"My daughter did what?"

"She fell off a ladder," Duo repeated. Relena stared at the vidphone in disbelief. Was he deliberately misinterpreting her question?

"No," Relena said. "I understood that part. What I'm fuzzy on is how a ninety-pound teenage girl managed to sneak out of a hospital room and injure six people before she was subdued. How could you let that happen? And why didn't you call me sooner? You're supposed to be watching out for her, Duo!"

"Uh—" Duo trailed off and looked at something off-camera, presumably his shoes. Relena pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to fight the headache that had been building since her early-morning appointment with Sally.

Personal issues were making it hard to be objective. She knew Duo was doing his best; it wasn't his fault that Faith was entirely too much like her father. Relena decided she should just be relieved that Faith hadn't successfully completed her escape attempt and leave it at that.

"Forget it," Relena sighed. "It's done, it's over, and all we can do is move forward. How is she now? And where is she?"

"Faith is fine," Duo said. "She has a few bruises from her fall and she's still a little woozy from the sedative, but it's nothing too bad. She's in Hilde's room here at St. Jude, and all I know so far is that they want her to see a shrink."

It wasn't exactly good news, but it sounded like things weren't as bad as they could have been. Faith was strong, like her father, and she would recover with time. All Relena could do was try and be as supportive as possible while Faith worked her way through the sorrow.

Now if only that could be as easy as it sounded. Relena sighed.

Faith's problems were just the tip of the iceberg. Thinking about her daughter in the hospital sent Relena back to worrying about her own medical problems, and the home test kit that she had hidden in a paper bag in her purse. Just in case the one she'd taken for Sally had been a false positive. Oh, this is so not a good day, she thought.

"What about the emergency room doctor?" Relena asked. She could think about her own problems later, once she knew Faith was okay. "Is he really Red Fang?"

If he was, would he have any information about Heero? Relena wasn't sure she wanted to know. She couldn't take much more bad news. Her blood pressure was skyrocketing, at least according to Sally, and she couldn't afford that right now. She'd already decided that if her husband ever made it back home, for the sake of her health and sanity, she was putting him on a leash. A short one.

"Trowa doesn't think so, and he's looking into it personally," Duo said. "I think it's just a misunderstanding. Faith came to in a strange place, spotted a guy wearing red, and flipped her lid. It happens."

Only in my family, Relena thought. And only because Heero's penchant for destruction seems to be hereditary. Oh, God. If he doesn't get back here in one piece, I'm going to kill him myself. I can't handle his offspring on my own.

"Is there anything I can do?" Relena asked. "You don't need a lawyer, do you?"

Duo waved a hand dismissively. "I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "Nobody's complaining much, except that ER doc who just wants to get back to work; it seems to be water under the bridge."

"That's something, anyway," Relena murmured. "Duo, did you get the holodisc I sent you?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Relena was grateful that Duo was smart enough not to mention anything else about the holodisc or her message on a monitored phone line. It was risky enough bringing this up at all, but she needed an answer. She needed to know if sending Faith back into space was the right decision.

"I'm going to assume that you haven't had a chance to talk with her," Relena said. "But please try, Duo. She's been so distressed, and nothing I've done has had any impact on her. I just don't know what else to do."

"I'm already planning on it," Duo said. Relena didn't understand how he could be so nonchalant about all this. "Piece of cake. Cheesecake, even."

Ugh. Cheese was a bad word. A very, very bad word. Relena swallowed hard and hoped she didn't look as green as she felt.

"Are you okay?" Duo asked. Relena decided that she must look exactly as green as she felt for somebody as thick as Duo to notice. "Because this really isn't as bad as it sounds, Relena. In fact, it's—"

"I have to go," she interrupted. Because she was about to be sick again and she didn't want to do it in front of Duo, even over the phone, and it sounded like she'd already heard everything important. "Make Faith call me later."

She didn't—couldn't—wait for a reply. It took all the control she had left just to hang up the phone and run for the trash can.

"Well that was weird," Duo muttered. "She went all pale and hung up on me."

"Faith said her behavior has been erratic recently," Trowa said without looking up from his notes. "I don't understand why you even bothered calling her. She's only going to worry."

