Disclaimer; Tragically, I own neither Gundam Wing, Alice in Wonderland, nor Lord of the Rings. Life is cruelly unfair.

Note: Thanks to everyone who helped on this one. Custard Danishes to Kaeru Shisho, for the red comments on how ever many drafts there were, to Wolfje for the green comments, to Snow for ongoing encouragement, and to ckhushrenada for technical advice.

Six Impossible Things to Believe Before Breakfast:

I woke to near-darkness, and silence and that awful feeling of being trapped. I never deal with confinement terribly well; even things like a closed bedroom door, or an embrace that's just a little too tight. I need to know I have an escape route.

There were a few seconds of sheer, overwhelming panic - that I was somehow restrained, paralysed, and then some part of my mind sent up a flare that it was OK, that it was only dark because it was still night, and that the restriction was Heero's body, wrapped around and over me like a blanket.

Heero.

Heero holding me the way he'd used to sometimes, when he wasn't thinking about it. Mostly, he'd treated me like I was fragile as a flower, but every so often, usually in his sleep, he'd just latch on to me. I'd never been entirely sure what had prompted it; whether he was trying to protect me, or stop me running away from him, or just to reassure himself that I was there.

It had usually happened if we'd been apart for a while, or if I'd been in some sort of danger.

I'd known that it had always been a proof of his love; the problem was that it tended to be damn painful.

'Hey, babe.. Think you can loosen up just a little bit, hmmm?' I murmured, not loudly enough to wake him, but something in his subconscious had always responded just to the sound of my voice, and his arms relaxed fractionally, just enough for me to be able to breathe again.

OK, that was better.

Weird, though; the last memory I had was falling asleep outside, with Heero curled around me and the woollen blanket scratchy under my back. We were very definitely in bed, in my room at the cottage.

Had the whole thing been a dream?

Heero shifted a little against me, throwing one arm back against the pillow and letting me move on to my back. Nope, it hadn't been a dream, not with the way my ass was feeling. Oh, he'd been as taken obsessive care not to hurt me, but it was my first time in over a year, and there was a very definite - consciousness - of what he'd done to me.

I couldn't remember walking back to the cottage, so he'd probably goddamn carried me. Baka. It wasn't like I wouldn't have been perfectly capable of walking that short distance, but he'd always had this stupid thing about liking to carry me.

I'd never entirely got where that came from; he tends to play down his strength, if anything, and it didn't really seem to be a protective thing.

I did consider turning on a lamp to check my watch and then decided not to bother. I didn't feel particularly tired, so I'd probably had at least a few hours' sleep. It wasn't really dark, anyway; he'd left the bathroom light on and even thought the door was slightly open; just enough light shone through to make out vague shapes in the room.

I'm not scared of the dark. Truly. I have a …. healthy respect for things that might be lurking in the shadows but this was a different, safe sort of darkness. The sort you can pull around yourself like a warm comforter.

It felt good, lying there wrapped in shadow and listening to Heero's breathing. He normally sleeps like a cat, one ear open, but he was trusting me to guard him. Or maybe he was just utterly exhausted. He'd stayed awake at the Embassy, and I wasn't sure if he'd actually slept on the shuttle from Earth or not. Probably not, under the circumstances.

Idiot. He's always been far too careless about looking after himself. Not even he could go on indefinitely without taking some sort of a break. He'd half-killed himself during our last few months together, taking on more and more missions. For years, I'd always blamed myself for that; that he'd been willing to do anything that gave him the opportunity not to be around me.

No. I wasn't going to go there, not now, when I had Heero all to myself. Not after last night.

Not when we were in bed together, and he was still sleeping, giving me the perfect opportunity to study him properly.

Neither of us was a teenager any more. Not that he wasn't in great shape - he obviously worked out a hell of a lot - but he wasn't pure whipcord and steel the way he had been after J's uber-intensive training, and frequent Preventer fitness checks.

His body is a map of his past, I knew the scars so well I could trace them with my fingers, imagine the different phases of his life. A couple of injuries he'd received as a Preventer; neither of them serious. The old wounds from the War; not even Heero could self-destruct on a semi-regular basis and walk away without a mark.

