Against Better Judgment (draft version)

"Everyone sees what you appear to be; few experience what you really are." –Machiavelli

Part 1

Airlock Sixteen. Cycle in. Cycle out. Wait for the decompression cycle. Wait for the second relay to click over. Wait for the amber light to bleed over into green. Allow time for the jets to blow the red dust from the suit. Proceed into Airlock Sixteen B and repeat cycle. Wait for the standby tech, a probie with a keeper this shift, to tap twice on the top of his helmet in warning before proceeding to un-dog the heavy links attaching headpiece to suit, and then remove the mechanical gloves from the suit and wave him on to another tech, this one a familiar face. At this late hour, during this shift, after the events of the last cycle... well... he could understand why no one was offering a word in exchange. Business as usual. Just processing another man from one zone of the Project quarters to another.

Shed of the heavy outer mechanical suit, he moved deeper into the complex, following a path so ingrained he could have traced it in his sleep, backwards, on the reverse side of a floating sheet of ice. After the double shift he'd just endured, sleep sounded more like a screaming necessity than simply a good idea. Spending his sabbatical as a specialist trainer for the MS pilots who were tasked with the job of building the domes on the red planet's surface was enough of a full time job. But behind the scenes, his unlimited access to the facility made him the right man to investigate questionable vendors and labor disputes, which made him an ideal candidate for a special investigator to the general operating division of the terraforming project. It was difficult for him to turn down the opportunity to do some good. To make some small amends for his past wrongdoings. No matter how insignificant or how far from home he might be. Even if no one knew for certain who he was here, only suspected. On a colony-planet like Mars where hard and fast rules meant very little to start with, that was more than enough for him.

He swiped his magnetic identification badge through the reader. It bore his face, but yet another alias in a long string of assumed names. Another day, another dispute, yet another meager reason to keep slogging through the grim muck and mire of his life. At least it shortened the monotony somewhat.

He hated Mondays.

He loathed them with a thoroughness and conviction he reserved for little else in his daily life.

Someone on the squad, he forgot who, Billings maybe, used to have an engraved plate sitting on his desk that read: "Monday is for survivors." Wufei had made note of it after one black day in September, and now it had a tendency to appear in all of its vivid glory in his mind's eye after a particularly bad weekend shift. This particular morning it made perfect sense to him.

All established Preventers agents had desks, and they collected things on them: news clippings, drink containers, useless medals and recognition awards, notes torn from the edges of pages and tacked haphazardly on any vertical or horizontal surface with an inch of available space. The longer agents were active, the more things tended to pile up.

Except for him. He didn't believe in clutter.

Not in his work, not in his home, not in his life.

Wufei had been around long enough to merit not only a desk that he didn't have to share with someone on another shift, but also four semi-private walls and a door he could close to cut down on the usual office noise. The walls were painted in that same institutional, trying-to-look-vaguely professional palette that had long been abused in office buildings and service sectors throughout the EarthSphere -- gray, gray, and more gray. His cubicle walls were more blue-gray than the green-gray of the hall, a color for which he had limited preference.

He also had a plant, courtesy of the previous tenant, that he'd been unsuccessfully trying to kill with neglect for the past year. Someone, he suspected McGruthers on the day shift, kept saving it though -- pouring coffee or some other sort of fluid into the dirt on a regular enough basis that the thing survived. It resembled a kind of palm, and had only one shaky surviving tendril that continued to reach towards the top of his cubicle divider -- stretching its way towards escape. The poor thing obviously hadn't a clue what was on the other side of the wall or it wouldn't have tried so hard to get out. Wufei privately thought that his plant, if it had any intellectual ability whatsoever, should have been committed; compared to the rest of the building, this was the quiet room, the safe room.

He'd had to work his ass off to earn his desk. Not that he didn't get shit from other agents about his promotion, but he didn't think they knew quite what to make of him. The fact that he was a Gundam pilot during the war slid out after he'd been in active service with Preventers for about a year, and though he'd done nothing to confirm or deny the rumors, the fact that they existed at all was enough to quiet most of the dissenters. He secretly thought that he might have had Duo to either blame or thank for that little slip. The man could be subtle as a shadow in pitch dark one moment, and then blatant as a fart in a room of operatic silence the next. No one ever stole pens off of his desk or borrowed things from his locker any more though, so he supposed that his current reputation had its advantages.

Wufei eyed the door, wishing he had the energy to get up and shut it, but after the double shift he'd just endured, his body just wasn't as interested as his brain was in gaining a little more quiet. There was always something buzzing, rattling, or ringing at Preventers, especially at the start of the day shift. It was nearing 0500, and the morning was just gearing up. The night crew was winding down, intentionally dragging out paperwork and procedures at the end of their shift, filling in the time until they could turn over the cases to their replacements.

Only new recruits jumped on cases at the end of shift. New recruits and himself he supposed. It didn't earn him any favors with his fellow agents, but conforming to standards of the masses held little interest for him anyway. Probably why he'd never been assigned a partner or a regular shift assignment.

He was absolutely certain that Une's staff psychologist had a file six centimeters thick on why it would be a good idea for him to have regular schedule or to train an agent to his mercy, or for him to work at the whim of another if it came to that. Of course, that meant that his caseload was entirely his own. He didn't share files with anyone on the other shifts, and usually could be found working odd hours and holidays to keep active and fill in the gaps of his days.

He didn't have hobbies, he didn't have a job; he had an obsession that ruled every aspect of his life.

He loved his work.

Wufei craned his head around the door jam and checked the official time on the series of 24-hour clocks on the far wall, one for each of the colony cluster points in space and another for each of the key regional time zones on Earth, and wondered bleakly if it should count as Monday or not since he'd now been awake and at his desk since the small hours of Sunday morning.

The work never ended, cases streamed across his desk in a real-time phenomena that mesmerized, though the occasional case still had the power to shock, to still him briefly before he moved on to the next in a long line of horrors and intrigues. Even after five years, he found the pace and breadth of the work Preventers did impressive, and the enormous caseload only continued to grow as more and more of the intra-colony policing that had become a necessity in the wake of the Eve Wars was assumed into their already desk-toppling, mainframe-crashing caseload.

He was getting ready to go home to shower and change, and had already gathered his keys and ID when the mail cart came through the department for the pre-shift drop. He knew that he shouldn't have stayed. He knew that he should have run off when he saw it coming, but that's not the way he did things and it was far too late for him to change his habits at this point in his life. So, like the fool Duo claimed him to be at times, he actually walked over to Chevie and asked for his mail. Chevie teased him good-naturedly about the hours he'd been putting in on his current case, and Wufei let him, enjoying and encouraging the sense of camaraderie.

He usually got along better with the staffers than with most of the agents anyway. Agents were a competitive lot, and he apparently brought out the worst in them. But he enjoyed his irreverent and intermittent verbal sparring with Chevie, and Chevie thrived on the attention it drew to him. People noted who Wufei paid attention to -- which was not always a good thing, but Chevie didn't seem to mind courting danger and was better at most at deflecting it into something harmless. Wufei usually enjoyed talking with him as the mail cart passed through on its regular circular rounds. Usually.

In Chevie's defense, no one had warned him about the envelopes -- an oversight on someone-who-was-soon-to-be-reprimanded's part. Wufei leaned back against his office partition wall and refused to accept it from his hand, as Chevie had already contaminated it -- Chevie, and the mail sorter, and Kris in distributing, and who knew who else. So instead Wufei asked him to set it on a tray, which he in turn moved to his desk, and then he called Une, at home; she'd made him promise that he would if he received another one. Chevie watched in goggle-eyed shock and awe that Wufei dared to call their boss at home at that unholy hour of the morning.

Predictably enough, Une was already awake and alert, and she answered her phone on the second tone, though her face hardened and fell when she saw it was him. "Another letter?"

"Yes." He said nothing else, just indicated the tray sitting in front of him.

"I'll be there in twenty."

"I'll be here."

"And Chang?" She paused, ensuring that sure she had his undivided attention. "This changes things."

"I understand," he said, and he did. This wasn't the first such instance, and though he'd had enough people threaten him throughout his career that it had ceased to bother him overly much, Une took her job seriously. A threat to one of her agents was a personal affront to her.

He was more of a fatalist -- his death would happen when it happened -- not a moment sooner or later than that. She blamed his religion and insisted on exploring each and every incidence to the full extent of her investigative resources. He thought it a shameless waste of taxpayer money, but she was the boss and he loved his job.

He invited a puzzled Chevie to sit with him until Une arrived. That letter was officially evidence now, and if he was its intended target, he had no business being alone in the room with it. A witness wouldn't hurt.

One cup of coffee, delivered by a floating intern, a few curious glances by passers by, and fifteen minutes later, Une stalked in and scared Chevie off. "I called in the evidence team and Chandler. I assume that you want to be in the room when they open this one."

"Yes." He was more aware and slightly wired now -- amazing what a little adrenaline could do for you in the wake of a sleepless night. When he crashed after this, he'd crash hard, but with the less than timely arrival of his little gift, that happy event could easily be hours from now.

Two hours later, after the second death threat was revealed (to no one's surprise including his own), he felt that it was time for him to start his shift again. Une sent him into her office instead. She wandered in a few minutes after him, and shut the door behind her. She appeared to be none the worse for wear for shifting her schedule forward three hours. Then again, Une took military preparedness to a whole new level. She made him feel inadequate, an effect she seemed to have on most people. Her desk was, as always, immaculate, set with only the base essentials -- a vid phone, a task light, and a framed portrait of Khushrenada set at an exact angle on the far corner, no papers, no clutter, not a speck of dusk on the lacquered surface. This morning her mail was precisely aligned on the edge of her desk, apparently even Chevie was intimidated enough by his surroundings to take the time to set her mail perfectly along the desktop edge.

That was the sort of control she exacted over all of her agents. The few who didn't thrive under it quickly left for other divisions farther out from under her direct control.

She had his undivided attention.

"Chandler wants to run your latest note past a colleague over at our Bay Street office -- someone with experience in profiling and handwriting analysis." She stared directly at Wufei, and he braced himself for the follow-up. She always delivered good news before the bad, softening her victim before delivering her thrust. He wasn't disappointed. "And as of now, you're on twelve-hour call-ins. If another one of those notes arrives at the station, you're getting a watcher on your apartment as well."

He could tell that arguing wasn't going to get him anywhere, and he tipped his head in agreement. Call-ins he could deal with, and with any luck it wouldn't escalate to anything more than that. Of course, any luck wasn't his luck. His luck, to put it in Maxwell's vernacular, universally sucked.

Speaking of the devil, Duo was waiting for him at the end of the hallway, casually leaning against the end of a bank of vending machines.

Wufei did his level best to forestall the lecture. "It was nothing."

Duo nodded towards Une's office, "That doesn't look like 'nothing' to me, but if you say so..." Duo shrugged, easily anticipating the next question, "Simmons knew where you were. I asked her since she always seems to know where to find you." Duo slanted a look at him through his bangs. "I think she likes you. Anyway, Quatre and Trowa are both Earthside this weekend and want to get together with everyone." Duo leaned against the wall, reading Wufei's body language as he stalked back and forth in the narrow hallway. "I said that I'd find you and tell you in person."

That stopped his pacing rather abruptly. "You did?"

"Yeah. Our schedules don't collide all that often with me doing the work with Sweepers, and Heero consulting, and you with Preventers, and Trowa and Quatre out in the colonies most of the time..."

Wufei examined Duo for any signs of weakness or hesitation, expecting none and coming away unsurprised. "Fine. Where and when?"

The brightness returned to Duo's expression, pleased at getting exactly what he'd come for. "At the State Regency, since that's where Quatre's staying. Dinner reservation is under Yuy, and time is whenever you get off your shift. We've got a private room starting at 20:00, so you can come as you are."

Wufei sighed, his quiet plans for the night dissolved. "Fine, fine, I'll be there."

"Someone's been trying to kill you?" Quatre acted curious, but not surprised.

Wufei glared at Duo for exposing that tidbit of information to the rest of the group.

"Well, we know for a fact that it's not the first time."

Had Trowa just made a joke? Apparently so if Duo's reaction was anything to gauge results by.

Trowa toasted Duo. "You're losing your sense of humor."

"What sense of humor?"

"My point that round."

Wufei pointed to Duo. "I can claim sleep deprivation. I haven't a clue what his excuse is."

Quatre's eyes gleamed at the general chaos and raised his glass in a toast. "Gundam pilots, can't live with them, and can't kill them off."

"Amen to that," Duo chimed in.

"It's nothing new. The death threats, I mean." Wufei sat back and enjoyed the brief moment of organized chaos with his four good friends, feeling relaxed for the first time in weeks.

Trowa set down his glass. "I'm inclined to agree with you. After all, you're an ex-Gundam pilot, Une's favorite pet Preventer, you've dealt with similar threats as part and parcel of your regular job for years now, and with the level of training you've received, both here and colony-side, there isn't much on an individual-case basis that you shouldn't be able to handle." He nodded. "Une's over reacting." He leaned over and clinked his glass against Wufei's. "Besides, I rather think she likes you."

Wufei gave him an exasperated look, but otherwise didn't respond to that comment.

"Why not? She's not that much older than you are, and it's not like you're going to be a Preventer forever, right?"

Duo's head lifted, zeroing in and sensing prey. "Wufei's got a girlfriend?"

"I have no such thing, Maxwell," he snapped, blunt and churlish.

Duo grinned broadly. "I think he's protesting a bit overmuch, don't you?" He scanned the rest of the table, sensing an ally and settling on Trowa, since he'd initiated the conversation.

"So Wufei's seeing someone? Finally? After all these years of living alone? And he didn't see fit to tell us who the lucky girl is?"

"No, I'm not, no more than you are. Bachelors to the bitter end, isn't that what you told me, Maxwell?"

Duo slid his glance to the side, nearly too quick for Wufei to notice, "Yeah, well, you still seem lonely to me. At least the rest of us get to see each other on a semi-regular basis. We only get to check in and verify that you're still breathing, what? A few times a year? Every other month at best? All you do is live vicariously through your damn job. When's the last time you took a vacation? Did something that wasn't related to Preventers, huh?" Duo was growing angry, passionate on his good friend's behalf.

It quite stunned Wufei into revealing half truths he'd thought well buried. "How could I ever ask someone to make an emotional attachment to a guy who's going about daily trying to get himself killed?"

That quite ended the polite chit chat over dinner. Wufei, frustrated with the turn of events, pushed his drink out of the way and his chair back from the table, paused, and thought better of leaving. He looked around the table, meeting everyone's eyes in turn. "Listen, can we please just not discuss death threats, Preventers business, or other various and sundry details of my personal life tonight?"

Quatre, ever the diplomat, surveyed the table once for dissenters before raising his glass in surrender. "So, I hear the colony trade negotiations are going well..."

Wufei gave a wary look in Duo's direction, still rattled by both his confession and Duo's concern on his behalf, but settled back at the table, took his drink back into hand, and cautiously entered the conversation once more. Dinner after that was a quieter affair though, and Wufei left early, claiming an early shift at the office the next morning. The remaining four stayed until late, catching up on three months' worth of news.

Duo nudged at Heero's arm on the walk back to his apartment. "It was good seeing the guys again. Quatre and Trowa seem to be doing okay."

Heero nodded, waiting for Duo to get to the point.

"I'm worried about Wufei though. It's not a good thing for him to not have anyone close, you know? Especially with all the work he does."

"He slept on my couch for a night just last month."

Duo chuckled softly in reply, playing along. "You know what I mean. He needs someone. He spends too much time on his own. He did during the wars too, and look where that got him." They walked on in silence for another block, lost in memories better forgotten as they approached Heero's apartment building. "I'm just saying, I think we should make a point to keep an eye on him until either he finds someone to do it for him, or this stalker thing blows over."

"Okay."

"Thanks, Heero."

"Now can we go upstairs and celebrate the fact that you're here for three more days before you have to take off again?"

"I think that can be arranged..."

The message light was blinking, the important one. Duo noticed it just as the apartment door closed and he winced at the sight of it. "Right, it figures. I drag myself all the way across the colonies and down to Earth and guess what? Another one of your uber-secret consulting jobs comes in just as I get here." Duo glared at the blinking amber light, daring it to do its worst. "Fine. I'll go make myself scarce for a while, while you," he waved a hand at Heero, irritation making itself known, "do whatever it is that you do now. Okay?"

Heero leaned in close, trapping Duo between the wall and his chest, and sliding his arms up the wall and around the back of Duo's head to hold him steady. "Okay. Fine." He punctuated his words with carefully selected targets on Duo's face, kissing him apologetically. "I'll do that."

Duo instantly relaxed. "Ah, doing this now is good." He then began an onslaught of his own, slowly twining his leg between Heero's, and in a sudden move, dropped both of them to the carpet in the hall, continuing where Heero had left off. "I like now very much."

Heero nipped at Duo's lower lip; reached up a finger and stroked gently across his partner's mouth in apology as he glanced up at the annoyance of the light. "How about later, if I promise to make it..." He lifted himself, holding his pelvis firmly against Duo's, and Duo froze. "Memorable."

Duo sighed, collapsing bonelessly along his partner. "Tease. Fine, fine, torture me endlessly and then go talk on the vidphone with angry computer geeks." He sighed theatrically, rolling off of Heero and closing his eyes. "Leave me here on the hall carpet to rest and collect my strength for later."

Heero laughed. "You'll need it. I guarantee it."

Heero clicked though his security protocols and passwords before triggering the vidphone connection, trusting that the link would connect to a live person without interruption despite the hour.

She didn't disappoint him. The screen cleared at the other end with the barely perceptible triple blip of a top-level security field before revealing the too-close face and organized desk of the head of ESUN Preventers. She honored him with a brief professional nod. "Busy?"

"Duo's here, but he needs to go out to X-18999 with Quatre sometime in the next few days or so. So, no, not really." Heero backed away to a much more comfortable distance from the monitor and exchanged a familiar nod with his ex-superior officer.

"How would you like another assignment?"

"Is this one I can or cannot mention to my partner?"

"That would depend..." She grew thoughtful for a few moments. "I don't suppose that there's any chance that I could persuade you to return to active duties with Preventers for the purpose of a special assignment?"

"Active duty?" He pretended to consider the option for the briefest of moments. "Duo would kill me. Or force me to sleep on the sofa of death for weeks."

Duo's sense of humor must be rubbing off. Une swore that she recognized that brand as vintage Maxwell, circa AC 196.

Heero pretended to consider the sofa torture option for a moment more. "Sorry Commander, I don't think so."

"Well, it was worth a try." Heero watched as she sat back in her chair, gave him one more considering look, and then opened the negotiation process. "I need you to find someone for me."

Heero changed his attitude from casual discussion to all business in one blink to the next, pulling up a cryptographic document file and preparing to log notes. "Oh?"

"Your friend, Chang, has landed himself in a bit of a mess, and I need someone to help get him out of it and keep his head above water while doing it."

Heero paused with his fingers on his computer. "Tall order; who am I looking for and where?"

She suppressed a bit of a smile. "No details; straight to business. I do so like doing business with you." Une rustled her papers in an uncharacteristic bid for a moment to collect her thoughts before proceeding. "Duo doesn't hear of this until after Chang gets introduced to his new partner, agreed?"

Heero raised an eyebrow, barely visible under the cascade of untidy bangs across his forehead. "You need to ask?" He shrugged, neither confirming nor denying Une's request, which was, as she knew, as good as she could hope to expect. There was a pause, then a blink as that information hit home. "You're assigning Wufei a partner?"

Une maintained her closed expression. "I am, yes."

Heero took an additional moment for his mind to process that concept, then another to relish both the idea, and that he was privy to the knowledge prior to both Wufei and Duo. "So, does this walking corpse have a name?"

Une considered. Definitely the sense of humor was rubbing off from somewhere. "I'm trying to find Zechs Merquise."

Heero's fingers stilled on the keyboard. "That... changes things."

She sighed and settled deeply into the cushioned back of her chair, pushed her file away from her monitor. "Does it have to?"

Heero tapped his fingers along the surface of his desk. "And if he prefers to not be found?"

"Find him. Wherever he is, he must have left some clues that you, of all people, can follow and use to track him down. No one disappears completely. He's out there."

Heero nodded, a tight admission of agreement to her terms. "I'm assuming that your usual lengthy turnaround times are in place?"

"You wish. Une out." The connection clicked and the screen faded back into darkness.

"Well, that was unexpected." Heero leaned back in his office chair, reached over to a dedicated terminal and flipped a series of switches, moving it over to active status and started the first step of what promised to be a long and arduous search process.

Wufei pushed his case file to the side and considered the past month.

He'd had a relatively quiet time after the last threatening letter. His active cases had stalled, an inactive one had been reopened in response to a related crime elsewhere in the system, and he'd spent part of one weekend catching up with the rest of the agents on his old shift rotation.

He did his best to maintain email or vid contact with Duo and Trowa on a regular basis -- at least once a week or so. Most of what went on in Quatre and Heero's lives he found out through them anyway. Still, Wufei did his best to keep current on their whereabouts and traditionally visited the rest of the pilots in person at the spring and winter holidays. Duo had started that tradition, and he supposed that all five of them had been so desperate for any sense of normalcy moving forward that each had immediately made it a priority. The only reasonable excuse for missing holidays with the guys was an unexpected death -- your own. Trowa had forgotten one year, and the rest of them had spent the holiday weekend tracking him down. The look of shocked surprise on his face remained one of Wufei's favorite memories. Duo's ass-ripping lecture had ensured that none of them had missed a gathering since.

Yes, work as an active agent for five years had colored his language skills somewhat. Besides, that's precisely what it had been. Duo hadn't touched him, but he didn't have to. Wufei had never seen Trowa afraid of anything before, but he'd cowered in front of Duo like a little boy. It simply wasn't wise to disappoint Duo, and they'd all taken the lesson to heart.

Seeing his friends in person was a few times a year treat at best though, and most of the people he could ask favors of wore badges and dressed in Preventer colors. They were a good crowd, but he'd always had difficulty relying on others, and that, consciously or unconsciously, limited his attachments at work. He had colleagues and acquaintances; but the few Wufei could call as friends could be counted comfortably on his fingers.

He didn't pay much attention to the calendar except for those reserved dates, which explained why, a month later when the staff shift pitched in and took him out for dinner at one of the local bars for his five-year anniversary, it came as a complete surprise. They impounded his car, as practical jokes were a standard part of the hazing ceremony, but they didn't venture more than a token obeisance to the rules in his case. They pulled him en masse from his desk, shoved him in the back seat of a squad car, and took him to Pearly's to celebrate the fact that he'd survived all those years on the active force.

Predictably enough, immediately after the main course was served, an emergency call came through, and more than half of them had to leave. Une and a few agents from the prior shift came by to fill in the empty seats, and they closed the place down afterward. It wasn't pretty, and although the more lurid details escaped him, he remembered that the evening involved the consumption of more alcohol than he'd a polite tolerance for.

He hadn't felt up to driving home after that. He vaguely recalled some sort of inventive nonsense about the guest of honor not being allowed to ignore a round purchased in his honor. They'd tried very hard to get him drunk, and had mostly succeeded. He didn't have a clue what the blue things had been, but he'd pushed as many of them as possible onto his tablemates.

He obviously hadn't passed enough of them down the line.

An hour later, while leaning heavily against the countertop in his apartment, he discovered that he'd brought a third of the distinctive envelopes in with his regular mail. It was a very efficient sobering device, and he made the inevitable call to Une again. She was already home, and looked, if possible, even more sober and unsettled than he did.

She watched him from her vidphone in her kitchen, a resigned expression on her face, appearing oddly out of place wearing her casual clothes. She made the appropriate disconcerted noises, and relayed the information to the appropriate channels, and told him to stay where he was until someone came over from HQ to relieve him of his burden.

"Do you have a place you can stay until we have someone upgrade the security system on your apartment?"

"Unless Heero's in town instead of out on one of his consulting jobs, no, not really. But a quick and painless death is preferable to sleeping on his sofa."

Une just stared at him with steady eyes and held her comment.

"Okay, point taken. I'll give him a call and see if he's around."

Une waited for the line to clear before walking away from the vidphone and winding her way back through the hallway to her home office, finding comfort in the shallow darkness. Wufei's stalker was getting closer, and now with access to his home location as well as his office... She sat at her desk and turned on the reading lamp, considering her options for a moment. Her secure files were stored behind a key combination only three people in the EarthSphere had access to, and she thanked whatever insight had led her to store this particular file at home, rather than in her office safe.

Zechs Merquise. No matter what name he was using at the moment, he really wasn't all that good at hiding. He was apparently relying on physical distance more than finesse to maintain his distance between Preventers and whatever job, she checked the file, jobs, he was doing at the moment. Noin had returned without him years ago, saying only that their goals had changed, and when pressed, that Zechs was more interested in his self-imposed exile than in seeking a new start for himself. After a year of watching the man she loved work himself to the bone in a class-four mobile suit labor job with no ambition to move on to anything better, and no desire to seek help for what Noin considered post-war stress, she'd left for Earth, hoping that that, at least, would jolt some sense into him.

Une paged through the rest of Heero's report. Unlike his usual efficient, thorough (and thick) reading, this dossier was disturbingly thin for such a prominent player in the EarthSphere. Over the last five years, he'd apparently arrived on Mars, done his preliminary stint to organize some of the development work for the terraforming project at his sister's request, and then quietly moved into a mundane job. Eventually, he'd found a position for himself where he could work daily to implement a piece of his sister's master plan.

Based on Heero's report, it appeared that he had taken the opportunity to move to the other side of the complex shortly after Noin had left for Earth, and had legally changed his name at that point. Reason given -- she paged through the report again to verify -- continual problems in the post-war world. The name change was granted, and he resumed similar work, albeit on the other side of the planet-colony, where few, if any, would presumably know him.

"Hiding from Noin, weren't you." She shook her head. She had to give him credit for that, his plan, while simple, had worked very well. He hadn't even had to change much about his life in order to do it.

Still... He'd gone through a lot of trouble to stay intentionally lost. Did she have any right to bring him back? Well, the right, certainly. He was still an agent, and though not technically an active one, he'd never rescinded his status. She could recall him to service at any time of her choosing if the situation warranted it. Or hell, even if she wanted to order him to follow her around in order to tie her bootlaces, if she cared to be that petty about it.

