Author: Sunhawk

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Yaoi, friendships, sap, angst, melodrama...

Disclaimer: I don't own GW.

So I have this one-shot thing that I'm working on, and it's going to dismember rather nicely into... you know... parts. Like parts that I could post. *nod nod* So I thought that might be a shiny thing to do. So I am. Posting, that is.

It's probably kind of lame, but I can blame this whole hormone thing. Or lack of. *ponders that* Well... you know. Anyway, it's going to be a Heero and Duo sort of thing, with lots of friendships tossed around. With angst and sap and melodrama. The usual. >_>

So... part one of what I hope will become weekly installments, starting off from Duo's POV.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 epilogue

Rain

Duo's POV

There are moments in your life that will be defining as all hell, but you won't realize it while you're in the middle of it. Later, you will be able to look back and analyze it and understand that this phrase was maybe not the best, and that gesture not the most well thought out. But not while you're going through it. Never when it would do you any damn good to realize that you're about to step off the proverbial cliff.

I'm friends with all the guys, but Trowa and I are particularly close. I think we just mesh on a level that the others don't always understand. We'd come from similar backgrounds of... lack. Trowa understood my odd religious almost-belief, and I understood him when he had something important that didn't need saying. Being raised by mercenaries had probably been fairly like being raised by the Sweepers. We just 'got' each other most of the time.

I'd been the one he'd told when Quatre had accepted their first date, and he'd been the one I'd told when I'd started taking night classes. I'd bought the beers when he and Quat had their first argument, and he'd sat with me in the rain the day my cat died.

We did things together that nobody else was really into. We both had this affinity for dirt bikes for instance, that usually left the other guys rolling their eyes. I suppose there was a little bit of the adrenaline junky in the both of us, but we just liked to go out and throw our butts around in the dirt, and that sort of thing is always more fun with a buddy. Quatre had tried to come with us once, but I was kind of glad that he never took to it, because Trowa didn't seem the same with him around. Like he couldn't loosen up quite as much.

Their relationship was still kind of shiny and new though, and I always chalked it up to Trowa not wanting to look foolish in front of his new love interest.

Too bad we hadn't talked about that sort of thing more... might have saved things later, if I'd had a clue.

Now that I think about it, it was the dirt bikes that sort of caused that last big blow up. Trowa and I had been out on the trails while Quatre was taking care of some sort of Winner business. The three of us were supposed to meet up at Trowa's place that evening and we were going to fire up the grill. Trowa has awesome grill powers. The things the man can do with a pork chop are obviously beyond normal mortal abilities.

We'd ended up packing it in a little early when I ran across a bit of wet ground where there should not have been wet ground. I had somehow managed to reverse the normal order of things, and had finished out the curve with the bike on top instead of the other way around. Scared the piss out of Trowa, and he'd insisted we were done for the day. Wouldn't even let me help load up the bikes, but made me sit in the front of his truck and wait. By the time we got back to his place, I'd really started to stiffen up.

'Damn it,' I groaned at him when it came time to climb down from his monster of a truck. 'I told you I should have kept moving.'

He just chuckled at me and came around to give me a hand. 'You couldn't have been moving during the drive back anyway,' he informed me logically.

I eased down to the ground, letting him make it a little easier with a hand under my arm, and tried not to wince. 'All right, all right,' I capitulated. 'But I'm thinking about half a bottle of aspirin before we started the trip might not have hurt anything.'

That got me a faint frown and I flashed him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. 'Duo, let's just get you inside where I can get a better look at your back.'

'I'm fine,' I told him, rolling my eyes and following him up the walk to the house. 'Just a little stiff. It'll work out in a couple of days.'

He snorted, unlocked the front door and held it open for me. 'Stop trying to be such a tough guy and admit that you went three rounds with a hunk of metal twice your size... and lost.'

'We both walked away,' I chuckled. 'I call it a draw.'

'Just get the shirt off and lie down over here in the light,' he sighed, turning on the lamp by the couch and opening the drapes wide for good measure.

'Uh... love to,' I had to confess. 'But I'm not sure I can get my arms over my head.'

There was an exasperated sigh and then he was there helping me. 'You are such an ass sometimes,' he grumbled and I laughed around the groan of pain.

'Yeah, but that's why you love me,' I quipped and he growled at me, getting just a little rough there at the last, getting the shirt off.

'Just shut up and let me...' he stopped himself with another one of those sighs, as he got a good look at me.

'What?' I wanted to know, trying to look over my own shoulder and failing.

'Just lie down,' he commanded. 'I'll be right back.'

'Ah man!' I complained to his retreating back. 'I hate right back! Right back means medical supplies and icky stingy stuff.'

His chuckle floated back from the other room and that was all. I muttered something unflattering about mud and dirt bikes and sadistic best friends and finally managed to get myself prone. When he came back, I couldn't help trying to look at what he had in his hands with some trepidation. 'What are you going to do?' I asked suspiciously.

He snorted and squatted down on the floor beside me. 'Don't be such a big baby,' he said and I tried to glare, but you can't really do that while lying down. Then something kind of cold probed at my back and I couldn't help the flinch.

'What was that?' I demanded and he smacked my ass.

'Hold still before I skewer you!' he snapped and held a pair of tweezers in my line of sight with a piece of gravel clutched in them.

'Oh,' I muttered sheepishly, not even sure what I'd thought he'd been getting ready to do. It made me blush .

'You know I wouldn't hurt you,' he chided and the blush went up a couple of notches.

'Not unless there was an audience and a practical joke involved?' I tried, but it was lame. He let me off the hook anyway, just dropping another chunk of gravel into the bowl he'd brought for the purpose.

It was quiet for a few minutes, while he hunched over me and carefully picked rock out of my hide. 'I think I got it all,' he informed me and then there was a faintly amused tone to his voice. 'Now this next part is probably going to sting.'

'Oh boy,' I groused. 'The icky stingy stuff part.'

It made him laugh and he gave my hair an affectionate ruffle. I'd have grumbled at him about it, but the braid was already a little bit messed up from the roll in the dirt anyway.

'Take it like a man,' he teased and then was swabbing my lower back with something that did indeed sting like a mother.

'I take the big stuff like a man,' I growled, squirming under his hands. 'The small stuff, I get to act like a baby over!'

'Almost done, baby,' he chuckled and I heard him set the bottle of alcohol aside, then his hands were tracing gently up my back. 'You got a pretty bad case of road rash here and here,' he told me, mapping it out for me. 'And a couple of places that look like they're going to bruise like hell here, here and here.' His touch was light, making sure not to hurt the places he was letting me know about. 'And I think you already felt where all the extra holes are.'

'Oh yeah,' I agreed, pushing myself up on hands and knees and trying to stand up without actually flexing any of those 'here and here' spots he'd been talking about. 'I'm pretty sure they'll be stinging to remind me for the next couple of days.'

He slipped an arm around under my waist and bodily picked me up and set me on my feet, stepping back to eye me critically. 'You didn't hit your head, did you?' he asked, frowning down at me suddenly, and I just blinked for a second.

'No,' I replied, thinking about it. My head hurt a little bit, but it didn't feel like impact pain so much as the tension from a back that was tied up in knots. 'Why... what's the matter?'

He caught at my chin and turned my head toward the light, his frown toning down to uncertainty. 'Your eyes looked... darker than normal there for a minute,' he murmured, studying them, but then seemed satisfied. 'Must have just been the light.'

'I did have my helmet on,' I pointed out, and began working my way back into my shirt while he picked up the medical supplies and put them away. I was still easing my arms into the notion that 'up' was a direction they could handle, when he came back. Laughing at me, he finished the job of tugging it into place for me. 'Baby,' he teased and I stuck out my tongue, playing the part.

Quatre arrived not long after that and we went about the business of having our cookout.

Later, I would understand how certain things had looked through a picture window without the words to go along with it. At the time, all I remember thinking was that Quatre must have had a bad day, because he was awfully quiet and didn't really eat much.

***

Heero's POV

I have to admit that I had been a bit surprised when Trowa and Quatre had first gotten together, because I had been so sure that there was something more going on between Trowa and Duo. They'd always seemed close, and I don't think it was just my particular... perspective, because Wufei had commented on it too.

But when Trowa had quietly announced that he and Quatre were 'seeing each other', Duo hadn't been the slightest bit upset, and in fact had seemed to delight in it. It hadn't seemed to change whatever was between him and Trowa though, and it had taken a while for me to decide that they really were just friends... the kind without the benefits.

I had almost gotten up my nerve, in fact, to make my own move in Duo's direction when... the 'incident' happened.

We get together as a group fairly often, and we'd been planning a dinner out for weeks. The day, when it dawned, had been nothing but rain though, and nobody was much interested in the intended trip to the beach side, sea food restaurant that we'd had lined up. We ended up going back to Trowa's place instead, deciding on ordering in.

There had been an odd tension in the air all afternoon, but it had only gotten worse once we'd settled in at Trowa's.

Duo, I think, had sensed something as well, and had been teasing Trowa, trying to lighten things up.

'What the hell is this, Barton?' he asked, brandishing the phone. 'I thought everybody had their local pizza place on speed dial?'

Trowa chuckled at him, pulling the phone book out and leafing through it to get the needed number. 'Not everybody lives off fast food delivery, Maxwell,' he quipped and Duo stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, making Trowa swat at him with the phone book.

'Some of us have slightly more sophisticated taste,' Quatre interjected, and there seemed to be more bite to it. Duo blinked for a second, and I half expected him to snipe back, but he recovered quickly and just grinned.

'Hey, if you wanted anchovies, all you had to do was ask, man,' Duo teased and Trowa made a face indicating his stand on anchovies.

There was a hint of a flush on Quatre's face and I wondered about it, but Duo was already punching the number into the phone as Trowa read it to him. Quatre looked to me like he was going to say something else, but then just turned and left the room. I exchanged a look with Wufei, but he seemed as vaguely puzzled as I felt. There was obviously something going on under the surface between our three partners, but he had no more idea than I did what it was.

Once Duo got an answer on the phone and began reeling off our usual order, Trowa put the phone book away and slipped out after Quatre.

'Trouble in paradise?' Wufei muttered, trying to decide if he should be concerned or amused. I shrugged and we waited for Duo to hang up the phone.

'Should be here in about a half hour,' he told us distractedly, frowning slightly and looking after the other two. There was obviously a discussion going on in the living room, though we couldn't really make out the words.

'What is Quatre's damn problem?' Duo asked, though it seemed a rhetorical question. 'He's been in a mood all day.'

Wufei gave out with a soft snort. 'You make him sound like some hormonal woman,' he ventured, making sure to keep his voice down.

'Hey,' Duo muttered darkly. 'If the shoe fits...'

'What ever it is,' I soothed. 'It seems to be between him and Trowa.'

'Sure doesn't feel like it,' Duo grumbled, running his hand over his hair in a gesture I knew he made when he was uncomfortable. 'Seems like he's been glaring daggers at me all stinking afternoon.'

And that was when we heard the crash from the other room. Staying out of a 'lover's spat' was one thing... ignoring that sort of sound was something else all together.

Duo was out of the room like a shot, Wufei and I hot on his heels. I don't think any of us were expecting to find what we did.

Trowa was sitting on the floor on his butt, obviously having just been put there by Quatre's patented right hook. They both looked like whatever was going on was about to escalate into a brawl. Until Duo rushed forward and put himself between them, demanding, 'What the fuck, Quat?'

If anything, Quatre looked even more homicidal. 'How perfect,' he snarled. 'Your 'buddy' is here to protect you, Trowa.' I can't say I have ever heard anybody put quite that much meaning into the word 'buddy'.

'Leave him out of it, Quatre,' Trowa demanded, climbing to his feet and I think he meant to move around Duo, but they ended up standing almost shoulder to shoulder.

'I think he's already smack in the middle of it,' Quatre snapped, reacting to the united front Duo and Trowa were unconsciously putting forth. 'I think he's more in the middle of it than I am.'

'God damn it,' Trowa snapped back. 'I told you you're way off base and you need to drop it, right now.'

'Will you two just time-out for a minute?' Duo yelled, looking completely appalled at them. 'Just what the hell is going on here?'

'What is going on here is the question of the hour, Maxwell,' Quatre said, voice suddenly rather low, and the tone dangerous. 'Maybe you'd like to tell everybody just what goes on here when you're alone with Trowa?'

Duo just stared at him for a long moment before suddenly turning a bright red. 'What? What the fuck are you insinuating, you asshole?'

I thought Quatre was going to try to deck him too, and maybe he would have, but Wufei chose that moment to step into the middle of the conversation. 'That's... a pretty nasty accusation, Quatre.'

Quatre's attention swung his way. 'And I don't make it lightly.'

'You have proof then?' Wufei asked, and managed to look shocked. Duo looked over at Trowa, his eyes asking all kinds of questions, but all Trowa's attention was on Quatre.

'I have the evidence of my own eyes,' Quatre hissed, his fury an almost palpable thing. It left Wufei not knowing who he should be blinking at.

'What?' Duo demanded, shock written all over his face. 'You couldn't have seen anything, Quatre... there's nothing to fucking see!'

I wondered, idly, how the argument had suddenly become between Quatre and Duo.

Quatre's fists balled themselves up again and he took half a step toward Duo. 'I don't call you being half dressed and Trowa running his damn hands all over you, 'nothing',' he snarled.

'What?' Duo gasped, utterly incredulous. 'What the hell are you talking about? We never...'

'Don't you dare fucking deny it!' Quatre yelled and I swear he was shaking. 'Last week; I saw you with my own damn eyes right here on this couch!'

Duo just stood for a long moment and I could tell he was processing it... trying to come up with something that fit with what Quatre was saying. When it clicked in his head, he blushed to the roots of his hair. 'That wasn't what it looked...' he began, and Quatre lost it, advancing with the obvious intention of going after Duo too.

But Trowa was suddenly stepping in, and where Quatre's voice had been getting pretty damn loud, his was low... and very menacing. 'Don't you fucking touch him.'

I remembered thinking that it wasn't the best thing he could have said. It implied a whole lot of stuff that was causing everybody in the room to feel slapped in the face.

I'll admit it... it seriously made me not sure what to think. Quatre seemed so sure that there was something going on, and Trowa was being damn protective of the wrong man. Duo was looking like he'd just swallowed ground glass, staring at Trowa with a totally unfathomable look on his face. I could tell Trowa's move had been the nudge Wufei had needed, and he was ready to believe too.

The pain in Quatre's eyes was enough to shake even my convictions. If I didn't know Duo as well as I did... I suppose I'd be wondering too.

'Is that how it is, Trowa?' Quatre asked, and his voice had dropped down to almost a whisper.

'How it is,' Trowa told him, his own anger running cold where Quatre's ran so hot. 'Is that you don't trust me.' They were just staring at each other and behind Trowa, Duo spoke up softly, looking at me... looking at Wufei... looking at Quatre. 'I... wouldn't do a thing like that.'

But nobody was really listening to him at that point. I don't think anybody but me was paying attention to the very real pain in his expression. He just looked confused. Confused, and somehow betrayed.

'How can I trust you in light of what I saw?' Quatre asked Trowa, and I was hard-pressed to believe that even stoic Trowa wasn't moved by the sound of that voice.

'Because I tell you there is nothing going on,' he replied instead, his own voice quite cold, and his gaze steady as an aimed gun.

Quatre's temper flared again. 'I'm not that damn naïve!'

'And I'm not that damn untrustworthy,' Trowa snapped back.

'You expect me to believe that you having him sprawled all over the couch half naked, running your hands all over him, touching his face... his hair... you expect me to believe that nothing is going on?'

'Maxwell!' Wufei gasped, his eyes wide and I could tell he'd made up his mind whose side he was on in the argument. It occurred to me that we really shouldn't be taking sides, and that everybody but Trowa and Quatre ought to be getting the hell out of there, but it was way beyond that point by then. 'I can't believe how dishonor...' Wufei began, but I reached out and touched his elbow and gave him a glare, trying to impart that this was really none of our business.

'I expect you to trust me,' Trowa said simply. 'I expect you to trust Duo.'

That was pushing it, somehow. Quatre was upset with the both of them, but was obviously set to blame Duo for the whole damn mess. Perhaps it felt like less of a betrayal if he could blame 'the other man'.

'I won't be the damn cuckolded lover, you bastard,' Quatre ground out, the hurt giving over to the balm of anger again. 'Especially not to some nameless L2...'

'Then maybe we should...' Trowa began, but Duo, looking completely horrified, grabbed at Trowa's arm and stopped him from finishing the sentence.

'Guys!' he gasped, wide-eyed and looking from one of them to the other. 'Don't do this. Come on... you don't mean these things! Stop it!'

Quatre's eyes were tracking the touch though, and even I could see that Duo's hand on Trowa's arm had been a very bad idea.

'This is all your God damn fault!' he snapped out, voice going as cold as Trowa's had been. 'If you could keep it in your damn pants...'

And, in a case of the world's worst timing, that was precisely the moment that the pizza delivery guy rang the doorbell. There was a moment when everybody froze... just a little bit horrified, I think, at the idea that the yelling might have been over-heard. Trowa shook himself loose first, turning toward me I think, to ask me to take care of it. There was a scramble for cash and somewhere in there the doorbell rang a second time. Quatre stormed off to the kitchen in the midst of it and there was the sound of slamming drawers. Enough cash was finally produced and I went to the front of the house to shut up the damn incessant ringing of the doorbell.

When I came back... Duo was gone.

If I'd had a clue that 'gone' meant gone for good, I'd have followed him then, but at the time I'd just thought it was probably best if everybody took a step back and calmed down.

***

Duo's POV

It was the sign that made me stop driving. How could I pass up a place named Devil's Palm? I had turned the car off the highway without a second thought, just this vague notion that I really should see a place with a name like that. Of course... by that time I'd been driving so long that most of my thoughts were vague. It had been strange to actually get out of the car for more than a gas stop, and I remember just standing next to the driver's door for a long time, looking around and thinking that the place really should look more ominous. It was... almost disappointing.

Devil's Palm... 'we're nestled right in the palm of the Devil's hand!'... is a town with a population in the neighborhood of a couple hundred. They don't even bother to post it on the edge-of-town sign, like some places do. There's a little general store, one tiny restaurant whose menu varies depending on the season, the day of the week, and some whim of the woman who owns it. There's a post office, and while there isn't a police station, there is a guy who lives in town that the locals call Sheriff. Never been able to figure out of he's supplied by an actual official office, or if he's just doing the job for a place to live and meals.

That kind of weird bartering system had taken me a while to get used to. Life in Devil's Palm is... different. Very different.

I have no real recollection of making a conscious decision to stay. I had pulled in that day, gotten out of my car in less than stellar shape, not even sure how in the hell long I'd been driving, with no idea how long I'd planned on continuing to drive. There would have been an ocean at some point, when the roads ran out, and I couldn't even have told you if that would have stopped me.

Maybe that's what made me walk away from the car that day.

I had gone into the diner and stared at the menu and when I had been unable to decipher the words, Mrs. Taylor had fed me some sort of stew with corn bread, and then escorted me down the street to her sister-in-laws bed and breakfast. There wasn't any sign for it, but there was indeed a room with a bed and for fifty dollars, cash up-front please, they let me sleep there for well over twenty hours.

When I emerged again, it just seemed... I don't know... like the place to be. Had to stop sometime, I reasoned, and where better than the palm of the Devil's hand?

It didn't take long to learn from the ever talkative Mrs. Taylor that there was a piece of property for sale about fifteen minutes outside town. The deal was made that very day. Old man Fogerty was more than happy to come down on his price when I offered him ten thousand cash, if I agreed to throw in my car.

Sunset found me the befuddled owner of a three room shack on a couple of acres of land, sans the majority of my life savings and my only means of transportation.

I don't think I'll ever forget that rather final moment, standing in the front yard with my meager belongings sitting at my feet, waving old Fogerty off, as he fish tailed my car up the dirt lane with a bit too much enthusiasm. I remember hearing his laugh drift back to me, wild and almost maniacal. And I distinctly remember saying, 'What the fuck have I done?' to nobody in particular. Though the freaking huge black crow sitting on the barn answered me with a rattling chuckle.

I slept on the couch that first night because it seriously creeped me out thinking about sleeping on sheets that old Fogerty had been sleeping on.

He'd pretty well left me everything, taking only his clothes and a few other items. And since I was moving in with just my clothes and a few other items, I guess it worked out pretty well.

Took me three days to work up the energy to make the hike into town, but when I did, I discovered that Dutch Evans, the guy who ran the general store, happened to have a cousin who just happened to be looking to unload an old pick-up truck. Took three hundred bucks for it and even let me keep the old blanket that was covering up the rips in the front seat.

I had discovered my only method of cooking lie with an old, pot-bellied, wood-burning stove, so I also took home a case of canned soup, since I hadn't yet mastered the art of cooking over a burning log.

Home. That... had been a tough thought to swallow and I'll freely admit that I had a rough time making that adjustment. I waffled back and forth between days where I worked like a mad man around the old place from dawn until dusk, and days where I just sat and stared at the wall and chewed on thoughts that... were not comfortable.

The working was just a way to run from the thoughts, leaving me so exhausted I could sleep. The thinking was just rubbing salt in the wound.

I suppose, looking back, what I did seems pretty damn extreme. And maybe if it had just been Quatre and his damn accusations, I might have stayed and defended my dubious 'honor'. But there had been this moment, standing in the middle of that chaos where I realized everybody in the room believed what Quatre was saying. Every one of those men who were supposed to be my family, thought that I was capable of betraying my own like that. I had seen it on Wufei's face when he'd been convinced... the shock and the condemnation. Had seen the utter hurt and betrayal in Quatre's face. And Heero... whose opinion mattered to me a bit more than I suppose it should... his face had been completely blank. But... there had been no defense. He'd never spoken up, never tried to be his usual voice of reason. Wasn't that answer enough? He'd believed it too. Thought that I could do such a thing. All those twisted things that Quatre had been shouting at me... not once did anybody say, 'Duo wouldn't do that'.

And Trowa... I do love Trowa. I love him like my brother. How could I just stand there and watch while his relationship with Quatre went up in smoke? If there was anybody in the room that day who understood how much Trowa loved Quatre... it was me. The guy who had been there, urging and comforting and reassuring while he'd worked up the nerve to go for what he'd wanted more than anything in the world.

I'd been thrilled when they'd finally gotten together, had mocked Trowa's goofy grin, had teased him about every little reported advance in the relationship. Hell, I'd known the night they slept together for the first time before Trowa had known. I knew the guy so damn well, that I'd just felt the difference in his mind-set and knew it was about to happen. Not that I ever told him that. Some things really should be between just two people.

So how the hell was I supposed to stand there and watch that fall apart, knowing it was me causing the rift? Quatre was the most important thing in the world to Trowa, and I'd realized, listening to them that night, that no matter what happened... one way or the other, things were never going to be the same.

Even if Trowa had been able to convince Quatre that what he had seen had been innocent, the doubt had been planted. I had already lost my best friend... there was no way I would ever be able to make things the same between Trowa and me again; I'd forever be afraid of what things looked like. I'd be forever watching my words... my gestures... my thoughts.

And besides that... what about Heero and Wufei? I couldn't stand the idea that they thought so little of me. They were two people I respected a great deal; it was damn painful to realize they had no respect for me. I had stood there that night and understood that these men that I loved... that I would have given my life for... would have done anything for, just for the asking... not a one of them thought I had an ounce of honor or integrity in me.

I'd walked out when the pizza came and hadn't looked back. Removing myself from the equation seemed the only solution.

It had been a simple thing to empty my bank account, e-mail my resignation to my boss, pack up the bit of my life that mattered, and leave. Rather depressingly simple, actually.

And that was how I'd ended up in Devil's Palm.

How I became the local psycho, hermit, animal freak happened about as effortlessly.

The Palm, as they like to call it, is kind of... rural, in case you didn't get that. Lot of ranches, and naturally... a lot of animals. So there's this vet who has an office that she occupies a couple of times a week. I think she and some partners have three of the places, spread across two or three counties, and she rotates. For major things, you have to make the drive up into 'The City' to the main office, but for small things like shots and check-ups, Miss Deirdre was in our neck of the woods every Tuesday and Thursday without fail.

