taken the lesson to heart. He made a point of always trying to get his information as close to the source as he could since then, but for once, he wasn't willing to do that.

"Are you sure you don't want to read this yourself?" Heero asked. He was sitting crosslegged on the stone flagged patio attached to the north side of the estate, typing what had to be the world's longest password into his laptop.

Trowa, lounging somewhat more comfortably in a padded deck chair, shook his head. "No, I don't want to invade your privacy."

"I don't think you could if you tried," Heero said with a smug smile. "You're good, but you're not that good."

Trowa ignored the jab. Heero had always been a competitive son of a bitch, justifiably proud of his skills and more than willing to show them off. "Just give me the highlights, Heero. I don't really need to hear Wufei's editorializing or Duo's venting."

Heero nodded as he pulled up his e-mail client and selected the latest messages from the men in question. His eyes widened in interest. "This one's from Duo. He says that Une requested he write out a full report of the events of February sixth and seventh to be used in lieu of personal testimony against Raleigh Yates. He's attached a draft of the report and asked Relena to check it over for possible libelous content--wise move. Do you want a hard copy?"

Trowa held a brief but fierce debate with himself before reluctantly shaking his head. He already knew more than he wanted to know. "No, maybe later. Does 'in lieu of personal testimony' mean there won't be a trial?"

"No, it just means it'll be a High Council trial rather than a jury-by-peers trial."

"A High Council trial means they've already decided he's guilty, right?"

Heero shook his shaggy head. "Not according to the letter of the law. He still has the right to a representative and he'll get to argue his case. It doesn't mean he's automatically guilty; in fact, a lot of legal professionals think a High Council trial is fairer and more objective than a jury trial."

"Because it's closed to the press?"

"Exactly." Heero's eyes moved back and forth rapidly as he read the rest of the message. "Interesting..."

"What is?" Trowa asked when it seemed Heero wasn't going to elaborate on his own.

"According to Wufei, Ervy's been moved from the psychiatric hospital. He's back in Preventer's custody."

Shocked, Trowa sat straight up in his chair. "What was he in a psychiatric hospital for?"

Heero gave him a look from under his bangs. "Several days ago, Ervy suddenly went berserk and attacked a guard, then tried to kill himself. It's a law that potentially suicidal inmates have to be hospitalized and given a full workup, and with Ervy's bizarre behavior, they were beginning to think he should be admitted long-term. Long-term inpatients are exempt from trial because they are considered to be too ill to defend themselves. You see where this is going, don't you?"

Trowa certainly did. "If he's back in custody, then either he recovered awfully quickly or he was never crazy in the first place."

"Needless to say, the authorities aren't exactly impressed with him right now, but public opinion is loaded. According to Wufei, there's been a lot of debate over whether he should get a jury trial or be sent to a rehabilitation facility."

"A rehabilitation facility? What does that entail?"

Heero huffed out a quick breath, obviously displeased. "In short, it's an EarthSphere-funded low-security prison for minors. Ervy's council managed to produce a birth certificate that placed him sixteen days before his eighteenth birthday at the latest time of the crimes. Technically, he was under the age of majority and can't be tried as an adult in front of a jury unless there were extenuating circumstances."

Trowa felt the beginnings of a headache in his temples and settled back in his chair, trying to relax his shoulders. "God, those were the very same laws that Quatre's lawyers used to protect us."

Heero's eyebrows raised. "Yes, I know. The irony hasn't escaped me, either."

"So, if he gets sent to one of these facilities, what happens to him?"

"Nothing much. He'd be held there till he turns twenty-one, and if he's conformed to the program to their satisfaction, he's released with a clean record."

Trowa raised his hand to his forehead and began to massage his temples. "So basically he just has to bide his time for three years and then gets to walk away like an honest citizen?"

"Basically."

"That stinks."

"Yeah." Heero sounded depressed.

The knots in Trowa's shoulders and neck refused to loosen. "I need an aspirin and a stiff drink."

Heero closed his laptop and rose to his feet with admirable grace for someone who had been sitting on granite flagstones for the past half hour. "I'll get us some beers."

"Heero Yuy, you are not having beer before lunch!" called a feminine voice from somewhere above their heads.