She reached out and stroked her finger along the side of the frame that never left her desk, tilting the picture to face her a little more in the soft light. "What would you do? What would your decision be if you were sitting in this chair instead of me? If your agent was in danger, and you suspected that it might just be someone inside, and you had no one else. Would you do that? Would you bring him all the way back here after it seems he's finally found some peace for what he's done?"

She closed the file and stared fondly at the image of Treize, her favorite ghost forever young and handsome in his mahogany frame; considered all of her other options, found none, and spoke to the wisdom he whispered in her mind. "I hope you know what you're doing."

She sighed deeply, and calculated the time differential between her office and Mars. "Regrets are for the weak." With one last look at the portrait, she opened the file, found the appropriate number, and began the long connection process.

Mars Research Mining Station X4274, Pavilion IV, Apartment 16

Zechs scrubbed his wet hair back from his face with a towel and left the damp mass slung absently over his shoulders as he walked past the tiny communications alcove in his apartment. A red indicator light where there shouldn't have been one swiveled and redirected his attention from food. He had an incoming message on his vid -- which was impossible. No one had that number; it was as unlisted as he could arrange for it to be, and he never accepted outside calls.

Five minutes later he found himself sitting in fragile shock at his desk. So much for all of his carefully planned solitude.

Damn. He'd thought he'd done a better job of hiding his existence on this red rock; he'd thought she'd forgotten about him, but he was wrong, very wrong. The planetary interference created heavy static that blurred and twisted her image, but his second-hand machine had faithfully recorded her message.

Une was revoking his leave of absence from Preventers and wanted him back on Earth. Now. The question now burning in his mind was... why?

He was going to burn Heero's sofa.

Douse it in petrol and light it.

No. Better. Rebuild Nataku and stomp it into matchsticks -- that would be infinitely more satisfying.

Thank God it had been only the one night. Two and he'd have been in a wheelchair for a month, three and he'd be crippled for life. As it was, he could barely function. It was a miracle that he'd managed to get dressed that morning.

Beyond tired and sorely missing each and every hour of his much-needed sleep, Wufei reached over to snag a pile of notes from the corner of his desk. Doing so shifted the stack of files, which tipped the lamp. In his desperate reach to save both, he managed to slosh his warm cup of coffee against his chest.

He sat there and cursed quietly to himself. Mondays. Hell. Why did Duo's god of bad luck always attack him on Mondays?

After setting down the cup, he scrubbed ineffectually at the spreading stain, but only managed to worsen it with his efforts. He glanced at the closed door to his office, shut the blinds over the glass to limit the risk of exposure, and unbuttoned his uniform to assess the damage, which was extensive. Well, he had a spare shirt in his locker downstairs; he'd just have to give in to the inevitable and go change into the fresh one. If only he'd elected to have tea instead of coffee earlier this morning. Tea wouldn't have stained as badly as Preventers high-octane brew. Preventers coffee was legendary.

'If only' wasn't getting his shirt changed though, and he was just pushing his chair back from his desk when the door opened.

Only Une went through doors without advanced warning. She'd earned that privilege a thousand times over at this point in her career. She took in his disarray, noted his frantic buttoning, and pursed her lips in mild disapproval. He had a reputation to maintain after all, one that didn't include taking off his clothes in the relative privacy of his half-glassed-in office.

"Chang? A moment of your time please?" It wasn't really a polite request when it was Une asking the question. He glanced down at his own personal embarrassment, but she didn't offer to let him change first, so he re-buttoned his clothes and dutifully trailed through the maze of office cubicles in her wake. No snickers followed his path despite the sorry state of his uniform. When Une required use of her own office to deliver news, that news was rarely of the positive variety. Agents supported each other in these small ways -- evidence of their solidarity in the wake of adversity. That and the fact that any bad news was likely to be taken out on prior aggressors. Wise agents knew when to hold their comments.

After that, things became a little blurry for a while. He remembered walking away from his desk and following her into her lair, he also vaguely recalled leaving her office and returning to the security of his own. It wasn't until the end of the day when he was relaxing at home over a reheated meal that his brain started to function again -- well and truly short-circuited by Une's news.

She was assigning him a partner.

Why?

Why now?

After five years...

That was the real question. Did it have anything to do with his record in her service so far? Had he been lax in some regard? Had something emerged during his psychiatric reviews that triggered this action? It made no sense, and he was wary of decisions made by logic he couldn't comprehend.

An agent assigned to watch his apartment he could understand; that made sense. Reassigning his shift so he spent more time with the fraud or investigation teams instead of working independently on cases, he could see that too. But a partner? Other than his brief training period with Sally Po, he had never worked with any other agents. Okay, well, not for lack of trying, but he seemed to have, in the words of the professional analysts in charge of evaluating the Preventer staff, 'issues' with most of the other agents.

Une hadn't been all that forthcoming with information about this other mystery agent either. Male, yes, and apparently something of a hotshot mobile suit pilot and decorated soldier before the Mariemaia Incident brought about demilitarization of the EarthSphere forces. She didn't volunteer any specific details about how she expected him to work with the department though. Either she intended Wufei to bring this new agent into alignment with her idea of what an agent should be, or, more disturbingly, this man had been assigned here to influence him.

This new man would be working counterterrorism and information tracking along with the local division. Terrorist activity was still a viable enough threat that it warranted Une's personal attention and direction. Wufei had done his best so far during his five years of service not to disappoint, and had been compensated with work he found interesting and compelling -- and that let him use his otherwise questionable talent set. He'd also worked alone... up until now, both by choice and convenience of roster. He couldn't help but wonder what had changed her mind, since Preventers had other single agents as well as the more usual pairs.

The problem was that he liked working alone, and, after considering her proposition for a while, he started to wonder if this was perhaps a test to see if he could be paired with a compatible agent. Still, this was Une asking, and there was no option except for to agree to try, and he'd been informed that his new partner was due to transfer down to Earth sometime within the next seventy-two hours.

So... he was predictable.

She knew he wouldn't argue with her decision. He wondered who else knew about this. That transfer order had to have been set in place weeks prior if this was another Preventer agent moving into her territory. Still, if anyone could pull rank in this organization, Une could. Only the EarthSphere council outranked her authority. She could get her hands on any agent she wanted, the question was, who had she found for this assignment? He'd have to ask Heero or Trowa if they'd heard anything from their contacts within Preventers. It was worth a try, but he'd find out for himself within the next three days.

He dumped the remainder of his meal in the trash, his appetite well and truly gone. Ruined by the unexpected news.

Zechs had the remains of a ration bar in his pocket, a promise of an interesting job, and a transit flight that had been bumped twice and delayed for nearly twenty-four hours. He wanted a shower, a drink, and ten hours of uninterrupted sleep enough to sell body or soul for any of the three. If Une had her way, she'd have both -- she'd already contracted for the body, the soul was sure to follow, and he was delivering them both to her doorstep.

Personally.

He was heading home. Well... Sort of. He didn't rightly consider that he had any place that fit that title any longer, but he'd been born on Earth, raised there, and had managed to spend most of his adult life somewhere on its surface, so he supposed that counted for something. Home, and yet not home at all. He'd traveled all this distance for what reason?

He hadn't been exactly happy with his life on that red rock that had been his self-imposed exile for far too many years, but she'd crooked her little finger and he'd come running right back into the Preventers' fold. No willpower. None at all. It had been the same around Treize; whatever Treize asked of him, he did. Now she had essentially taken over Treize's place in his life. He'd thought himself free of her influence, but here he was. She'd said something about needing someone capable of keeping up with her current favorite, since apparently her top investigator was involved in some sort of extracurricular activities, and to date, none of her stellar agents had managed to keep up with her pride and joy. Well, they had, briefly, but apparently, he was quite adept at dodging them or intimidating them. So she was planning on reactivating his status as agent, and throwing him to her pet wolf. More than that, she'd refused to disclose.

Perfect.

Wonderful.

Welcome home, Merquise.

Back to EarthSphere Preventers, ESP, you'd think they would have come up with a better acronym by now. Some of the press releases were downright hilarious. He sighed, rested his head against the headrest in his too-small shuttle seat, and briefly closed his eyes. Hell, with his luck, his partner would turn out to be an insufferable prick that was impossible to work with. With his luck... All he wanted was to find someone he could go have a drink with after a bad day at work, talk about something other than the labor problems on the Mars colony, and not have to threaten or intimidate into working a regular day -- was that too much to ask for?

Ah, Zechs, get used to disappointment old man, you're heading to Earth and placing yourself at Une's mercy. No good can come of this.

Moreover, she'd given him some advanced warning, how unlike her. She must have mellowed some in the aftermath of the wars. Oddly enough, Treize's death, as much as it pained him personally, may have been the best thing for her. Treize had confided in him a worry that she might lose her identity within his own, and had asked Zechs to look after her... yet another of Treize's plans that he'd failed to follow -- some comrade he'd turned out to be. Still, she was apparently thriving in her role as figurehead for ESP, and retained enough authority to hire him back on her staff, sight, even after a long five years. He'd found his transfer papers, tickets, and re-list forms in his mail slot within three days of that one brief call, crawling with static and interference. She'd gone out of her way to help him, as he'd done for her in the past.

Une had included directions on how to get to her office, and, given his new status as relisted agent, had offered to send a trainee down to the local port station to meet his flight and give him a ride into HQ, an offer he'd gladly accepted. The thought of navigating his way through an unfamiliar transit system after his long trip in from the outer limits was daunting; he had no problem accepting honest help when it was offered.

He didn't expect to see this particular man waiting at the station for him though. The agent wearing the Preventers jacket was leaning casually against a support pole and looking over the passengers as they filed off the local shuttle. He hadn't changed much over the past years. He was a little taller maybe, but he still had that 'keep away' attitude that surrounded him during the wars and held the entire world at bay -- the entire world with the exception of his sister at least, who'd found Heero's behavior fascinating. Even through the windows of the shuttle, he could see people giving his position a wide berth as they diverged around him.

Zechs approached him cautiously and could see him become defensive, climbing up on his toes and getting ready to move if necessary. He kept his voice low and the tone welcoming. "Yuy? I wasn't expecting to see you."

Heero allowed a slow small smile to creep to the surface of his face as his body relaxed with confirmed recognition. "Merquise. Welcome back to Earth." The greeting appeared to be genuine. God, a familiar face, what an incredible gift he was. "Une was going to send Richards down here to pick you up, but I thought you might appreciate someone you'd met before."

Zechs' luck was apparently changing for the better already. "You have no idea, Yuy. Thank you." He slung his bag over his shoulder, but Heero hesitated.

"Where are your other bags?"

"I travel light. Anything else I need can be shipped later." Most of the things he owned had been worth more in trade on Mars, as most of his personal effects were still in storage here on Earth. He didn't have much else worth bringing with him aside from some clothes, a few mementos, and a book or two.

"Car's over this way then..."

The drive was uneventful. Heero volunteered little that was personal, but casually informed Zechs that he had started a freelance consulting business that had resulted in a more or less permanent retainer to Preventers for his computer skills. He gave him a brief tour through the city during the drive to the headquarters building. The roads started out as a basic grid layout with regular blocks, but skewed dramatically into oblique angles and random alleys when the car passed over into the older part of the city. Architecture was diverse and styles were random in their distribution. Buildings crowded close to the street, and pocket-sized gardens provided the occasional surprising flash of color as they drove by. It reminded Zechs of parts of old Sanq, and he fought down a feeling that was vaguely nostalgic.

"You have a place to stay tonight, Merquise?"

Zechs turned to give Yuy a curious look. He was watching out for him, why?

He tried for a neutral response, unsure of the motives behind his offer. "That would depend on whether or not Une has assigned a desk to me yet, and whether it's long enough for me to sleep on or under."

Heero shot Zechs an unreadable glance before arching back in his seat and reaching deep into his pocket to retrieve a card, which he summarily handed over to his passenger. "If you get stuck, give me a call. My apartment came with a sofa that's older than I am that will teach your back to crave death, but it's yours for the night if you need it."

Zechs pretended to read the card while he considered Heero's motives. The offer seemed genuine. Something must have happened to Heero after the wars, something to shift his focus beyond the driven, serious soldier he'd been before into someone more approachable and human. He was reaching out others now, and he wore his new persona well. Zechs quietly envied him, and whatever had happened in his life to change him. Lucky bastard. "Thanks, Yuy." He flipped the card over and tucked it securely in his pocket.

Heero parked in the no parking zone and escorted Zechs past the two security checkpoints and to the reception area outside of Une's office where he abandoned him to the tender mercies of Une's secretary -- a dour woman with a severe twist of gray hair and a red pen clenched between her teeth. She was unfazed by his appearance, and duly noted on her register when he'd arrived. If she notified Une that he was there, it was via means that Zechs couldn't discern. He waited, patiently, and fought against the fatigue that was creeping over his shoulders and quickly settling into his chest.

He lost track of time. It might have been a few minutes or could have been hours before he was called. "Merquise." The tone of voice was neutral, cool, professional, and very familiar.

He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. Une looked accomplished and in control. He tried on a careful expression of goodwill and intentionally used the title he'd used last: "Lady."

"Commander now," she corrected without ire. Something changed in her face once she recognized the depth of his fatigue, and her mask slipped a little with the realization of how far he'd come to place himself in front of her.

So, on closer observation, she seemed to be mildly stressed and harried, but... oddly content. Apparently she'd found a position that agreed with her. He stood, walked over to her, and gave her a tired but genuine smile. "Commander." He accepted her hand.

"Welcome back to Earth, Merquise, it's been a long time. It's a pleasure to see you again."

He nodded and released her grip, refusing further comment until he had more details on his new assignment, knowing her far too well. "You brought me an awful long way for polite greetings, Commander."

"So I did. Have a seat," she said, waving at the one opposite her desk. "This will take some time to explain."

His new partner was in that room, separated from him by only eight feet of carpet, an artificial plant that was supposed to mimic a ficus, and Une's formidable solid steel door... and he was curious, nearly insatiably so. It wasn't one of his favorite personality traits, and he was careful to keep it under control and leashed at all times. But it was wiggling loose at the moment, and he cautioned himself to be careful what he wished for.

"Agent Chang?" Une's secretary had spoken; it wasn't really a question. "You may go in now."

He thanked her while stifling the urge to call her Renfield, Duo's pet name for her, knocked once, and pushed the door open.

And stopped.

He wasn't expecting his partner to be anyone that he recognized, and it was that, more than anything else, that halted him on the threshold of Une's office.

Zechs Merquise, it had to be. No one else could carry off those looks with that sort of casual acceptance and grace. He rose politely from his chair when he saw Wufei standing in the doorway, and Wufei got the distinct impression that he would have performed the same action if he'd been on the maintenance crew -- ingrained courtesy, what a rarity. Une waved him into her den. "Shut the door, Chang, and have a seat."

So, this was his sentence then.

Or his penance.

He was slowly getting better at reading her moods, but this time she wasn't wearing one that he recognized. He stood, facing Zechs, stunned beyond words while Une waited patiently for him to come to his senses. Zechs resumed his seat as Wufei sank into his own -- both men automatically turning to face Une; Wufei watched Une, more to avoid staring dumbstruck at Zechs than in any acknowledgement of her rank. He didn't want to consider his motivations for doing so. Nor did he want to consider the way his brain seemed to be short-circuiting at the moment.

"Agent Chang? Merquise has been re-activated as an agent within the Preventer forces and will be listed as your duty partner. I'm assigning him to regular staff with the same specialized duties as yourself. He will be expected to adjust to your current shift and rotation schedules." She paused to shuffle papers in a thick personnel file. "Please take him down to get his identification processed and uniform and locker assignments. Show him around, introduce him to the rest of the squad, and arrange transport for him to and from his hotel until the motor pool can locate a car for him and we decide which residential unit to station him in permanently. Any questions?"

Questions? Wufei was supposed to have questions?

She stood. "You are dismissed gentlemen." Then she smiled at Wufei, a considering, thoughtful and mildly evil expression, and he started to worry about exactly what it was he'd just agreed to do. He'd never seen her smile like that before, ever.

Wufei stood uncertainly at her dismissal. He could only assume that Zechs was waiting for him to take the initiative and escort him from the room. Both he and Une waited patiently while he collected his scattered thoughts. He held out his hand to his new partner. "Welcome to Preventers, Merquise." He worked at keeping his voice low and even.

Zechs was going for cautious acceptance as well. "It's a pleasure to be here." His fingers, when he reached out and met Wufei's were cool, his touch light with the calluses of physical labor. "I'm looking forward to working with you again."

That took Wufei by surprise. Had they ever? However briefly? He nodded at his new partner and glanced over at Une from the edge of his peripheral vision. She seemed satisfied, so he faced Zechs again. He hated looking up at people, but he'd been getting better at coping with it. A good thing in this case, as his new partner topped him by far more than a few centimeters. Wufei resisted the urge to stare, but got a general impression of tiredness nonetheless.

"Identification first then, if you'll follow me?" It wasn't really a question, but Zechs trailed him from her office without answer or hesitation, willing at the moment to be led by Wufei's whims though the rabbit warren that was Preventers HQ in this city.

They walked though the twisting halls without talking. Wufei hadn't the first clue what to say to him. Only one thought retraced a frantic path around in his brain: Zechs was his partner? He satisfied his internal question by watching him carefully as he maintained his distance in his peripheral vision. He didn't want this, he didn't like this, but if this endeavor was going to fail, it wouldn't be his fault. If Une wanted him to keep Zechs as a partner, he'd do his level best to prove that he could handle the situation. If one of them was going to fall short of the mark, it wouldn't be him. He chanced another glimpse of Zechs to verify that this was really happening. Zechs was looking around with interest, but didn't slow or pause, intent on keeping up with him -- a good survival tactic in this part of the building.

HQ had been converted from a twenty-first century academic building, and the renovations hadn't left the building navigable with anything less than a GPS system and a flashlight. They lost an intern at least once a week; a new agent -- sent to find a file -- had turned up a full shift later. Someone had started tacking up "beware of the leopard" signs on the file room doors. While Wufei didn't understand the historical reference, it was a popular coping mechanism, and Une allowed it to continue. There was even a running joke about a dedicated SAR dog reserved for finding lost archivists in the cold case files.

It didn't take long to get Zechs set up with his identification tags and uniforms. During the wait, Wufei gave him a running monologue explaining the training and re-evaluation he'd have to go through before he'd be issued a sidearm, and Zechs either nodded or offered a few words in response.

Not a talkative man. Good. Wufei didn't recall that he'd had much opportunity to interact with him in the past, but at least in that respect, he thought they'd get along, he didn't care to fill the air with random chatter either. He pointed to a map of the facility on the wall, explained where they were, how to find the target range and duty lockers, where the break room and filing facilities were, and then led him back through the maze to 'his,' now 'their,' office.

In hindsight, Wufei probably could have found Zechs a desk on the main floor. God knows he wanted him out of his personal space and with a desk of his own, but if Une expected him to bring Zechs up to speed on all of his active cases, they were going to have to remain in close proximity with each other. Besides, his office was one of the precious few that had a door. It didn't offer much in the way of true privacy, long windows ran along the top half of two of the divider walls and there was no exterior view, but the door offered at least the illusion of quiet, and vid calls were easier to handle than when he'd had a desk on the open main floor.

"It will be crowded, but I'll ask Une to move a second desk in," he apologized for the lack of space. "We've had increasingly tight quarters due to the expanding number of agents in the building."

He wondered if he still sounded nervous; he felt that he did. He expected Zechs to complain about the limited room, but was instead surprised at his easy acceptance of the situation and effort to fit in. Zechs nodded, looked around carefully at the way Wufei was currently using the space, and waited for him to steer him to their next destination. Wufei thought privately that Zechs was really taking all of this very well. But he'd been careful to steer their limited conversation only in the direction of safe topics so far -- hiding beneath the mundane assorted tasks of work and civilized discussion.

The dangerous topics would surface later; he was sure of it.

"It's close to the end of my... our shift. Do you need anything else before I give you a ride to your hotel?"

Zechs seemed thoughtful; either that or he was very tired and covering it well. "No. Not that I can think of at the moment."

Zechs shifted the bag he'd been carrying around on his shoulder since they'd left Une's office. He hadn't mentioned either the discomfort of carrying it or asked to stow it in a duty locker, and Wufei had forgotten he'd been carrying it. Sloppy Chang, very sloppy.

"Follow me then; I'll give you a ride over."

The parking garages were on the surface levels of the multi-storied building; key administrative offices were underground; training facilities and private offices were fit in wherever there was space available. It was awkward at best, impossible to navigate through at worst, but the decentralized offices dissipated terrorist risk and impact on the organization, and the top-level garage was useful for the odd times Preventers needed to land field equipment and such for emergencies. The two men rode silently in the elevator, Merquise staring into middle distance with an odd calculating expression on his face. Wufei recognized that expression after a moment -- Zechs was committing everything he'd just seen to memory. Wufei would have to test him on that tomorrow -- see how talented he was at that particular skill.

Une hadn't let him see Zechs' dossier, and the electronic version of the file had been locked and protected when he'd thought to take a moment to look him up in the system. Interesting.

And then Wufei realized that he'd been caught staring at the man for the duration of the elevator ride, and turned quickly to face the opening doors, embarrassed as he hadn't been in months, and seeking a quick diversionary tactic.

Wufei led him to his car instead, and waited a moment for Zechs' appraisal and pronouncement.

"Nice. Very nice."

There was true admiration under that brief statement, the first honest praise he'd heard from Zechs, and he had to smile privately in response. Yes, she was sweet, one of the only advantages to seniority in the ranks at Preventers. He pretty much had his choice in the motor pool, and his regular ride was a late model coupe with 'extras' under the hood that Une might have disapproved of had she known. It was not, even by a stretch of a liberal imagination, a car that any would suspect of originating from the Preventers' garage.

Duo had been envious as hell.

Zechs stowed his bag behind the passenger seat and settled into the upholstery with what appeared to be honest relief to be off of his feet. He was soft then, thought Wufei. Probably had been spending at least some time at a desk or in a vehicle every day in addition to the relative gravity differences between Mars and Earth.

So he was human after all, thank God.

Preventers always used the same hotels in rotation for guests, and the one in current use was the farthest from the office. Zechs didn't bother to look up at it when Wufei pulled into a no-parking zone next to the building, and that triggered something else in his admittedly befuddled head. He glanced sideways at Zechs before asking, "You haven't been here before?"

"No. Lady, pardon, Commander Une, asked another agent to pick me up at the shuttle dock this morning. She mentioned that Preventers would provide me with some sort of basic housing, but that it would take a few days to arrange for it." He peered out the window of the car, tilting his head to look up at the building. "This is?"

"Your hotel. You have a room reserved under your last name." Zechs seemed to be waiting for something, so he continued. "I'll pick you up a half hour before our shift starts tomorrow, right here is the best point."

Zechs nodded, apparently understanding that this was a dismissal. He pushed the passenger door open, levered his endless legs out of the car, stood, and reached back for his bag. "0530, here?" At Wufei's nod, he shut the door and stood back on the low curb, watching silently as Wufei drove away from the building.

It wasn't until Wufei was pulling into his parking space at his apartment that he realized what he'd just done. That he'd just left his new partner standing alone on the sidewalk in a strange city, after he'd just started a new job, didn't know anyone to call, probably hadn't eaten anything all day, and wouldn't have had any opportunity to exchange his currency for local credits.

With the bonus realization that all of Zechs' personal belongings must have been in that one small bag.

Hell.

Nice going Chang, great way to start your new partnership.

He spent the next hour kicking himself before deciding that what he really needed was a distraction. He took a shower and dressed in his 'house' clothes before he felt more human, then spent the better part of a half hour trying to convince the contents of his kitchen that they should become something marginally palatable. Distracted by his thoughts on how the day had gone, the chime of an incoming call managed to startle him half out of his wits. He quickly discovered that he'd left the phone on auto-answer as well. Damn, he hadn't meant to do that. By the time he walked over towards the monitor, Duo was already peering interestedly back at him with a confused expression on his face. He saw that look so rarely on his friend that he was immediately on his guard.

"Morning, Duo. What is it?"

Duo laughed, a bright, unrestrained sound, and pointed at him. "First of all, it's after eighteen-hundred local, so you should be well past the early hours by this point; and second," he paused for dramatic effect. "What exactly are you wearing?"

He'd done it to him again; Duo's timing was, as usual, impeccable. "What does it look like I'm wearing, Maxwell?"

Even the use of his last name didn't distract Duo this time. "It looks like you're wearing something that small creatures vomited on and then bleed creatively over before they died."

"Your friend Howard sent this to me after the war. He told me that I needed to add more color to my wardrobe." Wufei looked down on the violent chaos of patterns on his Hawaiian shirt. "It wouldn't be appropriate to wear this to work," or, actually, anywhere outside of the privacy of his own apartment -- Duo's description was, to be honest, rather accurate. "Why, exactly, are you calling?" He was quickly becoming concerned, Duo seemed to be stifling his amusement with a great deal of effort. Bad things usually happened when Duo laughed like this.

"You said you'd give us a call after you'd met your partner. We're all dying here, waiting to hear about the poor victim that you're going to intimidate and traumatize to death before Une gives up and reassigns you to solo status again. You didn't call, you're distracted enough to admit to actually owning that hideous shirt, and you've got your time clock completely screwed up, so something interesting must have happened. "Give, dammit, or I'll send Heero over to interrogate you."

Wufei watched as Duo swallowed his mirth and fought down the urge to give in to his bubbling amusement so as not to miss any of Wufei's reactions. Wufei suspected that Duo would be able to live off of this news for days. Hell. "I was assigned my new partner today..."

"And she's a gorgeous stacked blonde, right?" Duo's fingers were busy sketching imaginary dimensions in midair. "Or a complete airhead? Someone Une is trying to force out of the squad..." He paused and a look of put-on-incredulous shock drifted over his features. "Oh dear God, she didn't assign you Widener did she?"

He nearly gave in to an urge to reply, 'well, he's blond all right,' but settled on a tired but serious response. "It's Zechs Merquise."

There was sudden shocked silence as Duo's face fell. Then..."Hell. Don't go anywhere, Wufei, I'll round up the guys and call you right back. We need to talk this one out," and the line went dead.

So, he was expecting another call, apparently. But after thinking back to his thoughts about this day and how rattled he'd been since he'd found out, perhaps that wasn't such a bad idea after all.

He was partly right, the call was arranged, but only after his leftovers were consumed and Heero and Duo arrived on his doorstep. He didn't bother to change the shirt, thinking absently that perhaps it would distract the others. Quatre and Trowa were called once he'd recapped his brief conversation with Duo for Heero's benefit, and the discussion fell completely apart from that point onward.

