Obligations

I hung up the phone, sat scrubbing my hands over my face and just tried to get over the shock. What the hell? No way… what the bloody hell?

I heard the door to the apartment open and before I even had a chance to raise my head, Heero was suddenly rushing to my side. ‘Duo?’ his voice was tight with concern. ‘Love? What’s wrong? Are you feeling all right?’

I lifted my head and smiled, having to stifle a hysterical little chuckle.

‘You are not going to believe the phone call I just got.’

He wasn’t completely reassured, his brow furrowed with worry and his hands holding me by the elbows. ‘Do you need to go sit down?’

I snorted up at him. ‘Heero… I am sitting down.’

He had the decency to look embarrassed but continued doggedly, ‘I meant on the couch.’

I shook my head at him and reached to pull him down for his welcome home kiss. It had been more than four months since the accident. Almost a month and a half since that hideous disaster called a party at the home of Relena Peacecraft. I had only thought he hovered before the party. But since that night when I had disappeared on him for three days and he had later found me passed out on the floor of the cargo hold of my ship, he had turned ‘over-protective’ into an art form.

‘I am fine,’ I told him firmly and disengaged myself from his arms. ‘However… dinner will not be fine if we don’t get in the kitchen and keep it from burning.’

He let me lead him into the other room but continued to frown. ‘Then what is the matter… what phone call?’

I set him to stirring the stew on the stove while I bent to check on the cornbread I had in the oven.

‘Heero…’ I sighed on the sudden remembrance of how the phone call in question had started out. ‘You never told me you called the Emergency squad that day.’

His sigh was heavier. ‘I found you unconscious, obviously having fallen from I didn’t know how high…of course I called the Emergency squad. What does that have to do with the phone call you got today?’

I pulled the pan of cornbread out of the oven and motioned for him to start dishing up the stew. ‘Apparently one of the attendants noticed the… paintings in the cargo bay.’

He paused in reaching for the large bowl I had sitting there and looked at me, waiting for me to elaborate.

‘I guess he found it…interesting,’ I told him pensively as I sliced the bread and put it on the serving plate. ‘He didn’t know that spacers…decorated like that. He told a couple of people about it…one of his friends on the police force has a sister who is a journalist.’

Heero raised an eyebrow and finally prompted, ‘And…?’

I sighed and turned away from him to put the plate on the table. ‘Said sister also thought it was interesting and started asking around. She discovered that it’s a wide spread habit. She thinks it would make a good human interest piece and wants to interview me.’

He followed me to the table with the stew and sat it down without speaking. I went to the ‘fridge for drinks, fishing myself out a bottle of soda and dared him with a glare to say something. He scowled but refrained from getting on my case about it. We sat down to eat.

‘Are you going to do it?’ he finally ventured and I could see something behind his eyes; I just wasn’t sure what it was.

I snorted out right, ‘Of course not!’ And had to repress a shiver at the thought of someone going aboard my ship and taking pictures of my… memories… of my pain. ‘No bloody way in hell!’

He dished up some stew and waited, understanding that there was more to it than that.

I sat and stared at my plate for a while, using my fork to turn a piece of cornbread into crumbs. ‘The woman was fucking relentless. I’ve been talking with her for the last half an hour. I couldn’t get rid of her… I finally told her I’d think about it just to get her off the phone.’

He took a couple of bites of stew before quietly asking, ‘Why don’t you just do it?’

I jerked my head up and looked at him just to make sure he wasn’t kidding. ‘Heero!’ I couldn’t believe he was even thinking about it. ‘Are you nuts? She wants to bring a crew onboard my ‘Demon’ and take pictures!’

I would have thought that the idea of having someone showing the universe the damn mural I had painted of him dancing with the Queen of the World while orphans froze to death outside their crystal palace would be enough to convince him to drop it. Apparently not.

‘You are an incredible artist,’ he said softly, dipping his bread into the stew and taking a bite. ‘I think you should at least consider it.’

I just sat and blinked at him. Did he not fucking look at the stupid paintings? Did he not understand that I had little control over the shit that my demented muse chose to throw at the wall?

‘Heero…’ I breathed in shock, ‘it… it would be like having someone come in and take pictures of my damned soul.’

His eyes left his plate and came up to meet mine. ‘It’s a beautiful soul,’ he said simply.

I flung myself up from the table and stormed out of the room with an inarticulate growl. What the hell? Was that damned woman paying him? Little Miss Angelina ‘Call me Angie’ Masters? No way. No fucking way in hell! I wouldn’t have the world trying to psychoanalyze me based on the inside of my ship. What in the hell would people think of a guy who painted the inside of his cockpit the color of dried blood? Not to mention what it would do to my reputation; she was bound to want to talk about the accident. Enough people already knew that I had totally screwed up that last job; I didn’t need to keep having it thrown in my face. I was half afraid now of what was going to happen when I recovered enough to get back to work. I had little doubt that I would have trouble getting job offers as it was.

I ended up in the living room staring out the window at nothing. I felt all on edge and jittery. It had seemed like the woman was laying siege to me and my ship, and I knew she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She would be back and I didn’t know how to get across to her that hell would start serving pink lemonade before she got on board my ship with a bunch of photographers.

I heard Heero coming up behind me but I didn’t turn. He rested his hands on my shoulders for a moment before beginning to gently knead at my tight muscles.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ he whispered and I let myself relax against him with a shaky sigh.

‘It’s too damn… personal, Heero. It would be like having someone grope around inside my head.’

He wrapped his arms around me and I could see his face reflected in the glass; he looked troubled. ‘It’s all right,’ he told me. ‘You just do such unbelievable work… I hate to see it hidden away. But it’s your decision. I had no right to say anything.’

I had to smile ruefully at myself; I couldn’t believe the warm feeling that filled me at the praise. His praise, I had to admit to myself. But I couldn’t understand how he could feel that way when one of those renderings included him. I turned in his arms to look him in the eye.

‘Heero…how can you possibly want to reveal that damned painting?’ I felt myself flushing and had to look down. ‘I mean… it doesn’t exactly show you or Relena in a good light.’

He shifted his arms to draw me closer and quirked a smile at me. ‘The light might be a little… harsh but it’s what you were feeling.’ He bent to press a kiss on my collarbone. ‘There’s a certain amount of truth in it.’

He made the guilt well up without even trying. ‘We talked about this… I told you I don’t always know what’s going to come out… I don’t …’

He lifted his head from my shoulder and smiled again, ‘…control the muse; the muse controls you,’ he quoted and made me chuckle. Then he stepped away and drew me with him. ‘Come on, dinner’s getting cold.’

I let him lead me back to the table and we sat down to eat; we didn’t talk about it any more that night.

The next day was Saturday; I had come to cherish the weekends. It didn’t used to matter to me; spacers don’t work by the same calendar that the ground-bounders do. The regimented workweek means nothing to those who typically work in the space trades. You start a job and it isn’t over until it’s over, it doesn’t matter if it takes a week or six months. You can’t pull a space shuttle over half way to where ever and say ‘It’s the weekend!’ Your ‘downtime’ is based on your financial situation, not on the fact that the calendar told you it was a day of rest.

At first, while I had those damn therapy sessions five days a week, it was just the blessed relief of not having to go down to the clinic for a day or two. I still had to do my exercises at home but that wasn’t as taxing. Then, as my condition had improved and my sessions got cut back first to three times a week and now to only two, Heero and I had started doing things together. Nothing spectacular. In the beginning, when I was still pretty weak, we had simply rented movies or played chess. When I got a little stronger, we would go for walks or just go sit in the park. More importantly, we’d done a little talking. We’d each given a little bit. I’d finally gotten around to confessing how confused I was… had managed to get across to him how panicked it made me feel not knowing what had passed between us while I was so sick.

In his turn, he let me know how frustrating it was for him to have gotten so close to me only to seemingly have me start pushing him away once I started recovering. He told me some of the things I had said to him in my fever dream. I had been completely flustered and we’d had a strange, uncomfortable couple of days. We had finally agreed that we needed to take a step back and start over. That we needed to disregard what had happened onboard my ship and start out on even ground with each other.

So I looked forward to the weekends when he was home from work and we had time to spend together, doing some of that starting over. And that was just one other thing I had to hold against Angie Masters when she tracked me down that Saturday.

We had decided to go over to the athletic park that was just across the street from Heero’s apartment and try playing a little basketball. If we kept the game friendly, not too intense, I thought I could handle it.

We hadn’t been playing fifteen minutes when I noticed a woman watching us from outside the fence on the sidewalk. I didn’t think too much of it and we continued for another fifteen minutes or so before Heero called a halt.

‘That’s enough,’ he told me with that little mother hen frown of his. ‘You’re starting to look tired.’

‘You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re losing,’ I grinned at him and tried to hide the panting.

He quirked a grin at me, tucked the ball under his arm and came toward me. ‘Oh yeah? Hold your hands out.’

We both knew if I did, they’d be shaking. I sketched a little bow. ‘I give… you win.’

He snorted as we turned to head back across the street and I saw the woman who had been watching us move on an intercept course. I didn’t have to point her out; I saw Heero click over into full alert. He passed the ball to me and increased his pace to insure that he was a step ahead of me. I sighed in irritation and considered matching his stride just to be perverse, but I honestly didn’t think the diminutive brunette in the dark coat was a threat.

She had the smarts, at least, to realize what was glaring daggers at her and pulled her hands out of her coat pockets, slowing her pace.

‘Mr. Maxwell?’ she called out and I sighed as I recognized her voice; I had spent a half an hour on the phone with her the day before, after all.

‘Fuck,’ I muttered under my breath and Heero glanced at me. ‘Ms. Masters… the journalist,’ I told him with a roll of my eyes.

I didn’t reply immediately but waited until we got to the break in the fence where she had stopped.

‘Ms. Masters,’ I ventured when we came abreast of her, ‘I thought I made it plain yesterday that I wasn’t interested.’

She smiled at me, a wide open grin that probably melted guys into malleable putty most of the time. ‘Please… I thought I told you to call me Angie?’

I sighed, just wanting to get passed her to the apartment, the air was rather crisp and cool and the sweat was beginning to chill on my skin. That damned familiar shakiness was coming over me, letting me know I’d pushed a little too far. ‘It doesn’t matter what I call you… I’m still not interested in doing your interview.’

Her smile faltered a little but she kept doggedly on, ‘I’m sorry for intruding but I just wanted a chance to talk to you face to face.’