Trowa looked up and saw Relena leaning out of a second story window, and after consulting a mental blueprint, he realized they were sitting directly below her office. He noticed she had a red pen in her hand. "Morning, Relena," he called back, giving her a wave. She grinned back.

"Fine," Heero said to her. "In the interests of good nutrition, we'll have beers with lunch. Care to join us?"

"It's a little early, but..." she shrugged, "I suppose I could use a break. I'll be down in a few minutes." She pulled herself back inside, shutting the window behind her.

Trowa wondered if the red pen in her hand was for editing Duo's report and had to laugh at the thought of Duo essentially asking her to look over his homework. "She'd make a great schoolteacher," he said.

"Considering how much experience she has with ill-mannered, ignorant, selfish, foul-tempered adults, I don't think being a schoolteacher would pose much of a challenge for her."

"Bitter much?"

"Let's just say I damn near capered with glee when she announced this was her last term as Vice Foreign Minister."

Trowa had to smile at the mental image of Heero Yuy capering, and was still smiling minutes later when the woman herself showed up carrying a large tray filled with sandwiches, strawberries, and beer. Trowa's stomach suddenly reminded him that he hadn't paid it any attention since dawn. He tried not to appear too greedy as he reached for one of the tall, sweating bottles and a chicken sandwich, but he needn't have bothered. Heero was all over the food like a wolf on an injured lamb.

Relena wisely held back until the two men had served themselves before taking her own portion of the meal. "I'm nearly finished with Duo's report," she said as she seated herself into a deck chair next to Trowa's. He noticed some inkstains on her fingers.

"Did you have to do a lot of work on it?" he asked.

"No, not really. He was very detailed and thorough--maybe a little too thorough. I had to get rid of some of his more, er, colorful adjectives." She blushed slightly, but she was smiling.

Heero had inhaled his first sandwich and was reaching for a second. "How'd he handle the shooting?" he asked. "I haven't gotten that far yet."

Relena smiled and took a sip of beer to wash down her own mouthful. "He said that he saw Yates knock down Agent Chang with his elbow. He then saw Yates begin to run. He heard a gunshot, and then Yates fell to the ground with a wound to the right thigh. When he looked around to see who had fired the shot, he found both Agent Chang and Deputy Agent Winner on the ground, neither of whom had a gun in their hands." Her smile grew catlike. "And that's all he had to say about it."

Heero huffed around his second sandwich. "Knowing Duo I'm sure that would pass a lie-detector."

Trowa felt lost. "But...Quatre shot him, didn't he?"

"Rumor and hearsay," Relena said in a voice that brooked no argument. "This is Duo's sworn account of what happened."

"But Quatre said..."

Relena placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Trowa, Quatre had just been stabilized after partial respiratory arrest and still had a very high fever when he was initially questioned. He was non compos mentis by all accounts. It's not admissible."

"But later on, when he told me--"

"Rumor and hearsay," Relena repeated patiently. "Wufei was tested positive for gun smoke residue on his hands. There was some residue on Quatre's sleeves, but Wufei swore under oath that he'd loaned Quatre his own jacket and that it might have been there from target practice sessions. Duo was clean. Wufei claimed that he'd fired a warning shot into the air, and there was a bullet recovered from the crime scene. It was a different caliber from the one extracted from Yates's thigh. The gun near Quatre was the right caliber, but it was missing its clip."

"He was unarmed?" Trowa asked, utterly bewildered by now.

"He'd taken the clip out of the gun earlier, according to Wufei's report. You're right, he was essentially unarmed."

"So who shot Yates?"

She gave him an elaborate shrug. "Who knows? Duo saw nothing, Wufei merely fired a warning shot, and Quatre was unable to give testimony."

Heero was chuckling quietly over the crust of his sandwich. "Relena, you really missed your calling. You should have been an actress."

Relena seemed amused by that. "Heero, three-quarters of my job is acting. Haven't you been watching my press conferences?"

"Not it I can help it. They put me to sleep"

"I wish I had that option."

"Soon," Heero said, placing a hand on her knee and giving it an affectionate squeeze.

Trowa hated to break their mood, but he was beginning to realize he didn't have the whole story and it was driving him crazy, like an itch he couldn't quite reach. "Heero, I've changed my mind, I think I would like a copy of Duo's statement."

"Do you want the edited version?" Relena asked. "I should be finished with it in another hour or two."

