"As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind." ~Emily Dickenson, "Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant"

September 23rd, 1903

           Sally made many humming noises and clucked her tongue a lot while she carried out her emergency examinations. "Lucky you called me when you did," she said melodramatically while poking a tongue depressor into the mouth of horse-faced Grace. "Looks like I've caught this just in time."

           All the assorted housemaids, minus Hilde but plus Merlyn the cook, were assembled in a line that stretched across the kitchen, and one by one the doctor was giving them a quick test for an exotic disease of which they were all very much afraid. Three of their number had fallen prey to it already, they had been told. Otto, who stood off to the side with his arms folded sternly across his chest, reeked of skepticism, and eyed the lady with severe mistrust. "I believe I said once before, doctor...that I didn't call you."

           "Well, someone did, and a good thing too!" Sally shot back while taking Grace's pulse with her little silver pocket watch. On one side of the petrified girl were Bethany and Pearl, and on the other side were Doris, Elsie, and Merlyn, who all counted themselves very lucky that the ailment hadn't spread any farther than it did.

           Otto rocked back on his heels and glanced at the ceiling in frustration. "And you say we have four confirmed cases of...the 'Swahili Flu'?" he asked dubiously.

           As the doctor moved down the line to Doris and felt around her neck for swollen glands, she took on a tone of great offence and indignation. "I hope you're giving this situation the seriousness it deserves, sir! Mister Barton, Miss Noin, Miss Schbeiker and Mister Sagheer are all very ill, and will have to be quarantined until the infection is eradicated!"

           Otto lowered his eyebrows, less than convinced. "Mm."

           Sally stepped back and addressed all the ladies at once, going straight over the house steward's head. "Ears open, everyone!" she commanded, clapping her hands. "You all check out fine, but this whole house could be riddled with germs! It's imperative that you disinfect everything, and boil all the laundry before one scrap of it is used again! Scour all the pots, steam the floors, clear out all the ductwork and all the furnace grates..." She went on at them for about five minutes, going into a detailed list of symptoms they had to watch for, and if any of them showed the slightest hint of illness, they had to scrub harder. Afterwards, the ladies fell all over her with breathless thanks at being saved from a fate worse than the black death.

           After the lecture, the girls scrambled off while Dr. Poole calmly packed up her Gladstone bag and buttoned her fern green jacket. Otto sidled up to her, hands clasped behind him, and hovered over her shoulder as if unwilling to let her escape unchallenged. "So...this 'Swahili Flu' of yours..."

           Sally had sensed from the beginning that Otto wasn't buying any of her verbal snake oil, that he vaguely suspected the whole issue was a farce to give three of his staff some unauthorized time off, but it mattered little. "Yes?" she cooed sweetly, snapping her bag closed.

           "All kidding aside, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that if any employee of mine is found to be off the job for fraudulent reasons, that job might not be there when they get back." He leaned into her slightly, all bearish and menacing. "Understood?"

           The doctor looked up with a heavy-lidded smile, laughed quietly once through closed lips, and dipped a hand into the pocket of her dress. "I've never been one to brag, especially about social matters, but I do have a lot of friends. One of them works at the Times." She pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which she opened up and fawned over slightly. "He's in the typesetting department, and he gave me an advanced proof of an upcoming advertisement. It's very interesting."

           She passed the paper back to Otto, who knotted his eyebrows up as he read it. It was the first ad for Sutherby Hotel, the Peacecraft's new business venture, around which there was supposed to have been a tight net of security until the official opening. Unfortunately, that net didn't extend to third-party 'friends' who worked in the typesetting department. Otto glowered.

           "One of my other friends," Sally continued, fixing her feathered hat in place with a long pearl-headed pin, "works for the government. He's a health inspector." She turned around and looked Otto in the eye while she pulled on her white gloves, smugly. "The first few months can be absolutely critical when you're starting a new business, especially in food service and hospitality, and nothing will sink a newly-opened hotel faster than an unfavourable report from the health inspector. It could be anything...a bit of spoiled meat in the kitchen...a loose guard rail on a balcony...even a tiny little mouse running down the hall," she said, miming a scurrying motion with one hand, just before narrowing her eyes. "Sometimes it just depends on how hard the inspector inspects."

           Otto leaned back. He fought like mad to keep it from showing on his face, but somehow she had the entire Peacecraft empire over a very uncomfortable barrel. In a sudden panic, he considered tattling to Milliardo about this threat to their success, but worried that the blame would boomerang back onto his shoulders, one way or another. In the brief moment when he might have salvaged some dignity by saying something sharp and witty, he ended up saying nothing.

           Sally picked up her bag, smiled, and patted him on the cheek. "Take your vitamins," she purred in a sultry rasp before walking away.