‘Ms. Masters,’ Heero said in that low warning tone he has, ‘if you have done you’re journalistic homework, you know Mr. Maxwell hasn’t been… well. He really needs to get out of this air.’ With that, he took my arm and steered me around her.

I thought for a second we were going to make it but she suddenly burst out; ‘Damnit! Every lead I get on this story comes right back to you… I need to talk to you!’

Heero caught my eye with a raised eyebrow and I closed my eyes for a second with another exasperated sigh. ‘Fine. We can talk; but I don’t promise anything.’

Heero glared at her and motioned for her to follow. The three of us went back to the apartment.

Heero shepherded me in and insisted I sit down on the couch, tossing the afghan over my chilled legs before he turned to deal with our guest.

Somehow, during the walk inside he had managed to squelch his irritation and was now able to take the woman’s coat without growling at her.

‘Can I offer you something?’ he asked politely and she shook her head.

‘Uhmmm… No thank you,’ she murmured. Some of her bluster and sparkle had faded; maybe she’d figured out how things were between Heero and me and realized her flirty charm wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Or maybe Heero just intimidated her.

Heero went to the kitchen and I’m afraid I didn’t give the woman much quarter; just sat and stared at her until he came back. He brought me one of the sports drinks that the therapist had recommended, then perched on the arm of the couch near me. The good Ms. Masters seemed a little subdued by our united front.

‘You wanted to talk to me?’ I finally prompted and watched the last of her perky façade fade away. I felt like I was actually seeing the real woman for the first time. Her brown hair was pulled back in a rather severe style that was probably meant to be ‘professional’. She was a tiny little thing, pretty figure, pretty face with warm brown eyes. I suspected that she was more than used to getting her way, particularly with the male portion of the population.

She edged herself into the chair closest to the front door and dropped her eyes. ‘Look… Mr. Maxwell; my editor has already decided he wants to do this story. I have to write something. When you turned me down, I attempted to make some other contacts but…’ she glanced up at me and I sighed, knowing what was coming. ‘Your work is just everywhere.’

I rubbed idly at a temple that was suddenly throbbing and couldn’t help glancing at Heero out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t watching her… he was watching me.

‘I… uhhhh… have done some commission work,’ I muttered, as much to him as her.

‘Let’s be honest,’ she blurted. ‘These… space people all seem to paint their ships but all of the work that’s worth the powder to blow it to hell is yours.’

I snorted and could almost feel Heero’s eyes boring holes in the side of my head. ‘Bullshit,’ I told her flatly. ‘Look… you want a story; I can give you a list of names of people that would be more than happy to talk to you.’

‘Here on Earth?’ she countered. ‘I have to have this article turned in in two weeks time.’

I blew a breath out and thought about it. ‘Well… that certainly shortens the list considerably but I think I can still…’

‘I want you,’ she said abruptly and I saw a hint of that woman who usually gets her way. ‘I want to see the murals that Roger told my brother about.’

‘The paintings inside my ship are personal. They were never meant to be viewed by the general public. I might consent to the damn interview… but you’re not going aboard my ship,’ I growled and just wished I had a damn aspirin.

That was the closest she’d come to an acceptance yet and she pounced like some kind of damn cat. ‘I have to have pictures to go along with the article.’

‘Forget it,’ I snapped.

Then Heero surprised the hell out of both of us. ‘Duo… why not just selected pictures? There’s nothing in the galley or your cabin…’

Dear Ms. Masters was near salivating, suddenly dealing just as though we already had an agreement and only had to iron out the details. ‘I want the cargo bay!’

‘No!’ I said again.

‘Why not?’ Heero asked softly and I looked up at him in shock.

‘Because Relena would hunt me down like a mad dog and castrate me, that’s why!’ I growled at him.

‘What if I could get this person to agree?’ She was like a freaking badger with a meat-scrap; she had gotten her teeth on it and wasn’t about to let go now.

I laughed out loud and was instantly sorry when my headache kicked up a notch. ‘Fine! The two of you convince little Miss priss-ass to let you publish pictures of my cargo bay and I will do the fucking interview!’

Ms. Masters knew how to quit while she was ahead and instantly backed off a little bit, albeit with a feral glint in her eye. What in the hell had I just done?

I leaned my head back against the couch and let Heero deal with getting her the hell out of the apartment. I vaguely heard him tell the woman that he would handle talking to Relena and would call her on Monday.

I sat with my eyes closed after she was gone and wished to God I could take back what I had just committed to. What in the hell had made me say that? Relena didn’t even know about the damn mural… yet. I was not looking forward to the scene when she found out.

I heard Heero moving about quietly for a few minutes, then became aware of his presence next to me. I cracked an eyelid and found him standing over me with one of those worried frowns. When I met his gaze, he handed me a couple of pain pills and pressed my untouched sports drink back into my hands.

‘This is your damn fault somehow…’ I groused as I took the pills, ‘I’m just not sure how.’

He sighed and settled on the couch beside me, pushing me up and turning me where he could reach my shoulders. His hands began to gently rub the tension out of sore muscles.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said and his voice sounded hesitant. ‘I’m not really sure why I got involved… I swear I didn’t mean to.’

‘I wish you hadn’t,’ I grumped. ‘I can’t believe I agreed to showing the God damned thing to Relena.’

His fingers were kneading their way down my spine and I groaned softly with pleasure despite my irritation.

‘I told myself I would stay out of it,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I just wasn’t expecting… I mean, I didn’t realize how it would make me feel…’

He fell quiet and I had to turn around to look at him. I was surprised to find him blushing.

‘What?’ I murmured at the strange look on his face.

He dropped his eyes. ‘I’m proud of you, Ok?’ he blurted suddenly and before the shock of that quite wore off he stood up and pulled me to my feet. ‘Let’s see what we can do about that headache.’

I let him lead me to my room where he stripped me out of my t-shirt and proceeded to do a much better job of massaging my back and shoulders, the headache did ease as the tension began to fade. He stretched out beside me when he was done and just lay rubbing his thumb in small circles on my cheek. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open and he smiled affectionately at me. I fought against the drowsiness and turned to face him, reaching to lay a hand on his hip in open invitation. He slid the hand that was caressing my cheek on around behind my head and pulled me toward him for a gentle kiss that he slowly deepened. My heart quickened; was it finally going to happen? Were we going to take that next step at last? There had been a time when I would have sold my soul to feel his hands on me. But now…though I would never let him know it, it frightened me a little… the thought of opening myself up to someone else so much. Once burned and all that. I felt vaguely guilty sometimes, like I was teasing him somehow. This wasn’t the first time I had offered to make the leap and this wasn’t the first time he had gently refused.

He drew back and his eyes searched my face for something he didn’t seem to find.

‘You’re tired,’ he said softly and his voice held a hint of something… regret maybe? I wasn’t sure. ‘Just rest, love.’

I ended up taking an afternoon nap for the first time in weeks.

Heero truly had promised Angie Masters an answer on Monday, so Sunday afternoon found me sitting in the pilot’s seat of the ‘Maxwell’s Demon’ waiting for Heero to show up with Relena. I was hoping that she would turn him down flat and that would be the end of it. But I knew Relena well enough to know that her curiosity would get the best of her and she would have to see the thing herself.

I had fidgeted and fussed over things in an attempt to relieve high-strung nerves before finally settling to watch for them. The hanger had security cameras that ships were allowed to tap into in their respective bays. I could see the hanger door and the edge of my own wide-open cargo hatch. It took Heero a long damn time to come back. I held my breath when I saw his car pass the hanger door to park, hoping beyond hope that he would walk through there alone. But he didn’t and I let my breath out in a sigh that turned into a soft groan all on its own. Damn.

I had truly meant to stay in the cockpit until it was all over but I couldn’t help myself; I suddenly just had to see her reaction. I rose and ghosted down the hall to stand just up the corridor from the interior, open cargo bay door. I heard her steps ringing harshly on the metal deck plates.

I found myself holding my breath and had to force myself to relax a little. The steps slowed and there was the sound of a small gasp.

‘That’s… awful,’ she said a little too loudly and lowered her voice instantly when she realized how it was going to echo and amplify in there. ‘What is it? Why would anyone want to have a painting like that?’

I figured out after a second that she was looking at the wall with the floor to ceiling rendering of the aftermath of the Maxwell church massacre…in all its glory. The church is still smoldering with thick black smoke rising to obscure an otherwise clear night sky. The light glints almost evilly off the one small piece of the stained glass window that is still in the frame. You have to look a little closer to see the bodies; I doubt she even noticed them. It is just the way I remembered it looking on that night when I came running back and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the mistake I had made when I had agreed to steal that mobile suit.

‘It’s the Maxwell church on L2,’ Heero told her gently. ‘Duo lived there for a time when he was a child.’

‘It’s horrible… I can’t imagine what kind of mind would want to look at this all the time.’

‘Relena… I explained this,’ Heero’s voice sounded a little weary and I had to wonder how much talking he had done to get her here. ‘He only paints what he feels… I think sometimes he isn’t even sure what’s going to come out when he starts one of these murals.’

Her steps were moving again and I suddenly heard another gasp. The first one had been mildly offended. This one was horrified and I knew she’d finally walked far enough to see the painting on the end wall.

‘Heero!’ she snapped. ‘How could you ever imagine that I would allow anyone to publish pictures of this… this… monstrous lie!’

I had to shake my head; this was the woman who was supposed to lead mankind into a new era of peace? This person who was so tangled up in class and social status she couldn’t see passed the end of her damned nose? Mankind was in a shit wagon on a down hill ride straight to hell then.

I heard a sound that told me she had whirled around to confront Heero and I felt faintly bad for him until I remembered this had been his damned, stupid idea to begin with.

‘How can you even consider it?’ she burst out, obviously aghast. ‘You’re in the painting too!’

I heard Heero moving slowly forward and I imagined him looking up at the painting on the wall, wondering what part he was studying.

‘Stop looking at the subject matter, Relena,’ he told her calmly, ‘and look at the workmanship… look at the art. It’s beautiful.’

I felt myself warming with the sound of his praise.

‘Beautiful?’ she practically shouted and I flinched despite myself. ‘It’s hideous! It’s ridiculous! Look at those children… that’s so trite and clichéd! Where in the Earth sphere have you ever seen children in that condition? It’s…absurd!’

