The heavy clouds that coated the sky on the Monday after prom were not doing much to lighten Dorothy’s foul mood. It was bad enough that the whole weekend had passed without so much as an inkling of change to Meilan’s bad condition (a story that had morphed into various versions and was being passed around the school like fire), but she was near her wit’s end in regards to one Relena Darlian-Peacecraft.

Slouched in the corner of her history class, near the window, Dorothy split two slats of the blue, plastic blinds hanging over the glass and peered out over the school yard. Sitting at a picnic table underneath the biggest tree in the quad was the object of her affections and woes. Dorothy certainly couldn’t deny that she was deathly fascinated with Relena, somehow entranced by her ambition, her leadership qualities and her fair looks. But on the other hand, Dorothy was forced to admit that she was slowly getting fed up with some of Relena’s lesser qualities, namely her continued smear-campaign against mutants. From what she had heard from Trowa, Relena owed a lot to him and Quatre, but if anything, her distaste for mutants had become even more intense. Dorothy supposed that it was some form of post-traumatic reaction to the slaughter she had witnessed at Quatre’s hands, especially considering the murder-victim, scum-bag or not, was someone she had considered an odd sort of friend.

“Hm, why can’t you just look at the real world and understand,” Dorothy muttered, her eyes narrowing slightly as Relena turned in the general direction of the classroom Dorothy was spying from. “Things might have been a lot different if Q hadn’t done what he did, and I can’t say you’d like it.” She shook her head, wondering if it was all just a hopeless cause.

She continued to watch, ignoring the history teacher as he droned on about some nonsense that happened in the early twenty-first century until the bell rang loudly, signalling the end of class. The blinds snapped back into their usual, horizantal position as Dorothy quickly removed her fingers from between the slats and hurridly gathered her books together.

“Why is it that one hand wants to strangle that girl,” Dorothy thought aloud to herself as she shuffled out the door of the classroom, “but the other one just wants to stroke her cheek?” Dorothy re-evaluated her prior statement about Relena being a lost cause, amending it to include herself as one such case too.

She was so absorbed in her musing that she wasn’t paying even the slightest attention to the things going on around her. Students milled and wove through the halls as they rushed to their next period, but Dorothy was blissfully unaware of any of it. That is, she was until she found herself walking right into someone who seemed just as dazed and confused as she was. Books and paper went flying everywhere as Dorothy crashed into the other person. Still somewhat lost in her head, Dorothy automatically stooped down and started to gather her things, only realizing that she had just collided with none other than Catherine Barton when she raised her chin and was prepared to stand up.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Catherine said quickly as she and Dorothy got to their feet, books and belongings all in hand once more. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was heading.” She seemed a little nervous and put-off, like her mind was far more distracted than she wanted to let on.

“It’s nothing,” Dorothy brushed it off easily, readusting her load of books in her arms as her frosted, blue eyes darted about the hall. “If you’re really out there, you should probably go to the infirmary to lay down or something. Or maybe just a quick break to talk to someone.... You know, to kind of... unload your head.” Dorothy smiled as genuinely as she could, though there was a certain curl to her lips that made her look sinister anyway.

“Yeah, yeah.... Maybe that’s a good idea,” Catherine was mumbling to herself as stared at her prim, black shoes. Her curly bob of dark, cinnamon red hair bounced around her cheeks as her head moved about in search of a place to rest. “I have physics now,” she was saying to the floor, “but I don’t think I could concentrate on it anyway, considering my day.”

“Then skip it. No one’s going to kill you for missing one day of science,” Dorothy suggested with a carefree shrug. Noticing a bench wedged between two sets of lockers, Dorothy grabbed Catherine’s hand and led her over to it. “I have lunch now and nothing to do. Sit down and talk.” She assumed a position on one end of the bench and dumped her books on the floor by her feet, her misty eyes darting between Catherine and the empty place beside her expectantly.

“But class....” Catherine protested futiley. For someone who was usually very well put together and always looked gorgeous, Catherine was an absolute wreck that day. Even though her clothes and her hair were still in model condition, there was a certain, worn look in her eyes and a crease to her lips that made her seem terribly beat.

“Look, sweety, you are clearly not up to sitting through a class without your mind exploding. The sciences classes aren’t even down this corridor,” Dorothy said bluntly as she pointed in the direction Catherine had been coming from when they’d crashed. “Sit down and take a breather for God’s sake!”

“O-okay,” Catherine mumbled, delicately setting her books down on the bench as she sat down beside Dorothy. Though Dorothy was more of a ‘floater’ as far as social ciricles went, it was still a little strange to see one of the most popular girls in school sitting with her. Dorothy could be a little eccentric and a little imposing to people that didn’t know her particularly well.

Dorothy smoothed a fly-away strand of long, blond hair back down and said smoothly, “Now Miss Catherine Barton, please tell me why you’re in such a funk.”

“A... A funk?” Catherine stuttered, as if she didn’t know the term.

Dorothy’s shoulders slumped as she reiterated in a somewhat harsh voice, “Yes, a funk. You know, like a space cadet. A daze.”

“Oh, right,” Catherine said with an embarrassed flush. Twisting a slim finger around one of her thick whirls of reddish hair, she explained her troubling day. “Relena’s gone off her rocker. I mean, you ask me about being in a funk, but you should really be talking to her,” she said. “Ever since prom, she’s been on the strangest kicks. Like today, she’s been waving around that newspaper article from the weekend all over the place--”

“Which article?” Dorothy asked with a sharp frown, cutting Catherine off.