I suppose I'd been living in the old Masterson place for a month before I actually met her. I'd had about enough of soup that week, and had come in to town to eat at Mrs. Taylor's. Probably had something to do with forcing myself to interact with other human beings before I just completely vegged away to nothing. Not that I'd have probably been able to admit that even to myself at that stage of the game, but I can see the truth in it, looking back.

I'd been sitting there trying to decide if okra was something I was going to be able to develop a taste for or not, when Miss Deirdre had come in for lunch.

With a... well, I hadn't been sure at first... with a ball of white fluff in tow. It had turned out to be a puppy. A big damn puppy. A big damn furball of a puppy.

I remember first being surprised that Mrs. Taylor wasn't throwing a fit that somebody had brought a dog into her diner. And second I remember... feeling something for the first time in a while.

'You look plum tuckered out,' Mrs. Taylor had declared and plopped a cup of coffee down on the counter unasked.

'Been a long week,' the woman had said, leaving the puppy to snuffle around the room, and sipped at her coffee with a satisfied sigh. 'Hits the spot Eva... how about some of your delicious apple pie to go with it?'

Mrs. Taylor scoffed, though she looked pleased. 'Young woman like yourself needs more than pie for lunch! Let me get you a nice bowl of chili...'

They chattered at each other, but I sort of stopped paying attention because the puppy had made the circuit of the room and had gotten to my feet. I must have walked through something really interesting, because it was quite fascinated with my boots. Something in my chest felt funny and when it started to move on, I panicked, and before I had a chance to think that it might not be the best thing to do without asking permission... I offered it a bite of my meatloaf. The little guy, I decided... I don't know why, blinked up at me like he was surprised to find a person attached to those boots, and happily ate my offering and almost my finger too.

'...looking for a home for him,' I suddenly heard, and when I looked up to find the vet and Mrs. Taylor both grinning at me widely, I had the strangest feeling I'd been set up. 'The owner brought him in to be put down because he isn't 'up to specs',' she was telling Mrs. Taylor disdainfully. 'But I figure if he's fixed, he can't spread the precious blood-line around anyway. So what's the harm?'

'He's a show dog then?' Mrs. Taylor asked speculatively, and I could believe it... cute was invented to describe that furry face and those expressive eyes. 'You know,' she continued, using that sly little tone that she got when she was about to put a good bargain together, 'Duo here just moved into the old Masterson place and has all kinds of room.'

'He'd need it,' I thought I heard Miss Deirdre mutter, but she just went on to inform me that she'd throw in free vet visits for the first six months if I'd be willing to take him off her hands.

It was more of a sure thing than when Mrs. Taylor had connected me with her brother's best buddy who needed to off-load some shingles, and wanted somebody to help him move furniture in exchange. The woman knows her bartering.

So I left the diner that day with a house-mate and a list of things to pick up from the general store.

And though I was kind of peeved later that she hadn't bothered to tell me what a Pyrenees was... I doubt knowing that the dog would eventually grow up to out weigh me... probably wouldn't have mattered.

I let the little furball sleep in the bed with me that night and the next morning woke up to him licking my face and whining for breakfast. It was the first time in ages that I bothered to roll out of bed before mid-morning and I promptly named him Reason.

After that, it somehow became common knowledge that the 'young man who moved in out on Three Trees Road' was a soft touch. When old lady McNeil's beagle broke its leg and taking care of it was more than she could handle, Mrs. Taylor and Miss Deirdre naturally thought of me. I wasn't really working after all, doing the odd bit of construction or mechanics or farm grunt work when I needed a few bucks, so I was free. I helped her out with the dog until the cast came off, and in return, she cooked me dinner and let me bring my laundry in to her place instead of hauling it over to Twin Forks to the Laundromat. After that, was a dog that somebody had dumped out up on the highway; skinny as a rail and not much to look at, I'd nursed the thing back to health and the Evans kids had ended up talking their dad into taking it. Then was the litter of kittens whose mother had gotten killed on the road. Then a piglet that had been born blind.

After six months, I'd heard that people were starting to refer to my place as 'Maxwell's Zoo', which is totally unheard of; places have names that stick for generations. To my knowledge nobody living even knew who 'Masterson' was when referencing 'The old Masterson place'.

It's probably sad that it was giving me something to do. Giving me something that made me feel half-way useful. I'll always wonder if Mrs. Taylor had understood how much I'd needed that. Will always wonder if it was entirely an accident that I'd met Miss Deirdre and my Reason that day.

***

Heero's POV

I looked for him, of course. I tracked every clue that I could find and some that were more rumors than anything else. But he'd liquidated his entire existence within a few days and just vanished. I kept thinking that we'd at least hear from him, but there was never a peep. Unless he contacted Trowa, but if so... he wasn't telling.

After a few months had gone by, I reluctantly added morgue lists into my search and just tried not to think about it.

I would forever kick myself for not checking up on him sooner. I'd just been so convinced that he was embarrassed by the whole stupid incident and just needed a bit of time to get his bearings. I'd thought his running off that night had been just a strategic retreat. I'd thought that he'd figured out like I had, that the argument should have been between Trowa and Quatre and it was their mess to straighten out.

Not that they ever had. They'd broken it off over the whole mess within a few days. They were both miserable, but the damage that had been done that night couldn't be covered over. Trowa had already been furious that Quatre didn't trust him any more than to make those kinds of accusations to begin with, but when it had become obvious that Duo had been so distraught over the whole thing that he'd... hell, that he'd run away from home, he had just exploded.

I think, somewhere in there, Quatre had started to have his doubts, but it was a bit too late by that point. No amount of apologizing was going to bring Duo back when he couldn't be found to apologize to.

And while I personally felt awful for the two of them, I couldn't quite forgive Quatre myself. I really didn't care what he thought he'd seen that day, he'd had no right to say some of the things he'd said to Duo. Even if there had been something between Trowa and Duo that was... inappropriate, it certainly wouldn't have been all Duo's fault. Trowa was a big boy, after all, and perfectly able to answer for his own actions. Laying it all at Duo's feet had been wrong no matter what had happened or not happened.

I think Quatre had been playing to the few things we knew about Duo's past and it smacked, frankly, of hitting below the belt.

I don't think that I ever would have given up looking, but I have to admit that by the eight month 'anniversary' of Duo's disappearance, I'd started to feel the hopelessness of it. Duo Maxwell had always been adept at vanishing. If he didn't want to be found, it was highly unlikely he was going to be.

It was, in fact, a total accident when it finally happened. It was almost embarrassing after all the hours I'd put in hacking computers and tracing clues, ruthlessly using Preventers' resources and screwing policy.

It hadn't even been me, exactly, that actually found him.

Sally Po has a niece, Katie by name, and she'd been using Wufei's computer at the office since her parent's internet connection was on the fritz at home. It had been for a school project and the kid is pretty easy to get along with, so I hadn't minded that Sally and Wufei had left her in my care while they'd gone to lunch.

I really hadn't been paying that much attention, I'd been using my own lunch hour, as I always did, to check some of the information trackers I had out watching for different variations of Duo's name. The report that was supposedly due the next day had something to do with careers; Katie apparently wanted to be a vet when she grew up, or an actress that worked with animals, or one of those animal cops... and that was about all I could have told you.

Until there came this plaintive little, 'Mr. Yuy, how do I get this to print?' and I went to help out.

She hopped out of Wufei's chair when I came across the office and I sat down to see what it was she was trying to print. She had a web page pulled up that looked like somebody's blog, but there were pictures that made it pretty plain it belonged to somebody in the veterinary business. 'What part do you want?' I asked and she pointed at the screen, showing me which days. I couldn't help grinning, Wufei wasn't going to be happy to come back and find all the finger prints on his monitor.

'Ok,' I replied and highlighted and hit the print key. 'Do you know where the water fountain is?'

'Yep,' she nodded vigorously, ready to dart off there even before I finished my instructions.

'The printer for this floor is on a table in the room right beside it,' I explained. 'Your printout will come out there, with Wufei's name on it. Think you can find it?'

She grinned and was out of the office before she even bothered with the 'Yes, sir!' I suspected research was not going to be the child's forte... she was too easily bored.

Almost, I got up to go back to my desk, but then decided I should probably double check that Katie hadn't just had me printing off something we shouldn't have, and I scrolled down the page.

And thought my heart was going to freaking lurch out of my chest.

There were pictures taken in what appeared to be some kind of clinic; pretty damn low tech from the looks of it, the entry seemed to be about rescued animals and in the background of one of the pictures I found a partially cropped out figure with a more than familiar braid. I just stared for a moment, at the back and the braid, but the picture wasn't that great. I was... almost positive, but at the same time almost afraid to believe. It just seemed... too damn bizarre. After all the searching and hunting and the weekend trips to follow up on leads, after getting 'the talk' from Lady Une about misuse of company resources when the IT department had seen something I hadn't thought to cover up. After the late nights and the lunch hours after... after all that damn time, I couldn't make myself believe I'd found him by accident.

Katie suddenly appeared at my elbow, sheaf of papers in her hand and grin on her face. 'I got it Mr. Yuy; thanks!'

'Sure sweetie,' I told her absently and she giggled at the endearment that had slipped out of my mouth. I realized it was something Duo would have said, and I quietly memorized the web address and went back to my own desk.

I spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over the blog of a woman named 'DeeDeeVet', who claimed to be a vet somewhere in the southwest. She was a rather... blunt person, calling clients stupid when she thought they were stupid and so the journal wasn't entirely... out in the open. She was coy about using real names and had a series of tags for various people. And while there were pictures of the animals, people mostly were edited out. That one hint of braid down a turned back was the only picture I found that I thought might be Duo.

Though, about seven months ago, a new tag had cropped up. References were made to a 'Mr. Tightjeans' and involved the woman foisting off a stray dog or something. She seemed quite pleased with herself and had apparently had the help of some local personality that she referred to as 'Applepie'. The two of them seemed to be of the opinion that Tightjeans had needed the dog even more than the dog had needed a home. There was a whole paragraph that waxed near poetic on how sad and lonely Tighjeans seemed to be and I got the distinct impression that dear DeeDeeVet wished she could remedy that with something besides a dog.

It amazes me what people will say in an open, internet forum, trusting to... I'm not sure what, to keep anybody they know from finding it.

After that entry, Tightjeans became a regular topic and seemed to be turning into some sort of animal savior. Or just the vets own personal sucker. Woman used him fairly mercilessly. The entries that mentioned him involved everything from hamsters to a damn horse. I wondered how the poor sap had time to breathe.

But then I started imagining Duo instead of some faceless 'Tightjeans' and I was surprised that I was almost angry on his behalf.

I made up my mind then and stopped reading the blog itself and started back tracking it. It didn't take much tracing of entries to find someplace the woman had posted, that recorded IP addresses. A quick trace route yielded an ISP which handed me a state. I went off on searches for veterinary practices in that area.

Somewhere in there, Wufei and Sally came back from lunch and Sally took Katie away to spend the rest of the afternoon in her own office. She waved and told me goodbye and I waved back distractedly. I think Wufei questioned me, but must have judged from my reaction, or lack of said, that I was distracted, and left me be. I felt vaguely guilty because he probably thought I was working on our current case. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and not only was I blowing off work for the afternoon, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was about to be taking some vacation time.

Some hours later I had a list of female vets in the northern corner of New Mexico and had pretty much narrowed it down based on mentions in the blog that the vet in question had a practice that rotated across several counties. Of the half a dozen names I came up with, DeeDeeVet seemed to most likely match up to a Deirdre Card. The blog told me that the place I was looking for was wherever the woman spent her Tuesdays and Thursdays. The listing for her practice told me just where that would be.

Somehow, when I saw the name of the town, I just knew I was on the right track. Wouldn't a place called Devil's Palm appeal to Duo's sometimes morbid sense of humor?

When I sat back in my chair with a heavy sigh, I was rather surprised to find that it was almost quitting time. I looked across to see Wufei regarding me quizzically. 'Finally come up for air?' he smiled. 'Going to tell me what kind lead you found now?'

I sighed again and rubbed at tired eyes. 'I... it's not the kind of lead you think,' I confessed and then met his gaze. 'I think I found him.'

I was almost surprised that I didn't have to clarify. I saw his eyes widen and he sat up straighter, almost leaning toward me. 'Are you sure? How?'

I had to give a mirthless little laugh. 'Would you believe by accident? And no... I'm not a hundred percent sure. But... I really think so.'

He just stared at me for a moment, processing it in that clinical way he has, before he said, 'We should call Trowa...'

'No,' I told him, managing to keep the harshness out of my voice. 'I'm going to handle this.'

'Heero...' he began, but I was shaking my head before he could even start reasoning with me.

'I'm not going to risk losing him again,' I said firmly, not caring what I implied or how he chose to take it. 'I've already e-mailed Lady Une to tell her I'm taking leave. I'm going to go find Duo, and I don't want this... bullshit to follow me.'

He thought about that for a moment and then nodded slowly. 'Will you... please... at least give me a clue where?'

'If you agree not to share the information until I say it's ok,' I said and was pleased to see that he did think about it before finally nodding.

'I... guess I understand,' he replied. 'I can agree to that.'

So I went to his desk and pulled up the web-site from his history and watched him scan the blog and look at the pictures, explaining my findings. Then he chuckled mirthlessly, caught somewhere between amused and pained. 'Sitting in the palm of the Devil's hand. God...Only Maxwell.'

***

Duo's POV

It was one of those days that started out... not so great. I happened to have a couple of cats in residence and while it was nice waking up with company again (it had been ages since Reason had just gotten too big for the bed), sometimes it only served to remind me how alone I was.

One of those days where it was going to be more likely that I sat staring at the wall, than actually doing anything constructive.

But, as designed by either the resident vet, the resident busy-body, or maybe just my sub-conscious... I did have obligations to take care of. So I hauled my ass out of bed, fed the cats, pulled on some clothes and went out to take care of the rest of my menagerie. Reason is my dog, and always will be, but I also had a couple of fosterlings in. A couple of shepherd mixes, one of them a big black that would chase a ball for as long as you were willing to throw it, and a buff colored one that showed quite a bit of husky in the blood-line, and had a dark 'mask' that always made him look faintly concerned about something. Nash and Bo respectively, because Miss Deirdre said that every run down shack needed a dog named Bo.

As soon as I stepped outside, Reason was right there at my heel, following me as I scooped the dog food out of the metal trash can that was the only thing that kept the mice out of it, and fed the boys. Nash dug right in, but Bo had to have his pats first. Reason opted to follow me out to the barn while I checked on Buckshot; he was our first horse and my dog hadn't quite decided that it wasn't something I shouldn't be protected from.

There's a lot to taking care of animals, and I guess that was the whole point. I spent the morning either putting food in one end of them, or cleaning up what came out the other. It's a never ending cycle. Reason went to eat once Buckshot was out in the paddock, but was right back on my trail as soon as he was full. Not a year old yet, and his head damn near came up to my waist. Never ceased to amaze me when I thought back to the little ball of fluff he had once been. I suspect that Miss Deirdre lies awake some nights because she's laughing so damn hard, just thinking about it. I hadn't had a clue.

I finished up the morning's chores as I always did, in front of the corner post in the paddock fence. The thing is grey with age, solid as a rock and probably older than anything on the property except the damn rocks. I pulled out my utility knife and marked another score in the wood. Another day. Another sunrise. Tallying my new life in neat little rows. I'd started doing it when I realized I was losing track of time and couldn't even have told you the date. Didn't know the day of the week. It seemed important not to let myself drift completely, though now it was more of a ritual of some damn kind. Just some record that I'd made another day.

Maybe it was a mark of triumph?

With the chores done, I actually considered just going in and going back to bed. The cats would come and curl up with me and I could probably manage to sleep for a few more hours, but I kind of knew what a bad idea that was... I'd gotten my sleep patterns messed up before, and had to deal with bouts of insomnia.

There really just wasn't much else to do in the house since the electricity had been cut off. I could probably spend part of the afternoon brushing Reason, but it had only been a couple of days and I just didn't feel up to the job. Though it made me think about the pillowcase full of collected fur I had in the house and I decided I'd drive into town and drop it off for Dutch's wife. She spun the stuff into yarn and had promised to knit me a scarf in exchange, before winter set in.

I think it was that part of my brain that knows when I need some human contact. It had probably been a week since I'd bothered, and I guess I knew on some level, I'd been avoiding it. I could end up becoming a hermit all too easily and I was well aware of it. And the longer I stayed isolated, the more I thought and the more I thought... well, it was just another of those endless cycles.

Maybe I could even cut a deal with Dutch for some cat food if he was still having problems with his old car. I was getting down to where I was going to have to buy some, and the funds were in less than great shape.

I ran my hand down the fence post, not having enough energy to count the days, and smiled down at Reason. 'Wanna go for a ride, boy?'

His great flag of a tail wagged enthusiastically and he bounced off toward the truck before I even headed that way. It still amazes me sometimes, just how smart animals can be.

Bo and Nash, stomachs full, would spend the rest of the day lazing in the barn or chasing the ground squirrels in the back field, and the cats were safe in the house, so Reason and I climbed into the truck and headed for town.

'Maybe we'll run into Dutch's cousin and I can see if he's got work again,' I mused to Reason and he wagged his tail, though he didn't pull his head in the window. I don't really get what dogs see in that wind rush thing... I'd tried it once, but I just swallowed a bug.

'We could sure use a bit of cash right now,' I continued, mentally going over our financial situation. I really didn't have that many bills to deal with, not since I'd said screw it with the power. The heat was from the wood stove anyway, and the water came from a well. It was kind of a bitch having to heat water for baths and stuff, but the rest of it was really no big deal. Television just depressed me, and if I needed light I just went the hell outside. Food for me and the boys was about it. A bit of gas money. But things had been getting a little tight since we'd taken on Buckshot. Horses can not live on grass alone, and the scrub grass out there wasn't that plentiful anyway. I'd worked a deal with Old man Sutton for a load of hay, but the grain I'd had to buy. Especially early on, when we'd had to mix a mash for him. It will never cease to shock me what people are capable of doing to animals. Poor old thing was pretty well recovered though, and I was kind of hoping that Miss Deirdre might have some ideas about where he might find a permanent home. It had been something of a kick having a horse around, especially once he'd recovered enough that a personality had started to come out, but I really just couldn't afford it any more. I'd miss him, but I knew I'd get over it... I always did.

I glanced over at Reason. 'Except for you, boy... right? You're here to stay?'

We passed the Richardson's farm just then, and their greyhound mutt raced the truck to the edge of the property, and Reason barked at him as we sped by. I liked to imagine that they kept score. It made me laugh, and it surprised me how... odd it felt. Reason looked at me, as though it surprised him too.

I parked in front of Mrs. Taylor's place, because I'd end up there before I was done in town. Woman would kill me if I didn't stop in at least to say hello. Reason couldn't really go into the stores with me, but it was cool enough for him to wait in the truck, especially with both windows rolled down. It didn't seem to bother him; I think he just liked the new sights and smells, because he always seemed content to sit there with his head hanging out the window, sprawled across the seat like he owned the truck. It kind of made me wonder if there wouldn't come a day that he'd get too big to ride in the front with me.

I did manage to score some cat food from Dutch, though it wasn't for fixing his car. Instead, it was for settling an argument between him and his oldest over math homework. Dutch is way too old-school to half understand what the poor kid was learning, so things get... tense when the boy needs help with his school work. I happened in just before the stomping and yelling part, and managed to derail things before they got ugly, and then explain the problem well enough that the kid actually got it. Dutch was thrilled and I took his offer of something on the house, to make sure the cats would eat the following week.

'Damn new math,' he muttered to me after the boy had left the room. 'Nothin' the kid is ever going to have to use. Why can't they teach them something practical?'

I just laughed at him, it was an old argument, but since I wasn't planning on going into teaching, there wasn't much I could do about it.

'You lock your place up?' he suddenly asked, as he accepted the pillow case full of fur, totally changing gears and taking me off guard.

'What?' I had to ask, and then almost chuckled to realize that I couldn't remember the last time I'd bothered. 'Not much to worry about getting stolen,' I quipped. 'And besides... the boys are there.'

'Well,' he told me conspiratorially, leaning on the counter. 'Some city slicker come into town the other day, and keeps kinda hanging around. Don't seem to want nothin', but don't seem to be movin' on neither.'

I snorted, gathering my sack up and smiling at him. 'Another idjit suckered in by those 'haunted' legends, no doubt.'

He chuckled in return, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. 'No doubt. Gives Stella a bit of business, I suppose.'

'Take the money and just smile and nod wisely,' I advised, making him laugh.

'A fool and his money...' he snickered and I reflected that it applied to suckers too.

I dumped the cat food in the bed of the truck, not trusting Reason not to eat it bag and all, gave him a pat and then headed into the diner.

The day's special was some kind of fish and it smelled so damn good when I opened the door that I almost doubled over from the growl that cramped my stomach. I mentally counted the money I had with me and had to sigh... probably about a dollar short.

'Duo!' Mrs. Taylor greeted me as I settled on one of the stools at the counter. 'Where have you been keeping yourself? You here for lunch or just to say hello?'

I grinned and tried not to drool over the pie display on the counter. 'Can't stay,' I hedged. 'Reason's in the truck and I hate to leave him there for long.'

She gave me a mock frown and swatted at me with the towel she always seemed to have in her hands. 'You need to slow down and eat now and again! You're wasting away!'

'Who has time to slow down?' I teased her and the mock frown shaded over just a bit until I wasn't sure if it was real or not. It took her a moment to respond, and I could practically see the gears going around.

'While you're here, maybe you could do me a favor?' she ventured and there was that sly tone in her voice.

'Sure,' I replied, because who the heck is going to say no to the woman that supplies meals on a fairly regular basis.

'I have this new recipe,' she told me. 'And wondered if you might try it for me... see what you think?'

I'm sure she saw the blush, but she chose to ignore it. I agreed, because what else was I to do, but it was rather embarrassing. I didn't for a minute believe she needed an opinion and I wanted to protest that I freaking had food... just not terribly attractive food. If nothing else, there were still some late season tomatoes in the garden. I hadn't damn well resorted to sharing with the dogs yet.

It turned out to be some sort of casserole dish, and I did my best not to scarf it down so fast I couldn't even offer up that asked for opinion. 'It's really good,' I told her around a mouthful. 'Is that ham? Bet it would be good with bacon too.'

We were discussing the pros and cons of crumbled bacon when the little bell over the door tinkled, announcing a new customer and we both looked that way.

If I had not already been sitting down, I might well have fallen down. As it was, I just about choked to death on the mouthful of potatoes and ham I'd been in the process of ingesting. Mrs. Taylor pressed a glass of water into my hands and I gulped at it, clearing my throat while I stared at the man in the doorway.

I actually wondered if he really had ended up all the way out in nowhere land looking for hauntings. Somehow, even I didn't believe in that kind of coincidence.

'Duo?' he asked and I'm sure I had to be imagining the rather hopeful sound in his voice.

'Heero?' I stammered out and kind of wasn't at all sure how I felt. There was a lurch in my chest that felt a little like... like relief. Like I suddenly realized some part of me had always been hurt that nobody had ever come after me. But there was another part that was kind of... not happy. A little afraid that the accusations and the anger and the betrayal had followed me. 'What are you doing here?' is what I managed, and it came out just a bit flat.

Heero looked uncertain, and took a slow step in my direction. 'I... came looking for you,' he told me carefully, and I've gentled enough animals to recognize the tone. It kind of pissed me off. I wasn't the one who had been screaming obscenities. I really didn't think I was the one who needed gentling.

'So you found me,' I heard myself say and kind of wondered that my voice stayed so steady when my insides were anything but.

'Yeah,' he confirmed inanely. 'I found you.'

It was sort of funny how we just kind of stared at each other. I suspected he might have had other things to say if Mrs. Taylor hadn't been standing right there. But I wasn't sure yet if they were the 'I'm so glad I found you' kind of things, or the 'You asshole' kind of things.

