"Wake up. Wake up. DUO!"

He jolted out of his bed when the alarm clock cracked noisily over his skull.

"Jesus Christ! What the hell was that for?" he asked, looking up at me outraged.

"Wake up," I repeated.

"Heero, its Saturday. No work. No work on Saturday. It's the Sabbath."

"You don't believe in the Sabbath. And it's Friday."

"No work. No work on Friday. It's the Sleepth."

I looked down at Hilde who had come to stand beside me. She nodded an, I got this one.

"It's okay Duo," Hilde said. "You don't have to get up. I'll just tell Trowa he can eat all your bacon."

Duo rose instantly. "I'm up," he griped, rubbing his head where I'd hit him. He glared at me. "You owe me an alarm clock."

"Why? You don't ever use it."

"I like pretending I do," he muttered sourly as he locked himself in the bathroom.

"Hopeless. He's hopeless," Hilde said, shaking her and starting out of the room.

I followed. "Maybe not hopeless. Just lazy."

"How did he survive the war?"

"Luck."

"That's right. Bastard's lucky, I forgot."

"Told him I'd eat his bacon?" Trowa asked from the table.

"Always works. That boy. You know. Sometimes I just can't stand him"

Hilde turned to wash some dishes, shaking her head. I gave Trowa a look, which he reciprocated understandingly. I helped Hilde with the dishes. Duo came out, still grumpy. The fact that Duo wasn't a morning person always surprised me. He looked like the perfect candidate, but you'd be wrong. Duo needed at least two hot cups of coffee in him before he became Duo. He took his first cup with his breakfast, slowly blossoming.

By the time he'd finished with both his breakfast and half of his third cup, he was normal and blathering on about how walruses were definitely some kind of mutation between a dog, a dolphin, and a sausage. Trowa had his hand resting over the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed and taking in deep breaths. Hilde was staring at him with an appalled, disgusted face as if he were some sort of bug that had to be squashed without thought, and I ignored him completely, chewing on the last of my toast.

The buzzer rang and on the one-way vidcom on the door, which announced guests and customers, appeared the image of a man in coveralls.

"I'm here to install a sign?" he called, looking into the camera quizzically. "Anyone there?"

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming," Duo called, draining the last of his coffee and heading for the door.

We all followed. Duo greeted the man first. I stood silently next to him, waiting. Duo asked to see the brushed, stainless steel sign we're ordered. It read in beautifully polished letters, "GP Repair." Duo inspected it carefully, handed it to me and continued chatting the guy up.

I ran my hands over the smooth metal surface, feeling for imperfections. Nothing. It was perfect, just like Quatre had said it would be. GP Repair: that was the name of the repair shop we'd be opening in a little less than two weeks. I realized that Trowa was standing beside me. I nodded and he directed his attention over to Duo who was laying out where and how he wanted the sign hung. The man was arguing that it was too hard to hang that way and that he had instructions to just hang it and leave. Hilde appeared before a scuffle broke out and asked for the invoice sweetly.

Trowa and I drifted over casually, peering over her shoulder at the price. The sign itself was worth the price, but the installation charge was outrageous. I looked up at Trowa who gave a faint nod in response. Hilde waited, still seemingly intent on the invoice.

"We can hang it," I whispered to her without the man noticing.

It was what she'd been waiting for and she turned to her desk hidden away behind the rubble of what would soon be the repair shop. She took her pen out from behind her ear and crossed out the installation charge. She pulled a calculator out of her back pocket and recalculated the price and tax for the sign alone and the delivery charge. Hilde wrote up a receipt, counted the cash, walked back to us, smiled sweetly at the man as she handed him the cash, the receipt to sign, and sent him packing, "but's," and "wait a minute's" falling from his lips.

"All right boys, let's get that sign up," she said.

Trowa and I snapped into action. Duo, however, did not.

"You think you're my boss or something?" he asked, arms crossed over chest.

"No, I think I'm the woman who feeds you every morning."

"Damn it."