Then there were the injuries he'd received before I'd ever met him; he'd told me about some of them, but there was a weird knife scar on his abdomen that he'd never talked about, but that I thought had had something to do with Odin's death, and the third finger on his left hand was just a tad crooked, like it hadn't been set properly after a break. I'd always imagined it had been one of his earlier experiments in bone setting, but I'd never asked, never been sure I really wanted to know the answer.

Odin hadn't exactly been gentle with him. According to Heero, he'd considered pain as an irrelevance, useful only to assert the superiority of one's strength of will over weak flesh.

There were the scars I'd given him; those two bullet wounds. More than seven years on, they weren't so obvious any more. I'd genuinely started mapping out his body out of - exploration? Research? Curious investigation? By the time I reached the bullet hole on his leg, my touches were becoming slower, more lingering.

There was still no change in his breathing, though. Damn, he had to be utterly exhausted to sleep through my caressing him. Well, there was one particular part of his anatomy that had perked up and was taking a definite interest in my activities, especially when I slid my mouth over him.

Heat and hardness and that musky scent that is pure Heero.

'Uh…wakey wakey,' I rested my head on his thigh, after, and grinned up at him. I'd known he was awake for a while; I'd heard those little catches in his breathing, and felt one hand stroking my hair gently.

'I think you missed your vocation as an alarm clock, love,' his voice was just a little drowsy still as he brushed his thumb across my mouth, wiping off his cum from my lips.

'I could always retrain.' I opened my lips, drew in his thumb, suckling gently. 'How long've you been awake, 'Ro?'

'A while,' he admitted. 'I thought it was just a dream at first; I was afraid I'd wake up. I - I have dreamt about this so many times.'

'Not a dream, love,' I whispered. 'Just me. Just the two of us.'

'Perfect.' His kiss was tender and just a little tentative, waiting for me to respond before he deepened it. He made it last just long enough to for me to sprawl back against the mattress, and then began to kiss his way down my body.

He took it very slowly, weaving every touch of tongue and lips and fingertips into a luxurious caress, with just the occasional nip or nibble of teeth to add a little spice to all the sweetness.

Then he pulled back, just as I was hovering on the very brink, preparing to fly.

'Make love to me.'

'Sure,' I said amiably and had the pleasure of watching his eyes widen in surprise. It is an enjoyable thing to catch him off balance, sometimes.

He hadn't always been on top when we were together; just most of the time, especially at first. After the War, we'd been able to experiment a little more, having whole days together, rather than a few precious hours counted out between missions.

I'd thought at first that he'd only wanted to trade positions because he'd thought it was only fair, or because he'd read on line somewhere that it was what couples did. At some point, I'd realised that he liked it. Not just the physical aspect, but in some piece of his psyche, probably put there by all his training, there was a tiny part of him that liked giving up control, and letting someone else take charge.

It wasn't something we'd ever discussed all that much, but I'd always known just how controlled and careful he'd been with me, how terrified he was that he'd hurt me somehow. If I was the one in control, he didn't have to worry about any of that, he could just go with his own pleasure.

The balance had shifted at some point when things had started to go wrong between us. During our last couple of months together, we'd communicated through arguments and sex. Nothing else, really, except sometimes after we'd made love, we'd been able to talk.

I'd almost always been able to persuade him into bed with me, or onto the couch or the floor or the swing seat in the garden. He was a seventeen year old with a more-than-healthy sex drive, and I'd taken full advantage of that. Sex had seemed to be the only way that I could make him happy, to try to keep him with me. The only thing that I could give him.

Whatever else had gone wrong between us, we'd still had that one way to find a connection.

'What?' I teased. 'You think I'm going to turn down a lovely offer like that? No way!'

Absolutely not. Mischa had let me go on top a couple of times, but he'd never been all that comfortable with it. There'd always been part of his mind that equated the smaller, younger, long-haired guy as the one who went underneath. Being on the bottom just hadn't fit in with his personal equation. Heero, on the other hand, had never had a problem with it. Quite the opposite in fact,

''Turn over, 'Ro,' I murmured, and he obeyed instantly, letting me shift him on to his stomach, moving and kneeling and spreading his legs when I urged him to. Not that 'submissive' and 'Heero Yuy' are words that remotely go together, but in certain circumstances, he can be quite….receptive to following orders. I'd always found that irresistible, took a moment now just to look at him while I found the tube of lubricant that he'd left on the dresser.

