The pie had been trouble from the very start, he remembered as he watched his sister interact with her active, clever friends. Even the ingredients had been cursed; it had taken him days to find the right apples to suit his specifications, and the last straw had almost come when a massive storm had knocked out power all over the city the evening he’d chosen to do a trial run. The generator he had bought during the war had sputtered to life, giving enough juice to cook his experimental pie. His roommate had devoured half during that same evening, leaving the other half for his sister’s scrutiny. It had held up. She’d loved it.

Thus leading to this very moment when he watched the women speculating his second pie.

He could only shake his head in disbelief. It was a pie. It wasn’t Leonardo daVinci’s Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s David. It wasn’t the wheel, or the printing press, or the airplane. Hell, it wasn’t even that annoying little vacuum thing that moved around on the floor on its own (what was that stupid thing called again?). It was a bleeding pastry in a pan with some fruit in it. Hardly anything to get excited over.

“Are they gonna get a piece or what?” asked Duo Maxwell as he eyed the females beside his friend and roommate. “They’re over there staring at it like it’s gonna jump up and do the Lambada.”

Heero Yuy said nothing. He didn’t have an answer for the question, so why waste words in a non-answer? The other members of the intimate dinner party initiated by his little sister—his comrades, minus Quatre Winner, the master of the house—found themselves clustered around him. The room had suddenly become divided like they were at some adolescent school dance—girls on one side, boys on the other. Most of the noise in the room came from the female side, which was no surprise. They tended to make more noise than they did anyway, with their chattering and laughter.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Crystilline Yuy, better known as Crys, insisted as she received dubious looks from her friends. “My brother made that pie with his own two hands.”

Jessica Thomas, a tall young woman with curly auburn hair, guffawed at the statement. “Come on. Really, Crys? From what I heard about your brother, he probably wouldn’t know which side of the whisk is the right one.”

“Heero is capable of more than glaring at people and pissing them off,” Crys told her friends. “I’m telling you, he made the pie with his own two hands.”

Beside Crys, blonde and blue-eyed Jennifer Dunne shrugged. She looked hungrily at the pie—she hadn’t eaten much that day—and sighed as its aroma filled the room with a familiar warmth that reminded her of home. “How much do we know about him, Jess? We can’t jump to conclusions just because of second- or even third-hand information.”

“I’m just saying,” Jessica said. “I don’t believe he made it, and I won’t until I see him do it with my own two eyes.” She glanced down at her watch. “And what are we waiting for again?”

As if on cue, Quatre Winner walked into the dining room at that moment, his gentle presence drawing comfort and ease into the room. It continually became easy for the newcomers—Crys’s friends—to see how he was at the helm of the Winner Corporation at such a young age. Everyone turned to him instinctively, waiting for him to speak.

“That was Miss Danie on the telephone,” Quatre announced. “She is going to be a little bit late, so she assured me that we could start dinner without her.” He gestured to the beautifully made table as servants came in with dinner. “Make yourselves at home, everyone.”

After the meal was set on the table, the nine took their seats at the far end closest to the entrance. Quatre was rightfully at the head with Crys to his left and Heero to his right. The table was made to comfortably seat fifty; however, since there were only ten of them (counting the tardy Daniella Thomas), they only needed a small portion of the grand space. Beside Heero were Duo, then the silent Trowa Barton, and finally the sullen Wufei Chang. Sitting beside Crys were Gretchen Thomas, Jessica’s pigtailed little sister, then Jennifer, and finally Jessica herself.

As food was being passed around, Gretchen started off the dinner dialogue by looking at Heero and asking conversationally, “So, Heero—how did you learn how to cook?”

Duo barely resisted choking on his food and swallowed the roast beef quickly. Heero did not know Gretchen very well nor had he any conversation with her until this moment because he had deemed the Thomas sisters and their cousin Jennifer a bad influence on his twin sister. As the youngest in the room, Gretchen was a little less intimidated by Heero than everyone else, her youth giving her a sort of innocent oblivion.

Quatre admired her for the act. The other guys thought she was crazy.

“It was mostly trial and error,” Heero finally responded after a deep silence.

“Yeah, probably more error than trial,” Crys teased, earning a glare from her brother. She wasn’t afraid of him—really—but unlike Gretchen, she knew full well what and who he was. “I remember that time you made me hot chocolate with the baking chocolate. Or the time you accidentally put cinnamon in the chili.”

Duo made a face. “Please don’t remind me about that. I tasted that for weeks.”

“But after that, Heero became a very awesome cook,” Crys revealed to her friends. “He makes a mean manicotti that you would positively die after tasting.”

Jessica chuckled. “Okay, now you’re telling jokes. I’m going to choke with laughter imagining Heero Yuy in an apron brandishing a spatula and stuffing pasta.”

“Kiss the cook,” Jennifer supplied. “His apron’s definitely gotta say Kiss the cook.”

“Who the hell would kiss him?” Jessica asked her cousin. “Julia Child?”

“After tasting his manicotti, probably,” Crys replied, making the other girls laugh. Duo pursed his lips together to conceal his smile as Heero eyed him and speared a baby carrot with his fork. Trowa and Wufei said nothing at this point and kept eating.

“Do you cook, Miss Jessica?” Quatre inquired, wanting to get the subject off of Heero before someone got hurt.

 “Do I?” Jessica slanted him a smug look. “I tell you, Quatre, you haven’t lived till you’ve tasted my crab cakes. Simply divine. I’ll have to make them and bring them next time.”

Duo gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Jessica? You cook? You? I’m shocked. I thought you’d have someone to do it for you, some lowly Hobbit-looking dude from the Lord of the Rings.”

“Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I need to know how to cook,” Jessica told him. “But yes, Duo, I do know how to cook. I studied a little culinary arts in college as a diversion and found I liked it. There is something very methodical about cooking. You have to have a strategy, the proper utensils—”

“You’re a woman,” Wufei commented, interrupting her. “Of course you need to know how to cook.”

It was the girls’ turn to be afraid that one of their own was about to deliver violence upon one of the members of the other side. Jessica leveled a deep-aqua-eyed glare upon the younger Chinese man. Duo squirmed slightly in his seat. “So you think cooking is for women? I hope not, because that would make Heero a woman.”

Jennifer let out a snort and immediately covered her mouth. Gretchen nudged her while Crys glared at Wufei.

“You better not answer that,” Crys snapped. “You don’t want to see me lose my temper.”

“You have a weak woman temper, Yuy,” Wufei told her.

Crys rose to her feet and glared down at Wufei, Prussian blue eyes flashing. It became quite apparent once again that she and Heero were related. “You’re about to see me pissed off, Wufei, and I assure you there’s nothing weak or woman about my temper.”

“Don’t mess with my sister, Chang,” Heero warned from his end of the table before Wufei could respond. It was then that Wufei went quiet and concentrated on his meal. Quatre placed a hand on Crys’s forearm, a gentle, firm gesture that did not go unnoticed by everyone else at the table. Crys battled back her anger and sat back down in her chair.

Crys sucked in a breath and said, “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

Quatre nodded. “I agree, Crys.” He looked to Gretchen who was nibbling on a snap pea. “Crys tells me that you dance very well, Miss Gretchen.”

“Huh?” It took a second for the remark and the fact that he was talking to her to sink in. Being the youngest at the table also made her the most susceptible to Quatre’s kind-hearted manner, so she had a little bit of a crush on him—one she wouldn’t dare act upon. Especially after seeing Crys almost laying the smackdown on Wufei. “Oh!” She laughed nervously. “Yes, Jessica taught me to dance when we were all little.”

“All? You mean that there are more of you?” This came from Duo.

“Well,” Jessica began, “there’s me, then there’s Claudia-Michelle, the twins, and Gretchen over there. When you have that many sisters, you have to keep them occupied somehow. So I taught them how to dance ballet. It stuck with Gretchen while the other three went off and did their own thing.”

“So what is it that Danie does anyway?” Crys wanted to know. “She’s pretty secretive about what she does for a living.”

“She’s a first-level admin at Arashi Corp,” Jennifer explained. “She ends up coming home late and going off to strange places at the drop of a hat.” She frowned at a roll. “I don’t like it.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” Jessica reminded her cousin cryptically. She looked to Trowa. “Could you pass the potatoes, please?”

After that they talked of more entertaining subjects, ranging from the fluffiness of animated movies to the gravity of politics. As Jessica was having an energetic but good-natured debate with Quatre about total pacifism after the dinner dishes had been cleared away and they were seated in the den, A Maganac entered the room with a dark-haired young woman in black slacks and blouse following behind. Everyone paused, attention diverted as the tall Arabic man said, “Master Quatre, Miss Daniella has arrived.”

“Thank you very much, Aiseem,” Quatre told him with genuine gratitude as he rose to his feet. Aiseem disappeared, revealing the woman that had been standing behind him. Quatre walked up and greeted her. “Good evening, Miss Danie. I take it work ran a little late tonight?”

“There were some complications,” affirmed a tired but sociable Danie Thomas. “I apologize for my lateness, Quatre.”

“It is quite all right. Have a seat, please?”

“I will, thank you.” She walked around the room, leaving her freesia scent in her wake. Crys patted the empty space beside her and Danie lowered herself to it. “So what did I miss?” She chuckled then. “Well, other than dinner of course.”

“You’re just in time for dessert,” Crys announced. “We’re about to have warm apple pie and vanilla ice cream.”

“Ooh—sounds like I did come just in…” Danie paused then, taking in her relatives’ faces. They suddenly appeared uneasy about dessert, and, since Danie had missed dinner, she didn’t know why. “Um, what’s the matter with you guys?”

“They’re afraid of the pie,” Duo answered instead.

Danie let out a snorting giggle. “No, seriously, Duo. What’s going on? My sisters wouldn’t be afraid of a silly pie unless it was mincemeat—or Marilyn Manson made it.” Silence. Danie’s brows furrowed as she mused over this. “Wait. Marilyn Manson made us a pie?”

Jessica shook her head. She would’ve said something about having a blonde moment but Jennifer would have kicked her ass. “Dee—don’t think too hard right now. You’ll burst a blood vessel.”

“Whatever, Jessica.” Danie turned to Crys. “So who made this pie that’s got my sisters all worried? It wasn’t Wufei was it?”

Wufei opened his mouth, but Crys silenced him with a glare. “Heero made it, actually.”

Pause. Danie burst out into hysterical laughter.

This time Heero spoke. “Is it really so astonishing that I could bake a mere pie?”

Danie answered after her laughter trailed off. “Truthfully, it is, a little.” She looked at everyone else for commiseration. “I mean, don’t you all agree?” Jessica, Jennifer, and Gretchen chimed in with similar sentiments. Wufei shrugged.

“We are all capable of amazing things others wouldn’t believe,” Quatre said. “Heero just so happens to be good at cooking.” Quatre paused as Aiseem entered the room with the dessert cart. “Thank you for setting this up, Aiseem.” Aiseem nodded, disappearing again. Quatre rose and portioned the pie and ice cream out for his guests and Crys passed them along. After everyone had gotten a portion, he turned around and watched.

