Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine, never has been mine, and never will be mine, but I can dream!

By Crystalite

Part Four

Catharine tucked the blanket around Chibi-Heero's small body. He was fast asleep on her couch. Catharine smiled. He was incredibly adorable asleep like that.

She sighed then, turning to the window. It was getting dark out and the guys hadn't come back yet. A few stars gleamed in the night sky and the crescent moon was so slim, there would be a new moon in a few nights.

She stared out at the moon when suddenly a pair of headlights blinded her. She shielded her eyes and heard the sound of a car door slamming. She could hear feet pounding the driveway and a knock came at the door.

Opening it she found a slightly out of breath Quatre. "Oh, hello Quatre." She greeted him.

Quatre forced a small smile. "Good evening. Sorry we're late, we got stuck in traffic." He apologized. "Was Yokiu any trouble?" There was a hint of fear under that question.

Catharine shook her head. "No, he was no problem at all." She smiled.

Quatre looked sincerely relieved. "I'm glad. Where is he?"

Catharine stepped aside so that the blond could see into the house. "Asleep."

Quatre tried not to look amazed. "How did you get him to....???"

Catharine smiled. "Little boys always fall asleep with a full tummy...and the fact that he tired himself out helped too."

Quatre nodded, mentally storing that tid bit of information away incase something should ever happen again....which he hoped it wouldn't. "Thank you again, you've been a great help to us." He said, his voice coated with sincerity.

Catharine's smile grew a tad wider. "It was nothing really." She backed up and picked Chibi-Heero up, cuddling him in her arms before handing his slumbering body over to Quatre. The teen took the boy and gave one last thank you before carrying Chibi-Heero to the car.

"He's asleep??" Trowa questioned when Quatre joined them in the car. "Cathy didn't read him a fairy tale did she?" The was a trace of worry in his voice.

"No, she said he tired himself out." Quatre assured him.

Duo grunted. "Of course, he can only tire himself when *I'm* not around to enjoy it!" He gave a discussed look.

Quatre choked back his laughter. "Well as soon as we get home he'll be back to normal and you won't have to worry about it."

Duo suddenly gave him a strange look. "Maybe...." His voice was so soft Quatre almost didn't hear him.

"N..Nani?(1) What do you mean?" Quatre returned his odd look with a confused gaze.

Duo met his eyes and Quatre saw a mixture of sadness, confusion, and doubt. "I guess I should let you guys in on something." He started slowly.

There was a long pause as the others waited for him to go on. "Yea.... and....?" Wufei prompted.

Duo said nothing but instead reached into hammerspace(2) and somehow managed to pull out the book he had *ahem* BORROWED from the museum. "I found something as well." He said, his manner suddenly gloomy.

The other three pilots, excluding Chibi-Heero of course, stared at Duo. "You found a book too." Trowa said in his soft voice. It was a statement, not a question.

Duo nodded. "Hai(3) I did."

There was another long pause as they all tried to decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Finally Wufei said, in a very un-Wufeish(4) way, "That must be a good thing, at least if one book doesn't have the answer, the other will, I mean, might."

No one had anything to say to that and soon they were pulling in the drive way of the rented house. Quatre carried Chibi-Heero in and laid him on the couch. The boy rolled over onto his side so that his back was to them and slept on while the others engaged in a (dusty) search to decide which was the correct book.

It ended in Duo and Wufei searching through both books to prove the other wrong. Wufei found the desired spell, er counter-spell and , seething, Duo admitted defeat. Well to be perfectly honest, Duo didn't admit defeat, he didn't say anything actually... just kinda got mad.

Anyway, another debate started, this time over who was to cast the counter-spell. That argument ended pretty quickly when Trowa jumped in and decided that since Duo cast the first spell, HE could cast the second spell.

"That doesn't mean a thing!" Duo protested. "It was a freak accident! I didn't know it would work! And besides, who died and made you god?"

"No one." Trowa responded in his usual clam tone. He flopped the book down in Duo's lap. "The sooner you do this, the sooner we can leave this nightmare behind."

