Author's Notes: Did my second installment for the 'Driving Behind the Wheel' today. I got the same cop from the first one. I almost ran a stop sign by accident, but the guy was so nice about it and didn't could it against me. I did fairly well, but I've been driving a long time now, so it's expected. Tomorrow, I'm doing my final installment with the same guy and I'm going to do interstate driving. This is good, because I love interstate driving. It's so much more organized. This isn't to say much for the crazy people out there, I'm one of those slow drivers if I can help it, but even they rub me wrong.

Of course, after driving in Baltimore in rush hour, I could drive anywhere.

'Imagine'

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
in the world will live as one.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

-John Lennon

3

While he hangs around with Nagi whenever he's home, Tennyson likes sleeping in my bed. It suppose it's because I feed him most of the time and neither Schuldig or Crawford will touch him. Schuldig likes the cat, no doubt, but he's not really the 'pet' sort of person. He would prefer to look and not touch. He's the kind of person who'll never procreate on purpose, but will willingly baby sit his brother's offspring for the day, just because he doesn't have to deal with them after he's spoiled them rotten.

Crawford is still sneezing, but he very rarely ever complains about the cat. He had better things to think about, like the move to our next living place. For the first time we have enough money to invest in a house! I haven't lived in a house since my parents' split-level in the Dublin suburbs. And here, in Tokyo, where land is so scarce and valuable, we're going to buy a house. I'm excited. We might actually go an entire day without stepping on one another's toes!

Of course, the whole searching, researching, and paperwork, paperwork, paperwork on top of missions and bodyguard duty to Takatori and his little band of insane children is really stressing Brad out. He often comes to lunch looking wrung out and sick. He's sucking down orange juice and vitamin pills faster than we can get them, but I still think he might get the flu. It's the dead of winter, one of us four has to get sick, it's fate.

I'm surprised Nagi hasn't brought some bug home with him. He goes out more than any of us, and to a germ-infested school, no less. He seems impenetrable. Maybe it's an evolutionary alteration of the Japanese to live in such close quarters and only rarely have an epidemic. Of course, Nagi's taking vitamins as well. I've no interest in getting sick or dealing with a feverish telepath. Schu is horrible when he's sick.

Tennyson seems to enjoy sharpening his claw on my exposed back as I lie awake and ponder a spider on the wall. It's probably somewhere close to nine in the morning, Schuldig is still snoring beside me, red hair splashed over the blue-sheeted pillow like an abstract painting, making me wonder if he has some kind of blockage to be making that amount of noise.

Have you ever noticed how men snore louder as they get older? I hope to god I die before he reaches forty. No doubt he'll be waking up an entire city block by then.

I feel a slither of claw against my back, the 'merr' of an angry feline as he strolls up and very calmly starts trying to eat my hair. I groan, not at all ready to get up, but I know it's futile. He's as insistent as Schuldig sometimes.

I sigh and get out of bed, pull on a pair of jeans and stumble my way to the kitchen. Unexpectedly, Crawford comes around the corner and I nearly run right into him. I frown at him and he ignores me, looking through the classified ads with a highlighter.

"If you were up, why didn't you feed the cat?" I growl, thinking of my probably bleeding back.

He looks at me impassively from behind the paper, glasses flashing.

"I'm not touching that crap."

"Oh, come on! It's kibble, dry food."

"It's disgusting. And it smells like shit."

Two curse words referring to defecation in less than a minute…he's in a bad mood already. Of course, when isn't he mildly constipated? The man thrives on bitching about something. I sigh and dug the bag of kitty food out of the pantry and dump a cupful into a bowl, Tennyson winding around my legs in adoration. He attacks the food the moment I set it on the floor, and I'm forgotten in a heartbeat.

"Any luck with the houses?" I ask as I sit down, feeling daring to ask. I also feel daring enough to try Crawford's disgusting American-made coffee and burn my lips. I squeeze my eye shut and gag. It tastes remarkably like tar. I get up to find the milk carton and sugar bowl.

"I've found a few that would fit into our specifications." His specifications, I just want the basement to be concrete. I'm sick of having to do interrogations in warehouses.

