"Heero will be back today with his team," said Noin out of nowhere, reaching for her coffee cup.
Relena stopped piling scrambled eggs on top of her toast and stared. Noin was sipping coffee like what she'd just said was inconsequential—like she'd only been saying it was supposed to rain later.
"When?" she asked, once it was clear Noin wasn't going to say anything more.
Noin ate a bite of toast before deigning to respond. "He told me he's arriving with one of them in a few hours but didn't say when exactly the other guy is getting here."
Relena blinked. "There's only two more of them coming? That's his fancy team?" Not that she minded the idea of having fewer people around to distract his attention; she still wanted to get to know him.
Noin shrugged. "I know there were five of them at one point. He said the other two aren't available right now. But I'm familiar with their... work... and having even half of his team at our disposal will be a hell of an asset. Keep an open mind, all right?" she pleaded.
"All right, all right," said Relena, tucking back into her scrambled egg mountain.
Relena listened to Noin and kept an open mind. When the world's most boring-looking silver sedan pulled up in the drive and Heero got out along with another guy about the same age, it was Noin who didn't take her own advice.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Noin muttered as they peered through the front window at the driveway. Relena startled at the language; Noin did not speak like that, at least not around her.
She scurried a little to keep up with Noin's long, angry strides to the front hall, pulling up just short of crashing into her when the big front door opened. Heero didn't seem surprised to see them lurking in the hallway but the other guy's eyes went a little bit wide when he saw Noin. They knew each other, Relena realized, but Noin hadn't been expecting him to be here and it seemed the reverse was also true.
"This is quite a change in scenery from your last post," the guy said, looking around.
"Try anything here and you'll be dead before you hit the floor," Noin said in a voice that made the hair stand up on Relena's arms.
"So you've met Wufei before, I see," said Heero as Wufei backed away a step, hands up in surrender.
"Once," Noin hissed.
"You need to work on your first impressions," Heero said to him, as calmly as if he wasn't standing in the middle of a murder waiting to happen.
"You are the last person who should be giving advice on people skills," Wufei sniped back before returning his attention to Noin. Relena was still hovering just behind Noin and wondering how she could possibly hold her back if she went after him. "Look, lady—"
"Noin," Heero interjected.
"—Look, Noin, I have been contracted to protect this place, not blow it up. I do the job in front of me. As for you, I have no bone to pick with you. You are the enemy of my enemy. And defeating our mutual enemy requires us to work together, if you want to keep the princess here safe." He waved vaguely at Relena, making her feel like a piece of furniture or something.
"You killed a lot of people that night," said Noin, her voice tight with emotion in a way Relena had never heard before and never really wanted to again.
"And you've never killed a soul, is that right?" Wufei scoffed. His hands were still up and it made quite a picture.
The silence following that was heavy; Relena was scared to breathe too loudly in case she set someone off.
"Fine," Noin relented. "Only because we probably need you, as much as it pains me to say it. But tread lightly."
Heero took Wufei by the shoulder and started steering him out of Noin's sight. "Let's get your quarters sorted out," he said.
Wufei gave Relena a polite nod on the way past. "Nice to meet you, Princess," he said over his shoulder as he was hustled away to the guest wing.
Noin stormed off in the other direction. Relena didn't want to know what the third team member was going to be like.
Duo's plane was due to arrive in the late afternoon; Heero had offered to pick him up but had been waved off. Duo had insisted that Heero had things to do and he could get a cab.
He was right. Heero did have things to do. He was doing things that just happened to have him around the front of the house about an hour after Duo's plane landed, so when a cab arrived after about twenty more minutes of pretending to be productive (and wondering what the holdup was), he was available to open the gate.
"Hey," said Duo when he got out of the cab, standing right in front of Heero and squinting and smiling in the sunlight. "Traffic was kinda shitty."