"No, the original will be fine. I think I can cope with Duo's adjectives."

She laughed and picked up a few strawberries from the white bowl in the center of the lunch tray. "I must say I'm glad to see you beginning to take an interest in things again," she said.

"Have I been that bad?"

From the look the couple were exchanging, he gathered he really had been that bad. "I understand why you might want a break from the outside world, Trowa," Relena started, diplomatically, "but when it went on and on, it started to worry me."

Heero said, less diplomatically, "It isn't normal for you to break out in a cold sweat when you see a newspaper, Trowa. You used to be such a news freak, and now it seems like it's against your religion or something."

Trowa opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again when he realized what Heero was saying was true. He had been avoiding the news. He'd read nothing but novels since his arrival, avoided television unless there was a documentary or interesting movie showing, and he hadn't even touched the radio. He had brought his laptop with him, but he didn't think he'd even taken it out of its case, much less bothered to set it up. Heero was right; that really was unusual for him. He didn't understand it. What in the world was he trying so hard to avoid?

"Gentlemen," Relena said, standing up, "thank you very much for the lovely break, but duty calls. I must get back to my torture chamber--er, office, now."

"Thank you for bringing lunch. The chicken salad sandwiches were great," Heero said. He must have liked them--he'd eaten four of the damn things. Trowa didn't know where the hell he put it all, he really didn't.

"Thank you for all the insights," he said, standing up as well. "That's been the most informative picnic I've ever had."

"My pleasure." Relena turned to go back into the house, but after a few steps she stopped herself short and spun around. "Oh! I forgot to tell you, Trowa," she said, and later on he would swear that her eyes were sparkling with impish delight. "The mail's come. You have a letter."

From the waist up, Lady Une was pressed, polished and poised. Her uniform blouse was still crisp, her hair still glossy, and her eyes as clear and alert clear and alert as they had been when she'd stepped into her office that morning. Underneath the desk, however, she wore pizza-stained sweatpants and furry pink slippers with floppy rabbit ears sewn on them. Just because she needed to pull the occasional twelve-hour day didn't mean she needed to be uncomfortable the entire time. "Council McInnes," she said to the image on the video screen, "thank you for contacting me."

He nodded his silver-haired head at her briefly. "I apologize that it had to be this late, Director. I'd been hoping to get this finished by the end of the business day, but you know how these things can drag on."

She didn't, but she agreed anyway. "Yes, most unfortunate."

"I suppose you'd like me to cut to the chase, then?"

"I would appreciate it."

"Fine." McInnes consulted his datapad for a moment. "Yates's case has gone to High Council. So has Ervy's."

Une resisted an urge to cheer. "That's good news, isn't it?" she asked, settling for a professional smile. McInnes didn't smile, precisely, but his facial muscles relaxed and ten years dropped from his apparent age.

"Yes, it's very good news. The Council thought it best to speed things along since public opinion over Yates's crimes is rather heated. The stories that have leaked to the press haven't done anything to improve his reputation."

Une didn't doubt it. Investigation teams had uncovered no less than sixty illegal toxic waste dumps that could be traced back to Green Earth Reclaim, and that was on Earth alone. God only knew how many there were hidden in space. The cleanup costs would run into the hundreds of millions, but no price could be put on the number of human lives that had been compromised from contaminated soil and water. In this case, Une thought public opinion was justified.

"There is just one thing, though," McInnes continued. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask Agent Chang and his, er, deputies to attend the trial. Council Milkiss insisted on it."

"Milkiss?"

"Yates's council. She received copies of reports from both Chang and Maxwell, but claims that all three of them need to be on hand for questioning. She seems to believe the reports are incomplete."

Une frowned. "I thought we'd arranged it so Chang, Maxwell and Winner wouldn't have to be personally involved in the trial. Wasn't that what the reports were all about?"

"Forgive me, Director, but I said the chances were very small that they would be involved, not nonexistent. I did my best, but Ada Milkiss is technically within her rights to ask them to be available. They will have to be sequestered, of course."

Chang wasn't going to like that. In fact, it was safe to say that he would pitch a very carefully controlled fit over it. Maxwell wouldn't be happy either, and she shuddered to think of what methods she might have to employ to gain his compliance. Winner would probably go without too much of a fight, but only after pelting her with dozens of questions she wouldn't be able to answer and making her feel like an ogre. She sighed quietly and closed her eyes. This was not going to be a pleasant task.

