Waking Up In Vegas

Chapter 41

Midii was there. Emily was there. Even that damn dog was there... but Heero felt completely alone. It had been a while since he'd felt so alone. Since he'd heard Marie telling him that Jezzy had been in that building. Since he'd thought his sister was dead.

Jezzy had always been there. And then, she'd been gone. And now...

She was gone again.

He had dropped down to his knees with the realization. Now, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the warm, sympathetic eyes of Emily.

"It will work out," she promised in her light English accent. "You'll see. She's *fine*."

Heero looked down at the ground in front of him, at the splash of dark brownish red against the bright green grass. Her blood. But blood did not mean death, right? She could still be out there... somewhere... alive. She'd cheated death once. Perhaps she had done so again.

He pulled abruptly out of his sulk.

"Right," he said, standing up. "We have to call Quatre. See if anyone's still here. And then we have to find out where she is."

Midii nodded. "Then lets get a move on it. We have work to do if we're going to stop a war, save Trowa and Quatre *and* rescue the princess."

Heero chuckled at the thought of Jezzy as a damsel in distress, and spared one last look at the blood on the ground. He was not alone.

As long as she breathed... he was not alone.

#

Heero looked at the girl laying on her stomach on his bed. She was small. Slender and petite, like a tiny wisp of a girl. He didn't think she'd ever be a very tall person. Probably about five four or five five all told when she was grown. Unless she hit an amazing growth spurt between now and then, which was unlikely.

Today was his sixteenth birthday, which mean she was almost ten. Two years. For two years now she'd been with him. At first, she was just an annoying little girl he'd had to put up with because of his father, who could never ever explain anything outright and instead had to be cryptic and ridiculous.

But now... now she was something else. She was a friend, a companion. She was someone who needed him to help her, to protect her. She was... a sister.

"Heero? What's the quickest way to disarm a UED?" she asked, studying a page in the book before her.

"Step on it," he replied without thinking, earning a laugh from her. He never made jokes before, he realized. Admittedly his sense of humor had turned out to be odd and a bit unusual, but before her, he'd not had a a sense of humor at all.

"Okay," she laughed. "Let me rephrase. What's the quickest *safe and undeadly* way to disarm a UED?"

"Which device?" He asked, and she sat up, holding out the book.

"Viet-cong standard mine," she explained as he studying the diagrams.

Heero then pointed out the ways to disarm the mine, making sure to point out that disarming the actual mine was only half of the solution... that most of the mines had a secondary explosive... a grenade that would explode as soon as the mine was disarmed.

"What a way to spend your birthday, huh?" she asked quietly a few minutes later. She'd went back to her stomach to peruse her book, and Heero had joined her, their conversation varying from the Viet-Cong mine to guerrilla tactics in general.

He lifted his head from the book to look at her, saphire eyes meeting silver.

"One of the best so far," he admitted. And it was. A stimulating conversation with someone he cared for. Much better than being stuck on a muddy obstacle course, or taking a test, or anything else he'd ever had to do on his birthday. He was very glad he wasn't still on that wilderness survival trip for his class. He'd missed her for the whole week he was gone.

She smiled at him.

"Oh," he said. "That reminds me, I have something for you."

"But it's your birthday," she pointed out, rolling over as he got off the bed and started digging through his duffel bag. He withdrew a small foil bag and handed it to her, and her eyes widened.

"You didn't!" she squeeled as she took the bag and ripped into it, pulling out a single wrapped chocolate square. She pulled off the wrapping and bit into it, a look of euphoria crossing her face.

"Mmmmm. Perfect," she murmured.

Heero had long ago discovered that, a complete contradiction to most children... Jezzy did not like sugary sweet things. Dark, bitter chocolate was her snack of choice... but the only thing that could ever be found on the base was sweet, sweet milk chocolate. He'd seen the chocolate in a supermarket they'd stopped at on their way back from their so called 'trip'. (More like 'Mission From Hell', he thought). He'd seen it... and thought of her.

"Thank you, Heero!" She giggled, leaping up to throw her arms around him, half the chocolate piece still clutched in her hand.