"You knew about this! And you didn't tell me?" Duo's volume was increasing, but Heero didn't seem to be paying him any mind -- well accustomed to Duo's violent but rare theatrics.

"Une hadn't told Wufei yet; saying anything to you would have violated Preventer protocol."

"You literal-minded sonofabitch..." Duo threw his hands into the air in frustration before stalking around the room in frustration. Wufei studied their reactions carefully. Heero may have decided to base his growing business on Earth, but Duo was still working within the Sweepers network -- more on colony than off -- but sometimes, as now, here on Earth as a mediator. He'd managed to become a figurehead of sorts for their community, and they used him shamelessly to negotiate better trade routes and districts.

Quatre's band of lawyers did most of the work for him, but Duo was the focal point that everyone in the media paid attention to. The Sweepers exploited that for all they were worth, which in this case had increased dramatically over the past few years, mostly due to Duo's efforts to support his 'family' in space. God knows he had a huge tribe of them, the man acquired friends and adopted family members with an ease and finesse Wufei envied deeply, but through all of it, Duo was his friend, and an inherently loyal one at that. His intuition was something he'd come to rely upon, and Wufei paid careful attention to Duo's impression of people.

"I still don't trust him," Duo added, though he noted that, so far, both Heero and Trowa had held their opinions quietly to themselves. Quatre had been unusually reserved as well -- uncertain and caught between his friends' reactions. "Remember what he did during the war?"

Quatre looked thoughtful, finding a puzzle in the facts and trying to unravel it to his satisfaction. "But Une listed him in Preventers afterwards... and what about during the Mariemaia Incident?"

Heero nodded, casting his own vote. "He has his own sense of honor."

Duo snorted at that, but Trowa caught Wufei's attention with a shift of his eyes and then nodded at Heero. So there were two hesitantly for, one against, and one carefully abstaining.

Abstaining seemed the best route at the moment, and he announced his decision to the room. "Well, based on Une's endorsement of his character, I'm willing to see how he does."

Duo was more cautious, "Are you certain? This is the man who nearly engineered the end of the world as we know it.."

"And we didn't?" Wufei shook his head, his mind settled on the matter. "He rises or falls on his own actions."

The hotel room was like so many others -- carefully designed not to offend, but hardly luxurious. It still surpassed his last set of accommodations by a fair margin though. At least Zechs had new identification to go with his claim to the room -- good planning on Une's part. He'd managed his flights and connections with her traveling papers. His identification, limited as it was to hide who he'd been, would never have allowed him off of that rock -- a risk he'd accepted while running from his past.

He walked over to the room's only window and twitched the blinds open just far enough to allow natural light, what little of it was left in the day, into the room. His bag he settled on the edge of the bed as his body slowly sank into the comfort of the slightly broken down upholstered chair. He let his thoughts out to wander for a while with the view out of the glass, considering the day he'd just had.

So here he was again: another new base, another new job, another new superior officer to learn the ins and outs of. The surprise this time was that it was an Earth-side assignment (thank God), the job was at least marginally similar to the last one he'd held, and his direct superior was one of the last people he'd expected to run into ever again. Lady Une... he hadn't seen that one coming. How the hell had she managed to track him down? For what reason? Wufei seemed a perfectly capable agent, and as an ex-Gundam pilot, ex-terrorist, and current agent, should have been more than capable of handling whatever trouble Une suspected was heading his way. Her logic simply didn't make sense.

It had taken him a few minutes to place Wufei in his memory banks during Une's briefing. He had to wonder what sort of intelligence lay behind partnering two ex-Gundam pilots together, ones who had somehow or another usually served on opposite sides of the battle lines. What sort of plans could Une have for them over and above her initial assignment request?

He took a moment to remember Treize's interest in Wufei during the war and his long-winded praise of Wufei's dueling skills. His notice that Wufei had enough honor to put aside his superior weapon and meet someone on equal ground/footing. That counted for something. Even now during a time a relative peace.

And then there was the other problem.

There was simply no denying the fact that he had been physically attracted to him from that first touch today in Une's office, though he had taken great pains to conceal that fact from both Une and his new partner.

He stood and pulled the blinds closed.

While he didn't know Wufei's inclinations, there was always the possibility that Wufei, as himself, fell among a percentage of mobile suit pilots that had been treated with the same chemical stimulant as a number of other elite pilots, with the same, odd, predictable side effect. Though Wufei, married and heir to his clan, would likely have been spared the prototype drug protocol that made the pilots better suited to control the MS's control systems, the side effects had not been well documented at the time. Obviously, based on the OZ intelligence reports during the war, Heero, Duo, Quatre, and Trowa had not escaped the effects of the drug. Zechs had been exposed to the prototype drugs as part and parcel of his stint as an elite MS pilot in the Specials. It was openly recognized that an unusual percentage of Specials MS pilots were bisexual and homosexual as well, as OZ would no doubt be held accountable for, if the organization still existed. He moved on to read the rest of the files Une had provided to him, taking a moment to review the recent photographs.

Wufei. Pilot 05. He hadn't recognized him at first, but that could be forgiven given the five years that had passed. His hairstyle hadn't changed much since the end of the war, only grown longer and worn in a long braid down his back. He was taller as well, more... centered, confident in his abilities, and though Zechs was loathe to admit it, even to himself, he was curious about what circumstances had brought Wufei to this point in his life.

What were the odds that they, of all the pilots active in the war, would meet up at this point? That brand of planning had Treize written all over it. It had the right degree of stealth and subtlety that was his trademark. So then, had Une come by her trade honestly, learning at the side of a master. Zechs wondered again what the next few months would bring. He doubted that it would be boring. He remembered chanced glances at Wufei while he had been preoccupied with Une, and revised that thought.

Definitely not boring.

Speaking of assignments, now that Wufei was gone, it was long past time for him to take a closer look at the one Une had assigned to him. It had been this, more than anything, that had apparently forced her into making him an offer he couldn't rightly refuse. Someone, likely someone internal to Preventers, had apparently been accessing past case information. She'd had no success in ferreting out the culprit so far, and most of her current staff had already been implicated by the evidence tampered with to date, hence her need for an outside agent. And, he mused, they didn't get more outside than him at this point. Mars hadn't exactly been a hotbed of espionage activity, at least not Preventer-based. Targeting Wufei though?

Even though it hadn't been the first time in his career, Une had been very concerned that his inflexible standards for excelling in his work and his high level of uncompromising ethics would make him a target, and in this case, the threat couldn't be ignored or put off. Une feared an inside agent, and had asked Zechs, personally, for help, as he'd had some limited experience at this sort of work. The Mars installation had been rife with threats and harassment, and he'd helped out on a number of cases, his experience with the Specials turning out to be surprisingly useful. Her directive had been simple and to the point: Get close to Wufei, look for opportunities to protect him if necessary, and research his past cases to see if he could find any trace of his stalker and the individual responsible for creating chaos in her evidence chain. Three simple yet impossible tasks.

It was somehow refreshing to realize that his life hadn't changed all that much over the past few years -- first Treize, now Une, and, if this scenario played true -- Wufei would now be the last in a long line of candidates who would have the privilege of directing his actions for the next few months. Hopefully, his assignment would last no longer than that. How difficult could it be to ferret out an inside agent or agents responsible for altering evidence and threatening Wufei?

He suspected that he'd be back on his personal red hell before the next major holiday rolled around.

Which brought him neatly around to his "assignment"... Chang Wufei. A chain of thought he quickly extinguished. "Just an assignment, Old Man. Just a reason to be here. Don't forget that, no matter how interesting he is." He glanced down at his crotch, currently protesting the tightness of his new uniform trousers, though they'd fit rather well before his thoughts had turned to his new partner. "You. Stop that. He's work. Just work. You hear me? Now be quiet and go back to sleep."

He set to his work, pulling the sheaf of paper from his bag and reading about all that Preventers knew about his new partner, officially and unofficially, from the very beginning of OZ's data gathering during AC195.

Wufei's guilt was working overtime. It must have been, why else would he be here, parked at Zechs' hotel nearly half an hour before his expected pickup? Wufei had even taken the time to purchase a peace offering. He didn't know if Zechs drank coffee or not, but assumed that the offer wouldn't hurt -- though said coffee was getting cold while he continued to sit here trying to decide what to do next. How did he feel about this? Dammed uncomfortable. He'd been callous and inconsiderate to a man he was expecting to entrust his safety to -- a bad move even in peaceful times. "Yeah Wufei, go ahead; get yourself shot. What partner would take a bullet for the bastard that dumped him on his ass first day on the squad." Duo hadn't actually said that, but he didn't have to. Wufei gave in, carefully balanced the drinks in their flimsy holder, and headed into the hotel, moving unerringly towards room 762.

He knocked, and there was a pause before the security lock clicked over and the door opened. Wufei hadn't asked the front desk to ring ahead, preferring instead to deliver his apology without introduction. Perhaps he should have considered that decision more carefully. Zechs sent him a startled look, and gave a pointed glance to his watch with a lifted eyebrow before stepping aside to allow Wufei to enter.

Wufei walked into the room; as far as hotels went, it really wasn't all that bad. The colors selected by a decorator with a nod to elegance; the carpet wasn't patterned to hide the stains. Either Zechs had re-made the bed, or he'd slept on the floor; as the coverlet was unmussed and pristine, the pillows undented. Wufei turned to issue his apology, and was struck dumb by what he'd missed on his way into the room. He'd been so focused on 'who' Zechs was yesterday, that he'd completely ignored 'what' he was.

Which was an unpardonable sin.

Zechs had recently showered and was dressed in his uniform trousers, new boots, and the new regulation belt that nobody was wearing if they could possibly help it. The rest of his new uniforms must have arrived via courier overnight. It was only the top portion of his body that defied protocol, and Wufei stared openly. Zechs still had hair longer than most women had, and that wasn't the least of it.

"I just finished shaving, give me a minute to put a shirt on." Zechs sent Wufei a puzzled glance before turning back to his bag and removing a uniform shirt, still packaged in its plastic sleeve.

Wufei blinked, remembered his mission, and held out the cups. "I brought coffee."

"Thanks." Zechs reached out and snagged the cup from his hand on his way back into the narrow little bathroom, and caught Wufei staring at him again. He disappeared into the alcove, and Wufei caught the sounds of him removing the plastic and unbuttoning the shirt. Zechs' voice drifted out to Wufei, cautious now, and tinged with resignation.

"Burns and shrapnel mostly..."

"What?"

"The scars. That's what happens when you self-destruct a Gundam while you're still strapped into it."

"Oh."

Zechs voice came to him again, softer now, more as if he was repeating something to himself from long memory or repetition, "Some lessons can only be learned by risking one's life."

It wasn't until then that Wufei realized he hadn't been looking at the scars.

Hell.

Wufei went into his office to check their respective scheduling for the day; Zechs had been excused from the morning rundown meeting since his firearms proficiency test was scheduled for the same time. When they had arrived at HQ, Wufei had walked him down to the range and introduced him to Chavez, but didn't have time to do much more than make sure Zechs knew how to get back to their office before he took off again. The morning rundown meeting drifted into a discussion of a related case to his with Rogers and Leibowitz, then an impromptu bitch session over the agent in the neighboring district who was limiting access to information their squad wanted. With one thing and another, it was well past lunch before Wufei remembered that; one, he had a partner now; and two, he'd just abandoned him yet again.

This new partnership was not going at all the way he'd planned.

Wufei took another few minutes to walk through the break room, disturbing in another one of his futile attempts to get someone to replace the water cooler reservoir for him, but that was Rogers for you. The man would as soon carry a light bulb from room to room as replace one. It wouldn't occur to him to change a bulb if he was sitting in the dark. Wufei took a few moments to run by his office and return two calls: one to the intern helping him on the Walter's case, and another to one of his regular informants who'd left him a message with a time and number to call. Predictably enough, his snitch wasn't there, and Wufei was finally able to take off in search of his partner.

Partner.

That was going to take some getting used to...

Wufei found Zechs still on the basement range, practicing with his newly issued firearm. He grabbed hearing protection at the door, checked in with the range guard, and after receiving a cursory nod, looked through the scope at Zechs' sheet -- the rounds centered in two tight clusters over the target zones -- very nice. Zechs had extended the target sheet to the full length of his station, the two other agents had only run their targets out to the regulation ten meters, and their scores weren't nearly as proficient.

The range guard gave Wufei a steady look as he backed away from the scope. "Rumor mill says that that's your new partner?"

"Yeah."

"He's very scary, Chang."

"Tell me something I don't know."

The older agent tilted his head to the side and absently scratched his elbow as he considered the puzzle of Wufei's new shadow. "Chavez was practically crying when he left. Does everyone you work with shoot like this? The other guys that you dragged down here shot the begeesus out of our scoring system as well. The guy with the braid was freaking scary." He sat back in his chair and took a measured look at Wufei. "Where the hell do you find these people?"

Wufei had to take a moment to think about how he wanted to reply to that question. "I'm sorry Reggie, but you really, really don't want to know." He shrugged apologetically, shook his head at the thought of how Reggie would react if he knew the truth, and walked down-range to talk to his partner.

He caught him up on what had happened so far that morning, gave him a rundown of the morning meeting and drove Zechs, since it was Zechs at his insistence, "it's easier to shout than Merquise," over to a local restaurant and tried to repair some of the damage he'd done by abandoning him twice now. They sat at a table off to the side of the main room as Wufei carefully probed him for information, questioning him about his impressions about the squad so far.

Zechs toyed with his salad as he compared Preventers to military ranks he'd held and other positions, and gave Wufei a brief synopsis about his time on Mars. Wufei was hoping for more in the way of reasons for his return and current involvement with Preventers, trying to find out whether he was his cover, or if Zechs was his for the duration. Wufei didn't have any luck though; Zechs was smoothly practiced at evading his questions without seeming to do so.

They returned to HQ and began the endless rounds of introductions to the squad members. The few agents Zechs met in passing had been cautiously accepting so far. He had already been though this same complicated dance more times than he cared to remember. Moving around with Alliance troops and OZ assignments accustomed one to dealing with the uncomfortable solitude of being the new man on the base. These agents were no different, and he recognized one of the rituals immediately by the standard question they continued to ask: How many years do you have to go? Only established personnel spoke of their employment in terms of years until retirement instead of total years in the system. He recognized the subtle test of whether or not he belonged within their ranks, and nodded in recognition. One of the older man's eyes had widened in feigned surprise, with a glint of respect behind them. Wufei had nodded in return and introduced him to the remaining agents in the break room.

Zechs had the distinct impression that he was tolerated but neither liked nor respected by anyone in the room. Une knew the truth though, and he suspected that she'd delivered some of the details to Wufei -- he was the only person who seemed willing to accept him at face value. This looked like it was going to be more of a challenging assignment than expected. Fitting in wasn't something that he did as easily now as he'd once done in the past. Too much history and too much of it public and broadcast EarthSphere-wide. He'd have to make do. Wufei certainly had, though he hadn't done anything quite as high-profile as he had during the war.

After the round of stilted introductions, if was off for a tour of the district in Wufei's tidy little ride. On the way back to HQ, Wufei edged around the one topic he'd not brought up at lunch: Noin. He'd worked with her in the past, though only briefly. She'd been partnered with Sally during the early days of Preventers, had left the service to accompany Zechs to Mars, and had come back shortly thereafter. She was still listed as active -- although in a different unit. Wufei had spoken with her fairly recently, though not about her time on Mars, and was curious about what Zechs would have to say about the matter. He pushed around the idea in his head, framing the question a dozen different ways before giving in and going with the direct approach. "Have you spoken with Noin since you've returned?"

Zechs gave him a level, considering look that said he knew what Wufei was trying to do and was considering whether or not he really wanted to answer his question. His look spoke volumes. Wufei didn't dare break eye contact, if he gave into him now, he'd lose all the ground he'd gained with him so far. Wufei could almost see his internal shrug and subsequent decision to humor him. Zechs was starting to be able to read Wufei's moods and internal thoughts.

Wufei didn't find that particular thought exactly comforting.

"We're meeting next week for dinner. And no, Chang, we're not exactly on excellent terms at the moment. She followed me into exile and didn't like what she found there... or who she found at the end of that long shuttle flight. I wasn't worth being with after the war, and I chased her back to Earth. We'll see what comes of dinner and I'll take it from there."

It sounded like he'd either regretted confessing that much, or that he'd intended to tell him more and then thought better of it, as his words stumbled to an awkward stop. Wufei made a mental note to query the Mars project records to see if any information was available through service records or the local media. He'd need to investigate further at some point if Zechs didn't eventually come forward with the information. Lovers, friends, and work associates were all targets for security leaks; they required constant monitoring.

They didn't speak to each other again until they arrived back at ESP HQ. Zechs seemed preoccupied with his past, and Wufei was sorting out its possible impact on his future. Thankfully, the rest of the afternoon turned out to be uneventful as well. Zechs' desk was requisitioned and moved into their office, and the two of them sorted out the best configuration for the new furniture and multiple wires once the movers left them to their own devices.

Wufei arranged to get Zechs copies of his active case file for review, and the current intern delivered them in surprisingly good time. Wufei covered highlights from each active case -- feeling awkward at directing all of his material lecture-style at Zechs, but Zechs didn't make any comment -- he merely took occasional notes, asked careful questions when he didn't recognize a procedure or task, and nodded intelligently at the connections Wufei had pieced together so far.

When Wufei was done with his initial rundown, he was surprised to see Zechs pull a pair of delicate, gold-framed glasses from his pocket and settle behind his new desk for a prolonged study of the materials he'd provided him with. At his surprised look, Zechs quirked the corner of his mouth and told Wufei that they were 'just for all the small print -- to help him avoid eye fatigue,' and he'd started reading. Zechs read all afternoon, occasionally asking Wufei to clarify points in the reports, and twice pointing out errors that had been introduced by clerical error, and one logical assumption that wasn't -- all in all an honest day's work.

Wufei drove him back to his hotel at the end of their shift, but couldn't find it within himself to offer anything more beyond what he'd done so far. He just wasn't ready to try to become his friend, to offer companionship over a meal, to talk about anything that didn't impact his working relationship with him. Wufei hesitated as he dropped Zechs off after their shift closed that evening, watched as Zechs had shut his car door.

Zechs turned to watch Wufei drive off, only to find Wufei looking forward through the windshield with both hands clenched around the steering wheel. Zechs waited on the sidewalk for a long count of thirty before Wufei visibly startled and moved the car away from the curb.

After reaching his apartment, flipping though and subsequently discarding most of his mail, and returning Duo's call -- he'd been worried about how things were developing with Zechs -- he gave up and reconsidered, briefly, what had caused his lapse in front of Zechs' hotel that afternoon.

Zechs made his way back up to his room, following ingrained precautions Wufei hadn't bothered with, but that made him uncomfortable to ignore. He got off the elevator two floors above his assigned room, and took the fire stairs back down to his level. Une had assigned him an electronic sensor, and he swiped down the room before settling in to review the additional files supplied for his second-shift job. Une was going to assign him a data link as soon as she could do so without arousing any suspicion, but until then he was reduced to working with paper files and digital recordings of Wufei's work and home communication lines.

He'd objected at first to this insidious invasion of his privacy, but Une had reassured him of its necessity -- and her concern that Wufei's private conversations be limited to only her, himself, and her one dedicated electronic digger. She hadn't revealed who her source was, but he knew he was out there -- Wufei's files would have to have been encrypted and re-coded, and she'd have needed someone specialized to retrieve the data and, in turn, make them available to him.

The recorded screen snapped from fuzzy to sharp focus, and Wufei was suddenly there in front of him. He appeared more open and relaxed than he'd been when sharing the same space with Zechs, and it made him look both younger and more energized. He'd showered and changed into casual clothes before returning his friend's call; his hair was slicked back on his scalp, and there were damp marks on his shoulders from it. Zechs found himself watching him, and had to force himself to pay attention to Wufei's words, captivated as he was by his expression alone.

"Duo? To state this in your own words: This sucks."

"Really? Does it? I wasn't aware that Zechs was into that sort of thing? Though, come to think of it, Noin sure as hell didn't last long as his duty partner in Preventers and he was awfully close to Treize..."

Duo had one of his trademark grins wrapped around his face, and Wufei gave him a derogatory snort in response.

"I don't know Duo, Zechs is adapting better than I thought he would, and he's surprising me with his willingness to follow directives, but something just doesn't seem right. Why now, why him... What's Une up to?"

"I wouldn't trust him if I were you." Duo looked earnest, and Zechs made a mental note to watch him carefully when, not if, they met face to face. Which was inevitable -- Wufei was too close to his fellow pilots to drop contact with them, and Zechs had made it his mission to watch out for Wufei whenever and wherever he could.

Heero appeared on the screen over Duo's shoulder, and added his comments to the mix: "Wait until you decide for yourself. Zechs is an honorable man, or at least he has been in dealings with Trowa and myself; he just lacks his own good judgment and is too willing to follow orders in some cases."

Wufei appeared to be resigned to the idea that he'd have to wait to come to a final decision. "I'll do what I can to give the partnership enough time to satisfy Une, and then I'll decide what path to take from there. Let me know if you come up with any answers to the issues we talked about yesterday." Wufei disconnected the call without thanks or acknowledgment -- which was strange; he'd done so on all previous calls that he'd reviewed, so something must have distracted him, but what? What kind of issues was he referring to?

Time would tell, but Zechs couldn't afford to be as patient as Wufei was.

Zechs rewound their conversation from that afternoon. He'd committed it to memory so he could replay it at his leisure and pick it apart. It was easy to see what Wufei was after -- proof of Zechs' intentions, his reason for being here and his assignment as his partner. What was curious was his inquiry about the last time Zechs had contacted Noin. Did Wufei think he'd returned to see her? Or was the question meant to throw his attention into imbalance.

Neither option rang as 'true' to Zechs, and he sat at the edge of his bed, trying to puzzle out the rest of Wufei's intentions. That he was curious was more than evident -- even without Zechs' access to Wufei's private calls. Why else the interest in his past then?

Noin. He really didn't want to think of her, about 'them' at the moment, but if he didn't, Wufei would no doubt use that topic as a tool to eventually pry open his thoughts.

He groaned and mentally shelved the topic for later, and reached for the stack of paper files.

It only took three more days before his apartment was available. For employer-subsidized housing, it was surprisingly luxurious, Une apparently believed in treating her agents well. It was on the second floor, the furniture all matched and was in good condition, and the artwork on the wall was original, although Zechs suspected that the artist wasn't anyone who'd ever be well known. There were even linens in the closet and on the bed, something to be grateful for, as he'd not managed to keep much in the way of personal effects. He'd since been told that some of his personal effects had been placed in storage under the conditions of Treize's will, but that meant that they were more than an ocean away. The task of retrieving them would have to wait. Most likely for a very long time.

Wufei had a meeting that morning that he couldn't reschedule and that, as a new member of the squad, Zechs wasn't invited to participate in, so Rogers had dealt with the task of driving Zechs over to his new place and introducing him to his new stability. Zechs hadn't had much to move into his new space, and Rogers had him back in his office at HQ before Wufei was done with his meeting.

He had a car assigned to him the next day. It was a practical sort of thing, not the tidy little performer that Wufei had, but it was nondescript, indiscreet, and it ran when he started it. Good enough for him. It would diminish his contact with Wufei somewhat, but granted him more mobility and flexibility in his schedule, which was welcome and useful as far as Une's special project was concerned. Though he was making progress, his investigation hadn't taken him in a direction he'd wanted to pursue. Zechs had the barest glimmer of a suspect, albeit without any solid proof.

He desperately wished to confide the details of his investigation to his partner. Gain his insight, ideas, bounce thoughts through his quick mind. Even one of the other Gundam pilots would do. In his more introspective moments, he found himself deeply envious of Wufei's tight circle of friends.

He missed Treize. The two of them hadn't had a group of compatriots; they hadn't shared their times together with a large circle of friends. Their friendship had been something so uniquely theirs that, in some way, they'd unintentionally excluded others from their private circle. Une entered it at times, surpassed it at others, but through it all they could count on each other -- to be there, to offer support, advice, or the opportunity of collective remembrance to draw them ever closer.

Now he was gone, and Zechs had no one left to help him remember the times between them -- to reminisce over his past -- the accomplishments, the horrors, the good times and very bad. No one alive knew him the way Treize had, and no one alive had known him well enough to help him remember Treize the way Zechs needed to remember him. His memories alone had no power to console him. As time passed, they lost their clarity, and he ceased to trust them in their entirety.

Une had tried, once, to speak of Treize in his presence. He thought, with the clearness hindsight brought, that he'd hurt her deeply, unintentionally revealing the depth of knowledge the two men had with one another. Zechs mentioned a summer weekend in Prague -- one they'd been on together as the Alliance troops were resituating themselves throughout the European continent. Une had been there as well, but excluded from their outing. Zechs had assumed these long years past that she'd been on assignment. She hadn't been, but he didn't find out until he mentioned the weekend, and she remembered the same time stranded on the nearby base -- alone, separated from the other enlisted by the privilege of her rank, and waiting for her Treize to call.

He was afraid of uncovering more missed opportunities between them that he had interrupted, and he ceased to speak of His Excellency with her.

Wufei was an as-yet unknown quantity. It remained to be seen how much overlap his partner would be expected to have in his personal life.

If any.

That a physical attraction existed was beyond doubt. He had only to think of his partner for a moment or more for the kernel within to take hold and warm him. Intelligence and quick wit were there in quantities enough to keep him interested beyond the initial flicker of interest, and he suspected with a deep flare of intuition that he'd finally found his match. His other. His mirror. His partner. That didn't necessarily mean that they would become lovers though, that could complicate matters.

He turned back to his case and his musings.

It took a few weeks for the two of them to settle into a routine of sorts. Wufei tried to broach the next unspeakable topic by sliding an advance copy of the afternoon edition of the regional newspaper towards Zechs to gain his reaction, as Relena had made the front page again. Something didn't make sense to him though. Wufei read over the rest of the headlines and passed the paper over the break room table to his partner.

Zechs skimmed the article with critical disdain, and then handed it back to him without comment for disposal.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"She didn't say anything about you, even when she had the opening to do so. Does she even know that you're back?"

Zechs lifted his shoulder and looked uninterested. "I doubt it."

"You've been working here for what, nearly a month now?"

"And?"

"You didn't think to inform your only remaining family that you were back on Earth and working only a short shuttle flight away from Sanq?"

