Disclaimer - not mine. Not for profit.

Note - this one just kept getting bigger and bigger so I made an executive decision to chop it in half... The second part will be posted in the next couple of days….

Communication:

I think we'd all expected to stay at the apartment block once the Preventer investigation squad arrived, but it was made very clear that we weren't welcome. Having already goofed up once, the team of agents in place weren't going to let anything go wrong this time, like casual civilians hanging around and getting under their feet. Apparently, we'd already contaminated their pristine crime scene, regardless of the fact that they wouldn't even have had a crime scene to investigate, if it hadn't been for our efforts.

We ended up being driven to the main Preventers HQ in the city, at Noin's request. Some hotshot profiler guy was being flown in from L1 to help with the investigation; he was going to need to talk to Tro, and Heero wanted to be present. I'd been assured the kids would be picked up and brought there as well, but, judging by the Preventers' performance so far, I wasn't quite sure how much faith I had in their ability to accomplish even that task.

Really, I just wanted to get the kids off the streets for a bit.

The mood in the building was very definitely subdued. Twelve agents, plus the flight crew, had died on the shuttle, and it was now being treated as a deliberate act of terrorism.. Plus I assumed heads were going to roll all around the place over the botched investigation.

I had visions of Une sharpening her own personal guillotine in readiness for that. Of course, mine was probably the first head she'd like to see getting neatly chopped off. That irritating Maxwell appearing out of the woodwork and causing trouble as usual.

Heero had gone to call her, leaving Trowa and me to kick our heels in someone's empty office. Tro'd stayed with me for approximately two seconds, and then taken off, ostensibly to find a coffee machine, but I had a pretty shrewd idea he'd end up doing a little information-gathering en route. I'd promised Heero to stay put and not attract attention, until he could persuade Une to let me stay, officially.

Good luck to him on that one. Noin's attempt to convince her that I would be a valuable and useful part of the investigation had failed dismally, from what I'd gathered from a one-sided telephone call to Heero. He'd immediately taken himself off in full mission mode, so I didn't think Une had much of a chance….

'You want a coffee?' Trowa strolled back holding two insulated cups. 'Noin's had a report in from the forensics guys. The knife used for the little Sandrock carving exactly matches the incisions on a corpse they found in a dumpster, just around the corner from the apartment.'

'That must be guy Nat told me about!' I said excitedly.

'Apparently.' Trowa took a long swallow of coffee and sat back in his chair. 'The body's already been partly eaten away by animals, but there were clear knife cuts to the bone.'

I shivered, trying to imagine Quatre stabbing someone; stabbing someone with that much force, and remembering what Nat had told me.

He was talking about this blond guy who'd knifed Harry Mitchell. He's this big guy who hangs around - hung - and pimps for some of the guys.

Oh, God. Two guesses for what he'd tried to do to Quat.

They also found bloodstains on the stairwell that match Quatre's. You were right about him having walked up the stairs, Duo. Rather a large quantity of blood, actually. He was hurt badly.'

'He was well enough to defend himself,' I said firmly. 'And to walk up several flights of stairs. They've accomplished all that so soon?'

Tro nodded. 'They're trying to make up for screwing up initially.' He picked up his cup, frowning into the depths. 'Incompetent idiots. If they'd done their jobs properly in the first place, we could be hours closer to finding him.'

'Yeah. Is it just me, or is it weird that they made such a colossal screw-up? I mean, it was basically their only lead, and they might as well have ignored it for all the use it was.'

'Apparently,' he used the word with a heavy layer of bitterness, 'they acted according to their instructions, which were to conduct a perfunctory search of the area, and to carry out a brief door-to-door investigation. And there was a definite impression that even that much was a waste of time and resources.'

'That's stupid. They had evidence Quat was there, they had that email he sent you and the exact co-ordinates he'd sent it from.'

'What they had,' Trowa said crisply, 'was a message written in some sort of code, from an unidentified email address. There was no real proof that it was from Quatre; only the fact that I claimed it was, and I'm a suspect.'

'I thought you were off the hook?'

He shrugged, withdrawing behind his hair. 'Am I? I'm still the most obvious suspect, I suppose. They're flying in that profiler to speak to me, after all.'

