Kindergarten Heero Part 7

Duo was sorry to call the evening to an end but Helen had literally fallen asleep at the table. And it was almost closing time for the restaurant. He'd never kept Helen out this late on a school night before. He gently lifted the sleeping girl to carry her to the car, thanking Heero for helping with the door on the way out. He was pleased when Heero walked them to their car, unlocking and opening the door for him so that he could settle Helen in her seat without waking her.

"I'm glad you joined us for dinner," Duo said, keeping his voice low so that he wouldn't waken Helen.

"Me too," Heero said simply. Despite having to be careful not to give away his real identity, he'd managed to avoid outright lies for the most part during their conversation. He really had enjoyed this evening. Duo was terrific company. A good listener as well as an interesting conversationalist. Heero was starting to hope that he wouldn't find Khushrenada's wife and kid too quickly. Not that he wouldn't continue to do everything he could to complete his assignment in a timely fashion - but he wouldn't be upset if it took a while to accomplish. Might even be glad.

"Umm - do you have any plans for Saturday?" Duo asked hesitantly. Maybe he was rushing things but he really wanted to spend more time with Heero. If the other man hadn't decided yet whether he would remain in Astoria or not, he wanted to do everything he could to tip the balance in favour of staying. He liked Heero, was attracted to him, and suspected that it wouldn't take much at all to make him fall in love with him. He just hoped that Heero felt the same way.

Heero hesitated. He really needed to do a little research, try and check out some of the few possible leads on Khushrenada's family... 'But that won't take long. A couple of hours on the computer, tops. Then it's just a matter of waiting for the query results to come back from headquarters...' And he really would like to spend more time getting to know Duo... Heero gave his partner a quick glance as he said, "Unless Hilde has something in mind, I'm only busy first thing in the morning..."

Relieved that her partner wouldn't be spending the whole day pacing the house while waiting for reports that would probably not be back for a day or so, Hilde shook her head. "Nope, not a thing," she declared.

"Well, Helen gets done T-ball at 11, then I need to feed her some lunch before I drop her off for karate. She's spending the afternoon with her instructor's daughter so I don't have to pick her up again till after supper... Which leaves me with the afternoon free to give you a tour of Astoria. You really should see a little more of it than just the school," Duo grinned. "So you could either join us at T-ball or I could meet you after I drop her off for karate..."

Guessing that a number of other kids would be in T-ball with Helen, Heero realized that it might be a good chance to meet a few more parents. And besides that, he wanted to see this T-ball coach that Helen said was better than him. "If you give me directions to the ball diamond, I could meet you at T-ball," Heero said. "Will Helen's mother be there too?" he asked curiously.

Duo froze. He hadn't realized that Heero didn't know... 'But then why should he? He's only been here a few days after all...' Would finding out that Helen was his responsibility make a difference? Heero might not be interested in an instant family... He swallowed hard, forcing down both the ache of Leia's death and the sudden sharp pain at the thought that Heero might not want anything more to do with him once he knew that Helen was solely Duo's responsibility. "No, she won't." Careful to remember to use the correct name, he said, "Elisa - my sister - died a couple of months ago. Helen is mine now. We're a package deal."

Heero winced at the raw pain in Duo's voice. At least now he knew why Helen had such a fatalistic attitude about death. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "No one told me." 'And Principal Une should have,' he thought angrily. The last thing Helen needed was for her teacher to prod such a recent wound by unknowingly asking an insensitive question.

Duo nodded in acknowledgement of the apology. "Uh - I'll understand if you want to change your mind about Saturday..." he said hesitantly.

It took a moment for Heero to realize why Duo would even say such a thing. 'He's not sure whether I'm still interested now that I know Helen goes along with him...' He realized, much to his own surprise, that it didn't matter. That he really didn't mind the fact that a relationship with Duo inevitably meant taking on Helen as well. "No," he said simply, shaking his head. "Just give me the directions and I'll meet you at T-ball."

Duo smiled in relief. "Sure."