Zechs turned a level look at him that was calculated to stop that line of questioning in its tracks.

Wufei pushed back against the cold expression, wanting to know the answer to his question. "That's not going to work on me this time."

Zechs sighed, sat back in his chair, and studied the water cooler in the corner before replying in a tired, drawn out voice. "I'm... not Milliardo Peacecraft any more, and I never will be again. That part of me is dead, and will stay dead." He sounded worn out, defeated, and he wasn't done with Wufei yet. "Zechs has no family and no remaining friends. Sometimes it's just easier that way. Can you understand that?" There was the angry sound of his chair sliding across the abused tiles as he retreated.

So, he had a soul buried in there after all, and it was bruised pretty badly if his reaction was any indication. In its own way, Wufei found that thought comforting.

And then he remembered exactly why it was that his partner had no more friends, and went to track him down. Which proved to be difficult. Apparently when his partner wanted to disappear, he did a better job of it than Wufei did. He wasn't in their office, or the second break room, or the weight room, and his car still in the lot and his badge still registered as checked into the building, which left Wufei with very few options.

"Have you seen Zechs?"

Cormac flipped him the bird, but Jalopian pointed up at the ceiling. "I saw him heading up to the courts with the night shift's basketball a while ago."

Wufei shook his head at the good-natured razzing he received for 'misplacing his partner' and turned to the parking garage elevator, not quite understanding the motivations driving his partner, god he still didn't quite believe that word applied to Zechs, to drive his physical body in order to cope with the stress of the day. All of his own coping strategies involved meditation or quiet contemplation of the problem. Basketball? He considered other options open to them as he climbed the stairs, forgoing the slow elevator. Sparring with swords came to mind and was quickly discarded as reminiscent of Treize, and likely too painful a memory.

Wufei made his way to the roof of the parking deck, carefully opening the reinforced fire door, and following the sound of the erratic hollow thudding sounds towards the fixed hoop at the end of the helicopter pads. He found his partner there, circling and spinning in the afternoon light, shed of shirt and in casual sweatpants and track shoes, absently leaping towards the rim of the basket with his borrowed ball. None of the other members of the shift, usually eager for a pick-up game, had followed him up to the roof. Zechs played alone.

Watching him brought home how many times Wufei had stranded him over the last few weeks as well. Not a pleasant thought, though Wufei was at a loss of what to offer him at the moment either. Heero and Duo were the two with the basketball-playing skills. He had none to offer. He would have to come up with a better substitution.

He turned and left Zechs to his own meditation devices.

Zechs caught a flash of movement as the door opened on the roof platform, expecting company eventually, but not this company. He hadn't expected him to turn and leave without comment either. As Wufei moved off, Zechs scooped up the ball, snagged his shirt off the perimeter fence, and sprinted across the helipad to catch up with his partner. Wufei glanced up at the sound of running feet and stabbed the hold button on the elevator, locking the doors in their fixed position as his partner approached.

Zechs slowed, unsure of his welcome. "Going down?"

There was a double meaning in that, and Wufei's mind immediately jumped there, triggered no doubt by the current setting. "Sure."

The two of them rode in the freight elevator together back down to the locker room, Wufei listened as Zechs' breathing slowed to normal and watched with covert interest as Zechs wiped the sweat from his chest with the red tee-shirt before draping it over his shoulders.

"Shower is going to feel great after that." He looked over at Wufei, relaxed and at ease, leaning against the protective impact bumpers of the lift. "What do you usually do to relax after shift?"

Wufei stopped dead in his tracks, his brain frozen on the thought of Zechs in the Preventer showers, and not moving much further than that, and was spared the necessity of a response by the timely halt and opening of the elevator doors. Wufei waved him on -- pretending a meeting he had forgotten. Some meeting. Right. His scheduled call with Duo sure as hell wasn't going to go as planned.

It wasn't until later that night that the rest of his mind caught up and he came to the difficult realization -- that yes, he just might be physically attracted to his partner, damn Duo's insight. Unfortunately, that didn't leave him in the best frame of mind to greet Sally Po during her regular rotation visit the next day.

Little notice was made of the ex-partners as they conversed quietly near the vending machines of the senior staff break room. Sally and Wufei quietly discussing the peculiar aspects of a case or the particular strengths and weaknesses of a theory was not an uncommon happening. That they chose, at times, to converse in one of the dialects of Chinese unfamiliar to most of the other Preventers on staff was considered a polite form of ensuring their privacy. Therefore, the fact that they were, in fact, discussing matters of a more personal nature was beneath the knowledge of the other staff.

"He was probably just checking you out."

Wufei frowned thoughtfully at Sally's blatant effort to get a response out of him.

"He's shown no indication as to his sexual orientation and his history would indicate otherwise..."

"Chang? What is it? I haven't seen you this twisted up since the Endovar case, and that was months ago. Give."

Wufei scanned the area around them, picking up the head of shockingly white blond hair on the other side of the room. "I don't know what other languages he's familiar with..." His words drifted to a stop as Zechs abruptly pushed his chair away from the table and walked across the room to the bank of coffee machines, nodding politely to Sally and Wufei as he moved around them.

"Your tall, blond partner with the royal lineage has the absolute finest ass I've ever seen on two legs," Sally offered conversationally, just loud enough to carry. She cocked a smirk at Wufei. "He dresses well, and I'd be willing to bet that he undresses even better." She gave Wufei a carefully evaluating look, spending a long enough time watching his face that he shifted his feet in uneasiness. She was ever too accurate at reading him. "Since when, exactly, have you been into men, oh ex-trainee of mine?"

Wufei nearly burst with the effort to maintain his composure, but managed a polite nod in return to Zechs before taking Sally by the elbow and hustling her quickly closer to the wall.

"What the hell was that about!" He hissed at her.

She gestured at Zechs, who was weaving his way back to his seat while carefully balancing two cups of coffee. "He doesn't seem to know what we're talking about, so I'd say we're safe to continue."

Her expression turned serious. "Listen, Wufei. Don't mess with this. Rule number one is that you never, ever, get involved sexually with your partner. Okay, sure. The man is damn gorgeous, and Noin never had much to say about him that was all that bad... but you just don't play around with your partner. Got it?"

She waited for him to look directly at her again before adding. "You'll find someone. Just don't choose Zechs, okay."

Zechs looked up at the sound of his name amid the foreign syllables, and found and caught Wufei's eyes while lifting an eyebrow in polite inquiry.

"Now you've gone and done it. He's listening to us."

"It's not worth losing a good working relationship for. Find someone else to ply with your lame pick-up lines. The man's called the Ice Prince for good reason. He's nice to everyone, but he's got the passion of a stone. You deserve better, Wufei." She gave him a slow, head to toe, evaluating look. "Playing for the other team huh? Okay, I wasn't expecting that news. You want me to introduce you to that new guy on the bomb squad?"

"No thanks."

She granted him a long-suffering sigh. "Wufei..."

Even with the advance warning of her secretary and the heavy tread of his footsteps announcing his presence, it took two taps of his fist on the side of the doorframe before Une raised her head from the files on the desk. "Now what."

Taking that as permission to approach, Zechs slid into the chair opposite her desk. "I need more information for my 'other' case."

She hedged and moved her files from one side of her desk to the other, buying time. "What sort of information?"

"I want the raw information hacked from the database."

"No. Absolutely not."

He shot her a frustrated look. "Why?"

"It's classified."

His frustration level increased. "Give me a higher clearance rating or declassify it."

She stood, paced in front of her windows, then returned to her desk. Zechs allowed her the time, hoping it would balance the odds in his favor. "The information was lifted from the system using an agent's access code, but the information was a higher security rating than the code allowed for, and the agent was on assignment at the time the security code was being used."

Zechs frowned. "That's all I'm getting?"

"At the moment, yes, that's all you're getting."

Frustrating, that's what it was. At least he had the evening with Noin to look forward to, as it didn't look as if new data would be coming his way any time soon.

Wait, that was Noin. Which meant... Wufei's eyes tracked around the small tables flooding the open atrium, there, over in the corner with the good view of both the fountains and the exits was a white blond fall of hair and a man, elegant in a formal suit, very familiar in form. Except for the slowly widening smile, which was something Wufei hadn't seen that face wear yet, at least not in his presence. Apparently, it took a prettier face, a female form, and a very close acquaintance to win that sort of expression from this particular man. Wufei paused in his task, curious to see how they would greet when they met, wanting to know what they meant to each other. According to Sally, even after years of separation, on the occasion that he and Sally had served duty shifts with Noin, she'd still talked fondly and familiarly of her tall blond friend. She hadn't volunteered that their relationship went beyond that... but... Ah.

Wufei nodded. That was more than a familiar sort of kiss, and then it was followed by a soft lingering touch as Zechs graciously greeted and escorted Noin to her place at the table.

A sharp tap on his shoulder brought him quickly around to a frowning face at a disturbingly close range. Sally wasn't amused. "What's he doing here?"

"Dinner with Noin... Lucretia."

Sally raised an eloquent brow. "Lucretia, is it? I do hope he's not planning on sweeping her off of her feet and dragging her back to Mars with him when he goes. Again." She snorted at Wufei's quick look of surprise. "You don't really think he's here to stay, do you?

Wufei watched over the room, but didn't respond to her question.

She nodded to herself at his expression and stance, apparently satisfied with her internal check and balance system and the way of the world as she knew it.

"Rumour has it that he returned from Mars for a rotation or two for the exclusive reason of convincing her that he'd made a mistake and couldn't live his life without her." She waved her hand in a flourish for emphasis, "Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." She winked at Wufei. "Sources say that he called in a huge favor to Une in order to pull an assignment that would get him close enough to court her. You care to offer me any inside information on that? Office odds are running four to one that Noin'll take him up on his offer and give Une her notice before the winter holidays roll by."

Wufei felt for the hollow space in the base of his chest and swallowed to cover the words he'd rather not admit to, but Sally called him on his action. "Don't waste your time, Wufei. You'd only get hurt by trying to get close to the likes of him. Well-bred, over-educated, a freaking royal, if rumour is to be believed, Une's pet any way you look at him, her dog to call and order if my source is correct. He'd just as soon walk over your bones and help you to your feet so you could dust his shoes for him." She gave him a very level, evaluating look. "I wouldn't trust that man if I were in your place. Turn around, and he'd likely be off somewhere else following whatever whim settles in that brain of his next." She gestured towards the couple, now smiling at each other over their glasses of wine. "And that's not rumour. That's fact." She nodded again and pointed across the room. "From her."

Wufei looked up at her in startled surprise, both that Noin had shared such a fact with Sally and that Sally had shared such an obviously private bit with him. "Noin? Told you that?"

"Well, don't go off and repeating it about, but yes. She did. Over a very nice bottle of wine, I might add. And I'm not looking forward to going through that process again." She indicated the table in the corner. "Extracting painful personal relationship history of people I care for. With both of you, if that look is any indication." She snorted to herself. "Mister blond and almighty returns, and his minions simper and fall before him."

Wufei's eyes narrowed, and he added Sally to the increasing number of those with a low opinion of his duty partner. Then the impact her words slid into his mind and Wufei winced, both at the lance, which was an accurate strike, and at the way the couple in the corner were behaving with each other. "Fine. Put me down for ten credits on Noin getting her man and leaving this rock with him."

"Done. Now, let's go somewhere a bit less social and with spicier food. You can treat your old partner to supper and tell her all sorts of juicy details about her replacement."

"As if you can call yourself my partner when I've been on solo status for, what? Four years or better?" He tilted his head at Sally while he calculated nearby restaurant options. "Frescoes. You buy, and I'll consider talking."

"Frescoes," she nodded in agreement. "We split, and I give you some background information on your new partner as well. Deal?"

Wufei knew a bargain when one smacked him in the face with authority. "Deal."

A few meters away, a slightly different observation was taking place. "So, how are you finding life on Earth?"

"It's been..." He gave a chuckle and a negligent shrug. "Very interesting so far."

She studied him over her wineglass. "That's a new look for you." She picked at her entrée and changed the subject. "How's Une treating you?"

"Well. All things considered. Did you know that I have an ex-Gundam pilot as my partner?"

Noin's eyebrow raised in an exact match of his own. "So, taking after the Peacecraft curse and chasing Gundam pilots, are we? Does this mean that you've finally found someone who lives up to your exacting standards?" It came out a little bitter, a little self-deprecating, with only a touch of humor underneath, fighting to find a balance between hope and resignation.

Zechs smiled, a bittersweet expression on his face. "Perhaps."

"Sally mentioned something about her ex-protégé slaving away in the same district..."

Noin was fishing, and Zechs nodded, accepting the bait. "Chang Wufei, yes."

Noin sighed. "Isn't he the one who...?"

Zechs toyed with his water glass, wiping the condensation off with the side of his thumb and doing his best to avoid confrontation. "Yes."

"You're okay with that? With working with him?"

"We did before."

"That was during the war." She spoke the words flat, without life or lift to them. "Now we're at peace."

"I see no difference." He avoided eye contact, moving his glass and aligning his silverware. "He's a just and good man. I respect him."

She studied him carefully, then narrowed her eyes. "You like him." She paused to make her meaning clear. "I mean, you really like him."

He shrugged to lighten the meaning if she needed him to do that for her. "I do."

She pressed on through the salad course, looking to the side and then catching his eyes and holding them hostage. "What is he to you?"

Zechs tilted his head and looked into his wine glass. "My partner. God willing and time allowing, a friend."

She studied him with the knowing face of a close companion. "You want more from him than that, don't you?"

He stopped answering her questions after that, not willing to answer that question yet, even for her. After the meal, he found himself restless and unsettled. Noin had done that with a handful of carefully placed words. So, even now, all those old memories still rattled within him, and here he'd thought he'd managed to lay them to rest. Apparently not. Tired of the four walls around him, he decided that a long walk was in order to help him think. Only Une, Wufei, Noin, and a scant handful of Preventers knew that he was back on Earth.

He judged the risk acceptable.

Appropriately enough, it was raining. Rain had always helped him release the bonds that tied him into his daily life and allowed his emotions to slip to the surface, at least for as long or as often as he'd had the need. When walking in rain, the missing parts inside of him welled to the surface and his thoughts fell warm against his mind and the world cried with him and shared his misery. People rushed around him without pausing in their relentless pursuit of dryness -- leaving him to his peace. The city left him dark and alone in his thoughts of uncertainty -- and he wallowed in it. It was his favorite way of coping with the darkness it brought.

He walked, that night, in the cold rain of the dark. Cold, wet, moving misery in an all-encompassing way he'd never experienced. He'd started from his assigned rooms in the urban center, and out walked first the streetlights, then the sidewalks, and finally the orange glow of the city. His long coat clung wetly to his sides and moved like leather after the rain soaked it through. It was miles or hours before he walked away from his mental tears and looked about himself, and at the wet pavement under his feet, and up at the rain spiraling down painfully at the hot lenses of his eyes. He didn't feel release, but the exhaustion brought him a measure of relief.

He took a deep breath and held it, waiting for an answer from outside of himself, but none was forthcoming. Unable or unwilling to push his decision, he instead walked from the road to lean against the black texture of a sturdy tree trunk. Spring hadn't brought leaves to shelter his way. No one knew where he was, or would have bothered to follow him had they known. It was a feeling of both empowerment -- however slight -- and utter despair, realizing that.

He looked down the road he'd traveled. The road stayed the same, stopped, permanent, life traveled over it on two directions -- forward and back. He didn't want to be the road any longer... At the still point he'd reached between decisions. He could continue down the road and into the darkness and see where it would eventually lead him, or, turning back on his path, he could retrace his steps and try to pick up the pieces of his life and mind that he'd dropped on his way to this point. The glow of the city, just beyond the range of sight, beckoned.

Decision made, he resumed his long walk, his boot steps on pavement and the wet flap of his coat his only company. His thoughts had finally abandoned him.

He wanted nothing more and nothing less than to find a place or time where he would be accepted and defended for himself, or perhaps in spite of himself; within the unconditional boundaries of friendship. He despaired of ever finding it.

And love? After a lifetime of disappointment and continuous hope, well, he wasn't sure he believed in it. He'd hoped to find someone who had to make the same choices in his life, had to live with the same consequences, a shared frame of reference. But he despaired of ever finding a soul mate, and had resigned himself to a life lived alone. Love? It seemed such a rare thing to find, and he wasn't sure he'd recognize it if he saw it -- much in the way it was easier to mistake a diamond for glass than to assume the best of it.

That way lay madness, and more long walks in the rain.

It was time to stop running away. It was time to face his past and undetermined future. It was time to stay and see what his new life could offer him. He was tired of running. He shifted Noin's suppositions to his past and deliberately moved onward.

By the time Zechs made it back to his apartment, dawn light was just beginning to creep up over the horizon of what accounted for the city skyline. He dropped his sodden and damp identification and wallet on the front table and left a trail of his clothing and other implements, ending with his sidearm and socks on the counter of the bathroom in his more than efficient little apartment. A hot shower, a change of clothes, and he'd be as good as new... or at least prepared to sit and work on his second job for an hour or two before heading into the office for the day. Or was today his day off? He could never remember them, not that it mattered, since Wufei refused to adhere to any regular schedule regarding vacation and personal time. Since his erratic schedule might have been the one thing that saved Wufei from his stalker thus far, Zechs was hardly going to criticize him for it, but it would have been good to have some modicum of stability.

Hell, even without going through the files, it was easy enough to see where the weak points in the surveillance grid were. Wufei lived in Preventer-subsidized housing, like many of the single agents, but he didn't socialize outside of work, didn't have a close companion or live-in lover of either sex, and maintained a fairly regular routine of work and personal habits that involved local shopping and errands. As far as determining his accessibility as an target, he would be predictably simple to locate.

Zechs turned off the water and stood in his shower, turning over options in his head. Upgrading his personal surveillance on Wufei seemed to be the next logical step. He quickly stomped down the part of his mind that suggested that he might have a personal reason for doing so, and told his mind that any checking up on his partner that he elected to do, both before and after the course of their regular working hours would have to fall into the range of "purely practical" reasons.

Right. Sure. Absolutely.

Wufei blinked as a pear was added to his shopping basket, dropping the edge of it down unexpectedly from the additional weight. He looked up into the unexpected dancing blue of his partner's eyes.

"I like pears too."

Wufei glanced down at the pear, nestled next to his own in the plastic basket, and tried not to read anything into that. "Since when did you start shopping in this neighborhood?"

"Since you told me that the produce sold here was better quality than over at my market."

He really didn't have a good comeback for that, since it was true.

He paid for the second pear, and handed it back to Zechs at the door when they parted to walk their separate ways. He discounted the meeting, adding it up to happenstance and chance.

That once, perhaps. But what were the odds of running into Zechs at the dry cleaners the next day when he was dropping off his uniforms? Then catching a glimpse of him while he was out on his morning run in the park, when he knew for certain that Zechs' assigned apartment was on the other side of the city sector, and that Zechs had no reason to be in Wufei's neighborhood at that hour.

No reason at all.

This required some legwork, and Wufei knew just the man for the job: discreet, professional, and the friend and family rates were fantastic. All it would take was a simple vid call to set things in motion.

"Duo?"

"What?"

"Are you still on Earth and staying with Heero?"

"Yes."

That in itself was interesting. "You've been spending a lot of time Earth-side lately, haven't you?"

"Was there something you wanted, Wufei?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

"What sort of favor?"

"One involving your special skill set."

Duo's look brightened at that news. "Does this favor involve paint-on latex and a bottle of maraschino cherries?"

Wufei nearly laughed, and bit back a smile with effort. "Umm... no. It doesn't."

Duo sounded bored already. "Well, what's the challenge in it then?"

"I think Zechs has been following me during his off-duty time. I want you to track him for me and report back on what his activities are for the next twenty-four hours."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"Yes, that's all."

"It'll cost you double you know. Time on Earth isn't cheap, even at family rates." The news was delivered with a wink.

"Fine, fine. Double rates. Lunch and supper."

Duo pretended to consider. "With beverage, appetizer, and dessert."

"Your rates have gone up since I hired you last." He frowned. "I'm not paying for the appetizer this time. I've been to the restaurants you choose."

"Inflation."

Wufei sighed. What choice did he have really? "Done."

"I find myself in need of additional information on these cases." Zechs passed the slip of paper over her desk and awaited her response.

She glanced at the line, her eyes widened only slightly, and she nodded. "I'll have them forwarded to your encrypted account as soon as my private agent is... available."

Maybe it was her tone of voice, maybe it was the pause or the significance behind it -- but it all suddenly clicked together for him. "Your other resource, it's Heero Yuy isn't it?"

She didn't respond to Zechs' query, but her silence was answer enough.

It only took him a few moments to connect the rest of his mental dots. "That's why Yuy picked me up at the station. He was checking up on me and verifying my credentials before I worked on a case that involved one of his friends." Zechs said it more to himself, but Une followed his reasoning and nodded briefly in reply.

Then she had the nerve to smile back at him. So, that had been one of her tests then, one he'd eventually passed. "Yuy's the best digger I had access to, but his relationship to Chang rendered the data he retrieved questionable. I needed you as an outside resource unconnected with the system or the people involved in order to validate the information and look for patterns in the material. You've always had a strength for tactics and investigatory studies. I needed that, and your impartial view."

She shuffled additional non-essential paperwork on her desk to give herself another moment to collect her thoughts. A delay device noted by Zechs, but not remarked upon.

"Yes, Yuy has been running the covert surveillance on Chang's terminals ever since the first letter hit his inbox. Chang isn't aware that he's being watched, and though Yuy is rather a compromised resource because of his long-term friendship with Chang, admittedly, they are not close, seeing each other only during gatherings with the other pilots or when initiated by Maxwell. I do believe that Maxwell is responsible, along with Winner, of making sure that they all don't lose touch with each other though."

She pulled a slip of paper from her desk, wrote a line on it and passed it over to him. "Commit this code to memory."

He glanced at it before passing it back to her, mildly chilled by her discretion as she thoroughly destroyed the note before proceeding. "That is Yuy's direct access. If you have any avenues that you need investigated, you may contact him directly. He is under private contract with Preventers, but is not, at the present time, listed as an agent in the system. You can trust him with any details regarding this case."

Taking that as a dismissal, he stood, preparatory to leaving, but paused as Une sighed softly. "It... wouldn't hurt if you and Yuy maintained a level of, shall we say, public resentment? towards each other while in the presence of others. Purely in the interest of maintaining his cover. Do you understand me?"

"Understood, Commander," and left to continue working his troubling and multifaceted case.

"Man walks like he's on a mission. And his shadow, for a tall blond guy who should stick out in a crowd like a Gundam on an empty airfield, is doing pretty damn well at keeping out of Wufei's way. Not mine though..." Duo cracked his knuckles. "Not mine..." Zechs seemed perfectly content to either remain in his car and follow his partner from location to location as he made the rounds of his general errands, or to monitor him covertly from a position within about a quarter-block access if he had to leave his vehicle. Protection then, not monitoring. Duo snickered once he'd made that connection in his mind; Wufei would love this.

"He's what?"

"It looks like someone might have told him about your secret admirer, and he's taken it upon himself to make sure that they don't get through to you."

Wufei seemed doubtful. "Zechs wouldn't do that."

"Well, he wasn't close enough to be listening in on your conversations with anyone. He wasn't using any equipment that I could see to record anything, and no one else was working with him." Duo shrugged, then sat back with a wicked grin as the opportunity to play with Wufei's mind came to him. "I think it's sweet."

"It's... what?"

Duo nudged him in the shoulder, encouraging him to get the joke. "Sweetest thing ever. You know? Your partner? Tall man? Blond? Hair down to his ass? Ice Prince of the Preventer Forces? Tried to wipe out Earth and everything on it just to prove a point? That guy?"

Wufei wasn't smiling back.

"Apparently he thinks a Gundam pilot just isn't man enough to take care of himself."

Duo stopped smiling too, now that he'd stated his opinion of Zechs openly. "Listen, Wufei, if he gets to point that he's a problem, let me know. I have some Sweeper friends that can take care of him, Preventer God or not." He nodded at Wufei. "And we," he said, picking up the bill for their late supper, "never had this conversation."

Wufei raised a cup of coffee to his lips and lifted another mug in offering to his partner as he approached his desk. "You have interesting hobbies."

Zechs took a seat behind his desk, accepting his cup and settling into his chair with the ease of a king into his throne, leaning back and steepling his fingers alongside of his cup as he faced Wufei. "Do I? Which one are you commenting on at the moment then?"

"The one that involves following me around and monitoring my activities in your off-duty hours. I asked Duo to follow you yesterday. He was very specific in his report."

Zechs offered a half smile in response. "He must be very good. I didn't notice him."

Wufei moved to sit on the edge of his desk, the better to watch Zechs' subtle reactions, but the man didn't seem upset by the exposure of his subterfuge. Instead, he seemed genuinely impressed with Duo's success at tailing him without his notice. Interesting. This was worth pursuing. "You're not surprised?"

He drank deeply from his mug before replying. "At what? That I was following you? I was. Or that you caught me doing so?" He continued, replying to his own questions. "I was told about the threats on your life, and thought to check in on you from time to time." He set his empty cup aside. "Your friend is very good at what he does. He should be working here instead of elsewhere." Zechs shook his head and clucked his tongue softly. "Talents such as those..."

Wufei frowned and his look turned serious and dark. "You'll stop following me."

Zechs' expression remained light. "I'll not."

"You will. It is a violation of my privacy. You have no business following me around. No authority to do so. It compromises my morals deeply and personally." He glared. "I'll not have it."

Zechs beamed back at him, oddly pleased to have a portion of his hidden agenda found out.

"I hate you." The words were uttered low, vehement, under the tongue and entirely without inflection.

Zechs blinked, taken aback by the utter seriousness in his partner's demeanor. "I beg pardon?"

Wufei looked away from him and pointed at the door. "Leave now. I'll find no room for duplicity and lies in a working partnership between us."

"Chang?"

"Merquise? You have no idea how very angry I am with you. Just fucking leave. Right now."

Zechs stood uncertainly at his desk and edged his way closer to the exit. Wufei cursing at him was unprecedented. And serious. Very serious. It was definitely time to back off and reconnoiter on his own and leave his partner to his own devices for the remainder of their assigned shift.

Or not, as five hours blended into nine, and one disaster turned into another and rolled over into the beginning of the next night shift before Zechs thought to check to see if his partner was still in the building.