I dump more milk than coffee into the cup and stir in a huge amount of sugar, try it and gag again. I didn't think it was possible, but the coffee got worse. I get up to make a pot of tea and start taking down a teapot, the caddy and cups.

American barbarian…

"Would you be interested in going with me to look at some of them?"

American barbarian with a master's degree…

I let the water whistle long enough and loud enough to wake Schuldig up and only take it off when I can hear him snorting awake in the other room, cursing. I flip off the stove, pour the water in the pot and drop some bags in to steep, and then take it all back to the table.

"Sure, why not?" I say with a shrug, "Tea?"

"Your tea tastes like shit."

"American barbarian."

NS

It's surprising how normal our lives are and aren't when compared to other people. We are paid money to kill, maim, torture, interrogate and otherwise make the target suffer something horrible. Sure, that's fine. On and off day we sit at home, read the newspaper, bicker over who drank the last of the milk, take out the trash, clean the bathroom, sleep in and feed the cat.

Surprisingly normal, like looking for a house…

Yeah right.

Crawford's looking for a sign, not a house. He figures he'll know when we see the right house, that he'll see the future of the house with us inside of it.

After four houses I'm starting to think he's about as reliable as those psychics you call on hotlines.

I'm plastered to the passenger side window, totally disoriented by the Tokyo traffic and directions and back roads, exhausted by the stress of following this crazy man around. There is classical music playing faintly in the stereo designed to blast death metal (and does when Schuldig can steal the car), as if it's too meek to dare playing around the fuming Brad Crawford.

Oh yes, that cool exterior, the flat, emotionless face, that Ice Princess with the stick up his ass, that is a fuming Brad Crawford. I can tell he's mad by the way he's gripping the steering wheel and weaving through traffic, all sharp turns that throw me around against the seat belt.

I feel as if my life entirely relies of Japanese safety features and I pray to the car gods that this isn't the defective one of the litter.

"Brad…maybe we should slow-"

"Shut up." he snaps back, his voice cool and vicious.

It makes me think of the bitter winter wind outside. I obey and huddle against the door, hoping I'm not killed by a passenger-side impact.

NS

"When I saw this house, I immediately thought of you!"

You an every other realtor we've met today, lady.

We are following a middle-aged woman in a plaid dress suit and black heels up the walk of a modest, pseudo-Japanese-style suburban house, a little farther from the city and smaller than originally warranted, but beautiful. The woman barely comes up to my elbow, but then, I'm tall and she's Asian…

She opens the door for us and starts telling us about the four bedrooms, the two and a half baths, the unfinished basement, but Crawford isn't listening. His eyes are distant behind his glasses and I know that this is the house. I look around the foyer and smile to the woman.

"We'll take it." I look at Crawford to see if I guessed right and he nods.

"But you haven't seen the house yet…" she replies, incredulous.

"That's fine. When can we move in?" Crawford says, "We'd like to as soon as possible."

I smile and point into the living room. "But can we get rid of the carpet here? We're not good with white."

"O-of, course!"

NS

"And this is supposed to be a step up? I want to go back to the apartment!" Schuldig whines as he walks into the nearly-bought house, carrying the growling cat in his cage.

"Stop complaining, Schuldig, and help move our stuff inside," Crawford snarls, "Or at least stop blocking the door!"

He moves as Brad and I cart the couch inside and drop it in the living room. I had been hoping it would be traded in or sold or murdered on the way over, but no such luck. That couch will probably live forever. I go back outside to help direct the movers where each room is and what to put in them. Stupidly, Schuldig wrote all the labels in English. He calls it a protest against change, I call him a Republican.

We stand bickering in the front yard as our neighbors peek out of their windows and from behind the shrubs surrounding our front yard, eyeing the four strangers moving in. Nagi is the one they approach, seeing as he's Japanese, as he explains to them that we're moving for work in one of the international corporations in the city. They 'Oh' and nod, but their narrowed eyes don't change. We'll be the subject of rumors the rest of the time we live here, I'm sure of it.

"Do you think we can put a swing in this tree, Farfarello?" Nagi asks, looking up at the elderly…something…occupying much of our front yard. I don't know trees. I know it's the kind with the leaves that fall off in winter because there aren't any left, and I know it's old because I can barely get my arms around its trunk.