Tugging hard on the curl of hair she was nervously toying with, Catherine said, “You know, that one that’s going on that Quatre Winner is some kind of mutant, psycho serial killer. Short, shy, little Quatre Winner? I don’t believe a word of it, and she’s pressing it for truth, saying that all mutants ought to be put away or killed or something. I mean, even if Quatre did do something terrible, that doesn’t mean that all mutants are bad, does it?”

“And that bothered you?” Dorothy assessed plainly, meeting Catherine’s eyes.

“Well, sort of, yes,” Catherine said, hanging her head. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but my brother is a mutant and... well, I just couldn’t take her saying things like that. I mean, he’s my brother. I could never think of doing something as radical as... as killing Trowa, even if he was a bit queer!” She sniffled a little, like she was on the verge of tears.

Dorothy was silent, unsure of what to make of Catherine’s story. She didn’t know if Relena’s actions or the fact that they really didn’t make much of a difference in how Dorothy felt about the towheaded girl was worse. It was something Dorothy would have to think more about when she had some time to herself.

“I... I punched her,” Catherine said softly, drawing Dorothy from her silent thoughts.

Dorothy blinked at Catherine, not quite computing what had just been said. “Excuse me?” she wondered incredulously, not quite able to imagine someone like Catherine laying a right hook on anyone, especially her best friend.

“I said I punched her,” Catherine repeated in that same, quiet tone. “She was just saying all this bad stuff about mutants, and I couldn’t stop thinking about my brother, so I just wheeled my fist back and laid it on her. She’s been snuffing me ever since, but to be honest, I don’t really care.”

“When did this happen?” Dorothy asked, twisting her body in Catherine’s direction. She was entranced by this story and wanted to hear more. “Tell me everything about this fight! I can’t believe I missed that!”

“Why do you care?” Catherine queried.

Dorothy hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to say without making the converastion awkward. She settled on as ambiguous a comment as she could think of on the fly. “Because I... care about Relena, and I don’t want to see her do these delusional things. It’s gotten her in trouble once, and it will continue to do so if she doesn’t get a grip on reality.”

“Why would you care about a... a bigot like her?” Catherine wondered, a wounded snarl crossing her lips.

“Why were you her best friend until today?” Dorothy returned calmly, carefully masking her confused emotions. “There are no bad people,” she told Catherine, “just bad choices. Relena is on the verge of making another bad choice.”

“What do you mean by that?” Catherine’s balled up fists were sinking into the depths of her corduroy skirt. “Relena’s very smart. She knows how to manipulate a crowd.”

“I never said she wasn’t smart, but you can be the most brilliant person ever, and that wouldn’t make a difference if you don’t think things through. She’s clearly not thinking of the repercussions of her actions,” Dorothy countered quickly, tucking one foot up underneath herself as she shifted into a more comfortable position on the hard, wooden bench. “I mean, honestly, do you think that Quatre Winner is one to stir up trouble?”

Catherine swallowed and tossed her head slightly, as if in thought. “Well... no, not really,” she said.

“Look,” Dorothy said, her voice dropping very low as she leaned in closer to Cathering and beckoned her to do the same with a curling motion of her index finger. “If you ask your brother about what happened prom night, I’m sure he’d tell you that Quatre was indeed responsible for some of the trouble there, but it was all in a moment of insanity and self-defense. Relena’s gone through quite a bit of trauma, and she probably needs some professional help to deal with the incident....”

“So what are you saying?” Catherine wondered in a harsh whisper. “Do you mean that Relena’s out to get Quatre? Like revenge or something?”

“In the very simplest of terms, I suppose that’s what you’d call it,” Dorothy replied. “Mixing what she saw Quatre do and her predisposed bias against mutants is only an excuse to press that bias on the students even more. Perhaps it’s her way of dealing with shock, or maybe she’s just that good at winning a crowd. In any case, she’s drawing lines, and the school--no, the whole town--is going to be divided over it.”

Catherine made a low, growling sound in the back of her throat. “She deserved that punch,” she said darkly. “I only wish I could have hit her more.”

Dorothy said nothing to this, as she could most definitely sympathize with that undying urge to deck someone who was really being a pain. She was glad she was having this conversation with Catherine though; it seemed like Catherine might prove to be an ally in the end.

“But really,” Catherine went on, crossing her ankles, “do you think that Relena has that much influence? I mean, it’ll just be a few fanatics who’ll listen to her raving.”

“She’s president of the student body for a reason,” Dorothy said bluntly. “If she can convince enough students of her opinions, they’ll go home and influence their families, who will branch out to the people they know.... It’s a huge, giant loop, especially in a little place like this.”

“It sounds like fascism to me,” Catherine muttered with a frown. “It’s been the last straw with me. I’m sick of her constant self-righteousness.”

“Well, I’m glad you were finally able to decide that you didn’t need her,” Dorothy said quietly, for some reason finding the cracked ceiling overhead very interesting. “Truly, Relena needs someone who can sit down and give her a little comfort, help her get through the aftermath of nearly... nearly being... raped by Solo.” Dorothy swallowed, sounding a little choked. “For someone as sheltered as her, an experience like that is quite the shocker.”

“Ha, the only one that Relena would let do that is that damned Yuy,” Catherine snorted, something that seemed out-of-character for someone as preppy as she was. “And once again, she’s too caught up in her damned ideals to notice that Yuy isn’t interested.”

“I’ll say,” Dorothy murmured with a sly grin. She was pretty sure she knew why Heero and Duo hadn’t been with Trowa, Quatre and the others that night when everything had gone to hell.