Heero opened his mouth to say something back—he didn't know what—when a new voice called his name excitedly. He looked up in surprise to see Hilde getting out of the other side of the car, slamming her door shut while the driver walked around her to open the trunk.
"Hilde," he greeted. "Duo didn't mention you were coming with him." He glanced at Duo, who winced a little.
"When I told her where I was going, she didn't give me much chance to object," said Duo, loudly enough for her to hear. They moved to unload the luggage from the trunk of the cab.
"I thought I could help," she said. "I didn't have anything else going on, anyway."
From the look on Duo's face, he still hadn't conceded the argument. "We could use all the help we can get," Heero agreed, ignoring Duo's scowl. Hilde beamed at him.
When the cab drove off and the gate was shut behind it, Heero nodded at the entrance to the house. "Let's get you settled. Wufei's already here. We'll find someone to air out another room and introduce you to Noin and Relena."
Pargan looked miffed at being unprepared for another guest but rolled with it and set the staff to getting another room cleaned up. Heero directed Hilde to the one that was ready and left Duo's bag leaning against the wall beside his door for the staff to grab when they were finished.
"So the tag-along gets a bed all ready for napping on after a transatlantic flight and I gotta wait?" Duo grumped.
Heero was distracted, already revising his plans to accommodate having Hilde on board. "Hmm? I didn't think you'd mind," he said, leading the way back to the stairs to go find Noin.
"That's presumptuous of you, isn't it?"
Heero couldn't keep a little grin off of his face; he pointed at the closed door next to Duo's new room on the way past. "I guess so. But just so you know, that room there is mine."
Duo looked back and forth between Heero and the door. "Oh," he said. He blushed a little and Heero felt his grin widen, still without his permission.
"Fine," said Duo, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugging, trying to play it cool even though his face was red. "Presume away, then."
Heero chuckled.
Catherine was off writing an exam when Rashid called. Trowa was almost relieved to hear his voice; he'd practically been climbing the walls worrying about Quatre.
"How did you get this number?" he asked anyway.
"It doesn't matter," said Rashid. Trowa disagreed but Rashid kept talking. "As you must surely be aware, I am calling you about Quatre. It is too important to worry about a minor breach of your privacy."
"What happened to him? Is he okay?"
"There was a car accident. Very suspicious circumstances; his family's business interests have attracted the attention of some disreputable characters."
"Is. He. Okay." The phone receiver creaked ominously in Trowa's grip.
"Quatre survived, albeit with some serious injuries. His father and Iria did not."
Trowa's stomach roiled as he lurched from naked relief to horror at the news. "Oh my god." He'd liked Iria. Her death would have hurt Quatre deeply.
"Yes," said Rashid. "Iria's funeral was well-attended by the Maganacs and was a very upsetting affair. Quatre was still in a coma at the time and things were very tense. Now he is discharged from the hospital and burdened with grief and guilt, and has decided he must have revenge on those responsible. I attempted to reach out to him, as did some of his sisters, but he will not hear reason. He has taken up with H."
"I thought that guy was part of your group," said Trowa, his mind reeling. "He's known Quatre since he was a little kid, right? Quatre can't be in danger with him, can he?"
Rashid barked out a laugh that had no humour in it. "That anarchic son of a bitch is playing his own game. His influence over Quatre has always been worrying. I have done what I could to maintain some kind of distance between them but now H has the advantage. Quatre is torn apart by his grief and emotionally vulnerable, and H has appeared at precisely the right moment to bait him with the promise of vengeance. Quatre is a sweet boy but very dangerous—I think you know the truth of this. He is a terrible weapon in the wrong hands."
Trowa felt sick. He was holding himself up by the wall next to the phone cradle, pressing the receiver to his ear. "Why are you telling me this? What am I supposed to do, if you can't get to him and his family can't either?"
"You are the only surviving person I have ever known him to show as much regard for as he had for Iria. You are probably the last hope to get through to him. So, please. I beg you. Before he does something he will regret."