Crys and Duo, who had tasted the first apple pie, watched everyone else, but they watched them right back, waiting for someone to take the first bite.

“Well?” Quatre prompted. “Everyone, don’t hesitate to dig in. I’m sure it tastes fine.”

Nobody moved.

“If no one eats this, Heero will kill us all,” Duo reminded everyone, earning an indignation glare from Heero. The others, save him and Crys, scrambled for their plates and tried to force themselves to eat. And Heero himself wasn’t going to touch it until he got the others’ opinions.

“Eat some, Jessica!” Danie said in a loud whisper.

“I’ll eat some when you eat some!” Jessica shot back. “Unless you’re too chicken to do it.”

With a toss of her hair, Danie quickly shoved the forkful of the pie into her mouth as if she’d been double-dog dared to eat cow manure. She chewed for a few moments before her face changed. Her eyes filled with astonishment, and as she swallowed, she seemed to be processing this in her tired, overworked brain. Then an expression of incredulity graced her features.

Pause.

“Um, so, how is it, Danie?” Jennifer prodded.

“Are you okay?” Gretchen asked.

“Are you experiencing any kind of food poisoning symptoms?” Jessica inquired. Gretchen nudged her pointedly.

Danie did nothing for a long moment before she stood and strode to the dessert cart, fork in hand like as if she were arming herself for some sort of war. With her back to the others, she stuck her fork into the un-portioned pie and came away with a big chunk. The flavors of the baked apples, sugar, and spices melded on her tongue and sent a shiver of enjoyment. As she chewed, she emitted a low, passionate moan that was a bit…awkward to hear, to say in the least.

“Holy shit,” Duo breathed. “She’s having an orgasm like that chick from that movie.”

“Yuy—what the hell did you put in that damned pie?” Wufei demanded in a stage whisper.

“If she starts singing ‘Genie in a Bottle’ I’m calling Poison Control,” Jessica muttered.

Danie let out another moan as she took another bite. Gretchen and Jennifer both blushed red and looked away.

“Quatre—do something!” Crys hissed in a stage whisper.

Shaking himself out of bafflement, Quatre loudly cleared his throat. Danie whirled around, and everyone looked at her in wonder. Even Trowa and Wufei had their mouths open wide.

“What?” Danie gazed at their bemused faces, fork poised a few inches away from her unpainted mouth and a crumb resting on its left side. She looked down at her crumby shirtfront and quickly discarded the fork. “Oh. Oops,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry.” She cleared her throat and wiped her mouth. “Um…yeah…nice pie, Heero. You’ll have to make it again…sometime.”

Eight pairs of eyes slid in Heero’s direction, watching him for his reaction.

“Thank you,” he said simply. The pie had been worth some of the trouble, after all…

Feeling chastised, Jennifer, Gretchen, and Jessica started on their pie and didn’t doubt Heero’s cooking skills ever again. Thankfully, they didn’t reach… Well, never mind.

 

 

Fifteen minutes after the mysterious call to Heero ended, the five members of the Wild Wing Agency and their wily secretary gathered in the conference room for an impromptu emergency meeting—called by none other than the secretary herself.

Nicole spared no ounce of amusement for this gathering; she had control and she meant to keep it. She was dead serious about trying to figure out what was going on, not because she was nosy (as Duo would surmise) but she had become suspicious of such things since her acquaintance with the boys had begun. And they just indulged her on it—well, honestly, Quatre did and insisted that the rest of them should do the same. Besides, what harm would it do?

“I really do not feel like listening to her blather,” Wufei remarked as they waited for Nicole and Heero to appear. “It’s enough she has the privilege of knowing what we do and the people we work for, but to have her ordering us around—?”

“Usually I would agree with you, Wufei, but I understand where she’s coming from,” Duo admitted. The sugared donut and coffee had gone a long way to erase the previous night’s fatigue. “And you know Heero, he wouldn’t say anything about it even if you threatened him with the Teletubbies movie.”

Quatre winced, remembering his daughter’s Teletubbies phase. He hadn’t been able to stop singing the show’s theme song at strange, idle moments for weeks. Nicole had eventually gotten sick of it, short of throwing her pen cup at him, and had made him listen to the Isley Brothers’ Greatest Hits album to release him from the ill effects of Teletubbism. (She’d later joked that the twins had been conceived to “Between the Sheets,” a fact that Quatre never confirmed or denied. Only Duo had found this funny.)

Quatre held up a hand. “Duo—let’s not mention that show ever again. It still gives me nightmares.”

“I think what Duo means to say,” Trowa began after Quatre’s moment of discomfort was fading, “is that it might be the harbinger to a problem, and we are better off prepared for it than oblivious.”

“But couldn’t we handle this without the woman and her obnoxious mouth?” Wufei inquired his comrades.

“I’d like to see you call me that to my face—Wufei.”

Everyone shifted to find Nicole standing in the doorway, her five-foot-three-inch frame draped in a stance of talking-badness. She raised an eyebrow when Wufei didn’t say anything. Eyes smoldering, she rounded the table as Heero walked in behind her with a digital recorder looking more troubled than usual. Duo snuck a surreptitious glance at Wufei, wondering how long he had to live before Nicole lost her temper.

The two shot daggers at each other with glares before Nicole spoke again. “You know, Wufei, I would roast your chicken-fried-rice-eating ass such a comment, but since we don’t have the time, I’m gonna get right to the point.” She turned to Heero. “Play that funky music, white boy.”

When Heero just blinked at her, Duo leaned in and whispered, “I think she means play the conversation, Heero.”

“I know that, Duo. I’m just trying to figure out why the hell she would say something so foolish.”

“Shut up, Wufei,” Quatre and Trowa said in unison when Nicole’s face went stormy. Wufei grunted and said nothing. Heero pushed the play button on the digital recorder and played the short exchange for them. When it was over, Duo, Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre sported identical looks of confusion. Nicole and Heero were grim.

“Heero was unable to complete the trace since the call was so short,” Nicole began, “but I was able to pick up and place some of the background sounds when Heero played it for me a couple of times.

“Now, before I reveal my theory on where the call was made, I think we need to speculate on who and why.” Nicole held up a hand when Quatre began to speak. “The caller wanted Heero specifically and made references to ‘truth,’ ‘vengeance,’ and something ‘suppressed.’”

“Can’t forget the ‘thing you—Heero—loves most,’” Duo supplied.

Worry came into Quatre’s eyes. “Oh no…you don’t think this person could be talking about Crys, do you?” It was no surprise that he thought of his wife first, for Heero probably would have found immense fault with him if he hadn’t.

Tapping his chin, Duo considered this. “It’s a possibility. Unless there’s someone else that Heero loves more.”

“We can’t completely rule out the fact that it could be his wife this mysterious person is referring to,” Trowa pointed out. “Though Heero might argue that he doesn’t love Danie more than does his twin sister, this person may not be taking Crys into account.”

“So we have two candidates,” Nicole commented. “But why?”

The room went quiet, and everyone flicked glances in Heero’s direction.

“Nicole, I think you’d better skip that portion,” Duo suggested, feeling Heero’s growing fury. “We can talk about that when we know more. So what about the location?”

“Spanish Gracia,” Nicole responded.

Wufei’s eyebrows arched at her confident answer. “And you’re certain of this.”

“Unlike you, I’ve lived here most of my life,” Nicole explained. She slid a file in Heero and Duo’s direction. “There’s the approximate area of that particular pay phone and the businesses in it. Since I know Quatre’s got a meeting in fifteen minutes and Trowa and Wufei have active jobs at the moment, I figured you two had time to spare.”

“You assumed correctly,” Heero told her, rising and taking the file. Duo, sensing his friend’s intensity, pushed his chair back and rose as well. It seemed there was going to be nothing else to reveal from Heero Yuy now that he was on a mission of sorts.

“Hey! Heero?” Heero paused at the door but didn’t turn around. If he had, he would have seen the uncharacteristic worry in Nicole’s deep brown eyes. “Don’t do nothing stupid.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Heero admitted, making Nicole curse under her breath. With that, he and Duo strode out.

Duo ended up driving south because he won the coin toss on the elevator ride down. Heero had wanted to see the coin he had used, but Duo had been too fast for him for once and had pocketed the suspect coin. With a mission in mind, Duo and Heero climbed into Duo’s modified Eclipse and zoomed out into the flowing traffic.

“I still think you had a two-sided coin,” Heero muttered, arms crossed over his chest.

“I guess you’ll never know for sure, will you?” There was a wicked gleam in Duo’s eyes, and he knew that Heero wouldn’t dare harm him as long as he was in the driver’s seat. “Tell me where we’re going exactly. Nicole said it was in the SG district, but you’ve got the file.” Wordlessly, Heero leaned to enter the address into Duo’s navigational system. When the female voice—a sister to the one in the elevator at work—read out the directions to Duo, he calmly obeyed them. If Heero had been more observant of his friend, he would have noticed that Duo was not his usual talkative self. However, he had more pressing matters on his mind.

They drove out of the city and into the more colorful, ethnic part of town. Where Downtown Gracia was refined and professional in its businesslike nature, Spanish Gracia was diverse and domestic. It was a place you could come to unwind, listen to good music, enjoy good food, and interact with people who weren’t worried about double Windsors and the Wall Street Journal.

Duo and Heero parked in front of a panadería that boasted cinnamon rolls the size of a linebacker’s meaty fist in bright, vibrant Spanish. The scent of baking bread wafted toward them, but they steeled themselves against temptation. Of course it was decidedly harder for Duo; for Heero the effort required would have been the same for flicking off a pesky fly. They took a glance around, searching for the pay phone that Nicole had said would be nearby.

“There it is,” Duo said, nudging Heero as he pointed across the street. A dusty, dilapidated pay phone stood wearily in front of a peluquería, currently in use by a dark-haired young woman who was having a passionate conversation with a stubborn lover. Silently, Heero crossed the street and Duo followed. Duo could tell that Heero was anxious about learning who the mysterious caller was, and this poor girl whose life was probably as complicated as an episode of I Love Lucy was going to get caught in the crosshairs of Heero Yuy’s wrath.

 “Be nice, Heero,” Duo hissed as the woman let out a stream of curses in Spanish. He gestured toward the hair salon. “Maybe we can go inside and see if anyone saw anything. It may not get us anywhere, but it’s worth a shot.”

 Not able to refute that logic, Heero followed Duo into the hair salon. Heero and Duo had braced themselves for the sudden influx of women, for they would be legion in a hair salon, but they had not been ready for the giggling, speculative looks, and whispered comments. They were fascinating specimens of a male sort, a species that was rare in these parts where soap operas, magazines, nail polish, and talk about Victoria Secret reigned supreme. Heero was quite out of his milieu here, but Duo took the opportunity and played it to his advantage.

 

“Hola, damas bellas,” Duo greeted them smoothly. “¿Es posible que puedan a ayudarnos? Tenemos un problema pequeño.”

 

The suave salutation seemed to stop them short for a brief moment. The humming pause was broken by the one standing at the other end of the room behind a chair threw her head back and laughed loudly. As the other tittered with laughter, they surmised that she was owner of this establishment and held all of the power in the room. If they were to find out anything useful, it would be from her.