'OK, baby?' I dropped a whisper of a kiss between his shoulder blades and slid one hand downwards, just teasing until he started to push back against my slick fingers.

'God, Duo,' he gasped, and then I found that spot and he moaned like I'd somehow managed to reach all the way up to his chest and squeeze his heart.

He's always been noisy during sex, like he's allowed to throw off all his inhibitions, and just totally let go. Something he shares with Wu, actually. During sex, Wufei does everything but sing the Hallelujiah Chorus.

Heero also has a nice repertoire of moans and whimpers and sighs and he has a certain way of catching his breath, when I touch him just so, that's always clutched at my heart.

There is, quite simply, no sensation like it in the entire universe. Nothing that remotely comes close. I'd asked Quat what it was like once, way back when I still hadn't quite got my head around the concept of sex as a pleasurable activity. Once he'd stopped blushing, he'd likened it to piloting a Gundam and in some ways he was right.

Love and sex and piloting. Untold power at your fingertips; to create destruction. With the first two, you also had that power to give joy, to find a connection with another human soul.

'Please, Duo. Now.'

'Just give me a sec, Blue,' I turned him in my arms, and bent down to kiss him on the mouth, just a soft sweep of my lips against his, trying to hold on to just a little control. Buried inside his body, with the thud of his life's blood surrounding me, knowing that all I had to do was make the slightest motion to send reverberations through his entire body. That I could make him scream with one flex of my hips.

That's power.

With all the best intentions in the world about staying in control, and being careful, there's always this one point where everything just goes out the window and physical need takes over. I'd probably be sorry later that I'd just slammed into him approaching the end, and he'd regret the bruises his fingers would leave on my skin, but for those few blessed seconds - eternities - lifetimes, there was nothing but two bodies reaching together for the sky.

He'd always liked to make me come first, so he could watch me, then let my climax spark his. I preferred us to come together; to reach that place at the same moment. It's not the easiest thing in the universe to do, but I slid one hand between our bodies, letting my fingers stroke him in synch with my thrusts, squeezing hard when I knew I couldn't last any longer.

I tried to move off him afterwards, and he tightened his arms around me, keeping me in place. I think we both dozed off for a little bit; when I woke, the room was a little brighter, and I had a cramp in my left calf.

'Good morning,' Heero murmured, tucking me against his side. His smile was beautiful; sated and drowsy and full of pure joy. 'Again.'

''Morning.' Hardly the most, brilliant, original response, but coherent thought was something I was still groping after. Maybe so many Heero-induced orgasms in the last day or so had melted my brain cells. Then again, who needed words? He was running gentle fingers through my hair, carefully working out the night's tangles.

'We should take a shower,' he offered eventually. One very definite benefit of being the one on top; a lot less cleaning up is needed afterwards.

'Mmm, a bath might be nice.' Of course, what would be much, much nicer would be just to roll over and go back to sleep. 'We could use the tub in Quatre's bathroom. Just give me a minute and I'll go and get it ready.'

'I'll do it,' he offered generously, sliding out of bed. I felt a little bit mean letting him; surely I should have been the one to offer, but it felt damn good to be spoiled. It took him long enough that I'd started to doze off again, and he actually had me in his arms before I was fully awake.

'Again with the carrying? Shouldn't you be the one who can't even walk right now?'

'Honours even, I should think,' he grinned down at me, and then gasped as I arched my neck to bite at his ear.

'One day, I'm going to drop you when you do that.'

'I trust you,' I pressed my head into his shoulder, and then gave his collar bone a little nip, just to test his reflexes.

He'd never been all that keen on candles - way too much of a potential fire hazard - but he'd turned the bathroom lights to their lowest possible setting, and even switched on some soft music. The soppy classical stuff that Quat likes, but it sort of fit the romantic mood he was obviously after.

He lowered me gently into the water with a gentle kiss. 'I'll be back in a moment. There's something I need to get downstairs. Will you be all right by yourself?'

I nodded, just a bit bemused by the question. What did he think; that I'd disappear down the plughole or something if he left me alone? It actually took a couple of seconds for my brain to click into coherent thought, and realise what he'd meant.

