[GW] Bred for Destiny, chapter 3

Bred for Destiny, a Gundam Wing fanfic by Raberba girl
Act 3 - Grieving

All he had been doing was sitting peacefully, reading a book about Japan's feudal age.  She was the one with the problem, running up and yelling, "Chang Wufei!" as if he'd done something wrong.

He glanced up and tried to silence the coming tirade with a single icy look.  It didn't work.

"How could you humiliate me like that, in front of the whole class?!  I don't care that you've never liked me, you stuck-up pansy, but to act like such a know-it-all and make me look like a fool...!"

So that's what she was upset about.  "You were making yourself look like a fool.  Nataku is a great hero, a god.  You are a female, and a particularly silly one at that.  You have no right to take that name for yourself."

Meilan's face turned an extraordinary color.  Plunging her hand into her jacket pocket, Meilan brandished the elegant little short sword she usually had stowed there.

(She always insisted afterwards, "I wasn't going to stab you!  I would never do that!  I was just...gonna beat you black and blue with the flat.  Or something.")

"I will not tolerate insult!  I, Nataku, will defend my honor!" she shouted, charging.  "Hyaaaah!"

Meilan would never, ever forget the day a stuck-up bookworm, using nothing but his bare hands, disarmed her, knocked her down, and held her own sword to her throat.

"Women," he said disgustedly.  "So hysterical over trivialities.  You dishonor your own name, much less the name of Nataku."  He tossed the short sword aside and walked away.  Meilan watched him go with hot tears sliding down her face, fists clenched in fury.

"Wufei," Mistress Long asked a few days later, "do you have a suit for that dance of yours yet?"

Wufei could not give his grandmother an irritated look, so he settled for a wary one.  "Grandmother, I am not going to the school dance."

Mistress Long sighed.  "My child, I know you find social situations awkward.  Yet it is for that very reason you must overcome your fear and learn to interact with people."

Wufei tried to hide his outrage.  "Grandmother, I am not afraid.  I simply have no use for attending such an event."

The old woman continued as if she had not even heard.  "Yes, this will be an appropriate opportunity for you to cast off all cowardice and take your rightful place among your peers."

"Why do you speak of fear and cowardice?" Wufei cried, his proud spirit burning within him.  "Must I prove my courage by something so ridiculous?"  His grandmother merely continued to sigh and shake her head.  Wufei's eyes narrowed.  "I will show you that I fear nothing!"  He stomped out, presumably to obtain a suit.

Mistress Long grinned.

The stupid dress had a tag in the seam that dug maddeningly into her side.  The new shoes were giving her blisters and she had the uncomfortable feeling that way too much of her chest was exposed.

How had she let herself get coerced into this?  Meilan grimaced and looked out across the room, where people were dancing or talking merrily amidst gaudy decorations and disgusting pop music.  Her eyes widened when she caught sight of the last person she ever expected to see at this stupid dance.

Wufei had been near the fringes of the crowd, wishing he could be doing something important and glaring at anyone unfortunate enough to approach the punch bowl next to him.

Why was he doing this, again?

An angry face appeared unexpectedly in his vision.  "What are you doing here?" Meilan demanded.

"What people normally do at dances," Wufei shot back.

"Most people don't skulk behind the refreshment table," Meilan pointed out witheringly.  "Except the losers, of course."

It was a horrible feeling when Wufei saw that she was right.  "Most people dance," he realized.

"Yes," Meilan answered, her voice tense.  Almost defiantly, Wufei reached out and took hold of her.  Meilan glared up into his face, too proud to admit that the reason she wasn't pulling away was because no one had dared to dance with her all night.  Wufei pushed her backward, and she nearly lost her balance.  "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"How else are we supposed to get onto the dance floor?"

"You could escort me, you lout."  Wufei, not knowing what else to do, ignored this and continued to push her backwards until they stood among the other couples, some of whom were staring uneasily.

Then they stood there some more.

Wufei was just opening his mouth to ask, "What now?" when Meilan said uncertainly, "In the movies, people kind of...sway and walk around."

"Walk around?" Wufei said doubtfully.

"As they sway," Meilan repeated defensively.

