A/N: Sorry this took so long. Writer's block is not my friend. I'm hoping that I've worked through it enough that the next update won't take so long, but we'll see. Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 43

"Good morning, Kiri," Cathy greeted the girl as she came into the kitchen. "Did you sleep okay?"

Kiri nodded, but Cathy noted the dark circles under her eyes. She wondered if Kiri was still having nightmares and she just hadn't heard her.

"I need to head over to the tent a little early this morning. Do you think you'll be okay on your own?"

Kiri nodded as she sat at the table.

Cathy smiled at Kiri as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. "Great. I'll see you here around lunchtime, then."

Kiri started to eat her cereal and Cathy left. She wanted to try something new in her act and she didn't know how long it would take to get it right. She was glad that Kiri was doing so well this morning. It meant that Cathy wouldn't be distracted by worrying about her.

"Colonel Une? Mr. Chase is here to see you."

"Thank you, Grace. Send him in."

Une watched as Donovan Chase entered her office and gave her a greasy grin. "Ah, Colonel. How lovely to see you again."

"Please have a seat, Mr. Chase. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Chase sat. "Whatever is the matter?"

"The girl has taken a turn for the worse and it doesn't look like she'll recover."

Chase frowned. "What happened?"

Une chose her words carefully. "Her health has been steadily declining since our last meeting. Our attempts to reverse her condition have not proven effective. She's in a coma and it doesn't look like she'll come out of it."

"Well that's too bad."

Une didn't think Chase looked sorry at all.

"So," Chase continued, "when can I tell her parents to pick up her body?"

"Excuse me?" Une wasn't sure she'd heard he man correctly. His cheerful tone was a bit distracting.

"The body. After she's dead her parents will want to bury her, I'm sure."

"Oh, yes. Of course," Une murmured. She hadn't thought of that. She scrambled for an answer. "Well, we want to give the girl a little more time before we remove the machines, just to give her a last chance you understand. Though personally, I think it's a waste of time. She's not responding. Then I think Dr. Po wanted to perform an autopsy to see what, exactly, caused the girl's death. After that, depending on the findings, we'll contact you and let you know when the body can be picked up for burial."

Chase nodded. "Alright. I look forward to hearing from you."

Une waited until Chase had cleared the building before picking up her phone. "Sally? What can you tell me about the girl?"

"She's…recovering," Sally said slowly.

Une gave an exasperated grunt. "I need more details than that, Sally. The boys have been deliberately vague and I just had to tell Chase that she's in a coma and we're about to pull the plug! Someone had better have some information for me in the next 24 hours or there will be hell to pay!"

Sally was quiet for a moment. "Anne, I will be more than happy to have lunch with you. Where would you like to meet?"

The Colonel frowned. She hadn't said anything about lunch. "What are you going on about?"

"The Bistro around the corner in twenty minutes? Sounds good, Anne."

A male voice said something that Une couldn't understand.

"Sally what's—? Is someone there with you?"

"Excuse me, Anne. Yes, Mr. Chase, what can I do for you?" Sally's words were careful and deliberate.

Une mentally cursed the nosy lawyer as she strained her ears to hear what the man said. She couldn't understand him. She could, however, still hear Sally quite clearly.

"No, sir. I'm afraid you really can't see her at this time," the doctor told the lawyer. "She's undergoing a treatment that we hope will help to bring her back."

Though his voice was muffled, Une could tell that Chase was furious.

"Well I'm afraid that I would have to get clearance from Colonel Une and she is unavailable."

Chase's voice sounded snide this time.

"I don't care if you just came from seeing the Colonel." Sally sounded like her teeth were clenched together. "I have not received clearance from the Colonel and according to her secretary, whom I just spoke to, Colonel Une was called away on an emergency. I don't know when she'll be back and neither did her secretary."

Chase growled something to which Sally replied, "I'll be more than happy to let her know."

A slamming door let Une know that Chase had left Sally's office.

"I'm sorry about that, Colonel," Sally started to apologize.