I felt my temper starting to flare. Absurd? I could name each one of those children and they looked just as they had when I had last seen them alive, right down to the rags they were wearing. Dear God… the woman didn’t have a clue! She’d never been outside that glittering, hopelessly flawed crystal palace to see the real world. Daddy had done quite the job protecting her. Maybe that naivety had helped when she was first starting out; I think it was part of what had gathered her following to her. But now she wasn’t a kid anymore… she couldn’t keep living in the bright lights pretending that the dark didn’t exist. There comes a time when naïve isn’t innocence anymore…it’s apathy.

‘Relena…’ Heero was saying but broke off when I walked into the cargo bay.

‘I take it then,’ I said as I walked toward them, ‘that your answer is no?’ I carefully stayed away from Heero; I wouldn’t put him in the middle of this.

She whirled around to face me and I had only thought that she had disliked me before. Her face positively seethed with anger and hatred now.

‘Of course it is no,’ she said emphatically.

It’s funny; it’s what I had wanted. To be able to tell Ms. Masters that her answer was no but have it not be my fault. This way I could shrug my shoulders and point in some other direction; see?…out of my hands. So I have no idea why I said what I did next.

‘You realize that I don’t need your permission, don’t you?’ I asked softly and watched her expression go from open hatred to fear in the space of two heartbeats.

Then it hardened back into anger. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘I might.’ I smiled carefully and turned to look up at the picture above us, I hadn’t really taken the time yet to come down here and study it since the night I had painted it and passed out on the floor.

‘My lawyers…’ she began and I chuckled.

‘Can’t do a thing. I’m not selling or publishing it for profit.’ I was taking a perverse pleasure in watching her boil.

‘Duo?’ Heero asked softly and I turned to find a confused look on his face.

‘You started this,’ I told him and was surprised when he gave me a small nod of acknowledgment.

‘What will it take to make you forget this?’ Relena gritted and I was surprised she wasn’t gnashing her teeth.

I ignored her for a minute, looking at my cluster of children. ‘The little one is Becca…the plague got her; she was about six. The plague got a lot of us street rats.’ I pointed to the first boy kneeling in the snow by the window. ‘That’s Eel. We called him that because he could wiggle out of just about anything; skinny as a rail and double-jointed.’ I grinned at Eel, remembering his funny little snort of a laugh. ‘We never knew what happened to him…he just didn’t come back one night.’ I let my eyes drift over the picture, sliding past my younger self, standing beside Eel in front of my adult self. Damn…I hadn’t seen that before.

‘What will it take?’ she growled again and it was a miracle she didn’t snap teeth off as hard as she was grinding them.

She didn’t believe me. She thought I had made those children up. She thought that mural was all about her and I suddenly knew it wasn’t. I suddenly knew what it was about…mostly.

‘I can’t be bought, Relena,’ I told her and turned away from the painting to face her. ‘It was true back then and it’s still true now; you can’t buy me off. There’s only one thing that is going to keep me from going through with the interview.’

She blinked at me, suddenly unsure of herself; money got her highness out of just about everything. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘I want you to come with me…’ I glanced at Heero and didn’t see anything in his expression except support, ‘with us. To L2… to see what the real damn world is like outside your crystal pink dream.’

Shock registered on her face… a horrified shock. ‘I’m not going anywhere with… you!’

I shrugged and turned to walk away.

‘You could bring someone…’ I heard Heero venture softly.

‘What?’ Relena yelped, ‘you support this… this ridiculous attempt to…’

‘Show you a little truth?’ he said and it made both of us turn to look at him.

‘Heero?’ she gasped and just stood and stared at him.

‘It’s a two day trip out.’ I interjected, looking at Heero and not Relena. ‘As Heero suggested, a chaperone might be in order. We would spend a day on L2 doing a small tour. Two days back. Otherwise… Ms. Masters gets her story after all.’

I turned on my heel and got the hell out of there. Behind me, I caught the beginning of a petulant rant, ‘This is black mail…’

I sought my cabin, the serene comfort of my womb of stars, and just stood trying to slow my thundering pulse. God damn, that woman could drive me to distraction. I’d never met anyone as freaking… uneducated… as she was. This was not a stupid person we were talking about here; how could she have gotten as far as she had with no more damn idea what life was really like?

And just what in the hell had come over me? What was I thinking? I was not going to be able to change her damn mind about anything; what had made me say that? Where had that half-baked, lame-brained idea come from? I really was nuts; five days locked up in a space ship with Miss Relena? When had I turned into a masochist?

Strong arms slipped around my waist and Heero was suddenly there, pulling me back against his warmth. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly, rubbing his cheek against my hair.

I let my breath out in a gust. ‘I’m sorry Heero… I don’t know what made me do that. She just makes me so damn mad.’

He snorted softly, ‘I noticed. It seems to be mutual.’

I turned in his arms because I just needed to be held for a minute. ‘Where is she?’ I murmured against his shoulder.

‘I left her waiting in the car. I didn’t want to take her home before checking on you,’ he told me and his voice was tender.

‘Take her home, Heero,’ I said, pulling away. ‘Tell her to forget the whole thing… I’m not going to do anything. I don’t know what in the hell I was thinking.’

‘No,’ he said and I blinked at him in surprise. ‘I care for Relena a great deal; I truly believe that she is the person who can assure that this world remains at peace… but you’re right about her. It took my seeing her in there,’ he jerked his head toward the cargo bay, ‘to understand that. She is unbelievably…’

‘Naïve?’ I supplied and he grinned and nodded.

‘And intolerant.’ He regarded me with an intense gaze. ‘Your idea is a good one. A very good one… I think we should see it through.’

I gaped at him. I couldn’t help it.

‘I… I count on you being the level headed one in this relationship,’ I finally managed and he raised an eyebrow.

‘I think your spontaneity is wearing off on me.’

‘God save us,’ I muttered and he kissed me then, rather suddenly and very passionately.

‘You’ll wait for me here… please?’ he whispered when he broke the kiss and we laughed lightly at the small joke.

‘Where would I go?’ I grinned and then sobered. ‘Take her home; don’t make her wait any longer… she’s already pissed.’

I waited until I was sure they were gone and then went slowly back to the cargo bay to stand and look up at the painting in question again.

I seldom know what is going to come out when I sit down to paint. Some inner voice whispers half formed ideas to me, then it’s almost as though some other entity takes over my body and I won’t come up for air sometimes for days. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I can draw and I can paint whenever I feel like it. It isn’t always like being possessed. My commission jobs don’t work that way. But sometimes something deep down in my soul just needs to come out. I think it’s a little bit therapeutic.

This painting…this one was a little odd. This was the first one that I hadn’t immediately understood. Well…not completely. I understood my part in it. I understood Relena’s, but I wasn’t entirely sure why Heero was in the damn thing. Did I doubt his love for me? Was I worried that he harbored feelings for Relena or that she was not entirely over her girlhood infatuation? Did I think of Heero as being like her? I didn’t think so, not about any of it. What was my head trying to tell me? I just wasn’t sure.

I was still standing there when Heero came back two hours later. He didn’t say a word, just closed the cargo door and calmly steered me off to the cabin. We spent the night on board, tucked up together in my own bed, under my own blanket. Heero queued my night music for me without my having to ask and I slept better than I had in a very long time.

I woke the next morning to the feel of Heero’s eyes on me and it took a second for me to reconcile where we were. When he saw my eyes open, he brought his fingertips to brush softly over my face, tracing my jaw line… stroking my cheek.

‘The last time we slept here together, you were so very sick…’ his expression was lost somewhere between melancholy and content, his voice a mere breath. ‘You don’t look… fragile anymore.’

I smiled sleepily up at him where he was propped up looking down. ‘I’m a pretty tough little sucker.’

His eyes did something strange then and his voice filled with pain, ‘I almost lost you…’

I blinked up at him and wondered how long he’d been awake, lying here thinking about that trip, thinking about those dark days.

I slid an arm around him and drew him down to my chest. His muscles resisted for a moment and then he curled tight against me, his head pillowed over my heart and let me hold him.

‘It’s all over, love,’ I told him softly and brushed my knuckles over his hair. ‘We’re going to be Ok now…’

A shudder ran through him and he held on tight. Emotion welled up in me; I suddenly had an overwhelming need to protect him, to keep him here safe beside me, to ease his pain.

‘I’m here now…’ I murmured over his head, ‘everything’s all right…’

Is this what Heero felt? Is this what made him hover over me and worry about me? This wash of need? This clenching in the gut that demanded I do whatever in the hell it took to shelter him… shield him…

We were quiet for a time then, while we each thought our thoughts; I can only attest to my own.

This was the first time that Heero had allowed me to offer some of the support that he was constantly giving me and I was having a little trouble getting my head around it. But… it was nice.

I felt him take my hand and after a moment there was pressure against the palm. I looked down to find him gently kissing my scars and I shivered; I don’t think he knew I couldn’t really feel it.

‘I’ve hurt you so many times,’ he sighed and his voice seemed thick.

‘Heero…’ I dropped my head back to the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. ‘We’ve talked about this…’

‘It doesn’t alter the fact that you had to do this to yourself…to cover my mistake,’ his voice was bitter, full of self-loathing.

‘The mistake was mine… I used too much explosives,’ I told him gently. ‘I was the one who brought the damn ceiling down on Quatre to begin with.’

‘My fault…’

Where the hell was this coming from?

‘Stop it!’ I hissed at him, ‘Damnit, Heero… you can’t keep dragging this up…’

He raised his head and turned bleak eyes on me. ‘I have so many things to make up for.’

I pushed him up and off me, rolling us over to take the upper hand and it was my turn to hover over him while he blinked up at me. ‘Get past it; Goddamn it, I have! Just… let us be happy.’

Something unreadable passed over his face and he opened his mouth to speak but then closed it.

‘I love you,’ I told him with all the intensity I could muster. ‘I don’t want all this… crap between us.’

There was something more he wanted to say and I waited for it but it never came.

‘Heero… please…’ I sighed and wasn’t even sure what I was asking for.

His hand came to cup my face. ‘I love you so much… and I’m so damn bad at it.’

I snorted and grinned down at him. ‘You? Don’t be ridiculous; you’re the most attentive, caring partner I could ever have asked for.’ I lost the grin. ‘The past is the past… let it die.’

He pulled my head down to lie on his shoulder and that seemed to end it because when he spoke again the subject was completely changed.

‘We really should get up; we have a lot to do.’

‘Uhmmm?’ I murmured, content where I was.

‘Well, love;’ he sighed, ‘Relena agreed to the trip last night.’

I jerked my head up and stared down at him wide eyed. ‘What! Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

He chuckled softly. ‘I didn’t think the news would help you sleep.’