They swayed, rather stiffly.  Then they tried to walk around while swaying.

"I don't think this is working," Wufei observed.

"Why did you ask me to dance if you don't even know how?" Meilan said hotly, to hide embarrassment at her own ineptitude.

"Aren't women supposed to be the graceful ones, expert in such arts?" Wufei countered.

It might have come to blows if another student hadn't come up to them at that point, laughing.  "This is painful to watch," he chuckled.  "Here, honey, let me take you off his hands and show you how it's done--"

Wufei shoved him away.

There was a muffled chorus of surprised cries as people turned to look at the student on the ground.

"Don't touch her," Wufei growled.

The guy raised his hands as he scrambled to his feet.  "Geez, fine!  You're welcome to each other!"  He walked away, red-faced.

"You didn't have any right to do that," Meilan said angrily.  "What am I, your girlfriend?"

"You are...my guardian's granddaughter," Wufei said, a little uncomfortably.  Come to think of it, why on earth had he said something like that?

"Really?  So, what, you're dancing with me out of obligation?  Or pity for such a weakling who can never measure up to you?"  The memory of their last charged meeting hit her strongly, and Meilan realized that if she spoke any more, she was going to cry.

He let go of her and stepped back.  "If this doesn't suit you, fine.  It's not like I want to be wasting my time here."

"Then I won't waste my time with you, either!" Meilan shouted back at him.  She turned to shove her way to the door before she completely disgraced herself by bursting into tears.

The night air was cool and quiet, a relief from the noisy warmth of the dance.  She had to practically feel her way along the wall, her eyes were so blurry from tears.  Finally she stumbled to her knees and let herself cry her heart out.

"You're such a weakling!" she shouted at herself.  "Is that all you can do, Meilan, cry like a girl?  No wonder he hates you; you with your stupid bragging, can't even land a punch on that snobby, uptight JERK!"  More sobbing, and then she whispered brokenly, "I can't even dance."  How come she had never thought to learn?  "He was right.  I'm no Nataku.  I'm ashamed to even be Meilan."

She knelt there for a long time, leaning her forehead against the rough wall as tears dripped sluggishly down her face, burrowing deeper and deeper into self-pity.

"Your dress is getting dirty.  How long are--"  The voice was so sudden, so close and unexpected, that Meilan gasped and jerked around.  Immediately she felt a throb of pain on the top of her head and the voice cut off.

Meilan sat there on her heels, rubbing her aching head and staring open-mouthed at Wufei, who was crouching right next to her.

He scowled as he rubbed at his bruised jaw.  "How long are you going to wallow in this foolishness?" he finished, a little sullenly.

"What are you doing?" she said indignantly.  "I thought I was alone!"

"Is it my fault you let your senses get clouded by emotion?" he shot back.  "If you're the fighter I thought you were, you should have known I was there from the beginning."

Meilan's face colored.  "How much did you hear?"

He looked at her for a minute.  Then he said, "You are not weak.  You are a woman and sometimes foolish, and you will never best me in a fight.  However...."  He extended his arm, so that the tip of his pointing finger nearly touched her skin, directly over her heart.  "This spirit.  It is strong."

Meilan stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.  Was it possible that he did not completely hate her after all?

She turned away and stood up.  "I'm going home," she mumbled.

He stood up with her.  "All right."

She looked at him in annoyance.  "So, bye."  But when she started walking, he kept pace with her.  "You don't have to walk me home!"

"Yes, I do.  That is what gentlemen do with ladies."

"Since when have you been a gentleman?" she taunted.

He paused.  Then he said, "Since you have been a lady."

She realized he was looking at her, her now-muddy gown and her hair, pinned up in a fancy hairstyle but now starting to fall down in little tendrils.  She blushed.

"I have never seen you in a dress before," he added.  "You look...."

"Beautiful?" she supplied defiantly.

"...not like a boy," he finished.

"Oh, thank you," she snapped.  "Wonderful compliment, Wufei."  She stalked ahead.

He kept pace with her.

They walked side by side for a long time, not speaking.  Finally, though, Meilan gave in to temptation and tentatively slipped her hand into his.

He made no indication that he had noticed.  But he didn't let go.