           After levelling poor Otto's ego, Doctor Poole showed herself out of the house and walked around the corner where her four desperately ill Swahili Flu patients were waiting by the side of the road with their suitcases and wearing their travelling clothes. She stopped next to them, and all five shared an aura of crafty self-satisfaction before turning and heading in the direction of the nearest train station together without exchanging a single word.

**********

           Duo stared deep into the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet for a long time, until he could feel the murderous rage seeping out from under the mask of pleasant confidence. It was a difficult thing to perfect, but he was finally able to exude the icy presence of death while looking sweetly amicable, an unearthly combination that he very much liked. Once he had drunk his fill of the sight, he opened the cabinet door.

           The first part of their plan was all about stealing Heero back from Jeffrhyss' clutches, but when that was over, the second part would take on utmost importance. It involved securing a safe place for him to stay while he recovered, and making him as comfortable as possible. Before Duo could leave London, he had to collect everything of even the smallest value out of the room above Catherine's pub. It was a difficult task; he had been purposely avoiding looking at any of Heero's things because it was just too painful.

           One by one, he gathered the meagre belongings into Heero's weathered old suitcase. A toothbrush. A small pair of scissors. A pocket-sized comb with one prong missing. A bottle of cologne, one-eighth empty. A nearly-new shaving brush and straight razor--despite their age, neither of the boys had been able to grow any substantial whiskers yet. A blue face flannel. A water glass.

           He lingered awhile, then moved back into the main part of the room, adding some of Heero's clothes from the modest chest of drawers in the corner. With each article he chose, he stopped to hold it up and wonder how much it would hang off his emaciated companion.

           ...if he's still alive, he thought reflexively. Then he scowled, balled up the shirt he was holding and threw it on the bed. Quit doing that! You heard what Sally said...it won't be life-threatening for weeks yet. Somehow, that wasn't much comfort. He sat down on the bed and sighed.

           Almost as an afterthought, he tugged open the drawer of the bedside table. Inside were a few more items, like a small wind-up clock with an alarm, a bottle of sleeping pills, a old dog-eared issue of "Chamber's Journal", and Heero's little stuffed tiger toy. He left the pills and the magazine, but took the other things, turning the tiger over in his hands and smiling. Tucked into the toy's back was the scrap of colourful woven cloth that they still hadn't found time to have evaluated. There was always one more act of vacant, meaningless maintenance to get done every day, and never enough time for what should have been infinitely more important. Duo sighed and put the tiger and the clock into the suitcase, but when his hand brushed accidentally against the little bottle of cologne, he couldn't squelch his sudden desire to pick it up. Before he could stop himself, he had opened it up and inhaled the vapours deeply. As soon as the familiar musky scent hit his brain, he instantly regretted it, and fought back tears as he quickly replaced it.

           Then he huffed out an angry breath and squared his shoulders. What, are you a baby or somethin'!? Grow up! Crying like a little girl isn't going to accomplish anything!

           While he waited for a response from himself, the chiming of Catherine's grandfather clock one floor below shook him awake. It was ten o'clock. If he didn't get moving, he'd miss the boat.

           He hurriedly finished packing and bolted downstairs with the suitcase, plus his own carpet bag filled with essentials, and grabbed Catherine by the arm while she was heavily occupied pulling pints behind the bar. After a brief whisper in her ear, the pair of them ducked into the kitchen area for a chat. "Got something for me?" the proprietress asked with gleeful anticipation.

           Duo had the suitcase in one hand and the carpet bag under the same arm, leaving the other free to dig around in his pocket for an envelope. Once he found it, he handed it over. "That was as much as I could scrape together," he admitted blandly. "Should be enough for both rooms for the next few weeks...I'll wire you the rest when I get some more."

           Catherine gave him a tight-lipped and very sympathetic smile as she took the envelope in one hand and rubbed his arm with the other. "There's no rush, really. You guys have been some of my best customers for a long time...I just hope it all blows over soon."

           "Thanks," Duo sighed, preparing to lie just a little bit. "You know how it is with family...they've only gotta say 'boo' and off you go..."

           "Well, I think it's very nice of you and Wufei to go with him," she said, sounding like a mother hen praising her chick. "He needs the support at a time like this."

           Duo nodded sloppily, not liking the icky feeling that developed in his stomach as his body started to reject the lie. "Yeah." It wouldn't do to have half of London know Heero's private business, and that's exactly what would have happened had he told the absolute truth. Just as Duo looked up, Yasmeen passed by with a platter of fish and chips bound for table twelve, and shrank guiltily away from his gaze. He looked down, supposing that Quatre's sisters knew at least that Heero was in some sort of trouble, and that they felt a tiny bit responsible, as if siding with Relena meant siding against him. At no point did Duo ever think of accusing them, or of laying a single ounce of blame at their feet, but the rift was still there, and they were all putting more energy into hiding it from Catherine than they were into resolving it.