"No, don't be. I tell you what, I know a quiet place we can go for lunch where we should be able to talk without being bothered. I'll pick you up in ten." Une hung up without letting Sally protest. She wanted to get some answers. If the boys wouldn't tell her, she would get Sally to.

Heero checked the address again before knocking on the door. Wufei stood behind him. He was more than willing to let Heero do the talking. They were about to leave when the door cracked open.

"Yeah?" a man asked.

Heero held up his badge. "We're with the Preventers. We need to speak to Daniel and Delia Fitzgibbons."

"About what?"

"It is in regards to Amanda Fitzgibbons."

"She ain't here."

"Yes, we know. She is in Preventer custody. We would like to speak to you in order to verify some facts. The story she told us is very different from the story told by Mr. Chase and we were hoping you would be able to shed some new light on this particular incident."

"This isn't a trick is it? You're not gonna come in here and change your story are ya?"

Wufei raised an eyebrow. This man was acting very odd.

Heero shook his head. "No tricks. We just want to get the story straight."

The door shut, followed by the sound of a chain lock being removed. The door opened. Wufei and Heero remained outwardly relaxed, but they were both ready to react should anything out of the ordinary occur.

A thin man stood before them. He was almost six feet tall and dressed in a dirty tank top and jeans. He smelled of alcohol and needed a shave. "Let's get this over with. The Mrs. has dinner just about ready."

Wufei and Heero followed the man inside the seedy apartment, taking stock of their surroundings without being obvious about it. It was disgusting. Wufei wasn't sure he would be able to describe the level of filth for their report. One thing was certain: he'd need a shower when they left.

"DELIA!"

"WHADDAYAWANT?"

"Get out here Woman! We got company!"

A woman came into the living area from a back room. She was wearing tight leopard print leggings with a black halter top. Wufei bet Trowa would know the clown that had given the woman her makeup tips. Her hair had been recently bleached blonde, but there were streaks in it. Whoever had dyed it for her hadn't done a good job. It would need to be done again to get the parts that were missed.

"Well? What is it?" Delia demanded.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am. I am Agent Mill. This is Agent House. We wanted to speak to you about Amanda."

Delia scowled. "What about her?"

"When did you last see her?"

"I dunno," Delia shrugged. "A while ago."

"Was she prone to lying?"

"Oh, all the time. She used to tell her teachers that she didn't finish her homework because we used it to line the hamster cage. We never even had a hamster. And one time she told a friend that we wouldn't let her go to the movies because we spent all our money on lottery tickets."

Wufei wrote in his notebook, but he only made a few references to what Delia was saying. His interrogation training had taught him to tell when people were lying and Delia was definitely lying. He also found it odd that Mr. Fitzgibbons wasn't saying anything.

"So were you surprised when she didn't come home?"

"Not really," Delia said with a wave of her hand. "She used to stay at her friend's house without asking all the time so we figured she was having one of her tantrums."

"You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of her, would you?"

"Not any current ones," Delia said. "We moved here not too long ago and haven't been able to get everything unpacked and put away. But even if we had, it wouldn't matter. Our basement flooded and ruined a whole bunch of photo albums and stuff. It was so bad it destroyed the foundation on our house and it got condemned. Now we're stuck livin' here until we can find someplace better."

"I see," Heero said. "Was your daughter upset about having to move?"

Delia nodded. "Oh, yes. She was mad because it was too far from her friends and her friends' parents are real snobs. They won't even let the girls come to this side of town."

"Mr. Fitzgibbons, what can you tell us about your daughter?"

Daniel Fitzgibbons shrugged. "She's okay, I guess."

Wufei cast a sidelong glance at Heero. This was going nowhere. These people were lying about the reason their daughter left and unless they wanted to risk losing their cooperation, the agents would need to leave the rest of it well enough alone for now.

"Thank you for your time," Heero said as he stood. "I think we have enough information for the moment but we may call on you again if we need to know more."

The Fitzgibbons' didn't look too happy about the prospect of Heero and Wufei coming back, but they had the sense to keep their mouths shut about it.