Wufei could not sleep.  Or, more accurately, he could make his body sleep, but there was nothing he could do to stop the dreams.  He didn't know if the nightmares were worse, or the memories.

That was why he was in the backyard at three in the morning, doing his daily practice, the same moves over and over and over and over, focusing his mind so intently that all other thought was blotted out.

"Wufei."

He paused.  What was his grandmother doing up and about at three in the morning?

But no, it couldn't be three in the morning.  The sky was full of sunshine.  He hadn't noticed.  He turned to look at her, where she stood on the porch.

"Wufei," Mistress Long said again, softly.  "You must rest.  Come and eat, drink.  Punishing your body so harshly will not bring healing to your spirit."

Wufei looked down at himself, and saw that he was soaked with perspiration.  His muscles felt knotted and sore from four or five straight hours of practice with no breaks or even water.  His grandmother was right, he was being a fool.

He could no longer block out her face as he showered, the hot water blissfully agonizing against his flesh.  He kept seeing Meilan laughing, Meilan angry, Meilan flirting, Meilan dead, dead--

Wufei knocked his fist against the wall so hard the paint cracked.  He wished he could pound his head against the wall too, so hard that his brains would come oozing out and take all the memories and all the hurt with it.

Mistress Long had bread and water set out for him when he came back into the kitchen.  He would have been grateful for the simple food if he had noticed.  However, he simply put it into his mouth without looking and chewed; it had no taste.  "I'm going to be late for school," he mumbled when he finished.

Mistress Long looked up at him, the only indication of her surprise.  "Wufei?  You wish to go to school today?"

He didn't answer.  He was thinking of how busy a person was at school, what with classes and studying and talking.  How noisy it was, kids yelling all the time.  Yes.  Perfect for drowning out unwanted thoughts.  Not like here, where the peace and quiet would drive him mad if he stayed long enough.

Wufei packed his bag and left.

Trowa spotted his partner in the courtyard that morning and went up to him.  "The attack last night.  Interesting timing.  Do you know if they used MS or explosives?"

Hiiro continued to sit there, staring out at the noisy gathering of teenagers waiting for their classes to start.

Trowa frowned.  "Hiiro?"

The other boy blinked and turned to face him.  "What?"

Trowa studied him.  "The answer to my question," he said carefully.

Hiiro paused, his lips moving slightly.  Trowa saw that he was having to replay his memory.  "Explosives," Hiiro finally said.

Trowa nodded, though the answer was not important to him.  He noticed Quatre trudging through the gates.  "See you later," he told Hiiro, and headed off in the blonde boy's direction.

It was a long time before Hiiro even remembered that Trowa had spoken to him.

He seemed to have been lying here for ages, staring at the ceiling without seeing it, thoroughly tasting the thought that he had no home, no family; everything was gone.  Father Maxwell, Sister Helen, all the children he had lived with, his friends...gone, dead.

"God," Duo whispered.  "Are you really up there?  Do you really hate me that much?"  He knew he was a bad kid.  Always stealing and fighting and running off, playing pranks on the good people who had taken him in, always questioning their beliefs so that their faces looked troubled....

He hoped they had not lost their places in heaven because of him, because his questions had made them doubt.

Duo slowly sat up.  "Is there even a heaven?" he asked, his voice tight and growling.  "Did you take them away to punish me, or did you want to bring them home to you, like Sister Helen always said?"  He glared up at the ceiling.  "Either way, it sucks!"

No answer.  What did he expect?  Maybe his fears were right, and God didn't exist after all.  Maybe it was only the god of death who was at work here.  Duo had certainly seen enough evidence of him.

The door creaked, and Quatre peeked in.  "You're awake," he said softly.  Duo didn't respond.  It would have taken too much energy.  "I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving now."

He was startled when Duo suddenly shot out of bed.  "You're leaving?!" Duo cried wildly.

"I-I'm going to school," Quatre stammered.

School.  Duo sank back down to sit on the bed.  "School," he repeated dully.  "The uniform they were supposed to send never came in," he remembered.  He had to swallow several times before he could say, "It'll never arrive now."

Quatre hesitated.  Then he stepped across the room and asked softly, "May I?"