           "Anyway, don't let me keep you," Catherine said cheerily, patting his shoulder obliviously while she put the envelope away in her apron. "And you tell Heero for me that I hope his mother's feeling better soon."

           Forcing a slight smile, Duo nodded and let her walk back to the bar to serve another customer. There was still one more piece of baggage he had to pick up, so he left the bags hidden behind the counter and jogged back upstairs to fetch it. Without knocking or accouncing his presence in any way, he marched down the hall, burst through Wufei's door, dragged the boy up out of his chair by a firm hand on the arm, and steered him downstairs, oozing more and more authority with each step. Wufei did not protest. He didn't look pleased either, but he silently obeyed, clutching his own suitcase with his free arm and staring down at the floor for much of the journey. The pair paused at the bar so Wufei could pick up an extra suitcase, and then Duo scooped up his carpet bag and led the boy out like a naughty child on his way to detention. They took the next train to the pre-arranged meeting place, and not a syllable was uttered between them the entire trip.

**********

           Though Eton was a very exclusive school with a limited number of students, the headmaster wasn't expected to deal with every disobedient student personally. Every rule had its exception, of course, but the miscreant in question would have to be particularly unruly and disrespectful to merit a disciplinary meeting with the top man of the institution. Byron was just such a student.

           "Well!? What have you to say for yourself!?" A grayish, balding man with round spectacles and a long black mantle leaned over his desk in the cherrywood and green carpeted office, propped up by both sets of clenched knuckles and furiously demanding answers out of the blond lad seated opposite him.

           Byron looked quite smart in his neatly pressed school uniform, and didn't seem a bit bothered by the predicament he was in, having been hauled in to answer charges of cheating on tests, rampant absenteeism, and just mouthing off in general, to name a few. He had tied together the ends of a long scrap of string and was calmly playing Cat's Cradle as the headmaster railed at him. Eventually, he looked up with a blankish expression. "I'm sorry, what was the question?"

           The headmaster straightened up quickly with a frustrated grunt. "You see!?" he barked. "This is precisely the sort of disrespectful and lackadaisical behaviour about which your professors have repeatedly complained! As if it wasn't bad enough having less than 40% attendance, you will insist on being flippant and belligerent with your superiors! Well, it won't wash, young man! Any more of it and you're out!"

           Byron kept looking down at his string game as he lazily rearranged it on his slender, nimble fingers. "Sooo...you want to expel me?" he said, following it with an elongated pause. "Because if I leave, so does my sponsorship money, you know that, don't you?"

           The balding man bristled. Byron delighted in knowing he had perhaps the finest school in the country wrapped around his little finger. It was ludicrously easy to funnel some of Jeffrhyss' money into Eton in the form of generous under-the-table grants to the faculty, thereby ensuring him a top-quality education, at least on paper, no matter how badly he screwed up. He could be as slothful as he liked, spending the bulk of his time on his continued effort to take over Jeffrhyss' empire, and still graduate with honours without hardly ever having to set foot in a classroom or crack open a single book. It was the sweetest deal he'd made yet.

           "Mark my words, Mister Schaeffer," the headmaster snarled, leaning forward again, "mere money will only get you so far in life. We both know that you haven't the class or the breeding to fool the rest of the world...so you'd damn well better pick your feet up!"

           Just then, there was a gentle rap at the door. The headmaster seemed more than happy to answer it, rather than keep arguing with Byron and hand over the rest of his professional dignity on a silver platter. Byron paid him no mind as he stalked out from behind the massive desk, and went on with his string game, until a voice from out in the hall wafted in. "I'm so sorry to disturb you," said a soft, sweet voice like a white dove's coo, "but I'm looking for a young man named Byron, and I was told he might be taking classes here. I'm afraid I don't know his last name..."

           The rest of her words bounced right off Byron's ears; they were superfluous anyway. He sat straight up, twisted around in his chair, and caught a glimpse of an angelic, fair-haired girl in a cream lace dress through the slanted window of the half-opened office door. His eyes lit up. The Peacecraft girl! He studied her face in more detail during the brief conversation. Ring-a-ding-ding! Why, Heero, you old dog...you were very naughty, keeping her all to yourself.

           Having given ample audience to the girl's request, the headmaster stepped aside and pointed her into his office. "Be my guest," he crooned with cloying misery, grateful to her for taking the boy off his hands for awhile. "See if you can talk some sense into him."

           Sensing that she was coming in and the old fuddy-duddy was going out, Byron sprang out of his chair, untangled the string from his hands and stuffed it in his pocket, smoothed out his hair, straightened his suit, checked his breath, and finally sat on the corner of the desk with one leg slung over the other, leaning languidly on one arm. You snooze, you lose, pal. She's mine now! he thought lasciviously.