 

 “Looks like we have a couple of live ones here, chicas,” remarked the woman. She stared at Duo and Heero, hand fisted on her hip. “¿Cómo podemos ayudarle?” She pointed at Duo with a comb. “You need a haircut, cariño. Ven y siéntate en mi silla.”

 

Duo strode farther into the depths of the Temple of Woman, fully intending on interrogating them until they gave him something of substance—disarming them with charm first, obviously. Heero watched but came closer, wondering how this was going to turn out. At that moment, the client that had been sitting in the chair rose to her feet and let Duo have it. Heero caught a glimpse of her profile as she gathered her purse and a tight ball formed in his stomach.

 

That face was eerily familiar.

 

Danie…

 

“My hair is just fine, I think,” Duo told the woman. “But I still need your help.”

 

“Hah! You need my help with hair like that.” The hairdresser examined Duo’s long brown mane, then smirked at the previous occupant of the chair. “You know, cara, it would do my heart good to see you with a muchacho like this one. You need some more amor in your life, no?”

 

The woman looked up at her hairdresser’s frank statement about her lack of a sex life, eyes filled with puzzlement. When her green-eyed gaze rested upon Heero, and Duo standing beside him, something inside of him unclenched—for a moment. It wasn’t Danie, but it was just as untimely. Moira-Selene Thomas was Danie’s fraternal twin sister, older than her by a mere two minutes. From what she lacked in height (Danie was six feet even; Moira-Selene was a shorter five-eight), she made up in prudence and insight. She was just as clever as Heero himself but lacked the hard edge that war had left on him, instead exuding a placidity that balanced her twin’s fiery spirit.

 

“Heero,” said Moira-Selene with a small frown. “What brings you to this side of town?”

 

Before Heero could speak, Duo chimed in charmingly. Heero understood that he was trying to diffuse the situation, but it was still a bit exasperating to watch him flirt with his wife’s twin. “We were in the neighborhood for business and were thinking about lunch. Know of any good places?”

 

Moira-Selene raised an eyebrow. She didn’t have but an ounce of Danie’s bluntness, so she answered in a polite tone, “Since I do not know you well, Mr. Maxwell, I am not quite sure what would satisfy your palette. I am inadequate to recommend any restaurants.”

 

Behind her, the hairdresser chuckled. “Mo, cara, you’ve gotta stop talking like you’re having a showdown with Casanova or something.” She turned to Duo and Heero as she tugged on Moira-Selene’s hair and had her squirming like an embarrassed teen. “I recommend mi primo’s diner across the street. And take mi corazón with you, por favor. She needs to put more meat on her bones and stop bothering me about mi colesterol.”

 

“Pero, Olivia—” Moira-Selene began in consternation.

 

“Háblame no más,” the woman named Olivia said. “Go eat, and have a good time. I can cut your hair later.”

 

Moira-Selene spluttered about her hair as Olivia pushed her out of the building. Duo and Heero followed, and they noticed that the pay phone was conveniently unused at the moment. The pair exchanged a look behind Moira-Selene’s back before she whirled around to face them.

 

“All right,” Moira-Selene started, “something is going on here, isn’t it?”

 

Duo grinned at her impishly. “Moira dear, there’s always something going on. It’s up to you to find out what it is.” He crossed his arms over his chest, fully intending to turn the tables upon her. “And why were you here, might I ask? Since we’re being so candid with one another.”

 

As Moira-Selene crossed her arms over her own chest, Heero inched out of her line of sight. He was thankful for Duo’s baiting of Moira-Selene but didn’t ponder on it very long. He went to the pay phone and scrutinized it carefully for any clues of the unknown caller’s identity. Unfortunately, he couldn’t lift any fingerprints; there were probably hundreds of thousands there by now.

 

“I was here checking on Olivia,” Moira-Selene explained coolly. “She is a patient and an old family friend. Her son and I had a relationship for a long while—”

 

“Oh!” Duo exclaimed. “So you do like men. There’s hope for me yet.”

 

Moira-Selene’s emerald gaze went frigid. “And the last layer of Dante’s hell is a water park.”

 

As Moira-Selene and Duo parried, Heero found one lone hair that had fallen on the dusty ground. He carefully picked it up and encased it inside of a piece of paper. It was a dark hair strand that was a little on the fine side, and its density and length suggested a woman...or a man with long hair with blessed texture. 

 

He felt Moira-Selene’s eyes on his back and slowly turned, deftly stuffing the folded paper in his pocket before Moira-Selene could see it. He stared at her a moment, scrutinizing her raven mane. It was cropped to shoulder length and therefore too short to have yielded the hair that he had just found. So that counted her out of his list of suspects.

 

Duo glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, it’s definitely time for lunch.” He patted Moira-Selene on the shoulder. “Let’s get you fed, huh?”

 

Moira-Selene looked at him incredulously. “Mr. Maxwell, I do not wish to accompany you to lunch. I have pressing matters to which I have to attend.”

 

Heero looked unwilling as well; however, he had different reasons, and he had a feeling Duo would try to explain away his misgivings. He wanted to proceed with the investigation as quickly as possible, and even though she was considered family, Heero didn’t feel the need to spend time with her. Duo, on the other hand, did. Heero figured he had a small crush on her due in part to the fact that she was so mean toward him.

"Nonsense," Duo said. "Come on. Heero wouldn't mind."

"I would mind, actually," Heero shot back. "We have work to do."

Moira-Selene tilted her head. "And what sort of business landed you in Spanish Gracia? I didn't think your expertise was needed in a place like this."

Duo flicked a glance in Heero's direction before he spoke. Heero could scalp me for this, he thought. He stared into Moira-Selene's inquisitive eyes and made a decision. Oh what the hell... "Well, actually, it's a bit of personal business." Duo mustered up some exasperation to make his next statement believable. "Someone has been calling and hanging up from this pay phone, and we'd decided we'd check it out. We just did a server restore on Cabrera so it wasn't much of a drive down here."

"Oh," Moira-Selene murmured, nodding. Heero gave Duo a look that bordered on approval. "So how did you end up at Liv's?"

He nodded toward the hair salon. "I thought maybe one of you ladies had seen someone. We got a call today about forty-five minutes ago."

"Did you see anyone on the phone around that time?" Heero inquired, breaking his silence. He figured that Moira-Selene wouldn't mind answering a question if he imposed it instead of Duo.

"Hmm..." Moira-Selene paused thoughtfully. "I had just gotten here around that time.There wasn't..." Then her eyes alighted with rememberance. "Wait a minute. I do remember someone on the phone right then. I wasn't paying very good attention to the person, but I assumed it was a male. The person was tall, with very dark hair, probably as dark as mine. I can't remember what he was wearing...except for a ring on his right hand. It was adorned with onyx and opal stones. I remembered it because I thought it was a little odd."

"Onyx and opal," Duo echoed. "Interesting..."

Filing all of this away for future use, Heero nodded. "Thank you for your help, Moira-Selene." He stepped away and intended for that to be the end of it when he heard Duo say, "So I suppose we owe you. Lunch is on me." When Moira-Selene began to protest, Duo persisted. "I insist. It's the least we can do. Besides, if I know Heero, he's gonna miss lunch, and he gets crabby when he misses a meal."

"Duo," Heero snapped.

"I do not believe--" Moira-Selene attempted, sensing Heero's annoyance and wanting to be far out of its path.

"Don't be scared. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

 

 * * 

 Danie waited until she was on the private plane and the plane was in the air before she plugged the flash drive into her laptop.

Save for the pilot, Danie was all alone. She would not have any assistance on this venture except for the flash drive that Arashi had bestowed upon her. Grimly she clicked on the removable drive icon that appeared in her “Computer” folder.

On the flash drive were a series of five documents named only by numbers. Danie selected the first document and was greeted by the sight of a young dark-haired, blue-eyed man along with his dossier. His name was Dr. Cameron Prescott, and he was only slightly older than she was. He had lived in Manhattan during the year of the Incident and had remained there ever since. His father Steven Prescott had been a wealthy doctor who had met an untimely end just three months shy of Danie’s seventeenth birthday. His only son had distanced himself from the wealth that had brought his father’s downfall and currently was at the head of a team of doctors at an inner city clinic. Danie found that interesting—at least enough to want to talk to him.

Would the sins of the father spread to the son? Danie asked herself. I suppose we will see, shall we?

Danie mused, checking out the other documents and formulating a plan. She knew she couldn't take all of the players out at the same time—that would require more resources than she had—but the job had to be done expediently before they could catch on. For a moment, she considered asking for help. But who would she ask? Who could she ask?

Her cell phone buzzed right at that moment like a herald from Mercury. You have 1 new text message, her phone informed her along with the garish loop of an envelope opening and closing. She opened the message and could only shake her head in mild amusement.

Having lunch with Heero & his friend, it read. Ran into them at Liv’s. Do you think he’d mind it terribly if I stuffed a tortilla down Duo Maxwell’s throat?

Moira-Selene, Danie thought. Her sister hadn’t liked Duo Maxwell from the moment they’d laid eyes on each other at Quatre and Crys’s wedding, and she simultaneously could and couldn’t understand why. Duo Maxwell--on the surface anyhow--was an upbeat, laid-back young man whose transient lifestyle was beyond homebody Moira-Selene's comprehension. Yet, Duo had a more serious side and his intelligence quotient was higher than his outward demeanor made it out to be. Moira-Selene hadn't taken the time to figure that out. It was Danie's opinion that she should.

Like you should take out the time to talk to Heero? her conscience bleated. It sounded eerily like her big sister Jessica, which didn't make it any better. She ignored the inner voice and replied back to her sister's text.

Be nice, Mo. She paused as the obvious question popped in her head. And how the hell did YOU find them at Liv's? Can't see Heero getting his hair done in Spanish Gracia. Liv'd put blonde streaks on him & and he'd kill her. Duo on the other hand...

Moira-Selene answered, They claimed to be in the area because of a strange phone call. Muy interesante, indeed. And Duo would have gotten his hair done by Liv if I hadn't seen Heero.

She sent the message as another was coming in. This one was from Heero. A little shocked, Danie blinked in surprise and read it.

Hello, Danie. Are you in New York yet? it asked.

A little smile quirked the sides of Danie's mouth. Despite the wall that had formed between them, he had still taken out the time to be worried about her, to send a text message. With the tingle of warmness came a gush of guilt. She clamped down on it and replied, Hello, Heero. No, I'm still in the air. I hope things are well where you are. And if Mo starts speaking in short, tight sentences, duck for dear life.

How did you know I was with your sister? came the response.

She asked me if you would mind if she maimed Duo. I told her to be nice. I'll call you when I get out of the meeting, darling. Love you.

Love you, too, Heero texted back. Be careful.

Be careful. Danie put her phone away and rested her hands, fingers spread apart, on the little table in front of her. She fought the wave of nausea and unease. Firming herself, she tried to remember that this was not the time for weakness. She had been waiting ten years for redemption, and she was damned well going to get it. 