'No one's ever going to believe you'd hurt Quatre!'

'Won't they? They might be more inclined to believe it given that Quatre's sisters and most of our household staff will be falling over each other to testify to the fact that we had been having a series of escalating fights, culminating in me leaving over his decision to marry a girl and begin a normal life that would please his family.'

'But I thought they didn't even want to admit Quat was gay!'

'They don't. But they're perfectly happy to state that their innocent, misguided little brother was seduced and corrupted by me at a particularly vulnerable time in his life. That I'd been taking advantage of him for years, even driving him to attempt suicide a few weeks ago.'

'You don't really believe he was trying to kill himself, do you?'

'It wouldn't be the first time,' Trowa said coolly.

'That was different! It was just after the War; he was probably still suffering some sort of zero effects, and he just couldn't cope with all the stuff he'd done.' Still coming to terms with the fact that he'd almost killed Trowa was what I meant, but I delicately didn't say so. He'd know what I meant anyway. 'Besides, even if he'd really wanted to top himself, he would have done a proper job.'

Trowa's forehead - the little bit I could see behind his hair - creased into a frown. 'I did think at the start that he'd faked it to make me go back to him, but that apparently wasn't the case.'

'Of course he's going to want you back!' I put my hand over his and squeezed. 'It'll be OK, Tro. We'll find him and you two can sort this out.'

I wasn't prepared either for him to wrench himself free, or for the sheer fury in his voice.

'For fuck's sake, Maxwell! When are you going to come out of that convoluted fantasy world you've built you build for yourself, and start to face that thing called reality that the rest of us have to deal with?

'Everything is not going to be OK! Yes, I plan to find Quatre and dig him out of whatever mess he's managed to get himself into, but we are finished. As l've told you on several occasions now. Quatre, despite what you seem to believe, is actually less than perfect. Our relationship was a great deal less than perfect and it has been for some time now. And I'm sorry to screw up your happy fairytale ending, but I'm not going back to him because it would suit your vision of how things should work out.'

'Trowa, I don't mean it like that….'

'Shut up, Duo. Do you seriously think I would have been with you if I'd still harboured any hope of getting back with Quatre? Did you think all that was just a game on my part?'

'No! Of course I didn't. But I thought we'd agreed to forget all that, that we'd just write it off as being a mistake.'

I started to stammer something more, but he just swept over me with a tsunami of words.

'That's what you wanted, yes. What was I supposed to do, Duo? When you're with Heero, the whole bloody universe could explode around you and neither of you would even notice. What chance have I got against that? Telling you I was still interested wouldn't have achieved anything.'

'I'm sorry,' I whispered. 'I didn't know. I just thought - that you were lonely and missing Quat and I was a friend and - and convenient…

'Because it suited you to think that,' Trowa said bleakly. 'That's how low an opinion you have of me; that I'd want to date you as a consolation prize for Quatre?'

'No, it wasn't like that. I'd never imagined you'd be interested in me otherwise, not like that,' I swallowed. 'Come on, Tro, it's not like I could offer you half the stuff Quat was able to.'

Trowa stared at me. 'One of these days, Duo, you have got to take a long look at yourself in a mirror. Plus you're honest and open, instead of being devious and manipulative.' He retreated behind his hair, flushing slightly. 'You know what it is to lose the person you're in love with, you managed to cope, I thought maybe we'd be good together.' He gave me a long, considering look. 'In case you're wondering, no, I'm not in love with you. But I've always believed you to be a close friend, and I thought that maybe we could be more than that.'

'You still love him, don't you?'

He nodded. 'What's that got to do with anything? You've never stopped loving Heero, have you? Despite everything? And you managed to make a life for yourself without him.'

'I never stopped missing him. Never.' God, this was bloody hard. 'It's easy to pretend, Tro,' I told him softly. 'Sure you can convince yourself it's over, you can date other guys, and all that shit. It doesn't help though. You can't just stop loving someone, no matter how much you want to. You can't just close off that bit of your heart, not when you've carved someone else's initials on it.' I gave him a rueful little smile.

'I don't know how to exist without him,' Trowa said softly.