           Relena entered the office with moderate confusion, looking back and jumping slightly as the door was slammed shut behind her. Drawing her satin shawl a little closer from the coldness of the headmaster's departure, she turned to the desk and stopped suddenly again, fighting to keep any visible evidence of surprise from showing. That face...I know it from Morocco! He made a speech about Lord Jeffrhyss' accomplishments...I can't let on that I've seen him before. She tried to look indifferent. "You're the infamous Byron, then?" she supposed out loud.

           "Well, I wouldn't say infamous," Byron said with a toss of his head and a flattered chuckle. At least, not yet. He slid off the desk, reached out for the girl's lily white hand and bent down to kiss it gallantly. "Enchanté, mademoiselle. Byron Schaeffer, esquire, at your esteemed service. It's not every day I get a gorgeous blonde hot on my trail...to what do I owe the honour?"

           Relena ignored the crass and innuendo-laced compliment and took back her hand. "I've been trying to track down Lord Jeffrhyss," she said. "People tell me you're his right-hand man."

           "And why would the baby sister of young Master Peacecraft want to talk to a wrinkly old codger like him?" Byron purred back in a husky tone, raising an eyebrow.

           At first, the girl blinked at being recognized, but soon it made sense. She was a target from the very beginning, when Heero was sent to cozy up to her, so obviously she had a file with the organization. Folding her hands and glancing to the side, she steeled herself for the opening volley of negotiation. "I'll come straight to the point, Mr. Schaeffer. I know that a young man named Heero Yuy was kidnapped by Lord Jeffrhyss. He used to work for His Lordship, and I believe he was...repatriated recently." That was a bit of a bluff, as it was just an educated guess on her part.

           Byron scrunched up his pale, thin eyebrows and folded his arms. Now, how did she find out? I hope I haven't got a leak already... "Go on."

           Relena involuntarily wrung her hands a little. Once I start this, I can't take it back. I just pray that Milliardo never finds out. "I've come to bargain for his safe return."

           A multitude of negative emotions fluttered around Byron's head. He frowned a bit and shifted his stance. Alright...he's still got some kind of hold over her, but I'm sure it's nothing a steak dinner and a bottle of Cabernet won't fix... "I wouldn't put too much credence in wild rumours like that," he suggested, attempting to throw her off the scent. "And if there had been such a kidnapping, I'm certain I would've heard of it by now."

           "Don't be so quick to assume I'm wrong," she answered, half smiling and half scowling. "Maybe, just maybe, your employer knows something you don't."

           Byron grinned slightly and swivelled his eyes upward, tapping his upturned mouth with one finger. "Hmm...cosmically, yes, I suppose he does," he mused out loud, revelling once again in a private joke. "So let's suppose my employer does have this...Yuy person in his custody. What precisely do you expect me to do about it? Subordinates like myself don't have much say in these matters."

           Relena took a deep breath and slowly let it out again. "I...can't offer very much in exchange...I'm sure His Lordship is very wealthy, and couldn't possibly benefit from any monetary compensation...all I really have to offer is information."

           "...such as?"

           ".......the name of the anonymous applicant whom my brother represents."

           Byron's eyes lit up. "Now that...might be worth something," he said, stepping back to lean against the massive desk again. And I'll have to make a good offer on it. "Unfortunately, His Lordship's schedule is rather difficult to squeeze into at the moment, so I couldn't possibly say when you could have an audience with him.....but if you were to tell me the name, I would relay it to him as soon as I was able."

           "And then he'd let Heero go?" the girl begged anxiously.

           "My dear," Byron sighed, "these matters are very complicated. Releasing a prisoner without official correction involves ratifications, formalizations, reprobations, declassifications and immunizations." The stream of nonsensical double-talk worked a treat, leaving Relena totally bewildered and open to the very fiendish idea he'd just had. He smiled thoughtfully. "Unless..."

           Relena nearly leapt on him. "What?"

           "Oh, nothing, just a thought.....it occurred to me that it might be easier to simply hand you Mr. Yuy's papers of ownership and have done with it, assuming of course that this person is actually in custody. I could take your information back to headquarters, and you could have his contract in a matter of days. It would save a small mountain of paperwork for us, which is always a good thing." He ended the speech with another snakelike smirk, knowing that in a few weeks' time, Heero would be dead, and his ownership papers would be worthless.

           Relena naively thought this was the best solution. "Oh, if you could do that for me, I'd be eternally grateful!"

           The lad continued to smile cattily and re-folded his arms. "I'll have to have the name first, of course," he prodded after a short silence.

           At last, Relena balked, stopping to consider exactly what she was about to do. She imagined that everyone with even a little clout in the Cinq Association was chomping at the bit for the name of Milliardo's mysterious master. Whoever found out that person's identity first would be made doubly powerful, and might even have the power to influence the voting, when the time came. Giving the name away up front, to one of Jeffrhyss' lackeys, based solely on the promise that better things would come, was a highly risky move of which her brother would never approve, but the more she worried about Heero, the more she was convinced it was the right thing to do. Clutching bunches of her shawl in both hands, held tensly up to her waist, she took a step forward, leaned in close, and whispered the name into Byron's ear.