By then, Wufei looked like a man who'd just lost his best friend, and Zechs was unaccountably moved by how much the exposure his secret operation to watch over him seemed to be affecting him. He stood in the open doorway of their office, assumed a non-aggressive pose, and ventured a quiet and questioning, "Chang?"

His partner didn't respond to him; Wufei just continued to stare down at his desk, running his finger around the lip of his coffee mug, obviously deep in thought.

Zechs breathed in deep and gave it a second try. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to see right now, but I don't think you should drive yourself home after the day you've had." Zechs waited a few seconds for that to sink in. Wufei was still staring fixedly at his drink. Unresponsive.

"Will you allow me to drive you home? Chang?"

Still no reply, and he tried harder to gain a response from him, "I'm more sorry than..."

Wufei lifted his hand in a silent bid for quiet.

So, this was really the end of their brief partnership then; Wufei was serious about his vow and his need for absolute honesty between them. He'd have to go to Une, confess his failure. As Zechs had come to expect from him and his black or white worldview -- forgiveness would come slowly, or more likely, never. Defeated, he turned to leave, only to hear the sounds of Wufei pushing his mug away and collecting his keys and coat. Zechs didn't move, too apprehensive to look behind him and see the rejection on his face. Wufei stood, walked over until he was even with Zechs, stared tiredly up into the man's puzzled face, and waited for him to make the next move.

Encouraged, Zechs preceded him through the artificially quiet office. It was a late hour, yes, but it was office gossip that had quieted the voices. The news had obviously spread of the unheard of sound of Zechs and Wufei arguing loud enough to penetrate the walls of his inner sanctum, and Zechs for once, was grateful for he quiet the gossip gained them.

Zechs led Wufei to his own car, folded him into the passenger seat, and waited for directions.

Wufei hadn't said a word or done anything to indicate that he'd heard Zechs other than following him to the car. Zechs waited for him to offer something, anything. He was prepared to wait all night if he had to. They had to figure out how they were going to handle this situation if there was any hope of the two of them continuing to work together.

And Zechs didn't want to do this anymore if they couldn't do it together. It was humbling. Had his life turned out differently, he could have been a ruling monarch in a peaceful kingdom on the sea. Instead here he was sitting in a two-year old car in a parking garage, earning a soldier's wage, and couldn't imagine a place he'd rather find himself. Okay, maybe one or two came to mind, but only if his partner was willing to go along with him.

He sighed as he waited patiently for Wufei to say something, but no words came. Zechs settled in to wait. He was good at waiting, you either learned that skill as a soldier and pilot or you didn't. If you didn't, you never relaxed nor slept -- which would eventually kill you for certain.

Wufei shifted in his seat. Not normally one who transferred his emotional nervousness to the physical, Zechs turned to watch him and locked onto his expression. Wufei was looking back at him with something, regret perhaps? He folded his hands in his lap, shifted his glance away and then back, and spoke softly to him. "I overreacted, I'm sorry."

"Accepted." Zechs started the car and pulled out of the garage, pausing to wait for Wufei's direction at the first intersection.

"Left."

He drove carefully, wary of unexpected comments from his passenger, but Wufei kept his words confined to simple directions until Zechs eased the car over to the curb in front of an unfamiliar apartment building.

"Park over on the right, third space from the end."

Zechs was sure that his confused look was priceless, but offered no comment, content to wait out Wufei's hesitance.

"We need to talk. Do you have time to come in?"

Zechs pretended to consider his request, but only for the moment it took to shut off the car's ignition and unbuckle the safety harness, but inside he was already leaping at the opportunity Wufei had presented. So, his partner was interested in working this out too; the idea itself was nearly a physical comfort.

Zechs followed him silently into his home. Wufei flicked on lights, dropped his keys on the coffee table, and left his jacket trailing over the sofa on his way to the kitchen, expecting Zechs to follow. He did, cautiously, looking around his environment carefully. Wufei had his head in his refrigerator; obviously digging for something, and eventually emerged victorious with a bottle of wine. "I don't need this, but it will help. Care to share this with me?"

It wasn't really a question of yes or no. Zechs had to. He wanted to. And some small part of him wished to see how far Wufei would be willing to take this -- to discover how much he wanted to fight to regain their partnership. Somewhere in himself, Zechs needed the confirmation that Wufei needed this contact between the two of them as much as he did. He wasn't sure where they were heading, but he wanted to stay with Wufei on the road they'd started. He just needed to hear that Wufei wanted to admit to that as well.

"Sure. Glasses?"

It took all of the first bottle before Wufei started to get close to the questions that had been festering within him. Zechs had been more moderate in his consumption, but the way the room rattled about the edges of his vision when he moved too quickly told him that he'd be sleeping on Wufei's sofa tonight, as this was not a safe mental state to drive in. He decided to break this news to his partner after the second bottle was empty -- no sense in disturbing the mood he was in. For the first time, Wufei seemed to be truly relaxed in his company. That edge of careful caution was gone, blurred by the alcohol perhaps, or maybe he'd leaked some of the frustration and reserve he felt over Une's mission, and Zechs had picked up on that. In part because Zechs felt that he owed Wufei something personal in return for the hurt that he'd caused him, he'd offered to answer any questions he might have about him. Wufei's sense of curiosity was insatiable, and he'd been asking questions of Zechs he suspected would never have surfaced except for the strain of the day and the loosening of Wufei's mind. Questions like the one he was patiently waiting for Zechs to answer... about Noin.

He was just maudlin enough after the wine and the up and down emotions of his day that he was planning on being candid in his response.

He leaned his head back along the support of Wufei's very comfortable chair and let his soul out to roam. "God how I miss her. I never realized what a comfort it was to know, deep down, that I was loved and appreciated for who I was -- not what rank I held, not my skills, just me -- imperfect, proud, and irreparably flawed when it came to relationships. I tried, and I truly believe that she knew how hard I tried to offer the same to her in return, but it wasn't to be. Try as I might, I just couldn't see her in a romantic light -- as a fellow pilot or comrade, yes; as a friend, dearer to my soul than all others, dear lord yes, as a lover, well... We'd tried, of course, but the spark between us just wasn't strong enough to bridge our differences. I found her attentions increasingly frustrating, and she ultimately found me lacking."

"We parted, not exactly on friendly terms, yet I miss her company. You'd think I'd take more care with my friends, having so few of them. But I failed Treize, and I disappointed Noin, and, well, I've found myself alone with my thoughts most times."

Wufei swirled the dregs of his glass, apparently fascinated with the ebb and flow of the liquid. "And the 'other' that you mentioned? What happened then?"

Zechs was deliberately vague. "I loved, they wanted to limit our relationship to friendship. I believe things might have changed at some later point in time, but our differences separated us." Zechs sipped his wine as he selected their next question; it would have to be a fair exchange. "How about you? Anyone?"

Wufei stared fixedly at his wine in response, and apparently thought he needed more restitution before answering that one, as he leaned over and emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass. "I was married once..."

He stopped there, and Zechs thought he'd lost him to his past, but didn't want to interrupt. Wufei shook his hair from his face, stretched out along the cushions of his sofa and closed his eyes. He was smiling when he began speaking again. "Her name was Long Meiran. It was an arranged marriage. She smelled of flowers and was a warrior beyond compare. She referred to herself as Nataku -- a warrior goddess. I was studying to become a teacher, and she thought me a weak man and labeled me as lacking because I didn't aspire to be more in my life than that."

He paused again, and Zechs prompted him gently. "Wufei? What happened?"

If he objected to Zechs' use of his given name, he didn't show any sign of it. "The Alliance condemned my colony in AC194 and sent forces to destroy it. They feared us I think, in much the same way that Earth feared my clan enough to banish us to space in the first place. They sent the Specials in to destroy the colony, and Meiran defended our clan. She had a suit similar to your Tallgeese, and I fought alongside her in my Gundam, but Shenlong hadn't been completed and the Specials were a force to be reckoned with. She was injured in the battle and she died in my arms... in a field of red flowers.

"Treize was there, leading the Specials. Noin and Po were there as well, although I didn't find that fact out until much later.

"I asked the elders for the honor of piloting Shenlong in Operation Meteor, and they granted permission. I found out what the final plans were for my colony, and came to Earth to fight alone instead of waiting for them to drop our colony at the request of Dekim Barton, and the rest, I believe, you know.

"There's been no one for me since then. All my clan is dead. I've kept in touch with the other Gundam pilots, but that's more of their doing than mine, and I've made a few acquaintances at work, but nothing lasting or of great importance."

Wufei listed all of this very matter-of-factly, no regrets, no sense of hope for the future. It was simply the way of his world and he couldn't foresee any change in his future. Something within his fatalistic outlook depressed Zechs deeply though. Wufei had so much life -- so much to give, and yet he couldn't see it in himself. Treize had once called Zechs the coldest sonofabitch he'd ever met. He'd told him later that he could learn a great deal from Wufei's passionate idealism and idealistic fervor. Zechs hadn't believed him at the time, and it was years too late for him to tell his old friend how very right he'd been. He'd stood briefly over Treize's occupied grave and his own empty one and told him this, but it hadn't given him the satisfaction he needed to hear in Treize's voice, the nearly sensual tone he saved for those times when he was right -- and knew it. Maybe Wufei and he deserved each other.

The two agents rested in companionable silence for a while before Wufei sat up, reeled, and folded his head eggshell-gentle in his hands. Black strands of his hair fell loosely through his fingers, and flowed with his movement like silk over satin.

Zechs watched him, openly fixated at the sight of his loose hair, drooping posture, and defenseless submission to the alcohol.

"Oh ancestors, what have I done?"

"Excuse me?" So Zechs was momentarily distracted... a man three days dead wouldn't have been left unaffected by the man sitting slack and loose-boned in front of him. Zechs was feeling the effects of his wine as well -- just on the edge of mellow and relaxed.

Wufei looked up, tiredly irritated. "I haven't had this much to drink in months... maybe years." He stared bleakly at Zechs through crossed fingers. "And it's Thursday, and I have to go to work tomorrow... We have to go to work tomorrow... no... wait... make that today."

He'd said 'we', and Zechs felt the last dregs of tension drain from his body with that vital little two-letter word. He rolled the word over in his mind with a deep sense of satisfaction. He still had a partner. Life was worth living again. He shifted in his seat and suddenly realized how tired he was, and how early in the morning... and that he hadn't delivered news of the time he'd pleaded for.

"Oh, right, by the way, I asked and Une gave us until Monday to work this out, so we don't have to report in until then. And I'm sleeping on your sofa tonight," Zechs added as an afterthought. Wufei nodded in acknowledgement and heaved his way to his feet, tottering slightly.

Zechs had never seen him so, quite literally, off balance. He wanted to reach out a hand and steady him.

He groaned quietly... God he was in trouble... if Wufei ever found out about... No, he'd made it this far without suspicion. Only three people knew about where he chose to lay his affections, and one of them was already dead. Une wouldn't tell anyone; Noin had said nothing. The excuses between them had been sufficient to explain their parting. Zechs reminded himself sternly: This is my partner, and nothing else can complicate our relationship. This is my work, and I must remain objective and professional, this is...

"Here. Blankets. Pillow. I promise you that my sofa is less of a bastard than Yuy's. I'll see you in the morning." Wufei looked fuzzily at the wall clock for verification, "Uh... later this morning." He was standing in front of Zechs, the linens already resting on the sofa. His hair was still loose and wild and Zechs was sure that he was staring openly at the unusual disarray, and then Wufei was gone.

Zechs unfolded the blankets and fit his body awkwardly into a space too short for it, intentionally laying in the same direction he'd seen Wufei in earlier. The fabric smelled of Wufei through the sheets, and Zechs drifted off thinking about how far they'd come in their partnership that it could survive this incident relatively unscathed. It was a comforting thought, warmer to him than the blanket he huddled beneath.

Why was the sun in his eyes... and why did it hurt so much? Wufei flipped his pillow over his face, and blessed darkness descended. With the action came rational thought though, damn. His stomach was roiling about in moderate misery, and his brain felt wet and abused in his skull. He ran though his mental catalog of symptoms and came up with: Wine, red, lots of it... and the pieces circled one by one into the puzzle solution that equaled a hangover. He'd felt both better and worse in the past though, so he worked around to the conclusion that he'd survive this experience as well.

It was comfortable in the dark behind his pillowcase, and he fought cloudy memory to bring back as much of the night as he could manage. Zechs and Une and the awful day, and coming back here to talk. He remembered what he'd told him, and all of what he'd said. Contrary to popular belief, he was not a forgetful drunk. Alcohol slowed down his reaction rate and eased much of his muscle tension, little else. Zechs had planned on sleeping on the sofa last night. This morning. Whatever.

Wufei had been pretty sure Zechs wouldn't fit on it as it barely accepted Wufei's own length, and though is wasn't nearly as bad as Heero's, Trowa had still complained and threatened to put knives in it the last time he'd had to crash on it.

Suddenly it hit him that this was the opportunity he had been waiting for to catch Zechs completely unguarded and relaxed. Curiosity would be the death of him; Wufei knew that for a fact. Even as a child, his parents couldn't keep him from exploring places, taking things apart, trying to fit all of the odd-shaped pieces into his mental boxes. Right now he wanted nothing more than to know what Zechs looked like asleep, no tension, no masks, and no mirroring off of Wufei's own actions and reactions. Just the man alone and emotionally naked, and as vulnerable as Wufei was likely to ever see him.

God he'd looked good last night. Somewhere in his mind Wufei realized that a part of him still idolized this particular man. Zechs seemed bigger than life in so many ways -- his presence during the wars, his close relationship to Treize and Relena... The three of them had changed the direction of the world as he now knew it, and here the uncrowned prince rested, sleeping in Wufei's living room on a secondhand sofa. How strange the twists and turns of fate, and how unexpected their eventual outcome.

There was an odd conflict in his head when he thought of Zechs, and he had yet to resolve it to his satisfaction. Which man was he? Really? And what one was Wufei hoping he'd turn out to be? Uncomfortable questions, but they could wait for later, he wanted to see Zechs sleeping now, and he certainly didn't want to question his motives as to why this was suddenly so important.

Life was too short for those sorts of questions.

He employed stealth techniques to approach the living room undetected, but they were completely wasted on the empty room; Zechs was gone. Gone gone? Wufei walked over to the sofa, discretion discarded behind him and a cheated empty feeling in his chest. The blankets were neatly folded. No note, no trace left behind. He wandered into the kitchen to find the evidence of the previous night: two bottles, two glasses, a corkscrew, and a dish towel with a red stain on it.

Zechs had said they had the next two days off to, what was it? To work this out? No question what 'this' was. And Une had allowed this? Time off to settle a dispute between partners? It was unheard of. Preventers didn't coddle agents; they threw them together and made them work. If two agents were incompatible, they were reassigned until a match was found. Zechs had asked for time to settle this? Or had he been told to 'fix' the situation so Wufei would be easier for Une to work with once Zechs was back on Planet Hell (as he un-fondly referred to his prior home). Come to think of it, he had been the only one to use that dangerous "we" in reference to their future at Preventers. Zechs had just smiled that odd, satisfied smirk of his and moved on.

That in itself was unsettling.

Wufei pushed that thought around in his mind while he showered and dressed. He had a day off, perhaps two, and he hadn't a clue what to do with it. He was on the verge of ringing Une and asking her what her plans were for him when the entrance chime rang. A running walk through the living room proved his cautious hope -- Zechs was in the security lens. Other than dark sunglasses that intensified the contrast of his hair, he showed no signs of his consumption earlier that day. Hell, he just looked good, and Wufei wasn't sure he was all that pleased with where those thoughts were leading him. What Zechs did to faded denim should be illegal, but would have done wonders for their advertising campaign.

He opened the door, and Zechs smiled slightly down at him. Damn the man was tall. Wufei studied the odd blue-gray eyes carefully through the lenses for any sign on censure. None was evident, so he assumed that they were still on speaking terms.

"Morning, partner."

And still partners, good. Zechs had a paper bag under his arm and another in his hand. He handed the larger of the two to Wufei and invited his way into his apartment. He set the bag on the coffee table and unpacked its contents -- gourmet coffee, an assortment of danish and sweet rolls, juice in plastic cartons.

"You have the morning papers in that one." Zechs indicated the bag in Wufei's hand with a negligent wave and sat down on the corner of the sofa and watched for Wufei's reaction. His smile didn't abate, if anything it grew wider. "You feeling okay, Chang?"

"You brought me breakfast?"

Zechs folded the bag and set it aside. "Us, actually. I was planning on eating some of this myself."

Wufei felt that he was obviously still missing something of key importance. "Why?" Why was Zechs here? Why was he looking out for his interests? Why did he care enough to do this?

"You don't have anything worth eating in your refrigerator."

"I know that." Wait a second... the pieces were coming together. "How do you know that?"

"You sent me in for the second bottle last night. I took a moment to look around."

Okay, Wufei was out of questions and realized that he probably looked ridiculous standing there in his sock feet with a bag of newspapers in his hands. He tried a second time to get through to his mentally obtuse partner.

"No, why are you here?"

That got Zechs attention, and Wufei watched the warm smile melt from his features with growing discomfort. Wufei hadn't meant it to sound accusing, but it was too late to retract his words now.

Zechs considered the question carefully, reading the nuances and the unstated questions behind it.

"We're partners, right?"

No question about it. "Yes."

"You had a rough day yesterday, right?"

Well, they both had, but that rather went without saying. Wufei didn't answer that one, preferring to glare sideways at Zechs instead.

Zechs handed over a still-hot cup of coffee. "This is what partners do for each other, Chang. It's important to support each other, that's how you survive to make it through to the next day." He read Wufei's puzzlement easily. "You've never worked closely with anyone before? Never had a partner?"

"Does training with Po count?" He waited for the quick shake of Zechs' head. "Well then no, not really."

"Well, this," he lifted the danish, "is part of it."

Wufei considered that idea carefully before pronouncing judgment. "I could get used to this." He sat down with his coffee and reached for a roll and watched Zechs' smile came back. Hoping desperately that he wasn't just indulging in wistful thinking...

Une didn't seem impressed that they were still partners when they returned to HQ for their assigned shift. However, she did give them a sideways look as she walked into the A.M. review session. The matching logo baseball caps might have had something to do with it. The two of them got a few weird looks from the third and first shift as well. The caps had been Zechs' idea. They'd spent a few hours of the weekend roaming around the historic district of the city and he'd insisted on buying souvenirs. Wufei wondered what sort of rumors they'd be starting. Carlon's crack about their mother dressing them funny had been the least risqué of the lot.

Zechs hadn't even twitched at the more suggestive labels that had been tossed around the break room. Wufei had felt his face grow uncomfortably warm, and wondered about his partner's lack of response. Had he set up the situation intending to let the power of suggestion influence Wufei, had he done it to relax his standing within the squad, or was Wufei just so fixated on his partner at this point that it just seemed so obvious? Surely Zechs knew what the response to the matching hats would be. But then again, Wufei hadn't been expecting it. Hell, this was getting complicated. He needed to run his thoughts past an impartial ear.

He made a mental note to stop by Sally's office and see what she thought of all this. She'd worked partnered with various people in assorted agencies for years, and she had a real intuitive sense for how people related to each other. Wufei trusted her implicitly, but he didn't really want to let anyone in on what he was asking her about either... he didn't really understand what was going on in his own head, and this wasn't something he thought he could take to the Preventers' shrink.

"So has he stopped following you around yet?"

Wufei shrugged and turned to Heero, "I'm assuming that Duo has told you absolutely everything about my personal life, so you require no updating?"

Heero laughed lightly. "You assume correctly. No more letters since all of us met the last time then?"

Wufei slid his ale from one side of the small table to the other. "No, no more letters."

Duo pressed onward. "You still haven't answered my question."

Heero leaned back in his chair with a smug expression. "He doesn't have to."

Duo glared back at Heero and threatened to stab him with one of the toothpicks pulled from their appetizer. "What do you mean by that comment?"

Heero leaned back a bit further and pointed at the tall man sitting at the bar, who was nursing a drink and ignoring the quiet table of three along the side of the room. "I'd say that it's obvious that he does."

Duo's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "When did he come in?"

"A few minutes ago." Heero nudged Duo under the table, warning him of what he was about to do. "Wufei? He's your partner. Go ask him to join us."

Duo kicked him back, a little more vengefully than Heero'd anticipated. He hissed and bit back a curse, but waited until Wufei had left the table before asking, "Did you forget that you were wearing your boots?"

The answer was a dark and sullen, "No."

"Listen, I know you don't like the man. I know you said that he betrayed Howard's trust during the war when he left for the White Fang, but he did some things at the end of the war you don't know about that... well..." But there was no time to elaborate then, not with the subject at hand returning to the table behind Wufei, looking a little uncertain about his place with the circle.

Duo glanced up at their approach, and Heero tensed, but held his ground, waiting.

Wufei stood for a moment at the side of the small table, taking in Heero and Duo's combined front on one side, the two empty chairs on the other. Duo was already glaring. "Zechs Merquise. Heero Yuy. Duo Maxwell." A tense silence followed the stilted introduction.

Zechs nodded politely and settled into the empty chair, looking very unsure of his welcome.

Duo smiled. "It's okay Zechs, I don't bite. Much."

Heero reached down and rubbed his shin. "No, he kicks instead."

Zechs folded his hands protectively around his pint of ale and glanced at Wufei. "Chang did mention that I should wear protective gear when meeting his friends..."

Wufei chuckled at that, and the tension eased somewhat, with the four of them spending the evening civilly, if not companionably, over a meal and easy topics of conversation until Zechs made excuses to return to the office for some files before heading back to his apartment for the evening.

Duo gave him a hard look as he rose from his chair. "I hear in some parts of the EarthSphere, you're still a wanted man Zechs."

Zechs turned and winked at Wufei as he left the table. "Well, one can only hope..." And with that, I believe that I have outstayed my welcome, and beg my leave of you for the evening." He passed his credits to Wufei and bowed slightly to the three of them. "Gentlemen."

Duo shook his head as he departed. "Is he always like that?"

Wufei watched him go. "No, not always."

Early the next morning, he found Zechs at his desk, still crammed sideways into their small office. He was reading through a copy of the report they'd filed just last night, but Wufei could tell that his attention was on him. They hadn't discussed this openly between them, and Wufei would have chosen a better place to do it if he'd had the option. But he'd let this slide for months now, and now that it had come to light, brought up during the course of their meal with Duo and Heero the night before, he simply couldn't let it rest.

Zechs had dismissed it out of hand, casually let it go, but it had taken hold in his own heart, and Wufei couldn't help but see how it had ridden the undercurrent of their partnership, waiting for an opportunity to surface.

Wufei pulled the door shut behind him, and leaned on it.

Zechs looked up from his paperwork with an expression that told him the topic was closed, nailed shut, and dared him to do or say anything about it.

"You know then?"

Zechs sighed deeply and surrendered to his question. "That you were the one who killed him? Yes."

"And?"

Zechs' expression collapsed in on itself. Wufei watched him rebuild his resolve before his eyes, amazed at the inner strength it took to do that... in a public space... with a man who was still a relative stranger standing in front of him demanding answers to unasked questions. He didn't expect any more of him, and was surprised when he continued.

"Chang... Treize was my best friend, the closest thing I had to any real family, and I knew his strengths and weaknesses in combat situations nearly as well as he knew his own." Zechs paused, gathering himself for something. "Chang..." He stopped, looked up at the ceiling fixture, tried to gather his thoughts. He stared directly at his partner and his tone softened, "Wufei... There was no way you could have defeated him unless he intended for you to do so. I... I do not hold you in any way responsible for your actions. You were merely his selected tool of execution."

Wufei gathered himself to protest, to take some measure of blame for his actions. When suddenly it all clicked into place: the pace of the duel, the intentional opening too basic for him not to take advantage of, the strike that wasn't met with a calculated parry, the unexpected ease of the great man's death... It all made sense now, but it had taken the insight of someone who knew Treize to connect all the pieces together for him. He slumped hard against the door. "I... never thought of it that way..."

Good lord, he'd come to the office with the idea of comforting Zechs, and instead, the man had neatly reversed the favor.

Wufei knew he was wearing the relief he felt slack on his face for Zechs to see, and all he could think of was that, instead of enduring endless sleepless nights, his next psych analysis should go infinitely smoother.

All that death had had a collective weight on his soul. The lives he'd taken before their final paths had been determined. Even during times of necessity, and war, the individuals stood clear, framed in his mind. All of the souls he'd personally had a hand in shifting from this plane to the next, and the personal guilt he'd felt over Treize's death had slowly eaten away at him for years.

His partner had wiped that stain from his soul in mere seconds, and he found himself deeply in his debt for doing so.

The next day Une asked Zechs to remain for a moment after the morning briefing meeting. Wufei had looked up at them, concerned and briefly suspicious, but Une had spoken up then, said something to Zechs about "a question about your medical paperwork, nothing more," and had then turned to address Wufei. "I'll send him back to you unmolested once my secretary is done with him. Promise."

Once out of range of Wufei and the other agents, she had questioned Zechs on his progress so far, his opinion of Wufei, his feelings on Preventers' security measures, and what progress he had made since last she spoke with him. She admitted that information ripped by the data feed was being used to compromise additional active cases. Two thus far, and that she needed results to show to her superiors.

Soon.

He wasn't pleased with the direction his instincts had been talking him. Une had managed to smuggle him some additional information on the security breaches and he'd pinned them alongside the dates that Wufei had received his threatening letters. Zechs then added his own comments and notes on top of the electronic pinboard's other data, and it was becoming cluttered. Through that clutter of information though, he was expecting a pattern to emerge. He'd assisted on cold case files for the Specials in between troop movements, and it had been his experience that the solution, the answer he was looking for, would be found somewhere in the data he was given. Brainwork, puzzles, and finding points of connection -- something he used to excel at, but now he found himself somewhere in a higher norm. Brilliant for a teenager was very different than the same intelligence hosted in an adult frame. He'd found expectations in Preventers were very different.

Zechs read over all of the data again. It hadn't changed in the interim, but the more familiar he became with it, the easier it would be for his subconscious to process the data while he slept or lived within his basic daily life. His active thoughts wouldn't be nearly as useful as the instincts and hunches his brain would assemble while operating as background noise or at least, that was the hope, as there was nothing so far in the surface that was obvious to him.

So far, he'd no solid leads on Wufei's stalker -- but his suspicion so far was that it wasn't just another Preventers agent with access and motive. A very short list of suspects had made his cut thus far, and none of them fit the psychological profile that had been generated by Preventers' experts.