Duo shot him a funny look. "There are some things only a parent can understand," he said. "Trust me, you'd want to know if it was your kid."

It was hard to argue with that. And, to be honest, Trowa was glad Duo had called him specifically instead of just calling Preventer's local office number. This was his case. Even if Faith still wasn't talking to him.

"Do you have anything you want to ask Dr. Lockford before I release him?" Trowa asked, sliding his notes across the table for Duo to read. "He checks out. Unless you see something I missed, I don't have any reason to hold him and he seems genuinely concerned about getting back to work."

"Heh," Duo chuckled. "He's pretty hardcore, going back to work right after getting tased. If it were me, I'd take the rest of the day off."

Trowa shrugged. Had he been in Dr. Lockford's place, he probably would have gone back to work as well. They were alike in a lot of ways—no spouse, no family nearby, few friends outside work. Why go home and be alone when you could work through the pain? Maybe if, as Duo had put it earlier, there were some things only a parent could understand, there were other things only a person with no real attachments could understand.

"This looks good to me," Duo said after skimming over Trowa's notes. "All I want to know is what's going on with Faith. I think we'll all feel a lot better when she's out of here and we don't have to worry about her going nuts again. I still can't believe she did that."

"You can't believe she did it or you can't believe she was capable of it?" Trowa asked. Because security had video to prove beyond a doubt that Faith did injure all of those people.

"Both," Duo said at last. "She's always been against violence. Sure, she'll defend herself if somebody pushes her far enough—she broke another kid's nose at school a while back—but this was extreme. She's never had any kind of training unless you count roughhousing with the boys. And she's so little…"

Duo trailed off, shaking his head and looking bemused. Trowa chuckled softly.

"I just wonder what Heero would do right now, that's all," he explained when Duo eyed him strangely. Duo grinned.

"Probably the same thing he used to do when she was little," Duo said. "He'd give her a piece of his mind, let her think he was disappointed in her, and then—once he was sure everything was okay—he'd go outside and laugh his ass off. I didn't even realize he had a sense of humor until he had a kid. But then, oh man, the stuff I could tell you! He used to put her up to all kinds of things just to see what she'd do."

Trowa wanted to ask. He reallywanted to ask. But unfortunately, he had an unhappy doctor to release and stack of paperwork to fill out, and there just wasn't time for any more of Duo's long-winded stories. So he gathered up his files and headed for the door.

"Let me know if you hear anything suspicious," Trowa said as he stepped out of the office they had commandeered and into the hall. "Otherwise, I think we're finished here."

If only it could really be that easy, though. There was still the doctor. The reports. The supplements, if there were any. Then it would be time for Trowa to wait for a real break in the case, or for Une to decide his presence was no longer needed and release him. It would be good to really be finished with all of this, to have the Red Fang locked up and Faith talking to him again. And it would be even better to hang up his Preventer uniform for good and go home once everything was all said and done.

Finishing everything was going to take years, though. The Red Fang was good at hiding itself, and the court system was slow. Trowa knew how to be patient, though, and he knew that the only way to cope with a journey this long was to take it one step at a time.

And the next step was the doctor. Jonathan Lockford, twenty-eight, just a few years out of medical school. Trowa ticked off the details in his head, memorizing them in case he needed them for later. It was part of his routine, but he doubted that he would need the information; Preventer had everything on record, after all.

The two agents he'd set to watch over the doctor's room were still there, luckily, but Trowa frowned when he saw that they'd found a table somewhere and set up a game of cards.

"You're too lax," Trowa said, wondering if he should confiscate their deck. They only stared up at him, obviously confused.

"Until you hear otherwise, the man in that room is a suspected terrorist," Trowa explained. "For all you know, he could be building a bomb or attempting suicide in there. You're supposed to be watching him. Not playing Go Fish."

"But—"

"I don't want to hear it," Trowa said. "You're both dismissed. I expect reports on my desk by the time I get back to the office."

Not that the reports would be done by the book, but it would be more evidence to present to Commander Une in regard to his coworkers. Something needed to be done about the agents stationed here, and maybe even the agents on other colonies as well. As far as Trowa could tell, none of these people had been properly trained and he had no idea where to begin correcting them. The two agents in front of him had yet to follow orders; they clearly were displeased that he, a stranger, had been given command of the outpost here. But that wasn't Trowa's problem. If they wanted to complain, they could take it straight to Une and then she could see for herself how undisciplined her people were. He pushed past them into the room where Dr. Lockford was waiting.

