Disclaimer - alas, I don't own any part of Gundam Wing and this story is written for my own amusement.

The Duo Maxwell Fan Club:

It was kind of hard to tell which of us was the most embarrassed; me, caught blowing kisses after Heero as he walked away, or the girl who'd been standing outside the door, hand raised to knock a second time.

'Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell.' She spoke as if she'd been given a text to recite, gaze fixed on her well-polished boots. 'Colonel Noin asked me to inform you that the children have been found and are being brought here. I'm to escort you to see them as soon as they arrive, if that's acceptable.'

'Sure. That would be perfect.'

Somehow, she managed to nod, salute, and turn around without once looking at me. God only knows what they teach Preventers these days. Or maybe they were all under orders not to make any sort of eye contact with the notorious Duo Maxwell?

I closed the door quietly, leaning against it, thinking about Heero.

I'd called him my boyfriend. Once without even thinking about it, and once because he'd asked me if he was. Standing with his arms around me, with his breath warm on my skin, it had seemed right and inevitable and necessary to tell him I'd meant it.

Left by myself, in this poky little room with the damned badge he'd persuaded me to accept sticking into my hipbone, reality was fast catching up with me. It had been so damn easy to play a pretend game that everything was OK, that we didn't have a bucket-load of past history to shovel through. At some point, we were going to have to talk about stuff. Dredge up all those old arguments and acrimonies and see if they'd still weigh us down. Sure, the talk on Steph's shuttle had helped a lot, but there were plenty of things left that we'd been ducking and weaving about.

I had a feeling we'd end up opening those particular cans of worms and find they were filled with venomous black cobras.

Apart from any of that, most of my friends were going to go apeshit.

Wufei would blow a gasket. He'd been trying so damn hard to be OK with all of this; I'd given him a brief call earlier from the apartment, to let him know what we'd found. He'd accepted the fact that this meant I'd be staying longer on L4 and of course that meant he'd be staying as well, and wanting to act as some sort of chaperone.

I didn't even want to think about Hilde, four months into a difficult pregnancy and not supposed to be agitated. Finding out I'd hooked up with her least favourite person would probably send her blood pressure into orbit.

Howard would probably take it the best; he'd always been less anti-Heero than my other close friends. Unlike Hilde, he'd always liked Heero. He'd told me once it was a shame that we'd split up, but that maybe it was for the best if we weren't making each other happy.

Quatre. Well, maybe it wouldn't matter what Quat was going to think; I didn't know if he could still be counted as a friend or not. Even if he'd had some good reason for all the things he'd said and done to me, I'd still got together with his ex, very shortly after Trowa had left him.

Another thing to have to cope with - Trowa.. Shitski. I'd been so sure Trowa had been just as relieved as me when we'd broken up.

It had seemed so perfect at the start; the two of us getting together. Not that I'd ever allowed myself to entertain those sort of thoughts about Trowa when he was with Quat, but I'm a guy; he's a gorgeous guy. Of course I'd noticed him. So we'd had chemistry and a long, close friendship to build on, and wonder and appreciation and awe on my part that he'd wanted to be with me.

And a nasty little thrill of triumph that I'd tried very, very hard to quash, that I'd got him and Quatre hadn't. That, just for once, Quat wasn't the one who had everything.

So we'd had one perfect date, before I'd gone to India with the guys. A movie and pizza, and sitting for hours in the car and talking. Somewhere, in between making out and eating figuring out how to combine the two activities pleasurably, we'd agreed that we didn't want to lose each other as friends, but that it would definitely be worth seeing if anything else might develop.

We'd agreed that the important thing would be not to hurt each other.

Sure.

Technically, at least, I'd been faithful while we were officially together. But Heero had been the one in all of my dreams. I'd gone on a date with him, even if I hadn't known it at the time. I'd been holding Heero's hand in what was probably one of the world's most romantic restaurants, and waiting for him to say how he felt about me, and all the while Trowa was being pulled in by the Spanish Preventers on suspicion of killing or abducting Quatre.

If Trowa hadn't called at that point, and Heero had told me how he'd felt, well, we'd probably still be in one of the restaurant's upstairs rooms, in one of those four-poster beds Zechs had mentioned, with the rest of the furniture barring the door against the rest of the universe.

I'd tried to seduce Trowa on Heero's couch in Heero's living room, partly out of guilt over that, partly in a desperate effort to get Heero out of my head, and to try to purge all those Heero-centred thoughts I'd been having about him out of my head.