I considered decking him but decided the statement was probably the truth. You shouldn’t deck people over the truth. No matter how tempting it was.

Shit. This was going to happen. This half-baked, insanely mutant plan had come to pass. What had I fucking gone and done?

My brain kicked over into high gear and I fairly threw myself out of the bunk. ‘Did you set a date yet? Shit… how long do I have? I’m going to need you to stock the galley… I can hardly feed the Queen of the World ration bars for God’s sake. Do we know who she’s bringing?’ I was scrabbling for clothes as I talked, hopping on one foot as I struggled into my pants and turned to find him still lying there with the most damnable smirk on his face.

‘What?’ I snapped.

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘I told her it would take a couple of days.’

‘Days?’ I gaped at him. ‘I only have a couple of days?’

His expression changed to mildly confused. ‘What do you need more time than that for?’

I rolled my eyes and jammed my hands on my hips. ‘God, Heero… we’re not in the middle of a damn war anymore. You can’t just go blasting off where ever you choose! It takes twenty-four hours just to log and get a flight plan cleared!’

That turned my thoughts back to the task at hand and I headed for the cockpit; time to get to work.

The flight plan was top priority and I sat down and keyed that request in first, sending it off to ‘traffic control’ before quickly putting a call through to the office. Never hurt to use a little personal touch to make sure things went smoothly.

I was vaguely aware of Heero settling into the co-pilot’s seat.

My vid-screen flared and I grinned up at the bored image of the scrawny man who blinked at me for a moment before whooping, ‘Maxwell!’

‘Hey Smitty!’ I beamed and he turned his chair away from the screen.

‘You guys! Look! Duo’s back!’

There were instantly three faces clustered around the monitor.

‘Hey! Welcome back asshole!’ grinned Smitty’s shorter co-worker, Bernstein.

‘Watch it, Bernie!’ I chuckled and waggled my fingers at the monitor.

‘Good to see you, Duo,’ smiled Havers, the restrained one of their little group.

‘You guys didn’t go out of business without me around to keep you busy?’ I had made the acquaintance of the three musketeers when I had, on a boring run, added the line ‘Two day lay-over in Never-Never Land’ at the end of my itinerary. The approved flight plan had come back with the line removed and the note that ‘Never-Never Land’ was closed for the season but I could reroute to either Eldorado or Atlantis if I didn’t mind an extra day. Most of my flight plans after that had included some silly destination or another. It became a game that we played until we couldn’t help but meet face to face. They were a great bunch of guys and I had to admit it helped having friends in the ‘traffic control’ office.

‘You heading out on a job, Maxwell?’ Smitty asked and I shook my head.

‘Not yet…’ I told them with a slight blush that I hoped they didn’t catch. ‘Still a little early for that,’ I smirked then and reached to pat the bulkhead beside me lovingly. ‘The old girl’s just getting jealous of my hospital bed! Taking her out for a ride.’

There were a couple of rude snickers and Smitty muttered something that made Bernstein smack him in the back of the head. I grinned at them.

‘So… can you push it through for me?’

Bernie grinned back. ‘We might be able to manage.’ He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to wink at me. ‘Duty calls… gotta go. Good to see you Duo.’

We signed off. My hands were already moving to login and send through the request for a complete refuel when I heard Heero sigh beside me. I glanced up and found him smiling oddly at me.

‘Well… I feel utterly useless,’ his smile quirked into a half-grin. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Actually,’ I told him, looking away and feeling awkward, ‘I can deal with the ship preparations… but I don’t know how to deal with Relena.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked softly.

‘She’s not a… spacer, Heero.’ I sighed. ‘She is going to have a cow shipping out on something that is going to be very much less than the first class she is used to.’

He grunted and quirked me a tight little grin. ‘Isn’t that part of this… show her how the other half lives?’

I shook my head. ‘The point is to prove to her that children like Becca and Eel exist.’ My fingers were working over the console even as we talked and I started a download of the area weather patterns for the next four days. ‘She hates me. She is going to be convinced that anything she ‘suffers with’ while she’s onboard is my fault. She will expect from me what she would dish out in my place.’

He watched me intently for a few minutes, digesting that. ‘She’s truly not a bad person.’

‘I… know that,’ I told him, sparing a glance up from my workstation. ‘But if there had ever been a chance that we would learn to get along, I think that mural killed it.’

He looked vaguely guilty and I suppose he should when you got right down to it. If he had stayed out of things, I’m pretty sure I would have eventually told Ms. Angie Masters to bugger off and Relena would never have even seen the damn painting.

That reminded me of the stupid interview and I pulled out the journalist’s card; considering it for a moment. Did I grant the interview or not? She wouldn’t get the pictures she wanted. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested without them? I settled for sticking the business card in the top of my keyboard; I’d decide later.

When I focused on Heero again, he was out of the co-pilot’s chair and standing over me. I grinned up at him. ‘I’m putting you in charge of the care and feeding of our passengers.’

He leaned down to kiss me. ‘Aye, Captain,’ he murmured against my lips and made me laugh.

‘She’s gonna have to share the accommodations with her chaperone, too!’ I hollered after him as he left the cockpit. ‘There’s only one guest cabin!’

He didn’t respond and I’m glad I didn’t have to argue the point. I queued up my music as soon as he was gone.

It took me every bit of the three days to get the ship fueled, supplied and ready to go. She’d been in dock for months and everything had to be inspected and gone over. It was tedious, time-consuming work but oddly… soothing. It was familiar. I was exhausted each night when I crawled into my bunk but I felt good. I simply had to put out of my mind the reason for the trip and just concentrate on the job. I felt, for the first time, like I might actually get my life back someday.

We were scheduled for departure on Thursday morning. Tuesday evening I e-mailed Ms. Masters and told her that she could have her damn interview if she shut the fuck up about the pictures and could just deal with only taking the shots that I outlined. Without argument or I would throw her off my damn ship.

I had a reply from her within five minutes and she agreed instantly. We squeezed the interview in on Wednesday morning because she couldn’t afford to wait until I returned from L2. I insisted that Heero hang around for it just to make sure the wily Ms. Masters didn’t try anything cute. There would be two of them; she and her photographer, and this would assure that there was someone to watch the both of them. I didn’t want her outflanking me.

She was true to her word when she came onboard that morning, her pony-tailed photographer in tow, not asking once to shoot anything I didn’t authorize. I let them take pictures of the other murals in the docking bay, the galley and my cabin. Turns out it was the painting of the Maxwell church that had impressed her brother’s friend and that was the one she was most interested in anyway. Go figure. She wanted pictures of me, something I hadn’t anticipated but should have, and I had to endure being posed in the middle of my star-field cabin. Turns out Dirk, the photographer, was something of an amateur stargazer and recognized that the midnight walls, floor and ceiling of my cabin were an accurate configuration of the heavens as seen from the moon. From the only vantage point and at the only time that all the colonies are visible at the same time. I had gone so far as to put L5 back in my own personal night sky. It took me by surprise; no one had ever noticed before.

He and I chatted about it for a few minutes and it did serve to put me a little more at ease while he snapped his damned pictures.

I caught Heero looking at me with that Mona Lisa smile a couple of times.

I made to lead them to the galley when they were done in the cabin, the only place we could really all sit comfortably. Angie…yes, damn it, I had finally broken down and started calling her Angie; shut up all ready. Angie hesitated in the corridor, looking at the odd rendering there of the line of people.

‘Not to overstep my boundaries,’ she smiled, ‘but what about these? You haven’t mentioned this one.’

I had to turn and look at it while I mulled it over. My gut instinct was ‘Hell no!’ These were my dead; I didn’t much want to have to get into it. But for a second, I could see in my mind’s eye Solo turn toward me with a wink.

‘Glory hog,’ he would have smirked. ‘Maybe we woulda liked to get our pi’tures took too.’

I was probably the last living soul to remember these people. I let my eyes travel down the line; all the ones who had been mine to protect… and I had failed. All the ones that I had let die. It would be a kind of… immortality. Not that the people seeing their faces staring back at them from some magazines pages would ever really know them… but… well, I think Solo really would have gotten a kick out of it.

‘All right,’ I found myself saying and Angie had Dirk move in fast before I changed my mind.

‘May I ask who they are?’ she said softly.

‘Were,’ I corrected without thinking.

‘Pardon?’ she questioned, confused.

‘They’re my dead,’ I told her, turning to look at her at last and realizing that the interview had started while I wasn’t paying any attention. I sighed; oh joy.

‘Your family?’ she asked gently.

I shook my head. ‘Not… in the sense you mean,’ I found myself saying. ‘I’m an orphan.’

I pointedly turned my back until Dirk was finished and then led them to the galley. I had learned my lesson about the camouflaging use of drinks and offered them around. Heero and Angie declined but Dirk accepted and I fetched squeeze bulbs of juice for the two of us.

As I had half expected, Angie questioned the use of the bulbs and I had to explain to her the effects of zero gravity on things like liquid. That led me around to explaining the fact that everything on a ship has to be bolted down.

‘Most of us in the space trades spend a great deal of time on our ships if we don’t actually live on them. We can’t decorate the way you ground…’ I caught myself but not in time.

‘Ground-bounders?’ she smirked.

What could I do but smirk back? ‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘You spacers seem kind of elitist,’ she prodded.

I shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s just a language. Slang. It grows up in any culture that has to find words for things that never existed before.’

She didn’t look convinced, raising one of those carefully lined eyebrows. I grinned at her. ‘Tell me there aren’t a dozen words that you use around the office that wouldn’t make a bit of sense to me.’

She opened her mouth and had the decency to blush. ‘Ok… Ok… I’ll give you the ground-bounders remark.’

I saluted her with my bulb of juice.

‘You do a lot of commission work,’ she stated. ‘Tell me how that came about.’

I saw Heero shift his stance where he leaned in the doorway like some kind of damn imperial guard.

I gusted a breath and thought back. ‘We can’t hang pictures or… set out mementos the way you do,’ I explained as I wrestled with the words. ‘At first, I painted things… and people I was afraid I’d forget.’

‘Like in the corridor?’ she asked very quietly and I nodded.

‘Or…’ I gestured with my juice at the blue sky around us, ‘like in here… just something to brighten things up. We spend a lot of time in these ships. It gets…’ I hesitated, thinking about it.

‘Lonely?’ she ventured when I didn’t finish the sentence right away.

I shrugged noncommittally. ‘And… quiet. And monotonous.’ I grinned at her, dispelling the melancholy mood. ‘Damned boring is what it gets; so we paint things like this!’