***

Hilde waited until the car pulled away before walking over to stand beside Heero. She poked him in the ribs and said, "Woo-hoo, looks like my 'brother' has a date! Still sorry that you got stuck with the teaching job?"

Heero shot her an aggravated look. He already felt a bit odd about dating while he was undercover like this; he really didn't need his partner's teasing on top of that. And his death-glares were completely ineffective on her; he'd already found that out. But there was just something about Duo that made it impossible for him to resist taking this chance, despite the craziness of getting involved with someone who had a life hundreds of miles away from his own.

He attempted to avoid discussing the "date" by latching on to Hilde's question. "Yes I still regret getting stuck with the teaching job," he growled. "I'm terrible at it! They're walking all over me! I have absolutely no control over them." He had no idea what he was doing wrong. He was bigger than them for god's sake, that alone should be enough reason for them to do what he told them to. And he was their elder, hadn't they ever been taught to respect their elders? He'd had that drilled into him at a very young age.

Hilde snickered at Heero's pitiful complaint. She managed to choke off her laughter as he glared at her half-heartedly. 'Poor guy has no clue what to do... Bet he's never failed at anything before...' She knew from what Chief Jaye had told her that Heero had a better arrest/conviction ratio than any other officer in the department. Khushrenada was the one thorn in his side; the one criminal that he just couldn't seem to bust. He was thorough and dedicated to his job nearly to the point of obsession. Failure was something he simply did not know how to handle. "Listen Yuy," she said, flinging her arm over his shoulders and tugging him along as she walked, "just think of this like any other police situation. You go in there showing fear or hesitation and you're dead meat. You're scared and the kids know it."

Stopping in his tracks, Heero gave Hilde a considering look. She might just have a point... "No fear?"

"No fear," she repeated firmly.

He nodded slowly. "No fear..." Heero started walking again, mind racing through various scenarios. Maybe if he shook things up a little; put the kids in unfamiliar territory and himself back on more solid footing... He smirked and started to laugh.

Hilde gave Heero a concerned look and decided to release his arm and walk a little further away from him. Maybe she'd just made a big mistake. That laugh was scary. What the hell did Yuy have in mind?

***

"Alright class, listen up," Heero barked sharply. He could feel a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth already. His mere tone had gotten a quicker response from them than he'd managed up till now. "Today we're going to play a new game. It's called 'Police School'." He ignored the groans and muttered complaints, continuing, "I am the police chief and you are all my trainees. The first thing the trainees need to learn is that when I blow the whistle once, like this," he gave his police whistle a single shrill blast, sending small hands up to cover ears, "you will freeze and be quiet. Now the next time that I blow the whistle, you will each go get one toy and bring it back to the carpet and sit down. How many toys?"

"One!" the kids answered.

"Good!" Heero said. "Now get ready..." A couple of kids jumped up and started towards the toys. "Ah-ah! Wait for the whistle!" Heero ordered. He pointed back towards the chairs and the kids sheepishly returned. He fought down the rising feeling of satisfaction. Just because this was working so far, that didn't mean it would keep working. "Ready..." He blew the whistle and kids scrambled to race for toys. He watched closely as they hurried back to the carpet with them. Samantha was busy waltzing her doll around instead of returning to the carpet. He stalked over to her, scowling. "Samantha! Get back to the carpet!"

"I'm not a policeman; I'm a princess! Mommy says so!" Samantha protested, pouting.

'I'll bet she does...' Heero thought, suppressing a shudder. Her mother acted as if she was a princess; it really was too bad that she was passing that behaviour on to her daughter. Well, Samantha wouldn't get away with it in his class! "Back to the carpet!" he ordered, pointing and glaring.

"But..."

"Samantha!" he snapped.

"Okay..." she conceded, shoulders drooping in defeat. She trailed back to the carpet docilely and took a seat.

Heero breathed a sigh of relief. All the kids were now back on the carpet. Noisy, but where they were supposed to be. He blew the whistle sharply and they all froze and went silent. "Good. Very good." This was going to work. Thank god, the little monsters were going to actually behave for him.