“I mean, she’s even killed her chances of becoming simply his friend,” Catherine went on with a shake of her head that sent her brown curls bobbing all over the place. “But I bet even if he walked right up to her and said he wanted her to die, she wouldn’t get it....”

Raising a hand, Dorothy put a premature halt to Catherine’s rant. “Believe me, I know,” she said. On an afterthought, she added, “Though I don’t particularly think bashing mutants, specifically Quatre, is going to win her Heero’s good graces.” Tapping her lips, Dorothy pondered aloud. “Relena doesn’t know about Heero, does she?”

Catherine shook her head again. “No, she doesn’t. She was so fixated on him, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her biggest crush was also her biggest hate,” was the answer. “Besides, I doubt Heero would really want me throwing that sort of information around. He’s so private, he didn’t even tell Trowa right away, and Trowa is... well... one of those... too....”

Dorothy’s forked eyebrows dipped slightly. “One of what?” she pressed, practically daring Catherine to say something negative. Not waiting for her response, her body flickered and shifted into a carbon copy of Catherine’s, and blinked expectantly at the startled girl beside her. “One of these, you mean?” she asked in Catherine’s voice.

“Yeah,” Catherine said in a meek voice. Quickly gathering courage, she said to Dorothy, “You had better switch back before someone sees you though. Heaven knows who’s been listening to Relena and who hasn’t.”

“Point taken,” Dorothy sighed. She changed herself again, though she didn’t revert back to her normal, female form, and instead settled on the body of the fictional Zechs she masquraded as to play boys’ lacrosse. Standing up, she patted Catherine on the shoulder and said, “It was good talking to you, and I hope things go better for you today.” Taking a few steps away from the bench, she finished, “But right now, I think I’m going to go find Miss Relena and have a little chat with her.” Throwing a wink over her shoulder, she added, “Because like I said, I have lunch now, and nothing to do!”

(x) X (x)

Relena sat outside at one of the wooden picnic tables in the school yard, reading for the hundredth time the article printed on the front page of the local paper about the incident that had occurred after prom. She was glad it had ballooned into such a large ordeal, since she hoped that perhaps Solo’s death would draw attention to the unstable risk that allowing mutants to run freely presented to the general community. Though she was slightly thankful that she had been pulled out of a nearly disasterous situation with Solo, she felt that Quatre’s reaction had been ridiculously extreme, and the fact that he had apparently lost his mind did not sit well with her, which was really the heart of the issue.

“Hello,” said a voice from the side, startling Relena.

She looked up and to her left to see someone she vaguely recalled seeing on the lacrosse team approaching her from the school building. He was fairly tall and blond, and the more she thought about it, she remembered spending a good deal of time with him at a recent house party, though she couldn’t recall his name for the life of her. “Hello,” she answered with the sweet smile she used on most everyone.

“What’re you doing?” the boy wasted no time in asking as he slid onto the bench beside her. He leaned on one elbow and tried to get a look at the newspaper, which seemed to make Relena slightly uncomfortable. She inched down the bench, scooting away from him.

“I’m just looking over this article,” she announced when she settled on a spot about two feet away from the newcomer. She wondered if she could convince this boy about the danger of mutants, knowing that the more support she could rally, the easier it would be to help make her ideas a reality. “It’s the one about the mutant who went insane over the weekend.”

“Is that so?” the boy hummed, leaning on one elbow. “I don’t think I heard about that. Care to enlighten me?”

Inwardly, Relena preened, convinced that she had this boy, hook, line and sinker. “Well, you’ve certainly come to ask the right person. I was actually there, you see,” she said, daring to slide back a bit closer in the boy’s direction. Pointing to the article, she explained, “You see, this mutant went berserk and actually slaughtered a poor street kid the night of prom.”

The boy seemed disappointingly unimpressed. “And?”

“And!? And who’s to say that it won’t happen again?” Relena snapped impatiently. “You should have seen the way this mutant had snapped! He was close to rampaging against the all of us! It’s a miracle that we weren’t hurt too!”

“That’s really warped, miss,” said the boy flatly, resting his chin on the heel of one hand. “If you’re so worried about the risk of mutants going crazy, then maybe you should be the one that gets locked up. I mean, living itself is a risk, and since mutants are a part of life, I guess they’re just part of the risk too.” The boy shrugged and added, “Besides, the chances of a mutant going Zero, as they call it, is so rare, it’s almost not even worth speaking of. What you saw was a freak case.”

Relena was not amused. “Oh, like you know anything about it. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m just a soul whose intentions are good,” she scoffed. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she had another thought; “What did you say your name was?”

There was a moment of hesitation from the boy, as if he was actually thinking over the answer to the question. “Zechs,” he finally said in a hesitant voice.

“Zechs,” Relena repeated with a slight curl to her lip, her eyebrows arched.

The boy swallowed. “That’s right.”

Relena tossed her newspaper aside, rolling her eyes and letting out an agrivated sigh. “Don’t think I’m that stupid,” she said coldly. “If you thought you could pull the wool over my eyes, you’re wrong. What the hell do you come off using my own brother’s nickname for? Did you really think I’d fall for that?”

“Well maybe your brother and I are friends!” the boy snapped back, his cool demenor wavering. “That ever occur to you? Or did you think I’m not good enough for someone from your family? I use his nickname now, alright?”

Relena seemed slightly suspicious, but probably let it slide because she’d at least seen this Zechs’ face around before. “I never said anything like that,” she replied a little coldly. “You don’t have to overreact.”

