Duo and I have settled back into our comfortable routine of him trying not to kill me and me trying not to jump him. I think it’s proving difficult for both of us. Though Duo is trying. So am I. Cold showers have become a daily necessity. Sometimes twice daily, depending on whether or not he comes out of the shower clothed or in a towel.

Sometimes this gets interesting. We actually have had this conversation:

Me: “I’m going to go take a shower.”

Duo, as he reaches for his clothes: “But you just took one. And I used all the hot water.”

“I’m not clean.” I stated this as I headed for the bathroom as quickly as possible.

I’ve also barely been sleeping. I’m not sure what this ridiculous behavior is for, but I hope Duo doesn’t notice. When I do manage to sleep, I have weird dreams. Not bad dreams. Just weird ones. Usually involving him, and very little clothing, and occasionally chocolate syrup. What is this world coming to?

Naturally, this leads to more showers, and more questions to dodge.

We’ve also settled into this school. It’s nice, and as I mentioned, has the bonus of no Relena Peacecraft. Though I found myself wondering the other day what she would think if she knew I was . . . oh, never mind. I just don’t want to see Relena ever again.

Duo is currently bemoaning his lack of skill in the math department, which is bullshit because I know he’s great at math and just doesn’t feel like putting the effort in. Though, as he keeps pointing out, I erase our records every time, so there’s really no point in trying. As long as he doesn’t do so badly that he draws attention to himself. And now he’s putting music on. I don’t know where he gets half of this stuff. It alternates being heavy metal to just plain silly. (Tokyo Love Song springs to mind.)

Now it’s something softer, some woman with a fairly nice voice. I’m amazed any of this music has survived for so long. I don’t know how Duo found it and I’m not sure I care. They say you can find anything on Napster . . . then again, I’m surprised that Napster survived.

“I will remember you . . . will you remember me . . .”

Of course, Duo is singing along, very softly. He probably thinks I don’t notice, when I’m in fact straining my ears to hear every note that comes out of his mouth.

And suddenly it seems like he’s singing to me, or at least about me.

“I’m so tired, I can’t sleep . . . standing on the edge of something much too deep . . . funny how I feel so much, but cannot say a word . . . though we are screaming inside, we can’t be heard . . .”

This isn’t fair. I’m not sure what isn’t fair, but somehow I’m sure that this is terribly unfair. He’s just sitting there, singing, completely oblivious to the fact that I . . . need another cold shower.

I don’t want a shower. I want a hug, or preferably a kiss. One of those long, passionate ones you see in the movies. How come I can never get one of those?

Though if I asked Relena . . . oh God, never mind.

Hey, that worked better than a cold shower.

****

Heero looks angry about something. Or maybe just frustrated. Maybe I should stop complaining about my math homework, because he looks ready to kill me. It’s not quite anger, though. Something else. Not sure what, though. I hope he hasn’t noticed that I’m singing. God, that would be embarrassing. It’s just such an . . . appropriate song somehow.

“So afraid to love you, more afraid to lose . . . clinging to a past that doesn’t let me choose . . . once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night . . . you gave me everything you had, you gave me light . . .”

Okay, so maybe he isn’t quite a knight in shining armor, but I think he’s as close to one as I’m ever going to get. Probably better than I deserve anyway. I don’t know. He hasn’t been saying much at all since we got to this new school, but there were a few times at the hospital where I would have sworn he actually gave a damn about me. Maybe it was the head trauma.

It would be nice if he was a knight in armor, though. If he could just make all my problems go away. But that’s just silly. Maybe this is the head trauma. Though by all rights I think I should be over that by now.

Great. Now I’m in a pissy mood again.

Which reminds me, since I only bitched about this for a page and a half, I’m very angry about having some stupid disease. I’ve decided to call it the ‘Duo-is-fucked-in-the-head disease.’ As if I didn’t have enough issues before, anyway.

Thank God, the song’s over. Must have something more cheerful. Let’s see . . . They Might Be Giants, anyone?

“The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace . . .”

Heero is giving me a very odd look, then announces he’s going to go take a shower. Which makes me think of something else. What the hell is with all those damn showers he takes? He’s going to permanently prune or something if he keeps it up. Maybe he’s got gills that I didn’t know about. I don’t get it. Half the time the hot water’s run out anyway. What the hell are cold showers good for except . . .