'May you what?' Duo thought, but all he said was, "Whatever."

Quatre reached out and laid his hand lightly over Duo's heart.  Duo started to give him a strange look, but was distracted by a sudden rush of heat.  HIs eyes widened.  "Your hand...it's glowing!"  He looked up to find heavy tears sliding down the Arabian boy's face.

"Oh," Quatre gasped, and pulled away.  He covered his face and began to sob, his body shaking with grief.  Then he collapsed at Duo's feet, weeping and weeping.

Duo stared at him in amazement, until finally the other boy began to calm, drawing in deep breaths and trying to wipe away tears that wouldn't stop flowing.

"How can you not be crying?" Quatre gasped.  Even now, though he was no longer reaching out with the Spaceheart, the other boy's pain felt so strong.  "How can you just sit there, when your soul is in such anguish?"

"Men don't cry," Duo said gruffly.  "Real men don't cry," he added, looking sidelong at Quatre.

Quatre shook his head, fiercely scrubbing his sleeve across his face.  "I'm staying here today," he said determinedly.  "I'm staying with you."

Duo couldn't stand pity.  "No," he said harshly.  "I'm fine.  Go to school."  When he saw that Quatre was about to protest, he stood and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Quatre stared after him.  "Duo!" he called through the door.

"Go away!" the other boy shouted again.  "Go hang out with the Freaks or something!"

It took Quatre a minute to realize that he meant Hiiro and Trowa.  Then his face brightened.  "Yes," he said.  "They might know something.  I'll talk to them, Duo.  You stay here and rest."

Duo listened to his retreating footsteps, and the sound of the front door closing.  Then he buried his face in his hands and sank to the floor.

Relena Darlian had heard the shocking news, what people were starting to call the Maxwell Church Tragedy.  She couldn't understand why anyone would target an orphanage of all places, a church that took care of homeless children.  There was no one there except good people, innocent children.  How could this have happened?

She did not contribute much to her friends' excited conversation about the bombing.  Instead, she found herself frequently scanning the courtyard, straining to find that orphan boy with the church clothes.  Had he survived, or had he been killed in the attack?  It frightened her, to think that a person she had just seen alive and well the day before, walking and laughing, could suddenly be not here anymore.  Gone forever.

After a while, it occurred to Relena that even if the Maxwell boy was alive, he almost certainly wouldn't be at school today.  She sighed and was about to pay more attention to her friends, when she caught sight of someone whom she was, to be honest, even more interested in.

Hiiro pounded his fist hard against the bench and finally made himself stand up.  There was a lot to do before class, and he had wasted too much time already.  He made his way to the computer lab, gratified to see that despite his delay, the teacher had not yet arrived.

It was an easy matter to pick the lock (ludicrously easy...the Wynstone system apparently wasn't in use yet).  Hiiro walked in and flipped on the lights before selecting a computer to work with.  If the teacher came he could just say that someone else had let him in, and if anyone else came in he could say that the teacher had stepped out for a second.

Hiiro was well into hacking Winner Corp.'s network when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching.  He tensed, fingers ready to erase all sign of his real work and bring up the Web site on quasars he was supposedly researching.

Whoever was out there did not walk on by.  They slowed and came into the lab.  Hiiro turned, his mouth open to give a false explanation, when the words died on his lips.  It was that girl - Relena Darlian, the dangerous one.

"Hiiro?" she said questioningly.

He watched her, waiting.  It didn't occur to him to say "Hi."

"Um...what are you doing?"

"Research."  He allowed her to walk over and peer at the Web site on his computer screen.

"Oh," she said.  "That's interesting."  She glanced back at his face, and had to stop herself from backing away.  His eyes on her were so intense.  "Um...."  Why had she come here, anyway?  What did she want to say to him?  Nothing in particular.  Nothing she could ask.  She was simply drawn to him, and she didn't know why.

"If you need to use a computer, there are plenty."  Hiiro waved a hand at the other machines, then turned back to his own monitor.  Now he would have to putter around, taking useless notes, until either the girl left or he could leave after a reasonable amount of time.

"Hiiro...."

He glanced back at her.

"Did you...hear about the bombing last night?"  Relena was startled at his sudden, complete attention.  His eyes were no longer just intense; they burned.

