Chapter 10: Annoyance and Suspicions

"Where are we going?" Trowa heard Jade ask. They had landed on the L2 colony not even 10 minutes before, and now the group was speeding, in 2 limos, towards the Winner Estates. The first limo contained Heero, Wufei, Duo, Odin, and Relena, while the second Limo carried Trowa, Quatre, Jade, and Sally.

Quatre spoke up to answer Jade. "We're going to stay at one of my family's houses."

Jade nodded her head, taking it in. "Is there going to be enough room for all of us?"

Trowa couldn't help but laugh. "There's probably enough room for each of us to have our own wing!"

"Hardly," Quatre huffed. He hated when people laughed because he had money and Trowa knew it. Still, Trowa would tease Quatre just to get a rise some days.

Jade didn't know this though, and was thus confused. Noticing this, Trowa went on to explain. "You've heard of the Winner Family Fortune, right?" he asked.

Jade rolled her eyes, "It's huge! Who hasn't?"

"Well, let's just say that you're sitting next to the current owner of said fortune."

Quatre shot daggers at Trowa, but laughed when Jade moved toward him saying, "Hi, my name is Jade. I like good books, evenings by the fireplace, long walks on the beach in the moonlight, and hopefully you."

It was Sally's turn to roll her eyes as the rest of the car burst into hysterics. "I guess, I can't take you guys anywhere."

The first limo was not as happy. In fact, it was dead silent, which annoyed Heero very badly.

Occasionally, Odin and Relena would strike up conversation, but that also left Heero nervous feeling, not that he would show it.

Wufei was looking nervous about something though, and Duo looked dead to the world. For a happy guy like that, he sure wasn't a morning person. But overall things were fairly normal, or so Heero thought.

After a few minutes had passed, Wufei seemed to be growing more agitated. Finally, he burst out, "Heero I have to tell you something."

The car went silent once more, but Heero nodded for Wufei to continue.

"Look Heero, it's about your sister. You see,…well, yesterday I was in the gym and she well..."

"Oh, I heard about that!" Duo interrupted, sitting strait up.

"Heard what?" Heero asked snapping his head in Duo's direction. This whole thing was suspicious. What had happened that Heero hadn't heard about?

"Well, Jade told me that yesterday when she was sparring with Wufei she lost her balance on the balance beam. She hit her head pretty hard and had to go down and visit Sally. She made me swear not to tell anyone because she didn't want you to find out about it. She was afraid that you would think she had gotten weak. But I guess the cat's outta the bag now, isn't it Wufei?" With the end of this, Duo shot a pressing look at Wufei.

Heero glanced over at a torn looking Wufei. "Yeah it is," Wufei nodded.

"Jade can take care of herself, don't worry. She's probably just getting back into the swing of things. She's been out of the game for awhile too ya know." Odin reassured Heero, after which the cabin went silent, yet again.

Glancing out the window, Heero stopped when he saw Duo messing with the end of his braid. The story had made sense, but despite Duo's vow to never tell a lie, whenever Duo "stretched the truth" he always messed with the tail of his braid. There was defiantly more here than was being said.

A few hours later, Duo sat in the living room, keeping an eye on Wufei. Duo was honestly baffled as to why Wufei was trying to sell Jade out. Wufei was normally such a "keep to yourself" type of guy. It would seem more likely that he wouldn't tell Heero anything, and instead secretly laugh at him for not knowing. It didn't really make sense as to why he would want to tell anybody anything.

Duo's thoughts were interrupted by the jingle on his cell phone.

Glancing down, he saw the caller ID said "Steve" and decided to pick up. " 'ello."

"Hey Duo, it's Steve."

"That is what the caller ID said."

"Be that way then! Jeeze! Anyways, I just called to see if Keith sent on the message that I was sorry I couldn't make it down to see you."

"Yeah, he did, but I just picked up the e-mail yesterday."

"I tried calling you yesterday, but you never answered."

"Yeah, well, I was in transit and my phone was off. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I do. So you're in the colonies then? Visiting Hilde? Which colony are you at?"

"Whoa, slow down!" Duo warned Steve, who was starting to rush ahead of himself. "Yes, I am in the colonies. No, I am not visiting Hilde, and I'm currently in the L2 capital, same as you."

"Duo that's awesome! But why come back? I thought you said you hated it here!"

"Don't get me wrong, I do, but my friend Quatre offered to let me stay at his place along with a few other people. I guess you could call it the last 'summer bash' before school starts." Duo wondered what Steve would think if he knew exactly what a "bash" this could turn out to be.

"Well, if you're not having too much fun tonight, swing by my place. I'll be having a party."

"Sounds cool, I'll see if I can make it."

"I hope you can. Meanwhile, you should check out the Maxwell Church Monument. They just unveiled it last week, and I think you might want to go see it."

"Well, I'll see." Duo said, a little more than annoyed. He probably would go check out the monument, but the fact that Steve felt the need to remind him, after having already told him about 50 times within the last month really did annoy him. Also the fact that Steve probably hadn't even thought about Duo until people started talking about the Maxwell Church again.

Just as he finished talking, Jade strolled into the room. Walking behind him she leaned over the couch and asked, "Hey, you grew up here, is there anything worth doing on this colony?"

Before he could answer her though, Steve was talking again. "Hey, who is that? Sounds like a girl! Duo you stud. She sounds hot! Is she taken? Can I have her?"

Duo motioned to Jade to hold on a second, then answered Steve. "No, and no. Look I have to go so maybe I'll see you later."

"...but..."

"Good bye," Duo said hanging up. Then turning to Jade, "Of course, let's go!"

Trowa knocked on Heero's door. Following the order of "Enter", he walked in.

Inside, Heero sat crossed legged on his bed, arms also crossed, meditating. Well, or sleeping...sorta. As Trowa stepped into the room, Heero did him the honor of at least opening one of his eyes to see who had entered.

"Just figured I'd let you know," Trowa started, "I ran that scan. As we figured, it picked nothing up." Heero sat silent, so Trowa continued. "I'm not exactly sure where else to start."

"I have a clue," Heero said, facial expression never changing.

"Mind filling me in?"

"It's just a supply company I used when I set them up. It's a secure/no questions asked type of business. They're most likely still running business through them. I could use a map of the place though."

"Just give me a name."

"I sent the name and address to your e-mail a minute ago."

"I'll get right on that then," Trowa said, heading out the door.

"Wait, Trowa," Heero called, "Where's my sister, do you know?"

"She just left with Duo I think."

"Oh," was all Heero said, and when Trowa realized Heero didn't intend to say anything else, he closed the door and left.

Authors Note: For any old readers I have still. This is a heads up. Next Chapter is the last one that I had posted before. However, Upon review I have noticed that it is not long enough to suite the average chapter length. I'm not really sure how this got past me before, but I'm fixing it. So there will be loads of New Material in the next chapter. Have fun reading... oh and REVIEW! I like to hear other peoples thoughts good and bad. Flames are more than welcome because they make me work harder. Just give me some feed back. 3's and I'll get the next chapter out soon.

-Andy