I guess I pretty much missed my cue, because I suppose that should have made it my turn in the conversation thing, but I was too busy remembering the last time I'd seen him, and just why I was not his biggest fan. Remembering what he had thought me capable of. Besides... just parroting my own words back to me shouldn't really count anyway, so it was still his serve on a technicality.

Mrs. Taylor apparently had a problem with awkward silences, because she opted to take the next turn, and I realized that if Heero had been in town for a couple of days, as Dutch had hinted, then he'd probably been in the diner before. 'Are you here for lunch, Mr. Yuy,' she asked politely, though she stumbled all over his name and it came out sounding more like 'you'.

Heero ducked his head, the corner of his mouth twitching just a bit, and then kind of looked at me in a calculating way. 'Well, maybe I could buy an old friend some lunch...' he began and it sort of clashed with what Mrs. Taylor had just done and screamed 'charity' in my mind. I frowned and stood, heading for the door.

'Can't stay,' I blurted, having to step around him and I looked at the floor rather than meeting his eyes. 'My dogs waiting.'

I heard him call after me, but I didn't slow down, I wasn't really surprised when he followed and snatched at my sleeve. 'Duo, please wait...'

I guess I was embarrassed, and a little panicked, and still just totally in shock at seeing a face I'd thought I'd never see again. There were parts of me that were fighting to be thrilled, and parts of me that were sneering in bitter derision. Parts that wanted to believe that he'd really been hunting for me all that time, and parts that were waiting to get yelled at. Accused. Scorned. God knows what the hell my face was doing, because I just wasn't paying that much attention to it, but apparently other people were.

'Is there a problem here, Duo?' a voice asked, all casual and calm, with that hint of threat that only a law-enforcement officer can manage with a smile in place.

I looked up to find the Sheriff standing there, pointedly eyeing Heero's hand on my arm. 'No...' I stammered. 'Not... not really.'

It just made his eyes narrow and I knew he wasn't going to back off until Heero did. 'You sure?' he asked quietly. 'Because it sure looks like there's a problem here.'

Heero let go of my arm, at least, and I took a step back, both relieved and... oddly upset. Then Heero pulled out his wallet and flashed his damn Preventers' badge.

'Everything is fine, officer,' Heero began and I could see Sheriff Tom's eyes widen just a bit despite himself. It made me see red. How the hell dare the son of a bitch barge into my life and then try to turn me into grist for the rumor mill.

'You asshole,' I growled. 'What are you doing, trying to imply that I'm some sort of escaped criminal or something?'

Heero had the good grace to look shocked, panicked almost, and he put the badge away as quickly as he'd pulled it. 'No!' he blurted, not sure if he should be talking to me or to Tom. 'I was just trying to prove I wasn't... wasn't some damn mugger or something!'

Tom might be the town Sheriff, but he's no more immune to the lure of good gossip than the next person. I could tell he wasn't planning on walking away from our little scene as long as something interesting was going on.

'I have to go,' I ground out, feeling the tops of my ears stinging from the embarrassment and I turned to stalk away.

'Damn it, Duo!' Heero called out, frustration plain in his voice. I didn't answer, just jerked open the door to my truck and started to climb in. Then Heero's voice took on a different tone. 'I'm not leaving until you talk to me, Maxwell!' he blurted and I had to sigh.

'You got a God damn car?' I growled, knowing he had to, because there's just no other way to get yourself to Devil's Palm. Not like there's an airport. Or even a bus stop. You have to go up to Twin Forks for that.

He was striding away to get it before I had the truck door slammed shut. Tom came to lean in the passenger window while I waited for Heero to come back, absently ruffling Reason's ears while he asked, 'You need any backup, son?'

It made me smile, though I imagine it was a bit wan. 'Nah, I'm good. But thanks,' I told him. 'Just... a bit of unfinished business from my old life.'

He snorted and gave Reason a last pat. 'Your old life seems way more interesting than I ever woulda guessed.'

It made me laugh. Twice in one day, I remember thinking, how odd.

He headed on into the diner and a moment later, a sleek black rental pulled up in the street beside me. I wasted no more time and headed for home. And if I made sure the clouds of dust I threw up were as thick as possible... can you really blame me?

***

Heero's POV

I cursed myself the whole damn way out to Duo's place; I couldn't believe I'd pulled such a bone-head move as flashing my damn badge. I had just wanted so badly for that man to go the hell away before I lost my chance to really speak with Duo. We'd just gotten out from under the watchful eye of that woman I suspected was 'Applepie' and then run smack into the local-yocal.

Whole damn town was nothing but a bunch of meddling busy-bodies.

Duo probably paid no attention to the speed-limits on the drive out to his place. I suspected it normally took him more than the ten minutes it took us that day. But then... I suppose we'd just left the only person likely to give a shit, back in town.

I was floundering and I knew it. Somehow, in all my planning and plotting for that moment, I had never expected to see so many changes in Duo. It had thrown me. Where the hell was our vibrant, cocky partner? Hell... he didn't even look entirely healthy. And that truck he was driving; I was surprised pieces of it weren't falling off as he bounced it over the rutted dirt road.

I really just don't know why I had never thought of him as... I don't know... suffering?

I had run scenarios through my head where he'd yelled and hit me. Scenarios where he threw himself into my arms. Ones where he had just stood in shock at the sight of me. But I had never thought of him... hiding from me? Running away?

I suppose with his recent track record, I should have, but it just hadn't occurred. And now I couldn't help fearing that he'd disappear on me given half the chance, and I'd have to start the search all over again. And maybe I wouldn't be so lucky next time.

I decided right there, as I struggled to keep sight of Duo's truck through the cloud of dust, that I wasn't leaving him until we got something worked out.

I had to slow down when we left the road and started up his driveway, as the way became more winding and I couldn't see where in the hell I was going through all the damn dust. So Duo was already parked and out of his truck before I was half way up to the... 'house' is probably an unfair term.

I got a good look at the monster he called a dog then, and when it started barking at my car, two more came running out of the barn, eager to join in on the chorus. There was a horse in a fenced in area, that stopped foraging and looked to see what the fuss was about.

Duo was just standing there with his dogs around him, arms crossed over his chest and watching me pull in like he was watching the arrival of the tax man.

It was not the mental image I'd had of his life.

I parked, and when I ventured out of the car, the big white dog redoubled his barking, like he was going to come and eat me. I had no doubt he could. Duo just watched it for a moment before snapping his fingers and calling sharply. 'That's enough.'

They shut up then, kind of like throwing a switch, somehow accepting from Duo that I was on the formal guest list after all. Though the big dog moved back to his side and looked like he wasn't planning on leaving. I couldn't help a glance toward the tiny house, thinking that it was going to be damn crowded if we all went inside.

I walked closer, moving slowly and keeping one eye on the dogs, and Duo just watched me come; his face totally unreadable. I think he'd used the drive out to do some thinking, and all those hints of vulnerability I'd thought I'd seen, were gone. I had thought I'd seen a bit of hope. I hoped I'd seen a bit of happiness. But all that, there or not, was safely tucked away behind a mask that was only... wary.

'It's good to see you,' I finally ventured, when he didn't seem inclined to speak.

He snorted and turned toward the house with a suddenness that made me think he didn't want to deal with the statement. 'If you still want lunch, come on.'

As I'd feared, the dog made the trip into the house with us, and just to add variety, we were met by a pair of cats. I was surprised that they didn't seem frightened of the dog. One of them, in fact, came right up and twined around the beasts legs.

'You want soup, or do you want soup?' Duo prompted, his back to me as he pulled down a pair of cans from the cabinet and began opening them with a handheld opener.

'Soup is fine,' I replied absently, though it was plain it didn't matter. Looking around, I realized that he was preparing to heat the soup over what had to be a wood-burning stove. I blinked at it, and then looked around again, realizing that there didn't seem to be any sign of working electricity.

'Tomato or tomato,' he asked, still not looking at me, and I was sure at that point he was only talking so I wouldn't.

'Tomato I think,' I quipped. 'But don't go out of your way if you're having tomato. Either is fine.'

It made him chuckle, though it was a tight little sound and I noticed him pause, as though he'd surprised himself.

The dog seemed to be settling itself wherever it needed to be to stay between me and Duo. It made me... extremely uncomfortable. I really don't know that much about dogs, so I'll admit my experience is limited, but the monster was easily the biggest animal I'd ever seen outside a zoo. If it seriously decided to attack me, I wasn't sure there was a damn thing I could do.

I felt awkward just standing in the middle of the room, watching him stir up the fire and put the pot on, so I wandered a bit around the place. It was little more than a shack. The living room and the kitchen were really just one big room, sort of separated by not much more than a difference in floor covering. The living room had carpet that wasn't the wall to wall variety, but the kitchen had a linoleum that polite company would have called 'quaint' but was really probably just older than either of us. I could see that there was a bedroom off the living room and another door that, I hoped to God, was a bathroom. Looking at the rest of the place, it would not have been too surprising if I'd found out there was an outhouse somewhere. The suspicion was reinforced when I turned back to find Duo dipping water out of a bucket that sat next to the stove, to mix the condensed soup with. I almost groaned. Though, I suppose, logically if there was no power, there was no way to run any sort of water pump.

'Make yourself at home,' he grumbled, a tiny reprimand for my wandering.

'Sorry,' I muttered, and went back to stand in the kitchen area, trying to contain my curiosity. 'It's just... a lot of this stuff doesn't really seem like you.'

He glanced around, as though he just didn't bother to notice his surroundings all that much. 'Old man Fogerty left most of it when he sold me the place,' he shrugged, slowly stirring the soup and seeming to keep an overly careful eye on it. 'Didn't seem much point in packing it up or anything. Wasn't hurting anything sitting around.'

If he had meant to tell me just how little he had tried to turn the place into a home, he showed no sign of it. I think that was the moment that I really made up my mind that he'd been... less than happy for the last eight months, and I decided that no matter what he did... I wasn't going to let him drive me off. I wasn't going home without him.

He set the pot off the stove then and fetched a pair of mismatched bowls from above the sink. I had to resist the temptation to urge him to take the lion's share as he carefully divided the soup into equal portions. He stepped around me and swung the side up on a folding table, adjusting the movable support, and settling two straight back chairs so that we would be sitting across from each other.

I took the liberty of bringing the bowls of soup from the counter, not wanting to feel quite so much like a guest, and sat them down. Duo glanced at me, seeming a bit more awkward than he had while cooking, and I wondered if he wasn't anticipating the part where we were actually going to have to talk. He went to get spoons and we sat down, the table so small we almost bumped knees. The cramped feeling wasn't helped when the damn dog tried to crawl under the table to lie down on Duo's feet.

Duo finally seemed to have had enough and blurted out, 'Damn it, Reason! Go lay down!' in an exasperated tone. I suspected from the way the dog was acting, that getting to be in the house was not an everyday occurrence. I started to ask about the odd name, but a moment's reflection gave me several somewhat... unsettling notions, and I opted to leave it alone.

The dog slunk off to lie by the door, managing to look like a pouty child. I couldn't help but chuckle, it was an entirely different picture from the somewhat blood-thirsty mental images I'd had up until then. 'He seems well behaved,' I ventured, not wanting Duo to think I was laughing at him.

'You have to train them pretty well when they're going to out weigh you some day,' he muttered, staring down into his soup so he didn't have to look at me. I didn't have the same problem, and took the opportunity to really study him up close.

I'm not going to say he looked like he was wasting away or anything, but there was definitely a... worn quality to him. I'd bet money he didn't weigh as much as he had, though he hardly looked like skin and bones. Just... like a man who was living on the edge of not having enough.

'God, I've missed you,' I heard myself say, and quickly turned my own attention to my soup. I hadn't really meant to say it... not that it wasn't true, but I wasn't sure if it was something he'd welcome hearing. There was a stillness on the other side of the table from me and I could feel him looking at me, but he didn't answer the comment.

'What kind of dog is he?' I asked after a couple of swallows of soup that tasted... a tiny bit scorched. The animals seemed the safer topic. The one more likely to get Duo to actually talk to me.

'Pyrenees,' he told me, though I'd already seen it on the vet's blog. 'He's not full grown yet. Just a pup still, really; not even a year old.'

Turning around to look at the damn dog, sprawled out in front of the door, I couldn't help saying, 'You've got to be kidding me; he's going to get bigger than that?'

Duo gave out with a dry little sound that might have been meant as amusement. 'Probably; he's not even quite a hundred pounds yet.' he confirmed, and sipped carefully at his soup. I recognized the tricks of stretching a meal to make yourself feel like you ate more than you did. It damn near broke my resolve, but I knew he'd take it badly if I tried to say anything about it. If he'd have left the table for five damn seconds, I'd have poured half my soup into his bowl while he wasn't looking. I felt guilty as hell even eating his food.

'He must eat more than the horse,' I smiled, having food on my mind, and Duo quirked a wry little smile.

'Hardly; Buckshot's been... an education,' he said, eyes still watching his soup more than anything else. 'Reason eats his fair share, but no more than Bo and Nash. There are days...' he let that thought trail off and I let him, not sure I wanted to know.

'Are they... all yours?' I had to ask and it made him snort softly.

'Nope, just my walking white carpet and me, but we somehow seem to have a standing invitation to every stray in the county.'

'Three counties from the sounds of it,' I teased without thinking and I winced when he caught the slip and glanced up at me. I decided to come clean, just to get it out of the way. 'That's how I found you. Your local vet has a blog and she had a picture of a rescued dog she was talking about, and you... were in the background.'

He just sat blinking; trying to process that, and I hoped suddenly that he didn't want to actually look at the thing, because I could only imagine his reaction to being referred to as 'Mr. Tightjeans'. But he was thinking along other lines.

'How in the hell did you find something like that?' he asked, voice incredulous and I had to chuckle.

'Would you believe it was a total accident?' I confessed. 'Sally's niece was using the office printer for a school project on vets. I couldn't believe it... after all these months of searching and hacking and following leads all over the damn country and...' I petered out when I realized that he was blushing fit to catch fire. That might, perhaps, have been a bit more information than I should have imparted.

Or maybe not, damn it. Maybe he needed to know that we'd cared. That we'd hunted for him. That I'd hunted for him.

If we'd been eating something other than soup, I'd have probably stabbed at it in frustration. 'I wouldn't have ever stopped looking,' I told him abruptly, and that pretty much ended the conversation until we'd finished lunch.

I tried to help him clean up, but we were awkward around each other and he finally sent me to sit down in the living room. One of the cats, skittish but curious, crept up to sniff at me. I held out a hand and it ran away.

'Don't mind Gus,' Duo told me, and I looked up to find him standing next to the couch. 'His previous owner had a thing for throwing beer bottles at him. He's a little... jumpy.'

'Ah,' I said, watching the cat watch me from under a chair. It crossed my mind that the cat wasn't the only skittish thing in the room, but I didn't voice the thought.

Duo took a deep breath and sat down on the couch, as far from me as he could get. I think while he'd been rinsing the dishes, he'd gotten resolved to the notion that sooner or later we were going to have to stop dancing around the issue. 'So... what are you doing here, Heero?'

I gave him a wan little smile for the effort of taking the bull by the horns. 'I told you... I'm looking for you. I've been looking for you.' I debating telling him that I'd come to take him home, but decided it was too soon for that.

'Why,' he asked quietly and so many things leaped to mind that I wasn't sure I could say. Because I needed you back. Because you scared me witless. Because there's been a hallow place since you left.

'You are one of us, Duo,' I chided. 'You scared us when you just up and disappeared like that. We still don't really understand what made you run away.'

The look he gave me then made me wonder if my first thoughts wouldn't have been a better option. 'You don't understand?' he asked incredulously. 'What wasn't to understand? My friends were accusing me of... of... some damn terrible things. What was there to stay for?'

'Quatre made a mistake,' I cut in before he could get really wound up. 'But that doesn't mean that all of us...'

'Doesn't it, Heero?' he cut me off, eyes narrowing. 'I didn't see anybody leaping to my defense. Wasn't anybody in that room who wasn't buying into Quatre's little hissy-fit except Trowa.'

'I didn't,' I told him calmly, but I could see he wasn't really willing to hear it. The less skittish cat came and jumped up into Duo's lap, butting its head against Duo's chin until Duo scratched it behind an ear. 'I didn't,' I said again, making it forceful, willing him to believe.

He was quiet a long time, rubbing at the cat's ear. Long enough that the second one crept out, casting side-long glances at me, but joined them anyway.

'Didn't you?' he finally asked, voice deceptively quiet. 'Wufei did. And you never said a damn word Heero.'

I blew out a breath, thinking back through all the months to that night. I'd gone over it in my head a million times. 'I should have,' I confessed. 'I understand that now. At the time, I just thought that the whole damn thing should have been between Trowa and Quatre. The rest of us should have just left.'

'I was at the heart of it,' he told me, his voice flat and cold. 'Quatre saw to it that I could hardly not be.'

'But you weren't,' I reasoned. 'He thought you were... but you weren't.'

'Didn't matter in the end, now did it?' he snorted, his attention seemingly completely on the two cats squirming for equal lap space, but his eyes... were a million miles away. 'He took everything from me with his damn lies.'

'He didn't think he was lying,' I told him gently, not wanting to defend Quatre's actions, but not quite able to accept that word. 'He honestly believed what he was saying. He really thought he saw you two...' I didn't know how to finish, so I just didn't. Not like we both didn't know what we were talking about anyway.

There was another one of those moments of quiet before he said, 'I suppose that's why he was so damn convincing.'

'He was hurting too,' I ventured. 'He handled the whole thing in the worst possible way, but he really was in pain.' I hesitated a moment and then said it anyway. 'He regrets it deeply.'

It made him pause, scratching and rubbing and adjusting cats until they both found a way to lie down that suited them. 'I feel for him,' he said tonelessly. 'I really do.'

I sighed and wanted to rub at my eyes, but didn't. 'I'm not defending him, Duo. I'm just saying that he's not exactly come out of this unaffected...'

'He's not the one who lost his whole damn family,' he growled and it made the jumpy cat look up at him uncertainly. Duo rubbed little circles on the top of its head with a fingertip until it laid back down.

'Duo, you didn't lose us,' I tried to reassure. 'You're the one who left us, not the other way around. We would...'

'Didn't I?' he snapped. 'You tell me how the hell anything was ever going to be the same again? Trowa was like a brother to me, but I never would have been able to so much as send him a Christmas card again without Quatre getting suspicious! Even if Trowa did manage to get through that thick head of his, I was... tainted. What choice did I have but to get out of the way so they could work it out? Quatre means the world to Trowa, but they weren't going to get past that as long as I was around.'

The raised voice made the cats nervous and they jumped down, trotting off toward the bedroom and Duo looked faintly guilty, watching them go. By the door, Reason lifted his head and watched us for a moment, before deciding everything was all right, and lying back down.

I sighed and ran a hand over my face, realizing that he didn't exactly know how things had been after he'd left. I wasn't at all sure if telling him was a good idea or not. 'Duo,' I began as gently as I could. 'Trowa and Quatre... they didn't exactly work things out...'

'What?' he asked, blinking at me and looking totally shocked. It was obviously not something he had ever stopped to consider.

'You under estimated your own importance,' I said softly, somehow feeling that it would soften the blow as well. 'Trowa was... very upset when he realized you'd left because of what happened.'

He just stared at me, and I swear I saw the damn color drain from his face. I'd never really seen somebody so shocked that they went pale. I'd thought it was something only from stories.

And then he blurted, 'I have work to do,' leaped to his feet, and stormed out a back door I hadn't even noticed was there.

Apparently, it had not been a good idea at all.

***

Duo's POV

Work. Yeah... all kinds of work. I had lots to do. All kinds of things. And at that moment I needed to do work with a sharp heavy object. I found myself in the woodpile with my ax, a good sized chunk of tree and the motivation to turn the entire thing into woodchips.

The... anger had surprised me. I couldn't remember if I'd ever felt angry before. I remembered the pain and the betrayal and the hurt... but not so much on the anger.

But when Heero had so carefully told me that... after everything I'd given up... after all I'd done to make sure Trowa was happy... that the fucking assholes hadn't even stayed together? Yeah... anger.

Kind of a lot of it.

The damn tree never stood a chance. It was a big ass hunk of sycamore that had come down over at the Richardson place during the last storm. They'd let me have it for the hauling away and cleaning up part. I'd been hacking at it for months, but I attacked it that day like I was planning on finishing the job that very afternoon.

The dogs know to stay clear when I'm in the woodpile, and thankfully, Heero seemed to get it too.

I chopped and hacked and splintered and probably looked like I'd never seen a piece of cord wood before in my life, because it was more about the working off the temper and less about usable firewood.

Is that... just nuts? That almost a year later, I really got mad for the first time? And... not so much for myself, but for Trowa? Or maybe not. Maybe it was me.

How the hell could they have fucked it up after I made sure they had nothing to fuck it up over? I got out of their way... I capitulated. I folded. I left the table. So how did they manage to not win the pot?

Dealer folds, winner takes all. Winner. Son of a bitch, Winner.

There was a branch with his name on it and I didn't do much more thinking until I'd turned it into those small little pieces that you use to get the fire started in the first place.

As cold as it was, the sweat was running into my eyes, and my shoulders were taking serious umbrage.

I didn't get the thing completely dismembered that day, but I made serious inroads and when I was done... done because I couldn't raise my damn arms any more... I just sat on what was left for long enough that Reason braved the forbidden zone and came to lean against my legs.

I sank my sore hands into his fur and we watched the sun go down together.

The anger was still there underneath the exhaustion and I worried at it a little, trying to understand it. Not flaring so much... just smoldering below the surface, it was a bit easier to think past it.

It was like the rest of the world hadn't been following the same script I'd been given. I'd played my part, but... nobody else had. That was not how I'd intended for things to come out. I was supposed to take the damn bullet and everybody else was supposed to go back to normal. Trowa would have his Quatre, and Quatre wouldn't ever have to deal with me again. They were supposed to be happy. Trowa was not supposed to be alone. Heero was not supposed to be gallivanting all over hell's half acre, wasting his time looking for me.

It made the last eight months sort of... a joke. A big damn joke. One that wasn't really all that funny.

Heero, I suppose, should get points for staying the hell out of my way for as long as he did, but when it started to get dark, he came to stand in the doorway. I could feel him watching me for a while before he finally spoke. 'I don't suppose there's a pizza delivery place around here?' he asked and I imagine he was going for neutral topics.

I snorted. 'And how are you going to call?'

'My cell still has a charge,' he ventured, and it made me chuckle.

'I... really don't know, Heero,' I had to confess. 'There's nothing in town, and Twin Forks is probably too far.'

I swear he sighed, but then he surprised me. 'I... figured out your plumbing system and heated you enough water for a bath.'

'What?' I asked, finally turning to look at him.

'I figured you might want one,' he ventured. 'So I took the... uh... time to haul water from the well and fill the tub. It's not steaming, but it's better than straight out of the well.'

That was for damn sure. I'd done that on more than one occasion when I just couldn't work up the energy to heat that much water. It was a hell of a lot of work just hauling that much in. I couldn't believe I hadn't even noticed him doing it.

'Uh... thanks,' I muttered, and he retreated into the house.

I went around and fed the animals before going inside, knowing I wouldn't want to go back out once I was clean. Reason seemed almost relieved with the return to routine and went to curl in his house for the night when I ordered him to, without any protest.

I had gathered clean clothes and was heading for the bathroom before it hit me that Heero... was planning on staying the night. It stopped me in the middle of my trek toward the tub, and I just looked at him, not sure if I should say something or not.

'I can try to have dinner ready,' he suggested, looking uncertain. 'But I'm not so sure it would be edible. I can't say I've got a lot of experience with a wood burning stove.'

I gave him a tired little smile and didn't tell him that it was pretty hit or miss for me too. 'There's a skill to it,' I confirmed. 'I'll manage something when I'm done.'

'Take your time,' he told me and there was this odd tone to his voice that made me think maybe I'd worried him with the whole wood chopping thing.