Daniella Thomas was an angry assassin, and before the speedy private jet landed in New York State, she had her own Death List Five. Uma Thurman she was not, but it was a place at where she could start. 

 

“It is my honest opinion that this will do nothing but help the relationship between you two,” Isabelle remarked after Heero finished his narrative. “Don’t think of therapy as a sign that things have failed—think of it more as scheduled maintenance. Every now and again, we need to reveal our feelings in a structured environment.” She eyed the both before speaking again. “Do you keep any secrets from one another?”

Heero didn’t blink. Isabelle figured he could probably lie about the sky being blue without batting an eyelash. Danie just mustered up a slightly abashed look as if Isabelle’s question was preposterous.

“Secrets? No, we don’t have any secrets from each other.”

Heero slid another look in Danie’s direction, and she seemed to feel it. “I beg to differ.”

“Well, we all have secrets we keep from one another,” Danie amended. “Doesn’t everyone? But I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“Hmm,” Isabelle murmured. Really? she thought incredulously. With that remark, she made another “Bullshit” note. She glanced at the clock on the wall behind Danie and Heero and closed her leather binder. It was time to bring their session to a close. “I suppose that’s something to begin next week’s session with.”
Both Heero and Danie would not readily admit it, but their lives had become vastly different from five—or six—years ago when they had gotten caught up in the moment of meeting one another. Now, even as they both dressed for work, there were no affectionate pats or amorous glances at the other in various states of dress, just stiff conversation as a thin sheen over lack of affection.

Danie stood at one basin in front of the large mirror in the luxurious bathroom, her robe loosely belted in the front. At the other sink, Heero, on the other hand, was very nearly dressed in dark slacks and a white tank that showed off his highly toned arms. Heero flossed his teeth neatly as Danie gargled noisily.

A little bothered, Heero slid his deep blue eyes in her direction long enough for her to meet his gaze in the mirror. The sloppy gurgling stopped. Danie shrugged and spit it into the sink.

“Kristana’s birthday party is tonight,” Heero said as Danie screwed the cap more tightly on the mouthwash. “Crys said that she would love it if we were both there.” Danie set down the mouthwash with a soft bang, and the cap rattled a bit. Heero frowned as Danie turned away and slipped out of her robe, revealing the black lace underneath. Heero glared at her back, screwing the cap tighter on the bottle and swooping up her robe in two swift movements.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Danie called from the closet. “I have to be in New York at noon and hopefully that won’t take too long. We’ve got a meeting with some possible shareholders that just makes my eyes cross to think about.”

“Crys won’t forgive you if you miss this.”

Danie stuck her head out of the closet for a moment with her right eyebrow cocked. “Yeah, I know.” She disappeared back into the closet. “If I don’t know your sister by now, Heero, then I must be dumber than I look.”

Heero dropped Danie’s silken robe on its designated hook and stepped into the closet himself. Danie was now clad in a gray plaid pencil skirt and a black bra, and she was internally debating over blazers to wear. There had been a time where he would have come up behind her and kissed her on the neck, but now he just went to his portion of the closet for a dress shirt, his back to her.

“Did you get the present?”

Danie paused over a royal purple blazer, frowning. “I thought it was your turn to get the present.”

Heero quickly shifted back over his memories of the past year…and figured out that Danie was right. It was his turn to buy Kristana’s present. Letting out a breath through his nostrils, Heero picked out a pewter shirt to wear for the day. He didn’t even glance at the label; the designer was meaningless to him. Danie, on the other hand, seemed to covet labels and the prestige that came with wearing them. He supposed that she was entitled being the executive assistant to one of the richest men in the world to her expensive style.

“I’ll get it,” Heero promised, thinking of the right person to ask. “Don’t worry.”

Danie finally selected a red blazer with black buttons to wear for the day. She slipped it on and bent over to select Ferragamo pumps in the same hue. She slipped into them and strode out while buttoning her blazer. She fixed her hair with the jeweled clip that Heero had given her for their second anniversary. Heero noticed the choice but thought nothing else of it. It could have just was well been a paper clip for all of the sentiment that Heero felt at the moment.

“Good. I should be done with that stupid meeting in time.” She turned to him, and the Daniella Thomas who could wheedle the Devil out of his very soul—if he had one—revealed herself. “Meet you here at seven and we’ll drive there together?”

“On the dot,” Heero said as he decided not to wear a tie today.

“Splendid.” She walked over and gave Heero a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “See ya.”

“Bye, Danie.” Heero couldn’t help watching her as she strode away in her graceful model’s lope. A warmness settled deep inside of him, but it was so sequestered that it was promptly extinguished like a small flame in a cold, windy room.

A few minutes later, he turned out all of the lights and left the house.
Heero arrived at the thirty-three story high-rise that housed the home offices of the Winner Corporation a mere fifteen minutes after leaving his house with Danie on the outskirts of town. He passed by the front desk on the first floor without stopping or greeting anyone; by now the sight of Heero Yuy strolling into work was a rather mundane sight, and he liked to keep it that way.

He boarded the elevator going upward along with four others. He didn’t press a button for there was no number for the floor he was stopping upon. As far as the others knew, he was just getting off on some unknown floor. But they were too afraid of losing their jobs to ask. There had been those in the past who had inquired about the secret 33rd floor, and word had gotten back to Mr. Winner himself. It always did. There were rumors about what had happened to the unlucky gentleman, but so far there had been no evidence to support the claims.

So, in that, what Heero Yuy did for a living was truthfully known by six other people. If there were more, Heero didn’t know about them. But it was his honest opinion that no one else knew—because the other six would be summarily dispatched, and they liked their lives too much.

When he was alone in the elevator, Heero waited until the doors came together, then pulled out a special key that opened up a concealed panel. The buttons for the regular floors disappeared, sliding away to reveal a palm print scanner.

“Please verify your voice print for identification,” said the melodious automated female voice.

Heero placed his right hand on the scanner and spoke his name clearly and succinctly. After a moment, the voice told him, “Voice print verified. Good morning, Heero. Stand by for retinal and body scan.”

Heero did so without complaint or any discomfort. He understood that this was merely part of securing the rest of the world from knowing the things he did. It kept them safe. The innocent people needed to be safe, and the corrupt people didn’t need any access to their secret little world. It was enough that they existed in the first place. He, Duo, and their friends Quatre Winner, Trowa Barton, and Wufei Chang made up the Wild Wing Agency (the name was Nicole’s idea, put into effect a month after she was hired), and their sole existence relied on those who still terrorized the world with malicious acts. Heero had sworn he would never kill again, and so far, he hadn’t—that is, until the last job they had taken on.

Heero was cleared within two minutes. The controls whirled as it brought him to the top floor, and when the elevator stopped, Heero found himself in a long white hallway where he endured another scan to ensure that he wasn’t carrying any unauthorized weapons and positively identify him was one of the boys, as Nicole would tease.

As the secretary in this clandestine venture, twenty-three-year-old Nicole Smith was the sixth person entrusted with the knowledge of their agency and for that she had her employers’ immense respect. Heero would never admit this, however. She was way too annoying, and he was sure it would swell her head. He didn’t want to be responsible for that.

As usual, Nicole was fashionably dressed and impeccably coiffed, her long, dark hair (no weave, she’d tell you if you were bold enough to ask) pulled back from her face to reveal diamonds and oval-shaped tanzanites twinkling at her ears (a birthday gift from Quatre Winner, who was obviously too nice for his own good). She was in the middle of a call when Heero strode up, her expression indicating that she was dealing with yet another irritating customer.

“Yes, Mrs. Casey, I’ll give you a call… No, I’m sorry, you cannot talk to Mr. Maxwell. He is unavailable.” Nicole went silent at that moment, but her face changed into an expression Heero could only shake his head at. It was her Excuse me? look. When she spoke again, she went from mild-mannered, steely polite receptionist to street-talking, head-twisting black chick. “Look, do you want me to come up to your house and bust a cap off in your ass lift? I’ve got your address so don’t play with me. I said you can’t talk to him. That means you can’t.” Pause. “Okay, then say goodbye then. Damn.” With a roll of her brown eyes and an abundance of attitude, she jabbed a button with a French-manicured finger and ended the call. Shaking her head in dismay, she expelled a breath and noticed Heero coming near.

She greeted him grudgingly, but Heero didn’t take it personally. “Morning, Heero.”

“Good morning, Nicole. Any calls?”

Nicole gestured toward his box as she pulled out a couple of requests she had to screen. “You got a couple of calls about the Mallone job. Just a check-back I guess, but I honestly wouldn’t even bother calling back.” She eyed him meaningfully for a moment. “But I know you will anyway, even if it isn’t important.”

Heero retrieved the papers in his box and didn’t say anything to that. The Mallone job had taken up too much of his time and energy, and even Nicole had noticed the toll it had taken on him. The investigation into the apparent rape of a teenage girl had brought back some horrid memories of the rape of someone close to him. Nicole with her nosy self just plain stayed away from Heero for a week after the investigation was done and the then-unconvicted perpetrator was dispatched. She didn’t want for Quatre to have to explain to her mama about how there had been an “accident” because of Heero Yuy’s itchy trigger finger.

“Nicole? I need a favor from you.”

Nicole looked up from her writing and stared at him knowingly. “You want me to buy Kristana’s birthday present, don’t you?”

Heero blinked at her, surprised she would remember. “How did you…?”

Nicole snorted out a laugh. It took a lot to surprise him. “Heero, I’m not slow. Quatre’s been talking about the birthday party for like the past six months. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb or something to miss it. And I know for a fact that Danie bought the present last year. Remember?”

Truthfully last year’s birthday party was a pink-bombed, sugar-coated, twinkle-lighted blur. He could barely remember what happened last year except for the towering cake fashioned in the shape of a castle and Crys nearly impaling Duo to keep him away from it. But some form of that happened every year so that was easy to forget.

As if on cue, Duo Maxwell sauntered out of his office with a sugared donut in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. Heero could sense Nicole’s irritation without even looking at her. It was like radiation from the sun—which also meant he could only be in its path for a short time before it began to affect him.

“You better not get sugar on my desktop,” Nicole snapped. “I just cleaned up from the time you decided you were gonna have éclairs for breakfast and lunch. Now your stupid ass wanna come up in here with some more shit? I ain’t got Alice written on my forehead, so if you end up throwing that shit up you better get a mop.”

“And good morning to you, too, Nicole,” Duo said, not sounding in the least bit hurt.

“I’m just telling you. Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing.”

“I didn’t come out here to listen to you complain, Nicole,” Duo explained, his tone as jovial as ever. He turned to his friend and greeted him. “Morning, Heero. How are things in Yuy Land?”

“However you think, Duo,” Heero responded vaguely.

Duo took a messy bite of donut and nearly gave Nicole a coronary. “You know, if I had your wife, Heero, I’d be walking around looking much happier than you do now. You look like someone just wiped your hard drive and torched your backup disks.”

Nicole fisted her hand on her hip and cocked her right eyebrow at Duo. “Duo,” she began in what they called her Mama tone where one word became a warning.

“What? Damn—I can’t talk to my best friend?”