“I’m overreacting?” Zechs said with an amused chuckle. “Look at you and your mutant obsession. Everyone and their mother knows that the only reason you care about mutants at all is because you have the world’s biggest crush on Heero Yuy and you’re jealous of his mutant friends. You can’t own him solely, you know.”

A sheet of red embarrassment draped itself over Relena’s face, practically screaming that Zechs had hit the nail on the head. She tried to deny it as gracefully as she could anyway, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The name Duo Maxwell ring any bells?” Zechs deadpanned. “Don’t pretend as if you like him or anything, Relena, because I know you don’t.”

“What do you know about who I do or do not like?” Relena bit back, feeling extremely cornered. She wasn’t quite sure how someone was managing to hold his own in a debate with her, but there it was. Whether this was because Zechs actually had the skill or if Relena was just handicapped by her odd frame of mind, it was hard to tell.

Zechs slapped his hand on the table and held it firmly in place as he practically growled at Relena, “Don’t insult either him or me by trying to pretend like you consider Duo a... a friend! Why can’t you get a clue and leave him alone! It’s not his fault that Heero has no fucking interest in you! Why can’t you just get over it and focus your attention on someone who at least cares!”

Her face the very picture of indignation, Relena said, “Like who? Like you?”

“Why not me!?” Zechs virtually shouted at her as he threw both his arms in the air with exasperation. “Stop peddling your goddamn, hypocritical ideals, get a clue and get a fucking life!” With that, Zechs slammed off the bench and stomped off in a rage, leaving a very muddled and disoriented Relena in his wake.

(x) X (x)

“Summertime,
And the living is easy.
Fish are jumpin’,
And the cotton is high.
Oh, your daddy’s rich,
And your ma is good-lookin’.
So hush little baby;
Don’t you cry.”

A hauntingly familiar voice flooded Duo’s mind, and in the blink of an eye, he found himself standing in the middle of a memory once again. A church Duo remembered like the back of his hand surrounded him, its simple pews and modest altar, while nothing special, the most beautiful Duo had ever seen.

From his bird’s-eye point of view, Duo watched his younger self bounced around the swishing black skirts of Sister Helen as she swept the floors, her soft, singing voice bouncing off the echoing walls and filling the church with its gentle melody. Duo remembered the song as the same one he’d heard her singing in the last dream he’d had about his childhood. Thinking back, he recalled the old showtune was her favourite.

“One of these mornings,
You’re gonna rise up singin’.
Then you’ll spread your wings,
And you’ll take to the sky.
But ‘til that mornin’,
Ain’t nothin’ can harm you,
With daddy and mama
Standing by.”

Young Duo, dressed in a long, black frock, suddenly pounced on Sister Helen, grabbing her around the knees and burying his face in her skirts. “I love you thi-i-is much,” he cried in a squeaky, childish voice. The omniscient, observing Duo winced at the high tone of his younger voice.

Holding her broom aside, the nun bent and patted the head of the child clamped around her legs. “I love you too, Duo,” she said warmly.

Still wrapped around her, little Duo went on professing his love for Sister Helen. “No matter what happens or where I go, you’ll always be my mommy, okay?” he said, looking up at the nun with large, wet eyes.

Helen said nothing in response, and simply continued patting the top of little Duo’s head, smiling sadly down at him. It was a forlorn expression that the older Duo was sure he had missed when he was a child, and only now did he realize how heavy Sister Helen’s heart was.

As the dreaming Duo watched, he began to remember the specifics of the scene before him. It had been after an incident where Duo and a friend had been playing hide-and-go-seek in the church, and they had accidentally broken the little crucifix Father Maxwell had kept on the altar. Even though Father Maxwell had been livid, Sister Helen had come to their defense and saved them both from a lot of extra chores.

Now, if Duo was correct in guessing the time and place of this particular memory, that meant that his friend would be....

“Wi-ing,” Duo called over to a previously unnoticed child sitting on the front pew. “Is Sissy Helen your mommy too?”

Wing, a dark-haired child with piercing eyes that Duo couldn’t believe he’d forgotten, remained where he was on the pew, swinging his sneaker-clad feet and staring at Duo intently. “I never had a mommy,” he said, his voice surprisingly low for such a small boy.

“Me neither, but I want one,” young Duo retorted with a roll of his eyes. “That’s why Sissy Helen is my mommy now.”

Wing cocked his head in thought, silently weighing upthe pros and cons of having Helen as a mother. This was one of the traits Duo saw reflected in Heero that often reminded him of this childhood friend. After a few moments of careful contemplation, Wing said, “But if Sissy Helen’s my mommy, you’d be my brother.”

“So?” Little Duo didn’t seem to find anything wrong with that arrangement. “Don’t you love me?”

Wing rolled his eyes, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Because Father Maxwell says that the one you love best should be your wife.”

Duo pouted, releasing his death grip on Helen’s legs and taking a few steps towards Wing, the nun’s long skirts still clutched in his little fist. “I can still be your wife if you’re my brother.” (The older Duo, as he witnessed this, felt the urge to slap himself on the forehead, and then slap his younger self across the cheek. Kids could be so stupid.)

Wing shook his head again, his shaggy, brown hair flopping about as he did. “No, you can’t,” he said. “Father Maxwell says that you can’t be related to your wife.”

Duo snorted, his eyebrows furrowing over his pert, little nose. “I don’t care. I’ll be your wife and your brother anyway.”

Meanwhile, Sister Helen was still smiling sadly at the two children, an expression that only the otherworldly, dreaming Duo could see as he watched the scene unfold before him. Duo had a feeling that she just didn’t have the heart to correct either boy. Or perhaps she was simply forlorn that neither could be her children forever.