It wasn't his fault he'd misinterpreted things, and he'd been blamed himself entirely for rushing me. Shit. I'd even taken advantage of that guilt. I'd known just how terrible he'd feel if he thought he'd pressured me in any way.

Oh, God. I should have known how that would effect Trowa, of all people; how he must have felt.

When I'd suggested we'd be better off as just friends, he'd agreed instantly, and it had been so easy to believe it was what he'd wanted too; to convince myself he felt all of this was a mistake and had just reinforced how much he missed and wanted Quat.

Sweet, Maxwell.

Way to screw up one of the few people you actually trust in the whole universe, and justify it to yourself.

He'd never said anything to imply otherwise. Sure, he'd been a bit short lately but I'd put that down to worry about Quat. He'd even let me talk to him about Heero. He'd told me, very definitely, that Heero still - adored me. And he'd had to put up with Heero asking his advice on planning the perfect date for me, back in Florence.

Shit.

I very carefully removed the little pile of stationery from the middle of the desk, clearing a nice little expanse of polished wood, just right for banging my head on. Maybe I could knock some sense into myself.

'Mr Maxwell? Sir?' The same girl was standing in the doorway, wide-eyed. Probably wondering if she should run for the men in white coats. 'Are you all right?'

'Fine,' I said airily, standing and rubbing my forehead. 'Perfectly fine. I always find ancient meditation techniques very useful, don't you?'

'Yes, sir. Ah, the children are here, if you'd like to see them?'

I let her precede me out the door and down the corridor and press the elevator button, still blushing fierily and goggling at me when she forgot to study her footwear. 'Is there a problem?'

'No, sir!' She swallowed. 'I'm really sorry about this. It's - all just a bit hard for me to take in. I mean you're - well, you're Duo Maxwell! .'

'Excellent observation skills,' I said tartly. 'So? It's no big deal.'

Her jaw dropped even lower. 'You were a Gundam Pilot! You flew the Deathscythe, and you helped to save the Earth and you were,..…uh, I took some technical classes at the Academy and we did a whole series of lectures on your designs, and our lecturer said they were totally revolutionary. You're in a relationship with Chang Wufei, who's the most highly decorated Preventer ever, and Prince….'

'Stop, OK? Just - stop it! That's all just stupid tabloid gossip; it's not true..'

No, the actual truth is that the hot blond prince is with the highly decorated Preventer, and I'm with the guy who just walked past you. Officially. Apparently.

I'm with Heero.

Part of me wanted to start screaming the fact from the rooftops; the more sensible part was still - a little unsure about what was going on.

'Sure.' She gave me a conspiratorial little wink. 'But I want you to know that I'm totally fine with the gay thing, sir. We have workplace laws against discrimination, and we had a sensitivity class at orientation..'

'That's - um, nice.' Yeah, I was really going to worry about what some strange girl thought of my sexual preferences. 'Listen, Agent Franklin,' I peered at the name on her badge. 'Marlie, my name's Duo, and I'd appreciate you dropping this star-struck act, OK? I can find my own way if you just tell me where to go.'

'It's fine, sir.' Marlie drew a deep breath, flushing slightly as we stepped out of the elevator. 'I'm sorry. Really. It's just - well, I can't believe I'm meeting you. I mean, I used to have a scrapbook and everything.'

Oh, dear God. This was getting scary.

'But that was years ago,' she said quickly, making me wonder how old she was; probably not that much younger than me. 'The children are along here, sir. Um, Duo.'

The agent standing to attention outside the door Marlie had indicated threw me a military salute that couldn't have been crisper than if he'd pressed and starched it. 'Agent Wilkes, sir!' I gave him a brief nod in return. 'I've been assigned to guard the prisoners, sir.'

'They're kids, for God's sake, they're not prisoners.. I doubt they need an armed guard.'

He coloured slightly. 'I'm acting as per instructions, sir. Our orders are to treat the native population as hostile, until proven otherwise.'

'Right. I'm sure you have a lot to fear from three children. Listen, I asked for food to be brought to them. Do you know anything about that?'

'Yes, sir. The pris - children have already been provided with fruit snacks and bottled water.'

'Not good enough,' I snapped. 'Listen, Wilkes, what I need is for someone to send out to a local restaurant and get three hot meals delivered. And some bottles of soda. Do you think you can do that or would it be contravening some sort of regulations?'

He very obviously wanted to say it would, but didn't quite dare, not with me in his face. I got a slightly wilted version of the previous salute and he marched off.

'Asshole.'