He'd said the water wasn't steaming, but he'd done his best and I sank into it with a barely contained groan. It had been a very long damn time since I'd bothered to fill the old claw-foot tub. Baths were usually done with a couple of buckets of cold water, kneeling in the bottom of the tub. I'd forgotten how good it felt to just soak. Especially when I'd abused the crap out of myself, and my arms and back were killing me.

I took the time to unbind my hair, ducking under and giving it a good washing. Nothing quite as uncomfortable as washing your hair in cold water, which is what I usually did, and God knows I probably did a half-assed job in the rush of brain freeze.

And then I just sort of sat and soaked some more, mind totally refusing to stop churning, no matter how much I wished it would.

I still couldn't believe how things had worked out back home. That part just made me want to throw my head back and scream. I very well might have if Heero hadn't been in the house. I wanted Quatre Winner in front of me for just five damn minutes. He's a tough little SOB, but the mood I was in, I had no doubt I could pound him into paste. And right then that sounded like a very fun way to finish off the evening.

But speaking of the evening...

The whole idea that Heero was going to be spending the night was sort of... unsettling. I was already just a little weirded out that he'd obviously been poking around the place enough to have figured out that there was no running water, where the well was, and how one went about heating water for a bath.

Kinda strange to have had him think of that too. Been a long time since I'd had to worry about offending anybody... the boys are really not all that concerned with personal hygiene.

It was kind of... God, I really didn't want to admit it... but it was kind of warming to have him there. To know that he'd been searching for me. That he really had been worried about me.

Until it crossed my mind to wonder what Wufei thought of him being there.

***

Heero's POV

Duo stayed in the bathroom for a very long time, and at first I thought maybe he was just avoiding me. But on a second thought... and a second look around, I started wondering if he was just enjoying the hot bath. Or... the lukewarm bath. Things just didn't look like he spent a lot of time on his own comfort. There was evidence that he worked... and worked damn hard, but not really on himself. So I doubted that he took the time to haul and heat the water.

It bothered me, thinking about him living that way. It wasn't living, so much as... existing. And it made me want to give him back all that he had lost.

Watching him with that ax, going after that fallen log like it had caused both wars and global warming besides... had been a little scary. I had thought he would fall over from exhaustion hours before he quit, and I'm still not sure if he stopped because he'd worked through the anger... or just lost the light.

I hadn't needed to watch him long before I'd realized he was going to be hurting when he was done, and that was what made me decide to haul the water.

After that, I just wanted a way to feed him something besides more of that damn soup. I'd gone through the cupboard while the water had been heating and found a decided lack of variety. It made me wonder if he'd actually mastered that 'trick' to cooking over a wood burning stove that he'd mentioned.

I'd asked him about the pizza delivery only half seriously, mostly just wanting to break into his thoughts and bring him back into the house before the water cooled. But... Duo loves pizza. Always has. For him to have been living there for eight months without even knowing if he could have any delivered just... really kind of made me mad at Quatre all over again.

So while he soaked, I set out to see if I could find pizza.

I had my cell phone, though it wasn't going to last much longer, and I decided it was worth squandering the last of the battery on my current mission.

I called Wufei.

His voice was almost eager when he answered, and I felt guilty, wishing I had something more to tell him.

'Heero?' he asked. 'Everything all right?'

'Well enough, I suppose,' I sighed. 'I finally ran into Duo today...'

'How is he?' he was quick to ask, and the eagerness was tinged with the shadow of his own guilt.

'I'm... not sure yet,' I had to confess. 'Hurt? Angry? Maybe... depressed? It's not... all together comfortable yet.'

'What...?' he began, but I cut him off.

'Look, Wufei, I didn't bring my charger with me and Duo has no phone. Can you do me a kind of... odd favor before my battery runs dead?'

'Of course,' he told me, sounding determined, and it made me want to laugh. He probably wasn't expecting a pizza run.

'I need you to get on the net and find me a damn pizza place that will deliver to Duo's.'

I thought he might choke trying not to laugh at me. 'You're kidding me, right?'

I sighed, because there was a part of me that wasn't seeing the humor in it. 'No, I wish I was. There's... not a lot of food here, and I really want to be able to treat Duo to something tonight. He... needs something,' I finished and cringed because I knew how lame it sounded.

'Give me the address and I'll see what I can do,' he said and I gave him the number that had been on the mail box at the end of the lane and the road name, and hoped that would be enough.

'Thanks... I owe you,' I told him and he chuckled. I could imagine him sitting there shaking his head.

'No problem,' he assured me. 'Just... tell Maxwell... Well, never mind. I suppose some things should come direct.'

'Yeah,' I confirmed, and we hung up.

Fifteen minutes later I got a text message that simply read, 'You do owe me. The delivery charge was more than the pizza. Enjoy.'

Duo came out of the bathroom while I was still smiling bemusedly at my phone.

'What?' he asked and I couldn't help a grin that I wasn't even sure he could see in the near dark of the house.

'I totally trump you in networking skills,' I quipped without thinking. 'I got us pizza.'

'No way!' he blurted, the towel he'd been rubbing through his hair pausing while he tried to stare at me. 'Out here? In the middle of Nowhereville? How?' and it was a moment like old times. It was a peek at the old Duo.

I stood and slipped my phone back in my pocket. 'I called Wufei and made him look it up on the internet,' I informed him and was left blinking when the comment seemed to break that moment. I wondered what I'd said, but realized Duo wasn't going to speak and bulled forward. 'Don't suppose you have some form of light, so we can actually see to eat this pizza when it gets here?'

He snorted softly and tossed the towel over his shoulder while he made his way into the kitchen area. 'Hey... we're civilized here,' he said, and while the line was teasing, there was a hint of defensiveness in it and I couldn't help wondering what I'd said wrong.

He pulled down a pair of what turned out to be coal oil lamps and set one up on the kitchen table and the other on the coffee table in the living area. It gave the whole house a glow. I couldn't decide if it was warm or just creepy.

We settled in the living room to wait, me in the chair and Duo on the couch, using the time to work a comb through his hair. The skittish cat had jumped up on the table to sit and stare, seemingly mesmerized by the flame of the lamp. The other one was trying to worm its way into Duo's lap, but wasn't happy with all the wet hair. I couldn't help but chuckle at it... until it decided to give up on Duo, and try me.

'Duncan...' Duo began in a warning tone, but I waved him off.

'It's all right,' I assured him, not that the cat acted like he cared what Duo thought anyway. He'd already lain down and was taking a bath sprawled across my knees. Duo looked at us oddly for a minute and then went back to working the tangles out of his hair.

He made a damn enticing image, sitting cross-legged, with his hair unbound and looking a bit rumpled, focused on the task at hand. It was an old, familiar ache, but a little harder to ignore in the flickering glow of the lamp light. Harder to ignore on top of the new feelings of... protectiveness his current situation were awakening in me. While I'd wanted to take Duo Maxwell into my arms for a long damn time... those desires had usually lead to thoughts of clothes being removed, and bodies being explored.

What I wanted in that moment though, was just to hold him next to me. To let him warm himself against me, and just make him feel safe again. Let him feel wanted. Feel... loved.

I think, despite some part of me realizing what bad timing it would have been, I'd been perilously close to saying something that would have been a bad idea at that stage of the game. But my cell phone chose that moment to interrupt my wandering thoughts anyway.

I pulled it out to see Wufei's number listed and flipped it open. 'Hello?' I said, and was rather surprised when the voice on the other end was not the one I was expecting.

'Yuy?' Quatre was practically speaking before I had a chance to answer the stupid phone. 'You found Duo? Where are...?'

I wanted to growl at him, he so caught me off guard. 'How in the hell...?' I began, cutting him off, but he cut me off in turn.

'I was at Wufei's; I heard the call, now where in the hell...' his voice was rising and I saw an odd look cross Duo's face.

'Quatre,' I snapped, shutting him up. 'I'm not about to tell you shit until...'

Duo ended our little game of interrupting each other when he snatched the phone from my hand. 'Winner?' he snarled kind of at the phone as much as into it. 'You fucking asshole! How dare you? After everything I did to make sure you two worked it the fuck out? I gave up my whole God damn life for you two, you bastard! You damn well better not be telling me some lame ass thing like you two aren't together!'

I think he worked himself up at that point to where he just totally lost coherence, because the next thing out of his mouth was not much more than an inarticulate howl, and he snapped the phone shut, cocking his arm back like he was going to hurl it against the nearest wall.

I grabbed his wrist and he didn't really resist, and the next thing I knew I'd grabbed more than that, and when my arms closed around him... he just sort of fell into me. And there we were. I don't know why he let me do it, don't know why he didn't shove me off, or punch me in lieu of being able to punch Quatre.

And frankly... I didn't care. I probably should have, but I just couldn't. Years of wanting... eight months of fear... and he was finally where I'd always wanted him. It was a blessing that he didn't try to pull away, because I don't think I could have let go.

I can not tell you, however, if it was a blessing or a curse when my cell phone started to ring again. Because I think I came very close to trying to kiss him, and while I'm pretty sure it would have been a very bad idea... I can't say I wouldn't have done it anyway.

The phone was still in Duo's hand and he jerked when it rang like a kid caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. We both glanced at it, though I hardly needed to look to know it was Quatre calling back. Sure enough, the name 'Chang' appeared on the display and it somehow seemed to upset Duo even more. He shook himself and pulled completely away from me.

'God,' he muttered. 'Wufei. What am I doing?'

I was almost as angry with Quatre in that moment, as I'd been after we'd realized Duo had vanished. I flipped the phone open and ruthlessly thumbed the power button, ignoring the sound of Quatre's voice calling for attention, until the phone beeped and went dead. Shoving it back in my pocket, I turned toward Duo, but he was already... evading. He'd gone into the bedroom and I heard a closet open and close and when he came back out he was fussing with a blanket and pillow, making up the couch for the night. I sighed, though I hadn't really meant to, and tried to think of some way to make the mood come back. To turn things back just five damn minutes.

My hands still felt damp from his hair.

I must have opened my mouth and closed it a half a dozen times, struggling with what to say, while he gave his undivided attention to fluffing the pillow. I had just settled on the fall back, 'Duo...?' when outside, the dogs began to bark fit to wake the dead.

'Pizza's here,' Duo quipped and strode over to shush his menagerie before they scared off the delivery person.

Standing in the doorway, watching Duo quiet the dogs, and suddenly looking at the situation through the eyes of a stranger, I really had to give the driver points for even showing up. I couldn't blame the guy either, when he wouldn't get out of the car, but made Duo come over to fetch the order through the car window.

Duo wasn't even back in the house before the guy was pulling out. The dogs couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to run after the car, or follow after the enticing smell of the pizza boxes.

Boxes... as in plural. I wondered if Wufei'd had to order that much to get them to bring it so far. There were three boxes and a sack, and when we got it to the table we found we had two kinds of pizza, enough bread sticks for an army, some kind of appetizer sampler and two sodas. There was an awkward moment while we both just sort of stared at the sudden bounty before Duo cleared his throat and muttered, 'Damn, but he spoils you rotten.'

I snorted, knowing damn well the guilt that had delivered this much food to Duo's front door and told him, 'This isn't for me... you can count this as part of an apology from Wufei to you.' He looked at me sharply, the flickering lamp light doing odd things to his eyes, but he didn't seem to know what to say, so I didn't wait for him to come up with anything. 'Let's just eat it before it gets cold.'

He was oddly hesitant at first, nibbling at a bread stick, but once I flipped open the first box and helped myself, he couldn't resist. He picked up a slice, took a bite and chewed slowly. I repressed a sigh at his unconscious stretching of what didn't need to be stretched.

'There's plenty,' I told him gently, and he ducked his head, probably trying to hide a blush I couldn't make out in the weird lamplight anyway.

'He shouldn't have ordered so much,' he said softly, sounding a bit defensive.

'Just his way of telling you that he was worried,' I dared, his subdued mood making me a bit bolder. 'You know Chang... not like me; he can't just come right out and say that you scared the hell out of him.'

It made him snort, the blush managing to escalate enough that I could see a hint of it even in the lamplight. He just shook his head and took a peek into the second pizza box, coming out with some sort of all meat variety. 'We're not going to be able to save this... you know that, right?'

'I suppose we could feed what's left to the dogs,' I ventured, knowing how he hated waste.

That bought me a wry little laugh and I smiled to hear it. 'Not unless you have a yen to clean up after a couple of sick dogs. Nash could probably handle it, but Reason doesn't take to table scraps and Bo would just eat until he exploded.'

'I suppose as cool as it is, it would keep at least overnight,' I suggested and his smile got a little wistful.

'Been a while since I had pizza for breakfast,' he said, almost sounding like he was talking to himself.

'It's been a while since I had pizza at all,' I replied without really thinking about it. 'Not since...' I cut myself off but not in time.

'Not since when, Heero?' he asked, sounding a bit troubled 'What are you saying?'

I sighed, not sure if we were to a place where he could hear some of the less than pleasant realities. I thought about the rage that had sent him storming out of the house, and hesitated. He seemed to follow my thoughts and ducked his head again.

'I promise not to take an ax to anything,' he mumbled and I didn't know whether to smile or not.

'We just don't seem to get together as often,' I told him, trying to keep my voice matter-of-fact. 'Things are awkward between Trowa and Quatre, Wufei is spending more time with Sally, and without you there... it just doesn't seem worth the effort.'

He was blinking at me, his expression very damn hard to catalog. 'What?' he blurted, looking at me intently. 'You and Wufei aren't...? I mean...'

He trailed off and it was my turn to sit and blink, trying to fathom what he was thinking. He looked... shell-shocked. 'Aren't what, Duo?' I prodded gently.

His pizza suddenly became fascinating and he studied it closely, giving me a shrug that was meant to be casual but was pretty far from it. I frowned, trying to guess what was going on in his head.

'We're still partners,' I told him. 'I'm not saying that everything completely fell apart when you left, we just don't get together the way we used to. I still see all the guys fairly regularly... Trowa and I do lunch every couple of weeks... Wufei and Sally have me over for cards sometimes... it's just not like it was.'

He didn't speak for a long damn time, just lifting his head to stare at me with the most horrendously lost look on his face, that I didn't know how to remedy. It was stirring that urge in me again, waking up the need to reach out to him. I wrestled it down to a light touch to the back of his hand. 'Come on... eat some dinner, please?'

He nodded and we bent back to the pizza; whatever was on his mind... he'd obviously decided to keep to himself.

***

Duo's POV

I insisted he take the bed that night and while he'd protested, I'd exploited his odd cautiousness, knowing he wouldn't really push me about anything. I really must have scared him with that whole maniacal ax thing.

I had eaten until I thought I would bust something, but Heero still seemed disturbed by the amount I put away. I hadn't really thought before about how my habits had changed, but sitting down at table with him again just sort of brought it into focus. I hadn't been able to eat half what I once would have, but I was still paying for it with a stomach that felt cramped. It promised a long night... not that it hadn't promised to be that without the additional discomfort.

I was still reeling from shock. Could the guy just stop hitting me with mind bending tidbits of information? I was starting to feel like the world's biggest God damn fool. Heero and Wufei were, apparently, not together. And from the way Heero acted... never had been. All those months of feeling like the proverbial fifth wheel, and... I hadn't been the only one in the group not paired off.

Lying there on the couch, staring off into the dark at nothing, wrapped in a blanket that wasn't really doing much to keep the cold at bay, with the cats doing their best to glue themselves to what little body heat I had... I really didn't know whether I should be laughing or crying.

How the hell much else had I misinterpreted? How many other of my intentions had gone wrong? Had I made a single right decision in the last damn year?

And just to add crazy to the mix... I was having the strangest damn urge to get up off that lumpy damn couch, go crawl into my bed with Heero, and try to figure out if the signals I thought I was getting from him were anything at all like they seemed.

It was... a very long night. And if I slept through any part of it, I missed it.

I got up the next morning with the sun, not so much by choice, but because staring at a ceiling you couldn't see all night was really kind of boring. The cats were more than happy to let me wrap the blanket around them and leave them where they were. I'd spent the night in my clothes for the added warmth and had only to pull on my boots to begin the day. I stirred up the fire for the morning, doing my best not to wake Heero, and then slipped out the back to take care of the boys.

Reason was waiting for me and had to sniff me all over, like he hadn't been completely happy with Heero being there. Nash and Bo could have cared less, only wanting ear scratches and food. I went about the morning routine, feeding, petting, cleaning up, and even took a few minutes to toss the ball for Nash after he'd finished breakfast. Watching the big lug ferret the ball out of the scrub grass, I idly wondered if I couldn't find him a home through Sheriff Tom... dog would probably make a decent candidate for search and rescue training.

There were a lot of things I probably should have been doing. There was a load of lumber behind the barn that I'd traded old man Sutton for, that I had intended to do some repairs with. Buckshot needed to be taken out for some exercise; walking around the paddock just didn't cut it. And from the smells of things, Bo had been wallowing in something... unpleasant, and was going to need a bath. But I just couldn't seem to work up the energy after the night I'd had. I just couldn't seem to stop thinking. Couldn't seem to stop the what-ifs and the wondering and... there were a whole lot of questions I was starting to understand I should maybe have asked a long time ago.

It made me think of my fence post calendar and I went to make the day's mark. My eyes trailed up and down the rows of neat little gouges even as my hands worked the next one in line and I was moved to actually count the damn things.

Some part of me knew. I mean... I knew how old Reason was. My mind could make that association, could add it all together, but somehow counting the actual marks made me feel it. Made me feel the utter emptiness of those days. Made me understand that each of those gashes was another notch in a tally of self-sacrifice, marked with a certain amount of... pride? But now, in light of the things Heero had told me, it all seemed so utterly pointless. So damn... stupid. I raised my hand to run over those endless rows and I felt vaguely sick.

'Dear God,' I muttered. 'Where am I?'

Reason didn't have an answer, but he whined at the tone of my voice and nosed at my elbow.

But then there was a hand sliding down my arm and I jumped, not resisting when the knife was taken from my hand. Heero was standing right behind me, almost pressed to my back, and I wondered where he'd come from and why in the hell the dogs hadn't told me he was there. He used the knife to make a long cut clear across the post, underneath all my rows, and when he spoke, it was right next to my ear. I have no idea how he even knew what he was looking at.

'It ends here, Duo,' he said as the blade bit into the wood, the muscles in his arm cording tight. 'No more hiding... no more running. Come home... please?'

There they were again... those signals that were just about to short-circuit my brain. I was still adjusting to the idea that Heero wasn't... 'taken'. Still trying to get my head around the idea that the off limits sign I'd tagged him with all those months ago, wasn't there. I didn't know if what I thought I was hearing from him was him... or just me hearing what I wanted to hear.

Hell... with him standing that close, I couldn't even think. I just wanted his embrace again. Wanted that moment back that we'd shared the night before. I wanted the chance to feel that again without the image of Wufei rising between us.

I just didn't know what to think... what to do. It had been too damn long since I'd let myself feel. It was like the world was suddenly out to overload my senses and I just wanted the nice, comfortable numbness back. But Heero's words... about hiding, made it impossible not to see that's exactly what I'd been doing.

For eight God damn months of my life.

Reason tried to sit on my feet, looking up at me like he had when he was a pup and the thunderstorms came through. I felt a raindrop and wondered when it had clouded over. I listened to Reason whine and wondered why he seemed to be afraid.

Or maybe I was the one who was afraid.

***

Heero's POV

I hadn't needed to be a detective that morning to know just what I was seeing as I stood in the doorway of the house and watched Duo make his mark on that old fence post. I'd not slept all that well, listening to the sounds most of the night of Duo tossing and turning and sighing in the dark. I'd risen from bed as soon as I'd heard him leave the house and had watched him through the window as he'd worked.

The day had been, perhaps prophetically, over-cast and gray. The sky threatening rain.

The animals came first, I realized, as he fed and watered them. He hadn't so much as bothered to snag a slice of cold pizza for himself on the way outside. I watched him as he dished up food and refilled water dishes. As he went in to the barn and presumably fed and watered the horse as well, turning it out into the yard when he was done. He went and tossed a ball that the black dog chased after with tail-wagging enthusiasm, all the while with Reason glued to his side, almost like there was something Duo needed to be protected from. I wondered if it was me.

I'd opened the door to the house when he'd gone to the corner of the lot with his knife in his hand, unsure of what he was about. I watched him, feeling like I was watching some rite, as he scored the wood. But then he just kept standing there and I ventured outside to see what was going on. I was surprised that the dogs didn't pay me any mind.

It became obvious as I drew near, that he was counting the marks and I heard him mutter something; I couldn't catch the words, but there was no mistaking the sheer desolation of his tone. I hadn't tried to be particularly quiet in my approach, but I could tell I surprised him when I took the knife from his hand. The first drops of rain fell, kicking up dust as they hit the ground, and I knew in my heart somehow that he couldn't stay there any more. It felt like the man I was standing so close to was fading from the world, and I meant to stop it before I lost him altogether.

I used the knife to cut off the days; marking a final slash to underscore all the others. 'It ends here, Duo,' I told him gently. 'No more hiding... no more running. Come home... please?'

He just stood for a long time, watching me make my own mark on that old post, finding the thing harder than I would have imagined. Reason was looking up at him, and I wondered how a dog could manage to look worried. Even he knew that there was something to fear here.

When I was done, I stepped back a pace to let Duo turn around, not wanting to make him feel trapped. He still didn't speak, just looking at me like he could draw answers out of me with his gaze.

In that moment, I was seeing the Duo I'd found at the diner the day before. Hopeful and vulnerable and... scared. I folded up the knife in my hand and he just stood and let me slip it back into his pocket. God... there were so many questions dancing across his expression, and he was staring at me like I held the answers to all of them.

It made it impossible to fight it anymore and I just reached out and pulled him to me. He came almost faster than the tug of my hands and I'm not sure if I'd started out intending to kiss him, but it was there in the tilt of his head when he fell into me and... it just happened. The moan that escaped him was need and panic all rolled into a single sound, and I held him tight, afraid that he would run after all, but his arms around my neck were firm when nothing else about him was.

The kiss was total surrender, and I only broke it to answer the trembling that wouldn't let go of him. 'Shh,' I whispered against his hair. 'It's all right. I came to take you home again. It's over, it's all over.'

There was no rhythm to his breath. No grace in the way his mouth sought mine again. No gentleness to the clutch of his hands, and God... I couldn't resist him, even though some part of me knew it was too soon. Way too soon, and probably for more wrong reasons than I could name.

But we were beyond caring and I took him back into the house and straight the hell to bed, ditching clothes as we went, and slamming the bedroom door in the faces of two rather shocked looking cats.

He was all muscle and sinew and there was nothing about him that was spare. His life those past long months seeming to have worn him down until there was nothing left to be taken. It felt like I'd come just in time... just before the damn place asked more from him than he had left. It made that protectiveness flare up behind my desire, and I answered the need in him with everything I could give. Making love to him over and over until I wasn't sure if he'd fallen asleep or passed the hell out.

I watched him sleep for a time, stroking a hand over his hair and listening to the rain on the roof. I vowed silently to him that there would be changes in his life. Immediate ones. He was mine now, and I would take care of him until he'd regained his footing and saw his way to take care of himself again. I would not let him continue to fade away.

***

Duo's POV

Why did it surprise me to wake up and find him gone? Surprise? Hell... let's be honest; why did it rip me open like yesterday's road kill?

It was one of those God awful moments when you know, but you don't want to know and you try to make your brain find reasons that aren't the reasons that you just don't want to deal with. I stretched a hand out, feeling for that warmth, and it was so long gone the sheets were cold. I think I really knew in that moment, but I still had to get up and pull on my jeans and go out into the front room, calling his damn name like one of those brainless Hollywood co-stars. The ones always left standing there as the hero and the heroine ride off on the big white horse together? The ones who never seem to have read the end of the script and never seem to see it coming?

No, sweetie, you don't get the guy. You don't even get the side-kick, because he's got his own part in the script, and it usually requires dying theatrically so that the horse riding thing can happen in the first place.

At least you're alive. Be grateful you're not the side-kick.

Yeah... like that's a plus.