"I don't see why not. Go help the men? And no powers."

He frowns at me and that typical 'I know, I know' way teenagers do, something he's been doing more and more since his birthday, and goes off to carry boxes to the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, office.

"And don't let the cat out until we're done!" I shout after him.

I look back up at the tree. A swing, eh?

If anything, it'll keep some of the stranger rumors from circling us. I figure it's a good idea and go off to help with the kitchen table.

NS

It's a month and we're still living out of boxes. The cat's loving it, because he has so many places to hide, but the rest of us hate it. Nagi's already unpacked in his closet of a bedroom on the far end of the upstairs hall, all electrical plugs occupied and the second phone line constantly busy. The bathroom that stands between his room and mine is spotless; even the toothbrushes are set up in their designated little spots. Crawford is still loosing his shoes from time to time, or has to go searching for a tie in one of the boxes in the kitchen, but is otherwise unpacked in the master bedroom and bath.

Schuldig emptied the boxes by dumping them in a great heap in the center of his bedroom floor. He hasn't touched it since. I hate unpacking simply because I never really bother with nesting. My bed's made, my straight jackets hung neatly up in the closet, but that's it. My clothes are piled on the floor by the dresser and my books are jammed haphazardly into the bookshelf without any of my usual organization. I don't have drapes yet, so I hung a towel over the window and haven't moved it since.

The kitchen is littered with remains of boxes, dishes piled on the counters, pans misplaced in the new cabinets, refrigerator just recently plugged in. I'd get around to it if I wasn't so busy trying to finish the basement. Crawford told us that Schuldig, Nagi and I had six to eight weeks to finish it to his specifications while he dealt with minor missions from Takatori and compiled his annual reports to Esset. Schuldig hasn't been much use, unwilling to get whitewall dust in his hair and the constant threat of spiders usually keeps him away.

We have to make a holding cell, an interrogation room and a small living space just in case we ever need to house someone long-term. We've never had to before, but then, we never had a house to offer. It's exhausting work, drilling holes in concrete walls, hanging insulation and sheetrock and welding our own bars. I've never been entirely technical, I would rather destroy a bit of engineering than make it myself, but Nagi just tells me to consider this a 'learning experience'.

Of, course he can say that, he can escape to school every day. I'm stuck here listening to a whining German just because he got paint on his jeans.

If I never have to build something again it would be too soon. I send Schuldig away to hook the television up, something I told Nagi to do weeks ago, but he never did. Schuldig says he doesn't know how, but I'm at my breaking point. I snarl at him to figure it out away until he leaves, muttering about my attitude problem.

"Worse than Nagi…Mein Gott."

"Bugger off!" I shout after him.

I go back to welding, hating these bars with every fiber of my being. When they're up, I hope our prisoners can feel that hate.

NS

Basement is finished. We had two weeks to spare. Two blissful weeks where I finished unpacking, repainted the living room a cheery grass green color, and helped Nagi tack up some band posters. Crawford's office is still a mess, but it was always fairly bad off before. He refuses to let me clean it, even though I'm feeling excited about it now that I've worked up a steam, saying I'll ruin the organization of the papers scattered on the desk, floor and pinned to the walls.

I just gape at him. What organization?

NS

It took a while, but mornings have gotten back to normal now. I get up in time to make breakfast and see Nagi off to school (dawn, ugh), and then I feed the cat, make tea and sit down to enjoy the quite of the neighborhood from a small armchair in the living room. Sometimes I'll have a book, but other times I just like to watch the men and women get up and go to work, the street as it settles down for another quiet day, the children playing in the snow in our front yard as they head to school…

After everything is quiet again, I go back to bed and sleep until the late afternoon. I usually only wake up because Schuldig's playing his music too loudly. I get up again to take my medications, vitamins, and sit down to flip through the soap operas. I actually find one in Spanish and spend the hour watching it, during which Schuldig comes downstairs and watches with me, laughing at the melodrama.

At two or three, Crawford gets and up we can hear him start up a shower. He comes down twenty minutes later, dry, pressed and an entirely different person. We usually don't talk to him when he's in the part of Oracle, but this afternoon is different. He actually stand in the doorway to the living room and tells up the mute the television.