"What about it?" he asked harshly.

A cold, horrible possibility had occurred to Relena.  "You didn't do it, did you?  You didn't...kill those people?"

Hiiro stood.  He was not much taller than her, but somehow he seemed to be looming.  "I don't kill innocent civilians," he said, very clearly.  Then he took his gun and held it to her head.  "However, you are no longer innocent."

'I know too much,' Relena realized, her heart beating like a drum and her mind running frantically.  'I barely know anything about him, but even so, it's too much, and he's going to kill me.'  In the computer lab?

"You can't shoot me here," she managed to say through trembling lips.

Hiiro's finger started to squeeze on the trigger.  Then he realized she was right.  It would not do at all for a student to be found dead on school grounds.  Treize would be most displeased if the mission was compromised so recklessly.

Hiiro hid the gun away again, and Relena's breath came out in a gasp of relief.  Before she could say anything, however, Hiiro spoke.

"You are correct.  When you leave the school, then.  I will kill you."  He brushed past her and walked out of the room.

Relena sank to her knees, her eyes wide with horror.

It never occurred to Wufei to look at a clock, to realize how late he was.  He walked into his first period class and did not recognize any of the other students, but that didn't register.

There was a boy sitting where he usually sat.  "Get out of my seat," Wufei ordered.

"Are you crazy, man?" the boy returned.

"Wufei, honey," the teacher said gently, before it occurred to Wufei to punch him.  "Why don't you head on to your second period?"  The teachers had heard of the bombing that morning, and that Long Meilan had been one of the victims.  Frankly, she was surprised the poor boy was even in school today.

"The bell has not rung," Wufei stated.  "It is first period."  There was an uncomfortable pause.  The students who hadn't heard of Wufei's connection to the tragedy giggled.

Finally the teacher said, "Ralph, why don't you sit in one of the empty desks today."  The boy shrugged and relinquished his seat to Wufei, who stared straight ahead the entire period and concentrated on every word of the lesson as if his life depended on it.

He spent the rest of the day sitting through the wrong classes, as puzzled students stared and whispered, and teachers gave him compassionate looks.  Wufei threw all his attention into doing complicated math problems, memorizing poems, drawing diagrams of famous battles, anything to stop himself thinking of anything that had happened before this morning.  It was like he was encased in a protective shell, his senses gone dull, the outside world meaningless.

The shell broke during gym.  Wufei was so aggressive that no one would partner with him except Trowa.  Trowa was silent almost the whole time, catching each pass no matter how hard Wufei threw it.  It was at the end, just before the coach sent them to the locker room, that Trowa stepped close and whispered in Wufei's ear.

"Do you understand now what White Fang is like?"  There was no reaction.  Trowa continued in a low voice, "If you've changed your mind, meet us here tonight, at 23:00."  Then he walked away.

Wufei's hands curled into fists as he realized the implications of Trowa's words.  White Fang.  White Fang was responsible for Meilan's death.

For a moment, the world seemed to look red.

That same day, very early in the morning, the leader of White Fang walked into the control room at headquarters, warming his hands around a cup of coffee.  He smiled to see that, as usual, his second-in-command was the first to arrive.  He walked over to where she sat at a computer, reading a news story.

"Good morning," he murmured.  She seemed preoccupied, so he leaned down to see if he could get away with a quick kiss.

She was crying.

He stared at her, startled.  "Noin?"

Her hand slammed down furiously on the desk beside the keyboard.  "Look at this!" she demanded, stabbing her other hand at the computer screen.

He raised his eyes to read the headline.  MAXWELL CHURCH TRAGEDY: 245 dead in mysterious bombing.

"What is....  This happened Otherside?"

"The Alliance," she whispered.  "Or Winner, it doesn't matter which.  It's the only way the evidence makes sense."  She turned and pressed her face against him.  He stroked her hair gently, trying to comfort her.  "Oh Zechs, even for them, this is--  That was an orphanage!  It was all civilians who were killed, most of them children!  And on Otherside, where they don't even know about the wars...."

Zechs placed a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back, so that he could look into her face.  "Noin," he said seriously.  "Listen to me.  This is why White Fang exists.  It is our job to fight, to stop these things from happening.  You need to stop reading the news and get to work."