Duo scowled and muttered under his breath before taking the book and moving to Chibi-Heero's dozing form on the couch. "So.....what do I do?" He question suddenly, his voice showing the uneasiness he felt.

"What did you do last time?" Quatre asked.

"Um....I stood and pointed at him..." Duo transferred the book to his left hand and pointed at Chibi-Heero with his right, "and then I said a whole bunch of Japanese stuff." He paused watching Chibi-Heero.

"Well?" Wufei was impatience to get this over with.

"He wasn't asleep last time." Duo said, frowning slightly.

"Who cares? Just do it!" Wufei urged him on.

Duo narrowed his eyes, shooting the Chinese boy poison-coated daggers with his eyes. Wufei returned it with his own, calm 'I-wish-you-would-do-it-sometime-in-this-century' look. Duo turned away and cleared his thought. Wufei groaned suddenly realizing that Duo was now going to do everything within his power to draw this out, just to annoy him.

An evil smile lit Duo's lips suddenly and he held his free hand out over Chibi-Heero. Then in a low monotone he started "Ashes to Ashes, Dust t-"

"DUO!!!!!" All three of the other pilots yelled.

Duo looked back at them the smile never leaving his lips. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."

The three moaned, sweatdroping.

Duo turned back and cleared his throat again, abandoning his smile for a more serious approach. He returned his open hand to pointing at Chibi-Heero. Then suddenly he began to chant the odd Japanese words that appeared on the page. The air in the room grew heavy and Duo suddenly found it hard to breath. It was stuffy, he wished someone would open a window. The lights of the room dimmed for a moment and the darkness that held the outside in nighttime, threatened to engulf the room. Duo hesitated for a second and swallowed against the painful dryness in his throat. He then hurried on with the chant. The words rolled off his tongue and seemed to hang in the air, making it even harder to breath. His shirt clung to his back as a thin layer of sweat appeared on his skin. It was hot. Duo frowned, he didn't remember it being this hard before. One more line. "...now!"

Duo stopped. That was it. He'd done it. The chant was over. The room seemed to go back to normal. He frowned. Nothing had happened. Chibi-Heero was still asleep on the couch, undisturbed. Duo cursed. "Nothing happened!" He exclaimed.

"Maybe it takes time." Quatre offered softly.

Duo shook his head, still staring at Chibi-Heero. "Iie(5)" He whispered softly. He bowed his head and was about to turn away when the lights flickered again. He looked up and was suddenly thrown into shock as Chibi-Heero began to glow. It was ever so faint at first but then it grew and grew and...no! Wait! Chibi-Heero wasn't glowing! It was the air around him that glowed!

The four gundam pilots stared in horrified astoundment as the air took shape! It formed into faces, faces without bodies! Weird, disordered faces. They looked back at them and opened their mouths to give sound to the feeling that filled each. The product was a terrible, twisted half-human, half-animal morning sound that can not be properly described in any language. They covered their ears and screamed in pain, their screams mixing with the spirits cries. All at once the air began to churn, swirling slowly at first and then faster and faster and faster till they were straining to not be sucking into the tornado of human emotions. The wailing became thunder in their ears, a noise that would never be forgotten. All over the room, anything lightweight was hurled across the room. Quatre dove under a table tears in his eyes at the pain. Duo forced himself to move to Chibi-Heero, who was still asleep despite the unbearable commotion. He had to grab Heero and run. Duo had no clue what was going on, but he knew he made it and whatever it was he doubted it was going to return Heero to normal. He strained against the wind and fought off several miscellaneous objects that were thrown at him. The wind howled at him even louder than before as he crept closer to Chibi-Heero. Out of nowhere, it grabbed him and hurled him across the room, angrily slamming his back into the wall and leaving a dent. Duo screamed as pain shoot up his spine and he lost consciences immediately.

"Duo!!!" Trowa yelled, his voice lost in the moaning and wailing. He tried in vain to reach Duo and be sure he was okay, but the wind prevented him from doing so.