Oh God.

I’m just gonna ignore that thought. I mean, it’s Heero. How likely is it that Mr. Is-Sex-Something-You-Download would be taking cold showers for that reason?

He probably likes them.

****

“This thing is so cool.” Rigel’s eyes were practically falling out of his head. “And I thought it was cool when it was half-finished. No, this . . . this is impressive.”

Xiaolong just nodded.

“Now, we will know what to do once we’re in these things, right?” Rigel appealed to Treize.

“I sure hope so,” Treize said. “Seriously, it should all come back to you. That’s what happened in your Mobile suit class, remember.”

“Yeah, but these are far more complicated than just plain mobile suits,” Xiaolong said.

“I have faith in you,” Treize said.

“Glad somebody does,” Xiaolong grumbled.

“Naturally, you’ll want to practice before your first mission.”

Rigel blinked at him. “And when’s that going to be?”

“When I find one for you.” Treize smiled.

“Oh,” Rigel said. “Should we name them? The Gundams, I mean.”

“If you want, sure,” Treize said.

“What were our old ones named?” Xiaolong asked.

Treize looked flustered for a second, thinking fast.

“Well,” a new voice entered the conversation, “Rigel, yours was called Sandrock.”

Rigel turned to see the man who had been in charge of building his Gundam. “Why Sandrock?”

The man shrugged. “That’s what you called it.”

“Oh.” Rigel considered this. “That works.”

“What was mine?” Xiaolong asked.

“Yours was Shenlong,” the other man, who had been building Xiaolong’s Gundam, contributed.

Xiaolong frowned. “But if that one was destroyed, this one should have a new name.”

Rigel shrugged. “I’m not changing mine.”

“I’ll call it Altron,” Xiaolong said.

“I’ll try to have some mission parameters for you by tomorrow,” Treize said. “There are plenty of rebellions happening, so I could use your help. You two can stay here as long as you need to, in order to get used to the Gundams. The doctors can tell you what’s been changed.”

“Okay,” Xiaolong said, sounding enthusiastic. “You guys are doctors?”

“Who knew?” Rigel asked with a grin, and everybody looked at him oddly as he laughed.

****

“Are you nervous?” Trowa asked.

“A little,” Rigel admitted. “But Xiaolong and I did fine in practice. Better than fine, really.” He laughed a little. “Who knew?”

Trowa laughed and shook his head. “What’s the mission?”

Rigel picked at the blankets of Trowa’s bed. “I’m, um, not supposed to tell anyone.” He turned pink. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t look too hard, though,” Rigel assured him. “I’m sure we’ll be okay.”

Trowa smiled back. “I’m sure you will, too.” He paused. “So how long are you going to be gone?”

“Three days, I think.” He made a face. “I’m losing part of my weekend.”

“We’ll skip on Monday to make up for it.”

Rigel laughed. “Une would kill me. And you. And Xiaolong, just to make sure he wasn’t plotting with us.”

“You shouldn’t be afraid of her. You’re the one who assured me she’s nice.”

“Oh, she is, just not all the time . . .”

****

“So how’d things go?” Treize asked, hoping the news would diminish his three-day-old headache.

“Fine,” Rigel said, understating the case remarkably.

“Well,” Xiaolong said.

“Spectacularly.” Une dropped a folder full of papers onto Treize’s desk. “Don’t give me that look, it’s just the debriefing papers.”

Treize nodded and picked them up, leafing through them. His eyebrows raised. “If this is ‘fine,’ I can’t wait until I see ‘good.’”

Rigel beamed. Xiaolong just looked self-satisfied.

“And you two didn’t have any problems at all?” Treize asked.

“No, it went fine,” Rigel assured him.

“We did, in fact, know what we were doing,” Xiaolong added. “Though it did startle me in the beginning.”

“Okay,” Treize said. “Good job. Take tomorrow off as a reward.”

They both grinned.

“Now go to bed,” Treize said. “Deny it if you want, but you both look tired.”

The two nodded and left. “Are you going to go tell Trowa you’re back?” Xiaolong asked.

Rigel checked his watch. “It’s two a.m. . . . I’ll tell him tomorrow.” He smirked. “Trowa only has one class tomorrow.”

Xiaolong rolled his eyes. “Just try not to forget my existence entirely.”