“Say, Wing,” small Duo ventured, stepping away from Helen’s skirts, allowing her to return to her sweeping as he approached the pew where his friend still sat. “What exactly do wifes do?” He looked a little embrarrassed to be asking the question, and covered for it by rambling. The older Duo noted that he still did the same thing, years later. “’Cause I know how ta’ be a brother, but this other thing is new business ta’ me.”

Wing’s face remained impassive as Duo crawled onto the pew beside him. “A wife is someone you love more than anyone in the world,” he informed Duo flatly, as if it should have been obvious information. “You’re suppossed to love your wife so much that you want to live with them forever and ever.”

Helen interjected, explaining a little detail about wives that neither child knew. “Boys,” she said, still sweeping the floor, “a wife has to be a woman.”

They seemed a little shocked at this new piece of information. “A... a woman? As in a girl?” Duo tried to clarify, an incredulous look in his large, purple eyes. “What kinda boy would want ta’ spend his life with a girl? They gots cooties.”

“So do you, Duo,” Wing said smoothly, the faintest of smirks toying with his lips.

Helen smiled fondly and explained further. “That’s why you have to want to love your wife very much, because you’ll have to spend your life with her.”

Duo frowned at this. “Well, if I can’t be a wife, what d’ya call a boy wife, so I can be Wing’s... that.”

Sister Helen seemed a little wary, but she answered the question anyway. “A husband,” she said slowly, not having the heart to really explain what it meant to be married. As a woman of the cloth, she knew she couldn’t tell them her religion’s stance on marriage without causing one of the boys to be upset. And the last thing Helen ever wanted to see on any of her orphans’ faces was a frown.

Once again, little Duo was oblivious to Sister Helen’s emotions, which were written across her face as plain as an open book. Upon hearing that he could still be the one Wing loved best, he flung his arms around his friend with a huge, lopsided grin on his face. “Great! I can be your husband, Wing!” Then he leaned in and gave the startled dark-haired boy a big, sloppy kiss on the side of his face.

All religious principles aside, Helen found the scene endearing, and she couldn’t help but smile. Wing seemed a little off centered, but there was no sign that he was particularly unhappy with the intimate gesture of affection. Meanwhile, overhead, the observing Duo’s proverbial jaw was on the floor; he didn’t remember doing something like that. Certainly, he recalled Wing being cuddly when no one else was around, but to see himself put on such a cheesy display of affection and not get decked by his sullen, childhood friend was truly amazing.

Suddenly, he was aware of Sister Helen staring right up at him, even though he physically wasn’t a part of the dream sequence’s scene. “Duo, stop hiding” she called up at him, addressing sternly. “Duo, are you listening to me? Duo!”

Strangely, when Helen’s lips moved to form his name yet again, it wasn’t the nun’s sweet voice that came out. Instead, Duo was horrified to hear Solo’s haunting lilt snapping at him like an angry demon from beyond the grave. It became weirder and far more frightening when Solo started calling Duo ghastly names through Sister Helen’s mouth. “Did you really think it would be that easy to get rid of me, you little shit? I can’t wait until you get yours and you join me here in Hell.”

The pleasant dream had officially become a nightmare, and Duo was fighting desperately to wake himself from it. He was lost in that frightening stage of half-consciousness, where he was fully aware of what was going on in the dream and was even having coherent thoughts about it, but was unable to tear himself free and find safety in the waking world. He looked down at Helen again, just in time to see her open her mouth again as the entire scene became engulfed in flames. But this time, instead of hearing Solo’s voice shout his name at him, he heard another person through Helen. “Duo! Duo, wake up!” Heero’s frantic voice fell from the nun’s lips. “Duo!”

Duo blinked, and the next thing he knew, his eyes were snapping open to reveal the leafy canopy of foliage hanging overhead. Throttling up into a sitting position, blood thrumming through his body with an unnaturally quick pulse, Duo looked about, trying to get his bearings. He found himself underneath the biggest tree on the school’s campus, his discarded lunch a foot or so away from where he sat. Crawling around on his knees, he found Heero pressed tensely against the tree’s thick trunk, watching Duo with careful, worried eyes and looking anything but comfortable, a coiled spring ready to jump. A body print in the long grass beneath Duo told him that he had fallen asleep with his head in Heero’s lap.

“Are you okay?” Heero asked, calming a little now that he could see Duo was no longer trapped in his dream. “You were sleeping so peacefully until you started thrashing about. Then you curled into a fetal position, like you were afraid of being hit.”

Duo looked a little sheepish, knowing that those reactions had been his body’s natural defense reflexes, which had been ingrained into his nerves for as long as he could remember. Slowly, he backed up against the tree Heero was leaning against and tucked his knees against his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Even in the warm weather, he found himself shivering slightly as he rested his chin atop his knees. “It’s no big deal, ‘Ro. Just a bad dream, that’s all,” he said. Eyes just peeking up from behind his knees, he added, “Guess I shouldn’t have expected Solo to just die and leave me alone, huh?”

“Is that what happened? You were dreaming about Solo?” Heero asked, a worried expression vexing his features.

“Well, not the whole time,” said Duo. “It started out as a pretty nice dream, actually. Then, out of nowhere, Sister Helen--she was in my dream--started yelling at me with Solo’s voice, and it was scary as shit.” He shook nervously without even realizing it.