           When she stepped back, the boy appeared lost and frustrated. "You can't be serious."

           Relena looked down. "On my father's grave, I swear it's the truth."

           "Well. That is interesting." Byron looked to his right and gnawed on the inside of his cheek while he thought it over. Eh...I suppose that does deserve me keeping my end of the bargain. At least I'll still look like the gracious one in her exquisite blue eyes. He nodded slowly. "I'll get you your ownership papers..."

           The girl inhaled with an excited shudder. The deed was done. Out of a delicate beaded handbag hanging off her shoulder from a thin silvery strap, she took a little embossed linen business card and held it out. "Please have them sent to this address, marked 'Personal'," she said. "And no copies, understand? The originals."

           Byron took the card and flicked up an eyebrow at it. "But of course." She would likely have to make do with the originals anyway, as the copies had previously been stolen from the archives.

           There seemed to be little more to say. Relena nervously untangled a few strands of hair from her ear and gave a quick "Good day to you" before letting herself out solemnly.

           Poor lovesick creature, Byron chuckled inwardly. Never mind, dear...you'll forget all about him in time...with a bit of help, naturally. For the next little while, he amused himself with his lewd imagination, daydreaming about what it would be like to slowly break down her starchy Victorian defenses and ultimately possess her, a pretty new toy to add to his collection of wenches. It could also prove to be a very clever move, strategically. Sun Tzu was right, he chuckled inwardly as he left the room, twiddling her card between his fingers. Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.

           Wasting no time, the various members of Duo's newly-adopted team followed a strictly-laid-out schedule for leaving London, heading into the Southlands, and catching the ferry to France. It was a spot in the mountains, partway between the borders with Italy and Switzerland, that Wufei eventually pointed out on the map, once he was sobered up and shamed into doing so. Not willing to take any chances, Duo checked in on him hourly until it was time to leave to ensure that he never left his room unaccompanied. In spite of all his slacking off and backtalk in the past, Wufei had somehow become the most critical member of the team.

           The trip to the shoreline of England was uneventful, and very little was said amongst the seven young men and women even as they had their passports checked before boarding the ferry. On the boat itself, a lumbering bi-level beast about thirty years past its prime, they scattered themselves on the various rows of benches provided for those passengers who weren't interested in leaning over the siderails and enjoying the scenery, such as it was. The exception was Trowa, who sat outside the area enclosed in wood-framed windows, perched on a wooden crate. The rest kept to themselves, blending in among the other passengers so they could be alone with their thoughts.

           After the first fifteen minutes of pacing around at one end of the sitting area to avoid two businessmen smoking cigars at the other, Lucrezia got bored and wandered over to a random bench where Duo had slung his feet up on the back of the bench in front, ignoring the disapproving glares of the other passengers. She dat down next to him, slumping backward. "Not really how I imagined my life turning out by this point," she grumbled, half to herself after awhile, "twenty-something with no husband, no prospects, no home...sat freezing out on the open water on a boat to France to do battle against organized crime..."

           "Yeah, funny how things work out," Duo replied with thinly-veiled sarcasm. "By now I thought I'd be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I'm just kicking myself now!"

           Lucrezia glowered. "None of what's happened to you, or Heero, or anyone else prevents me from having problems of my own!" From the dark teal bag on her arm that matched her favourite dress, she took two small envelopes, one open and one sealed. She swapped the sealed one to the front and stared at it. "I wrote my family a letter...the first one in three years...and now I can't get up the gumption to mail it. If I do, they could start looking for me again, and if they find me.....I don't know..."

           Duo swung his feet guiltily off the bench in front of him. "...sorry." He fully understood her underlying anxiety that her overly-possessive brothers would 'persuade' her to return home if they knew where she was.

           "I don't really know why I wrote it at all," she went on. "Maybe...maybe finishing with Milliardo left more of a gaping hole than I expected." The corners of her mouth turned up with a quirky twitch, and she tapped Duo lightly on the shoulder. "But I shouldn't be burdening you with my troubles."

           The boy shrugged. "What's one more?"

           Lucrezia nodded with resignation while swapping the positions of the envelopes again, so that the opened one was visible, and then took out of it the cryptic note she had found earlier. "Well, no matter how bad things get, I'm clinging to this for dear life," she declared, unfolding the note and running an eye over it yet again. It was the short 'I told you so' sort of thing that was addressed to Jeffrhyss and signed simply 'G'. "I know I've got a father of my own, but...Giorgenson felt like a father too, for awhile. If there's one chance in a million that he wrote this note--"

           "Look, I don't wanna see you get your hopes up," warned Duo. "That 'G' could stand for anything, and nobody would love to find the old coot alive and well more than me, but I'm not betting money on it." Suddenly depressed, he shoved himself up off the bench and raised both arms over his head. "Gonna go for a stretch," he muttered before wandering off. He didn't look back to see what Lucrezia thought of his comments.