Suddenly it changed. The tornado became smaller and more dense, it shrunk until it occupied only a four-foot radius of the center of the room. Everything else was silent. The noise shrank with the size. And soon the four, er three, found themselves staring at a small all gray tornado that was smack-dab in the center of the room, they could see nothing in it save the outline of a small child's body floating in the middle of it all.

"HEERO!!!!!" Quatre screamed, panic in his voice.

The boy didn't move at all and the noise died down to a small rumbling. Purple lighting suddenly flashed around the swirling vortex. Another flash, warning them off. Soon lighting danced all around it and Chibi-Heero was no longer visible.

"NOOO!!!!!!!!!!" Trowa screeched, his voice piercing the air.

As if on cue, the tornado shrank more, slowly, the lightening vanishing. As it shrank, they could see various parts of Heero's body sticking out of the sides of the quickly disappearing twister. A hand, part of a leg... Slowly, Heero's body emerged, floating about a foot in the air. By the time the twister had shrunk to the point that it only covered his face and torso, Trowa knew without a doubt that Heero had been restored to his normal age.

Finally the tornado was gone. Leaving only a normal Heero floating in mid-air. The others, minis Duo, looked on as Heero--still asleep--floated gently to the ground, landing on top of a pile of crap that had been broken by the winds. And then it was over. Except for the huge pile of crap on the floor, things were back to normal... more or less.

Quatre pushed through the stuff to Heero and took his pulse. "Strong....and normal." He announced. "He's just asleep now." He breathed a relieved sigh.

Trowa nodded and then moved to Duo while Wufei and Quatre took care of Heero. Duo was okay, bleeding a little, but okay. Trowa gathered the teen into his arms and carried Duo to his room. He laid the boy on his bed, belly down and left to find something to slow the blood.

As he passed Heero's room, he saw that Quatre was depositing him in his bed. Trowa turned away and grabbed a couple of bandages before he headed back to Duo's room and tended to Duo. When the god of death was patched up Trowa turned in to his own bed.

In the living room, Wufei was cleaning up the worst of the mess. There was no sign now of the magical storm that had saved Heero. As he cleaned--or rather, pushed all the junk to the side--Wufei came across the book that Duo had found. he started at it for a moment then turned and began searching for the other two books. After several minutes, and winning several scrapes and bruises, he had them. All three of the troublesome spell books. 'This is what the colonies wanted.' He thought to himself. 'But after seeing the problems it caused here, I don't think they should have it. This is worse than any Mecha.'

After a moment of thought, he took the books and placed them in the top drawer of the china cabinet, all the while being careful of their delicate condition. Nothing that old could survive a tornado and not be a little fragile afterwards. The solitary dragon locked the drawer and made a mental note to tell the others not to play around in there. That done he turned back to the living room which was still a disaster area. With a weary sigh Wufei decided that it could wait till morning when the others could help.

He left the room turning out the light and made his way to his room, too tired to care how much noise he made. He passed the other rooms on his way and saw that after settling Heero and Duo, Quatre and Trowa had turned in as well. And that was just what Wufei wanted to do. He slipped into his room and crawled into bed with his normal clothes still on. Turning the light off, he happily sank into the bed. It didn't take long before he joined the other four in peaceful slumber.

~*~End~*~

(1) "What"

(2) um...this isn't a real Japanese word, but it refers to that imaginary space that cartoon characters have behind their backs where they can pull stuff out that they didn't have before. This is where anime girls get the mallets that they hit the anime boys with.

(3) "Yes"

(4) Don't ask...I made it up.

(5) "No"

YEAH!!!! IT'S FINISHED!!!!! WOOHOO!! *grin* bet ya didn't think I'd actually finish it did ya? Well I did! YES!!! *starts doing the 'happy dance'* Anyway, write and tell me what you think now that it's complete. Please. I'll love you forever if you do. Oh and I want to say thanks to everyone that helped me do this, you know who you are! *giggle* Okay, Ja ne!

-Crystalite *^_^*