Personnel records next then. Une had provided him with a duty roster for all Preventer staff and consultants from the time Wufei received his first letter to the present day. Zechs had to ask for it; Une hadn't missed the implication.

Despite her early thoughts that it was an inside job, she didn't like it.

He patiently fed the new data into his system, person by person, each additional name a new thread in the increasing tapestry of connections. He had one hundred forty seven possible points of contact. Although this would take him awhile, this wasn't a situation where he could afford to ask for help. Une's extreme caution, though an unwelcome burden, had been an astute judgment call, for a situation this delicate, an outside view like his was necessary. Hopefully he wouldn't disappoint her faith in him.

Time to make a few calls then, one of them to his new contact.

Heero returned his inquiry a few hours later.

"You rang?"

Zechs looked over Heero's shirt with an appraising eye. "Nice shirt, Heero."

"I'm fairly certain that Howard purchases them in bulk lots and dispenses them as gifts system-wide."

"I recognize the pattern. AC197?"

Heero nodded. "Christmas. What can I do for you, Zechs? I assume this isn't a social call."

Zechs leaned back, putting more distance between him and the camera lens, giving Heero the illusion of negotiating room. "Information, of course."

"Paid or unpaid?"

"Paid."

"I'm listening."

"I need to know which files were accessed and when, and if possible, through which log-on accounts. Une has listed two breeches of the system protocol since my arrival on Earth, which should be enough to give you a strong indication of which user ID is..."

"Hang on, Zechs. Une won't pay for that."

Zechs waved his hand at the monitor. "Then I will. I need to know that information in order to proceed. I'm working with too many variables and that's the best way to narrow the field down."

Heero was silent on the other end of the connection, staring at Zechs.

"Okay. What aren't you telling me?"

"Zechs?"

"What?"

"Do you think Wufei could be involved in this?"

He thought about that for a moment. "I haven't come across any information that eliminates him from the pool of applicants, but..."

"But?"

Zechs sighed and smiled lightly at Heero. "This is Wufei we're talking about here. He takes his honor and commitment seriously." He pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking hard again for a moment before committing himself. "No, no I don't think he'd be involved in something like this. He's damn near a model agent. The only way I can see him becoming involved is if, like the Mariemaia Incident, he believed himself in the moral right about something and was working to right a wrong. I don't believe that's the case here." He watched as Heero stared patiently back at him from the flat surface of the monitor. "So, did I pass your test?

"Une won't pay for that information because she's already paid for it once."

"Ah." He waited. Heero either would volunteer the rest of the information, or withhold it at this point. Further attempts at extracting it would likely be useless.

"Wufei's account number was the one that was accessed, hence Une's focus on the investigation. Wufei was on assignment at the time, but the fact that his account was used implicates him, and I can't ask Wufei about the details without revealing my involvement as a private consultant to Une on the case."

"Ah... I see. That is a problem. But it helps, Heero. Thank you."

Zechs, armed with this new information, went back through the personnel records and cross checked all of those with access to the data and access to Wufei. He went back and checked to see who worked with and trained with Wufei, and still came up with an approved and cleared list of Preventer agents.

Frustrated, disbelieving that Wufei could possibly have had any involvement, he went back to Une.

"Commander?"

"Yes, what is it this week?" "I'll need a cleared list of all personnel issued access badges to that portion of the building, from cleaning personnel on up, all shifts. Any person who may have some into contact with a password or terminal used to access the information used to access or download the information."

"I'll have Heero forward that to your encrypted account. Will that be all?"

"Yes, for the moment."

"Are you making any progress?"

He hesitated, not wanting to appear too hopeful, yet not wishing to let her down either. "Some, yes."

"Let us hope for the sake of our active cases that 'some' becomes 'more' and soon." "Understood, Commander."

Zechs resigned himself to more sleepless nights, as time was limited, the new information was plentiful, and he seemed to be the only resource she trusted to work through it all.

It wasn't until later that week that another layer of connections occurred to him. Zechs hadn't seen it at first, but there was an entire staffing layer at Preventers that moved in and out of offices and handled case files with near invisibility. Wufei had taken the time to review one of his earlier cases with Zechs, and Wufei been sitting on the edge of his desk and flipping through the hardcopy file when an intern had entered with the supplemental material. And it hit Zechs then -- the intern and volunteer staff. Hell, how could he have missed that? He scribbled a frantic mental note to himself to catch Une in his travels and arrange to get a file of interim staff as well.

He sighed; at this rate, his night job would take more hours than his day job.

Une looked askance at him when he asked her for the list of intern staff after he'd walked into her office under pretense of asking her for information on retirement benefits. She knew full well that he'd never retire from Preventers and had no need for any of the information on pension plan or profits, but she humored his request for a cover story by requesting the backup information from her secretary, whose real name turned out to be Turner. Ms. Turner delighted in pleasing Une, and hauled out all of the support files, information books, and subscription forms for Zechs to walk through. Une was going to pay for this -- later, as Turner was delighted to obey Une's every whim.

He decided that he liked Duo's description of her as relayed by Wufei, Renfield indeed.

An hour later, after he'd signed more forms at Une's insistence than was probably wise to do without his legal advisor present, she slipped him a disk with his requested data on it.

More work for him tonight.

He wondered what Wufei would say of he ever found out that he was listed as the beneficiary of Zechs' pension plan.

"Morning, Chang"

"Morning."

Wufei set his papers down on the edge of his desk, and paused. Something wasn't right. It took his fried neurons a few long minutes of scrambling around in the gray matter to figure it out. Zechs hadn't been speaking English, Wufei had automatically replied in Chinese, which meant...

"You speak Cantonese?"

Zechs looked up from his paperwork and took a sip from his coffee, wincing when he found it too hot to drink.

"I can speak and say a few polite words in about ten or so languages and dialects. I was taught the basics as a young child, learned mostly for state introductions and greeting dignitaries and the like. Apparently, if children are exposed to a language before puberty, the accent is much improved; languages learned later in life carry a distinct accent. For some reason it seemed important for me to retain some portion of my language skills after Sanq fell."

Zechs turned back to his papers after that, but Wufei had to wonder exactly how much Zechs had understood of his conversation with Sally in the break room a few weeks ago. He found that thought... unsettling.

It took Zechs three nights to input the new data and overlay it against what he'd collected so far, with no better results than he'd had so far. The connections he was looking for simply weren't there to be found. At least not yet. Once he'd exhausted the logical and systemic exploration of options that Wufei favored, he'd be left with his random gut hunches. He'd had mixed luck with those in the past. Why Une thought he had any talent in this area, he had no idea. Why she thought he was important enough on this case to pull him back from the far reaches of explored space, well, he hadn't a clue there either. Anything important enough to require the resources of two of the only six surviving Gundam pilots... It was either important, or someone high enough in the control hierarchy had demanded haste and discretion. He was betting on the latter scenario, which made him feel marginally better about the work he was stumbling through. He needed to avoid unnecessary distractions; but there still existed the captivating puzzle of his partner.

He picked up his partner's personnel file and flipped back to the now familiar photo.

It was while he was distracting himself from the puzzle in front of him that his mind slipped into that middle distance where he did most of his best thinking. Zechs discovered that, while concentrating on the pieces, he'd missed the very pattern he was looking for. For a moment, his mind refused to put together the evidence that had been sitting in front of his eyes, but in that moment of mental lapse, it all clicked together. The fusion points practically glowed with intensity. Only two suspects emerged from his overlays. Une would be pleased with neither of them.

The floating interns. The damn interns. The same ones that wandered around the building with impunity and a rare level of access to files and classified work material. There were two who had been working with Wufei's case files at the correct time. Could either of them have lifted his access code? Or was he dealing with two levels of access, one to steal the code, and one to access the system and take the data?

It might work. If the interns were involved, the threats might be cover to divert attention from Wufei's account while they transferred to another office location. It would explain the access, the motive... but it was a thin possibility. Still, Une had requested that he bring any of his ideas directly to her attention, no matter how far fetched, and there was no denying that these two individuals had the necessary access.

Zechs took them to her personally, as this wasn't news he could entrust to a voice message or encrypted note. It was early next morning, an hour before the official start of his shift when he walked into her office. Renfield was suspiciously absent, which was all to the better. Une was watching her coffee cup with a serious look of mistrust when he entered her office and shut the door. Her right eyebrow raised in an unspoken question when she heard the door click shut. He walked over and set the sheet of paper in front of her.

"I will need detailed personnel records for these two people." He hesitated, unsure of how he wanted to phrase his other request. He settled for the straightforward truth. "And I would like permission to discuss this investigation with my partner at this point."

Zechs watched her face carefully for any sign of reaction, but she had her closed face on and he couldn't read her at all. He sat down in front of her desk and patiently awaited her decision. He really wanted the opportunity to talk about this with his partner, as Wufei had access to firsthand experiences with both of these people, and, well, he had to admit that concealing this investigation from Wufei had been bothering him. His partner was too honest and forthright a person to be held in any question, and while Zechs fully understood the reasoning behind Une's decision, he believed that he had already cleared Wufei from any hint of collusion or involvement. Still, Une did not answer, but her shield had slipped enough that he could tell she was considering her options.

"Commander?"

She looked up at him, than back to the two names he'd placed in front of her, and then considered a moment more before...

"No, Zechs, I know you've asked before, but I don't want Chang involved at this stage of the investigation. Once I have the data I need, I will discuss the matter with him personally."

Hang on..."I couldn't find any direct evidence that he allowed either of those people access to the information you are concerned with..."

"Still, my decision stands. You will not enlighten him on this matter." She looked at the paper again; she didn't look pleased with either of the names Zechs had hand delivered. "I... will gather more information on these individuals through my other intelligence sources and get back to you. I need you to remain impartial on this."

"Your agent is not so impartial at the moment." Zechs studied the carpet between his boots, it was easier than meeting her condemning glance. It might not be there yet, but it would be shortly. He ticked off mental seconds in his head: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4...

"Zechs?" Seven whole seconds; she was slowing down, and there was a definite 'oh dear god what has he gone and done now' tone behind her one-word query.

"Chang is an honest man and a superior agent for Preventers."

"Zechs?" There was a new tone in her voice, a cautionary one.

"And I've enjoyed partnering with him. He's one of the very few people I've worked with since the end of the war that has accepted me on the basis of my current skills, and not my past history."

"Merquise?"

This time she received his silence. He'd asked, he was willing to go that far, but he wouldn't beg for the privilege from her. Neither would he enlighten her beyond what he'd already confessed.

"Not this time. I'll handle the research on the personnel you're investigating, but you're not to mention anything to Chang."

He nodded. Yes, he understood. He might not like it, he might not approve of her ethics, but he would obey her directive.

"Merquise?"

"I understand." If she needed it in words, he could certainly deliver them. Zechs stood to leave, but hesitated at the door to look at his superior. She'd aged in the past few minutes, betrayed by her trust in her agents. Misplaced trust. Zechs had elected to rest his own faith in Wufei. He trusted him. He wasn't so sure that he could trust Une any longer; she'd played too fast and loose with his ethics in the past.

He was switching allegiances.

So be it.

Une watched her agent carefully close the door behind him as she left. She opened a file on her desk, and considered Treize's portrait for a moment before dialing an outside line.

Her suspicions alone hadn't given her enough to proceed. Her suspicions combined with Merquise's two names, well, that was a different story entirely.

A fit, nondescript man in his early forties picked up the other end of the connection, caught midway between answering the line and straightening his tie.

"Chelsea?"

His expression quickly changed from mild curiosity to riveted attention; he'd been expecting this call. "Boss?"

"This is a secure line." She paused to consider her next words, selecting them with precision. "That information we've been waiting for hit my desk this morning. Is your team prepared and ready to move?"

If possible, Chelsea's eyes gleamed brighter -- the game was afoot. "Yes, Commander. We've set up three working scenarios and have been running drills since you appropriated us. Do you have the specific details on the target and situation?"

"Yes. We have two targets under investigation, but I would like you to concentrate your initial effort on only one. I will courier the information to you personally. This is too sensitive to risk to a carrier."

"It's inside, isn't it?"

Une neither confirmed nor denied Chelsea's statement. She paused, hand over the call-termination button, "I'll meet you at the north contact point in ten minutes," and her screen faded to blue.

She pushed her chair away from the desk, and paused to look back at Treize. "I hope, wherever you are, that you realize what you've done. I suspect that both of my agents will be worthless to me after this entire situation collapses."

Wufei watched appreciatively as his partner sighted smoothly along the top of his sidearm. This was a man supremely confident of his ability with a weapon. He waited patiently while Zechs rhythmically emptied his clip and ejected the empty cartridge and shot a new one home. After which, he thumbed the safety into place and visually checked it before holstering his gun and turned to face Wufei, not at all startled at the interruption. He looked... relaxed. He removed his safety glasses and absently reached over to flick the motor switch that rewound his last target back to the station.

Wufei nodded at him. "Renfield called, Une wants to see us at 0900."

Zechs nodded in acknowledgement, pulled his nearly perfect score from the clips, folded it in half, and dropped it into the waste bin under the convenience shelf.

The action widened Wufei's eyes marginally. He knew men on the squad that would have slept with that score under their pillow for weeks, or at the very least had the page matted and framed under real glass. That brand of casual acceptance of his skill without drawing attention to it was something he'd only seen in four other people of his acquaintance. No small wonder why Une had accepted Zechs' request to re-join Preventers. Or had she? How had an ex-Alliance, cum ex-Ozzie, cum ex-White Fang, cum ex-Preventer wound up back here on Earth? And why? She must have had a very good reason for reenlisting this particular man. It was suspicious as hell.

Zechs snapped a clean target into the clips on the frame before replying. "I have a meeting with Richards at 0830. I'll meet up with you outside of her office five minutes before then, okay?"

"That works. I have a few calls I need to return, and evidence I need to review before we run it back to the storage facility this afternoon."

Zechs turned to leave his station on the firing range. "Sounds good to me. I'll call you if I need anything before our meeting with Une."

Wufei turned and snarled at the vid, "What the hell is it now, Merquise?"

Heero turned a mild look at him from the surface of the viewer, "So it's Merquise, now, is it? Interesting development."

Wufei couldn't help the slight reddening of his face.

"Well?"

"He's been getting on my nerves lately, and I was expecting him to call with some piddling excuse of a waste of time, hence the less-than-familiar form of address. And the reason for your call, Heero?" Wufei tried without success to keep his tone even and professional. The truth was though, Heero had managed to rattle his composure somewhat.

Wufei peered into the monitor. Was it his imagination? Or did Heero seem to be a bit uncomfortable himself?

Heero held his breath, then released it slowly, plunging forward into forbidden territory. "This... breaches a contract. And I know how sacred you hold the given word."

Wufei considered that. "That you both know and are on my vid and talking to me peaks my interest. Talk to me, Heero."

"It's about the... other case Merquise is working on."

A hesitant Heero was an unfamiliar creature to Wufei. Even Duo was approaching him oddly from the other room in the background of the monitor screen. "Is this regarding Simmons or the Marketplace murders?"

Heero coughed under is breath prior to proceeding. "The one involving... you, actually."

Wufei's stunned expression told Heero everything he needed to know. "He didn't mention anything to you, did he? And you didn't suspect?"

Wufei moved in closer to the monitor camera and took a seat. "What. Case. Involving. Me?"

"He's been reopening and reviewing your closed cases and sending reports to Une. He's also been monitoring your transmissions."

Wufei waved his hand at the monitor. "All Preventer terminals are monitored, and old cases are common proper..." He broke off his sentence when he saw the way Heero was shaking his head. "What?"

Heero just shook his head. "Not just Preventer terminals. Private transmissions too."

Wufei's eyes grew wide. "He can't do that. They aren't allowed to do that."

"They can."

"How did you find ou... Wait... That contract job that Duo mentioned that was taking up all of your free time." Wufei gave Heero a calculating look. "You?"

A terse nod was granted in return.

"You could lose your license for telling me about this. Get kicked off of that super secret internal Preventer investigative squad even I'm not supposed to know about."

"I know. I decided to call you anyway. This has gone on long enough. You should have been informed about Merquise's involvement from the beginning."

Wufei returned the serious look. "Thank you, Heero. I owe you one."

"You can return the favor by never again missing one of Duo's holiday gatherings. Heero out." A secure transmission logo flashed briefly across the screen before the monitor returned to the standard send-call screen.

Wufei stared at the monitor until his vision blurred. He'd been set up.

This time, he really was going to kill Zechs.

But first, he was going to get the man out of his office. No more spying on him from the comfort and convenience of a neighboring desk. If Zechs wanted to find out what he was up do, he could damn well spy on his life and his casework and his well... anything else he damn well pleased to monitor from the other side of the door, the room, another floor, or preferably, if he could arrange for it, Mars.

Wufei pulled an empty box from the file room and stormed back into this crowded office, box in hand. Seasoned agents ducked their heads and pretended other business as he passed them, muttering paint-pealing curses.

He pulled all of Zechs' personal effects from the drawers, the walls, the narrow locker in the corner of the room, and then, as the pičce de résistance, he topped the box with the hat he'd bought during their city outing, the one that matched his own, and centered the box on the center of the desk.

He went to his own desk, took the twin cap to Zechs', and shoved in his bottom drawer, and then he went off searching through the building for his soon-to-be-very-ex-partner. No one made jokes about him losing his partner this time around. Not after they saw Wufei's expression. But as he searched through the building trying to find him, he had second thoughts about confronting him directly. What if Heero was wrong about the case Zechs was working on? What if Une had asked Zechs to do something else. Or maybe the information Heero was collecting was going elsewhere. He would simply sit back and let the situation play out on its own.

He slowed down his search, and met up with Zechs in front of Une's office as planned. Right on schedule.

The two met outside Une's office, since they were already running late. The Renfield woman watched the two of them shift in their chairs outside of Une's door, waiting. Wufei thought she enjoyed making them wait; Zechs knew it for the truth. The insurance and investment forms had been sheer torture to fill out and complete. Ignoring them would have made her suspicious, and Une hadn't enlisted her confidence.

Wufei thought that Zechs seemed a bit more unsettled than was normal for him, but didn't think much of that now that he had additional information, courtesy of Heero's insight. He heard Une slam something on her desk; her office was thoroughly soundproofed, and it took real volume for anything to penetrate her door. Wufei wondered briefly what had upset her so. Then the door opened without any announcement from Renfield, and Une stood there. Apparently she'd just been on the phone; there was no one else in the room.

Both of them stood automatically when she entered the waiting area, and she gave first Zechs, and then him, a penetrating look in turn. This wasn't good news, he'd never seen her this serious before. Wufei's first thought was that something had happened to one of his friends, his second was confusion.

"Chang?" He moved towards her, Zechs did as well, but she waved him off. "Just Chang; not you, Merquise. You can wait out here."

Zechs passed a quick, alarmed look at him, and then hesitantly sat while Wufei allowed Une to precede him into her office. She turned and faced him as soon as the door closed. Her coffee cup was centered perfectly on her desk, full and untouched. It was ten in the morning. Something was seriously wrong for Une to break her pattern this significantly.

"Chang? Please sit down. You are not going to like this."

Wufei had never been at ease in her office, and this morning was no exception. He balanced carefully on the edge of one of her uncomfortable chairs and waited for her to drop her news. She was adding courtesies to her speech, had warned him in advance, and seemed to be having difficulty composing herself. She finally settled on sitting on the corner of her desk, and he could only assume that she did it in an effort to seem more supportive. Definitely very bad news then.

"Those letters we've received threatening your life?"

Of course, those; he waved off her concern. "It happens all of the time."

"Not like this it doesn't. Your stalker was surprisingly well informed as to your whereabouts and activities." She paused to let that news sink in and shifted on the corner of the desk. "I assigned Merquise to you as both an investigative agent and as personal protection, should your stalker succeed at getting close enough to strike." She raised her hand to stop his automatic protest. "Yes, I am well aware that you can take care of yourself, but an extra set of eyes never hurts. Merquise has been systematically going through your past cases and call logs. He brought me his information last week, and I've acted on it, which is why I've called you here."

It was starting to sink in. Wufei had threats issued against him before. It was inevitable; he had been active enough during both wars and his career as a Preventers agent to have made any number of enemies. But this time Une had acted, she'd gone behind his back and used him as both bait and stalking horse with Merquise as her tool. He couldn't kill Une; she was beyond his reach, but Zechs? That blond-headed, sneaky, sanctimonious sonofabitch? He was going to choke him down as soon as Une released him from her clutches. Heero had been right after all. His partner had betrayed his trust in him, and he was going to find a way to pay Zechs back. The bastard hadn't changed at all since the war; always looking out for number one. Zechs had some real explaining to do, and then Wufei remembered his guarded look in the waiting room.

His partner had suspected that this was coming this morning.

Prick.

"So, Zechs was just using me as a temporary decoy then; you never intended for me to have him as a permanent partner."

Wufei, staring at Une, froze, shocked at what he'd just admitted out loud. Even more surprised at what he'd just said. The statement hung heavy in the room between them, past all chance of retraction. He sat back hard in his seat, uncomfortably stunned by what he'd just confessed in front of his superior.

In his anger, he'd revealed to both Une and himself the core of his fear. He'd finally found his own unique equal, the one human being that had been impossible for him to domineer, and now he was going to lose him. He'd started to rely on Zechs for his balance and his insight, only to find that his trust in him had been so tragically misplaced. That hurt. A lot.

Une attempted to temper her statement. "Merquise wanted to tell you. He asked me on more than one occasion if he could fill you in on the details of the investigation, but I ordered him to silence."

"You investigated me..." Wufei's tone was accusing, flat, and dark, and it was meant to be.

She saw that his anger hadn't abated in the least at her confession, and she tried another direction. "For your own safety and that of my other agents, yes."

Wufei muttered to himself, and attacked the one person he could, since the person in the room was beyond him. "That sneaky, underhanded, evil sonofabitch."

Apparently he said that just a little to loud, for Une rose from her desk like an avenging angel and swooped down on him until her face was a handspan from his own. She held off from touching him, just, but made sure that he saw the level of control she was exercising. And then she consoled herself by giving him the verbal thrashing she thought he deserved.

"That man is the most loyal and dedicated soldier it has ever been my honor to serve with. He followed my orders to the letter, not without questioning my motives, as I'd expect for an agent versus a soldier, but he did as he was told to the very best of his ability, and he managed to put the pieces together to fit a puzzle that's been evading us for months. The man is a true and honorable agent, doing his job as I asked him to. You were a part of that job, yes, but I've never known him to tolerate idiots lightly. He has a deep respect for you, and you do him a disservice by questioning his morals and ethics."

Now she had him confused and misdirected. "But what about... ?"

"Merquise was under express orders from Treize throughout the entire war. Everything was planned; Treize had no equal when it came to military strategy. At the end, Zechs was expected to forfeit his own life along with Treize. How many soldiers do you know that would be willing to die for a cause like that? How many men would be willing to forfeit their lives to defend the beliefs of their friends?" She gave him a moment to consider that question, and saw the answer in his face: precious few.

"Then at the end, when Treize's plan to shock the people of the world and space started to fall apart, Merquise decided to sacrifice his own life in order to save that of your friend, Yuy." She walked back to her desk with satisfaction written all over her stride. She'd shocked him, knew it, and was proud of her accomplishment.

"I thought Merquise was dead. We buried him in absentia while he was clinging to the edge of life in the Sweepers ship that picked him up as salvage. They put him back together, but it couldn't have been a simple or pain-free task given their limited access to medical technicians and supplies. And then do you know what he did?" She didn't wait for Wufei to formulate an answer. "He asked them to let him retain his anonymity, and he took a job working with the Sweepers -- manual labor, scavenging, some piloting work.

"He did his level best to bury his past, and he did such a thorough job of it that, even though I searched for him with all of my available resources, I couldn't find any trace of him. Then the Mariemaia Incident came up, Merquise found out that his sister was in danger again, and he walked through my office door as if coming back to face his past meant nothing to him at all. Asked me for a code name; if I'd allow him to help." She still looked angry at Wufei, but he was slowly cooling off from her determined and convincing diatribe. "At the end, he left again, this time for a self-imposed exile on Mars, as far away from here as he could arrange to go. Noin followed him there, but came back within a year. Merquise was starting to set up a life again, had determined his path and was settling down, and what did I do? I needed his help, his level of dedication and discretion, and I called him to watch over you.

"I asked him to do that, and you will not think less of that man's ethics because I ordered him to not tell you what he was doing."

It was quite the longest and most impassioned speech Wufei had ever heard from her, and it effectively shut him down in his tracks. So, he had his answers now, and Heero's quiet faith and public confidence in Zechs suddenly made sense. He knew, and he hadn't told the rest of them. It had taken Une to reveal that, under extreme duress. Damn. Wufei realized that he'd probably reached the one time when Une would answer any of his questions, but his mind was so bludgeoned with her truths that he couldn't come up with even one. He tried another direction instead.

"Who else knows?"

She moved from her corner and walked behind her desk to take her seat, putting more distance than three feet of government-supplied polished oak between them. "Agent involvement was kept to a minimum to preserve your privacy, Chang. Other than a single data and electronics specialist, Merquise, and myself, no one else has had access to your confidential information and private call logs."

She settled herself back in her chair, met his eyes and held them fast while delivering her second bullet. "Chang? It was Whittaker, your intern. She had both access and means, and she was selling information to a source outside of the agency. She threatened you as part of her cover to her buyer. She told them that she had a personal vendetta against you, and was selling the information as a way to damage your credibility as an agent."

His mind spun. "Whittaker?"

Une picked up and waved a stack of papers from her desk. "Whittaker," she said with conviction. "Merquise came to me with his suspicions, and I was able to verify them through another agent." We ran a sting operation two nights ago to gain evidence, she fell into it, and we're holding her prior to her arraignment."

Now he was really pissed -- this new betrayal on the heels of his distrust of the man who he'd come to rely on like the other half of himself. To respect like no other. Oh, he was angry. The situation might be beyond his control, but that didn't mean he had to take it sitting down.

Zechs knew it wasn't going well by the raised voices behind Une's reinforced door. He'd never heard Wufei raise his voice in anger before -- get steely serious, cold and deadly, yes, but not this violent rage. Une had clearly pressed him beyond his limits, it was either that or she'd just revealed his own involvement in this investigation, which was not a comforting thought. Zechs stood, paced, and sat down again as the voices rose and subsided behind the door.

As he stood to make another round through the waiting area, the door burst open behind him, and Wufei exploded out of it. He turned, and he turned on his partner... and the look of betrayal on his face froze Zechs where he stood, waiting for Wufei to pronounce judgment over his actions.