Marlie giggled, and then looked like she wished she hadn't; I hadn't realised she was still there. Hmmm. Unlike Wilkes, with his buzz cut and Preventer-issue attitude, she looked normal, reassuring even; long, curly flaxen hair pulled back in a pony-tail and big blue eyes.

'I don't suppose you know anything about children?'

'I have two little sisters.'

'Then you'll do perfectly. Listen, in case you don't know by now, these kids know something about Mr. Winner's disappearance. They're going to be scared and I need you to talk to the two little girls, OK? Don't even try to question them, just try to get them feeling safe.'

The room was big and looked like it was used for small groups to hold meetings. For groups of officers, apparently; judging by the quality of the furnishings. The chairs around the oval glass table were creamy leather, there was a matching couch by the window and fresh flowers on the sill.

The two girls were huddled in one corner of the room, the smallest one sobbing quietly, and Nat was standing in front of them, looking homicidal.

'You bastard,' he spat at me. 'I tried to help you! I told you all that stuff, and you called the cops on me.'

'Here's the deal, Nat,' I said levelly, taking one of the chairs around the table, and motioning him to sit. 'You did help me, big time, and now I want to help you. That fact that you talked to me is going to get you into big trouble. Those bad guys are going to find out what you did, and when they do, they'll come after you and your sisters.'

'I don't need your help.' He took a few steps closer, put one hand on the chair-back. 'I can look after them by myself!'

'Normally, sure you can. But this is something big, Nat. These are seriously bad guys. They killed your buddy, right? You don't want anything that to happen to the girls. How old are they, anyway?'

'Gemma's nine and Lily's just seven.' He glanced over at the two of them; Marlie had managed to coax them on to the couch with her and was telling them a story about a farm where all the animals had special powers; the llama could fly and the pony could talk and the dog could do magic tricks.

'Listen, Nat, OK? My name's Duo and I swear, I'll try to keep you all safe.'

'You don't know anything about it,' he said sullenly. 'I should never have said anything to you, or we wouldn't be in all this shit. We were doing fine by ourselves.'

'Really? Peddling your ass in the back alley of some slum and leaving your sisters to look after themselves? And I do know about this shit; I grew up on L2. Ever heard of that?'

Nat nodded. 'It's the place where they send criminals. It's really bad.'

'Yeah, something like that.' Sweet. That was how other people saw my home colony, even slum kids on other colonies saw it as the ultimate shithole. 'So, just for the record, I probably know way more about surviving on the streets than you do.'

'But you're rich now!' Nat blurted, eyes wide. 'What happened?'

'That's a long story. I'll tell you some other time, OK? But, seriously, I can guess how you're feeling right now and I want to help you.'

'Gem and Lily are hungry,' he whispered, looking down at the floor. 'I haven't been doing so well the last few days. Maybe you could get them something to eat?'

'I've ordered food,' I said quickly, wondering where the hell it was. If it didn't come soon, I'd hunt down Agent Asshole Wilkes with his prissy little fruit snacks. There was a bowl neatly positioned in the middle of the table full of fruit; apples and kiwifruits and those little oranges.

Wilkes had doubtless come from the sort of home where there was always a similar bowl on the kitchen table, or on the sideboard in the dining room, and stuff was probably thrown out if it developed the tiniest imperfection. How could he imagine was it like for kids who'd probably never seen fresh fruit in their lives?

On L2, fruit was only thrown out if it was too rotten to be used or sold. I still have problems eating raw fruit; too many bad experiences of eating the spoilt stuff out of trash cans.

I can't eat apples at all; they freak me out; always have. All that too-tight, too-shiny, artificial-looking skin. A lot of the time, you even get a little stick attached to the fruit, and sometimes there's even a leaf. It's like - eating part of a tree.

Shopkeepers used to inject them with some sort of rat poison on L2 and left in the gutter to kill vermin. I'd had nightmares for years after seeing a girl eating a poisoned apple. It had taken her hours of agony before she'd died.

Nat's eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'What's all this going to cost me? You still wanna screw me, is that it?'

'No. Nothing like that. It would just really help if you could remember any more details about what happened yesterday. Maybe something your friend Kyle told you; or something else that you saw or heard?'

'Maybe.' He shrugged.

'Good.' A knock on the door heralded the arrival of the food, just as I'd ordered. 'Have something to eat, and we can talk later?'

Nat helped me dole out the food, making sure the girls got the biggest portions, and Marlie led them to the table, still talking about how all the magical animals had gathered together to fight an evil Persian cat who lived in the forest.

'Is she your girlfriend?' he asked, glaring at Marlie, or rather at her uniform.