Rigel looked embarrassed. “Sorry, Xiaolong . . .”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“We can go see a movie tomorrow,” Rigel said. “You can come. You can bring . . . Dorothy!”

Xiaolong looked pained. “No thanks.”

“To the movie or to Dorothy?”

“Dorothy. I’ll come to the movie.”

“C’mon, Dorothy’s not that bad.”

“But she’s got those eyebrows . . . don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

“All you think about is looks,” Rigel said, elbowing his roommate.

“No, but it’s not at the bottom of the list.”

“Dorothy’s a perfectly nice looking girl, once you get past the eyebrows.”

“Maybe if we just plucked one fork of them out . . .” Xiaolong mused.

The two of them looked at each other.

“Let’s go to bed,” Rigel said. “We’re tired.”

“Good idea.”

****

“Hey! Heero!” Duo bounced out of the student lounge and across the hall to stick his head in the door of his room. “You’ve gotta come see this!”

Heero looked up with a long-suffering expression. “What?”

“Just come on!” Duo came in and grabbed his arm. “Humor me, I’m crazy!”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose you’ll humor me or you suppose I’m crazy?”

“I suppose I’ll humor you. I know you’re crazy.”

“Very funny. Now hurry up, you’re gonna miss it!”

Heero allowed himself to be tugged out to the lounge, where three or four other students were watching TV.

“See! Your girlfriend is on TV!”

Everyone looked over at them.

Heero looked disgusted. “She’s not my girlfriend.” He looked at the screen, plastered with Relena’s face. “Tell me she’s died or something. Please.”

“No such luck!” Duo said, laughing.

“Then what’s she done now?”

“Started some country with some thing . . . about some peace thing.”

Heero raised an eyebrow. “Anyone else in here care to explain?”

“She’s gone back to Sank, since she is the last Peacecraft,” another student piped up. “She’s taken a stand of total pacifism. No armies, no nothing.”

“Thank God, she’ll be dead soon.”

Duo snickered. “Aw, Heero, don’t be so bitter, just because she broke your heart . . .”

Heero gave his roommate a strange look. “Why did you stop me from shooting her?”

Duo shrugged. “Moment of insanity?”

“Moment?”

Duo looked around pensively at the other students. “Think we’ve blown our cover?”

“Yes. I’ll go pack.” Heero headed back to the room. “Too bad, I liked this place.”

“We could go to Relena’s school of absolute pacifism,” Duo suggested, trailing behind him.

“I’d rather chew glass.”

“Ouch,” Duo said. He watched as Heero began packing their things, then draped himself over Heero’s shoulders and whined, in a passable Relena impression, “Heero, come and kill me.”

Heero shrugged him off. “Don’t tempt me.”

“To kill you or her?”

“Both. You first, you’re closer.”

Duo snickered again and began packing his things. “I’m sorry about blowing our cover.”

“It’s okay. It was pretty amusing, after all. Especially the looks on their faces. You finish packing, I’ll find a new school.”

“Make it a nice one.”

“I’ll do my best.”

****

The four students looked at each other after Duo came bouncing through with a bag full of stuff, calling “Bye! Nice knowing ya!”

“What was that?” one student asked, looking at his friends.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” another responded.

****

“Another mission so soon?” Trowa asked.

Rigel nodded. “Sorry? At least this one’s closer . . .”

“As long as he keeps giving you days off afterwards,” Trowa said.

Rigel laughed. “I think he will. Besides, the last one went really well. So I’m not really worried.”

“Okay. Just be careful.”

****

“This place looks familiar.”

Xiaolong looked up as Rigel’s voice came over his radio. “Deja vu again?”

“No, worse than that. It’s like . . . almost like I used to live here. It feels like home.”

Xiaolong tried to think of what to say to that. “I never heard of any blonde-haired, blue-eyed Arabians.”

(Author’s Note: Sorry, sorry, couldn’t resist.)

“I know, I know,” Rigel replied. “I guess I’m just jittery.”

“Why? We’ll be fine.”

“It just feels wrong.”

“We don’t have time to worry about it now. You trust Treize, right?”

“Yeah . . .”

“Then stop second-guessing. Especially since they’re coming this way. Are you going to persist in this idiocy of asking them to surrender first?”

“Everyone deserves a chance,” Rigel said indignantly.