"Weiss will be crossing our paths soon," he says softly.

"Oh my God, did you step on the cat again?" Schuldig says in much the melodramatic way the actress on screen had been dying.

"Who's Weiss?" I ask, although I'm uncurious.

"Professionals from Kritiker."

My head snaps up and all of Schuldig's joking stops. I can see he isn't smiling.

"Those rivals?"

Kritiker and Esset aren't really rivals. They've been circling each other for years, but haven't yet attacked. Would we be the first teams to meet? Would we start the war?

"I've been trying to avoid them, but it seems inevitable. I know at least three of them have a vendetta against the Takatori family-" (through research, no doubt) "-so we're bound to meet them soon enough."

Schuldig smiles slightly, then wider, and wider, until I think his smile it going to eat his face whole.

"They're the start of a new era for us, aren't they?" he asks. When was he privy to Crawford's predictions and plans? I'm mildly jealous before I remember he is privy to everything. He's a telepath.

Crawford shakes his head and leans against the doorway.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Schuldig. Yes, this first fight will begin something new for the team, but it won't be a while until…they die."

They, haven't being spoken in a whisper, had to mean the Elders. I had only met them via internet connections in the small room we called the 'Space Room' where we took out missions from Esset directly. Only Schuldig and Crawford had met them, Schuldig once in his terrorized youth and Crawford repeatedly, because of his position as team leader. Even though I hadn't met the Elders, every operative knew their power and feared it, rightly so. The Elders were rumored to be legendary psychics in their own respects, and probably the very first members of the SS program that spawned Esset.

In other words, these people were worse than the Nazi's. They were the gods that Nazi's worshipped.

I shuttered.

Crawford noticed me and nodded.

"We'll be the end of that some day, gentlemen, and maybe the start of something else should we survive."

"May? You don't know?" Schuldig demanded.

"I haven't Seen it, no."

So matter of fact, so nonchalant. He must be as terrified as we are. We don't want to die. We just want to live in freedom.

Brad reached for his cell phone seconds before it rings and we can hear Takatori's voice as he berates our leader for not being on time. Crawford calmly explains to the man that he said earlier that he would be running later, yesterday in fact, and that he would along presently. No apologies. Crawford never apologizes for anything.

He hangs up the phone and grouchily clips it back to his belt, hiding it with his gun under his coat. He checks his watch.

"One of these days I'm going to enjoy watching him die and throwing this goddamn phone into the sea."

"Prediction or threat?" Schuldig and I quiz.

Brad just levels us with a glare and leaves, the front door clicking shut behind him.

We turn to one another and smile, then turn the volume up on the television to watch. Later I make a bowl of popcorn and we sit together watching movies. Nagi walks in on us kissing in a romantic-movie-influenced moment and makes a grossed-out noise before escaping the handfuls of popcorn we throw at him. Schuldig and I laugh and I wonder if it'll be this good when we get out of Esset.

Fin Chapter 3

Please Review

Author's Notes: Written in the time span of two Cirque du Solel CD's, 'Mystere' and 'Alegria'.

Right, so are you bored of the 'nomal-life' thing I'm doing with the boys? Good, because things are about to get hairy real quick.

Actually, about the Space Room. I have a theory that it isn't a physical place at all, but on an entirely different plane, and thus exists in the huge state it does in the anime. Either the boys can somehow get to another plane of existence or it's being transmitted via Schuldig's telepathy.

To My Readers:

Rori Barton: Thank you. About what to do next for your review, how about you comment on the context and how you think I'm fairing in the sloshing of storytelling? (passes off candy)

xKokurox: "Kind of" love my portrayal? (pouts) What's this "kind of" business?

(taps nose) And I practically live at It's where I get the canon information. Good idea, though. All my other readers! Go there and check it out for more Farfie-Swartz action!

And I'll update when I am inspired to update. The writing gods are still a bit pissy with me since I started focusing on art, so it's best not to anger them.

Kadathorri: (squints) Is that word 'squeal' or 'sequel'? My spell check was look at it and puttered out in confusion.