I'd been scared of water when we were together. Enthralled and scared, in pretty equal measure. He'd given me my first bath ever, after he'd rescued me from an OZ base during the War. I'd been so shaken up, so amazed that he'd come to save me, that I'd never even thought about my … phobia. He hadn't known then, in any case. Quat had picked up on it at some point; figured out that my refusing the nice, hot baths he kept offering was due to something other than lousy personal hygiene, but Heero was the only person I'd ever actually told. The only person I'd ever told a lot of things.

Shit. That was why he'd been so panicky after I'd slipped into the pond at the hospital, why he'd been so gentle with me. I'd thought he'd just been overreacting. It was something I hadn't thought about in years.

'Heero,' I said gently, 'it's OK. I've actually got over the hydrophobia thing.'

He hesitated, one hand still on the door latch, and then came back and gazed down at me. In the time we'd been together, I'd managed to get pretty good at interpreting his expressions. This one was difficult, though. Regret, wonder, a weird sort of sadness that I totally didn't get, and a gleam of pride shining through it all. 'How?'

'After my accident, my physiotherapist thought that hydrotherapy would be good for me. When I'd half-drowned a couple of swimming instructors, Wufei started teaching me. I think I was more scared of him than the water; he's a damn strict teacher. I've even learned how to scuba dive.'

There were a few more unreadable facial expressions, and then he was suddenly kissing the hell out of me, before almost running out of the room. He was back in double quick time, carrying a tray loaded with orange juice and pastries, which he carefully placed on the side of the tub.

'Wow. How did you know I was starving?'

He grinned, stepping in himself to the deliciously scented, steaming water. A little bit too steaming, apparently; I noticed him wincing as he lowered himself down.

'OK, babe?' The tub was just big enough that I had to slide all the way to my chin in before I could entwine my legs with his. 'Not too sore?'

He gave me a little snort, and a sated, sleepy little smile. 'I think I may possibly survive. How did I know you'd be starving? Just a wild guess,' he hazarded, the grin broadening. 'Or possibly historical precedent. You always used to be hungry after sex.'

'Ha ha,' I reached out for one of the goodies, selecting a swirl of custard embedded in puff pastry, topped with glazed apricots. 'Wow. You actually warmed these up. Yum. This is utter heaven.'

'Well, I needed to defrost them.' He looked a little bit discomfited by the praise. 'I thought I might as well warm them up while I was at it.'

'Thank you. You really are on a mission to spoil me, aren't you?' I demolished an almond croissant in one bite, and tried to decide between a miniature glazed doughnut, and a fruit tartlet. Maybe I should just have both?

'I like being the one who's allowed to indulge you,' he said softly, and then laughed as I bit into the doughnut, and jam and custard squirted everywhere.

'You're such a sloppy eater,' he chided gently, leaning forward to lick my lips. 'I'm going to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after you, aren't I? ' He deepened the kiss, making damn sure that there was no vestige of pastry or filling anywhere near my lips, mouth or stomach.

'Mmm. I liked that. We could do that again, if you wanted.'

'I could kiss you all morning,' he promised. 'If you don't have anything else planned.'

'Um, I was sort of thinking that we could just turn off our 'phones and go back to bed for a bit?' Or even a lot?

'Seriously?' The hand that had been trailing a leisurely, soapy caress down my right foot paused. 'We still need to check downstairs, don't we?'

'What's the point? I'm starting to doubt if Quatre was ever here. I think Tro's sent us on a wild goose chase.'

'Why on earth would he do that? And Rashid had to have been involved as well?'

'Not necessarily. Tro set up this whole system; if anyone knows how to play around with it, he does. As for why, I'm sure he has his reasons,' I said vaguely. I had a pretty good reason what the main one was, actually. Mr. Barton was expecting himself to be in all sorts of trouble and he hadn't wanted to get me involved. He'd always been a sneaky sort. 'If he'd really thought there was any sort of valuable clue here, he'd have come himself.'

I shrugged. 'Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is something. But Rashid and the others can search this place just as well as we can. Better probably. I haven't been here for months; I've no idea what to look for.'

'You let me give Rashid that laptop.'

'Yeah, well, might do him good to have his horizons broadened a little bit. And serve Quat right if his precious privacy is disturbed, after all the shit he's been pulling on Trowa lately.'

'You know, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you say anything remotely negative about Quatre.'