"Director, is there a problem?" McInnes asked, suddenly full of avuncular concern.

"Are you certain there's no way to keep them from being personally involved? Their lives have been disrupted enough as it is."

"I'm sorry, Director, but no. I did the best I could."

"Damn," she said, very, very quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said again, "but if you give me their contact numbers, I'll call them tomorrow morning. There's no need for you to be the bearer of bad news."

She brushed her hair away from her face and tried to smile, but it seemed like too much effort. "Thank you, Council. That's very kind of you."

"It's part of my job." He glanced at something offscreen and frowned. "And now I see that it almost is tomorrow morning, I'll bid you good night."

She murmured a polite goodbye to him and cut off the video feed, which had been the only light in the room aside from the city light coming through the cracks in the blinds. "Uncle Jacob," she said, addressing the ceiling, "I should have followed your footsteps and become a plumber. I'd probably have far less shit to deal with."

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the flickering lights did what they had been threatening to do all day and winked out. Trowa barely noticed.

He had been sitting in his suite most of the day, pretending to read but actually spending most of his time gazing off into space and listening to the raindrops ticking off the window. The only words he was really interested in were the ones on the single sheet of notepaper he had put in the rolltop desk the day before. He couldn't bear to actually bring it out to re-read it, but then again, he had already memorized the few scant lines on the paper an hour after he had received it. They were indelibly etched into his brain.

Trowa, the note began, with no salutation save the name, I'm nearly recovered, thank you for asking. I'm going back to work soon.

That was good news, the kind Trowa had hoped for when he had written his own letter. He was well, he was working. That should have eased Trowa's mind, but somehow it didn't.

Wufei has been helping me adjust to a normal routine, the note went on, and Trowa honestly didn't know what to think about that. He tried not to think about it at all, but it's well known that the harder you try not to think about something, the more it seems to pop up randomly among other thoughts.

The note ended: I hope you are well, and then he'd signed his name--a big, looping Q with the tiny scribbled uatre sitting on its elongated tail. Again, there was no closing statement, not even a 'sincerely'.

Trowa was busy pondering what that meant, if anything, when a knock at the door nearly startled him into a heart attack. He scrambled up from the sofa and pulled the door open a cautious few centimeters to see Heero standing there with a flashlight in his hand.

"The power's out," said Heero.

"Yes," Trowa said, "I noticed." And he had--not that it made any difference to him. He didn't need light to read what was in his mind.

"It's liable to be out for a while," Heero said. "These spring storms can go on for days."

Desperate to get back to his silent brooding, Trowa tried to hurry him along to the point. "You must have a generator."

He nodded. "Sure, but it only powers up about half the west wing. If you want heat and light, you'll have to move into one of those suites."

"Oh, I see. No problem, then." It wasn't like Trowa had a hell of a lot to move.

"You'll have to double up with someone."

On second thought... "Thanks, Heero, but I'll stay here."

Heero wasn't the type to sigh or roll his eyes, but he managed to convey a sense of resigned disapproval all the same. "It'll get cold," he said.

"The fireplace works, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Heero admitted reluctantly. "I suppose it does. The chimneys are swept every summer."

"And I noticed a couple of hurricane lamps on the mantle. That should be fine for light." Trowa spoke with the confidence of experience. Although the antique kerosene lamps were delicate and ornamental, they still held fuel in their reservoirs, and any soot that might accumulate in their chimneys could easily be cleaned with a wad of fresh newsprint.

"They should be enough to read by, if that's what you were doing."

Trowa nodded. "That's what I'm doing. Reading and studying." It wasn't a complete lie. Studying could be a form of meditation, and meditation was almost indistinguishable from brooding to an outside observer. Besides, 'studying' sounded far less judgmental than 'brooding'.

Heero appeared to approve of it, at any rate. "That's fine. Most of the staff have been sent home, but I'm sure you can fend for yourself."

"Thanks, Heero." Trowa nodded at him and began to close the door, eager to get the fire going and the lamps lit so he could continue his lonely ruminations.

Heero stuck his foot in the door before Trowa could close it completely. "Wait. I have some news you might be interested in."