She sat and waited for me to get around to the original damned question and I had to retrace my mental steps for a second to see where in the hell I had been headed. ‘I seem to have a certain amount of… ability,’ I told her with a wry grin, ‘and when my friends started asking me to paint things for them…’ I shrugged again. ‘How could I refuse?’

She looked at me, a little surprised. ‘You don’t charge?’

I laughed. ‘I didn’t, but it got to the point that I never had time to do anything else, so I started charging just to cut back on the number of requests I was getting. I have a salvage business to run after all.’

She gave me an odd smile and said, ‘You are very talented… you know that don’t you?’

I snorted and gave her a dismissive wave. ‘I can copy down the shit I see in my head… doesn’t make me a Rembrandt or a Picasso.’

She snorted in return. ‘You’re a fairly humble guy Mr. Maxwell.’

I fought against a rising blush and sipped at my juice.

When she didn’t get a comment, she shook her head and went on. ‘What is it you paint for other people?’

‘I thought you said you’d seen some of my work?’

‘I have,’ she conceded. ‘I was just curious as to where it comes from. Do you choose? Do they make requests? What?’

I sighed and thought about it, tilting my head a little to look up at the ‘sky’. ‘It varies. Sometimes they just give me vague ideas.’ I grinned, thinking about some of the things I had been asked to paint. ‘Sometimes it’s very specific; there’s a guy out of L3 who now has a portrait of his ex-girlfriend in freefall over his bunk.’

Dirk almost spewed juice all over himself and I couldn’t help laughing at him.

‘Ex girlfriend?’ Angie asked with a hint of disapproval in her voice.

‘Oh she wasn’t his ex when I painted it,’ I grinned remorselessly. ‘In fact, I have a request from him to come and redo it to look like his new girlfriend.’

There was a tiny sound from Heero’s direction that might have been a chuckle; I didn’t catch it over the sound of Angie’s sudden giggle.

‘I paint whatever they ask… sometimes it’s…’ I waved my hand at the walls around us, ‘something simple like this. Sometimes it’s something more… personal.’

‘You call this simple?’ muttered Dirk and it garnered a look from Angie.

‘More personal how?’ she asked when he had subsided.

I thought about it for a minute. ‘Sometimes I paint other people’s dead,’ I told her plainly and she just sat and blinked at me for a minute.

‘Do you keep a log of what you’ve painted?’ she asked suddenly, ‘Do you take photographs?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said guardedly, I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going.

‘Could we borrow some of them for the article?’ she asked then and it was pretty much what I had expected.

‘No,’ I said flatly.

She gnawed her lip for a second. ‘Why not?’ she ventured at last, maybe deciding that she had enough already to write the article if I threw her out.

‘Those are other people’s homes,’ I told her. ‘I can give you a list of people to contact but it’s their decision if they want you to see their paintings. They don’t belong to me.’

‘But you painted them,’ she pointed out.

‘They were gifts… they never belonged to me.’ This was starting to get tedious.

‘Gifts? I thought you started taking commissions?’ she said sweetly.

‘I don’t charge my friends for painting portraits of their dead… their memories.’ I told her and it came out a little harshly. ‘I don’t paint anything that personal for anybody but my friends.’

She looked a little taken aback and murmured, ‘From what I’ve seen… you have a lot of friends.’

‘Do you have enough information yet?’ I asked, suddenly sick of the whole game. She was really starting to tread around things that I didn’t much want to talk about.

She got an odd, rushed look on her face as though she realized she was almost out of time. ‘Well… I was curious about your relationship with Mr. Yuy here…’

My glance flicked to Heero and I saw the irritated glint that appeared in his eyes, ‘I thought you told me you wrote for ‘The Rising Times’, not ‘True Tattler’,’ I told her rather coldly. ‘I fail to see what Mr. Yuy has to do with the interview you asked for.’

She back-pedaled so fast I thought she was going to fall out of her seat. ‘I’m sorry Mr. Maxwell… You’re right; it’s none of my business.’

Damn straight it’s none of your business, I thought angrily and had to struggle to keep it off my face. I had no idea how Heero felt about having our relationship out in the open. He had a rather high-profile position with the Preventors and having it bandied about that he was in a… whatever the hell we were in… might not be a good idea for his career.

There wasn’t much after that, she asked a few more fluff questions and then they finally left my ship. I didn’t breathe freely until they were completely out of the hanger.

‘I am so sorry I did that,’ I muttered almost to myself and Heero came to take me in his arms.

‘You all right?’ he asked softly and I let my head rest on his shoulder.

‘I’m fine,’ I told him, ‘just… thinking that was an incredibly bad idea.’

‘I thought it went ok,’ he reassured me, his hands sliding up and down my back soothingly.

‘I’m worried about what she’s going to write,’ I confessed. ‘She threw me with that… question.’

No need to tell him which question and he brought his hand around to raise my face where he could see me. ‘It was none of her damn business,’ he told me, echoing my earlier thought. ‘But I want you to know that… I don’t mind. If you want…’ he hesitated and I swear to God he blushed. ‘I don’t have a problem with people knowing about us,’ he said in a rush.

I cocked my head and looked at him hard. ‘Heero, it couldn’t be a good thing for your job…’

He cut me off. ‘My life is more important to me than my damn job,’ he said softly, not taking his eyes off mine, ‘and you are my life.’

I could only stand and gape at him. I didn’t know what to say, so we just stood and held each other. I really didn’t trust my voice.

‘You told me,’ he said softly; hesitantly and I knew we were talking about one of those things I had said that I didn’t remember. ‘You felt you didn’t deserve…love. Didn’t deserve… me.’ He looked at me intently and I felt my face flaming. ‘I need you to know it’s the other way around; I’m the one who is undeserving. You are… so alive… so talented and so beautiful… I…’

I buried my face in his shoulder to hide from that burning gaze. ‘Heero…’ I whispered, wanting him to stop.

‘You know this trip is going to be… rough,’ he said gently against my neck. ‘I don’t want you to let her get to you. You’re right; she’s going to be bitchy because she resents this whole thing and is seeing herself as a victim. I don’t want you doubting yourself. I won’t have her making you feel…’ he hesitated, looking for words.

‘Like a filthy street rat?’ I supplied with a grin, ‘like a disfigured, loathsome…’

‘Stop it!’ he snapped and his hands tightened almost painfully on my shoulders as he pushed me away where he could see my face.

‘Chill, Heero!’ I told him, shocked at his vehemence. ‘I was kidding!’

The emotions running behind his eyes were hard to read but he deflated quickly, ‘I… I’m sorry…’

‘Heero,’ I smiled softly, ‘when are you gonna learn to just speak plainly to me?’

He gusted a sigh and eased his grip, ducking his head and it was his turn to blush. ‘I love you. I’m proud of you. It hurts me to see you in pain. I don’t like the way she treats you. I like it even less that a part of you listens to what she says.’ He tilted his head up a bit to look at me through the veil of his bangs. ‘Is that plain enough for you?’

I chuckled. ‘Pretty damn plain… but it seems to me that she’s the one that needs the talk.’

He opened his mouth and then closed it with a slight smirk. ‘You’re right… again.’

‘Good,’ I grinned, ‘now kiss me, damn it, we have to get back to work.’

He smiled warmly and drew me back against him to do just that. Rather soundly, thank you very much.

No amount of back rubbing helped me sleep Wednesday night and by the time Thursday morning dawned, I felt like I was going to throw up.

Sometimes I truly am sorry about the messes that my mouth gets me into. I was looking forward to this trip about as much as one would look forward to a frontal lobotomy. Without anesthesia.

I slipped from the bed early, leaving Heero sleeping while I went and showered to a fault. Yes, damn it; I never quite got over that whole ‘you smell bad’ thing from my days at the Maxwell Church, ok? It never really mattered what Sister Helen had said, it was just something that had gotten under my skin and most likely would be there until I died. I always worried about it, especially when I was going to be around someone like Relena who would probably have that assistant of hers rush her to the hospital if she ever broke into a sweat.

God, this was such a bad idea on just so many different levels. I was, apparently, a masochistic, moronic little bastard. But it was too damn late now.

I spent the time waiting for Heero to wake up doing a last walk through, checking gages and seals, double-checking the vacuum suits. I hadn’t told Heero I’d had to shell out the cash for two more; I’d only owned two. That had hurt; those things aren’t cheap.

I ended up in the cockpit, running over the checklist and going over the weather reports one last time.

Truth be told, it was more than just Relena that was bugging me. This was going to be my first flight since the accident, my first time back in the saddle. I guess that was eating at me too. Wouldn’t confess it to anybody, not even under torture but I was nervous as hell. You’d think it was my first time in the pilot’s seat. I was scared to death that I’d lost my nerve. I could kiss my business goodbye if that happened. Heero had tried to tell me how messed up I was on the trip back from the belt, before I’d fallen so ill. But if I have any one, true talent it’s denial. I think I had denied it for so long that even Heero had bought into the ‘I’m fine’ lie.

I was sitting there staring at my view screen, watching nothing happen in the hanger and debating if I should tell him that I maybe wasn’t so damn fine after all, when he came wandering out of the cabin.

‘Duo?’ he called, a hint of concern in his voice. That tone made up my mind for me; if I even suggested that I wasn’t sure I was ready for this, he would call a halt to the whole thing.

‘In here,’ I called and he followed the sound of my voice to the cockpit. He leaned down to kiss me good morning.

‘How long have you been up?’ he asked suspiciously, eyes noting my damp hair.

‘Couple of hours,’ I admitted sheepishly and watched the concern turn to a full-fledged mother-hen frown.

‘Duo love,’ he murmured softly, ‘if this is going to upset you so damn much you can’t even sleep, then I’m calling this whole thing off right now.’

I grinned for him, ‘Heero, I always get up early on launch day.’ I noted movement in the monitor in front of me as that ugly pink car pulled up to the hanger. ‘Besides, it’s a little late now,’ and I nodded at the image.

He turned and looked, his frown changing subtly until it contained more irritation than concern. It surprised me, as we spent more time together how I was slowly becoming able to read his expressions. I remembered a time when I had thought he had no damn expressions.

‘Heero,’ I said softly, feeling a faint frown of my own, ‘Relena is your friend… please don’t let the fact that she and I don’t get along affect that. How she and I feel about each other should not change how you feel about either one of us.’

He turned from the monitor to look at me with a bemused smile. ‘What the hell are you doing,’ he said, ‘applying for sainthood?’

I snorted and flushed. ‘Shall we go greet our passengers?’