'No. Just a friend.'

Marlie coloured at that, but couldn't hide a quick, pleased little smile as I introduced her to Nat, and told the little girls I was a friend of their brothers.

They were pretty, with Nat's marmalade curls and big brown eyes, despite the raggedy dresses and a thick layer of dirt. It's a good survival mechanism; look as unappealing as possible and maybe you'll be left alone.

Gemma hid her face against Marlie's shoulder when I spoke to her, but the little one, Lily, gave me a shy smile in return and one of those intense scrutinies you only get from little kids.

'You've got purple eyes,' she whispered.

'He sure has.' Marlie flicked me a teasing grin. 'Aren't they pretty? Although properly, that colour's called indigo.'

'Violet,' I blurted without thinking, and had to turn away very quickly, concentrating on pouring out three glasses of pop for the kids and feeling the colour rise in my face

Oh, great. How gay was that, quibbling over the exact shade of my eyes?

Violet.

It was Heero who'd first called them that, on Howard's ship. We'd been looking at a rainbow, the first either of us had ever seen, and Mr Know-All had been filling me in on every known fact about them.

He'd been explaining Isaac Newton's spectrum of colours, and I'd had to ask him what the word violet meant. He'd matter-of-factly stated that it was the colour of my eyes; I'd never thought much about my eye-colour before, except that it was different, and different was bad, because it made you stand out.

It hadn't been a romantic conversation or anything, except a few minutes later he'd used my name for the first time ever.

I'd fallen for him, just a little bit, that day, watching his face as he looked at the rainbow fading in the sky.

'They're really hungry,' Marlie said softly, walking over to join me.

'Living rough does that to you.' I think I spoke a bit more harshly than I'd intended and her fair skin flushed again, making me feel a bit mean. She'd probably grown up on a farm like the one in her story, having all sorts of adventures with her little sisters and her pets; probably joined Preventers to Make a Difference in the world.

'I don't understand. I thought L4 was supposed to have the best social welfare system in the Universe. Why isn't anyone looking after them?'

I shrugged. 'There are orphanages, but they're all single sex. I guess Nat didn't want them to be separated. God knows when he would have seen them again. Plus I don't think they're from L4 originally; they were in an area that's mostly for immigrants, and they might be deported if the authorities found them. I know it isn't fair, but that's the system.'

'It's not fair,' Marlie said fiercely. 'We can't just let them go back to that sort of life.'

'I know. We're not going to. We'll try to find where they came from, if they've got any family. I don't think they've been living rough all that long; the girls have nice manners, and Nat sounds educated when he's not trying to come across as all streetwise.'

She nodded. 'Sir - Duo, I should call my superior to say where I am, if you don't mind? I'm supposed to be finishing my shift upstairs.' She hesitated. 'If you like, I can request to be reassigned for the time being?'

'That would be great; the girls seem to like you and they need someone they can trust right now. What were you working on, before you came to give me the message?'

'I was helping to go through Mr. Winner's 'phone records.' She rolled her eyes. 'I think I could spend the rest of my life doing that, to be honest.'

'I'll bet.' Hmmm. I glanced at the PC terminal in the corner. 'Can you bring it up on that screen? Would that be allowed?'

'Oh, yes,' she was already seated at the desk, keying in her password. 'Colonel Noin said we're all to give you as much assistance as possible.'

I could see what she meant about the sheer size of the task. Quat had business lines; numbers for each of his residences; cell phones for private use. And that wasn't even counting email and faxes and God knows what else. It was all probably a colossal waste of time; Quat was more than smart enough not to transmit information over those sort of channels.

'Is this what everyone in this building's doing? Just checking 'phone records?'

'Oh, no. There are different teams assigned to different tasks. Some people are checking into the backgrounds and records of all the WEI employees, and my friend Jen's team is looking at all business deals over the past couple of years. Colonel Noin has a theory that a business rival may be involved.'

'Mmm.' I'd thought that once, spent a couple of hours at the Sanque Embassy trawling through WEI records for the last twelve months and Trowa said he and Heero had already done the same. 'Can you show me what they're looking at?'

'Sure. Just let me find it.' Marlie's fingers flickered over the keys. 'Oops, sorry. Wrong file. This one's just a list of Winner subsidiaries.'

'Shit. I hadn't realised there were that many?'

'I know,' Marlie agreed, scrolling down. 'I can't believe one person controls all of this.'

'Well, he's got a board and some of his sisters are….stop! Right there. No, go back a bit.' I jabbed my finger at the screen. 'Look at that one.'