           She let him go just as blithely, having worries of her own with which she didn't want to burden him at this stage. Ever since she got up that morning, and all the way to the docks, she had the innate feeling that she was being followed, but not once when she turned around to look could she see the source of her anxiety. Even then, as she sat on the boat surrounded by only her closest allies, she still felt eyes upon her, upon them all. She shivered and rubbed one arm vigorously, vainly trying to put the nervous thoughts out of her mind for the rest of the journey.

           Off to the side a short distance, Duo ambled around the seating area, about thirty feet by fifty feet with a wooden plank floor completely saturated with the surrounding salty atmosphere, until he landed at a window and peered out at the English Channel. It was a dull, lonely place to him, even though there was ample sunshine, brisk sea air, and plenty of other boats passing by. He had the sense that he'd feel completely alone in a mob of ten thousand well-wishers. Without Heero, it would be meaningless. He leaned his head against the window and sighed with his whole body, silently.

           "Have you got change for a penny?" Sally's voice crooned sarcastically from behind him. "Because I'm not paying full price for thoughts that do that to a person."

           Duo slouched around in a circle until he was facing a bench behind him and slightly to his left. Sally's eyes were diverted down to a piece of needlework fixed into a set of wooden embroidery rings, and she was slowly and calmly pulling a needle laden with pale blue floss through the taut fabric. A small sewing basket sat next to her, containing all the supplies she needed for a dozen cross stitch samplers, to keep her occupied during dull moments. Duo stuck his hands in his pockets and walked a few steps closer, but did not sit down. "Can I pay you to take 'em away?"

           The quip left Sally's face unchanged. "Sit."

           "I don't feel like sitting."

           "You don't have to feel like it, you just have to do it." Unexpectedly, she leaned sharply to her right, grabbed him by the braid, and yanked on it. Duo went down with a little yelp of pain, but sat as instructed. Then the doctor returned to her needlepoint. "There is absolutely nothing else you can do that hasn't been done, not until we get there, and certainly not in the middle of the Channel. So just sit."

           Duo sat and sighed, but before long, his right knee began to bob up and down like a bubble on the rolling surf as his foot twitched impatiently. "I hate sitting. I hate not accomplishing anything. I haven't been able to really relax since..." He closed his eyes, exhaled with great discomfort, and shook his head. "Don't tell the others...but I haven't got a plan at all. I'm just making this up as I go along, and once we get there, I don't know if I'll have the faintest idea of what to do next. It seems so stupid to be in a hurry to screw up, but I just wanna get it over with! I wanna get in there and smash everything I see, and cut every last one of them to ribbons!"

           With a thoughtful look, Sally put down her project. "You know what I think a certain someone would say if he were here now?" she asked. "He'd say, 'Don't jeopardize the mission by letting your emotions cloud your judgement. Try to separate what you think the enemy deserves from the bare minimum of what needs to be done to get what you want.' Otherwise...mistakes happen." She paused to let the first bit sink in. "And the second thing he'd say would be 'Sit down and shut up before I tie your hair around your mouth and dangle you overboard by the feet'."

           That got a light chuckle out of him. "Yes, he'd want me to concentrate, yes, he'd want me to relax...I'm just not sure if I can do it."

           Struck by a glimmer of inspiration, Sally opened up her sewing basket and fished out some supplies. "Well, if you really can't relax on your own, maybe you'd like to try some embroidery instead!" she cooed with sugary sweetness as she sifted through her cross stitch patterns. "Here's one of a country cottage, here's one of Baroque cherubs, here's one with frolicking bunnies..."

           Duo squirmed.

           "Oh, this is the one for you!" Sally exclaimed, holding up a magazine page with stitch counts and a black-and-white drawing of the finished product. She smiled. "Kittens in a basket."

           Her icky femininity had exactly the desired effect on Duo, who backpedalled like his brakes had failed on a downward slope towards a pool of pirahnas. He put on his cheery face. "Y'know what? I'm feeling a lot more relaxed all of a sudden! Matter'fact, I feel great! Tremendously super! Boy howdy! I'm just going to go over here now..." Then he leapt up and practically ran to the exact opposite corner of the seating area, farthest away from the needlepoint. Sally smirked to herself, and returned to her craft.

           Quatre, who was in the opposite corner to which Duo ran, had heard a little patch of the boy's raised voice but couldn't tell what he was saying. The cloud of frustration that swirled around the ex-chef grew stronger as he approached, and struck Quatre with a slight wave of nausea as he sat down. It wasn't helping the already-seasick lad, and he curled up into an even tighter ball, bent over his knees and holding a little vial of peppermint oil to his nose, inhaling the vapours in short spurts. Duo frowned sympathetically and gave him a little pat on the back. "Y'okay?"

