All the Gundam pilots except Duo were gathered around a table, deep in discussion. A discussion which began shortly after Heero arrived at their hideout one morning with an unconscious Duo in his arms. Quatre was frantic with worry, Trowa raised an eyebrow and Wufei was annoyed by the way his routine morning meditation was interrupted. All three of them demanded an explanation – an explanation which Heero was willing to give only after Duo rested soundly on a bed.

"What happened to Duo?" demanded Quatre.

"I have no idea," Heero replied truthfully. "I found him at the underground Oz base located below the school in which both of us were assigned to infiltrate."

"Both of  you?" It was Trowa's turn to speak. "Then you should know how he ended up there."

"He infiltrated the school before me. He..." Trowa noticed that Heero's hands had clenched into fists. "...I didn’t know that he was in the school until my commanding officer told me. By then, Duo had already been taken captive."

"Nonsense!" interrupted Wufei bluntly. "Don't tell me that you were totally unaware of his presence in that school before you were informed."

Heero squashed down the irrational urge to use his tightly-clenched fists on the Chinese boy. "I was unaware that Duo had dressed himself up as..." Heero paused as a thought suddenly occurred to him. The embarrassing fact of Duo cross-dressing could be used as his bargaining chip with Duo to make sure that the American pilot would not reveal his embarrassing pursuit of 'Katherine' to the others. Duo would never let go of this chance to make fun of him.

"You were saying?" asked Quatre, who had started waving a palm in Heero's face.

Heero rudely knocked away Quatre's hand, ignorant of the sullen scowl which appeared suddenly on Trowa's face. "I was not able to see through his disguise."

"That must have been quite a disguise, to be able to fool even you," said Trowa, his face resuming its usual expressionless look.

"It does not matter how effective his disguise was or why I was not able to identify him," said Heero grumpily. "I don't even see the point of continuing this discussion if we don't stick to what is important."

"Okay, then tell us what is important," said Wufei impatiently.

"I was about to do that before all of you started interrupting." Trowa, Quatre and Wufei opened their mouths to retort but thought the better of it and kept quiet. "Thank you. As I was saying..." Heero told them all about his encounter with Shang and how the mysterious boy had helped him and Duo to escape. Half an hour passed before Heero finished telling his tale.

"Why would this... Shang... help the two of you if he is a lieutenant in the Oz army?" Trowa voiced the question which was in all their minds.

"We'll just wasting our time speculating about this. We can get the answer from Duo once he wakes up." Wufei stood up and left the table. "Call me when that happens."

"But..."

"He's right, Quatre. There is no point in discussing further..." Trowa was cut off by a blood-curdling scream which caused the fine hairs at the back of his neck to stand on their ends. Even the long bangs covering his face were threatening to defy gravity. It came from Duo's room. 

Without exchanging glances, the four boys ran towards the source of that scream with Heero in the lead. They burst into the room to find Duo thrashing about on his bed, his eyes still tightly shut. His hands were frenziedly clawing the air around him, as if fighting off some unseen monster.

The violence of his movements kept all of them at bay until Heero could stand it no longer and made a grab for one of his flailing arms. Although Heero managed to pin Duo's right arm down on the bed, the other arm was free to inflict damage. Heero was brutally scratched in the face, neck and arm before he lost his temper and slapped Duo's face. "Wake up, you fool!"

Awakened by Heero's slap, Duo's eyelids flew open. Heero saw only fear and shock in Duo's eyes before those same eyes rolled upwards in a dead faint. Duo stopped struggling and became as limp as a rag doll under him.

"Oh great," drawled Wufei. "Was it really necessary to scare him to death in your attempt to wake him up?" 

"And I suppose YOU can do it better than me?" snapped Heero, his expression extremely unfriendly.

"The answer to that is obvio..."

"Will both of you please stop arguing this instant!" pleaded Quatre. "Something had obviously happened to Duo when he was held captive to cause him to behave like this."

"But he showed no signs of physical torture," noted Heero.

"Did you check thoroughly?" asked Quatre. The blonde pilot gently pushed Heero off the bed to examine Duo's condition.

"Thoroughly?" repeated Heero, and felt heat rising to his cheeks. Wait a minute...Why should I feel embarrassment here? "I based my assumption on the absence of wounds on his face and arms."

"That's definitely not thorough enough," said Quatre, and began to remove Duo's shirt.

"Are you planning to undress him right now?!" exclaimed Heero, scandalized. "In front of all of us?!"

"Is there anything wrong with that?" asked Quatre innocently.

Heero could not explain his reluctance to have anyone else privy to the sight of a shirtless Duo. He also could not explain his desire to perform the stripping job himself. But it would appear very strange to the others if I volunteer to do the check-up on Duo. The realization of what he was thinking hit him and Heero nearly screamed I'm no pervert! aloud.

Trowa, who had been watching Heero closely, suggested, "I think it is better for us to leave this room and let Quatre do the checking alone. Duo deserves at least that amount of privacy."

"I couldn't agree more," said Wufei, and left the room as if he was eager to be off. 

Trowa had to drag Heero out of the room. After closing the door behind them, Trowa said only two words to Heero ‘Balcony. Talk.’ before walking away. Heero followed the silent boy and stood beside him at the balcony overlooking the crystal-clear lake outside. Both of them placed their crossed arms on the metal railing and neither spoke for some time. The silence was finally broken by Trowa.

"Spill it." Trowa was never a person who wasted words.

"Spill what?" asked Heero, acting dumb.

"You are hiding something from us. The information you're holding back maybe crucial in finding out what happened to Duo."

"I'm not holding back anything." Feeling that Trowa was unconvinced by his lie, he relented and said, "Fine, I admit that I am hiding something but that something is not important."