'Well, you used to be a fully paid-up member of the QRW Appreciation Society yourself.'

'Hn. I haven't spoken to him for years, not until I visited him in that clinic.' He wrung out his soapy washcloth, and started on my other foot. 'I miss him.'

'Yeah. Me too. I just want him to be here so I can kick his ass for the way he's behaved.'

'You've changed your tune a little. What happened?'

'I don't know.' Honestly, I wasn't quite sure how or when I'd stopped seeing Trowa as the bad guy who'd hurt my best friend, and started sympathising with him. Maybe it had been seeing him the past couple of days; I knew just what it was like to lose someone who meant that much. I knew what he had to be going through. 'I'm just - pissed off with him. I know he could be in danger or - or worse, but I swear to God, I want to deck him the next time I see him.'

'We'll find him,' Heero promised. 'I like your plan for the day a lot, you know. We could even stay here tonight.'

I opened my mouth to say that wouldn't be possible, and then couldn't come up with any practical reason. None that compared with the opportunity to spend a whole day and night with him. If Une had taken over the investigation, there wasn't an ice cube's chance in hell that I'd be kept in the loop. The kids were safe; Wu and Zechs would probably appreciate some time alone. 'Why not? I'll call Wufei later and let him know. Mm.' I squirmed as his fingers found a ticklish spot between my toes. 'Did he tell you they're planning to get married next month?'

He shook his head. 'I didn't think it would be so soon. Doesn't it take longer to plan something like that?'

'They both have this thing about the 20th of May being a special date for them. They've still got over six weeks and it's not like they want anything elaborate. Wu just wants a simple ceremony at home, and Zechs would like to do it on a tropical beach at sunrise.'

Heero laughed. 'Doing it on a beach sounds … interesting, doesn't it? Maybe we could try that ourselves some day.'

'Pervert. Anyway, they'll sort something out eventually.'

'You mean they'll spend their engagement period arguing over it?'

I grinned. 'Not exactly. You really have no idea what those two are like together. They're going to spend the next week or so insisting that they really want to please the other one, and that their personal wishes just don't count. At some point, one them will give in gracefully and just accept defeat.'

Heero shook his head at the intricacies of other people's relationships. 'Wufei seems very happy.'

'Oh, he is,' I assured him, and then grinned. 'I'm very happy too, as a matter of fact. Quite blissfully happy right now.'

'I'm very glad to hear it.' He blew me a kiss, and then wrapped his fingers around my ankle and tugged. When I finally resurfaced at his side, my hastily braided hair, which I'd carefully draped over the side to keep it dry, was whipping through the water like a snake.

'Asshole,' I did my best to glare at him, through the water dripping down my face. 'I was trying not to get my hair wet.'

He grinned at me, totally unrepentant. 'I'll wash it for you, my love. All of a sudden, you just seemed terribly far away from me.'

'All of six inches away,' I muttered, although it was hard to maintain a front of bad humour, not when he pulled me between his legs and his hands started a slow, sensuous glide over my skin.

'Much too far,' he amended, with a little smirk. 'And much as I enjoyed giving you a foot-rub, I thought the rest of you deserved a little attention too.'

'Good point.' Well, seriously, what's the point in arguing with a gorgeous guy when he's being…very attentive? Especially in the most unbelievably romantic setting? Quat had hired and fired a dozen of the world's top interior designers to plan his and Trowa's bedroom and bathroom, and in the end, he'd sketched out the plans himself.

He and Tro had both always been into watching sunrises and sunsets. The bathroom's huge picture window was actually made from holographic glass, set to display the sky on Earth, somewhere over Arabia. Outside, the sky was gradually changing from indigo-dark to a warm mulberry, streaked with kingfisher blues, and the shadowed desert sands were lightening to pale golds and creams.

'Still seems impossible, doesn't it?' I murmured, leaning back against Heero. 'The two of us here, like this?'

He kissed the top of my head. 'Well, it's before breakfast. Aren't we supposed to believe six impossible things?'

That got me laughing. 'Only six? I can think of about sixty, straight off. And one of them is that you actually read the book.'

'Well, I skipped over some of it,' he admitted. 'It just didn't make any sense. I did like the Lord of the Rings, though.'

'And that made sense?' I asked quizzically. 'Mythical creatures, rings of power, an evil overlord with magical powers?'