           Looking slightly green, Quatre's head swayed a bit to the side before tilting ambiguously. "I've never.....been a very good sailor," he managed, pausing in the middle to swallow down something bitterly unpleasant that crept suddenly up his throat.

           "Aw, well...only about fifteen miles to go."

           The blond boy just nodded, rocked backwards with a little belch that he trapped in his handkerchief, quickly replaced the peppermint vial, then glanced out the window. It was just outside this spot where Trowa was sitting on a crate on the outdoor portion of the observation deck. Quatre was never quite sure what to say to Duo lately, as he didn't know what to make of him anymore. They twiddled their thumbs in complete silence until Duo leap-frogged around Quatre on the bench so that he was wedged in between the gardener and the window. Most of the windows at that level were meant to open, though few of them did due to their frames absorbing years of excess moisture and swelling shut, but Duo managed to force the nearest one open, yanking the sash from left to right and poking his head outside. "How's the cargo?" he asked.

           Trowa had been lost in his enjoyment of the seascape, but turned around when he heard the window open. "It's resting comfortably," he said, rapping his knuckles on the crate beneath him.

           "So since you're the only one who knows how to hook it up, you and Hilde will be on the same team, right?"

           "Right," Trowa agreed with a quick nod. Then, seeing Duo and Quatre sitting so close together, he got an idea. Convinced that his friend still had a spot of lingering paranoia about Duo and Heero, he set out to gather evidence to the contrary. "Say, um...as soon as Heero's well enough," he said with a cagey smile after making pointed eye contact with Quatre, "what d'you think you'll do to celebrate his freedom?"

           Duo blinked innocently. "Dunno. Haven't thought about it."

           Trowa shrugged. "Go for a few drinks maybe, hit some of those posh places in the west end, meet some unattached girls..."

           The second Quatre realized what was happening, he leaned forward and sank his head into both hands.

           "You know, I heard about this one place," Trowa barreled on, leaning closer to the window and upping the excitement level in his voice as if he was sharing a dynamite secret, "it's a snooker club with a saloon, and while all the men are in the back room playing each other for penny bets, all their widows sit out on the terrace and get plastered! I bet they'd love to meet you two and let you entertain them for an evening..."

           To Quatre's utter shock, Duo and Trowa grinned at each other and then started a locker room snicker that built up to a moderate crescendo and then calmed down again, leaving behind a residue of toothy smirks and knowing glances. "That's, um...that's a thought," Duo admitted.

           "Sure it is!" cawed Trowa. "I can see the pair of you there right now, with a blonde on one arm and a redhead on the other..."

           Maybe it was the stress talking, but it actually sounded good to Duo. "Well, we just might take you up on that," he said just before the pair on either side of him locked eyes intensely. Then Duo slung an arm around Quatre's shoulders, dragging him up and forcing him to smile weakly. "Maybe we could all go, the four of us!"

           Seeming satisfied with his detective work, Trowa went right on smiling. "Sounds great."

           "Only the four of us?" Quatre pointed out, glancing uncomfortably to his right.

           Duo followed his gaze, and his eyes landed on Wufei, who was on the far opposite side of the same row of benches, hunched over a drawing pad and scribbling with a pencil. "Let's see if he comes through for us before making out the guest list," he grumbled. "Which reminds me...I'd better see how our resident artist is doing." His mood dampened, he stood and walked away, leaving the other two to clear up a little disagreement.

           Before Quatre could express how embarassing the last five minutes had been, Trowa leaned his head right through the open window, gripping the bottom of the sill with his left hand. "Well?"

           ".....well what?"

           "Did you get anything?"

           Quatre slumped. "I wasn't trying to get anything off him...unlike you."

           "I went to a lot of trouble thinking that up!" whined the stable hand. "You're still hung up on this wacky idea that him and Heero are a couple of weirdos, and I wanted you to see how ridiculous it is! All that talk about getting drunk in a bar full of semi-detached women who wish they were single...I just said that so you could judge his reaction! If he really was...'odd'...then it would've been a total turn-off, right?" He waited just a moment. "So, what did he think?"

           It was all too ludicrous for words, but Quatre didn't see an easy way out of it. He slumped a little more and looked away in defeat. "I think he liked it."

           Trowa was triumphant and it showed. "There. You see? There's absolutely nothing wrong with him. You and your dumb ideas..."

           Quatre reached over and shoved Trowa's head back out the window, then shut it, then locked it. Hypocrite...