'Triton Holdings? What's weird about that? Oh!' Her eyes sparkled. 'Triton Bloom, right?'

I nodded. Damn, that girl probably knew more about us than we did ourselves.

'Why is that strange, though? It's Trowa Barton's real name, why wouldn't Mr. Winner use it?'

Good question, really. Except, so far as I knew, Quatre had never called Tro by that name, let alone used it for any business purposes. 'Can you bring up some information on Triton Holdings?'

'Of course. Oh. It's a property leasing company. Based on L3 and registered there.' Her brow creased. 'Now that is strange.'

'I don't think so, actually. WEI has subsidiaries all over the universe.'

'Oh, I know that. It's just strange that it's registered there, instead of here on L4. As far as I can remember, foreign owned firms on L3 are largely exempt from paying government taxes. It's supposed to encourage foreign investors.'

'There's probably some reason for it,' I said absently.

'Maybe.' Marlie flicked a few more keys. 'This is really strange, Duo. The company only owns one apartment building, and I'm can't see any details about it. No rent, no maintenance charges…nothing. Just the initial purchase fourteen months ago.'

Fourteen months? That more or less fit in with when Quat had started going off the rails. 'Is there anything else you can find out?'

'Not really,' she admitted. 'I don't know much about this kind of thing. Jen's studied corporate law though; I could call her and get her to check it out.'

I shook my head. 'It's probably nothing. I might try calling someone I know though.'

'Who are you calling?' Marlie wondered, probably expecting me to try contacting the ghost of Treize Khushrenada or something, as I took out my - Steph's - cellphone and started to scroll down the numbers

'A friend who's taken some courses in corporate law.' Lucca had mentioned that back in Florence; that he'd once had dreams of working for a major law firm and making megabucks. Then he'd met Heero and been corrupted to the light side of Human Rights. 'He might be able to help.'

'Duo! I'm so glad you called! I didn't want to disturb you two and I really didn't want to worry Heero but then I thought maybe he'd want to know and…..'

'Lucca? Just tell me what's wrong, will you?'

'Oh! The thing is, I'm a bit worried about Honey. I think she's really missing Heero; she's not eating her food, and she insists on lying on the couch, and Heero's never allowed her do that.'

'Don't worry about that,' I said quickly. Oops. I had apparently corrupted Heero's perfectly-trained dog in just a few days. 'He won't mind about the couch, and you might want to crumble some cheese over her dried food, or mix in some cold meat or something. Listen, can I get you to do me a favour?'

'Of course. Anything.' he actually shut up for long enough to be filled in on what I needed to know, and promised to call back as soon as possible. 'There. Sorted.' I hung up, and glanced over at the kids, who were still eating voraciously. 'We'll need to send out for seconds at this rate.'

Marlie grinned. 'So - what do we do next?'

'No idea, really. Any ideas?'

She shook her head, considering. 'What's he like?' She wondered suddenly. 'Mr Winner, I mean.'

'Quatre? He's amazing. He thinks he's responsible for everything damn thing that's ever gone wrong in the universe and he believes it's his duty to make it all better. But you probably know all about him. Or didn't he get a scrapbook of his own?'

She blushed. 'Well, I guess I do know a lot. But no, he didn't rate his own scrapbook!'

Great, my turn to blush.

'I've always admired him, though. I even agree with a lot of the things he's said to the ESUN, about how the Colonies should have more independence. It drives my Dad crazy though.' She hesitated. 'Is it true, that the scientist who designed the Sandrock didn't want 04 to take place in Operation Meteor?'

'Intstructor H? Yeah, that's true,' I swivelled my chair and gazed absently out the window. Someone else had mentioned Operation Meteor lately. Who?

'Duo?' Marlie was staring over at me. 'Are you OK?'

'Fine, fine,' I muttered. Damn, who had it been? Not Trowa; not Wufei for sure, he doesn't like talking about that. 'Heero!'

I must have shouted; even the three kids had twisted around to look at me.

'It's something Heero said in Florence.' I said it aloud; sometimes the sound of my own voice helps me to work things through. 'Last month, when he went to visit Quat in that clinic, on L4, here, Quat said stuff to him. Stuff Heero thought was just rambling, that Quat was drugged, and thought he was back fighting the War. But one of the things Quat said was that Operation Meteor had been a failure.'

'But - it wasn't, was it?' Marlie hesitated. 'The scientists managed to stop the original plan and they saved billions of people!'

'They did, didn't they?' I had four open-mouthed, wide-eyed faces regarding me. 'So why would Quatre say it failed?'