A/N: Here it is!

07 Reporting In

An armor clad figure moved through the halls of a giant ship. Twisting and turning through the maze of corridors, finally stopping outside of a particular door. Taking a deep breath the man stepped through the barrier.

"Commander Chang!" A Hunter stood at attention behind the chair holding the man he addressed. They were in the center of the Command Room onboard Sanc's ship, Libra. "We've located the missing Comm gear from Unit 3."

Sharp, dark brows raised, waiting for the Hunter to continue. "And?" Wufei was getting impatient. Two Hunters could not just disappear from existence. It wasn't possible.

"Th-they're clean, sir." The Hunter was nervous, but he held his ground. "Someone deactivated and dumped them days ago."

"Anything from the internal trackers, yet?"

A crewman that had been tapping away at one of the stations spoke up. "No, sir. We're still trying to deactivate the virus in the systems, but as far as we can tell they're not even registering anymore. They're gone, sir."

"Hn." The Chinese man frowned. "Her majesty won't like this."

I was relieved to find my room abandoned when I got back. I couldn't handle telling Trowa what happened, not yet. I didn't even want to think about it, let alone share my failure.

My bed was looking very inviting. I just wanted to curl up and forget the world, but I couldn't do that yet. Instead, I stripped off my clothes and headed for the bathroom. I needed a shower.

I let out my braid, turned on the faucet, and stepped into the stream of warm liquid. I let the water wash over me, trying to let it wash away my insecurity.

I'm not sure how much time passed before I finally moved, but when I did, I felt a dull ache in my muscles. I went through the motions of washing my hair and body, scrubbing my skin raw but not really noticing. I pulled myself from the shower and dried the beads of water from my body. I brushed my hair but let it hang loose. I knew I'd regret it later, but I couldn't bring myself to care just then. I needed that bed now.

I passed on clothes and went straight for the sheets, hoping to find the comfort I needed there. More time passed but I never really relaxed; all of my muscles were tense, on edge. The feeding kept replaying in my head: the taste of his blood, the feeling of my hand locked in his hair, the look in his eyes.

I was sure the Reaction had set in with Heero, I could still see the glazed-over look. There was a desire there that had drawn me in, something more than just the lust brought on from the feeding. Heero had felt something too, something he was trying to hide. Or was that my mind playing tricks on me?

My fingertips found their way to my lips, trying to remember the short kiss that had been shared. A craving to feel those lips against mine again gnawed at me.

"Ugh!" I groaned at myself. The Reaction still hadn't completely gotten out of my system. I wasn't going to think logically about what happened until it had, but my attraction to the brooding man was making it difficult.

Someone knocked at my door, but I ignored them, too caught up in my own turmoil and determined to not face anyone for quite a while. After the third knock, though, I finally gave up. Throwing the sheet off of me, I snagged a pair of grey sweatpants from the stack of clothes that had been given to me and finally opened the door as my visitor knocked again.

"I knew you were in there." It was Trowa, but his smile dropped after he took in my appearance. "What happened?"

I left him standing in the doorway and crawled back in bed, facing the wall and away from him. "The experiment didn't go so well." My voice sounded like I'd been drowned.

"What are you talking about?" He closed the door and sat behind me on the mattress. "I just came from the labs, Heero said it was a total success."

"What?" That brought me back to the reality I'd been trying to avoid. I sat back up and turned toward my friend.

"Yeah…" He looked confused. "What happened in there?"

I could feel the heat rising on my face. "I couldn't control the Reaction, Tro." I stared down at my hands as they wrung themselves around each other, too ashamed to look at him "I almost—I kissed him!" Trowa was staring at me, looking for the joke to come out, but there was no joke hiding in my words. "He stopped me." The last part was barely a whisper.

His brows furrowed. "The doctors already finished their tests, they want to start the treatments right away." He placed his hand on top of my own, forcing me to stop fidgeting and look at him. "When I left, they were setting him up for the first injection."

I thought back to the meeting in the lab earlier, try to pinpoint something that would have deemed our experiment a success. "There is however one test we can't perform with this equipment. We need to see if Heero can withstand the Reaction." The words echoed in my ears. If Heero can withstand the reaction. "They knew I wouldn't be able to."

"What?"

I looked at Trowa, realizing I'd spoken out loud. "They never expected me to resist the Reaction, they were counting on Heero to. I can't do it, Tro! Another feeding and he won't be strong enough to stop me. Who knows what I could do!"

My tall friend paused, taking in what I'd just realized. "Hm. Still, sitting in here moping about it won't help anything. Come on, Quatre's going to teach me a card game." He stood up, pulling me along with him. He was giving me a distraction and I was more than willing to take it.

All of my thoughts were still rolling around in my head, but I didn't want to dwell on them. "Okay, let me try to do something with this, first," I said, referring to my hair that was looking like a hot mess by now.

"I'll meet you in Quatre's room, then; I want to get some more pudding."

I smirked at my tall friend. "'Kay."

He left, pulling the door closed behind him. I grabbed my brush from the bathroom sink, where I'd left it after my shower, and pulled it through the strands that had gotten tangled in my restlessness.

I was coming back out of the bathroom, tying off the end of my braid when there was another knock at my door. I smiled.

"Did you forget something, Tro?" I teased, but when I opened the metal entrance, it wasn't Trowa standing on the other side.

"Expecting someone else?"