           Blissfully unaware of how deeply he was being discussed, Duo had prowled over to Wufei's bench and sat down a couple of feet away, close enough to look over his shoulder, but not 'chummy' close. Wufei turned his head slightly to see who it was, but then quickly returned to his work. Through several bouts of intense questioning, the group was able to slowly extricate from his drug-addled mind some very precise details about Jeffrhyss' primary headquarters. To atone for his past sins, he was given a pad of paper, a set of pencils, and a sharpener, and was told to draw as much as he could remember of the layout in the form of sketchy maps. A short pile of papers sat between the two boys on the bench; Duo picked up the top sheet and looked it over carefully.

           "Wow...you're quite the little artist, aren't ya?" he said humourlessly, but with definite scorn. "You know there's a bunch of doors on here and nothing behind them, right?"

           Wufei's eyes gave a mighty roll. "I wasn't given the grand tour," he sneered, concentrating on his current masterpiece. "You're lucky I can remember as much as I have. I was only there for a few weeks."

           Duo looked up, eyes blazing. "Well, these had better not be semi-educated guesses!" he said in a commanding tone. "I'm staking the lives of my whole team on knowing where to be and when, and if you can't give me accurate layouts, somebody might get hurt!"

           "Might get hurt?" Wufei said with obvious sarcasm, finally lifting his head to look the other in the eye. "What does it matter? You're all dead anyway."

           Sensing another of his self-important tirades coming, Duo folded his arms and leaned forward menacingly. Somewhat threatened, Wufei backed off a little, looking back down at his sketch pad, but the damage was already done, and Duo wanted to draw him out of his cave and beat him for it. "Oh no, please, I'd love to hear your childish whines of negativity! Do continue!"

           Wufei's head bobbed back up tiredly, and he gave him a snide glare, hanging his arm off the back of the bench. "Once I hand over these maps, I'm considering my debt paid and getting the hell away from all of you. This whole mission is a death-trap. You're all going to be killed in action because this is the most reckless, foolhardy, egotistical thing you could ever possibly do. Nobody carries out a head-on assault of a base this size without bringing along their own coffins."

           The ex-chef squinted. "Oh, I get it. 'If Heero was here,' we'd all be a lot better off, because you don't think I'm up to the job!"

           "I don't think either one of you are up to the job!" Wufei laughed bitterly. "This is suicide, don't you get it!? It doesn't matter who's in charge, the whole team's gonna be carried out feet first! Hope you can sleep at night if you survive!"

           "There's no way I'm letting you off that easy. You're coming with us. You're going to do what you're told, or I'll put your ass in a sling so fast--"

           "Oooh, you think you and the other Merry Men can catch me without Robin Hood giving the orders?"

           If Wufei had left that alone instead of waggling a limp-wristed hand at Duo while saying it in a scared little chipmunk voice, the unpleasantness that followed could have been avoided. Duo lashed out and cuffed him sharply about the ear, causing him to drop his sketch book and let both fists fly. A simple verbal skirmish soon escalated into a fierce brawl that had heads turning all over the ship. While they both managed to stay on their feet, they each had their arms locked in a death grip around the other's neck as they tried to wrestle each other to the ground. Within seconds, they were pulled apart by a mish-mash of passengers and team members amidst much shouting and commotion. The combatants were less than satisfied, but several strong words from Sally in particular convinced them to go to their separate corners and stay there for the remainder of the trip. It was all over in the blink of an eye.

           Lucrezia watched with a bored sigh from her perch several benches away. This is a disaster in the making, I can feel it. She tried briefly to dstract herself with her letters, but it didn't last long, and she turned her gaze to the windows instead.

           And there, just barely poking out behind some wood panelling, was a face, looking in the window to see what all the ruckus was about, and then tilting to accidentally peer directly at her. As soon as eye contact was made, the face quickly disappeared, but not before Lucrezia got a good long look. She rose slowly from the bench, clutching her letters closely. It had been a man's face, clean-shaven, underneath a navy blue sort of brimmed cap, like part of a military uniform. She had seen that cap before.

           Losing no time, she hitched up her skirts and shoved her way past a couple of passengers to get to the glass enclosure door, and flew through it, nearly pulling it off the hinge. Outside was decking that wrapped all the way around the enclosure, and at the four corners were staircases down to the next level of decking, at water level. Here she bumped into members of the crew and more passengers, and looked in every corner she could get to without going through doors marked "Crew Only", but couldn't find the man in the blue cap. She stopped at the railing to think and catch her breath, peering over the edge at the water rushing by.

           ...I could swear that was the same uniform worn by the men chasing after Heero.....they're here, on the ferry. They're following us.

           Lucrezia turned around, curled one hand around the railing, and thought. Then, for reasons she would keep to herself, she went quietly back upstairs to the enclosure and sat down, never mentioning anything to Duo about the men in blue uniforms. Perhaps she feared looking foolish if it turned out to be a coincidence, but there was no way to know for sure.

           The rest of the journey to France was made without incident.