Trowa eased the door open again, although he couldn't imagine that any news from the outside might be of interest. "What is it?"

Heero held out a couple of stapled pages. "I got this message from Duo about an hour ago. The Preventer's council has called him into court."

Trowa took the papers and tried to read them, but the clouds had grown so heavy that he couldn't make out the words. "I thought it was going to be a High Council trial...no jury, no witnesses. Duo already gave his written testimony, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"But he's being summoned anyway?"

"Yes. So are Wufei and Quatre. They're going to be sequestered at the L-2 Judicial Administration building for the duration--that's where the trial's being held."

"Sequestered? Isn't that a little harsh?" Trowa's heart began to beat too fast.

Heero shrugged. "That's how it's done."

Trowa heard a crumpling sound and wondered vaguely where it was coming from. "I see. Thanks for the information."

"Sure thing," Heero said, and walked off.

Trowa wasted no time lighting the hurricane lamps and setting them down on the rolltop desk--carefully, though; his hands were shaking--and he put Duo's message down alongside the note from Quatre. It was wrinkled badly. He realized that the crumpling sound he'd heard earlier was his own fist tightening on the paper.

He flattened it out and began to read. The first and clearest impression he got was that Duo was clearly not happy over the entire thing. He didn't appreciate being dragged away from Hilde and his work and his home, and he'd let Heero know about it no uncertain terms. Trowa didn't blame him. He skimmed over the rest of it and found that the trial was to begin on the twenty-first of March, just five days from now. Duo and the others were to arrive the day before that.

A ratlike panic began to over come him. Four days! He had only four days to figure out what he wanted to say to Quatre and how to say it. Four days wasn't nearly long enough. Four years wasn't going to be long enough! He had so much he wanted to say, but it was tangled up in his head in an ugly snarl and he couldn't get the words to come out right, even in his own mind.

After a few minutes of frantic pacing, he sat down at the desk and pulled out the stationery, and he started to write. It was nonsense, an undisciplined burst of garbage straight from his subconscious, and it scared him a little. He was a meticulous person by nature, more at home with lists and step-by-step instructions than with stream-of-consciousness, and the cold sweat poured down his ribs as the words poured out of him. When his hand cramped, he got up and paced till it quit hurting, then he sat down and wrote some more.

When the power came on twelve hours after it had first gone off, he caught sight of himself in a polished oval mirror hung near the fireplace. At first, he didn't recognize the red-eyed, unshaved madman sitting there clutching a blanket around himself with inkstained fingers, surrounded by balled-up pieces of stationery. He might have cried out a little in surprise--he didn't remember. He did remember sitting for a long time waiting for his breathing to settle down, closing his eyes against the vertigo of physical and emotional exhaustion.

In the midst of all that turmoil, he had a moment of clarity. More importantly, he had an idea. A crazy, stupid, and completely wonderful idea. He began to grin like the lunatic he looked like, then he finally gave into his body's demands and staggered off to bed to sleep like the dead.

When he woke, it was just before oh-eight hundred. Relena would have gone off to her office by then, but Heero would still be sitting at the breakfast table reading the comics or gloating over his stocks or whatever he did with the newspaper that made him smile that weird little smile.

He didn't bother with his shoes, he just pounded down to the breakfast table in his jeans, sweater, and blanket. Heero was, indeed, sitting there with a cup of coffee and the newspaper, but he wasn't smiling, he was glaring suspiciously.

"Heero, I need your help," Trowa blurted out.

He looked him over from head to foot, which Trowa might have found insulting under other circumstances. "I think the kind of help you need is beyond my capacity," he said dryly.

Trowa took the seat next to his and pushed his newspaper aside. "Please, I need a favor. I know you can help me."

Heero physically recoiled. "Are you sick?"

"No, no. I know you can do this for me. I need a job."

"So go get one. I suggest you brush your teeth first, though."

"I need a specific job," Trowa said, and told him about his idea.

To his credit, Heero listened patiently and didn't interrupt until Trowa was finished with his tale of writer's block, panic, and his subsequent grand epiphany. "It's crazy, you know," he said when the story was finished.

"Yes, I know."

"And stupid."

"I know that too."

Heero stared at him for a long time, as intently as if judging the worth of his soul as well as his idea. Finally, he sighed. "It might work. I'll see what I can do."