Noin's face steeled.  She wiped her eyes and saluted.  "Yes, sir!"

It seemed like there were voices all around him, cries of fear and pain.  Duo had curled himself into a corner like he used to do when he was small, listening to the voices going on and on in his head.  Sister Helen scolding him, Father Maxwell teaching him, both voices entwined with the screams of his friends as they died (or did they even have time to scream before shinigami cut them down?), the wailing and crying of the aftermath....

Duo slowly raised his head.  Surely the sound of crying wasn't real, was it?  His imagination was vivid enough to plague him at times, but....

Slowly, somehow, he dragged himself almost to his feet and half-crawled to the door of the apartment.  He almost expected the door to open on a scene of darkness and flame and ashes, but what he actually saw was the brightness of a sunny day, and an exotic-looking little girl sitting on the steps outside, face pressed to her knees as she cried her heart out.  She could not have been more than five years old.

Duo stared at her, for some reason thinking, 'I am so glad she's alive.'  He straightened up, feeling as if some of his energy was coming back.  He took a couple of steps out so he could crouch down in front of the child.  "Hey, cute thing.  What's wrong?"

The little girl raised her head and stared at him.  "You're a foreigner," she stated bluntly.

Sweatdrop.  "Heh," Duo managed to laugh.  "Well, to me, you look like the foreigner."

"What were you doing in Quatre-sama's house?" the child demanded, her tears apparently forgotten.

"Quatre-sama," Duo repeated, a little disgustedly.  The other men who lived here had been calling him "Quatre-sama" too, as if he was some kind of lord.  "Even the kids call him that.  What's the deal?"

"Quatre-sama is our master!" the little girl said, indignant at his lack of respect.  "He saved us!"

Well, that was interesting.  "Really?"

"Yes."  The girl began sniffling again.  "But he went to school, so he can't save my dolly."

"Your dolly?"

The girl burst into renewed tears, which alarmed Duo somewhat.  "Hey!  Calm down, kiddo."

"Dawud and Fadi stole my dolly and they won't give her baaaaack!" she wailed.

"Sssh, ssh!"  Duo was starting to be afraid that some mother would come storming out any minute, demanding to know what he was doing to make a poor, innocent child cry.  "Okay, look, kid - what's your name, by the way?"

"Jamila," she sniffed.  Then, rather self-importantly, she announced, "It means 'beautiful.'"

He smiled, relieved that she'd mostly stopped crying again.  "It suits you," he agreed, gently touching a lock of her soft black hair.  "My name is Duo.  It means 'two,'" he added.

"Why?  Are there two of you?" she wanted to know.

"Well, no...."  He didn't want to talk about this right now.  It touched an old, old hurt that was too near the new.  "Anyway, what do you say you and me go and get your doll back?"

Her face lit up immediately.  "Really?  You'll pound Dawud and Fadi to a pulp and rescue Kat?"

"Er...we'll see.  Come on."  He grinned and turned around invitingly.  Jamila jumped on a bit too enthusiastically, and Duo grunted as he rose to his feet, carrying the little girl piggy-back.  He navigated his way carefully down the stairs, listening as the little girl chattered happily.

The apartment complex was very high quality, with perfect landscaping, flawless buildings designed with good taste, and not a pot-hole or bit of trash to be seen.  'Quatre and his goons must be rolling,' Duo thought, only a little resentfully.  'Must be nice.'  Here and there doors were open, so that the sounds of Middle Eastern music and the smells of exotic cooking floated deliciously out into the air.  Duo tried hard to concentrate on all these things, and not the grief-filled darkness that still lurked in the back of his mind.

"So where would we find these two delinquents?" he asked his passenger.

"They're always messing with their stupid robots back there," she sniffed, pointing.  "What's delquets?"

"Delinquents.  It means 'people who steal innocent dolls,'" he joked.

"Yes!  Yes!  That's them!" Jamila shouted enthusiastically.

"Hey, not so loud, girl!  You're right next to my ear!"