There wasn't any answer and I just kept right on walking out the front door, even though it was pouring rain. But I had to go out and see for myself that that rental car of his was really not out there.

The cats were there in the living room, pacing in the doorway and sniffing after me as though wondering what I was on. Buckshot was in the paddock, standing under his awning and looking put out. Reason, Nash, and Bo were in their houses watching me to see if it was worth coming out into the rain. My truck was parked by the door, just where I'd left it. Everything was where it belonged. Everything was where it always, always was. Always.

And no little black sports car. The gravel in the driveway where it had been parked was already wet. It was like he'd never been there. Never at all.

I just stood out there in the pouring rain, looking down the driveway and feeling like an utter and complete fool.

It's dangerous to want things. You should never want things. Because when you want something, you can't ever be sure if you're seeing clearly. Can't ever be sure you aren't reaching for what maybe isn't what it seems. But, because you wanted it to be... you let yourself believe.

And God knows you should never let yourself believe.

I took another few steps, the mud of the yard squishing up around my bare feet, but the change in angle didn't make Heero reappear. The different vantage didn't let me see that car coming up the drive.

'Because that car ain't coming back, you fucking idiot,' I told myself and hearing my voice, Reason took a couple of steps my way, the cold rain making him uncertain and I think he whined, not liking the wet. I looked over at him and since there wasn't anybody else to tell, I shouted, 'Did you hear that? I'm a fucking idiot!'

He ducked his head, thinking I was angry at him, and I felt bad. I stumbled a few steps further away... maybe he'd just go back into his house and would stop looking at me with this soulful, accusing eyes.

Heero was probably on his way back to the world to tell the guys that it had all been true. That good ol' Duo was really just as easy as they'd thought. That all their suspicions about me had been true. The things that Quatre had thought... the things he'd accused me of. All true. I should have known.

'I know,' I muttered. 'Stupid. I was so stupid.'

I found myself standing in front of the paddock, stopped because I couldn't go any further. Stopped when I all but ran into the fence. There was nothing... nothing at all. Just me. And the boys. And the rain. The damn, cold rain, washing away any signs that there had ever been anything else.

'Stupid,' I told the rain, and Buckshot blew out a breath and shook his head, standing hip-shot, almost drowsing. Turning to look at him, my gaze fell on the fence post and I went to put my hands on it. To run my fingers over the marks. I felt the days like an endless trail behind me, and I felt the mark that Heero had made and I was just suddenly... very angry.

My fingers tightened on the old wood and I could feel the age of the damn thing; it had probably been there before I was born, and would probably be there long after I was gone. And how many days would be marked in it before that happened? How many more endless, mindless, fucking days?

I had lashed out and hit the damn thing before I knew I was going to. Training engrained in my damn genes made me do it right, made some part of me pay attention to speed and angle and focus. It still hurt; it had been too long... the calluses were long gone. I threw my head back and screamed 'Stupid!' up into the falling rain and then...

And then pounding that post into splinters became the most important thing in the world. I lashed out and lashed out again. I hit the damn thing for Trowa and I hit it for Quatre, and then for Wufei, just for good measure. And then I hit it for Heero. Again for Heero and again. And then for me. And then just because the fucking thing was still standing.

I remember screaming at it, about lives and sacrifice and pain and being alone. I cursed it and cussed it and smashed at it again and again, furious that it just stood and endured. And somewhere in there I forgot all about speed and angle and focus.

I heard the dogs barking frantically and knew I was scaring them. Buckshot snorted and danced away, braving the rain just to get away from me. I knew I should stop, but the God damn post was still there... mocking me. So I just kept on. I punched until my shoulders were on fire. I punched until I couldn't feel my hands. I screamed until there were no words left. I screamed until there was no sound.

And when I finally fell to my knees in the mud, unable to even open my hands anymore... the post was still standing and the rain was still coming down and I was still as alone as I'd ever been.

Anything more would have taken effort that was beyond me, and I just let myself fall over and laid there so that the rain ran down my face and I didn't have to admit that it was more than that.

After awhile, Reason came and licked my face, whimpering softly and when he couldn't rouse me, he curled around me there in the mud.

'I'm sorry I'm such a moron, boy,' I whispered into his wet fur. I thought about getting up and taking care of us both, but it seemed far more work than it was worth and instead... just closed my eyes. I just wanted to forget for a little while.

Maybe if I just waited for a bit, it would stop raining.

I knew I'd lost my mind when I thought the fence post laughed at me.

After a little while, Nash and Bo came to join us and I let the salty rain soak into their fur.

***

Heero's POV

I did my best not to curse at the whole stupid little town, and made my way back outside into the pouring rain. I knew damn well the area didn't get that much rain; it was bugging me that it seemed to have waited for me to arrive. It felt like some kind of damn omen, and that bugged me even more... that I would let myself think that way.

Maybe it was just that it had been raining in that same kind of steady down-pour the day Duo had disappeared. I had not been a huge fan of the rain since.

Getting the stupid electricity turned on at Duo's place again, was not going to be as simple as demanding it. I suppose I had grown too used to being able to call on the Winner name when I really wanted to have something done immediately. But out there, in the middle of nowhere, the Winner name meant about as much as trying to claim you knew the Pillsbury dough boy. People just stared at you and went right on telling you that these things took time.

Thwarted on my first mission, I walked across the street to the general store with my collar turned up and my umbrella pulled down, scowling darkly at the puddles, since that was the only thing sharing the trek with me.

Blankets were an easy commodity and I bought several. Thick ones. After that the pickings grew slimmer and I had to fight that urge to curse again. Most of the things I was interested in were only available in electric models, though I did manage to score a small propane cook stove. I would never manage any sort of knack cooking on Duo's damn wood stove. Later in the week, when the damn power company cooperated with me, I could come back and pick up a microwave and a coffee maker.

While I was there, I picked up several sacks of things that I knew darn well Duo had been doing without, if his budget was as tight as it seemed to be. I'd noticed the cheap, generic shampoo in the bathroom. I'd seen the thin, thread-bare towels. I'd felt the newspaper grade toilet paper.

It killed me to think of him living like that. Barely hand to mouth. Living like a damn pioneer from hundreds of years ago. He implied it was for the sake of the animals, but I'd already figured out the animals were just an excuse. He used them to fill the days. Used them to fill the emptiness. He treated them better than he treated himself.

Hid among them.

God... when I thought about how he had been that morning, it damn near killed me. He'd been so full of need, so desperate for whatever I could give him. He'd have let me do anything, just for my touch. Not that he'd made it easy; far from it. He'd fought against the pull like his life had depended on it. But once I'd bridged the gap... my God, I hadn't thought I could satisfy him. Like he was making up for lost time. He'd let me take him again and again, until I was starting to fear hurting him. But he was just so full of this overwhelming yearning, I couldn't have refused him anything.

Anymore than I could have denied myself, after all that time.

And if there had ever been any doubt in my mind, I was sure now... Duo had never done a damn thing with Trowa Barton. He'd been too damn fumbling... too uncertain. I was sure that had been his first time with anybody.

I'm not even going to try to deny how that made me feel.

After I retrieved my things from the signless bed and breakfast, my last stop was the diner at the edge of town and I'm not ashamed to admit that I bought more food than I knew we could eat, especially with no way to refrigerate the leftovers, but I just didn't care. Duo needed something more than the damn cans of condensed soup he seemed to live off of. And I wasn't exactly looking forward to scorching another pot full of the stuff myself.

I knew, by the time I headed back towards Duo's place, that I was the talk of the town. Let them gossip. With any luck, I'd be taking Duo away from the damn place eventually anyway. Taking him home. Even if the damn animals had to come too.

Pulling into the front yard, listening to the unfamiliar crunch of gravel under the tires, I knew something wasn't right when I saw the front door standing wide open. The two cats were sitting in the doorway, hunched down and watching the rain, but I didn't immediately see that monster dog that had greeted me the first time like an invading enemy. It somehow made me even more nervous... the beast is very protective of Duo and his domain, I somehow didn't doubt that he normally met all cars before they even came into the yard.

I shut the car off and got out, not even thinking to grab the umbrella. I don't really know why it never occurred to me that Duo might be in the house... the door, I suppose. And those cats that we'd had to shut out of the bedroom because they stuck to any heat source like glue.

I moved around the car and looked across the yard, surprised to find the dogs out in the rain. Lying in the mud in a damn pile, no less. When I took a step that way, one of them stood up finally and began barking at me.

And that was when I realized one of the dogs in that pile was no dog at all, but Duo. I'll be honest and admit that for a long cold moment, I thought the damn animals had turned on him and if I'd had my gun, I might very well have shot them all where they lay. But then it registered that the big one, the beast that damn well out-weighed Duo, was probably the only reason Duo hadn't drowned in the mud.

I resisted the need to run to him, afraid of spooking the dogs. Afraid they'd hurt him if they all rushed to their feet at once. I approached slowly, hand out in a gesture I'd seen people use on television, and not in any way ever thought I would use myself. The black dog barked at me one more time and then retreated toward Duo, his sopping tail giving a tiny, uncertain seeming wag. I suppose, when I stopped to think about it, that my scent had to have been all over Duo. Maybe that was enough to make me a welcome presence. The blond dog lifted its head from where it had been resting on Duo's legs and gave me a look that the black markings made seem... troubled.

When I got close enough, both of the smaller dogs retreated, standing near the fence and watching me almost curiously. Reason, the big one, the damn scary big one, didn't move a muscle other than to turn his head to watch me.

'Good boy,' I told him, hoping to God he wasn't going to attack me when I tried to touch Duo. There was a half-hearted thump of a tail that gave me some small reassurance and I moved in with one eye on the dog.

Duo was just lying there, looking for all the world like he'd just laid down to go to sleep. His head was pillowed against the big white dog, one hand curled in the fur, the other somewhere under the water and mud. He was only half dressed and was thoroughly soaked. His damn skin looked faintly blue. Had I not been able to see the movement of the dog's hair around his nose and mouth... I might have panicked even more than I did.

What the damn monster of a dog was going to do was suddenly not nearly as important as getting Duo up out of the mud and somewhere warm.

I slipped my arms under him and was horrified at how cold he felt. I wondered how in the hell long he'd been out there, but then I lifted him, and as his hand slid free of the dog's coat, it left a bloody trail, and I wasn't thinking warm any more, but about medical help.

Later I would feel bad for leaving the dogs there in the rain, for leaving the house standing open. Much later.

I took him to the car and was a bit surprised that I got no trouble from the dogs. The black one had already retreated to the barn, and the other two just stood there watching me. I wrapped Duo in one of the blankets I'd just bought, throwing the food into the back of the car to make room so I could buckle him into the passenger seat. He never stirred and I had no doubt hypothermia was very likely the least of my worries.

I cursed his lack of phone, I cursed his lack of power which had kept me from charging my own cell. I cursed the town, the county, and the majority of the God-forsaken state. I took a moment to curse the rain too and then I settled into driving and telling him it was going to be all right. Not that he seemed to hear me, but it somehow helped keep the panic at bay.

I ran the car heater long past the point that I broke out in a sweat.

***

Duo's POV

Fence post one, Duo Maxwell... somewhere in the negative numbers. It was somewhat humiliating to be beaten by an inanimate object so very... thoroughly. I distinctly remember thinking that, about the third or fourth time I woke up. The prior wakings not producing much in the way of coherent thought at all.

It's all kind of a blur, really, hospital stuff and words that sounded ominous but didn't make a lot of sense. I remember a moment of coming sharply awake and thinking that there were people there who were trying to burn me. I remember someone getting in my face and asking all manner of stupid questions that I just hadn't cared to try to answer. Who gave a fuck what the date was? I remember a bout of shivering so hard the bed rattled. And through it all there was an ache in my hands that could not be relieved.

Then there was a bizarre period of sleeping because... I think I wanted to. I remembered Heero accusing me of hiding, and some part of me knew it was just more of that... but I didn't care, and tried to retreat into the dark as much as I could manage.

Life... hurts.

I guess it was that thought that prickled at some corner of my mind and made me wonder... why, exactly, was I not still lying in my yard with my dogs?

Which, of course, made the prickle grow to a nagging sense of guilt. And who, exactly, was taking care of those dogs?

And that was pretty much the end of the hiding. I didn't name the dog Reason because I liked the sound.

'I didn't leave you,' Heero's voice told me, when I woke that time, and there was a well-worn feel to the line that made me think I'd heard it before. That he'd said it before. Many times before.

'You were gone,' I said, simply stating it, and the sharp movement he made told me I hadn't been answering him back.

'I left a note,' he told me, and I turned my head to find him sitting beside the bed, looking worried and rumpled and guilty and... kind of scared.

'A note?' I parroted and wondered that I'd never even thought of such a thing. It made me want to laugh. Or cry. Or maybe just go back to sleep.

'On the kitchen table,' Heero told me, leaning down to catch my gaze, seeming to make sure he still held my attention. 'I went to town, for supplies. I... really hate soup, Duo.'

That did make me laugh, in a strangled ugly sort of way, and Heero almost knocked his chair over getting to his feet, so that he could wrap his arms around me. 'I'm so very sorry,' he whispered to me.

'Me too,' I had to confess and when I tried to put my arms around him in turn, was met with something... very uncomfortable.

Heero drew back and let me look, and I found my hands wrapped up and splinted and I just blinked stupidly at them. Oh yeah.

'They have to heal some,' he told me gently, 'before they can cast them, to make sure there's no infection. You... broke some things.'

'Not the damn post,' I said morosely, and focusing on my hands was making the ache come back. I looked up to meet Heero's eyes and he was trying to give me a smile, but I could see the touch of sadness behind it. 'How bad did I fuck myself up?' I had to ask, suddenly afraid of the answer.

'Not so bad,' he soothed. 'You've got a lot of healing to do... but they think you will heal.' There was something in his voice that made me think he was talking about more than my hands.

'I really am sorry,' I whispered, not so sure of my place with him and he seemed to sense it, because he leaned down to kiss me gently.

'I know,' he told me and then his voice firmed. 'And I meant what I said. I didn't leave and I'm not going to... you understand me?'

'Ok,' was the only thing I could manage. Still waking up, still getting my bearings, the thing that was the clearest was what a total dumb-ass I seemed to have turned into. It made me wonder why in the hell Heero wanted anything to do with me at all. There were enough drugs, or something, in my system still... that I almost asked. But a guilty look crossed his face and it made me hesitate.

'Duo,' he said, sounding uncertain. 'I sort of just left things... at your house. I don't even think the door was shut. I... what should I do?'

I blinked at him for a second, before it sank in what he was asking. He knew what he needed to do, but he wasn't going to go until I told him to. It... somehow made things a little better. 'You should go and check on things,' I assured him. 'If it gets to be too long, Reason is going to freak out and try to find me. You're going to have to... God... I don't know... put him in the house, I guess. Shit, but he's not going to be happy, but that should keep him from taking off...'

Heero gave out with a little sound that was kind of a chuckle, only a little bit strangled. 'God, it's good to hear your voice,' he told me, brushing fingertips over my cheek and smiling down at me. 'There for awhile, I wasn't sure...' he let that trail off, but I'm not a total dip; I got it. I wondered just how near a thing it had been, but wasn't sure I wanted to know, since... well... I'd pretty much done it to myself, even if it hadn't been on purpose.

'Go on,' I told him. 'I'm... just going to sleep some more.'

'I'll be back first thing in the morning,' he said, making sure I was looking at him. Like he wanted to make sure I was really listening. Really taking it in. 'I promise. Ok?'

I grimaced, knowing that he was forcing me to respond to the comment. A second level of insurance that I got what he was saying. 'I'm... really sorry,' was all I could say, and couldn't meet his eyes.

He sighed his frustration and bent to kiss me again. 'As soon as I can, ok?'

I nodded, settling back into the pillows. I thought he would leave the room walking backwards. It let me dredge up a smile for him that seemed to reassure.

It was all just too much somehow. Too much to think about... too much to worry about... too much to feel. I was kind of surprised when I drifted right back off to sleep.

***

Heero's POV

I was almost weak kneed with relief to find all the animals still on the property when I got back. I really don't know what I would have done if any of them had been gone. Especially Reason. Duo... did not need that right then, but I wouldn't have had a clue how to go about finding them or getting them to come back with me.

Water had not been a problem, since all the dishes were full of rain, and from the looks of things, some enterprising dog had found the left over pizza on the table and they'd all helped themselves. The house... was a damn mess; mud tracked all over the place and all the pizza boxes pulled off on the floor and demolished. The dogs had all come out into the yard to bark at me when I'd pulled in, but there was evidence that they'd all three made their muddy little selves at home on the bed and the couch.

I'd have cheerfully nailed the lot of them to the damn wall if not for the memory of them curled around Duo's body in the rain. I had no doubt that I probably owed them his life. If he'd been out there alone... I really just don't want to think about how things might have turned out.

I fed them all first, thankful that I'd noticed where Duo had gotten the dog food the day before, because I never would have thought to look for it in the trash can. I used the food to get the dogs the hell out of the house, and then I spent the next three hours cleaning. There was still no electricity and everything had to be done by hand. Starting with hauling the water in to wash with. Thankfully the blanket that Duo had left on the couch had taken the brunt of the damage in that quarter, saving the worn old upholstery. I stripped it and the bed too, and just piled it all in the bathroom until I could figure out how Duo did his laundry. The trash I gathered and sat by the back door, not sure how that was dealt with; I had a feeling that a nice little trash truck did not come around once a week for pick-up like it did back home.

Everything I did only served to drive home how Duo had been living for the last eight months. It felt like he'd deliberately made his life as hard as possible. Had he been punishing himself? Even unconsciously? I just couldn't get over the changes in him... couldn't quite follow the flow of logic that had led him to where he'd ended up.

And... honestly, it kind of hurt that he'd had no more faith in us than that.

I just couldn't work out whether we deserved any faith or not.

As Duo had instructed, I let Reason into the house for the night, though the other two objected with pathetic whines and scratches at the door. I ignored them; it was going to be enough of a pain getting Duo's 'walking white carpet' cleaned up enough that I could deal with him being indoors.

The beast was surprisingly docile for an animal that size, and more or less did what he was told when I figured out the proper commands. 'Knock it the hell off' didn't get much of a reaction, but 'no' seemed to work pretty well. It took a lot of trial and error before I managed words, gestures, and finally a bit of pushing, that ended with him in the bathtub. He gave me a rather mournful look that managed to convey that he knew what being in the bathtub meant, and wasn't overly excited about the prospect. I actually kind of felt bad for having to use buckets of cold water, but it was all there was.

It was more work getting the stupid dog clean than it had been the entire rest of the house. I just wished I'd known ahead of time about that damn shaking thing. I had a lot to learn about dogs. The bathroom... I left to drip dry, as there wasn't a dry towel left in the whole place by the time we were done anyway.

I prayed to God after two hours of brushing, that we would be home again before the damn animal needed another bath, because I had every intention of hiring a professional to do the job. I'd come off search and retrieval missions and not been as tired as I was by the time I was done. It was no damn wonder Duo had seemed so worn down.

Afterward, the dog followed me around as I finished up for the evening, looking at me as though he were asking me where Duo was. I'd not known that animals had... moods. But if I'd ever seen depression, I was looking at it in the drooping ears and tail. In the weirdly accusing look of brown eyes. It moved me to pat his head and tell him, 'He'll be home soon, boy.' It made me feel kind of stupid, but garnered me a half-hearted wag of a tail.

I had thought I would sleep badly for the brooding and thinking part. I had not thought I would sleep badly for the sharing of the bed part.

It was an extremely long night, and the morning was a whole new trial.

I was half afraid of letting Reason out of the house at all; he'd been apart from Duo for several days and Duo's fears that he might go looking for his master worried me. I wasn't sure what in the hell I could do if the dog just walked off. But even I knew that animals had to go to the bathroom, and I very much wanted that part to happen outside as much as possible. I risked it, in the end, and than had to employ some creativity to lure him back in the house. He wasn't, as Duo had predicted, happy with being shut in, and I could only thank whatever deity it is that watches out for dumb animals and even dumber pet sitters, that the cats got along with him. Later I would worry about what kind of condition the house would be in when I got back. Even in the short time that I'd been around Duo, I could tell that Reason was very important to him, and I'd be damned if I let anything happen to him, no matter how much cleaning I ended up having to do.

But God, I wished that damn vet had decided to dump a Pomeranian on Duo instead of dog-zilla.

The horse took longer to deal with than I had anticipated, and I ended up getting away a bit later than I'd planned. I think the true depth of Duo's living conditions really hit me when I realized that I was looking forward to getting to the hospital where I could get something to eat from the cafeteria. I only wished they had a damn community shower too... I'd have used it.

It takes the better part of an hour to get to Twin Forks when you're obeying the speed limit, and I did obey it since I felt like I'd used up my luck in that quarter getting Duo to the hospital. So I got there not when planned, but about a half an hour after visiting hours had started. I suppose there'd been a bit of anxiousness on my part, not sure just how things were going to be, but the last thing in the world I'd expected to find was Trowa Barton sitting on the side of Duo's bed.

***

Duo's POV

It's really hard to retreat into sleep once you realize that you're doing it. Or maybe I'd just slept enough that I was all slept out. I don't really know. I did manage to doze off after Heero left, but got woke up when the doctor made his rounds a couple of hours later, and after that it was pretty hit or miss.

It's funny, I had thought my hands were the bigger issue, but the guy had been more interested in my heart. He'd been quite happy to find me awake and apparently alert and even laughed a little at my 'Mummy' jokes. But he hadn't laughed much and I'd gotten a long talk about the affects of hypothermia. Sort of forced me to take a look at that 'how close it had been' issue that I hadn't wanted to think about.

I had a bad feeling that when the guy mentioned therapy... he wasn't just talking about my hands.

After he left I just laid there staring at the ceiling and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Heero when he came back and found me like that. 'That' being a somewhat ambiguous condition that I pondered for a bit before giving it up and just sticking with the 'like that' thing.

Heero... confused me. Hell, I confused me. When I thought back over that morning we'd spent together, I couldn't decide if I should be appalled, or ripping IVs out in order to get back to him. I was a little bit embarrassed by how I had just completely surrendered to him. But for those few hours, when I'd looked up into his eyes, there had been something there that I'd needed more than I'd needed to breathe.

I'd been so numb for so damn long, that having him give me that kind of pleasure had been... hell, like being drowned in a tidal wave. Once I gave in to it, I hadn't been able to get enough. And there was a bit of embarrassment attached to that too... God, I'd just kept going back for more, just to have his touch. Just to have him looking at me with that fire in his eyes. He must have thought I was utterly insatiable.

And that, of course, just led back around to just what in the hell Heero did think, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Where did we stand? What were we? Where were we going... or was there even anything ahead of us at all?

I really didn't know what I'd do if that had been it for Heero. If he packed up and went back to the world and left me alone again. I really just didn't.

That was pretty much the spiral my thoughts ran in that night, so I suppose it isn't any wonder that escaping back into sleep hadn't been much of an option, though God knows I tried. Despite Heero's over-the top reassurances that he'd be back in the morning... I can't deny there was a part of me that didn't believe it.

When I felt someone come into my room the next morning, someone whose step didn't scream 'nurse', it woke me from a light doze with a jolt of anticipation, but when I opened my eyes to find Trowa standing in the doorway, the jolt was sort of... something else.

We stared at each other for a long couple of moments before he quietly asked, 'Can I come in?'

'Yeah,' I replied automatically and watched him make the walk across the room, with my head trying to make sense of this new development. I had sort of assumed, from the way Heero had spoken to Quatre, that nobody knew were I was but Heero. That, obviously, was not the case, and for a horrified moment I looked past Trowa, afraid that the other two were going to come trooping in behind him.

'Just me,' he soothed and stopped beside the bed, just staring at me.

'How...?' I had to ask when his tone implied that he really wasn't supposed to be there.

'Heero was in too much of a hurry to cover his tracks,' he informed me with the hint of a smug smirk. 'And once I found out there was a reason to track him... it wasn't hard.'

'Oh,' was all I could manage under his stare and I looked down, but that only left me with my hands to look at.