"So I'm still a suspected terrorist?" the doctor asked loudly. "I have to say, I thought you Preventers were better than this."

"Cut the crap," Trowa replied. "I get enough of it from the uniformed agents here. I don't need any out of you, Willow."

Lockford, better known to Trowa as Reserve Agent Willow, laughed. Trowa put some serious effort into not rolling his eyes. It would only make things worse.

Willow was one of a handful of trusted agents Une had pulled up from the reserves and planted undercover on the colony to help look after Faith. Aside from Trowa and Wufei, they were the only Preventers who knew the real story behind Heero's disappearance and they were under strict orders not to talk. As Trowa had learned from his previous job on the colony, the local office was understaffed in addition to being under-trained, and he was grateful for the extra, experienced, eyes.

Even when those eyes came attached to immature pains in the ass like Lockford. Trowa remembered the doctor as the one with all the obnoxious questions from the briefing session.

"Pull up a chair," the doctor said, leaning back in his own seat and putting his feet on the desk. "Fill me in. That was Zero's kid with the stun gun, wasn't it? God, she looks just like him, right down to that horrible, cold stare. Jesus. I thought she was gonna kill somebody for a second there."

"That was Faith," Trowa said. He hesitated, then decided it wouldn't hurt to ask. "You knew Zero?"

"Knew him?" Lockford asked. "He was in charge of my training class. I thought he was trying to kill us—and we were just reserves! Zero's the reason I decided to go back to medical school and finish my degree. I didn't want to be a full time agent; I'd go crazy if I had to work with a guy like that on a day-to-day basis. Why? Did you know him, too?"

Trowa shrugged. Unlike Duo and Heero, who were known to the public as former Gundam pilots, he'd managed to leave his past mostly in the past. As a reserve agent himself, he'd also managed to avoid being the topic of much agency gossip, so it was unlikely that anyone knew that he and Heero were friends, let alone former allies during the war. Lockford didn't need to know the truth, and he was smart enough to figure it out if Trowa gave him anything to go on.

"You just hear a lot about the guy," he offered. "He's become sort of a legend, you know? I wonder how many of the stories about him are true."

"All of them," Lockford replied. "After meeting him, I'd believe anything you told me about the guy. Anyway. You're in charge of this operation, so I'm assuming you got more of the background than I did. What's up with his kid? Is she psychotic? She's kind of a firecracker, that's for sure."

Trowa didn't think Heero would appreciate somebody calling his daughter a firecracker in that tone of voice, but he kept that thought to himself and stuck with what was important.

"It's just like they told you at the briefing," Trowa said. "We had a breech and Faith was abducted by a rogue agent. Zero exchanged himself for her safety. This morning, Faith mistook you for a member of the organization that was behind the whole incident and assumed she'd been kidnapped again. She believed she was acting defensively."

Lockford's mouth turned down at that, his wiseass demeanor disappeared, and Trowa could see the real reason the man had chosen to stick with medicine over law enforcement. There was genuine concern in his expression, a compassion for a stranger who'd attacked him a short time ago, and Trowa's respect for the doctor rose just a notch at the sight.

"Let me out of here," he said. "I need to make sure she's okay. God, I hope they haven't put her in with the psychos. That'll just scare her even more."

Trowa got the door. "Don't let her know who you are," he said. "She isn't too fond of Preventer at the moment—she's blaming us for letting Red Fang take her father—and it would be bad if your cover was blown."

"No shit," Lockford muttered. "I'm not one of those fucktarded uniforms who needs to be told when and how to wipe my ass like those guys you left to guard me. Get out of the way and let me get back to work. I'm not going to be doing any of us any good if you get me fired from my cover job, boss."

And the compassionate doctor was gone, just like that. Trowa let Lockford go. He'd do his job—both of his jobs—better without being micromanaged. As long as his reports were submitted on time, Trowa didn't have anything more to say to the man.

"You know, a little cooperation goes a long way," the doctor said. Faith scowled.

"You stabbed me," she grumbled, sitting ramrod straight as he peered into one of her ears and made notes on a clipboard. "With a needle."