"Yuy? Hartisan?"

Heero looked up as his CO walked in through the open door to his quarters. That was one thing he'd LOVED about graduating into the Specials class. No more barracks to be shared with others.

"Commander," he said, straightening to attention. Beside him, Jezzy snapped to attention to... trying to hide her chocolate behind her.

"At ease, soldiers," Commander Burram said, her gray hair pulled in a tight bun. She frowned. "Heero, I'm afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news. I just received word from the higher ups. Odin Lowe didn't return from his mission. There was an accident with his plane. It went down behind enemy lines. We're afraid... Heero, I'm sorry. Your father's dead."

Heero almost couldn't process the thought... but then Jezzy's arms were wrapped around him. He could feel a few tears seeping through his T-shirt. Jezzy had looked up to Odin. In her eyes, Odin had brought her to Heero. Odin had given her her hero, her savior.

Heero himself loved his father. Sure, he only saw him once every year or two. And spoke to him only a little more often than that. But the love was there none-the-less.

Ignoring the breach of protocol, Heero broke his stance, and hugged the girl back. He would miss his father... but as long as he had her... he was not alone.

#

Trowa didn't know just how to deal. On the one hand, he knew he loved Quatre. It had been quick, sudden, and surprising. But he *loved* him. On the other... Quatre had admitted to killing people. Of course it was an accident, but Quatre- the sweet innocent man he'd fell in love with- had admitted to creating a glorified doomsday device. Trowa didn't know if he could mesh those two people into one. The sweet man who'd never had honeysuckle, who had found joy in simply riding in the bed of a truck, who'd never gone skinny-dipping in a creek. And this newer side Trowa had learned existed. Naive enough to believe that he could create a machine such as this and it never fall into the wrong hands. Crazy enough to dream up the idea... mad enough to invent it.

They were one and the same, and as he thought about it... those bad sides were all just the same as the good sides. It was all Quatre. Naive and strong. Sweet and ruthless. Romantic and cynic. It was all Quatre.

And that's why Trowa didn't run. That's why he was here, beside Quatre now, instead of running back home to his family. He was scared... but he was willing to trust.

Quatre had things to get from his office. Papers that the lawyers would need to finalize Iria's will, apparently. Which is why Trowa was now walking in the doors of a nice building. It was old, but very well remodeled. Duo- who appreciated taking the old and renovating it- would adore this building. Trowa himself didn't look much further than the front desk before his mouth dropped open and he stopped his tracks. All thought fled from his mind as his gaze remained riveted.

"Trowa?" Quatre asked, turning to his husband, then following his awestruck gaze. "Ah... I forget about that sometimes. Go on around and take a look. Kim won't mind."

"Of course not Mr. Winner," the brunette at the desk smiled. "We get this all the time," she assured Trowa, who wasted no time in skirting around the desk to get up close and personal with the painting. "And welcome back, Mr. Winner."

It was fairly large. A good four feet across, and at least six feet high, with the bottom resting right about chest height on the wall. It had spotlights placed around it to emphasise it, with the large brown block letters emblazoned on the wall above the picture. SANDROCK.

Trowa was half in love with the picture already. The colors alone were astounding. Such a whirlwind of browns and tans and creams, swirling together almost as if the picture itself were rippling. The movement was amazing. Trowa leaned back, looking at the whole thing. It was, he realized, a scene and not as abstract as he thought. A desert scene, a lone man surrounded by dunes and sand and wind and sky. Leaning into the wind, he was draped in a drab cloak, with two curved swords... shotels, Trowa plucked the word from somewhere in his memory... crossed in front of him in a defensive gesture. Trowa studied him closer. Beneath the cloak were flashes of bright jewel tones, at odds with the rest of the picture- almost lost in the enormity of the scene. A prince, Trowa concluded. Or some kind of noble. A Noble in the desert, he smiled. Yes, that would make a nice name for it. A warrior prince, because it was obvious from his stance he was a fighter. No stranger to the harshness of life.