'You scared the hell out of me,' he said then, all in a rush, and it made me slide my hands under the sheet. 'Not that,' he sighed, but then immediately retracted it. 'Yes that too... when Heero let Wufei know you were... here, yeah you scared the hell out of me all over again. But all those months ago... what the hell, Duo?'

I had to stifle a little chuckle when some perverse part of me almost blurted out, 'It seemed like a good idea at the time' but I kept the thought to myself and only shrugged. 'I dunno...' I just couldn't quite figure out where to start, and couldn't meet his gaze while he sighed heavily.

'I ought to kick your ass,' he growled and I had the most ridiculous urge to warn him that the day nurse would get pissed at him for disturbing her ward and could probably take him in two falls out of three. He sighed again when I didn't answer, and reached out to drag the chair over next to my bed, sitting down and leaning with his arms braced on his thighs to stare at me. 'God Duo,' he said, exasperation plain in his voice. 'Give me a clue. What in the hell were you thinking?'

I wanted really badly to rub my hand over my face, but that gesture wasn't working so well for me lately and I had to content myself with just shifting uncomfortably. 'I just didn't see how things were going to work out between you and Quatre as long as I was around to... to keep him all riled up.'

He just sat for a long moment and watched me blush to the roots of my hair. 'That's the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard you say,' he finally told me and I couldn't help frowning at him.

'What?' I grumbled, staring at the sheets again. 'You think anything was ever going to be the same again after that? You think I could have gone anywhere with you? Done anything, without hearing... those awful things that Quatre said? Without him constantly being convinced that we were... were... you know.'

I could feel him glaring at me. 'I love Quatre Winner, but he does not run my life. He does not tell me who I can care for, or who I can spend time with.'

It made me look up at him and I could tell he was still pretty upset with Quatre. 'If you freaking love him... why the fuck aren't you with him?'

'Because,' he told me, his voice gentling a little. 'I can't be with anybody who doesn't trust me. Duo, it was never about you... it was about Quatre not being able to believe in me.'

'You could have fooled me,' I mumbled, knowing it sounded petulant and not caring. 'Seemed to have every damn thing to do with me.'

Trowa snorted softly and I had to glance at him to catch the little hint of a smile. 'I never would have believed that you would let him get to you with that bullshit. I'm as nameless as you are, Duo. More so. If that makes a bad person, then you and I and Heero too, are all in the same boat.'

'It wasn't just that,' I had to tell him, because it really did sound lame when he just up and said it that way. 'You know damn well I've dealt with that kind of shit my whole life. It was... it was the fact that everybody believed him. Heero and Wufei just bought what he was saying without question. Nobody said a word in my defense.' I hesitated there, glancing over at him through the safe fall of bangs and finally blurted, 'Not even you.'

He blinked at me for a moment and I wondered if he even remembered how it had gone. 'There was nothing to defend you from... except Quatre's right cross.'

It made me snort despite myself, and I shook my head. 'I guess...' I began but had to stop and try again. 'It just hurt... that the guys thought I could do something like that. I just felt like everybody believed him and never even gave me a chance.'

'Heero never believed that shit for a minute,' Trowa told me, voice adamant. 'And even Wufei was sorry later that he let himself get caught up in Quatre's... emotion.'

'Yeah,' I had to grudgingly admit. 'That's what Heero told me, but... it sure seemed at the time like the world was squaring off against me.'

He made a sound that was part amusement and part irritation. 'You know... it takes two for that whole 'cheating' thing, asshole. Anything that anybody was believing or not believing about you, they had to be believing about me.'

'But damn it,' I blurted, wishing that he's just fucking get it so we could freaking stop talking about it. 'What he said about me getting in the way... there was some damn truth to that! I was the stupid third wheel all the way around!'

'What?' he asked quietly, and straightened up enough to reach out and touch my arm, forcing me to look up at him. 'What are you saying? That you... that you really were harboring some sort of feelings? Is that what this is all about?'

'No!' I snapped, and then Heero's face swam up into my memory and I had to admit, 'Yes. I mean... shit.' I forgot myself and let my hand lift to my face, but Trowa caught at my arm and stopped me before I could complete the gesture.

'Tell me what you're saying here, Duo,' he told me firmly. 'Because I'm not getting it.'

'I followed Quatre into the kitchen that night,' I confessed. 'While you guys were messing with the pizza guy. I tried to talk to him and he... he threw it in my face about me being the... about me... I mean...' I petered out, not sure how to explain something that would require me to admit to some things that I really didn't want to.

'Talk to me,' he said gently, still holding my wrist and I could see him looking at my hands and knew that we'd be getting to that part eventually, because his eyes were so full of questions it was painful. 'We've always told each other everything, Duo... talk to me now.'

I sighed and had to let my head drop back so that I was looking up at the ceiling and not at him. After a moment, he let go of my arm and I slid it back under the sheet. 'You gotta understand that I thought... that... that Heero and Wufei were together, ok?'

I could almost hear him blinking and he echoed, 'Heero and Wufei?'

'Yeah,' I confirmed. 'And before you tell me what a dumb-ass I am, Quatre thought they were too. So... I thought I was the only one in the group that didn't... you know... didn't have anybody. And when Quatre said what he did... I guess it just hit a little too close to home.'

I hoped he'd leave it at that. I prayed he'd leave it at that, but I suppose I should have known him better. He moved off the chair and I felt him sit on the side of the bed and there was a touch on my chin that demanded I meet his gaze. I really didn't want to; he's too damn good at reading me. 'What did Quatre say, Duo?'

'Hardly matters now,' I told him, trying to evade that penetrating gaze.

'It mattered to you,' he persisted. 'And it matters to me... now what did he say?'

'You don't need to hear it...' I tried and his hand left my chin to land on my shoulder and he squeezed tight.

'Tell me,' he insisted and there was a quirk of a smile. 'You know I'll win. I always do.'

I snorted and looked away again, as much to cover the unfortunate prickle in the backs of my eyes as anything. 'He just pointed out the mathematics.'

'So I lost my best friend because Quatre Winner has trouble with basic math?' he chided, and while the line was teasing, the tone was genuinely hurt. It made me glance at him again, and the son of a bitch snared me with his kicked puppy look.

'He knew how fucking lonely I was,' I blurted, before any sort of editor could kick in. 'And just told me... told me the damn truth.'

'What?' he asked gently.

I had to close my eyes to get the last of it out. 'Isn't it obvious? That I just didn't fit anymore. That I was the odd man out and there wasn't any room for me.'

He sighed then, kind of exasperated and kind of sad and without a word he gathered me up into one of his all encompassing hugs.

'And he was right, Tro,' I whispered against his shirt, trying to ignore the sudden sharp pain that made me remember how much I'd missed him. 'At least... I thought he was. With how I felt about Heero... and thinking that he was with Wufei...'

And all those ugly things that Quatre had been accusing me of... would they have someday come true, only with Heero? Could I have forever lived like that, and never once reached for what I'd wanted more than anything? It had felt like Quatre had been right when he'd told me that it was only a matter of time before I ended up destroying somebody else's happiness trying to find my own.

'I love you dearly,' Trowa murmured against my hair, one hand gently rubbing circles on my back. 'But you are such a stupid shit, I don't even know where to start.' It made me sputter out a laugh that was almost something else and he squeezed tight for a minute. 'You know now that Heero and Wufei have never been a couple, right?' he asked and I just nodded. 'And nobody tells me who I can care for or how I can care for them. You are every bit as important to me as Quatre... just in vastly different ways. The argument was never about you... it was about Quatre's insecurities and doubts.'

That made me push away from him and he let me, to keep from hurting my hands, I suspect. 'Damn it, Tro... what the hell happened?' I had to ask. 'You two were supposed to work it out after I got out of the way!'

He gave me the look that said he thought I was still just being too stupid for words and shook his head. 'Have you not been listening to me? I refuse to try to build a relationship with someone who can't trust me. And do you honestly think you disappearing on us was going to help? Quatre's damn accusations cost me my brother... my wing man... my best friend; that didn't exactly endear him to me.'

I had to close my eyes then and if something escaped my tightly squeezed lids, he had the grace not to speak of it. 'God... how did things get so totally fucked up?'

'I've been asking myself that for the last eight months,' he scolded gently and then turned things aside for me. 'You going to tell me what in the hell you did to your hands?'

Unfortunately, the new topic wasn't much better and I just lay with my face buried in the crook of my elbow and wondered if he'd eventually think I'd dozed off if I just chose not to answer.

***

Heero's POV

Oh, you better believe I stood there and eavesdropped on the whole damn conversation. I wasn't entirely sure that Trowa hadn't noticed me lurking in the doorway, but Duo never did. I probably should have felt guilty, but Trowa had gotten Duo to talk about things that I hadn't yet managed, and I wasn't about to walk into that room and risk Duo clamming up again. Too much was coming out that had needed to be told. And even though I wasn't happy to hear that Duo's taking off might have been as much for my sake as Trowa's... it was still information that would help me help Duo, and I was going to take that any way I could get it.

Over the last eight months, I had come to realize that Quatre Winner had been in a lot of pain. Had seen something innocent, that had seemed not so, and had let it poison him. Let it fill him with doubts and bitterness until he'd lashed out at what he'd perceived as a threat to his own happiness. While I don't know that I'd ever be able to completely forgive him, I had come to understand him a bit, and couldn't help sympathizing just a little with the fact that he'd caused the loss of what he'd been trying to hang on to in the first place.

But it seemed that Quatre had a bit more to answer for than I'd thought. The accusations he had made had been bad enough, but to have played Duo's own sense of isolation against him? That was something altogether different. Something I wasn't sure I could forgive.

Listening in gave me a bit more of an understanding of Trowa and Duo's relationship, and while I could appreciate the no-nonsense way that Trowa dealt with him... I wasn't able to stand by when it looked like Duo was on the verge of breaking down. I strode into the room like I'd just arrived, though I was fairly sure I was only acting for Duo's sake, and called out before I was half way across the room. 'Maxwell, that damn dog of yours is a pain in the ass.'

His arm came away from his eyes and the look he gave me could only be described as hungry. I didn't need to ask to know that some part of him hadn't been sure I was really coming back. He gave me a wan little smile, his emotions on his damn sleeve and I sat down on the side of the bed opposite Trowa, leaning down to drop a quick kiss on Duo's forehead. It felt vaguely like marking my territory, but I wanted no doubts about how things stood, and doubly wanted Duo to understand it wasn't something I was going to hide.

Trowa abdicated the bed to me, sliding off to return to the chair. 'Didn't take you long to hunt me down,' I commented to him, letting Duo rest his hand across my lap.

'Even I couldn't miss the histrionics Quatre was throwing over Wufei refusing to tell what he knew. As soon as I figured out what the yelling was about, I traced you through the Preventers network.' He paused to toss a wry grin my way. 'Really, Heero... using company computers to make personal travel arrangements? I was appalled.'

I snorted and looked away from him for a moment, to look down at Duo. He wasn't paying much attention to Trowa, but was gazing up at me as though he was still working on believing I was there. I rubbed my hand up and down his arm and smiled for him. 'So,' I asked Trowa without changing my focus. 'How far behind you are the others?'

It made Duo blink uncertainly, but Trowa just chuckled. 'Wufei?' he commented. 'Not sure... he knows I was coming and might just decide there's not much point in continuing to wait for your word. Quatre? Let's just say that the trail I followed isn't there anymore, and you know Wufei will never break his promise. It won't be that easy for Quatre to find his way here.'

Duo was still quite raw from his talk with Trowa and I easily saw the relief flash through his expression followed quickly by something that looked like guilt. 'He's not getting near you until you give the word,' I told him firmly. 'We'll see to it.'

It made him blush, though I could tell he was grateful for the assurance. His hands wanted to touch, but couldn't, so I continued to smooth my hand up and down his arm. It was... oddly pleasant to watch him relax just from my presence. He seemed to have tired of the conversation though, and turned it quite obviously in a different direction. 'When can I get out of here?'

'Soon,' I soothed, hoping it was so, and then tried to lighten things up for him just a bit. 'It better be soon before that monster dog of yours completely wrecks your house.'

He gave me a small smile, appreciation for the offer of small talk, I think. Though there was a touch of relief in it... and I wondered if he'd been worrying about the animals. 'He's a hand full,' he murmured, voice tinged with affection.

'Hand full,' I snorted. 'If you're the Jolly Green Giant.'

It won me one of his little bursts of a laugh, one of the ones that made me feel so damn odd. It was such a victory to make this new Duo laugh... but so painful to remember the free and easy laugh he used to have. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a confused look cross Trowa's face. I was preparing to leap in with another comment, just to keep Trowa from speaking, when the day nurse breezed into the room and shut us all up.

It seemed that a shower was on the day's list of activities and I highly suspected that it was as much to see how Duo did with the up and moving part, more than any desire for cleanliness. Especially when Trowa and I were both waved off and told to leave things to 'the professionals'. I was never sure with the day nurse just what were attempts at humor and what were rather sharp barbs disguised as humor.

'You seem to be... moving pretty fast,' Trowa observed dryly once Duo and his attendants were out of the room. I wanted to laugh, wondering if I was about to get the big brother lecture.

'You don't have to tell me,' I replied with a sigh, rather taking him by surprise, I think. At least... I didn't get the lecture, so I assume it wasn't what he was expecting. 'Too fast, maybe.'

Still sitting in the chair, he had to tilt his head a bit to stare at me, and he made the effort. 'What are you saying?'

'He's... changed,' I tried to explain. 'He's just... very... I don't know... kind of...'

'Fragile?' he ventured into my floundering hunt for words. He hit the one I hadn't wanted to use.

'Yeah,' I admitted with a sigh, and stopped staring at the empty doorway and moved to lean against the wall by the window, looking outside instead. 'He's... a mess.'

Trowa snorted, stretching his legs out in front of him. 'No shit?' He left it hang there, but when I didn't take the bait, he prodded in his none too gentle way. 'You going to tell me what in the hell he did to his hands? Since he didn't seem to want to?'

'I'm not entirely sure,' I had to confess. 'From what I could tell, he went two falls out of three with a damn fence.' My fingers had found a loose bit of paint on the windowsill and when I realized I was picking at it, made myself stop.

'You haven't asked him?' Trowa demanded, crossing ankles, crossing arms, and fairly radiating his unhappiness with me.

'There hasn't really been time,' I told him, scowling at the parking lot. 'He just really came around to the point that he was understanding me last night. And then I had to go back to his place to deal with his damn animals. I just... I haven't wanted to upset him.'

Trowa made a noise that was meant to convey to me his opinion, but I ignored it, so he said, 'From the look of things, you're a little bit past upset. Care to venture a guess as to what caused this... sudden aversion to fences?'

I tried to offer up a small laugh for the line, but it came out more as a huff of frustration and I leaned my head against the window frame. 'He... woke up to find me gone. Apparently never noticed the note I left.'

'Woke up?' Trowa growled, his tone sounding dangerous, and I wondered if I was about to meet the big brother after all.

'We slept together, ok?' I snapped. 'It was stupid, and too God damn soon, and I already figured that the hell out, so get off my case about it. He... needed me.'

He was quiet for a long couple of minutes, though I swear I could feel his eyes boring a hole in the side of my head. 'How long have you been in love with him?'

Son of a bitch finally made me look at him, and there was something in his eyes that was wistful and just damn sad. Made me wonder just who in the hell he was thinking about. 'Long damn time,' I told him outright. 'Would have done something about it if I hadn't thought that... he was with you.'

I caught him by surprise and he just blinked at me for a minute. 'I thought you told me you never believed what Quatre...'

'Didn't,' I said, cutting him off. 'Before that. But then when you started seeing Quatre, I realized I was wrong. It's funny... I'd have probably asked Duo out that night, if things hadn't gone the way they did.'

His expression twisted for a moment into a near grimace of pain. 'Wish you had,' he said softly. 'Wish you had long before that. Would have saved... a hell of a lot.'

I didn't know how to answer the ache in his voice, so I didn't say anything at all.

***

Duo's POV

Managing to get through the shower without passing out seemed to be the point to the whole ordeal. Nurses are good about putting people at ease in the middle of the most undignified moments, but there was just nothing to be done about a shower and a guy without the use of his hands. It ended up being more of a hose down than anything, and I seriously wondered about policies, procedures and living in the heart of nowhere. I'm pretty sure there were better ways to do things if you happened to have the facilities.

Guess I should be glad they didn't just haul me out to the parking lot and turn a garden hose on me.

I was appallingly glad to be returned to my bed at the end. And even more appallingly... embarrassingly... disgustingly glad to find Heero still there.

Though there was the sense that some heavy conversation had gone down while I'd been out of the room. There was an odd tension in the air that made me feel like I should be blushing, but they didn't bother to share and I didn't bother to ask. Pretty sure I didn't want to know anyway.

Heero was very careful to... be close. It took me a bit to realize that he was just trying to ooze reassurance all over me. Part of me wanted to be humiliated at the implication that I needed it, but there was a bigger part that... needed it.

I guess I was just tired enough and drowsy enough that I didn't care; I'd never before had what he seemed to be willing to give me, and I just couldn't seem to do anything but drink it in. The touches, the looks, the gentle questions of concern. It felt too good and I just let myself drift, my arm laying across Heero's lap as he perched on the side of the bed, and listened to them talk with only half an ear.

Heero talked about my dogs, and Trowa talked about his flight. Heero told the pizza story, and Trowa asked questions about my place. I'm not sure at what point my vaguely pretending to doze turned into a real doze, somewhere after they'd started talking about the possible accommodations.

And apparently, somewhere before Wufei showed up.

I think the exertion of getting out of bed for the first time since I'd been admitted, had coupled with my desire to not really have to deal with questions and unhappy looks, and that's what drove me back to sleep. Because really... hadn't I slept enough?

Heero and Trowa had been speaking pretty much in normal tones, providing a kind of back-ground noise that was oddly soothing, but it was the sound of Wufei's voice hushed but somehow still upset, that brought me back to full wakefulness.

'...hypothermia, you never said a damn thing about his hands!' was the part that I caught, and then a couple of swear words in Chinese.

He was looking right at me when I opened my eyes, and we both sort of blinked when our eyes met. 'Uh... hello Wufei,' I ventured, and he had the good grace to look a bit contrite. Probably for waking me.

'Maxwell,' he greeted, as obviously on automatic as I was. But then the autopilot failed us both and we just stared at one another.

'Could have said something,' Trowa drawled from his spot in the only chair, a wry smile tugging at his lips. 'We could have flown out together.'

'Asshole,' Wufei murmured, turning his attention that way. 'If you'd slowed the hell down for two seconds, I would have.'

'If you'd shared your inside information, I might have been more inclined,' Trowa rejoined and it made Wufei grimace.

'Talk to him,' he said, indicating Heero with a jerk of his head, but Heero only gave the two of them a look that showed not an ounce of regret for his actions, and it rather stopped the conversation cold. Though, when Wufei answered Heero's look with one of his own, I saw him notice how close Heero was sitting next to me. Saw him notice the way my arm was draped across Heero's legs. The way Heero was almost unconsciously stroking his hand over my arm. His eyes did something odd, something I thought might indicate disapproval, but I couldn't be sure.

They were seriously making me feel odd. That strange talk of rushing to find me was messing with a lot of notions that had lived in my head for a long time. It was making me think about things that I normally avoided thinking about as much as possible. It was making me remember things that just brought pain. It was... making me feel.

I had a sharp moment of wondering when I'd forgotten how to do that, but the hunt back through memory was too convoluted and only left me feeling vaguely depressed. Like I'd somehow let go of something important.

Or maybe what had slipped through my fingers had just lost its shape, and I'd not understood what it was when I gave it up.

I had the strangest urge to crawl up into Heero's lap and let him hide me in his arms, but the thought came with a jolt when I realized I wasn't entirely sure of his reaction. I think that was the moment I really realized just how much we'd put the cart ahead of the horse and it made me just a little bit scared.

But then Wufei was clearing his throat and looking uncomfortable. 'Would it be possible for me to have a moment to speak with Duo?' he asked, his tone sounding almost formal. Trowa stood from the chair with no more prompt than that, but Heero hesitated, looking first at Wufei, and then at me.

'Come on, Heero,' Trowa chuckled. 'Let the man debase himself in private.'

I had to stare when the line got nothing from Wufei but an odd duck of his head. Heero still hesitated, leaning close to me and giving me a questioning look. The fact that I didn't really want him to go was what made me give him a small nod.

'S'ok,' I told him softly and he squeezed my arm before joining Trowa on the walk out of the room.

And then it was just me and Wufei and I found myself wishing I could just go back to sleep. It took him a moment, but once we were alone, he moved closer and his stance was... weirdly proper. 'Duo,' he began, launching in with a 'gird your loins' feel that made me wonder if he'd been practicing. 'I would like to apologize for my part in this whole mess. You were falsely accused, and I allowed myself to be swayed by what turned out to be circumstantial evidence. I should never have accepted Quatre's words without questioning...'

It probably wasn't politic... but I couldn't contain a snicker. He blinked at me in surprise, his little speech stumbling to a halt. 'You sound like you're talking about a case,' I tried to explain, not wanting him to think I was rejecting his apology. I was relieved when it made him smile.

'I suppose I did think of it that way,' he confessed 'Afterward. I'm an investigator, after all, and I should have known better than to take everything at face value.' He sighed then, snagging the chair to turn it around and sit in it backward, his arms folded across the back and losing the formal prim and proper attitude. 'I truly am sorry, Duo. You're not that kind of person and never have been. I should have kept that in mind no matter what Quatre believed.'

The more heart-felt words were harder to take than the more practiced ones, and I found myself squirming uncomfortably, wishing that he hadn't come. Glad that he had. Confused by the contradiction of those feelings and sorry I hadn't gotten a copy of the script that would have made the conversation easier to deal with. I wanted to tell him it was ok, but it sort of wasn't.

'Well,' I finally mumbled. 'Quatre was... very believable.'

He cocked his head and gave me a penetrating look. 'He even convinced you?'

That left me staring at him, not sure what to say. There was a small voice somewhere way in the back of my head that was getting pissed and wanting to yell, 'The hell!' but I guess I kind of couldn't entirely deny what he was implying.

Obviously Quatre hadn't convinced me about the main event, but he'd gotten to me with the sub-text. 'I... guess...' I told him, working it around in my head, but not quite able to get the pieces put together.

'You can't completely blame Quatre,' he said, resting his chin on his folded arms and watching me intently. I could only answer him with a stare and he sighed. 'Duo... there had to have been something there before. The Duo Maxwell I used to know would have put Quatre Winner on his ass that night.'

I didn't quite now what to say to that. I could vaguely remember wanting to knock Quatre on his ass, but I mostly remembered the hurt, the feeling of betrayal.

A feeling like a very old wound tearing open.

'What is this, Duo?' Wufei asked then, his hand stretching out to ghost over the bandages wrapped around my own. 'Hypothermia doesn't do this sort of damage. What happened?'

There was that damn question again. The one I wasn't certain how to answer. Severe loss of... something. Temper? Control? My mind? Nothing I much wanted to admit to? I was still struggling with that other thought... the part where Quatre might only have shone a light on something that had been far older than his doubts and accusations, and here Wufei was throwing me this new curve ball.

I didn't want to deal with it. With him. With... much of anything.

Heero came striding back into the room then, as though my mental flailing had called him, and his expression wasn't happy. 'That's enough, Chang,' he growled, and came straight to me, full of his reassurances. Quick to offer his touch.

I wondered about that. How did he know how much I craved touch? Had I always been that way? I suppose I had, in some way or another. I remembered loving it when Father Maxwell would pat me on the head, or Sister Helen would brush and braid my hair. Hell, even old G would reward me with pats on the back when I managed some new trick he set me to.

I was... a somewhat needy little shit when you got right down to it, wasn't I?

The guys were gathered around me and I was vaguely aware that they were... not arguing exactly, but we'll call it a little tense.

'Then you tell me just what the hell happened to his hands, Yuy,' Wufei was replying to something Heero had said, and I couldn't help hunching up and trying to hide the offending body parts under the blankets.