“Not when it looks like he’s gonna stuff that donut down your throat. Oh,” Nicole added, jabbing a ballpoint in Duo’s direction, “and another thing. If Mrs. Casey calls up here again asking for you again, I’m gonna hang you on that coat hook over there by your boxer shorts. Read me?” The phone rang at that moment, diverting Nicole’s attention. Duo walked away, muttering under his breath, and disappeared into the bathroom. Heero, on the other hand, decided it was time to lock himself away in the confines of his office away from questions and prying eyes.

“I know something’s wrong. You can’t hide it from me.”

Heero looked up warily at the sight of Duo leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. “Duo, you should stay out of it.”

“See—here’s the thing: I can’t.” Duo stood upright and walked up to Heero’s desk. “You and I have been friends for far too long for me to ignore the fact that you’re unhappy. I know you’re not the type to walk around singing ‘Zippity-Do-Da’ when things are especially awesome, but you seem like you’re dreading something, and I think Danie is that something.” After a thoughtful pause, Duo asked, “She’s not cheating on you is she?”

“No, she is not,” Heero responded tightly. Though, he couldn’t be too sure. She had been away from home as much as he had been these days, and something about the nature of her work—whatever it was that Takeshi Arashi subjected her to—had caused her to become withdrawn and overly secretive. From his vantage point, something—or someone—was hurting her and she wasn’t sharing it with him.

“She’d better not be cheating on you, though,” Duo was saying, “because Crys would tear her into a million Danie pieces, and then Quatre would have put back together so he could make her suffer for putting more stress on Crys.”

“My sister doesn’t need to worry about my marriage, and neither do you,” Heero told him. “Danie and I are working through our problems.”

“Ah ha!” Duo said triumphantly and pointed at him, making Heero wince at his words. “So you admit it—you are having problems! It’s a shame, too, because she seemed so happy to marry you—and you were finally getting laid regular.”

Heero’s eyes darkened. “Duo—” At that moment, Heero’s phone beeped, signaling a page from one of the other phones in the office. The light for location 06 lit up. Nicole’s desk. “Yes, Nicole?”

When she spoke she sounded slightly befuddled. “Um, Heero? There’s someone on line one who is very insistent on speaking to you. The person wouldn’t tell me why or who they were.”

Thoughts of Danie and Duo’s prodding forgotten, Heero put his hand on the receiver. “I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Nicole.” Pushing the button to take line one, Heero said abruptly, “This is Heero Yuy.”

“Mr. Yuy, I have a message for you.”

Heero shared a look with Duo. Duo mouthed for him to put the call on speakerphone, but Heero gave a quick shake of his head and pushed another button to record and trace the call. “A message? About what?”

“The truth will set you free,” said the mysterious voice which sounded neither male nor female. It was Heero’s guess that it was being digitally altered.

“What truth? Who will it set free?” Heero pressed, mind racing to place the voice or the circumstance of which he or she spoke.

“Vengeance will open the door to the suppressed, and conjecture will breed misapprehension, but the truth will set you free. Mark my words, Heero Yuy. Or you will lose the thing that you love most.”

With that, the call ended, leaving Heero in pensive shock. He woodenly placed the receiver in his cradle then placed his hands flat on the desktop. He stared off into space, trying to decipher the message’s meaning. Vengeance? What is suppressed? And what is “the thing I love most”?

“What was that all about?” Duo inquired.

Heero looked at the silent phone, still brooding. It suddenly felt like a ghost came up and brushed him on the ear, but whose ghost? “I don’t know. But soon I will.”
Some miles away, the aforementioned Mrs. Heero Yuy opened the file folder detailing her next assignment and found it empty.

Confused, she lifted her head and stared at the broad-shouldered, long-haired Japanese man looking at the Gracia skyline out from behind the treated window. He was not dressed for the corporate world, blatantly clad in a black Henley and gray slacks. It was one of his many quirks, one of the many things that made him the only person she could trust in this mystifying menagerie of events that her led her to this point. And that was the only reason why she didn’t bean him in the back of his head with the file.

“I assume there’s some explanation as to why this stupid thing is empty,” Danie remarked, her voice echoing through the empty conference room they occupied.

Kaneshi Tsukimori turned from the window and walked toward her. His handsome face was drawn into a mask of anxiety, and when he took a seat across from Danie, she could feel the waves of tension emanating off of him. Needless to say, such visible emotional turmoil coming from the normally cool Kane Tsukimori was quite disconcerting.

“It was Arashi-sama’s idea for me to give you the empty file,” Kane explained. “He felt like it would be symbolic.”

Danie found herself looking down at the file again as her brain tried to work out the logic behind Takeshi Arashi’s little gesture. She had known the man for nearly half her life, and she credited him for shaping her into the woman she was today. When she had found herself wallowing in despondence over ten years ago, he had given her the opportunity to seek revenge and to build the person she wanted to be—but the chance did not come without a cumbersome price; Danie had to work for him and do his bidding. Danie had to become an assassin.

She had killed dozens of people over the years. In their defense, in the defense of Arashi’s secret stash of handsomely paid cold-blooded killers, they had never delivered death upon anyone who didn’t deserve to die…except once. Danie thought about that particular instance, and even now, ten years later, she didn’t understand any of it—the why, the who, or the how. The ‘how’ troubled her most, but she wasn’t about to admit that.

Especially now that it seemed that her time had come.

“He sure gets a hell of a kick out of pulling our legs,” Danie remarked, examining the empty folder again before meeting his gaze. “So why didn’t he give me this himself? It would have made more sense to me.”

“You know Arashi-sama rarely does anything that makes sense to you and me. But he entrusted this task to me for certain reasons.” That I can’t tell you at the moment, Kane finished to himself. He knew if Danie knew what he knew, she would probably kill him.

A frission of suspicion went up Danie’s spine and had her leaning away from him. “Kane…what are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is…” He trailed off and picked up the folder. Much to Danie’s surprise, he flung it across the room. There was fervor in his eyes that alarmed Danie. “Fuck all of this ceremony and symbolic shit. You know everything and everyone you need to know, you can do everything you need to know how to do. I want you to go out and achieve your vengeance against the bastards that took what was yours, Danie.”

“I’m really ready?” Danie asked him. “Do you really think I’m ready? I mean, I thought after the incident in Tripoli—”

“You were a little overzealous in Tripoli but you got the job done,” Kane broke in.

Danie sheepishly ticked off another one. “And then there was accidental explosion in Moscow—”

“It destroyed a Russian databank presumed to have Miyori’s picture from a security camera,” Kane reminded her, referring to Takeshi’s only son. “We didn’t need that getting out.”

“But what about the flood I caused in that nightclub in Miami—?”

“Don’t push it, Danie,” Kane interrupted, running out of excuses.

Danie exhaled. “Sorry. I just…” She shook her head wordlessly. She couldn’t quite describe what she felt at that instant; she was grimly satisfied that she was going to do something she had been waiting to do for ten years, but she also felt a nagging fear that she couldn’t explain away. Her sixth sense told her that as soon as she ventured into the mire, all hell was going to break loose—and then some.

“If you don’t do this now, then when would you?” He frowned and considered her for a few beats before asking, “You’re not worried about Heero, are you?”

Her qualms mounted tenfold at the thought of her husband. He knew nothing of what she did, of her perilous occupation and the blood that stained her hands. She knew of his past—what he chose to tell her, that is—and she feared he would disapprove. He had fought in war, had killed as well—but like this, with a layer of gloss and indulgence?

Danie swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke softly. “I haven’t told him fully about what happened ten years ago, Kane. I know at some point he’s going to find out everything, including what I really do for Takeshi Arashi.”

“You’re afraid he’d leave you because of it.”

Danie was not staggered that he figured that one out. She was transparent when it came to Heero—except to Heero himself. “Well, wouldn’t you?”

“What I’d do if I were in Yuy’s shoes isn’t the point,” Kane reminded her. “What is the point, Danie, is that he’s the man you love, even though you’ve been shitty at showing it lately.” Indignation took over Danie’s features and Kane had to stifle a grin. She was much more effective—and beautiful—when she was angry. “Maybe it’s time you broke down your walls.”

“I don’t want him mixed up in this,” Danie said firmly. “This is my situation, and it will be mine to rectify.”

“So what happened to What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours?” Kane wanted to know.

“I don’t think that applies to skeletons in the closet. I’m sure Heero hasn’t told me every little detail about his life. In fact, I know for certain.”

“I do think it applies to skeletons in the closet. Haven’t you ever believed in quid pro quo? Maybe Heero hasn’t told you everything because he knows you’re holding back from him, too.” Danie pursed her lips, a sign that she was getting tired of this topic of discussion. “Just think about it on your way to New York.”

Danie blinked at the change in topics. “I still have to go to New York?”

“Oh yeah…” Kane fished in his pocket and pulled out a black flash drive. “Arashi wanted to give you a head start.” He dropped the rectangle in her hand as her eyes went huge. “Don’t sweat it, kid—he gave us all one. Just don’t waste it.”

“I won’t,” Danie promised, and rose.

In a cozy office in downtown Gracia, Dr. Isabelle Flannery stared at her two patients with apparent exasperation. In the chair on the left sat a man with dark brown hair and sharp blue eyes, dressed cannily in black and wearing an expression that was just as severe. His counterpart on the right was a vivacious woman with a raven mane and clothing in a brighter hue. They both appeared as if they were slightly anxious with the situation—and each other; the woman had her shapely legs crossed and one foot tapping in obvious impatience, and the man had his arms crossed over his chest. They sat facing her and at no point touched each other or shared any adoring glances. Isabelle pursed her lips together and made a note of this.

Over the glasses that sat on her elegant nose, Isabelle gazed at the couple with expectant slate-green eyes. They stared back as if waiting for her to say something. Isabelle quirked an eyebrow, miraculously keeping a straight face amid her growing frustration with the couple.

“So,” Isabelle began, “I suppose we ought to begin the session now.” She assessed them again then spoke. “If you don’t mind me asking, did the both of you agree to marital counseling?”

“Yes,” they answered in unison.

Isabelle folded her hands in her lap. Interesting. “Any reason why you think you would need marital counseling?”

The woman folded her hands in her lap. “We just needed to take out some time to do some fine-tuning on our marriage. After six years—”

“Five,” the man corrected succinctly.

“After five, or six, years,” the woman said smoothly, “things just need a little repair. You get into your own routine and forget that you’re in a partnership. So we’d thought this would be a good way to amend our little imperfections.”

“I see.” Isabelle looked to the man, judging him as the harder one to crack. “Well, it is my honest belief, in order to fix the problems of the present, you must go back to the beginning. Mr. Yuy, could you tell me about the first time you saw your wife?”

Hiroshi Yuy, better known as Heero, merely said, without dropping his crossed-arm stance, “We met seven years ago—”

Daniella Thomas, or the current Mrs. Heero Yuy, flicked a glance at him without breaking statute either. “It was eight.” Heero looked back at her. “It was actually eight years ago”—she added a tight smile for Isabelle’s benefit—”darling.”

Isabelle scribbled something then paused to tap her pen thoughtfully on the pad. “Do you remember where it was you met?”