Trowa perused it further, looking for a face somewhere in the folds of that cloak. No, just shadows... but wait. The shadow here was lighter, almost a soft sandy blond. And here... were those eyes? They were so blue... such a clear aqua...

Trowa stumbled back, almost bumping into the desk. His head swiveled to Quatre.

"It's... that's... you."

Quatre frowned. "You see it, then. I should figure you would. Noin met me once... and decided that's what she would paint. I never commissioned the work... she just showed up one day demanding where I wanted her to hang it." He smiled a bit at the memory. "Most people just see the effect. Few look close enough to see the man behind the swords."

"She really captured you," Trowa said. "Very well done." He scanned the bottom corners, looking for some type of signature. Wait... there, written, flowing along with the sand in the shadows at the bottom right. "L.N. D'ara..." His eyes widened again. "LN D'aravian? *THE* LN D'aravian?"

"You know her?" Quatre asked.

"Know her? Are you kidding? LN D'aravian is one of my idols. She's an amazing artist! Her work sells for millions. And she just *gave* you a painting of you?"

"I like men who know art," a voice laughed. "Where'd you find him, Kitten?"

"Vegas," Quatre smiled. Trowa turned to see a woman standing to the left of the desk. She was tall and lean, her dark hair cut short, a little longer in the front than the back.

"Trowa, this is Lucrezia Noin D'aravian. Mostly we call her Noin... or Luce."

She laughed and held out a hand to Trowa. "Trowa Barton," he said. "A pleasure to meet you."

"So? You know art?"

"Trowa's an artist, too, Noin," Quatre smiled proudly. "He's got work hanging in the governor's mansion down in Tennessee. And a few different museums."

"Nothing like your work, though," Trowa said. "Nowhere near as good. I mostly do portrait work. And landscapes. Architecture has been rather fascinating to work with."

"Most of my work is still-lifes," Noin concluded. "This is actually pretty different than my usual work. I like the play of colors in a still scene better. Movement just isn't my thing."

"But you do it very well," Trowa nodded to the picture, even as he was nearly pushed out of the way.

"QUATRE!" A tall, tall man with platinum blond hair hanging to his waist pushed up to the young man. "We have a situation."

"What is it, Zechs?"

"WING ZERO... it's missing."

Trowa watched as his husband's eyes went as wide around as saucers. "What?"

"The whole unit is *gone*. It's been stolen, Quatre."

Noin held up her hands. "Cool it, you two. Just think about this. They can't *do* anything with it. They have no access codes. They can't even turn it on. We have a little while before we have to panic. Now... who all has access codes that are active?"

"Me," Quatre nodded, breathing deeply to calm himself, reaching out automatically to grip Trowa's hand. "Heero. And Jezzy."

"Jezzy's codes are still active?" Noin asked, tilting her head. "That makes little sense."

"We never had the heart to deactivate them. And... Noin, she's alive. Don't ask me to explain it, because even I don't know the story. But apparently Allelujah and Marie have lied to us."

"Why that manipulative rat-basta..."

Quatre nearly jumped when his cell phone rang out. He dug it out of his pocket, holding up a hand to still Noin's ranting.

"Winner," he answered, Trowa looking at him questioningly. Quatre nodded. "Yes. Heero, yes. Calm down. No. Wing is missing, but we're still confident. No, they don't have any access codes so they can't... what?" Quatre's eyes went wide. "No, Heero are you sure? Oh no. God help us all then."

Quatre closed his cell, looking at his captivated audience.

"Jezzy," he said, at last. His voice was soft, almost disbelieving. "Jezzy is gone. She's missing."

#

(Just a note... Noin's name is pronounced DEE ARRAY VEE EN- the last part sounds like Arabian. And oh, dear! Jezzy is missing. Wing is missing. Heero's on the war-path. Trowa's on the brink of fleeing. Quatre's got a major problem on his hands. And Emily and Midii have to deal with Heero while trying to stop this war- each for her own reasons. And lets not forget Duo. His daughter is on the run, his sister is in the hospital... and he's out for revenge and answers. Uh-oh. Things are really starting to heat up!)