“Well, be my guest.”

Rigel turned on his ComLink. “Please surrender. We don’t want to have to fight you.”

Xiaolong muttered something about ‘we’ being an improper term.

The response from the lead mobile suit was immediate. “Master Quatre?”

Rigel blinked. That voice . . . where have I heard that voice? His head ached. “That didn’t sound like a surrender, and I’m afraid you have the wrong person.”

“But . . .” the voice sounded confused. “Master Quatre, I recognize your voice. And your Gundam. We’ve been looking for you. And why the hell are you with OZ?”

Rigel rubbed his temples. His head had gone from aching to throbbing. “I . . . I don’t know you . . .”

“It’s Rashid. The Maganacs. Your standing orders were to defend this place, before you disappeared.”

Rigel held his head in his hands. “Shut up! I don’t know you!”

“Rigel?” Xiaolong’s voice came over the line. “Are you okay?”

“My head . . .” Rigel leaned forward. “My head hurts . . .”

Rashid vacillated. Quatre’s orders had been to defend at all costs, but Rashid doubted ‘all costs’ included Quatre’s own life. Trowa had been keeping him semi-updated on the situation, but nothing had been mentioned about a mission to destroy their country. “Master Quatre, we don’t want to fight you any more than you want to fight us. So -- ”

“Shut up! Don’t call me that! That’s not my name!” Rigel nearly slid out of his seat; only the harness held him in place.

“Rigel, we’re leaving,” Xiaolong said sharply.

No answer.

“Now. Pull yourself together and let’s go.”

Still no answer, but Sandrock began to take hesitant steps away.

The Maganacs stood there and watched them go, in complete confusion.

“Rigel, answer me. Are you okay?”

Silence.

“Rigel!” Xiaolong slammed his fist into his arm rest in frustration. “Answer me, damn it! Your Gundam is moving, I know you’re still conscious!” He brought a map up on his screen. The nearest base was only about a half hour away.

Fortunately, he managed to get to it all right, with Sandrock still wobbling in his wake. He hopped out of his Gundam and ran over to Rigel’s. The door opened and Rigel fell out, right on top of Xiaolong, who thankfully enough managed to catch him. Staff were hurrying over. “Can we have a doctor over here?” Xiaolong yelled. He carefully lowered Rigel to the ground. “Rigel. Can you hear me?”

Rigel’s eyes were open, but confused.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Xiaolong muttered. A few doctors bustled over.

“Is he injured?” one asked.

“Physically no, but he’s kind of . . . out of it and I’m not sure why.” Xiaolong let them get Rigel onto a stretcher and shuttle him off to the infirmary. “I need to make some calls. Now.”

****

To: 03@colony.net

From: maganacs@winner.com

Re: ?!?!?!?!

What did we miss? We just ran into Quatre, on the wrong end of a gun, and he said he wasn’t Quatre but he had Quatre’s Gundam and he had Quatre’s voice and he kept telling me to shut up, then he and his partner retreated. Haphazardly, I might add. What’s going on?

Rashid

****

Trowa awoke to a blinking ‘urgent’ sign on his computer. Muttering, he climbed out of bed and read the message. His eyes widened and he was suddenly a lot more awake. “What’s this fresh hell?”

****

Treize was similarly rudely awakened by a ringing noise. He slapped ineffectually at his alarm clock a few times before it registered that it was a) the middle of the night and b) not his alarm clock that was ringing. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and grabbed his laptop off his bedside table where he’d left it.

Incoming message, it was blaring. Urgent. With a red border, and all in capital letters. Translated directly to “Answer now, you imbecile.”

He hit a few keys to see Xiaolong’s face and instantly suppressed panic. “What’s wrong?”

Xiaolong wasted no time apologizing for having woken him. “Wrong? Let me see, where should I start . . .”

“Are you both okay?”

“I’m fine. Rigel wasn’t hurt, but he’s . . . not okay.”

“How so?”

“Those people that we were fighting . . . they seemed to know him. They kept calling him ‘Master Quatre,’ and saying that he’d left them orders to defend what we were attacking . . . and then he just freaked out and stopped answering me.”

Treize felt a migraine coming on. “Where are you?”

“Droste. It’s a base about a half hour from where we were.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Bring Trowa.”

“Excuse me?”