Head slightly cocked, Heero blinked softly at Duo, just watching him with his deep, espressive eyes. Then he reached out and slipped an arm around Duo’s shoulders, pulling the lacrosse manager down to rest his head on Heero’s shoulder. Smoothing Duo’s wispy bangs idly, Heero comforted his lover as best as he could.

Even with Heero’s silence, Duo felt much better than anyone else could have made him feel after such a mind-shaking dream. Inwardly, he found himself thinking how it really said something about how close Heero was to him, that they could just sit and enjoy a comfortable silence together, instead of yakking about bullshit, like so many people often felt the urge to do. He knew that well, as he was the master of filling empty air with mindless chatter at times.

After a while, Heero felt compelled to bring up the subject of Duo’s dream again. “So tell me about the happy part,” he said quietly, still stroking Duo’s hair gently, like he was petting a great, large cat.

“The happy part?” At first Duo wasn’t sure what Heero was asking, he was so far gone in the peacefulness of their embrace, and the sudden sound of a question was almost too much for his brain to handle in its current, lazy state.

“Of your dream, baka,” said Heero with a slight shake of his head, which sent his thick, brown bangs quivering in front of his shining, blue eyes.

Scratching his forehead, Duo squinted his eyes shut for a moment and tried to remember the exact details of his dream, but found he was unable to conjur up any visuals in his head. Instead, all he could remember were the feelings and particular thoughts he’d had about certain parts of it. “It’s strange,” he said, still leaning against Heero. “I’ve had another dream like this before, about my childhood. The weird part is that even though I know it’s my past, with faces and names I remember, I feel like I’m recalling someone else’s memories.”

Heero furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Duo from the corners of his eyes. “What?” he questioned, sounding a little wary of the statement.

Duo sighed, not quite sure how to even explain it himself. “I mean, the things I dream about are things that I never really remember myself, until at least halfway through the dream, that is. And I somehow know they aren’t some conjured thing my mind made up about my childhood, but I still feel like I’m not dreaming my own dreams. It’s really messed up.”

“Maybe you are developing a psychic mutation?” Heero suggested.

“Maybe,” Duo repeated slowly. “Though somehow, I kinda doubt that one.”

Slouching further against the tree, pulling Duo’s lax, gangly frame with him, Heero said, “Even if they are trying to tell you something, I think you’re thinking too hard about these dreams, Duo. After all, that’s all they are: dreams. They’re not real, and they rarely mean anything to someone without a precognitive ability. You’re probably still in shock about this whole Solo thing.”

“Only not!” Duo protested, breaking free of Heero’s grip so he could crawl around to sit on his haunches in front of his Japanese lover. “I’ve been getting these dreams before Solo got killed, and they’ve never had anything to do with him before! This was the only time Solo’s insesrted himself into one of these dreams, which, yeah, I admit is probably related to his death. But usually they’re happy things!”

Heero ran a hand through his messy hair, wrinkling his nose at Duo. “If they’re good dreams, then what are you upset about?”

Duo sighed, deciding it was a lost cause to even try to continue the conversastion. “I don’t even know myself, so how could I start to explain it to someone else?”

“Hn,” Heero grunted with a nod, the curt noise his own way of ending the conversation. Folding his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow, Heero let his eyes slip closed and allowed himself to relax. Under normal circumstances, Heero was extremely skittish an didn’t like falling asleep in places he could be easily snuck up on or startled. But with Duo sitting hardly two feet away, Heero felt comfortable letting his guard down. More importantly, he trusted Duo enough to do this only when he was around. Trust: now that was something that Heero rarely gave out, but once he did, it was a loyal trust that would only be revoked in the most extreme of situations. Heero had to admit it was a nice feeling to do so once more.

Suddenly, his hair-trigger sense became aware of movement other than Duo’s in the general vicinity. Snapping his eyes open, Heero found himself looking over Duo’s shoulder as a familiar face from the lacrosse team came stalking over towards their tree, calling for Duo’s attention. Much to Heero’s surprise, however, as the boy he knew as Zechs neared, the male student suddenly contorted in mid-step, changing into the blond female he knew as Dorothy Catalonia. Though his face remained neutral, Heero was surprised to see that all this time, his male teammate had been a female shape-shifter. More specifically, that Zechs turned out to be Dorothy, of all people. But by the look on her face, Heero could tell that letting her secret slip was the last thing on her mind at the moment. He wondered what had upset her.

“Duo, there you are!” she was saying as she stomped across the grass and plopped down next to the confused-looking mechanic. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and I swear to God, I’m going to go insane. Simple insane, I tell you!”

Heero watched on without a word.

“What’s wrong, Dotty?” Duo asked, turning his body so he was sitting catty-cornered to both Heero and Dorothy. “Someone tie your panties in a knot?”

“Yes!” she hissed with a trace of bitterness. “That stupid wench is trying to peddle lies about Quatre and mutants and all kinds of crazy things! She’s lost her mind.”

At last, Heero spoke up, his curiousity winning out over staying out of a conversation that he was not a part of. “Who’s lost her mind?”

“Relena,” spat Dorothy, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at the ground as if she was trying to burn holes into the soil with her eyes. “Tro and Q save her from getting raped, and this is how she repays them!”

“People react to different situations in many ways. Rape can do weird things to a person’s mind,” said Duo quietly, his tone solemn. “You never know what kind of after-effects have been working inside her.”

“Since when did you take her side?” Dorothy asked incredulously, a displeased expression on her face.

“Since when did you not?” Duo returned automatically, his voice somewhat defensive.