Heero didn’t hesitate in answering. Isabelle figured that he wanted to quickly be done with the interrogation so that he could return to, well, whatever life—or lack thereof—he had with his wife outside of Isabelle’s office. “It was Madrid, during the spring—”

“Valladolid, actually,” Danie corrected. “And it was early fall, dear. Don’t you remember?”

Heero slanted a sideways look at his beautiful wife. Truth be told, it wasn’t exactly a nice look. “Well, it seems that your memory is much better than mine, so maybe I should let you answer the questions.”

Isabelle’s eyebrows drew together at the underlying resentment in Heero’s tone. Before she could speak, Danie responded, “No, darling, you’re much better with the stories anyway.” She looked to Isabelle. “He’s a genius with stories. The stuff he tells me, you’d swear he was some sort of spy or something.” Danie’s laugh filled the room, and Isabelle watched intently Heero for his reaction. After a small glare, he merely grunted.

“Mr. Yuy,” Isabelle said, “do you mind? With minimal”—she eyed Danie meaningfully—”interruption? I would love to hear the story.”

They met on a cool day that invited leisure out from its summer (or winter) confines. Heero had been with his twin sister, eschewing all enjoyment of the cool breeze by keeping a close eye on her—and all of the guys who admired her slim body clad in jeans and long-sleeved top. Even though she was now legally an adult, Heero still kept a tight hold on Crys. She was the only family he had, and he would not stand to lose her, no matter how much she balked. For him, the stranglehold was the ultimate declaration of love.

At that moment, Crys walked beside him, rosy and content after a nice meal of lechazo with salad and fine wine. Or at least that was what Crys let her brother think; in actuality, Crys was still aglow from a text message she had received from the man she loved—but Heero would gut him if he knew about it, so Crys kept that little tidbit to herself.

“So I am still trying to figure out why you dragged me all the way out to Spain for a week,” Crys said. “As beautiful as it is, we could have stayed at home.”

Heero raised an eyebrow at her. The truth was he was there for a job that he had to do later on that night when Crys was sleeping—but he wasn’t about to admit that. “And there is something that is more important at home, Crys?”

Crys tried not to let on that she was thinking about Quatre and instead turned up the indignation. “Is that your way of asking me if I have a boyfriend?”

Heero turned sharp eyes upon his twin. “Well, do you?”

Crys shoved him. “Stay out of my business, Heero. Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.” Before Heero could refute that statement, Crys added, “I think we should be more worried about you.”

“I disagree.”

Crys could only laugh as they sidestepped a Spanish couple talking rapidly in clipped tones. “Heero, for God’s sake, lighten up. I had hoped this vacation you had invited me out for would show me that you’ve changed, but you’re still the same.”

“What? I can’t want to spend time with my sister?”

Crys looked at him dubiously. “You have an ulterior motive, Heero, whether you’ll admit it or not. I’d think I’d see pigs fly if you didn’t have a reason for bringing me out here.”

“Like I said,” Heero said tightly, “I wanted to spend some time with you. We haven’t seen each other that much the last few months.”

Crys sighed. “I know.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You know, if you don’t like your job at the firm, why don’t you quit? It takes you all over the place for some stupid computers and I rarely ever see you.”

“Well, my job is very important,” Heero told her. “It keeps you safe.”

Crys frowned, not understanding what Heero meant but know it did mean something he wasn’t telling her. It came to no surprise to her that he had secrets—after all, he was Heero Yuy—but she wondered what his big secret was, and if it was honestly so weighty and important that he had to keep it from her.

“I still think you could work closer to home and still keep me safe,” Crys pointed out.

“What, so I can see you and Quatre Winner fawning all over each other?”

Crys’s Prussian blue eyes widened for a moment before they narrowed in the infamous Yuy death glare. “How did you know—?”

“I know much more than you think I do, sister.” He gestured to her purse. “Especially about that cell phone that Quatre gave you to stay in touch.”

They walked along for a few humming moments as Crys tried to ascertain how Heero felt about this and Heero himself tried to stifle his loneliness. He didn’t want Crys to know about it; he had tried for most of their lives to protect her, even to the point that he locked her away when he went off on a mission (not telling her what he was really doing of course). They had fought over it—she had even threatened at times not to talk to him ever again for keeping such a tight grip on her—but as he sunk deeper into his job, that vise-like grasp began to loosen. Crys was thankful, but she also felt a bit of sadness, for Heero was not as good at keeping his feelings secret as he thought he was.

Before Crys could say something on the subject, a tall, raven-haired woman in a cropped white racer-back tank underneath a denim jacket and a flowing skirt was walking quickly toward them. Her eyes were hid behind dark glasses, so it was not clear where she was looking, though it was very clear to Heero that she wasn’t watching where she was going.

A moment later, a group of guys came tearing around the corner toward the woman. One grabbed her arm roughly and the others crowded around menacingly. Crys’s eyes widened and her face fell into a mask of indignation. Heero knew what she was going to do before she did and tried to restrain her.

“Dammit, Heero--” Crys began.

“This isn’t your business,” Heero told her firmly, trying to steer her away. “I’m sure the girl can take care of herself.”

“Like hell!” Crys exclaimed and shook herself from his grasp. “What if they hurt her and we do nothing about it? How would you feel then?”

Before Heero could hold her back any longer, Crys swung away from him and toward the stand-off. “Hey!” she yelled loudly, shifting the guys’ attention. “Let her go right now.”

Heero cursed under his breath as one of the dark-haired guys snorted at Crys. He dimly admired his sister’s courage, but it reared its ugly head at the most inopportune moments. “Stay out of our business, chiquita,” the guy said in a heavily-accented voice. “What happens to this puta is none of your business.”

“Hey!” exclaimed the woman. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me vulgar names, thank you.”

“What I call you should be the least of your concerns now,” the man growled. “I’d be worried about whether or not I let you live if I were you.”

“Thank God you’re not me,” the woman shot back. “I’d hate to see you prancing around here in a pair of my Ferragamos with those alligator feet of yours.”

The man started to go for the woman’s throat perhaps in hopes of shutting her up, but he underestimated Crys’s indignation; Crys swung out with rather haphazardly forceful aim, and the blow caught the guy in the ribs. The others were so stunned that it took their ringleader shouting out an order to “take care of that puta” for them to jump into action.

“Goddammit Crys—” Heero groaned, and pushed her out of the way before she could get hurt. With lethal accuracy, Heero subdued two of the thugs and they fell out, unconscious. After she got over her own initial shock, the woman struck out herself, delivering an effective left jab that had her near-attacker staggering. She followed up with a right cross to his chin that made his teeth knock together. She whirled on her heel and found herself face-to-face with an incensed Heero Yuy.

They stared at each other for a long moment before Danie ducked into La Mina nearby. Calling after her, Crys tried to catch up and Heero had no choice but to follow her into the semi-busy restaurant.

They found her quickly, sitting on her own with a glass of wine. Crys walked up to her and spoke before Heero could even open his mouth. “Ohmigod!” she cried breathlessly. “You have got to show me how you did that! My brother won’t even teach me how to properly throw a punch.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her other half. “I’m starting to think he doesn’t want me to know how to defend myself.”

“You don’t need to know how to fight,” Heero told her. “I’m here to protect you.”

“But you can’t be everywhere every time,” the woman pointed out. “What happens if someone attacks her and you’re not there? Let me guess,” she added when Heero started to speak, “you’ve thought of this already and are planning on locking her inside of a bulletproof room whenever she has to be out of your sight for any length of time.”

“Been there, done that,” Crys revealed. “But you forgot the motion detectors.” Heero slid a glare her way, but she just stuck out her tongue at him.

The woman laughed. “You’re just as bad as me and my sisters.” She placed the wine aside and held out her hand. “I’m Danie Thomas, by the way. And thanks for coming to my rescue.”

“The name’s Crys Yuy.” Crys jerked a thumb in her brother’s direction after shaking Danie’s hand. “And this is my twin Heero. You’ll have to forgive him. He makes it his life’s goal to act like a social pariah.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed that, not at all.” She paused for a moment. “I know I’ve only met you two a second ago, but I would appreciate it greatly if you had dinner with me. I’m all alone here, and…”

Crys flashed Danie a bright smile as she grabbed her brother’s arm. Since they were telepathically linked, she could smell his refusal even before it came out of his mouth. “Would you excuse us?”

Danie only blinked as Crys dragged Heero some feet away where Danie was out of earshot. The highlights in her dark blonde hair jumped out under the intimate lighting in La Mina and reminded Heero how different they were. He was dark, and she was blessedly, miraculously light. A part of him wanted to please her, to give in to her every request, but the other part of him knew that he could not be that indulgent. If his sister was to remain pure, he had to protect her from all evils—even ones that had not shown themselves yet. Wickedness could be like a virus, and Heero didn’t want his twin around this Danie Thomas if there was the slim chance that she could infect his sister, so to speak.

Even more, deep down inside, he wondered what sort of conversation he could have with such a beautiful woman like Danie…

“No,” Heero said, not even giving Crys a chance to ask and breaking himself from his thoughts. “We’re not staying.”

“Heero—please?” Crys begged. “We’re just keeping her company is all. And if something suspicious does happen, you can jump in, kick ass, and save the day. You’re the best at that.” Pause. Heero didn’t seem moved. Crys decided to change tactics and appeal to the soldier side of him. “I know you’re not scared, are you? Because you’re acting like you’re not capable of sitting down and—”

“Let’s get this over with,” Heero interrupted. As he walked past her, Crys did a small gesture of triumph before she turned around and followed him.
“And that’s the story of how you met,” Isabelle remarked, scrawling her impressions of the way the story was told and the story itself on her pad.

“It’s probably not the most romantic, but the story is ours,” Danie said, earning a glance from Heero.

“What happened next?” Isabelle inquired. “I’m assuming there was another connection point that led you two to the conclusion that you were attracted to each other or even could spend the rest of your lives together.”

For a spell there was nothing but silence. Then Heero commented simply, “I think you’d better tell this part, Danie.”

Danie cackled, a sound Jeff Murdoch would have dubbed a head laugh. “Oh, nonsense. You’re the storyteller, dear. Isn’t he doing a fine job so far?” She declared to Isabelle.

Isabelle had many fancy degrees hanging on the walls of her office, had traveled to all seven continents at least once, had even had a stint singing on Broadway (a rather over-rated experience), and still the only word she word on her pad for this was Bullshit.

“Do you mind, Mr. Yuy?” Isabelle asked, sighing.

“Not at all,” Heero replied, though his tone of voice indicated that he did mind. Isabelle pursed her lips together and listened.


Later on that night, Heero left Crys sleeping in their room at the Hotel Imperial. He turned off the TV as the credits rolled on Center Stage, knowing that Crys would sleep heavily until morning. That helped him with the thought of leaving her, even though he knew she was perfectly safe in the hotel.

He pulled the blanket up to her chin before grabbing his gun. After taking one last look at her, he slipped from the room without making so much as a creak on the floor. When he was walking through the lobby of the Imperial, he slipped and earpiece in his ear, and the encrypted phone in his pocket vibrated, signaling a new phone call. He knew who that was.