"Yeah, well, you tased me," the doctor replied, mimicking the snippy tone she'd used on him. "With a stun gun. I think it's time to call it even."

Faith rolled her eyes. Now that she knew the doctor was just another stupid doctor and not Red Fang, she had bigger things to worry about. And they were not the sort of things she could discuss with a total stranger.

It was time to talk to Duo. No one else would understand. Faith didn't think her dad would mind much, even though he'd made her promise to keep the gundam secret, since he wasn't around to help her himself. He trusted Duo. She knew that.

"We're almost done," the doctor said. "Just say 'aah' and get it over with."

Faith rolled her eyes and opened her mouth. Silently. Because the doctor was entirely too cheerful for a man who'd been stun-gunned just a little while ago. It creeped her out a little and she couldn't bring herself to completely cooperate with him.

"I thought you were just an emergency room doctor," Faith said when he was done examining her tonsils. Or whatever. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged and capped his pen. "Nobody else wanted you." Whispering theatrically, he added, "They all think you're crazy."

"Crazy, huh. Is that a technical term?" Faith asked. "I don't think you're supposed to talk to patients like that."

"I'm just pulling your leg," he said. "You look like you could use a laugh. But you really did scare the living crap out of a bunch of nurses back there. I bet they would say you're crazy if I went and asked them."

"They don't know the half of it," Faith replied. "I went to Dalton. Also known as the boarding school created exclusively for eccentric and differently-abled. You should tell those nurses that we prefer to be called gifted. Or maniacal geniuses. Whichever sounds best."

"Well, maniacal genius or not, you're in a lot of trouble," he said. "You know there are a couple of people who think we should lock you up and throw away the key, right?"

Yeah, Faith thought, unsurprised. Add my name to that list, will you? If this keeps getting worse, I'll probably need to be locked up. I don't want to go crazy…But I don't know how to stop it from happening.

"What about you?" she asked. "What do you think of me?"

He took a step back and looked her up and down a minute. And then he grabbed one of her bare feet and straightened her leg out, looking at the fresh, pink scars that stood out against her pale skin.

"You do this to yourself?" he asked, the cheerfulness gone from his voice as he examined the damage to her leg.

"No," Faith said. "I was sitting too close to the window at Jake's Café the morning that van blew up. Dad saved me from the worst of it, but…"

Faith trailed off. She didn't want to remember the van. The numbness that had filled her to the brim that whole, miserable walk home, or her own vicious burst of temper afterward. But she couldn't stop the memories from coming.

Sometimes it sucked, being unable to forget.

"Oh, Dad," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

She couldn't stop herself from saying it out loud. She only wished she could say it to his face. That she was sorry. For all of this. Of course Dr. Lockford wouldn't know that she was talking about her real dad, not Duo, but that didn't stop the tears from pricking at her eyes again. When she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry over him anymore.

Dr. Lockford passed her a box of tissues.

"I'll go get your folks," he said gently. "And then we'll see about getting you out of here. Okay?"

Faith nodded and blotted the tears away, wondering why the doctor was suddenly being so nice. It wasn't the crying, was it? As a doctor, he probably saw people cry every day. He couldn't be that much of a pushover. Could he?

Notes: Thanks so much for all of the reviews and birthday wishes! You guys are the best! Okay, down to business. This is about half the chapter I originally intended to write, but it feels complete enough that I decided to go ahead and post it as it is. A cut scene is going up in Between the Lines tonight, too, so look for that later if you're reading the oneshots. It's better than nothing, right?

I hope everyone had a great summer! Mine has been such a blur. I can't believe it's over so soon. I'm starting a new full-time job tomorrow, in addition to trying to get my own small business set up, so my hands are full right now. I also play in a semi-professional orchestra and we have a concert coming up next Monday. (Which will be AWESOME! I can't wait!) Whatever free time I have left ends up going toward housework and errands, and I just haven't been able to squeeze in much writing time lately. I'm doing my best, though! One day this story will be complete! All questions will (hopefully) be answered! Seriously, though, feel free to ask me anything. I may not have time to answer you in person, but barring that I will do my best to answer you in the story itself. Which might be kind of fun, come to think of it.