Trowa was mostly staying out of it, though I could tell he wasn't going to object to any answers that Wufei got. It was very surreal suddenly being surrounded by them. I'd been alone for so long, and here they all were again, like I'd never been gone. It gave me the oddest urge to laugh out loud. Made me want to jeer and ask them what in the hell my hands had to do with any of them anyway? Made me want to shout that they had no damn right to ask me anything.

But... I guess that was pretty damn stupid since I was the one who had taken off in the first place. Kind of not fair to be angry at them, when... God... when they really hadn't ever done anything wrong.

That was still kind of hard to swallow when I let myself think about it. All of my logic, all of my beliefs, all of those months...

'...when he's ready to talk about it, damn it,' Heero was saying, his arm resting around my shoulders in a way that was supportive and reassuring and... possessive.

Made me think about that part. Made me remember that single morning we'd had together and how wonderful it had been, and how fleeting it had seemed, and what a fragile damn thing what I had with Heero really was.

Scared me that I might have messed it all up, after wanting and dreaming for so damn long. He'd been right there the whole time. Willing and, according to him, wanting too. But I'd been too lost in... whatever the fuck I'd been trapped in, to see it.

I leaned my head into Heero's shoulder without meaning to, and listened to Trowa gently reprimand Wufei, 'I don't think this is the time...'

'And when will the time be?' Wufei returned, and while his voice was firm, his tone was surprisingly gentle. 'Are you just going to ignore the white elephant? That isn't going to help...'

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore them, very aware that I was hiding again. That seemed to be what I did any more. That hadn't always been my answer to things... had it? Or had it? I run, I hide? I certainly hadn't run when I'd had a Gundam in my hands. When there'd been a war to fight. An enemy to vanquish. Revenge to take.

I had never run from a fight, but... maybe I ran from other things? Ran from the pain? Hid from what I couldn't bare to think about? Pain... loss... death... betrayal?

I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie.

Not, apparently, until I'd learned to lie to myself.

The fear that nibbled in my chest, that the thing that might be growing between Heero and me had been damaged by the choices I'd made and the things I'd done...

Was that the fear that Quatre had felt? And what did he feel now that those fears had been realized? Maybe not in quite the way he'd foreseen, but maybe in a way that was worse.

'What the fuck are you saying, Chang?' Heero snapped, and his arm tightening around me brought the argument back into focus. I opened my eyes to look up at him, seeing his expression clouded with something that couldn't decide if it was anger or something darker.

'Isn't it obvious?' Wufei said softly, his voice trying to soothe the words. And whatever it was that he thought was obvious must have been... because nobody spoke. I found myself looking at Wufei instead of Heero and knew that it pained him to say the next part, but he did it anyway. Always was the one to point out the ugly bits nobody else wanted to. 'He... meant to die that day.'

There was something of an uproar as both Heero and Trowa snapped out denials and I just stared at Wufei. He didn't bother arguing, but the gentle, sad look he was giving me just about turned me wrong side out.

When I thought about that morning in the paddock, I only really remembered a vague anger at the stupid fence post. But that just kind of sounds nuts, now doesn't it? Even I'm pretty sure I didn't put myself in the hospital because a stupid fence post wouldn't fall down and say uncle. That look of Wufei's was making me take a mental peek past that moment when it all went out the window, and the only thing that had mattered had been... something other than what had led me outside.

Something other than the pain of thinking that Heero had used me and left me. Something other than finding myself alone again.

I think I just hadn't been able to bear that thought. Hadn't been able to handle being handed the dream, just to have it jerked away. Just to have it turn into the worst sort of nightmare.

'... the fuck out of...' Heero was snarling, and I reached up to shush him with the brush of bandaged fingers across his lips. It made them all shut up and stare at me, the room seeming suddenly too big and quiet without the sound of their voices filling it up.

It made me feel the silent emptiness of my little house reaching out for me and I shivered, suddenly as afraid of returning there as I've ever been of anything. And I think in that moment I knew.

'He... might be right,' I whispered, my own voice so soft to my own ears that I was surprised that they all seemed to hear me. I was relieved beyond measure when Heero's reaction was to gather me into his arms with a sound that might have been pain, or might have been relief.

Wufei settled a hand on my leg and squeezed gently. 'Admitting it is half way there, my friend... now you just have to let us help.'

Help me, I wanted to say, but didn't, I just held on to Heero and ignored the pain in my hands. It was very strange to suddenly be caught when I hadn't even known I was falling.

***

Heero's POV

I wasn't sure if I should be angry at Wufei, or thankful to him. That admission from Duo had hurt. A hell of a damn lot. I remembered my thoughts that he seemed like he was fading. I remembered my resolve to pull him back from the edge, and it hurt to realize that a moment of misunderstanding had come that close to taking him away from me. But at the same time, it was such a relief to have it out in the open. To know that my vague suspicions weren't groundless.

And to hear Duo admit it, not just to us, but to himself... it was a sign that he was ready to accept that there was more of a problem than just an ugly encounter with Quatre Winner. A sign that he was ready to let us in.

A sign that he was ready to come home.

I was more than prepared to make that happen no matter what I had to do.

Duo was released that afternoon with all manner of instructions that seemed to boil down to not exerting himself. With the three of us around to watch out for him, that wasn't likely to be a problem.

Trowa and Wufei came out to the house, as much from morbid curiosity, I think, than anything. Though they were more than happy to hear about the bed and breakfast in town, once they'd seen the place, and opted to spend their nights there.

That first day, I was just relieved to get Duo back to someplace familiar, even if it wasn't my first choice of locations. It's where he'd been living for the last eight months and I felt like he could relax there more than he could in a hospital bed.

If Trowa and Wufei were as appalled as I had been by Duo's living arrangements, they didn't show it. Once the dogs had 'cleared' them, they waded right in and dealt with whatever needed to be dealt with, leaving me to take care of Duo.

I was surprised and thankful to discover that the both of them knew way more about animals than I did, and they took over dealing with things that needed doing that I hadn't even known about. Grooming things and exercise things that went way beyond the simple 'feed them' part I'd been doing.

All the animals seemed happy to see Duo, though none of them as much as Reason. We were forced to let the damn dog stay in the house that first day, because trying to separate him from Duo's side had resulted in the beast sitting outside the front door and howling mournfully until he was let in.

Though there was something about Duo's scent that made all of them cautious around him. As though the smells of the hospital told them that he wasn't well. It was a relief, because I'd worried that the rambunctious dogs in particular, might hurt him accidentally.

Reason was stand-offish with Wufei and Trowa, not especially hostile, but less than welcoming, but oddly... he seemed to accept me as some kind of pack mate. It made me wonder if he somehow remembered that I'd helped Duo when he was hurt. Though it was probably something much more fundamental... like Duo's scent lingering on me. Or maybe I'd just won points for brushing him.

There had been so much to worry about when we'd first gotten to the house; I hadn't even been sure where to start. I'd been afraid of letting the fire burn in the stove while I'd been gone, and the house had been almost as cold as being outside. Last damn thing I needed was to let Duo get chilled. And of course there had been the mess the dog had made, and the things I'd bought that were still packed in my rental car.

The food, of course, had been a total loss, but most of the blankets had still been clean and I'd settled Duo on the couch, wrapped up in them with Reason trying to lie across his legs while I'd gotten the fire going. I'd been hauling in extra wood when Trowa came to find me, taking the logs from my hands with a sigh that had sounded exasperated. 'You know, dumb-ass,' he said genially. 'Shared body heat is a perfectly valid way to warm the human body.'

'What?' I asked, blinking at him in confusion and he rolled his eyes at me, poking me in the arm with one of the pieces of firewood.

'Let Wufei and I take care of the mundane crap,' he ordered. 'From us, Duo gets food and heat and chores. From you... he gets what he really needs. Now get the hell in there.'

It only took me a moment to realize what he was saying and I couldn't help the heavy sigh, kind of disgusted with myself and kind of embarrassed. 'God,' I muttered. 'This is going to be hard to get used to.'

He chuckled, adding more wood to the pile in his arms. 'It'll get easier.'

Not like I was going to object about not having to clean up the dog shit anyway.

Duo was more than happy to make room for me on the couch, though Reason seemed disgruntled about being rousted out of my way. I settled with Duo reclining against my chest, with the blankets wrapped around the both of us.

'Where did these come from?' he asked me, the tips of his bound fingers brushing over the thick pile.

'One of the things I went after that day,' I told him gently. 'I about froze my ass off that first night.'

He gave a dry little chuckle while we watched Reason get frustrated when he couldn't get himself back up onto the couch with us. 'You're just soft,' he ventured, but there was a hint of guilt in his voice and I knew he was thinking about cold in another context.

'I just wanted to give you some comforts,' I told him softly, mindful of Trowa across the room as he added wood to the fire and put water on to boil.

'You didn't have to...' Duo began, but I cut him off.

'I wanted to,' I soothed, and he subsided. The feelings stirring around inside me were so very odd, considering what we'd done together, but being allowed to just sit with him in my arms was such a new and wonderful thing. It made me realize once again how fast we were moving. How odd was it that our first kiss had been five minutes before making love? How strange that I knew every inch of his skin, but didn't even know if he had a job he should have been calling in sick for? 'I want to give you everything,' I blurted, emotions tumbling over each other in a sudden need to get out. 'I want to be here for you.'

I'd half expected him to mock my sudden outburst, but he just tilted his head to look up at me and asked, 'Are you sure? After... all this?'

'Absolutely,' I whispered against his hair and at the other end of the couch, Reason settled for sitting on the floor with his head resting on Duo's blanket wrapped shins. I swear the animal sighed in frustration.

'Stop whining, brat,' Duo scolded affectionately. 'You're not even supposed to be in here.' There was a soft thump as the dog's tail wagged at being addressed, and Duo snorted.

Trowa came out of the kitchen to join us then, carrying a steaming mug that he handed to us. Duo tried to wrap his hands around it, and while he could manage it long enough to sip at the tea, it was too awkward for him to actually hold it. I held it for him, but it seemed to embarrass him.

'Tea?' he asked Trowa as he was sitting down in the chair, stretching his long legs out and eyeing Reason where he sprawled as far onto the couch as he could get. 'I didn't have any tea. Heero, just how much stuff did you buy?'

'Not enough,' Trowa drawled, before I could respond. 'There's not a single damn beer in the place.'

It made it into a joke, and somehow made it all right again. Made it acceptable. I could almost feel Duo relax, and it made a thrill of something odd run through my gut. It was a strange feeling that was a whole lot of possessive and a little bit... God... jealous. I sat and looked at Trowa, understanding that he knew Duo a hell of a lot better than I did. That he understood where and how to push, and when to ease off. I wondered if it had just been Duo and me, if we'd have ended up fighting over it.

It was a feeling I quashed mercilessly. It made me think too sharply of Quatre Winner, and I would be damned if I allowed myself to walk down that path. Perhaps Trowa and Duo were close. Perhaps Trowa did know Duo well. But that didn't mean I couldn't grow to know him just as well. Or better.

Duo had given himself to me, and maybe it was a gift I should have waited to accept, but we were bound now, and I would not lose him.

Especially not... the way Quatre had lost Trowa. Not from doubts that had no basis.

Duo touched the mug and I helped him sip, and then I took a sip myself, making a point of the sharing. It made him smile in a soft sort of way, though he didn't need to look at me to do it.

'God, Reason,' Duo grumbled then, shifting to push on the monster. 'My legs are falling asleep; go lay down.' The dog gave out with another of those sighs of displeasure, but went to lie by the door. I saw Trowa give the beast a measuring look as he heard it called by name for the first time, but he didn't ask.

'You going to be warm enough without him?' I teased and it made Duo quirk a little grin that I could see the hint of even from where I sat.

'Probably better off with the blood circulation,' he returned and Trowa chuckled.

'How on earth did you end up with what looks like a pure bred damn mountain dog out here in the middle of nowhere?' he asked and Duo gave a little shake of his head.

'Damned if I know,' he muttered. 'Apparently, there's a 'sucker' sign that came with this place that nobody told me about.'

'Or the local vet is taking advantage of your good nature,' I tossed in, and that was about when the subject of our conversation suddenly raised his head and gave the door an odd little grump of a bark.

'It's ok, boy,' Duo told him. 'Let him in.'

Wufei seemed surprised to find the dog right on the other side of the door, but with Duo's reassurances, Reason gave ground and let him pass, settling back in his place once the door was closed again.

Trowa gestured toward the stove with his tea mug and Wufei went to get his own before joining us. Settling cross-legged on the floor for lack of other seating arrangements.

I recognized the studied look that my partner gave Duo's position and was a bit surprised to detect what felt like disapproval from him. I gave him a level stare, all but daring him to speak, but he only gave me a quiet sigh and then looked away.

Duo's attention, thankfully, was completely caught by the skittish cat as it twined around Trowa's outstretched legs, sniffing curiously at pant cuffs, and he completely missed the look.

'Damn,' Duo breathed, as though afraid he'd spook the cat himself. 'What'd you do... find some catnip to roll in?'

Trowa stretched a hand out, holding his fingers for the cat to sniff. 'Nope,' he replied and didn't look all that surprised when the cat... Gus, I recalled, jumped up into his lap.

'Well, I'll be damned,' Duo murmured and there was a bemused tone to his voice. 'Stupid cat hates everybody; what makes you so special?'

'It's my natural charm,' Trowa smirked, and gave the cat a one fingered rub under its chin, which it encouraged with a stretch of its neck.

Duo couldn't seem to stop staring as Gus made himself comfortable, apparently not sure if he should be amused or slighted. The second cat joined the first and Trowa seemed surprised; I'm not sure he realized there were two of them.

'Is that the last of the animals,' Wufei chuckled over the rim of his tea mug. 'Or do you have a herd of goats hiding around here somewhere?'

'No goats,' Duo shot back, letting his head roll to the side to look Wufei's way. 'Though we had a pig for awhile.'

Wufei sipped at his tea, letting his attention settle on the contents of his cup. I suspected he was simply avoiding looking at the way Duo's head had ended up tucked rather comfortably under my chin. I brought our own mug of tea up and offered it to Duo, making sure he didn't have time to register Wufei's... attitude.

'Think you're up to giving Trowa some pointers on cooking over an open flame?' I asked Duo, continuing to guide his attention. 'It's getting close to dinner time.'

'I think I can handle standing over the stove, Yuy,' Duo scoffed, and I was thankful that Trowa simply went along with me, rather than argue the point. I knew damn well the man could cook over a camp fire, and if Duo had been thinking clearly, he would have known it too. Hell, maybe Trowa knew exactly what I was doing, because he was quick to take Duo in hand and settle him on one of the kitchen chairs by the stove. The last I heard, they were having a discussion about green wood and heat distribution.

'Care to help me unpack the rest of the stuff out of the car?' I asked Wufei, and he only sighed before following me outside, probably just as aware as Trowa.

The dogs had grown used to us and didn't so much as bark, though the black one brought a disgusting looking rubber ball over and offered it to Wufei with a hesitant wag of his tail. Wufei took it and tossed it into the brush while I opened the trunk and stared at the rest of the sacks of supplies.

'Want to tell me what your problem is?' I asked at length, unable to come up with a less confrontational way of asking.

He gave out with one of those sighs again, leaning down to accept the ball from the dog to toss again. 'I think...' he said slowly, watching the dog bound away across the yard. 'that Duo has more than enough on his plate right now, and I can't help questioning the... good sense of starting a relationship in the middle of... all this.'

'Question all you want,' I snapped, not quite able to completely quell the anger. 'But stop radiating your damn disapproval all over the damn place before Duo notices.'

He looked at me and managed to stifle another one of those sighs, taking a moment to lob the ball again before speaking. 'I... apologize if I was being that obvious, but you have to know what a supremely bad idea this is?'

Chang Wufei and I have been partners for a long time, and part of why we work together so well is that we've always been able to speak plainly to each other. So I took a breath and managed to set the anger aside. 'Yeah. I'm not a total moron, just...'

'Just?' he prodded, and we both watched the dog rooting around in the yard rather than look at each other.

'Well,' I finally grumbled. 'It's not like I can turn back the clock now.'

He glanced at me and I'm sure my blush told him everything he might have been in doubt about. He couldn't contain the sigh that time. 'Heero,' he began almost gently, pausing again as the dog pranced proudly back with the ball, as though he didn't want to discuss it in front of the animal. 'he is so damn brittle right now. You have to see that? You have to understand that he didn't end up... here, because Quatre Winner hurt his feelings, for God sake? There is so much more wrong, and just taking him home isn't going to fix everything.'

I forgot about the shampoo and toilet paper and the rest of the crap in the trunk and just let myself fall back against the car with my own heavy sigh. 'I know,' I told him, rubbing a hand over my face. 'I... know.'

He stopped watching the dog then, and looked at me hard. 'You be damn sure about this,' he warned suddenly. 'And understand that it isn't going to be easy. If you aren't going to be able to handle it... figure that out now, because he's going to need you in ways you can't even imagine yet.'

'I have every intention of being here for him,' I said, and refused to let him stare me down.

Wufei's gaze softened, and he reached to let Nash drop the ball into his hand without looking, giving it one last hard toss before telling me, 'We'll all be here for him, Heero, but you're the one that can finish breaking him if you aren't very careful.'

He reached past me then and gathered up some of the sacks to take inside. It took me a long couple of minutes to follow.

***

Duo's POV

It was surprisingly more difficult to liquidate my life the second time around. Mostly because of the animals, I suppose, though that wasn't all of it, and I found that it was something I didn't want to think about too hard. About what a simple thing it had been the first time, to pull up stakes, and what that said about how I'd been living.

Thinking too much made me start wondering if I'd maybe managed to lose myself a long damn time before I thought I had. Made me look at those marks on the paddock fence and think that maybe there should be more of them. Made me realize that some changes didn't come with those defining moments, but more like the slow spread of infection. Made me wonder if it was something I had the strength to fight off when I couldn't even look back and find the beginning.

Like I said... it wasn't something I much wanted to think about.

The first few days were a chaos of things happening around me while I still drifted in a strange cocoon of exhaustion, not able to do much more than take pills when directed, eat, sleep and stare at the guys, just feeling confused.

They made things happen that were welcome and needed and strange all at the same time. There was power in the house for the first time in half a year. Which meant running water. Hot water without the application of buckets. Food that wasn't soup. Drinks that were cold even when it wasn't cold outside. Heat in the house without being huddled by the stove.

It was surreal in the part that all of those things felt strange. How could something as fundamental as running damn water feel so... not right?

It was just more of that stuff that didn't bear thinking about too hard.

I would have complained that it was a waste of time and money since we were just going to be shutting it all down again, but... well... Heero was staying with me, and it didn't seem right to ask him to live the way I had been. And yeah; just another bit of the weird. Another bit to be set aside and not examined too closely.

It took weeks, and the guys stayed the whole time without question, though Trowa and Wufei went back to town each night, not all that thrilled with sleeping on the floor. It made things awkward between me and Heero the first few nights, until we'd admitted to the awkwardness and then we'd talked a bit about the whole 'moving too fast' thing. It was kind of a relief to know he felt the same way, but we sort of decided it was kind of stupid to close the barn door after the horse was in the next county, and he'd made love to me the third night like it was our first time. It had let something inside me find steady footing, and I'd been surprised to realize that some part of me had been afraid he'd changed his mind and was sorry for what we'd done.

And it made it so much easier to accept the fact that he had to help me with everything from dressing to eating, and all manner of stuff in between.

Buckshot was the first to find a new home, and I suspect that Heero had simply explained to Miss Deirdre the way things would be, during one of his trips to town. The guy couldn't quite seem to shake his dislike of the woman and it seemed to be fueled by his outlook that she'd been taking advantage of me for months. I didn't quite know how to tell him that I wasn't entirely sure I'd have been getting out of bed in the mornings if I hadn't had the animals to look after. I'm not sure it would have mattered; there was just something about the vet that rubbed him the wrong way. But she had shown up with a horse trailer after one of Heero's supply runs, and told me that she'd found a home for the horse where there would be kids to ride and baby him, and plenty of room to graze.

It had been both a sad thing and a relief to watch the trailer pulling out of my drive and knowing that the big fellow wasn't going to be my responsibility any more. I hoped, as I always did, that I'd sent him off to a good life.

Nash was next, gone to a friend of the sheriff's and I wasn't sure if it was my suggestion of a search and rescue career, or just that the guy wanted a dog.

Bo went to Dutch's cousin because his kid had been bugging him for one, and in an odd little side deal, bought his truck back when it had been mentioned that I wouldn't be needing it any more.

I had just started to worry about Gus and Duncan, though I hadn't said anything to anybody, when Trowa arrived from town one morning with a cat carrier in tow and informed me that they'd be going home with him. Wufei had laughed at him, but he'd only smiled and who could argue with the man that could get Gus to accept tummy rubs?

And then there was just Reason and me and I really just didn't know how to ask what the plan was.

It was a Friday morning when Trowa and Wufei packed it in and headed home. I know that because I'd been making a conscious effort to remember things like days of the week, and months of the year. Things were winding down, and Heero and I were almost ready to follow, there were just a few things to finalize and I'd be heading back to the place I'd started from.

Just wished I'd been a little clearer on those 'few things'. Questioning had seemed too much like asking, and I just hadn't been ready to do that. Hadn't been ready to risk it.

There had not been room in Heero's little rental car for all of us and the bags too, and I hadn't been all that sure about leaving Reason at the house by himself anyway. Not without the other dogs to keep him company. So it just made sense that I waited at the house while Heero drove the guys up to Twin Forks to the airport.

Perfect sense. Perfect ulcer-inducing sense.

Wufei was the one who hunted me up first, choosing a quiet moment while Heero and Trowa wrestled with the cat carrier and the car. I'd opted for staying in the house while they did that part, because I'd found it a bit disconcerting hearing Duncan meow piteously, as though asking me what they'd done wrong. I knew it was for the best; knew without a doubt that Trowa would give them the best home possible, but... hell, I thought we'd already established what a soft touch I was.

'Do you need anything before we leave?' Wufei opened, giving me a look that spoke of more than ham sandwiches and tea.

'I'm good,' I assured him, nodding to the newly functioning refrigerator with a wry smile. 'I think Heero has things set up in there so easy that Reason ought to be able to feed us if it comes down to it.'

He chuckled at the joke, but then gave me a cocked head look that I knew meant he was thinking beyond the obvious. 'You know he over does because...'

I cut him off with a snort. 'He over does because he can't fix what really needs fixed,' I told him bluntly and was surprised when he smiled in what looked like relief.

'I'm... glad you understand that,' he told me in that strange tone I wasn't used to hearing from Chang Wufei. He made me feel like he was a dozen years my senior. 'He'll do whatever is in his power, but...'

'It's me,' I said, ducking me head. 'I know that. Some things I just have to... have to handle myself.'

'Not completely, my friend,' he said gently, taking my arm in a firm grip for a moment. 'We'll be here, but we can't...'

'I know,' I repeated, and he subsided with a last squeeze of his hand.

'We'll see you in a few days then,' he told me with a smile, and we'd have shook hands on it if I'd been able.

When Trowa came for his own good-byes, he was very much his usual blunt self, catching me up in one of his bear hugs and speaking low next to my ear. 'Whatever happens between me and Quatre is between me and Quatre,' he told me firmly. 'It doesn't have a thing to do with you, and you damn well better not forget that.'

'Yes sir,' I mumbled, trying to believe in it.

'Your bike is still at my place,' he informed me, something I had completely forgotten about. 'And when you've healed, we're going riding.'

I hesitated on the agreement and he growled my name, squeezing until I gasped out an 'Uncle!'

'I have no intentions of losing my best friend to this,' he said then. 'And I'd like to think that I mean enough to you that you won't do something this stupid again.'

'That was a cheap shot,' I groused, feeling the heat rise to my face, but I relented and hugged him back.

'I'm not above taking cheap shots if it gets my point across,' he chuckled and let me go, looking at me hard.

'Point delivered,' I had to concede, but then decided to take my own shot. 'But Trowa... this thing with Quatre; maybe... maybe you should...'