“Duo does have a point,” Heero spoke up, somehow knowing that Duo’s comment went far deeper than it seemed. Heero had a feeling that Duo was probably speaking from personal experience, and judging from Duo’s character and how he operated, he was willing to guess that Duo had employed some defense mechanisms of his own due to personal trauma. “A person like Relena probably has idea how to cope with something so drastically different than what she’s used to.”

“A rape is hard for anyone to deal with,” said Duo with a slight frost to his tone.

“Yes, but this is Relena,” Heero countered. “Something as mentally scarring as that is probably near impossible for her to deal with. I’m not surprised she’s acting strangely.”

Dorothy let out a small snort. “She’s not acting strangely; she’s acting like a vindictive bitch. Do you know she wants something bad to happen to Q? The one who stopped Solo from doing something terrible to all of them?” A painful-looking frown creased Dorothy’s mouth as she glowered straight ahead, her hands fisting the grass on either side of her. “In her fucking mind, Solo can do no evil, and even though he was out to hurt her, he’s the one earning her sympathy because he’s dead!” Nearly chewing her bottom lip off in frustration, she added, “For God’s sake, she’s calling him a martyr for humankind against the mutant race! Bitch!”

“If it bothers you so much, why don’t you go do something about it, instead of coming to complain to us,” snapped Duo, who was more than a little annoyed that his private moment, alone with Heero, had been interrupted for something like this.

“I tried that,” Dorothy moaned, bringing her hands up to her face to rub tiredly at her skin. “I just ended up getting more angry.”

Heero shrugged and closed his eyes again, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Why bother getting so worked up about it?” he wondered. “It’s not worth the trouble to waste your energy on someone if she’s going to act that way.”

Dorothy looked down at the ground, suddenly finding the patch of dirt beside her very interesting. “I... I can’t help it,” she mumbled almost incoherrently. “I’m worried about her, too. I wish I could somehow help her see how the real world is, so she’s not always blinding by her silly, pink illusions. She could be such a wonderful person if she just didn’t live inside her bubble.”

“So can a lot of people,” Heero commented, cracking one eye open enough to make his blue iris visible as it rolled over in Duo’s direction. “People never just are what they seem to be. Everyone, even a person like Relena, has got layers to peel off.”

Meanwhile, Duo had sprawled himself out on the grass, his back molded against the contours of Heero’s leg. Large, violet eyes blinking across the school yard, he found himself wondering how things had gotten so out of hand with a mere snap of the fingers. He sighed, wondering how they would get Quatre out of the mess he’d gotten into simply for being selfless, as he was prone to do, and if Trowa was going to be okay handling it all. He thought about Heero and all the strange, loose-ends that seemed to be tying into larger, more sinister things, all of which seemed to be interconnected. And then there was Wufei, practically at his wit’s end with worry about Meilan and her unchanging condition. There was so much, and here, Duo felt so small.

“Poor Q,” Dorothy sighed, practically latching onto Duo’s train of thought. “I sure wish there was something we could do to help the little guy out. He probably has no idea what to do with himself either.”

“Yeah,” Duo sighed, distracted still by his wandering mind.

“Should we visit him or something?” Heero suggested, absently reaching down to toy with Duo’s hair again. “I’m sure it would mean worlds to him if even one of us managed to see him.”

Duo let out a low groan, rolling more on his back, so he was wedged between the ground and Heero’s leg. “Trowa tried that already, remember? They wouldn’t let anyone go.”

“Who said we had to ask anyone if we could or not?” Heero asked, his voice even and calm, as if what he was suggesting was as casual and easy as walking across the street. Fingers curling behind Duo’s ear and toying with some of the rings piercing it, he went on, “Surely someone with skills and a mutation such as yours should find sneaking in somewhere particularly easy.”

A shocking laugh rattled Dorothy’s throat, which she covered behind the back of her hand. “And here I was thinking you were so clean-cut, Yuy,” she said when she finally managed to calm down, placing a hand on each knee and leaning forward. The smirk on her face was positively dangerous.

By this point, Duo had sat up and was leaning against the tree again, his shoulder pressed against Heero’s. “Let me get this straight,” he said, gesturing with his other arm. “You want us to sneak into the police station when no one’s looking, somehow get back to wherever they detain people just to see Q? And not get caught? Are you kidding, ‘Ro?”

Heero shrugged, clearly not seeing Duo’s point of view. “I don’t see why not. Quatre is our friend, and he deserves to know that we’re still there for him,” he argued. “Besides,” he added, a smirk teasing his lips, “since when were you afraid of a thrill?”

Combined with that damned expression on Heero’s face, the comment drove Heero’s point home. Eyes shifting to the right, then the left, as if trying to make a decision, Duo finally relented. “Well, damn, Heero, you sure can negotiate. Okay, we’ll do it.”

Dorothy was watching them carefully from her position across from them. While she had always had her suspicions about how Heero and Duo felt about each other privately, she was not aware that they had ever made good on those internal feelings. But judging by how close they were sitting to each other, as well as the fact that Duo had yet to threaten, maim or act in an otherwise defensive manner towards Heero, she was pretty sure something had changed between them.

“When should we go?” Duo asked, blissfully unaware of Dorothy’s thoughts. Though Duo personally thought that he and Heero were doing a good job of not making their relationship front-page news, he probably would have been very surprised at the number of people who knew anyway. Duo had no idea how obvious his happiness was whenever he was around Heero.

“As soon as possible, I think,” answered Heero. “We don’t know what plans the authorities have for Quatre.” As if he were simply thinking out loud, Heero added almost offhandedly, “I could probably look it up in their databases myself....”