"You used me. You betrayed my trust in you."

He froze at Wufei's statement, and just when he thought he couldn't handle the silence any longer, Wufei's next words twisted the ice blade in his chest.

"You are no longer my partner. I don't want to work with you. Nothing you do or say can make me trust you again."

He walked past him, and left Zechs stricken in his wake. Wufei's eyes were dark and hard. There was no one home he could talk to -- not now. But Zechs had to try.

"Chang?"

There was a brief pause, barely a hitch in his stride.

"I'm more sorry than I can say that this had to happen."

"Don't give me apologies, Merquise. Just leave me alone."

Wufei didn't even turn to Zechs as he delivered his verdict; Zechs thought that was the most telling fact of all. Wufei left the room as if his partner didn't exist, and defeated, Zechs turned and walked into Une's office. She motioned him to a seat, and walked around him to close the door. In direct opposition to the reception by his partner, or ex-partner if Wufei had his way, the seat was still warm.

Une took her seat and reached into her desk, withdrawing a folder that she slid over the surface towards Zechs. He hesitated before accepting it, and pulled it closer, flipping it open and checking the contents.

"New identity cards, along with a transit pass to Mars dated for later this week. That should give you enough time to put the rest of your personal effects in order." She paused, giving him a moment to take it all in. "If there's anything else I can do..."

He looked up at her. "There is."

"Name it."

"I want a second chance at this."

That stopped her in her tracks. He seemed oddly earnest, even hopeful. Like a recruit that hadn't become jaded and still believed he could make a difference -- that he might have a chance to right a wrong he'd made.

"We were a good team; we can be again. Give me a chance to convince him."

Une started to stand up from her desk, an incredulous look on her face. "You want to do this? You really want to do this?"

He knew she wasn't just talking about the job -- though that was primary in her mind -- she'd picked up on his interest -- which could be good or bad depending on how far she thought he'd take measures to pursue it. He'd already given her enough data to exploit the situation. What was that old saying, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'? "It was good... very good... worth fighting for. Together we were better than either of us could be on our own, that's worth fighting for. But I need time to convince Wufei of that."

"You want to remain here on assignment? Permanently?" She realized that he was serious, and sat down again.

He met her eyes, tried to invest as much resolve and conviction behind his words as possible. "I can't lose this. It means too much to me now." He said 'it', but he meant 'him'; he believed Une knew that. He remembered his slip of tongue. It probably hadn't been wise to refer to his partner by his first name in front of Une. Her eyes were gleaming with repressed energy. She had him now, and she knew it.

He wondered bleakly what his admission would cost him.

"You do realize that it may be too late to salvage your partnership at this point..."

"I have to try. You understand that, don't you?"

Zechs saw her shift her glance to the framed photo that never left her desk. Was she asking Treize what she should do? If she had done the right thing, made the right decision in involving him in this? He saw her find her answer before she turned back to him.

"I have a new assignment for you, and a new partner for it. Once that assignment is resolved to my satisfaction, I'll assign the two of you together again on a trial basis." She seemed to reach a decision within herself. I'll give you the chance you want, Zechs. It's your choice of what to make of it once you have the opportunity."

He stood, uncertain which direction to turn to next, and was halfway down the hallway to the main working levels of the building before he realized that he hadn't thanked her for the opportunity she'd just granted him -- apparently contrary to her wishes and against her better judgment. He reached the doorway to his office before he realized that he didn't really have a reason to consider it 'his' any longer, unless Wufei would be willing to reconsider.

Zechs paused in the threshold. There was a box on his desk. Intrigued, he walked over to investigate. It held all of the personal items from his desk, carefully if hastily packed; the mug from Noin, the shrapnel fragment from Tallgeese that he used as a paperweight, even the baseball cap that he'd bought during that day when he and Wufei had played tourist and walked the city together after their first fight as partners.

Apparently Wufei had already made his decision for him. Dejected, he picked up the box and carried his last message from Wufei back to Une's office.

Wufei found himself falling back on the habits of his youth. When he needed time to think, when he wanted to retreat, he looked for a source of water to meditate by. There were no rivers or waterfalls within walking distance of the Preventers' office, but the memorial fountain in front of the municipal building had worked for him many times before. It had rained that afternoon, and the coping around the fountain was wet, but that didn't matter. He rested on the edge, concentrated on the sound of the water, using it to filter out the sounds of the traffic and pedestrians around him, and searched for his center. Once he attained it, he opened his internal focus and dissected his meeting with Une. It hadn't been one of his better sessions with her, and he wasn't at all proud of his behavior. What frightened him more was the realization of exactly why he'd lost control -- and it came from such an unexpected source that he backtracked through both his mental exercises and the logic path twice before he dared admit it to himself.

He'd panicked over losing Zechs.

Not the death threats, not the betrayal by a trusted co-worker and confidant, Zechs. The man had been his partner for what? Three months? Not long at all, but apparently quite long enough that he'd set his complete trust in him.

He hadn't felt this degree of closeness with anyone in his life before. Yet he suspected that this connection shared between him and his partner was more intense than what siblings felt for each other, or even some spouses. They lived in each other's lives, they depended on each other for everything, preserving their sanity, saving their sense of humor, and protecting each other's lives. Wufei hadn't wanted a partner, had protested Zechs' addition to his life.

And now he'd nearly written off a successful five-year career because Une had said that she never intended them to be permanent partners.

Or had she? Wufei carefully rewound the discussion in his head, but couldn't find any of the words he was certain she'd said to him.

And there was something else under this, something so dark and luring and forbidden that he couldn't give it a name. It had started when he'd first seen Zechs as a person instead of just a memory from the war, and it had intensified as he'd worked alongside him and learned more of what made him the complex and compelling man he was. Zechs had earned Wufei's respect, which was a difficult thing to do, and Wufei couldn't have confessed when he'd managed to do that if plied with torture. They'd been able to read each other from the start. Maybe it had been a part of being a Gundam pilot during the wars -- an intensified instinct for this type of work, the intuitive reactions -- he didn't know. He'd known partners that were close to each other, who could finish each other's words and make their respective spouses jealous with the level of intuitive communication they'd developed and the amount of off-duty time they spent together.

It wasn't uncommon, but it was unheard of after only three months together.

Wufei had put enough together in his head that he was staring to become aware of his surroundings and feel the dampness of the concrete underneath him. He stood, thanked the balancing effect of the water, and carefully navigated his way back to the office. Zechs should be long gone by now, and he still had plenty of thinking to do.

He eased his way towards his office, the general room around him was notably quiet, the swing shift giving him no clues whether or not Zechs was still in residence. He braced himself, and looked through the doorway.

The box holding Zechs' personal items was gone.

Had Zechs taken the easy way out? Had he been looking for a way to end the partnership all along?

He supposed he would never know the truth behind the man's motivations now.

Une sat back behind her desk, watching the tall man cradling the cardboard box as if it meant the world to him and trying to read Zechs' intentions, now that his partnership with Wufei had splintered in the wake of her assignment.

"So, I'm assuming, based on your statement before you ran out of here trying to chase down Chang, that you'll be remaining here on Earth then?"

He set the box deliberately aside and nodded to her, getting back to business. "You assume correctly."

"Fine. I have another priority case that needs your particular skill set. Once it has been resolved to my satisfaction, I'll consider reassigning you and Chang together as regular duty partners again." She gave him a calculating look, "assuming that the two of you can come to some sort of understanding in the interim."

She walked over to her desk and retrieved a red and black-tagged file. "Read that over. You can use my desk. That file doesn't leave this room. I'll return in an hour to answer any questions you may have at that time. Until then? Make yourself comfortable."

She turned to walk from her office, but turned and paused at the threshold of the doorway. "And Zechs?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"If it helps, I'm sorry."

"It doesn't, but we both know that the work comes first." He sat heavily in her chair and pulled the sheaf of pages from the file, doing his best to dismiss Wufei from his thoughts.

By the time Une returned from her meeting, he was thoroughly confused. And equally convinced that Wufei wouldn't want to be within twenty meters of him once this particular assignment was completed. Assuming he could successfully pull off such a complicated sting operation in the first place.

"You don't have anyone else you can use for this?"

"I thought of pressing Yuy and Maxwell into service, but, to be quite honest with you, Maxwell isn't an agent, I only hire Yuy on a case-by-case contractual basis, and if I had to decide between more tempting targets, a former prince of Sanq who is the elder brother of the vice foreign minister to the colonies wins over a Gundam pilot any day of the week." She paused. "Besides, technically speaking, you piloted a Gundam yourself."

"So you're setting up this entire operation in the hopes of trapping a blackmailer who's been plaguing high-level government officials." Zechs shook his head. "Sounds more like a job for the local policing group than for Preventers; how did we get involved?"

Une shook her head. "It's important, it's multi-jurisdictional, and it involves government officials over my level."

"Ouch." Zechs paged through the rest of the file, obviously missing some of the more pertinent details. "Do I want to know who's been targeted so far?"

"No. But let's just say that it wouldn't take you all that much imagination to come up with an accurate list."

Zechs pointed to a name on the top of the folder. "This says I'm being assigned a new partner for the duration of this case." He paused for a moment, hesitating. "I have to ask. If Chang and I hadn't had a problem working together, would I have been assigned this particular case?" Zechs was still looking at the file with something approaching shock.

Une declined to answer that question directly. "It doesn't matter now. The case is active now, and you're the perfect agent for it." She nodded at the file, at his hand on the pages. "For a number of reasons."

Well, there was no getting around that fact.

"Fine. When does Owens arrive at HQ and how much time do I have to prepare for this?"

"His transfer was set up an hour ago, and he should be here the day after tomorrow. Find him a desk and do what you can to get ready. I... know it's short notice. I'm getting a lot of heat on this one, or I wouldn't push."

Zechs waved her off. The distraction would do him some good. A lot of good, but Une didn't need to know that. "I'll pick him up at the shuttle port. What has he been told of the assignment?" The briefing details and planning continued long into the afternoon.

The first Wufei knew of the man was when he was introduced during the morning staff rounds later that week. Brian Owens was ex-Alliance, and new to both the ranks of Preventers and policing activity, but he had a crisp way about him and a quick sense of humor that the regulars on the squad picked up on and handed back to him with coffee and a smile and a surprising lack of the usual probie taunting. Fresh from one of the L3 colonies, everything Earth-side fascinated him from the weather patterns to his new, very-famous partner. Everyone but Wufei seemed to already know by the morning staff meeting that Owens and Zechs were partnered together, although that's not how Wufei had heard it stated.

Chazza had referred to Owens as Wufei's replacement.

Wufei hated the man on sight.

Sitting in the back of the room and watching as Zechs sat next to Owens, leaned over to point out details on the page in front of him, and familiarized him with the HQ buildings and the city in general, was torture. He tried very hard to not think about the time Zechs was taking to get Owens set up with his new apartment, introducing him to the rest of the squad, and otherwise thoroughly establishing him as his new partner.

The resentment kept building, but despite that, Wufei couldn't find it within himself to allow the services team to remove Zechs' desk from his office -- holding out on the slight hope that the situation might eventually reverse itself.

That he'd get Zechs back.

He also set his personal reporting tags in place to pick up any information on Zechs and the cases he was working... just for professional contact purposes of course. Or at least that's what he told himself for the first three weeks of Owens' time on the Preventers force.

It only took that long for Owens to get his partner hurt in the line of duty. It took three weeks for that to happen. It took less than thirty seconds for Wufei to feel guilt over it. If only he'd been there instead of Owens...

Murray saw him in the hospital lobby and automatically pointed him to the critical care ward.

"Hey Chang, I thought you were off duty today."

Rodriguez was quick to jump on the bandwagon. "Since when does Chang have any off-duty hours?"

He left them behind on the first floor, not bothering to answer their commentary, and headed up to critical care, flashing his badge in order to pass through the security checkpoint unmolested. He didn't want them to know how he'd dropped everything on his desk when the dispatch had come through the system, how he'd broken, stretched, and violated any number of traffic laws to reach the hospital to find out how Zechs had fared at the hands of the shooter.

He paused outside of the hospital wing, uncertain how or if he should proceed, not knowing how to repair the breach in their friendship. Relationship? They didn't have a partnership any longer, so what did they have? If anything.

Wufei stopped and turned to the information desk, waiting for any confirmation that he, Zechs, was still alive, that he wasn't too late.

"I assume that you're here for information on the agent that came in an hour or so ago?"

Wufei nodded, though he hadn't been aware that it had been that long ago. Stress and adrenaline did such unusual things to his perception of time. "He'll be fine. We've admitted him for the next twenty-four hours since he has a history of heart-related problems in his file and we'd like to keep an eye on him, but he can receive visitors if you have any questions you'd like to ask him now."

If he had questions? Zechs had a history of heart problems? And he hadn't mentioned that to him? Damn right he had questions! But... not now. An investigative agent would be on their way over to speak with him shortly, and Wufei's presence would be questioned, and perhaps, very unwelcome.

"There will be another agent in to see him. Thank you for the information." He turned, and walked off the critical care floor, making certain to leave the hospital from a different door than the one he'd entered in order to avoid the rest of the crew. He had enough to deal with without answering their questions on top of it.

Wufei made a more concerted effort to ignore Zechs after that, even when he was absent from HQ for a week, and then returned to the morning staff meetings with his arm in a bright blue medical sling, in good spirits, but obviously still dealing with some residual pain.

Wufei broke one of his rules and questioned Sally about him during her rotation through the building the following month. Or at least he did his best to, but she saw him coming first.

"No and no."

Wufei winced. "What do you mean, no?"

Sally went on with preparing her coffee and ignoring Wufei. "I'm not going to give you any details about your ex-partner. If you're that curious about him, you can talk with him yourself."

Despite his best efforts to cajole, bribe, and entice her, she remained firm on her stance. Revealing to him only that the injury was minor, and that he was fine.

He got better information from the typing pool.

But that was nothing compared to the rumors the rest of the squad started whispering in his ear.

"What's that?"

"I thought you would have heard about that by now."

He used his serious glare, the one that Heero had taught him. If it didn't work, he'd upgrade to Duo's. That one never failed him, but it had a disturbing tendency to make grown men wet themselves, and he wasn't up to seeing Richards soil himself. "Heard about what, Richards?"

"About Zechs."

"What about him?"

"Well, I figured you would know, being that you're his ex-partner and all."

That ground hard, close to the bone. "Know what?"

"Well, it's on the hush-hush, and not verified yet."

Wufei bristled. "Why are you coming to me with hearsay and eavesdrop?"

"Well, with the way you act whenever anyone says anything about him, I just figured that you'd want to hear and then make up your own mind about it all."

Wufei made a frustrated gesture and waved him onward. "Fine then, what?"

"Well, apparently he and Owens got caught in their car sharing more than a sandwich, if you get my meaning."

Wufei just blinked numbly at Richards, unable to respond to that revelation.

Richards beamed, pleased beyond measure at how well his news has scored. The unflappable Chang Wufei, not only reduced to jaw-hanging silence, but the man was actually gripping the edge of the break room table in order to maintain his balance.

"No." It came out more whisper than word.

"The way I heard it, they were sucking face with the best of them. Wouldn't have expected it of Owens, he seems a regular enough guy. Zechs though..." Richards pretended to consider the prospect for a moment or two. "Maybe it's the hair..."

Wufei shook his head. "He's up to something."

"What? He never pulled anything like that when he was riding around in the car with you then, did he?"

"Not likely."

"Didn't think so. You would have broken something permanently on the man if he'd tried anything on with the likes of you. You're so straight, you even think in lines."

Wufei nodded absently along with Richards, not being in the habit of outright lying to his fellow officers. Meanwhile his mind was racing along with the thought of Zechs and Owens in that car, parked somewhere. And why, if this was true, that Zechs hadn't seen fit to make a pass at him.

Damn.

This thought ran frantic circles around in his mind nonstop for days. In fact Wufei was so distracted by his thoughts that it took Duo three frantic attempts to catch his attention from across the loaded holiday table. It was Duo's year to host -- and a good and wonderful thing that Wufei hadn't been more than a quick shuttle flight away this year.

"Hey Wufei, what's wrong with you? You working on a big case?" He waved his fork for emphasis.

"Yeah, a big case of being infatuated with my ex-partner..."

He turned back to his plate, considering the flavor of the wine served with the holiday meal and absently watched it roll around in his glass, when it occurred to him that something was... wrong. Why had the table suddenly turned so quiet? Duo dropped his fork with a metallic rattle, and Wufei looked from Trowa to Quatre to Heero and then back to Duo again. They each wore a similar expression of complete, utter, and total shock, and then it hit him. He'd said that last comment out loud. Fuck.

Oh... holy fuck. Wufei stood up suddenly, dimly heard his chair fall over backwards and hit the floor, and started backing his way to the door, mortified that he'd let that slip. He had one last fleeting impression of his friends as he dashed out of the room -- of Duo, horrified and surprised, of Heero's anger, Quatre's confusion, and Trowa's blank shock. All those years of practicing the voice of reason and logic in front of them, and now he'd gone and done this.

He had the distinct feeling that forgiveness would be a long time coming.

Trowa caught up with him as he was exiting the building, which was probably just as well, since he hadn't a clue where he would have gone from that point onward, and his panic had just about run itself out. That still didn't mean that he was ready to turn about and face the guys after dropping that particular bombshell though. Hell no. They'd be poking fun at him for months now, especially if Duo ever said anything to the others about the way Zechs had been tailing him right before the end of the last assignment, back before Heero had come out and told him about the man's outright duplicity.

Embarrassing, that's what it was.

And he'd gone and fallen for the man anyway.

Well, sort of.

Trowa didn't say anything, just looked at Wufei, at the confusion apparent in his face. "C'mon, the others promised not to bring it up again unless you want to talk about it, okay?"

He nodded at Trowa. Hell, what was wrong with him? Cowed into submission by his own friends and openly revealing a fantasy weeks if not months out of date at this stage. What they thought of him being attracted to another man, well, that was none of their business. They could like it or leave it. "Fine. Okay."

Trowa nodded back, apparently satisfied with that response for the moment. "So, will you come back to dinner?"

"Yes."

They moved back towards the building's elevator, and for once, they were the only two riding it to the top floor. "Trowa reached out to halt Wufei's progress when they reached the penthouse level. "They mean well. If you need to say something, try talking to Quatre first. He's good." Advice passed on, Trowa led the way back to the dining room, Wufei following along and hesitantly taking up his seat and picking up his meal where he'd left off.

Noting Wufei's quiet distress, the others didn't press him or mention anything and allowed the matter to rest, keeping instead to more general topics of conversation.

Later in the evening, Quatre found Wufei standing by the large glass windows in the formal living room, glass of wine in hand, enjoying the view. Alone. "Trowa sent me in to find you. Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Wufei raised his glass of wine in salute to the city below. "No, not really. I was just enjoying being alone for a few minutes before my ride to the shuttleport arrives."

Quatre turned to leave the room, then hesitated and walked back to stand next to Wufei and look out over the night lights of the city with him. "I wanted to ask you something, when the others weren't around. And if this gets too personal, please tell me to stop, but..." He took a deep breath, and then released it, and it was that moment of tension, something rare in Quatre Winner, that made Wufei take notice and wait for the question. "You've always seemed to want to be by yourself, to work by yourself, by your own admission, to be alone. What changed?"

Wufei spun the stem of the glass slowly between his thumb and forefinger, giving the question some weight and time to settle in his mind, but no better answer came to him. "Nothing. Everything. Zechs."

Wufei shrugged. "He needed me, and he didn't need me, and I'd like to think that we balanced each other. I don't know if there was anything more to it than that for him. I don't honestly think so. Given time, and a reason, there might have been more than that for me. Hard to tell. I didn't even know that he was gay or bi or whatever he is until after." Wufei set his wineglass aside, disgusted with the way his thoughts were carrying him. "And now he's partnered with Owens."

Quatre frowned at him. "And the problem with Owens is? I mean, other than the fact that he has your partner?

Wufei made a disparaging noise. "He may have military experience, but he's a substandard agent with no field experience and he's going to get someone hurt, probably seriously. Eventually, if his learning curve doesn't improve, he's going to get someone killed."

Quatre gave him a look that was far too perceptive and added softly, "And you're afraid that it will be Zechs."

Wufei nodded in all seriousness. "He's been injured once already."

"Une knows this?"

"Yes."

"And Owens continues to serve actively on duty."

"Yes, under supervision."

"Well, at least he's supervised."

"Zechs is supervising him."

"Oh."

"And the rumors you heard have him and Zechs..."

"Yes."

"Does Une know about those?"

Wufei's voice became very quiet, barely a whisper. "That... I do not know. And no, I will not inform her of hearsay and rumor."

"And if it's true?"

Wufei's voice turned sharp. "That's Merquise's business then, isn't it?"

Heero tapped on the doorframe to the living room, startling them both. "Quatre? The limousine service just called, they're waiting downstairs."

Quatre nodded. "Right, I'll get Wufei's coat."

Wufei looked up, Heero was staring directly at him, but not saying a word. "What?"

Heero shook his head, but Wufei knew it for a sign of deep-seated frustration. "What is it Yuy, spit it out already."

Quatre brought Wufei's coat out from the back hall, and Heero took it from his hand, escorting Wufei to the elevator. Wufei accepted the change in the guard without comment, curious as to the conflict in Heero's expression.

"Well, Heero?" Wufei pulled his coat on roughly, waiting for an answer, but Heero remained silent until the moment just before the elevator doors closed.

"About Zechs?"

"Yes?" Hell, Wufei was eager for any information, however meager about his ex-partner at this point.

"Perhaps... not all is as it seems."

The doors slid shut on Wufei's audible groan of frustration.

Heero reluctantly answered the vidphone, fairly certain where the conversation would be heading next.

"I don't trust the bastard further than I can throw him, but there's no accounting for taste and Wufei sees something in him and... well, I can't stand the way Wufei's been moping around. You're on Earth. You have access to Preventers HQ. Just find Zechs in the building somewhere and, hell, I don't know... say something to him." Duo lasered him with a glare. "Fix this before Wufei gets himself turned into goo."

Heero wasn't sure what that was, but it didn't sound optimistic. "Turned into goo?"

Duo shrugged and frowned back at the vid. "The way he's been acting lately, I doubt he's been checking both ways before crossing the street. Something's liable to hit him and squish him sooner or later."

Duo had a valid point there. "I'll see what I can do."

"Merquise? You have a moment?"

Zechs looked up from his desk, now awkwardly positioned in the middle of a bank of desks that was in regular rotation. He flicked a quick glance up at Owens before excusing himself from the rest of the squad and following Heero over to the stairwell door. The rest of the group maintained a wary watch over them as the two of them moved out of hearing range. Zechs turned his back to the room to give the two of them a moment of privacy. "What's going on?"

Heero was silent, flicking a glance first to the group, then to the door to the hallway. "It's private."

Zechs considered the best way to maintain their public cover personas, and abruptly stiffened his posture as if he'd received a verbal blow. "Fine. After you, Yuy."

Heero spun on his heel and stalked out of the door, Zechs quick on his heels. They turned the corner and entered one of the private conference rooms, pulling the surveillance lead on the way into the room and slamming the door hard behind them.

Zechs leaned causally back against the closed door and gave Heero a curious look. "So, what's this all about? The other case closed out clean, right?"

Heero had that 'I don't really want to talk about this' look on his face. "It did."

"And?"

"It's about Wufei."

Zechs' demeanor changed instantly, he leaned forward and approached Heero quickly with serious intent. "Is he alright?"

Heero shifted his feet and looked uncomfortable, and Zechs backed off a step or two. "I promised Duo I'd say something."

Zechs paused, then rested a hip on the edge of the steel table as he tried and failed completely to make logical sense of that statement. "About Wufei?"

Heero sounded a bit more encouraged and slowly continued. "Yes."

"What are you supposed to tell me. Exactly." Zechs looked around the room, trying to fit the pieces together. "Listen, I know that Maxwell doesn't care all that much for me. I thought that he'd be the first one to be pleased that Wufei and I are no longer working together..." He trailed off, as Heero waved a hand at him to stop rambling off in the wrong direction.

Heero found a middle-distance stare and tried again. "Wufei... hasn't been the same since the end of the last case. And... we're..." He blinked, choosing a different word. "Concerned about his state of mind."

"Concerned."

"He's been... distracted since your partnership dissolved. We're concerned about him."

"And... you expect me to?"

"Just..." Heero gave him a supremely frustrated look, caught between the rock of Duo's request and the hard place of Preventers' protocols and regulations. "I promised that I would mention it to you. Nothing more."

"Heero?"

"Yes, Zechs?" There was a vague hint of wistfulness in the response, the desperate plea of a man who did not want to disappoint his life partner, but did not know how best to resolve the situation given the few tools at his disposal.

"I'll handle it."

The sigh was slight but heartfelt, and Heero's curt nod was answer enough for him.

Rogers walked through the break room on the way to the water cooler, bitching all the while about how the last putz failed to replace the water reservoir. Wufei had heard this act many times; Rogers was used to talking his way into getting someone else to replace the reservoir, which, as an older model, was a stone bitch to exchange without dousing the victim with cold water.

Zechs stood without comment, walked over to where the empty and full canisters were stacked against the wall, moved around the still-ranting Rogers, and perfunctorily replaced an empty cylinder for a full one, with no spills, before walking over to Wufei's table in the corner and sitting down across from him. Zechs shifted his mug of coffee closer to his chest, and gave Wufei a long-suffering look of commiseration. That simple action summed up Zechs work ethic thought Wufei -- despite relative levels of rank, Zechs would rather do a simple task himself, if it lay within his abilities to do so, than listen to someone complain about it not being done. Wufei had seen other agents take advantage of him on any number of small occasions, but it hadn't bothered him until that moment. This man was his partner, ex-partner, whatever -- dammit, and not Rogers' slave for simple tasks -- no matter how menial or mindless.

"Hey Merquise! Thanks man, you're a true prince, you know that?"

Apparently Rogers had just noticed that all his posturing had been successful. Zechs returned a careless wave over his shoulder in acknowledgement. Then the humor behind that statement hit Wufei, and he had to suppress a laugh. Or at least he tried to, but the relief of finishing the Power's case and actually spending a few moments of on-duty time without alternately filling out paperwork or chasing down this week's scumbag had apparently reduced his threshold for stifling humor, and Ancestors help him, he sat in a break room across from this man who had changed the course of the EarthSphere with him and wept tears of mirth.