Once they were on their way back to Headquarters, Wufei asked, "What did you think?"

Heero didn't look away from the road as he answered. "They're idiots."

Wufei chuckled to himself. "I won't argue that. Do you think they were lying, too?"

Heero nodded. "Doesn't make any difference, though. They were both so high I doubt they'll remember talking to us."

"Hey! It's Kirimek, right?"

Paul looked up from where he was trimming Buttercup's hooves to see Kiri press herself between the wall of the tent and Rocky. Carefully setting Buttercup's foot down he moved to intercept the visitors.

"Did you need something, Cindy?"

"Oh, hey, Paul. We just wanted to meet the new girl."

Cindy was the Manager's niece. She had blonde hair that she usually put up under a wig. It was her job to sell tickets before the show and once the show started, she donned a costume and sold popcorn and peanuts to the audience. Her best friend was Tony, who was the son of Tristan the Contortionist and Millie, one of the conjoined twins. (Paul didn't even want to know how they managed their relationship.) As usual, Tony was following Cindy around. The two were almost total opposites. She was an extrovert, prone to getting overexcited and he was more of an introvert. He was soft spoken and Cathy had told Paul that Tony reminded her a bit of Trowa when he was that age. Paul suspected that the young man wanted to be more than friends with Cindy but the girl was completely oblivious.

"Yeah," Tony said. "We just wanted to say 'hi'."

"Well, let me see if she's up for it," Paul said. "Stay here until I tell you it's okay."

Paul carefully approached Kiri. "Hey, Kiri. There are some members of the troupe that want to meet you. Are you up for it?"

Kiri looked away.

"It's only Cindy and Tony. They're actually pretty close to your age, I think. Cindy's sixteen and Tony's seventeen."

Kiri looked up at him.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, but I think it would be good for you. If you know the people here, you'll feel safer around them," Paul coaxed.

Kiri nodded. Paul smiled at her and held Rocky back so Kiri could get out. After patting Rocky on the neck, Paul put his hand on Kiri's shoulder and led her over to the teens.

"Kiri, this is Cindy and Tony."

"Hi Kiri!" Cindy greeted the girl enthusiastically.

Paul didn't miss Kiri's flinch.

"Calm down, Cindy," Tony said.

"What? I think it's great that she's here! We almost never get girls our age to join up."

Tony rolled his eyes and looked at Kiri. "It's an urban legend that people run away to the circus. Most members of the circus are born into it. Sometimes other people will join up when they're old enough to legally hold a job, but they've usually spent years working up an act that'll get 'em hired."

Kiri looked down at her feet.

"He didn't mean anything by that," Cindy told her. "I don't have an act or anything. My parents sent me here because I kept getting in trouble at school. My uncle's the Manager and he makes me sell tickets and popcorn and stuff. He says it'll help with my math skills. Once I get my GED I'll be able to convince him to let me do trick riding or something. What kind of an act do you want to try?"

Kiri shrugged.

"Cindy, did you forget that Kiri doesn't talk?" Paul asked.

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Of course not. But just because she doesn't talk doesn't mean I should act like she isn't here or that's she's dumb does it? I mean, she can hear me just fine, right?"

Kiri nodded.

"See?"

"It's okay if she doesn't talk," Tony said. "Cindy won't let her get a word in anyway." He dodged as Cindy tried to slap him.

"Tony! You're so mean!"

Tony laughed.

"You don't have to be friends with him if you don't want to, Kirimek. I'd totally understand." Cindy changed what she was about to say after a look from Paul. "Anyway, I'll let you get back to what you were doing. We just wanted to introduce ourselves. If you wanna hang out, just let me know!"

Cindy and Tony retreated and Kiri let out a relieved sigh.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, Kiri?" Paul asked. "I know she seems like a bit much but Cindy's a good kid."

Kiri shrugged and went back to Rocky.

Paul shook his head and went back to trimming Buttercup's hooves. He hoped Kiri would be able to feel comfortable enough to open up soon.