'It made sense in the context, yes. Middle Earth was a well-drawn out, alternate universe with its own rules, even if some passages were far too verbose. The Alice book was just - whimsical nonsense.'

'That's sort of the point, 'Ro. I'd never imagined you'd be into fantasy books. Or any sort of fiction for that matter. Definitely an impossible thing.'

'Not exactly. When the impossible has been eliminated,' he told me smugly, 'whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.'

I laughed out loud at that one. 'Now you're quoting Sherlock Holmes to me? I'm starting to think we've fallen down our own rabbit hole.'

'I liked Holmes. Very logical.'

'Like you, right? He was damn bossy as well. I always felt sorry for poor Dr. Watson.'

'Hn. If I remember correctly, Watson didn't do so badly. He was the one who ended up with a home and family, after all.'

'I guess; I'd never really thought of that. D'you think we could maybe do that? End up with a home together?'

'Of course we will,' he laced his fingers through mine and squeezed firmly. 'Our own home near the ocean. With a bathroom exactly like this one, if you'd like.'

'Well, it doesn't have to be exactly like this.' I grinned suddenly. 'I'm not quite as mad on duck-egg blue as Quatre is, and I'm not quite so obsessive about how the silk scalloped edges on the towels have to match the colour of the tiles. I'd like a tub like this one, though.'

'Absolutely.' He ran one soapy finger down my spine, just far enough down to make me squirm. 'That would be fun, decorating a house together.'

'Would it? We'd probably fight over everything, you know. Colours, fabrics, the works.'

'I'm sure we could find ways to make up.' He began to kiss a line from my earlobe to my collarbone. Very slowly, with a few nips and nibbles on the way. Cue more squirming on my part.

'I want satellite TV,' I informed him. 'That's non-negotiable; I don't want to spend the rest of my life watching current affairs.'

'Fine. But I'm planning to keep you far too busy to have time for television. Speaking of colours, I love the fact that you don't wear black all the time now. We could maybe go shopping again sometime? If you'd like that? Shopping, dinner and a movie, some evening?'

'Another date?' I asked delightedly. 'I'd love that. And I'm going to have to go shopping pretty soon, actually. Before I run out of things to wear. I do have some things here, but they're mostly pretty casual.'

'What you wore last night wasn't casual. It was very sexy.'

'That was a traditional desert wedding costume, I'll have you know.'

'Really?' he teased. 'When did you get married?'

'Oh, yeah, I knew there was something I'd forgotten to tell you,' I grinned at his little gasp. 'It was Sarab's wedding, actually. You remember him; one of the youngest Maguancs? Quat got us all those authentic outfits. I've never worn it since; I just thought it might be kind of appropriate for last night. Since you said you were going to romance the hell out of me.'

'And did I?'

'Totally,' I lolled back against his chest, letting his run both hands through my hair, utterly blissed out. 'Another impossible thing…um, I can't believe you actually have a dog.'

I'd suggested us having a pet sometime after the War, and he'd shot the idea down in fiery flames. A couple of days later, he'd told me about the little girl and her puppy for the first time. I'd known there'd been a problem on his first mission for J; something that had gone wrong and necessitated retraining for him, but he'd never told me the specifics until then.

The military base had been too close to civilian housing; something J had to have known when he'd given Heero that particular operation and mission specs. I'd always wondered if it had been intentional; a little experiment to see how his perfect soldier would deal with something like that; a little test.

If so, he'd failed. He'd told me about the little girl who'd spoken to him, the flower she'd given him; then finding the little dog's broken body in the rubble, and realising what he'd done. There hadn't even been that much I could say to comfort him. I'd just held him for the whole of one night and the next day he hadn't wanted to discuss any of it. Always so determined to be the strong one. He'd produced a volley of other reasons why it was impractical for us to have a pet, and I'd eventually decided that he just wasn't all that keen on animals.

'You don't mind Honey, do you?' he asked a little hesitantly. 'I know you were a little - uncertain around her at first, but it seemed that you were getting to like her. She adores you.'

'Uncertain is a nice way of saying I was bloody scared to death,' I muttered.

'Duo, you should have told me you were scared of her.' He sounded absolutely horrified. 'If I'd known, I'd never have had her in the house while you were there.'