He headed out and I followed, dropping back just a little so I had a moment to reach and touch Solo’s shoulder as I passed his portrait on the wall. It was one of my habits before any launch, to touch Solo for luck.

‘Thought ya forgot me, rat-boy,’ he would have drawled.

‘Maybe I’ll give the habit up, King-rat,’ I whispered. ‘Didn’t bring me a lot of luck last time.’

He would have laughed out loud.

Relena was standing next to the ugly car with another woman while her assistant… what was his name? Paragon? I think that was it. While Paragon unloaded their luggage from the trunk. My first thought was; Holy Lord, did she bring everything she owned? My second thought was; why the hell is the sixty year-old guy the one manhandling that heavy luggage out of the car? I sighed and moved past the women with a cordial, ‘Good morning.’

‘Here, Paragon,’ I told the man, ‘let me get that.’

He gave me a surprised look but stepped back to let me do it. I’m sure some strapping young porter had loaded the crap into the trunk back at the Peacecraft estate but no one had thought about the poor old guy giving himself a heart attack trying to get it out again.

‘Thank you, young man,’ he said softly and I swear to God I saw Relena’s back stiffen.

Heero was taking her and her chaperone in hand, for which I was eternally grateful, though he came to take a couple of the bags to save us from having to make two trips. Heero had two bags, I had two bags and Paragon was carrying several small cases. I shook my head with a wry grin; how many changes of clothes did a Queen need for a five-day trip?

Heero was leading the women in through the open cargo hatch; I slowed my pace to match Paragon’s so the old guy wasn’t trailing behind on his own. He surprised me again when we passed through the cargo bay. He stopped to look up at the mural and I felt myself standing there, red as a beet waiting to hear what he had to say.

‘So that’s the… ’infernal thing’?’ he grinned and I choked on a laugh. ‘Master Yuy was right; you are a very talented young man.’ He stared up at it for another long moment before looking back at me with an utterly inscrutable expression. ‘I wish you luck Mr. Maxwell.’

I sighed and couldn’t help myself, ‘I think I’m gonna need it.’

He chuckled and we followed after the others.

I came into the guest cabin door just in time to hear the tail end of a conversation, ‘…hardly what I would call spartan, Relena,’ Heero was saying and his tone was one you would use with a five year old throwing a temper tantrum.

‘Boy, am I gonna need it,’ I muttered under my breath and moved into the cabin to set the luggage down with a bright smile.

‘Welcome aboard my home, Rel… Miss Peacecraft.’ I beamed at her, deliberately ignoring the ice that was forming on everything within a mile of the woman. I turned to the second woman and gave her one of my patented grins. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met?’

She was a middle-aged woman, shorter than anyone in the room, dark hair shot with silver and a face that looked like it was more used to smiling than wearing the frown that now covered it. I’m sure she’d been told I was the devil incarnate.

‘I’m… Chezarina.’ the woman said, reluctantly taking my hand when I extended it.

‘Greek?’ I asked with a smile and saw that I had surprised her. She smiled almost shyly and nodded.

‘Welcome aboard, Chezarina,’ I said warmly and turned to include Relena again. ‘Have you ladies settled on bunks? We launch in an hour; your things will need to be stowed.’

I could see Relena grinding her teeth and looked passed her at Heero’s amused expression. ‘Heero… would you mind getting them started while I see Paragon out and start locking down?’

A strange grin played around his lips but never really came out full strength. ‘Aye Captain.’

I flashed him a smile and left the cabin.

Paragon didn’t speak again until we were walking down the ramp and were mostly outside. ‘She’s a good girl, Mr. Maxwell,’ he said softly. ‘I could only wish that the Darliens hadn’t spoiled her so much.’

We stopped and stood looking at each other for a moment, I finally let out a sigh. ‘I have to tell you that I have no real clear idea how this mess came about. I was fully intending on turning down the interview…’ I grinned at him sheepishly; I had no doubt he knew the whole story.

He smiled wryly. ‘I don’t think it matters how it happened, Mr. Maxwell… I just hope that you and Mr. Yuy can open my little Relena’s eyes a bit.’

He walked away and I just stood and blinked after him in surprise for a minute. Good God…the man loved her like a Grandfather and she treated him like a damned servant. I shook my head, walked back aboard and started the lock-down procedures.

I had everything sealed up and ready to go within twenty minutes but kept double-checking things that didn’t need it, until I finally admitted to myself that I was avoiding going back to that cabin. It was my guilt for leaving Heero there alone with them that finally drove me to it.

I hesitated as I approached the open doorway, hearing Relena’s irritated voice, ‘I still can’t believe you are endorsing this… kidnapping!’

Heero’s voice was the epitome of patience. ‘Relena, it’s hardly kidnapping; you agreed to this trip yourself.’

‘Under duress!’ she snapped.

I heard the sound of Heero stowing luggage and there was a pause before I heard him say, ‘Why can’t you give Duo a chance?’

She didn’t have a ready answer and Chezarina interjected softly, ‘He seems like a nice young man, Miss Relena.’

‘Don’t let that… that suave exterior fool you!’ Relena snapped. ‘He’s nothing but a common criminal!’

Heero’s voice was taking on an edge. ‘Relena,’ he reprimanded, ‘Duo didn’t have the luxuries you had growing up… yes; he may have stolen to survive but that hardly makes him a criminal.’

‘Where I come from,’ Relena said haughtily, ‘stealing is a crime.’

I decided that it was time I put a stop to this before she seriously pissed Heero off. Though it still amazed me, I had discovered that he was extremely protective of me and as much as I might have enjoyed listening to Relena get her ass chewed out; I knew that Heero would be sorry for it later.

I retreated several yards and proceeded to approach the cabin again, this time deliberately making myself heard. The conversation in the cabin stopped. I popped my head in and grinned happily at them. ‘Everything all stowed? Great! We should get up front and get belted down. Lift off is in twenty minutes, they’re just about to come and tow us out to the field.’

I let Relena’s glare deflect off the armor of my smile and offered my arm to Chezarina. ‘Milady? This way please?’

If I stood little chance of charming Relena then I would turn my attention to the chaperone.

Chezarina took my arm and I led her down the corridor toward the cockpit. She gave me a small smile after she was out from under Relena’s gaze and I rewarded her with my 100-watt grin. She stared openly at the portraits of my dead, stopping for a second to look at little Becca’s tear stained face.

‘Poor little poppet,’ she murmured but didn’t ask. The pause gave me the chance to punch Solo lightly on the shoulder. It was part of my launch ritual and it comforted me to be able to squeeze it in without making a big deal out of it.

I settled Chezarina in one of the three jump seats in the rear of the cockpit and made sure she knew how to strap herself in. ‘Ever been in space?’ I asked her gently and she blushed a little.

‘Enough to know I really don’t like launches,’ she said wryly and I looked at her a little harder, seeing the slight strain around the eyes and the faint sheen of sweat on her forehead. I squatted down in front of her with a frown.

‘What the hell…’ I murmured. Heero and Relena must have continued their conversation because they hadn’t followed us yet. ‘Why in the world would Relena have picked you to come along if you have a problem with space travel?’

She patted my hand where it lay on the armrest. ‘I doubt she even knows,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t worry about it. I just find lift-off a little… unsettling. I’m usually fine after that.’

I growled in irritation; that woman had to be the most insensitive human being I had ever met… right next to Commander Une before she got therapy.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I told her and moved to fetch the med-kit. I took out one of the anti-nausea patches and returned to kneel in front of her.

‘These are standard issue in med-kits,’ I reassured her. ‘A lot of people have trouble with the heavy gee-force of launch and with zero gravity. This has a very mild sedative and something for nausea. Not enough to put you to sleep but enough to help you relax. A lot of the problems that people experience stems from nerves.’

‘Oh… thank you,’ she beamed at me and I helped her apply the thing to her arm.

We were just finishing with her belts when Heero led Relena in. I left him to get her settled and took myself off to the pilot’s seat to answer the beep of the comm.

I checked the security feed and found that my ‘tug boat’ was here. I hit the acknowledge and waited to see who was in that tow truck out there.

‘Maxwell!’ I heard the booming voice of Dusty come across the speakers. ‘You gonna leave me sit out here all day?’

I laughed and hit the open mike. ‘I damn near fell asleep waitin’ for you to get here, old man!’

He chuckled back at me. ‘None the worse for wear, I see.’

‘Take more than a little asteroid to put me out of business,’ I teased him and glanced up to see Heero settling into the co-pilots’ seat. He was smiling at me and I grinned back.

‘Good to have you back, kid,’ Dusty said then and rather took me by surprise. I glanced back at the vid pickup that showed him just sitting out there.

‘Hey…’ I ventured after a moments thought, ‘I didn’t think you worked on Thursdays?’

‘Didn’t think I’d let anybody else haul your rust bucket out for its first flight in almost five months, did you?’

I grunted, ‘Damn, Dusty…’ I began but he cut me off with a chuckle.

‘Though you might want to avoid my wife for a couple of days. She had plans to clean out the garage today. She’s a little pissed at you.’

I threw my head back and laughed. ‘That’s just great!’ I scolded him, ‘she won’t invite me to dinner ever again and I love her damn meatloaf!’

He snorted and muttered something about me and the dog being the only ones.

‘Dusty, man,’ I ventured after a minute, ‘much as I’d love to sit here and talk… you planning on hooking up or what? I’m kind of on a schedule.’

There was the strangest silence and then he said hesitantly, ‘Duo… is everything all right in there?’

‘What?’ I said stupidly. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Where’s the music?’ he asked. I sat and blinked for a minute, and had to resist the urge to turn around and look at Relena.

‘Uhmmm… Dusty… I can’t…’ I began but he wouldn’t move an inch.

‘I been hauling your butt out to the field for goin’ on three years, whenever you’re in these parts,’ he said firmly. ‘We got a ritual, Maxwell… and I don’t believe in messing with spacer luck.’

I chuckled at him and felt my face flaming. I glanced across at Heero only to meet his mystified smile.

‘Ok… Ok… I give,’ I conceded, ‘What do you want to hear?’

‘How about ‘Trip Across the Mountain’?’ he suggested and I breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t asked for some of the other things we had been known to play.

I reached to queue the song, a fiddle piece that starts slow but would speed up by the time we got out into the yard. I let it play on the external speakers at the normal blaring volume but turned it down in the cockpit, ‘Happy now, oh most exalted of drivers?’

‘Got your cross?’

‘Of course.’