By the time they practised lining up for a fire drill and marching outside in a quick and orderly fashion at least half a dozen times, then moved on to play on the playground equipment for a while, Heero was feeling much more confident and comfortable. And the physical activity was making the kids much less hyper and more amenable to behaving. Helen gave him a grin and a thumbs-up as the children settled onto the mats for a story and their afternoon rest. Heero cleared his throat and started to read, keeping his voice as low and soothing as he could make it. By the time he got halfway through the book, most of the kids were dozing off and by the time he finished, they were all either sound asleep or at least lying quietly with their eyes shut. He wouldn't swear that all of them were actually asleep but if they weren't, they were pretty good at faking it.

As Heero moved back to his desk and started jotting down a few more observations and ideas for finding Khushrenada's family, he realized that today hadn't been bad at all. With a little luck, he might actually make it through this undercover assignment in one piece both mentally and physically.

***

Watching Helen's team play T-ball on Saturday morning, Heero realized why she'd said that her coach Howie was better than him after that first day he'd been her teacher. The good-natured man in the bold Hawaiian print shirt, Tilley hat, and mirrored sunglasses was universally adored by the kids he coached. He teased and coaxed and scolded his young charges through the game with hardly a teary eye amongst them. And when one parent became too vocal in his criticism of a child's performance, Howie dragged off his sunglasses, stomped over to the bleachers, and demanded to know just when the hell Mr. Critical had got so damn perfect. He insisted that the man come down and take a turn at bat himself. On his knees. Blindfolded. With one hand tied behind his back. After all, he had said that he could do a better job than the poor kid even in that state, hadn't he?

For some odd reason, no one else felt the need to be overly critical for the rest of the game. Heero liked Howie.

***

Since Hilde had dropped him off at the ball diamond, Heero rode with Duo and Helen when they left. "We're going home for lunch," Duo said. "If that's okay with you?"

"Fine," Heero nodded. He was looking forward to seeing where Duo and Helen lived. He was expecting a small, comfortable home. Something cozy and very typically middle-class, small-town America. He was wrong.

"You live here?" Heero asked disbelievingly. The huge electronically controlled gates swung shut behind the car as it started up the long, winding driveway towards the beautiful, sprawling house perched on top of the hill.

"Yep. Thanks to a really good friend, we do," Duo said with a smile. "We look after the place in exchange for living in it. Once in a while the owner or some of his family will come by for a week or so on vacation but the rest of the time we've got the whole house to ourselves." The gates and security cameras and alarm system had gone a long way towards making Leia feel safe, though she'd never felt completely secure. He could never have afforded this kind of security let alone a house this luxurious on a teacher's salary. Especially not when it had taken most of his pay cheque just to meet the bills for Leia's treatments. "Elisa Maxwell" didn't exactly have health insurance to fall back on and even if she had, the experimental treatments probably wouldn't have been covered anyway.

Duo owed Quatre a huge debt of gratitude for all his assistance over the past few years. Not that Quatre would ever remind him of that. Or that the son of two oil baron families - one American, one Saudi Arabian - would ever miss the monetary assistance he'd also provided on several specific occasions, including Leia's funeral. Quatre was generous to a fault where his friends were concerned. Not that his business competitors would ever believe such a thing.

'Thanks to a really good friend? Or to ten million dollars of stolen drug money?' Heero wondered uncomfortably. He was suddenly wondering whether he needed to move Helen's name further up the list of "maybes". Khushrenada was a redhead and Helen's hair was auburn verging on true red... 'God, I hope not...' Heero thought unhappily. If Helen was Khushrenada's daughter and if her mother was really dead, then his only other possible witness against Khushrenada was gone. Plus that put Duo right smack dab in the middle of the whole mess and Heero really didn't want to find out that he was involved. He didn't want to believe that Duo would ever touch drug money, stolen or not. 'I'll have to check his story out...' Heero realized miserably. He couldn't ignore the possibility; he had a job to do and his personal feelings had to come second to that. He knew that; he just didn't like it.

TBC...

 

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