'Oh, stop it,' I twisted around in his arms and kissed the little furrow between his brows. 'It was her house; why should she have to move? Besides, it wasn't just that. I thought you didn't want me in your home, and then you had this big, fierce-looking dog. I thought she'd probably gulp me down if you glared at me too often.'

'I did want you there,' he told me fiercely. 'More than I've ever wanted anything in my life. But you seemed so uncomfortable around me, I thought the best thing was just to leave you alone.'

'We really need to work on the communication thing, don't we? Anyway, don't worry about Honey and me. She's a great dog. I, ah, I don't suppose you know if she's good with kids, at all?'

Oops.

I hadn't quite meant to say that. Not so soon. It wasn't as if I was actually planning to take on Nat and his sisters, except someone would have to take responsibility for them and there wasn't really anybody else.

I wasn't sure it this was the best time to get into all that, though. Not on this magical little interlude when we were trying to escape from real life.

'She adores children,' he said airily. 'They're a valuable part of her diet, in fact. Good sources of protein.'

'Asshole.' I gave him a good poke in the ribs.

'Ouch.'

'Sheesh, when did you turn into such a wimp?'

'When you started beating me up, probably. Of course, you could kiss it better for me.'

'Baby,' I teased, but I took a deep breath anyway and dipped my head underwater, making him squirm deliciously when I ran my mouth over that ticklish spot above his hip. An excellent way to distract him from a conversation that was starting to get a wee bit too serious for my liking.

Or not.

'You've been thinking about Nat and the girls, haven't you?' OK, at least he didn't dive right in with the whole 'are you planning to take them into our home and our lives?' bit. Whew. 'Marlie said she was going to try to trace their family. There might still be relations on Earth. Nat said his father had two younger sisters.'

I shrugged. 'If so, they've never made any attempt to contact them. I think they pretty much washed their hands of the family once the mother remarried and moved to space. And they might take the girls but most nice suburban families aren't going to want a teenage boy who's been on the streets for months, doing all kinds of stuff. I think that they should stay together, after all they've been through. Sorry; I didn't mean to ruin the mood or anything. I just worry about them sometimes.' I sighed; this probably wasn't the best time to get into all this, but we had to talk about at some point.

'You should probably know that if you're serious about having me back in your life, you might have to factor three kids into the equation.'

'I've known that since we met them,' he said simply. 'And I still want to have you.'

'I think you already did. Have me, I mean,' I muttered, not entirely sure where my emotions were going. I'd known along that the kids would be my responsibility; to acknowledge it aloud and have Heero agree with me was …just plain scary.

'Mutual having, I believe.' His kiss held just that little bit more dominance than he usually allows himself. 'Mmm, I like you like this, all wet and slippery and … pliant,' he murmured, bending his head to bite that oh-so-sensitive place at the back of my neck.

'You're insatiable, aren't you?' I mock-grumbled, letting him turn me in his arms.

'Only for you,' he informed me smugly. 'And I remember you making certain derogatory comments about my stamina not so long ago.'

'I think I retracted those complaints sometime last night.'

'I take it that I am giving satisfaction then, Mr. Maxwell?' Damn, it's hard for a hot, naked guy to look demure. Somehow, he managed it, pursing his lips and looking like he was at a job interview.

'Honestly? If you were any more perfect, I'd have to donate you to medical science.'

'You could just keep me as your personal test subject, and conduct your own…primary research,' he suggested.

'I guess I could…couldn't I? Of course, you do realise that we'd have to research the matter very thoroughly, exhaustively even.'

'I'm prepared for that, yes,' he intoned gravely. 'I'm prepared to start now, if you like. Purely in the interests of scientific research, naturally.'

'Oh, naturally….'

Sex in a bathtub is one of those things that sounds great, but isn't all that easy to carry out. Especially as we were both pretty out of practice. It was fun at first, two slippery bodies writhing against each other, and wallowing in the warm water, until desire suddenly became imperative need.

