Chapter 6: Re-opened wounds

"What the hell is going on here Maxwell?"

Duo's heart stopped as he looked up half expecting Heero to be in the door. Just what he would need. Stupid over-protective Heero ready to kill me for having some fun. Duo was surprised to see Odin standing in the door.

"What's it to you?" Duo asked getting off the floor. He was brave now that he knew it wasn't Heero.

Odin just laughed as Jade also tried to get up off the floor. "If only your brother could see his 'innocent' little sister now." Duo did not like the way Odin was talking to Jade.

Duo glared at Odin. He wanted to hurt him, but not before the time was right. Odin was in control, he had caught Duo and Jade on the run. Well, Duo at least.

Jade seemed to think that she was in control however, and she was. In the blink of an eye Jade had ran over and slammed him against the wall her left arm braced against his throat, choking him. "Get one thing strait," she spat in his face, "My brother is not to be bothered with my doings. Understand?"

"Jade," Odin coughed grabbing at her arm, "You're chok..."

"Do you understand?" she yelled slamming him against the wall again. Jade was a bad ass, that much was obvious

Odin sputtered and nodded.

"What's going on here?" Heero's voice came from the doorway. Jade dropped Odin and turned around smiling. Odin stood behind her rubbing his neck and gasping for air.

"Nothing at all," Jade said. Turning to Odin, "Right?"

Odin nodded. He was a tough man, of course he wasn't going to admit he was beaten by a girl. "Right."

Duo was greatly amused by these events as Odin turned to head towards the door. Still, what Jade had just done kind of scared him. It was odd to think that she could turn on someone that she was close to that fast, in the promotion of self interest.

After Odin had cleared the room, Heero stormed up to Jade. "What were you doing?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she shrugged. She really was acting as if nothing had happened.

"Nothing my ass! I saw that you had him in a choke hold. I'm not stupid! Now, what were you doing?"

"It was a little fun. We were just playing around. Odin was never in any danger." Jade patted Heero on the shoulder. "You don't have to worry. Your poor old daddy is okay."

Heero grabbed her left hand off of his shoulder and gave it a firm, bone-breaking squeeze. "In case you've forgotten, we're not here to have fun. We came here to save your ass, and if you're not going to take this seriously we can all leave."

"Let go of my hand," she spat back at him, a fire burning in her stone cold eyes.

"No, not until..."

"In case you've forgotten I can still kick your ass!"

"You only think you can little sister, but I have more experience than you, and I will win."

Jade struggled with Heero a moment before he let her go saying, "The choice is yours."

Fuming, Jade stood there for a moment in silence. Finally, she punched her brother in the face, and stormed out. Amazing how some families solved their problems.

Stunned, Duo made a move to follow her, but Heero stepped in his way. "I told you to stay away from my sister." Duo just glared at him, "I wasn't joking, if I see you near her running your game again, I will kill you."

Duo felt some anger boiling up in him. Heero was Heero, but to go as far as telling him whom he could talk to! Sister or not, Duo had done nothing to deserve this. To top it off, Heero kept rambling about how Duo was playing some "game" with girls. It was all just down right insulting. It was for these reasons that Duo's normally happy face turned stony as he moved in closer to Heero and said, "I'd like to see you try," before walking out the kitchen door.

Entering the living room, Duo noticed that Relena and Wufei were intent in conversation. He sat down and turned to the T.V. with every intent to ignoring them.

"Honestly," Relena's voice came, "I'm starting to think this is stupid."

"I always knew it was stupid," Wufei sneered.

Apparently, Duo's presence in the room, did not hinder their current conversation as Relena continued, "I hate him sometimes."

"I hate him all the time."

Relena laughed. "No you don't. You just like to pretend you do. Honestly, you would be really upset if Heero was to die."

Great, Duo thought, everyone's obsessed with Heero.

"What would you know about hate? You're just a pacifist!"

"I know that I hate Jade. That's proof enough for me."

Relena's comment left disgust in Duo's mouth. There was nothing about Jade to HATE.

"Wow, Relena, aggressive. Still you're just angry. Your Barbie-like head couldn't hate, even if you wanted to."

"Call it what you want, but she had better stay away from me." There was pure scorn in Relena's voice.

"Man, remind me not to take you hostage. Apparently, you take it personally."

"Of course I do! But it's not even just that."

"What then?"

"I don't know, Heero is just weird around her."

Hardly, Duo thought, If anything the guy is closer to being his normal self now. Duo may have been mad at Heero, but he couldn't lie, not even to himself. Heero had been acting plain weird this past year.

This conversation was boring Duo, so he was glad when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was one of Jade's German friends, Duo went to answer the door hoping he could use his new German phrase to tell them all that he couldn't speak German.

Instead, Duo was greeted by the infamous Sally Poe. "Hey there Duo," she greeted.

"Sally! What are you doing here?"

"Heero called and told me some odd story about his sister. Can you believe it? Anyways, he asked me to meet him here, because my medical expertise may be needed. So anyways, is the girl around?"

"Yeah, she's in the back somewhere. Come on, I'll show ya." Sally followed Duo into the apartment. As they passed through the living room, Duo noticed the uneasy glances between the Wu-man and Sally. Once in the hallway, and out of earshot, he asked her, "So have you guys talked since your big fight the other week?"

"No," Sally shook her head, "It's stupid really. I would have thought we would make it through this, but obviously one stupid fight was all it took. I kept trying to call him to apologize even, but he just won't answer to me. It's like I don't exist to him anymore."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Duo said with a real frown on his face, "Anyways, here we are." Duo motioned Sally into the bedroom/weight training room, where Jade was beating the crap out of a boxing bag.

"So this is where you are," Duo commented as Jade finally noticed that they had come in.

"Yeah," she replied, "I just needed to blow off some steam." She shot a glance at Sally, like she wasn't sure whether to attack her, or shake her hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Duo said. "This is Sally Poe. Heero, apparently called her to be our resident medic on this here journey."

Sally extended her hand, "Nice to meet you."

"Same," Jade said returning the handshake. It was then that Duo noticed the blood soaking through her long shirt sleeve. Sally noticed as well.

"What happened?" she asked.

Jade looked down at her arm, surprised. She sincerely looked like she had just noticed. "It's a fairly new cut," Jade explained, "I hade taken care of it, but it must have opened back up, while I was working out without me noticing."

Sally rolled up Jade's sleeve to look at the cut better. Duo recognized it as the self-inflicted knife wound. "That's a pretty deep cut to not notice," Sally commented.

"So is the chip on again?" Duo asked ignoring the fact that Sally had just spoken. He was honestly worried about Jade. This was the first time he was able to see the real danger in the zero chip. Jade was bleeding pretty badly, and if he hadn't notice, who knows how much blood she could have lost.

"I guess it must have switched on for a bit," Jade nodded. "I can feel it now that I'm calmed down. If you hadn't of come in, I probably wouldn't have noticed."

"Here," Sally said breaking the silence and taking over, "talk later, but for now, just let me fix that up again."