“I’m leaving now,” Heero said without preamble.

“I thought you’d be almost there by now,” came the jovial male voice on the other end. “Let me guess: Crys cornered you with another movie marathon.”

“She doesn’t know why we’re here,” Heero reminded him. “And if I have it my way, she never will. Do you have any new information on Firestar that I could possibly use?”

“Nothing yet, buddy. We’re hoping the package will have the papers our source said it would. I would have hated to send you out all the way to Spain for bullshit, you know?”

“You’re not the only one.” Heero came to his transportation for the evening: a black sporty coupe. He pushed a button and the locks unlatched with a click. He got into the car smoothly and closed the door in one swift movement. “I’ll contact you when I have the package.”

“I’ll be waiting. Just try and make sure you don’t get yourself hurt this time, okay?”

“I won’t make any promises,” Heero admitted and ended the call. He started the car then roared off into the night without a backward glance.

His destination was la Iglesia de San Pablo where he was supposed to meet the source who had claimed to have information about the ruthless assassin only known as Firestar. The assassin had supposedly killed the pacifist politician Relena Peacecraft and her brother Millardo, and, as time went by, the rumors seemed to become fact. Heero and his associates had been commissioned with the investigation and termination of the assassin known as Firestar, and the investigation had already taken eighteen months. It had felt like the longest eighteen months of his life.

Heero parked his car a block or two away from San Pablo, lucky that there weren’t that many people out this time of night. He walked the remainder of the way to the church, staying aware of his surroundings. He didn’t sense anyone dangerous, but that didn’t mean trouble wouldn’t show itself. He was smart enough to know that the mission wasn’t going to be quite complete when he walked out of San Pablo alive, but at least then a big hurdle would have been conquered.

The front door was unlocked, so he let himself inside. Candlelight flickered in the vast, beautiful emptiness, and it took a few moments for Heero’s eyes to adjust. He recalled the location of the pew where the packaged would be taped underneath, silently counted pews.

When he got to the right one, he dropped down the ground. He felt along the bottom of the aged wood until his fingertips brushed a box. He clasped the box and ripped it from the adhesive that kept it attached to the pew. It was the size of a box of Jell-O and just as light. Could it be possible that redemption came in a box this small? For all he knew, there could be a brooch hiding in there and not his precious information. It could be anything. He resisted the urge to rip the package to shreds to get what was on the inside; he wanted to burn the packaging himself when he was alone, and he wasn’t about to do that here.

With the cardboard package in his hand, he looked up at the grand figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, transfixed for a moment by her beauty and serenity. He almost offered up a prayer, but figured it would be foolhardy. What could a prayer do at this rate?

Thinking of nothing but completing his mission, Heero took the package and walked out of the church.

On the way back to the hotel, Heero glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a car as dark as his own trailing him. It had been there for several blocks, and he decided to be cautious and assume it was a threat. He sped up a little. The other driver did the same. Setting his mouth in a firm line, put the car in a higher gear and stomped on the gas. The coupe’s engine protested slightly, but the car went from forty-two to seventy in one and a quarter second.

Heero was not able to elude the person for long; within ten seconds and a strange curve on la Plaza de San Miguel, the person was on Heero’s bumper.

“Shit,” Heero cursed under his breath. The person fell back for a moment only to give him a body-jarring bump a moment later. Eyes stormy blue, Heero pushed the car up to eighty five and skidded left onto la Calle de San Benito. His pursuer took a more precarious skid but still kept up. Heero maneuvered the rocketing car down San Benito with a little room for mistake; the road was tricky and his assailant obviously knew the road better than he did.

“You care not going to catch me,” Heero said to the car in his rearview.

Time seemed to slow at that moment, going in agonizing drips. Heero’s sight fixated upon the figure in the car behind him, recognizing a woman’s face. His mind worked to place the features amid the duress of working his way down San Benito, and he lost mental grip on his driving. The woman slammed him hard one more time, and Heero’s coupe was thrown into a skid. He felt himself losing control of the car, and time came to a jarring halt when he crashed into a tree at eighty five miles per hour.

After several moments, Heero willed himself out of entropy. He was hurt, and quite badly, but, as he assessed himself, it would have been worse. The car had been made of reinforced steel, so it was a bit more durable than consumer vehicles and had protected him from a nastier crash. Still, he knew he couldn’t stay there long. He could smell the gas and the smoke that whispered of a fire nearby. Finding some deep-down strength, Heero wrenched the car door open and fell out into the street. He dragged himself out on his elbows until his feet were freed. On his hands and knees on broken glass, Heero forced himself to stand, and gritted his teeth against the searing pain. He should be dead, he told himself, but somehow he was not.

The package was now flattened against him where it had been hiding under his black shirt, and his eyes darkened at the realization.

When the gas and the growing fire found each other, the coupe exploded in a million pieces, and Heero was sure that the fireball that rocketed up to the sky was seen from miles away. He inwardly cursed as he thought about the fact that the package was ruined and his mission was so blatantly incomplete.

And then, as if the Heavens above wanted to throw him a tall, vivacious curveball, Danie Thomas appeared out of nowhere.

“Holy fucking shit,” she breathed in awe, the firelight reflected in her eyes. A group of tourists who had been on their way back to their hotels from the various restaurants in the area fled in the direction of the fire, curious about what had happened. Danie hesitated when she saw Heero limping toward her, and confusion flitted across her pretty features before she spoke. “Hey—what the hell are you doing out here?” she demanded. “And why are you limping like that?”

“I would appreciate it if you stayed out of my business,” Heero said tersely. He suddenly wished he had prayed before leaving San Pablo.

“It’s a little hard not to notice a man limping down the street at the dead of night,” Danie shot back. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that was your car that turned into a two-ton firecracker back there.”

“I’m fine. Go home or wherever it is you came from.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth did his knees buckle. Danie muttered an expletive and caught him under the armpits, surprised at his weight. He was lanky and seemed slight, but she supposed that perhaps he was made of more muscle than she could see.

“All right, where are you staying?” Danie grunted, trying to shift his weight in her grasp so that he would be easier to carry.

“Hotel Imperial,” Heero mumbled. “But I can get there by myself…”

“Yeah right,” Danie countered. “And Hanson can sing the blues.” She rose to her feet and carried him over her shoulder. She had a couple unsteady moments before walking forward.

He didn’t remember much until he found himself in his hotel room, lying on top of the freshly made bed. He could smell the lingering scent of the popcorn Crys had consumed during their movie marathon mixed with his sister’s signature perfume and another vaguely familiar smell. The tang of blood.

With a groan, Heero shifted, testing his range of motion. He found that his knee was stiff from the injury he had sustained, but he could fix that in a little while. His other senses appraised the room and felt two other people near him. His eyebrows furrowed as he remembered Danie—then his twin. Two?

He opened his eyes abruptly and found Danie standing over him with her thumbs hooked in her belt loops—and Crys assaulting him with the patented Yuy glare.

“Where were you?” Crys wanted to know, enunciating each word until they came from her lips like three verbal blows.

“I just needed some air,” Heero responded, “so I went out for a walk. You were sleeping. I didn’t want to bother you.”

Crys’s face contorted with fury. “A walk? At midnight? Hiroshi Yuy, I oughta—”

Sensing the heightened emotions from both of them, Danie placed an arm on Crys’s vibrating shoulder. “Crys—I would yell at him later, preferably when it’s daylight and everyone else around you is awake. And make it good. But you both need sleep now.”

Heero braced himself. There was no telling what Crys would do in her enraged state. He knew that he had a bad temper, but there were moments that his sister simply outgunned him. She could be downright terrifying sometimes. He knew she could say the same of him sometimes, but it was a part of their bond.

And perhaps, because of that, Crys took one, long considering look at her brother and stood down. “In the morning then,” Crys promised, the heat in her voice rapidly cooling. “But you’ve got some explaining to do!”

“Then I’ll leave you two,” Danie said with a nod. Her gaze lingered on Heero a moment before she patted Crys’s shoulder. There was a bit of curiosity there along with something else Heero couldn’t read. “Good night.”

“Good night, Danie. And thank you.”

“Anytime.” With that, Danie showed herself out, leaving her fiery presence and freesia scent in her wake.

Once Danie had closed the door behind her, Crys crashed onto the bed next to her brother. For a while, they just stared at the ceiling silently, trying to figure out what exactly what to say to each other. As anger faded, and the duo became wrapped up in their togetherness, Crys exhaled.

“Are you going to shower in the morning?” Crys asked.

“Yes.”

“We’re burning those clothes. They reek to high heaven.”

“Agreed.”

“Oh yeah, and another thing. If you ever leave me like that ever again, I’m gonna make you wish you were never born to wreak this kind of havoc on my nerves, capice?”

Heero closed his eyes as fatigue washed over him again. “Duly noted.”


After Heero finished, Isabelle sat for a moment, taking it in. She took off her glasses and set them aside before speaking.

“Very interesting circumstances,” Isabelle remarked idly. “Did you see each other again?”

“Crys and I kept in touch, and it turned out that my cousin Jennifer lived near them,” Danie explained. “So Crys asked me to come over and visit. And one day, I suppose…” Danie looked sidelong at her husband, something inexplicable in her eyes. Isabelle noted this. “We got used to each other.”

“So it seems to me that your sister was instrumental in bringing you two together, Mr. Yuy,” Isabelle observed. “Tell me, what does she think of the current state of things?”
Crys laid the wooden stirring spoon down with a snap, blue eyes blazing. Her distended belly was visible from under the pristine white apron she wore over her around-the-house clothes, and Heero wondered how Quatre let her into the kitchen while she was pregnant. She was supposed to be resting, especially since she was six-and-a-half months pregnant with twins (a fact that Heero didn’t hesitate in pointing out to Quatre every change he got).

“That damned Danie!” Crys exclaimed angrily. “I’m going to kick her ass for making you unhappy.”

Oh yeah. Right. He had almost forgotten about her temper.

“Calm down, Crys,” Heero cautioned firmly. He had a horrifying vision of his sister suddenly telling him her water was broken. He wasn’t ready for that yet. “You’re in a delicate state.”

“I’ll show you delicate state, Heero Yuy! And that wife of yours!” Heero sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Have you even attempted to tell her how you feel about things? Maybe she doesn’t realize that something’s wrong. Though, that wouldn’t seem to be a surprise to me since you two fell into this way too fast.”

Heero eyed her unwaveringly. “What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say I made a mistake?”

Crys paused, her fingertips over the wooden spoon. “Do you really want to know what I think?”

“Even if I don’t, you’re going to tell me anyway.”

Crys’s eyes narrowed at that little jab but dismissed it—for now. She picked up the spoon and beat at the brownie mix again. There were a few lumps she hadn’t quite eradicated yet, and she needed the exertion. “In my opinion, she’s your total opposite. She speaks when you don’t, she is hot where you’re cold, she’s flashy where you are quite minimal. She is definitely not the woman I would have imagined you spending the rest of your life with.”

“No,” Heero murmured, thinking of a blond woman—and the elusive assassin who had ended her life. “She’s not what I imagined either.”