He sighed softly and cuffed at me to get me to stop. 'It's in his court, Duo,' he told me. 'I've given him my terms and my terms include him accepting my family as is.'

I didn't quite know how to answer that and just looked down at the floor. He made a little noise of exasperation and hooked me back into a one-armed hug.

'I'll... talk to him,' he finally agreed, and I looked back up in time to catch a glimpse past the gruff anger that had been about all I'd seen from him concerning Quatre Winner.

'I'm so sorry,' that look made me say, and he gave me a little shake, ignoring the whole thing.

'I will see you when you guys catch up with us,' he said. 'And if you decide you can't deal with Yuy, you know there's room at my place.'

I just snorted and saw him to the door, the conversation plainly over. Heero met us coming in, and Trowa forfeited his place, giving me a last wave as he went to join Wufei by the car, and I heard them begin an argument over the shot-gun position.

'Are you sure you'll be alright for a few hours?' Heero had to ask and it made me chuckle.

'I doubt I'll starve to death in the time it takes you to drive to Twin Forks and back,' I assured him and he had to smile.

'Anything you want me to pick up while I'm there?' he asked, a casual reassurance that I didn't miss, but I let him think he was being subtle.

'Pizza?' I quipped, but instead of laughing, he nodded solemnly.

'I can do that,' he agreed and I let that go too.

The utter quiet after the car had cleared the drive and disappeared down the road was... a thing to be reckoned with.

Reason and I walked the property for a bit, partly because I knew on some level it was goodbye, and partly because I wasn't real keen about going in the house and just... waiting.

Contrary to what the last eight months of my life might testify, I'm really not a stupid man. I knew that Heero was coming back. I knew the guys would be waiting for us when we finally got back home. In my head, those things were clear and obvious and had been fairly well proven to me.

So don't ask my why there was some small shard of doubt deep in my heart somewhere. And maybe it wasn't even doubt that Heero would come back for me. Maybe it was just doubt that he wouldn't end up changing his mind. Doubt that he wouldn't eventually get tired of dealing with the nut case I seemed to have become.

I mean... there were days I wasn't sure who in the heck I was, what if I finally figured it out, and that person ended up being something other than what Heero thought?

Assuming, of course, that I did end up figuring it out.

Figured out who I was. Figured out where it all went wrong. Figured out where the flaw was that let some part of me crack. Hell... figured out how to fix it again.

I'd been thinking about that a lot, obviously, and while I didn't have a shrink... yet... there were some things I probably didn't need one for. I mean, you really didn't need a degree to look at my past and make a couple of judgments. Not a lot of kids going around claiming kinship with Death itself at the tender age of... hell; whatever it was. Somewhere between diapers and losing that last baby tooth.

I'd spent most of my childhood thinking I was cursed, I suppose it isn't much of a stretch to think I'd carried that with me into adulthood on some level. I'd spent my life always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Expecting to come up snake eyes at any moment.

Kind of like the little runt kid on the playground always getting his lunch money taken and just coming to expect it.

It was a little hard to admit that I might have done what I did just because... because I'd come to expect loss. Come to expect getting smacked by life.

And very hard to accept that I'd even had myself fooled.

And scary as hell to realize how completely logical my reasoning had seemed to me. Looking back...

My God... looking back, I seemed like a basket case. Even to me.

There were so many 'whys' in my head that I just didn't have the answers to. And days that I wondered if I ever would. Heero and Wufei especially, insisted on talking to me about counseling, and while I knew they were right, I couldn't help wondering if anybody was ever going to be able to make sense of my thinking. Was ever going to be able to trace my logic backward and help me find the place where it had all gone wrong.

Or maybe that was the key... maybe I needed to stop looking for those defining moments. I'd spent so much time thinking that argument with Quatre was the trigger, but now I wasn't so sure. Had I run that night because I'd always believed somewhere inside, that the friendship of the guys was not something I was going to be allowed to keep?

Or maybe... maybe I just ran before it all had a chance to fall apart? Maybe I ran because I just couldn't handle the idea of being hurt again.

Sitting on Nash's now vacant dog house, watching for Heero's car, I had a thought that made me laugh right the hell out loud; had I run off to be alone before I'd had alone thrust upon me? Was I that fucking screwed up? I'd been so damn afraid of losing everything... again... that I'd thrown it all away before it could be taken from me?

Hearing me laugh, Reason came and gave me a woof of a bark, wagging his tail and asking to be let in on the joke. When he settled his head against my knee, I rubbed his nose the best I could with an unsplinted finger tip, and the near hysterical mirth was suddenly gone. I couldn't laugh in the face of those trusting brown eyes, not knowing in my heart the truth I hadn't been able to face yet.

'I'm sorry, boy,' I whispered to him and he woofed again, soft to match my tone. I hoped it was an understanding sound. I hoped it was a forgiving sound. 'I can't lose him. I can't... no matter what. You understand, fella?'

He only nosed against my hand, trying for an ear scratch, and if he got what I was trying to tell us both... he didn't say.

Shards of doubt. Pieces of fear. Bound around with a desperation that I couldn't admit to out loud.

Wufei had said, in the hospital, that my admitting that I might have sub-consciously been trying to kill myself was half the battle. And it hadn't been an easy thing to admit, much less accept. But I had accepted it, and come to face it. And understand it. Understand that one way or the other, I couldn't keep going on the way I had been. I... was not capable of it. And if there was a price for what I was reaching for with Heero... it was a price I couldn't not pay. No matter the cost.

It was a long afternoon, sitting there on that dog house. If Nash had still been around, I'd have used his chase the ball trick for distraction, but Reason had never been one for chasing anything. So when the strange SUV slowed on the road and actually pulled into my drive, I was half way annoyed, and half way relieved at the prospect of something to do. Even if it was just giving somebody directions, or running off a door to door evangelical type.

Reason started barking the minute the van rounded the curve and I let him, not that I was worried about whoever it was, but it never hurt to have strangers start off with a little respect for the big scary dog.

Then the thing pulled into the yard and parked next to the house right where my truck had always sat, and Reason suddenly left off with his territorial rant and began to wag his tail. I'm rather ashamed to admit my dog figured out it was Heero before I did.

And further ashamed to admit to the rush of weak-in-the-knees relief I felt at seeing him.

Heero got out of the new vehicle and walked across the yard to where I sat with a look of faint concern on his face. 'Duo, you really shouldn't let yourself get chilled; what are you doing out here?'

I accepted his hello kiss with a wry smile. 'Was just... sort of taking a last look around, I guess,' I told him, and he pulled me down from my perch to walk back across the yard with him.

'You're not having any regrets, are you?' he asked, that look of concern morphing into a different flavor of unease.

'About leaving?' I asked. 'No. Just... saying goodbye, I suppose.'

He walked us over to the SUV and raised the hatch on the back with an oddly calculating look on his face. 'How well do you think Reason is going to travel?' he asked me, looking from my dog to the back of the van. 'They had animal crates you could rent, but he seemed used to riding in your truck, so I didn't bother with one. But if you think we need one, we'll be going through Twin Forks on the way to the highway anyway...'

If I had thought the relief of him coming back for me was knee-weakening, it was nothing next to the sudden, unasked for reassurance that he was going to let me keep my dog. He sort of petered out, watching the look on my face, I guess, and must have been waiting for me to reply, but all I could manage was a nod.

'Duo?' he asked softly, turning away from the open hatch, catching me by the upper arms. I watched Reason sniffing around the open door to keep from making eye contact, but couldn't manage to explain. If I'd opened my mouth, I had the vague fear I'd have done something stupid, like burst into tears.

He must have gotten it anyway, because he pulled me the rest of the way into a hug and gently asked, 'Why didn't you say something?'

I shrugged and he sighed, pushing me back to force me to meet his gaze. 'I don't want you doing that,' he told me firmly. 'If there are things you want; you tell me. You have to know by now... I'm here for the long haul.'

There was an uncomfortable feeling in my chest that made me draw a step away, turning to urge Reason into the van, just to see if he'd climb in on his own. Just to give me something to do while that tight pain in my throat eased.

Heero was quiet for a moment, watching me, and then he stepped up to stand beside me, watching Reason nose around the carpet of the van. 'I'd have taken all of them... and the damn horse too. What ever you want. What ever you need.'

I shook my head in denial of having wanted that, and cast a glance his way. He looked kind of unhappy... like he was afraid he'd done something wrong. I shifted over to lean against him and he easily slipped an arm around my waist. Reason stopped snuffling and turned to look at us, wagging his tail as if to give his approval of the spiffy new car.

'I'm sorry,' I told them both. 'I guess I was just afraid of the answer.'

Heero sighed, a sound that wasn't as aggravated as it could have been, and he took a moment to think over what he was going to say before telling me, 'What we're building here is a partnership, Duo. Some things you don't have to ask, but you do have to tell me what you want.'

I leaned my head to rest on his shoulder and drew in a breath that only shuddered a tiny bit there at the end. 'I just don't want to... to...' I tried to tell him, but the word lose didn't want to pass my lips.

'You're not going to,' he comforted, somehow getting it anyway, and he turned toward me to wrap me up in his arms. 'Not going to happen.'

I nodded and couldn't help a smile that was hidden against the side of his neck. 'Guess I've got more than one reason now.'

He stilled for a moment before pressing his lips to my temple. 'I'll always be here... but someday, you'll be your own reason again.'

I wasn't sure if I should feel reprimanded or reassured, or maybe just a little shocked to not have seen the truth of it before he said it. One should, perhaps, not number the things that made one get out of bed in the morning. 'Such faith,' I murmured, attempting to tease.

'Absolute,' he replied, a hint of fierceness in his tone.

I didn't know what to say to that, not in the face of my own somewhat shaky faith in much of anything. 'Heero...' I ventured after a moment, not really wanting to offer it, but still feeling like maybe I ought to. 'Should we...'

'No,' he said, cutting me off and how in the hell he'd suddenly developed the ability to read my mind, I don't know. 'I know maybe our timing wasn't the best, but don't ask me to back off now... I don't think I could.'

It was a relief to hear him say it, and I was quiet, just drinking in the reassurance that he really wasn't sorry he'd ever come.

'You don't... want me to, do you?' he asked quietly after a long moment and I couldn't help squeezing him tight.

'God, no!' I told him and he took me by the arms to push me back where he could meet my eyes again.

'Duo,' he said, looking at me intently. 'I didn't think I needed to say it, but, you do know I'm here because... I love you, right?'

I just stared at him, probably rather wide-eyed for a long moment, letting that sink down into my head. I think I was smiling, but I'm not real sure. It probably would have ended up being one of those sappy, Hollywood moments with the kiss, and the birdsong, and the whole nine yards, if Reason hadn't chosen that moment to discover the pizza box in the front seat. My return I love you turned into 'Bad dog!' and the moment went in a slightly different Hollywood direction as we scrambled to save our dinner.

But you know, looking back... I think it was one of those defining moments anyway. Prophetic, at least, as it seemed to set the tone for the rest of our lives. Wonderful and frustrating, sweet and irritating... covered with a liberal amount of dog hair. And somehow we wouldn't have it any other way.

***

It's funny, my therapist and I had just had a long talk about Quatre Winner that very morning. Or more like an argument. She insisted that six months was long enough, and that it was time I confronted the man and got it over-with. Especially since he and Trowa were tentatively talking about possibly giving it another try.

I maintained that I really didn't want to deal with the man until I'd decided whether I was going to deck him or run away from him on sight. Kinda felt like there ought to be a plan there, before I made any hasty decisions, if you know what I mean.

All the way back from Devil's Palm, Heero had assured me that I would not have to deal with Mr. Winner until I gave the word, and he'd somehow made it happen. Reason and I had moved into Heero's apartment with him for the month it had taken us to find a house, and during that time there had been one single attempt by Quatre to get in touch with me. I have no idea what Heero said to him, but it had been the last call we'd gotten from the Winner residence. Heero had told me that if I decided I was ready to talk, all I had to do was ask, but until then... not to worry about it.

And I hadn't. Had bigger fish to fry, if you know what I mean. It had taken a few sessions, but I'd come to understand that in the grand scheme of things Quatre Winner really hadn't had that much to do with my breakdown. Guy had just been what Doc calls a 'catalyst'. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong mood, wrong words and I up and did something that I probably would have ended up doing on my own eventually anyway.

I got that part pretty easily, I guess. The part I couldn't quite get was the forgiving and forgetting stuff. The things he'd said to me... right, wrong, or indifferent... had still been an incredibly cheap shot.

But really, between a cross-country move, finding and buying a house, and moving in with Heero... Quatre really wasn't on my mind all that much. Mostly on Tuesday and Friday mornings, during my damn therapy sessions. The terms 'letting go' and 'moving on' were starting to annoy me. And yeah, there might just have been a little bit of pissy contrariness in my continued avoidance. I never really have liked being pushed.

So I suppose I wasn't in the best frame of mind that day, having just had another 'talk' with Doc Epstein on the topic. But even so, the last damn place on earth I ever expected to accidentally run into Quatre was the cat toy aisle at Pet Palace.

I saw him first, but only by about a minute. Just long enough for it to seriously cross my mind to fade back a few steps and try to get around the end of the aisle and out of sight. But that was instantly followed by Doc's voice talking about avoidance and 'fight or flight' and all that trash, and I recognized the instinct and felt guilty. Hesitated until he happened to glance up and saw me.

It was kind of interesting watching him; I swear to God his knee-jerk reaction was to physically recoil. He actually stepped back a pace and then there was this nervous flick of the eyes around, like he was expecting to be attacked or something. Made me wonder, again, just what in the hell Heero had told the guy. But then he seemed to kind of piece the circumstances together in his head, and a weird-ass almost hopeful look came over him and damned if that didn't kick me in the 'flight' gonads. Which pissed me off at myself and I think I might have frowned, turning away from him to look at the display of feather wands and mouse shaped toys that I'd come to see.

Yeah, Heero and I have a cat now. Heero found her wandering lost on the freeway one morning and ended up stopping to save her from becoming a road rug; I think I'm wearing off on him. We named her Gertrude.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Quatre open his mouth to speak, but two kids darted down the aisle with their dust-mop of a dog and he closed it again, watching them go by. I picked a purple plaid catnip toy off the rack and gave it a sniff to see how strong it was, wondering if I could get away with just walking away. Though I suppose the notion was kind of stupid... not like I could leave the store until the groomer was done with Reason anyway. Would he just follow me? And then what would we do? Play some kind of stupid hide and seek game all over the store? Could I lose him in the puppy petting area? That was always crowded...

Yeah, that thought really made me feel like an idiot of the twelve-year old variety and I hooked the toy back on the display peg and turned back around. Now or never, God damn it.

'So,' I opened, avoiding all the stupid 'hello' shit that we probably would have floundered all over anyway. 'Trowa says that you guys have talked about maybe going out again?'

He blinked at me for a second, like maybe I'd taken the wind out of his opening lines. Or maybe he hadn't had any but was on our track and not the Trowa track. 'Uh... yeah. We're going to try dinner.'

'You think you're ready for it?' I blurted and wondered at myself. Guess my inner child had decided on the 'deck' plan. I fussed with the plaid mice, occupying my hands by arranging them by color spectrum... purple, red, orange, yellow. There wasn't a green and I suddenly wanted a green one. That perverse side of my nature again, I guess. The stone silence coming from the feather wand section of the aisle made me look at him and I was surprised to find him blushing profusely and staring at the toes of his shiny dress shoes.

'I... I've been sober for almost five months now,' he choked out, and I turned to stare at him rather openly.

'What?' I asked and it made him look up at me; I could see the blush spread as he figured out he'd just confessed something to me I hadn't known. He didn't seem to know what to say, his jaw muscles twitching as he tried to work it out. I was trying to work it out too, but was just staring.

I realized that my desire not to deal with Quatre Raberba Winner had made sure that I was not confronted with any aspect of him. Not his presence and not news of his life. I had no damn idea what had happened to him after that nightmare 'pizza night' other than a vague knowledge that he was no longer with Trowa. Sober? What the hell? I wonder sometimes how long we'd have stood there staring at each other if my dog hadn't chosen that moment to drag his giggling groomer around the corner.

'Here's your pony, Mr. Maxwell!' Julie told me, all out of breath and grinning from being dragged across the store. 'All prettied up again!'

'Thanks, Julie,' I smiled, taking the leash from her and giving Reason his 'good boy' pat for finding me. He liked Julie and the other groomers at the Palace well enough, but I swear the dog thought we came just so he could play his 'find the Duo' game afterward. 'He looks great!'

My monster chose that moment to jump up, putting his paws on my shoulders to give me one of his disgusting doggie kisses, his odd reward for my playing my part of the game properly, I think.

'Reason,' I admonished and he hopped back down while Julie laughed at us, giving Reason a last pat and waving as she went back to work. My white carpet woofed after her, his flag of a tail waving enthusiastically as though he somehow knew that it looked quite impressive all clean and brushed and silky. 'Show off,' I muttered and he looked up at me with his head cocked as if to say, 'Yeah? And?'

There was a sound from Quatre and when I looked back that way, it was probably just my imagination that he was a step further away. 'So... that's your dog?' he asked inanely, looking just a bit freaked out, but I suppose it was better than the fit of humiliation he'd been having. That moment, at least, seemed to have passed.

'Yeah,' I said, just as inanely. Reason has a way of picking out the interaction people from random other customers and turned Quatre's way with his tail still waving, curious to see who the new guy was. Quatre tentatively held out a hand for Reason to sniff and my dog happily obliged. He didn't seem to detect the scent of space aliens or anything else that upset him, and I found myself oddly... I don't know... disappointed that the animal hadn't instinctively known that Quatre was an evil man.

Ok, so that was one of my twelve year old moments. Guess it was kind of stupid to think that mean people should smell funny.

But then Reason looked up at me questioningly, somehow seeming to get that there was something about the new guy that made me uneasy, and he came to settle on my feet the way he does when he thinks I need to be protected from something. I rubbed at his ear gratefully, and wondered if a dog could be a security blanket. I'd have to talk to Doc Epstein about it. It was probably one of those 'not healthy' issues that needed to go on my list of things to work on.

Quatre didn't seem to understand that Reason planting himself between us meant anything other than the dog belonged to me, but he stayed focused there anyway, as though it was easier than meeting my gaze.

Though his eyes looked a million miles away.

'My shrink says the odds of working things out with Trowa aren't very good,' he suddenly blurted, confessing it to my dog and just sort of letting me over hear it. Reason cocked his head, probably confused by the stressed sound of Quatre's voice. I didn't know what to say to that, but he wasn't done. 'He says we don't have enough in common and that I should... move on.'

I snorted. There was that phrase again; I really was coming to hate it. 'Your shrink's an ass then,' I heard myself say and suddenly Quatre Winner just didn't seem all that damn scary any more. And didn't that thought just hit with a jolt? Scary? Where had that come from? I had been... afraid of him? Afraid of what? Afraid of his words? Of his... disdain? I had been avoiding him all the months I'd been back because... why?

I had not wanted to see Quatre because some part of my head had been half convinced that he would be able to toss more words at me and make me... what? Run away again? Break me again? I wanted to laugh thinking about it; all my assurances to Doc that I 'got' that part about my issues being my own, had just been so much hot air. I'd known it, but my head hadn't been convinced. It had never been about Quatre Winner, it had been about me right from the beginning. He'd never had the power to hurt me until I'd given it to him.

Completely unaware of my internal epiphany, he turned away from Reason and ran his fingers through the fronds of a couple of the feathers next to him. 'We're... supposed to have dinner tonight...' he said, his voice just full of all manner of scared, and hesitant, and this vague despair. I took a look around and realized just why in the hell we were where we were.

'His place?' I asked and he nodded, his eyes with that million mile away look again. I shook my head as much at myself as at him, reaching out to pluck one of the red mice from the rack. 'Idiot,' I muttered. 'Here,' I said, tossing it to him. 'Ignore Gus completely and win over Duncan. Gus will come around when he's damn good and ready.'

He caught the toy, finally bringing his gaze up to me and not my dog, eyes wide with a desperate hope in them that I suddenly realized had nothing to do with Trowa or cats or... that weird 'sober' comment.

'I'm so sorry,' came out of his mouth all in a rush, directed at me, sounding like it was something that he'd been practicing for a long time. He cringed, almost as though he hadn't known it was coming, but then bulled forward. 'I am. Duo... God, I am so very sorry...'

My name passing his lips made me think of another time and another place and he seemed to see it, staggering to a halt and that spark of hope fading in his eyes like a dying ember.

'Tell it to Trowa,' I told him gruffly, feeling sorry for him despite over a year's worth of resolve to never let it happen.

'I... will,' he whispered, clutching the mouse like I'd given him the Hope diamond, and talking to my dog again. 'I have. But I wronged you too, and... and...'

It was creepy to see him floundering around like that. Creepy and all kinds of wrong; Papa Winner didn't raise up no faint-of-heart children, and Quatre had been the cream of the crop. There was something fundamentally wrong with seeing Mr. Zero-system struggling with words, his eyes all shining like he needed a teddy bear or... a stiff drink.

I dry washed a hand over my face, trying to block out the sight of him that was tugging at all the things that Doc Epstein said were triggers for me. Orphans, strays, the helpless. God, I wanted to tell him, don't make puppy-eyes at me!

I wanted to hate him. I did. And it kind of scared me when I realized that I really did want that. A man should not actively want to hate anything. That spoke more about the man than about the object of the hatred. Sister and Father would have had all manner of things to say about that, starting with that 'turn the other cheek' thing that I'd never really cared for.

There were a lot of words that were associated with this whole 'relationship' thing when the guys spoke about Trowa and Quatre... 'tentative', 'maybe', 'try', 'uncertain'. I had to wonder if that was because of me. Was Trowa holding back, waiting for my judgment? He said that what was between him and Quatre had nothing to do with me, but... was that really true in the grand scheme of things? If Trowa truly was my family in heart if not in blood, how could he ignore my feelings in the matter?

The truth was... he couldn't. Not really. Even if he thought he could.

I dropped my hand away from my face and kept the 'Fuck' behind my teeth as best I could. Reason looked up at me as if asking if we could go yet, bored with the whole soul searching thing. I snagged two more of the mice off the wall, tossing the orange one to Quatre and keeping the purple for Gertrude.

'You're gonna need a second one so they don't fight over it once Gus decides you don't suck,' I grumbled. 'Don't drink anything out of a bottle around him and avoid making loud noises.'

I looked at him hard then, while he couldn't seem to figure out what to say. 'And don't you fucking hurt my brother again asshole, or my dog will eat you.'

All he could do was clutch his mice and nod, and I wondered if I should be amused or scared that the line seemed to fan that spark of hope into a flame that shone with an old, familiar light of determination.

I doubt that I would ever forget, but maybe I could learn to forgive... given a few more therapy sessions.

'Thank you,' he finally managed, while I thought about insecurities and cultural gulfs and the odds. Almost, I told him to ditch his too socially conscious shrink, but decided to leave that one go for another day. Admitting to myself with a sigh that there were going to be other days. The box of avoidance was open and there wasn't going to be any going back. And I suppose, given enough time, I'd get used to that idea.

Quatre took a step away, offering up a timid, 'I'll see you?' as though understanding we'd probably gotten about as much from the encounter as we were likely to.

I nodded and he headed for the front of the store and the check-outs, only glancing back once, as though making sure I wasn't flipping him off behind his back.

And if I chose to explore the dog treat aisle before checking out myself, it was only because Reason had been such a patient dog, and not because of any desire to make sure Quatre was gone first. Really.

Was I a little bit relieved? It was probably too soon to say, but I supposed it was at least going to make for an interesting dinner conversation with Heero. I went over opening lines in my head as we made our way through the store to the bones and chew toys section. 'So guess who I ran into today?' or maybe 'Quatre says hi'.

I grinned down at Reason. 'Come on boy, let's get you a treat and head for home.'

He wuffed his agreement with the plan, and it was a warm and comforting thought that I didn't even think of Devil's Palm when I said that word anymore. Home was where Heero was waiting.

OWARI

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