'Oh, God, 'Ro,' I was only able to gasp his name. 'I don't think I can last much longer. I want…'

'I know,' he somehow managed to kiss me while rummaging among Quatre's toiletries for a small bottle of skin oil. 'I know. Duo, are you sure? You said last night that you haven't…been with anyone for a while. Maybe we shouldn't…'

'Oh, yes we should,' I managed to twine myself around him while he was still hesitating. 'Listen, Blue, I want this. I want you.' I slid one hand down between our bodies, feeling just how much he wanted it too. Wanted me. 'Besides,' I gave him a sly little grin and tweaked my fingers in a particularly sensitive area, 'Who said I was going to be the one on the bottom?'

This set off another bout of grappling and groping; worse this time as a lot of the oil ended up in the water. All my teasing aside, it was a toss up over who was going to toss and who to catch until he suddenly slid underneath me, and pulled me between his legs. The bottle of oil had suddenly materialised in my hand and it was all too obvious what he actually wanted, especially once I'd slicked fingers and slid them between his legs.

'Revenge is awfully sweet, you know,' I murmured as he groaned, thrusting against me. 'I thought you liked a lot of foreplay, Blue.'

He arched up so my fingers brushed against that one particular spot and then more teasing seemed like a very bad idea.

We ended up with Heero wedged into a corner, both feet wedged against the sides of the tub to keep him from sliding under. His other arm was firmly around my waist, and I had my hands clamped to his shoulders to try to gain some support as I lowered myself down into him.

He actually managed to stay like that for longer than I'd have thought possible, given I wasn't being a whole lot of help. He lost his balance at a particularly crucial moment, when our bodies were otherwise occupied and slid under the water. Even then, he somehow managed to keep his arms around me, stopping me going under as well.

'I think I'm going to have a permanent bump on the side of my head,' he groused when I'd hauled him up and into my arms. 'If you're not slamming me into headboards, it's bathtubs.'

'Poor you want me to kiss it better?'

'Mm. We're buying a bathmat before we do this again, OK? You never told me that your latest kink was trying to drown your partners?'

'What, I'm supposed to tell you every little thing?' I teased, rubbing the back of his head gently. Marvelling at how the wet hair was already springing into its usual unruly spikes. 'Must've slipped my mind. Besides, you were the one who slipped.'

'Funny, Maxwell,' He leaned his head, cat-like, into my caressing fingers. 'You're the one who was behaving like a whirling dervish.'

'Next time, I'll just lie there, shall I?' I kissed the top of his head, and he curled into my arms. Heero Yuy, champion snuggler of the universe.

The way I'd grown up, physical contact had been had been not just normal, but a necessity. Nights on L2 get damn cold and I'd spent most of my childhood sleeping with a gang of other kids; the only way to ward off freezing to death. Afterwards, I'd had nearly a year of Sister Helen's soft touches and warm hugs.

He'd never had anything like that.

Odin had rarely touched him, except when it was necessary to demonstrate a new training technique. J had treated him as a curious lab specimen, rather than a human being.

In the beginning, I was always the one who cuddled up to him. It had taken months for him to reverse that, and it had felt unbelievably good, being the one to hold him for a change. Knowing that he'd never granted anyone that measure of trust in his whole life. A hell of a responsibility, when the strongest person you've ever met allows himself to be vulnerable for the first time with you, trusting you to look after him.

It still rocked my whole universe, having him curled up on my chest like a little kid.

I wondered if he'd ever let himself have this with anyone since we'd broken up, and doubted it. Not that he'd been celibate or anything. Trowa and Sally had made the occasional comment about people he'd been dating, and I'd seen the odd news story.

I didn't think any of his partners had lasted long; not long enough to build up that sort of trust.

He'd told me once, that he felt safe with me. He's not the only one with the over-developed protective instinct.

'I do love you, you know.'

He didn't answer, not verbally; just kissed my chest, and tried to press even closer.

'Hey, it's all right. Really. I've got you. I've got you, Blue,' I repeated, tightening my arms around him. 'I'm never going to let you go again. Not ever, Heero. I promise, and you know I don't lie, right?'

I'd seen him cry before; for the little girl and her puppy; for a Preventers mission that had gone wrong and killed a couple of civilians; for stuff I'd told him. He never cries for himself, at least, not where anyone can see him.

This was - the closest he'd ever come; clutching me desperately in our tub of cooling water.

'S-sorry, love,' he managed finally, his voice trembling just on the right side of shaky.

'It's OK,' I soothed. 'I've got you, love. I love you. Always. Always. I'll look after you.'