Trowa shook his head and said softly, "You are not being honest with yourself, Heero."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" asked Heero crossly.

"You know what I mean." Trowa left Heero alone to his thoughts. Heero continued to gaze at the lake outside, making no move to follow the other boy this time.

* * * * * *

It was dark. The air was bad, like the stink of rotten flesh. His head felt awful and It was after him. Duo moaned silently as he struggled away from the dark and back toward the light. It was closing in on him and It wanted to hurt him really bad. It chittered at him, like evil, scraping claws on harsh metal. Duo whimpered in fear, searching blindly for something, someone. There! Far away, far, far away like a beacon. A blip of light. The light beckoned him and he crawled towards it. It was afraid of the light. It would not get him if he could just get to the light. The beacon flared and light streamed steadily towards him. The light bathed him with a warmth that made him feel safe. The light radiated from an angel. An angel with hair of gold and a mouth which spoke warm, soothing words to him. "Rest..." The angel slowly withdrew and the light along with him. Duo desperately caught hold of the angel. Don't leave me! Please! Stay with me!

"Stay... with.. me..." murmured Duo in his sleep, clasping Quatre's hand tightly in his.

"I am here, Duo. Don't worry." Quatre dabbed off the perspiration on Duo's face with a piece of cloth. "Rest now."

A smile formed on Duo's lips and he went back to sleep, secure in the thought of his angel watching over him.

* * * * * *  

Unexpectedly, Heero turned out to be the most eager of them all to find out Duo's condition. The Wing Gundam pilot had quietly entered Duo's room alone to ask Quatre about his findings, nearly frightening Quatre out of his wits by his sudden appearance.

"There is not even a scratch on him. Everything appears normal except..." reported Quatre, after he had overcome his surprise.

"Except?" asked Heero with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

Anxiety? Heero? No, it must have been his imagination. Quatre continued, "Duo has a lock of white hair in his fringe. I'm not sure whether this is significant."

"White hair?" Why did this fact bother him so much? Then it occurred to him. "Shang has a lock of white hair too."

"But what can this mean?" asked Quatre.

"I don't know..." At that moment Duo stirred under the blanket, his unintelligible sleep mumblings began forming coherent words. The American pilot was finally regaining consciousness and all Heero could think of was how to get Quatre out of the room so that he could have a private talk with Duo. "Quatre, you'd better call the others now. I think Duo is waking up."

Quatre nodded and went out to call Trowa and Wufei. Heero quickly closed and locked the door before turning his attention back to Duo. By then, a pair of violet eyes was already staring at him. Those eyes still registered fear and this caused an unexplainable mixture of anger and sadness to well up inside him. Heero made no attempts at being gentle when he approached Duo and grabbed the boy's collar roughly. Heero pulled Duo's face close to his so that the intimidating glow pulsating in his eyes filled Duo's entire vision. "Listen to me very carefully. If you breathe one word... just one word!... to the others about how I had chased Katherine's skirt around that school, I will make you wish you've never been born."

Heero released Duo and waited for his response in order to gauge the effectiveness of the threat. He was flabbergasted when huge dollops of tears poured out of Duo's eyes. And not only was there torrential tears, Duo was also... crying?!... so loudly that it sounded like a whooping cough. Heero was so stunned that he did not hear the banging on the door by the other Gundam pilots. After convincing himself that Duo was just pretending, Heero ruthlessly roared, "I am sick and tired of your silly tricks! Can't you be serious for once in your life?!" Duo bawled even more loudly. The sight was so pitiful that Heero began to doubt that Duo was acting.

The door was at last forced open by a well-aimed kick from Wufei and the other three pilots rushed into the room. They became as stunned as Heero when they saw Duo.

Wufei remarked, "Well, at least Duo is still alive. From the volume of the racket he's making, I thought that Heero was killing him."

Quatre shoved Heero out of his path as he made his way to Duo's side. Heero meekly gave way as his mind was still too numb to think properly. "Duo! Please calm down! It's me, Quatre."

Duo stopped bawling and looked at Quatre as if his saviour had arrived, his tear-streaked face forming an expression of unadulterated adoration. "Angel..."

Quatre nearly toppled onto the floor in his shock. Something was definitely abnormal about Duo. "Duo, are you alright? Please don't scare me like this."

"Duo... why do you keep calling me that, Angel?" asked Duo in serious tones.

"Because that's your name...why? Don't tell me you've forgotten your name!" Quatre’s voice took on a hysterical edge. "And my name's Quatre, not Angel! Don't you remember?"

"I can't..." Duo winced from the pain that lanced through his skull when he tried to think.

"Amnesia," observed Trowa.

"No, it can't be!" Quatre gestured to the others. "Duo, you do know who they are, don't you?"

All of them watched silently as Duo studied each of them in turn. He lifted a hand and pointed at Heero. "Stoneface."

Heero responded to that insult with a lunge but was restrained by Trowa from behind. "Don't take offence," advised Trowa.

Duo's pointing finger shifted to Trowa. "Broomhead."

The vein near Trowa's temple bulged but besides that, there was no change in his facial expression. He let go of Heero and patted his back encouragingly. "Go ahead."

"Only childish people are offended by childish name-calling," commented Wufei sardonically.

"Yellow Monkey."

It took the combined efforts of Heero, Trowa and Quartre to prevent Wufei from bludgeoning Duo to death with his nunchakes. Quatre shielded Duo with his own body, compelling Trowa to deflect Wufei's blows from Quatre using only his bare arms while Heero had Wufei in a headlock. Duo snuggled closer against Quatre and purred contentedly.

                                                                                                                             < To Part 6 >