He and Quat had met when they were fifteen. For both of them, it had been love at first sight. They'd hadn't had to stumble around each other for months - the way Heero and I had - wondering if there was even liking, let alone anything else, between them. They'd met, and walked straight into their own happy ending. But weren't those the ending shots of fairy tales?

'How the fuck did you manage to get over Heero?'

'You were there for a lot of it.' I shrugged, pulling my braid over one shoulder and running it through my fingers. 'You want advice, Tro? Look at all the shit I did after Heero and do the opposite. Nothing helps; not sex or drugs or drinking or any of that. Even if it helps for a bit, it just makes it worse in the end, when reality comes crashing in.' Another shrug.

It's always difficult, thinking back. Remembering. After I'd done the sex-drugs-rock'n'roll bit, I'd meekly gone along with whatever Wufei and Quat had suggested. Therapy, new hobbies, throwing myself into my studies. Keeping my mind so occupied that thoughts of Heero could only creep in at the most unguarded moments.

The thing that had most helped was Wufei, my solid, reliable, utterly dependable friend falling apart at the seams after he'd left Preventers, and losing the focus of his life. He'd had a very private, personal breakdown; so classified he'd forbidden me to tell even Quat and Trowa what was going on. By the time he was starting to get his life back on track, I'd somehow managed to survive a few more months without Heero.

'I don't know, Tro, not really. I don't have any magic cure for any of this. If I had, I'd have taken it years ago.'

He nodded. 'It's OK. Just something I've got to get through on my own, isn't it?' He stood, shoving his chair back. 'I'd better go. I think Noin wanted to talk to me before we start the meeting.'

'Good luck.' I pushed my own chair away from the desk and faced him. 'Tro, I'm sorry. We're still friends, right?'

'Of course we are.' Hugging him was - slightly awkward. The last time we'd held each other was in Heero's house, and that had ended in total disaster. Since then, I'd been in Heero's arms and being held by Trowa felt wrong, somehow. Not quite the natural order of things.

It was a relief to have the room to myself for a few minutes before Heero came in.

'Duo? What's the matter?'

He was at my side in an instant, a worried expression on his face as I lifted my head off the desk. Probably for the best he hadn't walked in earlier and found me in Trowa's arms. No, I wasn't going to start thinking like that. Tro was my friend, whatever else he had, or hadn't been, and Heero would just have to deal with that.

'I'm really confused about all this stuff with Quatre and Tro, you know?' Especially the stuff about Trowa…. 'I mentioned Quat just now, and Tro said - he said there's no way they're going to get back together. As far as he's concerned, they're finished and…

'It's their choice, love,' Heero said softly.

'I know. It's just that they always seemed so perfect together; I mean, they met when they were kids, they've been together ever since.' They'd been part of the equation of my life for years; the shining couple that had made it, that had stayed together. 'I don't think either of them has ever looked at another guy since they were fifteen.'

'I don't think they've been happy for a long time. Maybe it's a good thing for them to take a break.' Heero came and sat on the desk in front of me, not quite touching. 'I have something for you.'

It was a little Preventers' badge, complete with silvery dove, wings outspread over their motto, and my name, neatly inscribed.

'No way! I'm not wearing that!'

'It's only a badge, Duo; you don't have to wear it. Just put it in your pocket or something. It doesn't mean anything.'

Right. Not to him, maybe. I have - issues with the Preventers. OK, specifically I have issues with Une. 'I'm not working for that bitch. Never again.'

Heero sighed. 'You're not working for her. You're officially seconded to Preventers as a temporary liaison to assist in an ongoing investigation. That's all.'

'You're twisting things 'round, 'Ro.' I glared at him. 'If I wear this damn badge, I report to Une, right?'

He nodded. Well, excuse me for not wanting to work for someone who tried to have me killed, and threatened to blow up the Colonies.' Oh, yeah, and was responsible for Heero joining Preventers in the first place. In my more objective moments, I could sometimes recognise that Heero would have wanted to join anyway, or something similar, as a way of atoning for what he'd done during the War. But we might have been able to discuss it, to spend some time together first, if Une hadn't strong-armed him into it.