A sudden, brilliantly careless idea popped into Duo’s head, and he perked up considerably once it entered his mind. “Dude, let’s just totally bust Q outta there ourselves!”

Heero’s head whipped around, a shock rounding his slanted, Asian eyes. “Duo, that’s pushing it a little far, don’t you think?” he asked skeptically.

“Hey, if we’re gonna go through all this trouble, we might as well,” Duo protested with a toss of one hand. Bouncing down onto all fours, he crawled around Heero and positioned himself over the Japanese youth’s outstretched legs, his nose just inches from Heero’s. “With the way things are going, something totally unfair might happen to Q! We should make sure he gets out of this mess okay. He doesn’t have anybody else to do this kinda stuff for him!”

Heero cocked his head with curiosity, a silent invitation for Duo to go on.

“I mean, come on,” Duo continued. “With Q having a total asshole of a parent that disowned him because he’s a mutant, the only people left are us, his friends! If we don’t stick up for him, no one else will, believe me, ‘Ro.” A pleading expression dampened Duo’s face as he searched Heero’s face with quivering eyes. “Come on, please! For Tro! For me!”

Whether it was the look on Duo’s face or the the fact that this had suddenly become a personal request, Heero found himself relenting to Duo’s begging. Before he even realized it, Duo had leapt on him, flinging his long arms around the lacrosse player’s neck and planting a sloppy kiss on his mouth. “Jeez, Heero, you sure know how to come through, too!”

Behind Duo, Dorothy smirked knowingly and got up to go find Noin.

(x) X (x)

Meanwhile, in another part of town, the old man known as Dr. J was just closing the door behind Mueller. With a disturbingly dark grin on his face, Dr. J took Mueller’s tweed coat and cap and hung it on a hook by the door and invited his new, personal lackey to sit down at the kitchen table. “How are things going?” he asked the White Fang boy as he went to the counter to pour Mueller a mug of coffee. (Coffee, he had found, was one of those rare food items that made for good bargaining chips when he wanted something from his White Fang acquaintances.)

“Ain’t so bad, but I been better,” said Mueller as he sat down and kicked his muddy shoes up onto the seat of one of the table’s other chairs.

“So you’ve been doing as I told you?” J queried, nearing the table with slow, clunking steps, the mug steaming in the hand that wasn’t wrapped tightly around the round top of his cane. “You’ve been giving her the drug?”

“Every evenin’, all week,” said Mueller, his eyes trained on the mug in J’s hand. With a shrug, he added, “You’d think it’d be harder, but naw. Alls I gotta do is show up at the tail-end o’ visitin’ hours and shoot th’ stuff into th’ tube-thing, just like you said to.”

“So no problems then?” he said, setting the mug down in front of Mueller, who set upon it like a a rabid, hungry dog.

“Easier’n shootin’ heroin, and without th’ trouble of havin’ t’set up,” said Mueller just as he was about to take a long sip of coffee. “Say, doc,” he went on, not noticing the pained expression steeling J’s gnarled features, “what’d you want me dopin’ the girl up for again?”

“This is a chance to interviene with the situation and turn all the tables against your flaxen-haired murderer,” said J calmly, truly hoping that Mueller hadn’t done anything to screw up his plans. With a wicked grin, he added, “Is that not what you wanted?”

“Well, yeah,” said Mueller with a shrug. The look on his face suggested that he still did not quite understand what J’s plan could possibly do to exact revenge on the mutant who’d killed Solo.

“You told me that there were four other people there that night, correct?” J asked with a heavy sigh. He had explained this twice before to Mueller, and he was growing tired of having to repeat himself. But he quickly reminded himself that keeping Mueller convinced of his plan would be vital to getting that blond mutant into his hands.

“Yeah. Th’ mutant an’ the girl ‘ad two buddies, an’ then there was that rich, towheaded chick that Solo liked t’carry ‘round like a pet. She’s th’ one who called up the coppers. Said she was scared shitless by th’ mutant’s outburst,” said Mueller slowly, his eyes watching J’s wrinkled, old form carefully. “That’s what it said on th’ radio, that they’d all been some school thing or somethin’.”

“Right, so you can assume that those three who were with the mutant and the girl will stick together no matter what, correct?” J pressed, his metallic claw of a hand clinking against the cheap plastic of the tabletop.

“Yeah....”

“If everything goes right, and we can get that other girl, the towheaded one who was aquatinted with Solo, to speak in our favour, it will rouse a lot of people against mutants, don’t you think?” J explained slowly. His dark glasses masked the impatient glare he was shooting in Mueller’s direction. “With the right action, we can make it seem as if the Chinese girl--”

A light of malicious understanding lit up Mueller’s beady, little eyes. “Ooh, okay, I get it,” hummed. He took a long, congratulatory sip of coffee. “So how’re ya gonna get that other bitch ta be on our side?”

“We’ll work on her in good time,” said J, that evil grin returning to his face. “All in good time.”

(x) X (x)

a.n.: Chapter title’s a tune by the Rolling Stones and the insert song is from Gershwin’s Porgie and Bess. (Janis Joplin does a mean rendition of it, though ^__^) Sorry it’s gotten a little... far-fetched; I am not kidding when I say that this thing totally mutated and took on a life of its own.

And PS: the number of reviews is absolutely insane and amazing. It means that you either a.) have nothing else to read (which is sad) or b.) just really, really like it! You have no idea how your constant feedback and critisism has kept this bad boy chugging along. Do keep it up, and I promise you shall not be disappointed! Or, at least, I hope not!