“Trowa Barton. Rigel’s friend. He’ll help. Don’t ask me why I think so, I just do.”

“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

****

To: maganacs@winner.com

From: 03@colony.net

Re: Disaster

I’m working on figuring out what happened. Right now I have no idea.

Trowa

****

Trowa looked up from his computer as there was a knock on the door. He shut the computer and turned out the lights so whoever was at the door wouldn’t be able to tell he’d already been awake. “What?” he asked, trying to sound sleepy, which wasn’t a far stretch. “Be there in a second . . .”

He allowed a generous pause to ‘get out of bed’, then opened the door. A uniformed officer, low rank, stood there. Trowa managed a tired salute. “Sir?”

“Lord Treize needs to see you.”

Trowa blinked. “Huh?”

“He said to bring an overnight bag. I’ll wait out here while you get dressed.”

Not really one for explanations, are they, Trowa said. “Yes, sir.” He shut the door and pulled on the first clothes he found: jeans and a T-shirt. He certainly wasn’t going to bother with a uniform so early. And if Treize wanted to see him, it could only be about Rigel. He wasn’t going to waste time.

“Stupid idiot,” he muttered under his breath, pulling his shoes on. “Winner pilot. Winner holding. What is your problem?” He grabbed a uniform and some other clothes and threw them into a bag with his laptop and some other essentials. He glanced in his mirror, winced at the sight of his hair, and decided not to waste time fixing it. He opened the door again.

“Follow me,” the officer said.

“Yes, sir.” Trowa followed the man down a complicated set of hallways. Surprisingly, they didn’t head towards Treize’s office. “Um. Sir? Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” the man said.

Trowa resisted the urge to yell, or better yet, throttle something. Within a few minutes, they reached the hangar. I guess that I’m taking a trip. How nice of them. I hate having to follow orders from numbskulls.

“Get on the plane,” the man instructed. “Lord Treize has already boarded. He’ll explain things.”

“Well thank God somebody’s going to,” Trowa muttered, and headed up the staircase.

The interior of the plane was nice. It looked more like a lounge than a plan. Treize was sitting at one of the tables, rubbing his forehead. He glanced up and saw Trowa, trying to stand at attention. “At ease,” he said hurriedly. “Sorry about hauling you out of bed.”

“What is going on?” Trowa asked, then added hastily, “Sir.”

“Have a seat and I’ll explain,” Treize said.

Trowa plopped into the chair across from Treize and began attempting to tame his hair. It was a lost cause. I must’ve slept on it funny, Trowa thought, reflecting on some of the odd things people thought about under stress. Treize looked perfectly polished, though he was wearing a sweater and dress pants, having not been one to wear his uniform before dawn. Treize really doesn’t strike me as stupid. Maybe this was somebody else’s fault.

“I’m sure you’ve guessed what this is about,” Treize said.

“Is Rigel okay?” Trowa replied, not wasting time.

“I don’t know,” Treize answered.

“Thank you for being honest,” Trowa said.

“You look pretty disgusted with me.”

“Don’t take it personally. I’m rather protective of Rigel. What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I got a garbled message from a flustered Xiaolong. Neither of them were hurt, physically speaking, but Rigel is . . . you know, I don’t know what happened.”

And this is the head of OZ, Trowa thought, amused. Funny, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’s a human being. And worried about them, as odd as that sounds. “When are we going to get there? Where is ‘there’, anyway?”

“Two hours, about. We’re heading towards Arabia. You might want to try to get some more sleep.” Treize gave him a sympathetic smile, thoroughly weirding Trowa out.

“May I ask who was responsible for this . . . this idiocy?” Trowa asked, trying to think of a better way to phrase it, but unable to.

“You may ask, but there will not be any answers,” Treize replied. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Trowa nodded. “It was.” With that, he stood up, taking his bag, and settled in a chair across the airplane, pulling out his computer.

“May I ask what you’re doing?” Treize asked curiously.

“You may ask, but there won’t be an answer,” Trowa replied, smiling.

“Touche. Trowa, one, Treize nothing. I’m going to sleep.”

No sleep for the wicked, Trowa thought, and began to send out emails.

****

Okay, that's a bad place to leave off... ::innocent smile:: Feedback? Cliffhangers like feedback... okay, that made no sense. I've been writing too long.

Part Seventeen
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