‘Is the bear in the co-pilots seat?’

I had forgotten that one and looked across at Heero with a wicked smile. ‘Well… sort of.’

‘Maxwell,’ Dusty warned.

I rolled my eyes and was opening my mouth to lie to him when I saw Heero fish around beside his seat, coming up with the battered teddy bear that Dusty’s kid had given me for Christmas one year, so that I would have a second. We had named him Co-pilot Fuzzy-butt and he rode in the co-pilots seat on all my Demon’s runs.

‘Bear is in place,’ I confirmed as I watched in utter disbelief as Heero tucked the bear in beside him. Behind us, I heard Chezarina giggle. ‘Can we go now?’

‘Sure thing!’ Dusty chuckled and I heard the clang as he connected up and we were finally moving.

‘I meant to ask you about this,’ Heero murmured as Dusty towed us expertly out of the hanger.

‘Dusty’s son Denver thought I should have a co-pilot… so he bought me one.’ I grinned across at him, losing myself a little bit in the comforting familiarness, ‘Heero… meet Fuzzy-butt; Fuzzy-butt… meet your replacement.’

There was a moments silence and then Heero murmured, ‘Wouldn’t want to mess with spacer luck.’

I lost the feed from the security cameras as we left the hanger and switched to my own external view. As we moved, I ran over my checklist one more time and wasn’t really paying attention to the vid-screens so it rather took me by surprise when Dusty called quietly.

‘Hey Maxwell… kick it up; we’re an event.’

‘What?’ I said and looked up to see pilots moving out of their hangers all down the line. ‘Shit,’ I murmured.

‘Come on, Duo… we can do better than ‘Trip Across the Mountain’…’ he said and I could hear the grin in his voice.

‘I… I…’ I blinked up at the screen as spacers began to line the strip and I had to swallow the lump in my throat. ‘Got any suggestions, man?’ I almost whispered.

‘Hey… how about ‘Rocket Ride’?’

He could have suggested ‘The Coachman’ and I probably would have agreed. Later I would look back and approve the choice. At that moment, my fingers just moved of their own accord.

‘Nowhere to run…nowhere to hide, nothin’ worth doin’ that I haven’t tried, there ain’t no livin’ on planet-side, come on with me baby on a rocket ride….’

The change in music served to let the scattered pilots know that they had been noticed and they began to wave and applaud. My God damn eyes misted over. My face was so hot I wanted to fan it with my hand. I wished longingly for a stiff drink. Damn.

I jerked when Heero reached across and touched my hand. I turned toward him, tearing my eyes off the view screen and judging by the grin on his face I must have looked damn stupid with my eyes bugged out, my mouth hanging open and my face God only knew what color.

‘Did I fail to mention that you were… missed?’ Dusty chuckled at me.

‘It… doesn’t seem to have come up,’ I muttered and he laughed outright at my obvious consternation.

‘Well, you were kid.’

I felt a little bit like we were running a gauntlet. Heero squeezed my fingers after a minute and when it got him my attention again he murmured softly, ‘You planning on belting down?’

It served to bring me back to reality and I shook myself out of my shock. ‘I suppose that might not be a bad idea.’

He let go of my hand with a chuckle and I settled down to get my head out of my ass. I strapped down and took a deep breath trying to calm scattered nerves; it had been damn touching but that little display had only managed to tip me a little further off my balance. I licked dry lips as we made the turn out to the field. At least we were away from the hangers. I couldn’t believe the butterflies I had in my stomach; I had to keep wiping sweaty palms on my thighs.

It seemed to come to Heero all at once that this was my first time at the yoke since the accident and his voice came to me low and full of concern, ‘Duo; are you all right? Do you need me to…’

I flashed him a smile that I hoped wasn’t as wan as it felt. ‘I’m fine, love,’ I whispered back and began to bring my ship to life.

Dusty maneuvered us with practiced ease onto the slingshot launch track and I initiated the latching process.

‘See ya on the return, Maxwell!’ Dusty yelled as he hauled his truck out of the way at top speed. We were running a little behind schedule.

‘Apologize to your wife, you asshole!’ I hollered back. We never said goodbye; it was part of the ritual.

Then it was just me and my Demon. I let the music play; the hell with Relena. I let it fill me and wash over me and I found that while my stomach was turning somersaults, my hands and my head knew what they were doing. I synched with the tower and we commenced the countdown. I brought the engines on-line and checked the temperature gauges for any fluctuations.

‘Ok, Demon-girl…’ I murmured, ‘you remember how this is done, right?’

The tower called the final all clear on the minute mark and I scanned through the seal report one last time, getting green lights all around. I felt the thrum as the drive chain locked in at thirty seconds.

‘Please put your drink trays in the docked position and refrain from leaving your seats; ladies and gentlemen we are about to leave the atmosphere,’ I said without really hearing myself.

The chain engaged at fifteen seconds and we were moving. There was a tiny sound from behind me but I couldn’t really spare the attention to feel bad for Chezarina, I was too busy wishing I could wipe the sweat off the palms of my hands again. Slingshot launches are… damn fast. We hit the end of the vertical ramp and I hit the thrusters. There was the familiar roar of the engines and crush of the invisible hand of God on my chest, Tom Smith was still belting out ‘Rocket Ride; ‘…I want a bubble helmet matting down my hair, the ground giving way to the open air, the joy and wonder as I head out there and I know I can have it if I only dare…’

The yoke vibrated like a thing alive in my hands and I held her tight as we fought our way clear of those clinging bonds of gravity. ‘Come on, Demon-girl… the stars are callin’,’ I whispered to my lady, as much to calm my own hammering heart as hers. I had not taken into consideration the strain on still-weak muscles that the gee forces of launch would have; I had a horrified minute when I thought I was going to have to have Heero take over from the co-pilot’s seat, then we were out and free, the flash glare gone from the view screens and I cut the thrusters back. The pressure eased from my chest and I heard an audible sigh of relief behind me. ‘Everybody all right back there?’ I called out and Chezarina actually chuckled lightly.

‘I believe that we survived, Mr. Maxwell.’ Her voice was fairly steady and I spared a moment to turn and grin at her.

‘Make you a deal,’ I told her. ‘You call me Duo instead of Mr. Maxwell and I won’t call you Ma’am.’

She managed a laugh. ‘A… all right; it’s a deal.’

‘Can you turn that incessant song off now?’ Relena interjected.

‘Sure thing, Miss Peacecraft.’ I grinned at her as well and reached to kill the music. The sudden quiet hit me like a blow and I sighed; it really was going to be a long fucking week.

I had the course programmed in already but had to call it up and initiate it, I busied myself with that while my passengers unbelted and began to move around. ‘There’re drinks in the galley if anyone would like anything,’ I called absently as my hands and most of my attention worked over my boards. As twisted up as my gut was over this flight… I had still missed this.

I let the programming and the minor adjustments consume me. The familiar activities took me over and for a small space I almost forgot that this flight was any different than any other of my thousands of flights. When I became aware again some time later, I glanced across at the co-pilots chair and only found Fuzzy-butt staring back at me. For the space of a heartbeat, fear welled up in my chest that I had dreamed the whole damn thing…that it was just me and Fuzzy-butt and my ghosts aboard my Demon again.

‘Hey,’ Heero’s voice came softly from behind me, letting me know he was there and he walked over to stand beside me when he saw he had my attention. ‘How are you doing, love?’ he asked softly.

I snorted up at him, feeling suddenly how tense my shoulders were, how tremulous my muscles felt. ‘I launched a space shuttle, Heero… I didn’t have brain surgery.’

He chuckled lightly but still reached to gently brush his fingers through my bangs. ‘You had me a little scared,’ he admitted gently. ‘You seemed to have trouble… finding your focus.’

I let my head fall back against the headrest and my eyes fall shut. ‘Well… maybe a little bit.’

‘Are you done here?’ he asked.

‘Yep,’ I confirmed without opening my eyes. ‘On course and on our way. Auto-pilot takes care of things for the next couple of days.’

I opened my eyes when I felt his hands take mine and tug gently. I let him pull me to my feet and into his arms. ‘You feel… shaky,’ he frowned at me.

‘Shaky.’ I grinned. ‘Yeah… that kind of sums it up.’

‘Duo love,’ he whispered against my hair, trying to keep this private I think, ‘I’m sorry… I was so wrapped up in the whys and the wherefores that I didn’t think about this being… your first time in space since…’ He trailed off.

I straightened away from him a little bit and smiled. ‘What’s with the word mincing? I thought we talked about this speaking plainly thing?’

He snorted and pulled me closer. ‘How are you doing mentally?’ Then he quirked a grin, ‘And the plain speaking works both ways.’

He surprised a laugh from me and I shook my head. ‘Shaky… describes it pretty well. A little off balance, a little nervous. It’s makin’ me… reflect a little bit…but I’m all right.’

His hands slid up and down my back. ‘You’re tense.’

I chuckled. ‘That’s about half launch jitters and half… Relena-itis.’

He pulled me close again and I just let myself lean on his strength for a minute. Let his arms dispel the last of the heart wrenching terror that he hadn’t been real…that I had dreamed him. Dreamed us.

‘I’m here for you,’ he breathed next to my ear and I shivered.

‘That means… everything,’ I murmured back.

We shared a final tight hug, then separated.

‘Where are they?’ I asked with a sardonic grin, which he returned with a roll of his eyes.

‘In the galley.’ He sighed and we moved to head that way. ‘What made you think this was a good idea, again?’

I snorted and took a playful swing at him. ‘I believe you were the one who insisted.’

‘That’s not how I remember it,’ he teased and we were close enough to the galley that all I could do was glare at him.

Relena and Chezarina were sitting at the table in the galley with bulbs of something in their hands. Relena was frowning and her companion was just looking uncomfortable.

‘Ladies!’ I beamed as we came into the room and I moved to fetch my own bulb. I briefly considered a soda but decided that a protein drink would probably be a better choice. ‘How are we doing?’

Chezarina fairly grinned back at me. ‘Oh, Mr.…. Duo…’ she hesitated over the name with a faint flush, ‘I can’t thank you enough for that patch! It made all the difference in the world! That’s the first launch I’ve been through where I didn’t think I was going to throw up!’

Relena looked at her sharply. ‘What patch, Chezarina?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Just an anti-nausea patch,’ I informed her.

Chezarina seemed to have missed the look, busy pushing her sleeve up to look at the thing. ‘When should I take it off?’ she asked me.

‘They’re twelve hour patches,’ I told her, ‘but if you normally don’t have any trouble after launch, you can take it off whenever you want.’