Duo turned a corner and found a fairly empty stretch of parking lot.  Against the fence was a sort of shed.  Its wide-open doors revealed a couple of tables and lots of boxes, all strewn with various tools and myriad mechanical bits and pieces.  Duo's interest was caught at once.

He approached the two boys who were working there.  Both looked to be a few years younger than him, and were dressed like the rest of the Maganacs.

"That's them!" Jamila shrieked indignantly.  "Make them give Kat BACK!"

Dawud and Fadi looked up in annoyance at the sound of her voice.

"Playing hooky?" Duo asked conversationally.

The older boy glared.  "Our lessons are done.  Why don't you go to school if you're so worried about it?"

Duo shrugged.  He put Jamila down and said, "Not that I care, but you're never gonna get a Logos 460 to work if you keep using those dinky B-29 fixtures."

The boys looked at him in surprise, then down at the machine they were unsuccessfully trying to reactivate.

"What would you use?" Fadi asked cautiously.

Duo smiled.  "At home we had to make do with B-70s, which stink because they cause a tostering glitch half the time.  But if you have any C-levels somewhere around here, I can show you a trick or two."

"My DOLLY!" Jamila was shouting.  "Give her back NOW!"

Impatiently, Dawud reached into a box and tossed Jamila her doll, but his attention was all on Duo.  "Really?  Every time we tried C-level, it just sparked and died again."

Duo laughed.  "You try adjusting the energy input?"

The boys looked at each other.  "Why didn't we think of that?"

Ten minutes later Duo was in his element, streaked with grease and screwing in a fixture on one side of the machine as he gave instructions to the boys.  Jamila had wandered over to another table and was using various knobs and wires as playthings for her doll.  It was an enjoyable afternoon for all four of them.

Quatre got home from school that day feeling both excited and apprehensive.  He opened the door to his apartment slowly, peering inside before he stepped in.  "Duo?"

There was no one in the front rooms, but he could hear the sound of a video game going in the spare bedroom.  Quatre dropped off his bag and went to investigate.

He was quite surprised to find Duo enthusiastically racing with Dawud and Fadi, all occasionally yelling when one of them crashed or missed a turn.  They were also, strangely enough, all wearing little dolls' caps or bits of lace draped over their shoulders.  Jamila had set up a tea party with dolls and stuffed animals nearby, and she alternated between cooing at her toys and going over to put pieces of cake in the distracted boys' mouths.

"How come you always WIN?" Fadi shouted in frustration.

Duo was laughing.  "'Cause I'm the best, man!"

"Another round," Dawud demanded furiously.  "We'll get you this time!  Come on, Fadi, let's gang up on him!"

"Duo, drink this tea," Jamila ordered, thrusting a tiny plastic teacup at his face.

Quatre stood gaping.  "Wh-What is going on here?" he asked faintly.

All four of them turned in surprise at the sound of his voice.

"QUATRE-SAMA!" the children shrieked, jumping up in delight.  Quatre smiled as he picked up the little girl and greeted the boys.

"Have you been keeping my guest company?"

"He rescued Kat and I gave him tea!" Jamila said proudly.

"He made the Logos work!" Fadi said excitedly.

"Yeah, we were using the wrong fixtures," Dawud added.

Quatre looked over to smile at Duo.  The other boy had just noticed that he was adorned with lace, and seemed to be absorbed in picking it off.  His cheeks were a little pink.

"That sounds very interesting," Quatre acknowledged.  "I hope you didn't cause any trouble."

"Never," Dawud said slyly.

"Can we stay for dinner?" Jamila wanted to know.  "Are you gonna make horesh gameh?  I want horesh gameh for dinner!"

"Come on, Jamila, don't just invite yourself over," Dawud told her disgustedly.

"It's all right," Quatre started to say, but just then they could hear raised voices outside, mothers impatiently calling their children home.

"Oh man," Dawud exclaimed, wincing.  "I forgot Mother wanted us to run errands.  We gotta go, Fadi!"  The boys hurriedly said good-bye and loped out the door, dragging the protesting Jamila with them.

Quatre watched them go with a smile, but then he turned to look at Duo and saw that, now that the children were gone, all the vivacity seemed to drain out of the other boy.  Duo dully turned the game off and wandered out to the balcony, where he slouched in a chair.