“But you picked her for a reason. It may not be totally clear now, but I’m sure that you had one. Heero Yuy never does anything without a reason.” Crys shifted to grab the brownie pan. “And I hope that reason is something you can live with. If not, you’ve been living a lie for five years.”

“Or six,” Heero said automatically. Crys gave him a look. “What?”

“You don’t now how utterly awful it is that you can’t remember how long it is you’ve been married, Heero.”

Heero raised an eyebrow at her. “Can you?”

“Six years, eight months, fifteen days, eleven hours, and thirteen minutes.” She beamed triumphantly at her glowering brother. “So ha.”

Heero merely said, “Showoff.”

 

PRELUDE

The sound of her heartbeats was punctuated by the sounds of gunfire as she ran up the stairs to the roof of the Johnson Continental Building. She had someone to catch, and she would be damned if she would lose her target now.

She was a skilled assassin, one of the highest paid in the business. For her it was a major triumph, being a highly regarded woman in a male-dominated field. She had dropped men where they stood without any warning, escaped from precarious situations were others would have found themselves dead. She was blessed with the right amount of devil-may-care recklessness, brute force, and mental cunning. It was something that her employer could not decide to love or hate. She herself decided it suited her just fine.

Most of her missions were cut-and-dry maneuvers that required little or no thought in the execution. By now, her planning and plotting were mostly instinctive. However, on this mission she had hit a major roadblock: another assassin from another firm. She wasn’t quite vain enough (yet, anyway) to believe she was the best out there, but she knew that she was quite good, and this opposing assassin was just as good if not a little better than she was.

Her target was a very well-known and very powerful politician with ties to many countries worldwide. From what she knew of the politician, many people wanted to see her harmed—or worse. She found herself slightly surprised that the target didn’t have much more security than she did.

It was then that she realized, as she ducked in time to avoid a bullet in her ear, that the man chasing her up the stairs was not vying for the prestige of killing the target—he was the protector.

Fuck me! she swore in her mind as she slipped on a step. The man grabbed her ankle and tried to pull her down to his level. She kicked viciously with her other leg and was gratified to hear a grunt of pain as her boot collided with flesh. She climbed to her feet as the throbbing began in the knee that met with the concrete stair. She heard him stumble down a few steps as she pushed herself toward the door that led out to the building’s roof. She burst through it with a bang, gripping her gun in her right hand.

With every step she took, her body quivered with over-exertion and pain. But she wasn’t one to give up, and she was going to do what she came here to do even if it meant the death of her.

She raised the gun as the bare back of her target came into closer view. She aimed for the heart and squeezed the trigger…

But felt a bullet go through her instead.

The person turned at the sound of her hitting the ground, and she found herself face-to-face with her target. The target—who, at the moment, didn’t seem like much of a target—grinned devilishly. Rapid footsteps rounded her prone body and she guessed that it had been her target’s protector that had shot her. She swore under her breath tried to hold her grip on consciousness.

“Well, now that we’ve got the both of you here, it looks like we can now get started,” the target remarked.

She found herself lifting her head slowly to look at her opponent as his comely features began to look familiar, and he was doing the same thing. They assessed each other, and recognition came for them both simultaneously. Along with it came a sort of heavy dread and the sting of betrayal that overwhelmed the physical aches and pains.

“Masako...” the man said, blue eyes wide.

While she felt the stone-cold shock coming from him, she was all hot-headed anger in black Lycra. As usual. “You have got to me shitting me,” she muttered.

 

( How could he explain what was going on to a child—and even more, this child? )

( ...caught onto the overwhelming vibes immediately; they knew each other. )

Color me, color me

Color me outrageous

But not insane

Color me true but don’t make me mundane

Color me, oh color me

 

To you my body’s not a temple

It’s a blank canvas with room to spare

As if this intricate art is all simple

You throw paint without a care

 

My palette is full of range

Lest you find me deranged

You better learn that versatility better come with age

 

Color me outrageously

In a fire-engine hue

Calling like a siren

Enticing you

 

Your technique has no finesse

You don’t even bother to color in the lines
You heavily shade me in infamy

 

My crayon box has all my shades

 

Color me dangerous

Dark like midnight

  

But don’t you color me

 

With jealousy

 

 

 

She found him sitting on a rock and facing the setting sun as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world—or a train wreck he couldn’t tear his eyes from. His black hair was unbound this time, giving him a slight vulnerability amid his inherent strength and power. The long silken strands fluttered in the light breeze, and even as some hair got into his face, he didn’t move, didn’t blink. As Sydney inched closer to him, she wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep with his eyes open. She had seen it happen before when Carmen forced her, Francie, and Will to watch Major Payne one night.  

She was so startled when he spoke and she nearly lost control of her bladder.

When Kane, without moving, flicked dark eyes in her direction, she swallowed a gasp. He hadn’t been unusually cruel to her and her fellow Gifted Nine mates so far—Felice, Aurora, Angelia, and Bennett hadn’t been either, thankfully—but he didn’t look like he would take too kindly to her showing weakness either. Steeling her courage, she spoke.

“Kane-sensei,” she began, “I am sorry to bother you but I...I would like to know what really happened to my mother.”

A humming moment passed, and Sydney was sure that he was eyes-open unconscious when he pursed his lips.

“Sit down, Sydney,” he said softly.

Quietly Sydney went to sit beside him on another rock.

“I can only tell you so much,” Kane explained. “There are many things that I do not know about your mother.” He paused for a moment then and turned his head as if he were going to look at her sidelong but didn’t completely finish the movement and ended up looking in her general direction. “And there are things that I know...but cannot tell you.”

She was so close. She could sense it, like it were a building on the distant, hazy horizon. And Kane’s last statement only served to intensify the fury that she had kept buried inside of her for years, the grief that had made her feel awkward in the face of others who had a full parental unit. It was if he had something to do with her mother’s death, like he had delivered the killing blow.

She almost jumped to her feet quickly...but he placed a hand on her thigh, restraining her. It was then that he looked into her eyes. He was not shocked by the emotions swirling in her brown eyes, only resigned by them.

“I’ll say it again. Sit down, Sydney.” His voice was even with an edge sharper than Celie’s razor.

Swallowing her fury, Sydney slowly lowered herself beside him. Her fists were clenched at her side as she waited for him to speak again. She braced herself for some earth-shattering revelation.

“I met your mother over a decade ago,” Kane started.

*   *   *

Ten years ago.

They had been beside themselves with fear. The dissolution of their normal family state—though dysfunctional it had been—had left them with nothing to cling to in this time of upheaval. Their unit was falling apart, and nothing could be done about it. Nothing.

Sakura’s medication had turned her from the most animated person in the family to a lethargic shell of her former self. Midori, polished and fourteen, stood at her father’s side—her usual place, it seemed, since their mother had died—as he held a conversation over the speakerphone with a high-priced specialist in another country. Mikage Tsukimori was nothing if thorough when it came to tackling a problem. It was only when all of the avenues had been tried that he would give up on his eldest daughter.

 

Kane resented his father dedication on this particular project—not because he was jealous, for he loved Sakura fiercely, but because it felt like Mikage was trying to find a way to suppress his daughter’s true essence through this so-called sickness. Sakura had always been the rebellious one—well at least compared to Midori. In the family, Kane was the true black sheep, the folly of his father’s loins. Sakura had always understood her brother and took his side when he argued with their father, and he had done the same for her. Unfortunately now, she had not done that much fighting for anything, perhaps except to stay awake.

 

Mikage had found a reason to make Sakura into a glassy-eyed vegetable. Needless to say, he succeeded.

 

Kane drifted into the living room where Sakura sat by the window. She had a sketch pad on her prone, blanket-covered lap, but the page she was on was blank. The sight of the whiteness made Kane’s heart ache. Wordlessly, he walked over to her, heart in his throat.

( Was it odd that he wished that she hadn’t moved? )

( But it was Tuesday. So of course his reasoning skills were shot. )

( His mind had been miles away. Five thousand, seven hundred eighteen miles away. )

( Student Schedules (Selected) (Bridge between Chapter One and Two) )

 

 

Rating: PG-13

Genre: A little bit of everything (Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance)

Pairing: Previous Vaughn/Lauren, Sydney/OC, Vaughn/OC, possible Weiss/OC, eventual Sydney/Vaughn

Summary: A different take on Sydney’s disappearance at the end of Season two. Jack discovers the Covenant’s plans for his daughter before it is too late. He has her extracted as intelligence falls into his hands about a Rambaldi protégé named Maura Ayala (alias Marco Ramirez) who wrote about a mythological group called the Tricorn which might be tied to Rambaldi’s prophecies. Sydney is placed into the home of lawyer Irene Wolfe, who has no idea where Sydney came from but is too scared to ask. Meanwhile, Vaughn accepts a position at the prestigious Kaminari Academy where he meets Isabelle Flannery, and despite his prior involvement with Lauren Reed, he starts dating her anyway. Unbeknownst to him, Sydney is nearby teaching at the Academy. Later the trio (Isabelle, Sydney, and Vaughn) finds out that they are the present-day reincarnation of The Tricorn.


 

( Prelude )

The Goddess
The member of the Tricorn devoted to the orgin of their power. While she is not completely without the ability to protect herself from physical dangers, the Goddess primarily uses her actual given powers for protection, though the Warrior and the Guardian were created to protect her.

The Warrior
The member of the Tricorn devoted to the protection of the sanctity of thr Goddess and the Power. A distinguished fighter, the Warrior will possess more brawn than actual power but his/her presence is important to maintain the balance of three.

The Guardian
The member of the Tricorn devoted to watching over both the Warrior and the Goddess. The Guardian seems almost on equal par with the Goddess; the Guardian shields and counsels both the Goddess and the Warrior on their prospective roles. Also holding the term of Kamicatalyst, the Guardian awakens the Goddess and the Warrior both. The Guardian herself/himself awakens in prolonged presence of either the chosen Goddess or Warrior.

( I don't want your adoration. I don't want your train stopping at my station. )

* “B.B.D. (I Thought It Was Me)!” originally performed by Bell Biv Devoe. Written by Darrol Durant, Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, Keith Shocklee, Paul Stewart, and Roney Hooks.

( A girl really gets so serious when you really make a girl so furious... )

* “Two Hearts” performed by Kylie minogue. written by Jim Eliot and Mirna Stilwell.
* “Crickets Sing for Anamaria” performed by Emma Bunton. Written by Marcos Valle and Paulo Sergio Valle.

Rated R for strong language and violence


( Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis? )

I make myself laugh a lot for no good reason, especially at this time of the night. I decided to post this, for anyone who cares.


( Read on, mates, read on! )

I've had this thing for so long and I haven't been using it. It's going to waste!

The last time I used LJ regularly, I was having problems with the person who is now my ex. And I have to say, thanks to the powers that be that he is out of my life. I didn't need him. He was dragging me down anyhow, not to mention our relationship seemed to be a farce at the end. Or, as he would say, 'What relationship? We were together?' Sigh. Men.

But now that I learn and grow, I know that I have learned a lot of things. Things that I will use for the rest of my life.

I cannot forget me. I won't.