Relena was frowning at me and I kept my innocent smile firmly in place. ‘Mr. Maxwell,’ she began rather coldly, ‘you are not a Doctor, I don’t know that…’

Heero cut her off rather smoothly before I had a chance to even think about it. ‘Relena, they’re standard issue on any flight. It’s an over-the-counter medication… they’re safe for use on children.’

She took it, because it came from him but I could see it rankled. It was killing her that he kept taking my side. I thought about that for a moment and realized that it wasn’t going to do my cause any good if Relena started feeling picked on.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Peacecraft,’ I murmured contritely. ‘I probably should have mentioned it to you first but they take several minutes to take affect… and we were a little short on time.’

Chezarina seemed to notice for the first time that something was going on here and she looked first at me and then at Relena. ‘Miss Relena, please don’t be angry with him… it was really rather sweet that he noticed my discomfort with everything else he had to take care of.’

I saw the annoyed look on Relena’s face falter and realized that this woman had some pull on the young Queen’s emotions. She couldn’t quite make herself look me in the eye but she quietly said, ‘I… understand. Thank you, Mr. Maxwell, for taking care of it.’

I gave her a mega-watt grin. ‘No problem. You ladies need anything at all… just let me know.’

I decided that I would make myself scarce for a little bit; that was the closest thing to a civil sentence that I had gotten out of the woman in… well, ever. I decided not to push my luck and excused myself. Behind me I heard Relena murmur softly, ‘Chezarina, why didn’t you ever tell me that space travel bothered you?’ She actually sounded a little hurt.

The older woman spoke warmly. ‘Don’t worry about it, Miss Relena… it isn’t that bad.’

I shook my head; what was it about that girl that won her such loyalty? She certainly didn’t inspire anything in me outside of irritation.

I passed most of the morning keeping busy with mundane things that really didn’t need to be done, mostly just avoiding Relena until she had a change to settle in a little bit. I was hoping that she wouldn’t be able to maintain that level of pissed for the whole five days. I wasn’t about to bet money on it…but I was hoping. I spent most of my time either in the cockpit or in my cabin, giving Heero a chance to maybe put them at ease. I was standing in the cockpit holding Fuzzy-butt, trying to figure out what to do with him now that there was somebody who’s place was going to be in the co-pilot’s seat, when Chezarina came looking for me.

‘Mr. Maxwell?’ she called from the doorway and I turned and grinned at her maliciously.

‘Yes…Ma’am?’

She laughed lightly. ‘I’m sorry… Duo. The ‘mister’ is hard to lose when you’re in my line of work.’

I plopped Fuzzy-butt back in his seat. ‘Well; in my line of work, you’re not a ‘mister’ until you’re too old to pilot and you have to take a dirt-side job.’

‘I came to tell you that lunch is ready,’ she told me then and I grinned appreciatively; I hadn’t been able to stomach breakfast and I was getting a little hungry.

‘Great!’ I smiled broadly. ‘Lead on!’

We stepped out into the corridor and she started to head back for the galley but then stopped. I caught her looking at the mural on the wall again.

‘Duo…’ she said after a moments hesitation, ‘why is this little girl crying? It gets to me every time I see it.’

I stopped and let my eye travel down the line of my dead. ‘That’s Becca,’ I told her softly. ‘She was one of the few of us orphans who knew what her given name was. She even knew her birthday… we all thought that was amazing.’ I gave Becca a melancholy smile. ‘She remembered her parents, so it was harder for her. She cried a lot.’ I shrugged. ‘I guess that was just how I remembered her.’

Her eyes were wide and she was trying to decide whether to look at me or at Becca. ‘Oh Heavens… that’s so sad. What… what happened to her?’

‘She died in the plague,’ I told her simply and tried to get her to move on toward the galley. But she wasn’t quite done with the questions.

‘You mean that Duo Maxwell isn’t your given name?’ She blinked up at me and I swear for a second I thought she was going to cry.

I flashed her a grin. ‘Nope. They called me Dodger before I was Duo and before that, for the longest time, I thought my name was ‘Heyyou’.’

I made it breezy and I made it funny and she laughed when I did, though it was fairly weak.

‘Come along, Milady,’ I urged, ‘I’m starving!’

She took the arm I offered and when we turned toward the galley, I saw Heero standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression on his face.

It was such a totally alien thing to walk into my galley…with my blue sky and green grass…and smell real food. The table was set with the real dishes and everything. I looked up at Heero and grinned. ‘Hey, oh grand chef… if you can cook, how come I get stuck doing it all the time?’

He chuckled with me as I handed Chezarina into a seat. ‘I had some help,’ he said and I looked to try to catch which one of the two of them he was looking at.

‘Heero,’ I reprimanded lightly, ‘these ladies are our guests…you can’t make them cook and clean.’

Chezarina laughed out loud and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d done most of the cooking. Relena was being very subdued and I wondered what they had spent the morning talking about.

The meal started out easily enough, we were able to do the ‘pass this’, ‘pass that’ thing for a bit and then there was the complimenting the cook part. It really was very good, a simple casserole with potatoes and diced chicken.

Then something seemed to pass between Heero and Chezarina and she turned to me with an odd smile. ‘So… all the portraits are of real people?’

I flushed and thought I was going to choke on my lunch. ‘Uhmmm… Yeah,’ I confirmed when I could swallow.

‘Who are the Priest and the Nun?’ she asked and I swear to God the look on her face was just a little too innocent to be real.

‘Father Maxwell and Sister Helen,’ I breathed and tried to catch Heero’s eye but he was studiously eyeing his plate. ‘They ran the orphanage where I… spent a couple of years.’ I stirred my potatoes around and just prayed that she didn’t ask what happened to them, I really didn’t want to get into it.

‘Maxwell?’ she asked brightly. ‘Is that where you took your name from?’

‘Y… yes,’ I confirmed, my stomach starting to knot as I waited for her to get around to asking the next question. I didn’t know that I could sit here and talk about the massacre.

‘He was a darn tall man,’ she commented and it was so not the comment I had been expecting that I laughed.

‘Well… I suspect he might not have been as tall as that,’ I grinned at her, ‘but when we were kids he seemed like a giant to us!’

‘He has a kindly face,’ she remarked and I suddenly realized she and Heero were trying to turn them in to real people for Relena.

‘He was damn scary looking when we got in trouble.’ I laughed and decided maybe I could play their game. ‘I’m afraid I had a penchant for getting into fights that usually ended with me polishing the brass railings.’ I didn’t mention that I was usually in those fights trying to defend the little ones from the whole wide world. Trying to fill Solo’s shoes.

Chezarina laughed with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I imagine they were the shiniest railings on L2.’

She won a true laugh from me and I looked up to finally find Heero’s eyes, he gave me a small, almost imperceptible nod of encouragement. ‘I imagine they were,’ I chuckled. ‘What Father didn’t understand was that I didn’t really mind polishing them because Sister Helen liked to see them all shiny and bright.’ My smile turned melancholy despite myself. ‘We all adored her… we’d do anything to make her happy.’ I snickered, ‘It was kind of bizarre when you got right down to it; we dreaded ‘the look’ we’d get from Father Maxwell… and the lecture, of course. But then after we were done with the punishment, we got the reward of hugs from Sister Helen.’ I shook my head in remembrance and continued to push potatoes around.

‘What… what happened to them?’ The question was like a blow to the gut. More so, because I had let my guard down, trusting that Heero had warned Chezarina not to ask it. I couldn’t remember that I had told Heero the story but somehow with the other things that I had spilled to him in my fever dream, I had little doubt that he knew at least the gist of it. They had apparently not taken Relena into account when they had hatched this little plot to un-bastardize me. I saw Heero’s face go still and he opened his mouth but I stopped him with a raised hand.

‘It’s all right, Heero,’ I told him softly but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he could see in my face that it wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t her fault; they had started this. No one had told Relena that the question wasn’t askable.

I looked up at her and only saw guarded curiosity on her face. ‘There were… skirmishes all over L2 at the time.’ I took a sip from my juice bulb because my throat was suddenly dry. ‘Rebels broke into the church and it was… destroyed when the Federation came after them. They… were killed during the fighting.’

I saw a flicker of what seemed to be true sympathy in her eyes and I was moved to reach and pat her hand. She flinched and I drew back without touching; I had forgotten my scars.

‘I’m… sorry,’ she murmured and now she was pushing potatoes around on her plate. This wasn’t going at all as planned, I suspected.

Chezarina looked just freaking miserable and Heero had a rather stricken expression on his face. I really couldn’t read Relena. Something was clenching tight in my chest.

‘You know…’ I said after an uncomfortable moment, ‘Fuzzy-butt is a decent enough co-pilot but you have to watch him like a hawk or he veers off course. He’s been looking for Ursa Major for the last year.’ It was ridiculously lame. On a better day I would have handled things just fine but after the last dozen hours, it was just a little too much. Too much raw edged emotion. Too many memories, some old and some not so damn old. I excused myself and headed for the cockpit to ‘relieve’ Fuzzy-butt. I trailed my hand down the wall as I went, letting my fingers brush over the images of my ghosts. As I reached the cockpit door and passed Solo, I heard the echo of his voice, ‘Get yer shit together rat-boy.’

‘I’m tryin’ rat-king,’ I muttered and went in to the relative privacy of the cockpit to do just that.

‘Minding your manners, Fuzzy-butt?’ I murmured and picked the stupid thing up to hug to my chest. Damn, that had totally blindsided me. I should have realized that all these paintings and pictures were going to generate questions. I guess I had just become so focused on the incriminating new one in the cargo bay that I had kind of forgotten about all the others. I rubbed my cheek against the well-worn, familiar fur and had to sigh. Fuzzy-butt and I were old comfort buddies. He wasn’t a much better conversationalist than ‘Demon’ was but he listened pretty damn good.

There were suddenly warm hands on my shoulders and Heero’s tender voice near my ear. ‘I believe that’s my job he’s doing, there.’

He plucked the thing out of my arms and tossed it back in its seat, turning me around and tugging me into a fierce embrace. ‘I’m so sorry love… it never dawned on us that Relena would actually enter the conversation.’

I muffled my laugh against his shoulder. ‘Well now; doesn’t that just say a whole hell of a lot about our present situation?’

He wrapped me close, molding us together until it felt like he was all that was holding me up. I closed my eyes and let myself cling. ‘You hug way better than Fuzzy ever did,’ I murmured and pulled a chuckle out of hi