I looked at the badge Heero had pressed into my hand. After the War, I'd sworn, never again. I'd done my bit for universal peace and all the rest of it. I just wanted to get on with my life. I'd agreed to join Preventers because Heero had wanted it, and it had been a disaster.

'Fine,' he told me crisply. 'You can't have it both ways, Duo. If you stay on L4, you need some sort of official authorisation. That's it. If you refuse, you'll need to get back to Earth ASAP.'

Sensing that I was wavering, he leaned over, took the damn badge and tucked it carefully away in my back pocket, taking his time about it. 'It's no big deal, love; it's not like you're in uniform or anything,' He chuckled lightly. 'Although the new uniforms are pretty hot.'

'Tell me you're not having a man-in-uniform fantasy?' I grumbled back, not quite sure I wanted to be charmed into compliance.

Another laugh. 'More like a man out-of-uniform fantasy.'

'Oh, great. I have a boyfriend who finds Kevlar a turn-on.'

'Do you mean that?'

'Well, you just told me - oh!' I suddenly realised just what I'd actually said. Damn. I hate yes or no questions. I still hadn't had time to think about exactly what I did want, but…this was Heero. His name was still inscribed on my heart and my soul and nothing, ever, was going to change that.. 'I guess I have. If that's OK?'

'Very OK,' God, I'd forgotten he could smile like that; that I could make him smile like that. That the warmth in his expression could just about liquefy my bones, and turn me into a little puddle of warm goo at his feet.

Right, that probably made us an official couple. 'I'm not so sure I get the Kevlar fetish though.'

'No?' He smirked at me. 'It's more all those buckles and straps and metal zips in all sorts of fascinating places. It might be fun to undo them all and see what's underneath.'

'Oh, yeah? With your teeth, I suppose?'

'With my hands. I think my mouth would be otherwise occupied.' The smirk transformed itself into something more closely resembling a leer, hovering on a borderline ogle.

'Really? Doing what exactly?'

'Kissing you, of course.' He gave me a sly little look from under his lashes.

'Am I naked underneath?'

'Not quite. You're wearing a pair of silk boxers, just a shade darker than your eyes. It wouldn't do for your skin to get chafed in any sensitive places I would prefer to remain….unchafed.'

'You've been thinking about this a lot, haven't you? I didn't think that silk underwear was approved clothing for agents.'

'Not officially. But I can't imagine you'd want to keep to the rule book.'

'Never read one in my life.' My turn to smirk at him. 'I don't own any underwear like that.'

'Then I'll have to buy you some, on condition that some day you'll let me take it off.'

'I could probably do that, some day.'

'That would be nice,' Heero murmured, his breath teasing the little wisps of hair that inevitably escape from my braid. 'Some day.'

'You said, back in Florence, that maybe we should put this on hold until things get sorted out. Quat and my court case and everything.'

'I remember. Is that what you want?'

'No.' It had seemed a bit tempting at one point; not anymore. 'What's the point of that? Putting things on hold after we've been apart for so long anyway?' I lifted my chin, gazing straight into his eyes. 'I know we still need to sort out a lot of stuff, but I know I want to be with you. It's what I've always wanted.'

We'd kissed on the shuttle, kisses that were soft and sweet and slightly tentative and all about rediscovery and exploration and asking permission. This was different. It was different to the point of me being on the brink of needing artificial respiration when he finally let me go.

'You're sure, sweetheart?'

I managed a nod in between gulps of air. 'I'm sure. Really.'

'Thank you.' He whispered a kiss across my right temple. 'I want to be with you too. Always.'

There was obviously some God looking down on us and thinking Duo Maxwell had had his quota of intimate moments for one day, because right then someone knocked at the door.

Heero swore, letting me go reluctantly. 'I asked to be notified when the meeting was due to start. I'd better go, Duo. Will you be OK by yourself?'

'Heero, come on. I'm in a building full of Preventer agents. What could possibly happen?'

He groaned. 'I don't even want to think about it. Just try not to cause too much havoc, my love, all right?'

'All right.' I flicked him a grin. 'Only a miniscule amount of havoc. I promise.' I blew kisses at him as he walked out the door, and embarrassed the hell out of a young woman in full Preventers' uniform who was standing just outside.