Deciding to give him some privacy for a while, Quatre went quietly about his business, studying a bit and getting things ready for dinner.  Usually when he was alone he had music playing to make the place feel less lonely, but he was afraid Duo might be bothered by it.  He kept casting glances out the glass door, his heart aching every time he saw that dejected figure staring out into the distance.

Duo watched the day slowly draw to a close.  He was facing east, so the sky here grew dark much sooner.  Shortly after twilight had well and truly fallen, he heard the door slide open and the soft footsteps of his host.

"I don't know if you're hungry," Quatre said quietly, "but you should eat."  He set a bowl down carefully by Duo's hand, then sat down in the other chair with his own serving.

Duo had no appetite whatsoever, but he had learned quite early on to eat whatever he could get his hands on.  He dutifully took up the bowl and spooned some of the rice and meat into his mouth.  It was good, actually, though his heart wasn't in it.  His attention was more on the deepening dark.

"I wonder if that's where they are," he said softly.  "In the dark, wandering lost forever.  Or...."  He shivered.  "Or what if they just don't exist anymore?  What if they went from alive to nothing?"

Quatre knew that Duo had been raised to follow a faith different from his own, but they could agree on this, at least.  "No," he assured the other boy.  "The human soul is eternal.  You know this, if you really question yourself."

Duo squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.  "They have to be in heaven.  They were such good people.  They have to be.  I'm the one who belongs in hell."

Quatre's heart ached.  He reached over to touch Duo's hand.  "Do you think that Father Maxwell or Sister Helen believed that?" he asked softly.

A hysterical laugh burst from Duo's throat.  "No," he said wildly.  "They didn't.  They loved me.  After all the horrible things I did, those stupid, stupid idiots wouldn't stop loving me."  The tears were very close then, but he pulled up his knees and buried his face in them, and kept swallowing until the tightness in his eyes and throat faded again.

"So, how was school?" he finally managed to say.  Not that he cared, but he couldn't stand talking about this any longer.

"Oh."  Quatre straightened as he remembered what Trowa had told him earlier.  "They said...they said it was White Fang, who attacked the church."

Duo's head snapped up, and he stared at Quatre in disbelief.  "What?"

"White Fang," Quatre repeated, almost apologetically.  "That rebel group Trowa told us about.  He said that if we'd changed our minds about working to stop them, that we should meet him and Hiiro at school late tonight."

Duo's fists were curled tightly, nails biting into his palms.  "That psycho thing he was talking about...it's connected?"

"Apparently so.  If it's true, Duo...."  Quatre's eyes were wide.  He was thinking of the Maganacs, the school, the city, all those people in danger.  He and Duo and Wufei somehow had the power to protect them, and Quatre already knew his choice.  "I'm going.  Will you come?"

There was nothing demanding in his tone, no hint of pressure at all.  However, it didn't matter.  Nothing could have stopped Duo Maxwell from avenging the destruction of the only family and home he had ever known.

The boys were sent on an information-retrieval mission after school, and did not return to the Otherside base until about 21:00 hours.  Trowa was about to decide whether to seize an hour of sleep or get in some more training, when he noticed that Hiiro had immediately headed for the weapons wall.

"You have another mission?" Trowa asked incredulously.

"Unassigned," Hiiro grunted.  "Something I have to take care of."  He tried to quell the image of soft hair and clear blue eyes.  It did not help at all, considering what he had to do.

"How long is this going to take?" Trowa asked doubtfully.  "We should leave fairly soon."

Hiiro paused.  "What?"

"The new recruits," Trowa reminded him.  "We're supposed to meet them tonight and escort them to Alliance headquarters."

Hiiro said nothing, his body rigid.  The checkpoint technician was looking a little too interested in their conversation.

"Were you not told?" Trowa asked softly, offering the other boy a way out.

Hiiro relaxed just a little.  "No, I was not told," he said strongly, replacing the weapons on the wall.  "Personal mission will be postponed."

Trowa nodded.  He himself had told Hiiro of the plan earlier, at school, but he said nothing.

To be continued....

Author's Notes:  Horesh gameh is actually Persian rather than Arab, and goodness knows if I've spelled it right.