Zechs made eye contact at the first sound, and rose slightly from his chair in concern until Wufei managed to get a hand up to wave him back into his seat. Between his suppressed bursts of laughter, he snatched glances at Zechs' face and could almost see his brain reversing in order to replay the last few minutes, searching for anything that might have set him off. He found it, and met Wufei's watery eyes with his cool humored ones and winked at him. And that set Wufei off on yet another round of stifled, ruckling snorts that he tried desperately to choke down before Rogers took notice.

Contact made. Primary mission accomplished.

Once started, avoiding his old partner became impossible, and he found ready excuses to walk past his old office doorway and check in on his ex-partner on a regular basis.

After the first few times Wufei had looked up to find him standing in the doorway, the shock value had eased, and he found himself watching for that wave of blond hair when he glanced up from his desk. In the weeks that followed, he worked to ignore the additional rumours that circulated about Owens and Zechs, and continued to look the other way when he saw them together, the casual hand resting on a shoulder that might not be so casual after all, that he chose to ignore.

A week later Zechs followed Wufei back to his office after the morning case review, cradling his cup of coffee close to his body to protect it from the jostling agents making their way to their own destinations. Wufei walked to his desk, and stopped. There was a long narrow box resting across the arms of his chair. When he looked up; Zechs was leaning against the door, sipping his coffee and staring at him with an expectant look.

"I believe that it's customary to offer gifts during this time of year?"

Wufei stared back down at the box, dumbfounded. "What?"

"It's Christmas Eve, Chang, or had you forgotten?" Wufei looked away from the puzzle of the box to face the enigma that was his ex-partner. Zechs had a smile on his face, and it looked practically edible on him. Hell.

"Christmas?" Oh ancestors, was it Christmas Eve already? The guys would kill him, Duo always made a fuss over the holidays, but he'd been so distracted with Zechs and Owens and his caseload that the passing calendar days from the last holiday to this one hadn't made much of an impression.

Zechs chuckled darkly at the look of surprised misery evident on Wufei's face. "Would you like to open your present?"

"But... I didn't get you anything."

"I'd be a poor friend indeed if that was my sole reason for giving you a holiday token. But, in truth, it is not a gift from me, I am merely forwarding it to you."

Wufei had noticed that Zechs speech patterns usually became more formal when he was nervous. Interesting. Made him even more curious about what the box might hold.

Cautiously and hesitantly, he picked up the box and examined it. It was a long narrow carton, similar to the sort used for presenting bouquets of long-stem roses, and his heart thudded in its cage. Surely Zechs hadn't guessed, Wufei had been so careful to let nothing slip, but Zechs had said that this wasn't really from him. Forwarding? His own sense of curiosity truly was his most dangerous personality trait.

He edged his finger under the wrapping, separating adhesive from paper in a careful sliding motion, prolonging the moment. It had been years since he'd had a completely unexpected gift like this, and he found that he was enjoying the moment, spinning it out for all it was worth. Paper removed, he separated the lid from the box and pulled back the interior wrappings to reveal... a sword. It was stunning, a grace of polished and sharpened steel, more of a saber than a sword, with an elegant gold hilt with a subtle curve of a basket to protect the duelist's hand, for this was a professional's sword, a sword to define its wielder, and... it was... familiar.

Zechs slid the cuffs back on his uniform sleeves and reached out with a gloved hand to take her gently from Wufei's loosening grip, his slack fingers giving him easy leave to do so. Zechs watched his partner's face carefully before speaking again. "This was in the possessions that I had in storage here on Earth. Treize left this to me, and I believe he would have wanted you to have it; you have the proper respect for things of beauty and strength."

Zechs studied the sword in his hands, and then looked back to Wufei, but Wufei's soul-shocked face gave him little direction.

"I don't believe she's ever been properly blooded, if you'll allow me the honor?"

Wufei couldn't nod, still flattened that he'd given him this, of all things, but Zechs seemed to take the awkward silence for acquiescence. He reversed his grip on the sword, braced its length along his arm, gripped the tang with his gloved hand, and purposefully nicked his left wrist, drawing a thin red line on his skin and a bead of blood along the blade. Wufei stood appalled, mesmerized with shock that Zechs had voluntarily done such a thing, as he matter-of-factly wiped first the blade and then his wrist with a linen handkerchief, before bowing slightly and presenting the sword back to Wufei, hilt first.

'Beauty and strength.' That suited him, and as Wufei took the sword lightly from his hands, he realized that the true gift was not this gold-chased steel, but the man's blood and the respect he'd offered him both freely and often. Zechs, whether he chose to recognize the fact or not, was a line-bred royal; yet he'd done this honorable thing just for him. It was something Wufei wasn't sure he deserved, but that Zechs insisted he accept.

Beauty and strength -- those words followed him though the rest of his hectic day and well into the night. What had Zechs truly meant by that? What would Treize have thought of the gifts he'd received upon his death -- his sword and his friend? Or could Zechs be more to him than that? He was afraid to ask. He could nearly envision Zechs as a sword himself -- royal, strong, practical, yet deadly and beautiful. He offered him both protection and the risk of injury -- the possibility of sport and grace and a delicate interaction of sparring partners.

"Wufei?"

"Yes, Duo?"

"You know what Friday is, right?"

Wufei continued to read over the report in front of him and repeated from rote memory and due repetition: "Quatre is in San Francisco with Winner Enterprises, and Trowa is in Vegas with the circus, and you and Heero and I and going to go meet up with them in either city or somewhere in the middle and have dinner and do our regular Gundam Pilots' night out."

There was a startled exclamation in the background, and Heero appeared in the monitor alongside Duo, looking confused as to why his presence was required. Duo continued to address Wufei. "You should bring Zechs along with you."

"I should what?"

"Bring Zechs to the Gundam Pilots' night out."

Wufei stammered an "I can't," at the same time Heero turned to Duo with a, "good idea."

"What do you mean, 'good idea'? There's nothing good about it. By all the rumors going on around here, the man is practically sleeping with his partner."

Duo shrugged. "So?"

"I do not poach on other's property."

Heero stated the obvious: "He's a Gundam pilot too; he should be invited."

"No."

Duo nudged Heero and pointed at the monitor camera, particularly at Wufei's degree of consternation. Heero nodded.

"What, exactly, are you two conspiring against me to do?"

Duo tried for innocent, and failed miserably. "Me?"

Wufei tried for smug, and succeeded. "Quatre does that better than you do."

"Fine. I'll ask Quatre and Trowa to have dinner here instead, and I'll invite Zechs along myself. You can come if you want to."

If he wanted to. Which, loosely translated, meant: If he cared to ever see daylight on planet Earth again. Duo was inventive with his torture. One did not miss Gundam Pilots' night out.

Wufei still hadn't decided whether or not to inform Zechs of this fact or not.

He should have bribed someone to lock Zechs in the deploy van. Stuff him into a locker. Put him in the slow freight elevator, handcuff him to the freight bumpers and hit all of the buttons to all of the floors. Anything to avoid this.

There were six of them now. Heero and Duo. Trowa and Quatre. On the other side of the table, he had the honor of sitting next to his partner. All. Night. Long.

Not only did he, by process of elimination, get paired off with Zechs for the evening. Duo insisted on making leading and suggestive remarks.

Wufei was ready to kill him. Good friend or no.

About the time Zechs started actually acting companionable with the two of them, asking them if they still communicated via the 'kicking under the table' method, Wufei had had enough.

"Yes, they do. No, this is not the way they normally behave. They are doing this in order to..." He paused, not having meant to go that far. "Never mind."

Who knew what Duo would have confessed to Zechs next if the man had not had to beg his leave not long after, pleading business.

Wufei was grateful, as the night was feeling more and more like a set up blind date, and while he knew his friends meant well, and that the holiday party had been... well... embarrassing. This was going a bit too far.

Zechs stood to the side of the unit next to Owens. Wufei watched the two of them through the windows of the battery assault vehicle as the breech team prepared for the raid on the Mercur facility.

Winters sidled up to Wufei. "You know, your ex-partner makes our official-issue assault gear look positively illegal."

Wufei turned away from the eye candy. "I wouldn't have noticed."

"The hell you haven't." Winters smacked him hard on the shoulder. "And like you haven't been watching out for him ever since Owens showed up."

Well, there was no denying that. Not really. Wufei picked up his radio comlink and fit it to his ear, waiting for the signal testing to begin.

"Breech team is staging next to battery. We're over on the van, okay." He nodded in agreement and checked the fit of his vest, repositioning a strap or two until he was comfortable, still watching the other team prepare for their phase of the mission. He moved on to his weapon check, verifying that all was in order, and then took his place in the van along with the rest of the entry team.

Armament trafficking. You'd think they'd learn by now that it was a bad idea to set up shop this close to Preventers HQ, but the lure of the large Earth-to-Colonies spaceport seemed to bring them back every time. This time they'd even elected to reuse and refortify an existing warehouse that Preventers had taken down for illegal trading only two years prior.

Job security, that's what it was.

He loved his job.

By the time the loaded vans was moving, six Preventers in their protective gear loaded into each of the three amour-reinforced vehicles, he'd managed to forget all about Zechs and Owens and was focusing entirely on his work. Which took some doing.

The breech of the building's defensive perimeter went cleanly, their battery ram cutting through the outer fence per spec. The blue team worked their way around to the back of the building, trying to force entry through a reinforced cargo lift, which, this close to the spaceport, was probably engineered for servicing mobile suits or cargo ships.

Red and Yellow Teams were supposed to force entry from the front of the building. The first indication of this not going to plan was the spray of ammunition thunking into the armor plating on Red Team's van.

"Fuck, I think they know we're here now!"

"Right, Winters, did you send them an invitation in advance?"

"Hell no, that was your job, Chang."

...Just another day in the trenches.

After the aborted breech in the back of the building and the standoff between the line of armed Preventers and the terrorists working out of the defunct Mercur building, AIC Redmond was looking righteously pissed at the situation. Wufei held his own automatic assault rifle steady on the target alongside Winters behind their shielded vehicle and watched with interest.

Winters didn't take her eyes off of the building in front of her. "Twenty creds says he goes to Merquise for advise on this one."

Wufei considered that wager. "It's Redmond's fourteenth command, and his first standoff. No bet."

"You're no fun."

"That's what everyone keeps telling me."

"Truth hurts, Chang."

He was watching down the line to his extreme left, as Zechs ducked close to Owens for a moment before running low and away along the line of cover to where Redmond was stationed. "And we're one less on the line now, thanks to Redmond's inexperience. Two less if you count Owens."

She nodded to let him know that she'd heard him and understood his concern, and that she'd also seen Zechs running back to assist the agent in charge. "What's the kid think he's doing?"

"Which kid?"

"The one whose babysitter just left."

Oh, hell no. Wufei glanced over just in time to see Owens easing up to get a slightly better view over the edge of his ballistic barrier, and heard the authoritative report of enemy fire. Owen's torso swung around in response to the impact, and his arm flew up, his weapon engaged and firing under the spasm of muscle reflex.

Wufei felt the sting of a round striking the protective plating of his ballistic jacket, and then Winters landed on him, knocking him to the ground.

Zechs lifted his badge and, after receiving a hesitant nod and a check against a list of approved personnel, received permission to enter the room.

He stood at the end of the bed, listened to the medical equipment doing its valuable work, to Wufei's shallow breathing, and under it all, the regular pattern of the man's heartbeat that gave Zechs confidence that all would be well once more.

"The surgery was successful. It's up to him now."

Doctors. He turned his head to acknowledge that he'd heard, but no more. He had an inherent loathing of doctors. And while the subject had never come up between them, he suspected that, with the notable exception of Sally Po, his partner probably shared that opinion.

There was a change in the pattern of the machines, and he tensed, waiting for someone to come and check, but they settled back into their pattern again, and he relaxed, feeling assured enough to approach Wufei's bedside, sit in the convenient chair, and stare at him, replay recent events in his mind.

Not Wufei's near death, though according to the doctors, it had been a close thing, but the fist of near loss that had seized his chest at that moment of realization, shaking it in its grip, pulling him into his past, refusing to let go.

He felt as if, after being shunned and ridiculed, that he tried, again and again, scraping back the courage, and failing again. That last failure had cost him what little ability he had within himself to pull the fragments together to try once more.

Like a hand searching within a pocket for a much needed note, he'd come up empty time after time, but still had the faith that another search, no matter how imbecilic, might just reveal the results he desired. He'd emptied and turned out his pocket on that last attempt, and he'd nothing left to offer.

And then this man had come into his life.

And he'd royally fucked up that opportunity too.

Duo paused at the door, and turned back to look at Zechs' face. Zechs didn't know what Duo saw there, but he bent his head close to Quatre's and spoke quietly to him before turning and walking back to Zechs' side. Duo rested the palm of his hand on Zechs' shoulder and slid it down until he held his hand. This he turned over and, as Zechs watched him, disjointed with fatigue and uncertainty, Duo settled a gold cross and chain in the center of Zechs' palm. It was still warm with the transferred heat of his skin.

"You never know what might help. You can borrow this until he's better."

Duo grinned his trademark cocky grin at him then, and let Zechs see how shallow his mask was while concerned with the future of his friend.

And Zechs felt a part of them for the first time. Duo, the last holdout, had finally accepted him. Whether on his own merit, or simply because Wufei had had the faith first and it meant something to him to have the support of his friends didn't really matter, he cared enough to help. That's all that counted in the end.

Duo left, and Zechs gripped Duo's cross in his right hand tight enough to pinch, its chain looped through his fingers, and he wrapped his left hand over his fist and sank to the floor at the side of his partner's bed, resting his forehead against folded hands -- and he laid his own prayers of hope over Duo's faith, and waited.

Someone was speaking softly in Latin.

It took Wufei's drug-hazed brain what seemed to be an eternity to piece together the fact that someone was praying over him. It took even longer for him to realize that it was his ex-partner. Zechs' voice sounded very different using the syllables and cadences of an unfamiliar language -- softer and more melodic with the running vowels and softer consonants. Wufei had never seen Zechs offer tribute to any god or deity, but that hadn't surprised him. Praying usually meant asking for something, and the type of person who became a Gundam pilot usually didn't look outside of himself for help until the last fragile hope had been exhausted. Wufei opened his eyes, startled at the brightness of the lights despite mentally bracing himself for the shock.

Zechs felt him move, and Wufei realized that Zechs had his hands lightly braced against Wufei's arm. Though separated by a layer of sheet and blanket, Zechs felt him twitch, and his eyes immediately locked on to Wufei's face. Zechs smiled.

"Morning, partner. You look like hell."

Wufei shifted further, attempted to sit up, gave up, and tried his best at a cocky reply. "Feel like it."

"The round cracked your femur and nicked the artery -- you're lucky that the medical center was close."

Zechs was gray around his eyes and his face was tight and drawn. Arterial bleeding, no wonder Wufei felt so wasted. He must have lost a lot of blood. Zechs' apparent relief told him how much, and just how close he'd come to seeing his clan again.

Zechs touched Wufei's shoulder. "It's good to have you back, Wufei." He looked up at the doorway with regret. "I need to go let the staff know that you're awake. I promised I would. It's the only reason they let me stay here after hours." He stood, stretched tired muscles, and made his way to the door.

"Zechs?" Though the voice was soft, the tone of it was enough to make him stop and return immediately to lean down by Wufei's face.

"What is it?"

"You know Owens is going to go down for this, right?" Wufei looked up at him, knowing that he was right, remembering, despite all that had happened to him, the rookie error that had initiated the gunplay.

Zechs shook his head. "Only a Gundam pilot..."

"Only a Gundam pilot what?"

"Don't you know that you're supposed to have traumatic amnesia following a head injury?"

"What? And you were counting on that to preserve your partner's lousy reputation? His inexperience got me in here, and nearly killed if what I remember is true, and..."

"It looks like our patient is among the living."

Zechs backed politely away from the bed, giving the physician access to his patient. "About five minutes ago, yes."

"I know. Mr. Yuy was on his way to see how Mr. Chang was doing and overhead the two of you. He was the one who notified me."

Zechs glanced up at Heero, standing cautiously in the doorway, and then at the clock above the door and winced. "Wufei, I need to go, but I'll be back to see you this afternoon." He nodded at the attending physician, who was preoccupied checking charts and distracting Wufei with questions, and Zechs edged towards the doorway and Heero. "Thanks, Heero."

"He seems to be doing surprisingly well, given what he's been through."

"Yes, well, I've heard stories about the amazing healing powers of Gundam pilots, mostly about yours, I believe." He glanced at Wufei, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "I didn't get a chance to tell him about Owens or Winters."

Heero nodded. "I'll handle it. If you don't go now, you'll be late for the service."

Zechs glanced over at the bed and its occupant, obviously reluctant to leave.

"My shift, Merquise."

"I'll be back in three hours." Zechs pointed at the man in the bed. "Try to keep him from destroying the place."

"Duo's in the commissary, once he gets back, I'll get him to help me hold Wufei down."

"Yes, well, I heard what the two of you did to the Alliance Medical Facility in AC195. No breaking Chang out while I'm away."

Wufei looked up at the two of them, blinking owlishly, automatically responding to the doctor's questions, and wondering openly when Heero, Duo, and Zechs had become more than distantly polite with each other.

It seemed he'd missed rather a great deal while he'd been out of commission.

Duo walked in just as the doctor was leaving. "Hey, our missing man is back."

Heero looked up from the bedside chair. "He is, finally."

Duo borrowed a chair from the neighboring bed and set it down next to Heero's. "You look better than the last time few times I saw you, that's for certain."

"It's good to be back." He watched both of their faces for evasion; saw none. "What have I missed?" He centered his attention on Heero. "Other than the fact that Heero and Zechs are now apparently on better terms now than when I went under the knife."

"It's difficult to dislike a man who saved your friend's life, and according to the medics on scene, without his quick thinking, you would have bled out before ever reaching the hospital."

"Well, if it wasn't for his lame excuse of a partner, I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. He was out of position, and had no excuse for such a rookie mistake. Who else was hit besides me?"

Heero looked decidedly uncomfortable. "About that, Wufei..."

Wufei wasn't about to let the subject rest, now that he had started, and no doctor was present to prevent them from completing the discussion. "Who else?"

"Winters. A through and through in her left arm and hand. She lost two fingers and has tendon damage in her hand that they can't repair."

Wufei looked at them both, sensing more. "What else aren't you telling me?" He checked the doorway again. "Where did Zechs go?"

"He asked us to watch over you while he attended Owens memorial service. The doctors expected you to be under for at least another twelve to twenty-four hours."

"He didn't make it?"

Heero's face was somber. "No, he didn't make it. He didn't survive surgery."

Wufei's eyes drifted shut, and he slumped back against the pillow. "You know, it seems I just can't do anything right with Zechs. He's been here and sharing watches with you guys, and the first thing I do when I regain consciousness is threaten repercussions on his dead partner." He slitted his eyes open at the scrape of a chair as Duo moved his closer. "I give up."

Duo reached over and adjusted the sheet on Wufei's arm. "First of all, you've got it backwards, we've covered for him once or twice a day over the last two days so he can still look and act mostly human, but he's been insisting on watching over you. And," he looked to Heero for the nod to continue, "Mister cool pretty much lost it when you got drilled. Was pretty frantic by all accounts of the hospital staff, and I questioned a bunch of them. Kept ranting about making his partner a priority, or they'd have him to answer to."

"But I'm not his partner."

"That's not the way he was acting. I'm guessing that all that time you two worked together actually counted for something." Duo sighed and leaned forward on his chair. "You can't possibly give up on Zechs now, not now that I've actually started to like the blond-haired bastard."

Wufei narrowed a glance at Duo. "So when did you convert? What brought the attitude change on?"

"I figure he's done enough to prove himself worthy of being your friend at this point."

Wufei looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Okay, okay, I'll give him another chance. If you think he'll take me up on it after what I said to him before he left."

Heero and Duo tapped their fists together below Wufei's line of sight. Mission accomplished.

Une ended her call and turned her chair around to look out of her window, disturbed by the underlying tone in Relena's voice. Things were heating up if Relena was calling her to inquire personally about the status of Dorothy Catalonia's case. She rubbed her temples and kicked her shoes off underneath her desk -- the closest thing to a break she could grant herself, given her hours.

Her secretary paged her, disturbing her time with her window view. "Yes?"

"Agent Chang is here to see you, Commander."

"Of all the stupid... send him in." She walked over to the door and opened it herself, and found him pale-faced on his crutches on the opposite side of it, just reaching for the handle himself.

"I just spoke with your doctors this morning. You're not scheduled for release until late tomorrow afternoon." She pointed to the nearest seat. "Sit." She watched as he dropped onto the chair with none of his usual grace, and she took his crutches from him and set them out of his reach, effectively trapping him in place.

"I didn't sign myself out AMA."

"No?"

"No, and I reported here directly from the hospital. I..." He broke off as he noticed her lack of shoes.

She winced and explained. "You caught me during my sanity break."

"Zechs shoots hoops up on the parking deck, I walk around the city fountain, and you take off your shoes in your office." He sagged in his seat and attempted to smile at her. "I think you have it the easiest of the three of us."

"I could have you sent back to the hospital."

"But you won't."

She sighed. "No, I won't. I will, however, call and verify to find out what restrictions you're supposed to be operating under during your rehabilitation period."

"That's fair. I asked them to forward all of the details to Sally, so Preventers would have a copy."

"Well, at least there's that." She looked over at him. "Does your partner know that you're back?"

Wufei's blank stare told her all that she needed to know.

"Apparently not."

"Partner? You assigned me another partner?"

She looked rather smug. "Actually, your old one moved himself back into your office while you were in the hospital. I'm just the one who agreed to make it official, pending your approval of course."

Well... that was unexpected.

"Actually, it wasn't. The betting pool is running five to one against that you'll beat the snot out of him as soon as you find out."

He'd said that out loud? Hell.

There was a solid rapping on her door and she glared at her phone. Her secretary was falling down on her job.

"Yes, Chang, you did." She patted him on the shoulder and opened the door to her office.

Zechs stood there, wearing casual clothes instead of his customary uniform. "Pardon, Commander, but I heard a rumor that Chang was wandering around the building and I was wondering if you'd seen him?"

She stood back and waved him into her office.

"Ah, there you are. Aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?"

"He is, yes. We were just getting around to discussing what to do with him."

"Hang on, what's this about the two of us being partners again?"

Zechs gave a quick nod at Une. "Ah, you've discussed that already then. Good."

Wufei struggled to get out of his chair. "We have not, as you say, discussed it. She mentioned that..."

Zechs frowned. "Here now, you're not supposed to be active yet. Sit down. You need a keeper, Chang."

"Well, I've got you for a partner, that's the next best thing."

Zechs winked at Une. "I suppose that means he accepted?"

She returned a thoughtful look. "I expect so." Her vidphone chimed, interrupting her thoughts, and she returned to her desk to answer it. It was apparently video only, or she kept the sound low to maintain her privacy with the other two agents in the room. They respectfully maintained their silence while she handled her call.

"Chang, that was your medical records, via Dr. Po's office." She watched as he winced slightly, evidently expecting either to have been safely out of her office by the time they were sent, or that they would be delayed. "No, you did not leave against medical advice, but you did leave before your doctors cleared you as fit for anything other than bed rest and very limited physical therapy. My inclination is to send you right back there where they are equipped to handle patients such as yourself."

Zechs thought he heard Wufei utter a "hell no," but he politely kept his silence on the matter.

Une continued, "Your apartment is on the third floor of a building that has no elevator, and you can barely walk. How are you planning to get around this obstacle?"

Zechs shrugged. "He can stay with me. I live on the second floor, and my unit has an elevator."

Wufei shook his head. "I'll call Heero and stay with him."

Zechs gave him and incredulous look. "You'd voluntarily sleep on that sofa?"

Une interrupted. "I believe that Duo is on Earth at the moment, and staying with Heero, and I really don't trust Duo to not tie you to the sofa and feed you lime Jello." She nodded, coming to a decision. "We'll leave it up to Dr. Po."

"Dr. Po?" Zechs sounded doubtful that this particular idea held any real merit.

"Dr. Po." Wufei nodded, instantly going along with this idea, thinking that she'd at least side with him in this, given her past feelings on Zechs and his predatory behavior towards her protégé.

Une patched the connection through to Dr. Po's office and turned the vidphone to face Wufei.

"Chang? God you look like shit. You should really still be in the hospital where they can monitor your status better you know."

Wufei groaned. Already, this call was not going as he'd planned.

Zechs patted him on the shoulder in what was no doubt meant to be a comforting manner.

Une moved in front of the video pick up. "Chang has stated an objection to returning to the medical facility. You've had an opportunity to review his medical file. At the moment, we're running through his options. The way I see it, he has to either return to the hospital, or remain in the care of friends, as his own apartment lacks elevator facilities and the stairs will be beyond his capacity for a period of several weeks."

Sally glanced down at the file in front of her. "So which victim or victims volunteered for the thankless duty of babysitting... er... sorry... nursemaiding our patient?"

"His duty partner, Merquise, who is currently on administrative leave, seems ideally suited and volunteered. Chang has stated an objection to Merquise taking over this duty and has suggested Yuy and Maxwell, but they have not yet been questioned as to their availability."

Wufei definitely didn't like the way this was going. Or the way Zechs was smiling, come to think of it. All of this had a premeditated feel to it. He whispered as an aside to Zechs, "You're on leave?"

"Until the investigation into Owens shooting is complete, yes."

"Hell."

Zechs was puzzled by his response. "What?"

But Sally finished the answer for him. "If Merquise is on leave, and asking for the hellish, excuse me, the privilege, of caring for our invalid, I'd say send him home with him and save the hospital the hassle of dealing with Chang."

Une tapped her finger on her desk, well satisfied with that solution. "Done. Thank you, Dr. Po." She disconnected the line and stared at each of them in turn, evaluating them. "I think that will do for now. If I need you for anything, I expect that I'll know where to find you. Dismissed, gentlemen."

Zechs stood and retrieved Wufei's crutches from where Une had set them aside and handed them back to Wufei, unsure of how much assistance to offer. "I need to collect some files from our office, if you're up to stopping by your desk on the way out of the building. And if you'll make me a list of what you'll need, we can stop by your apartment and I'll run up and collect whatever you think you'll need for a prolonged stay at my place."

Wufei nodded in agreement, already exhausted from his short day of physical exertion after his physical trauma.

It wasn't until after Zechs had pulled into his marked spot at his apartment building subbasement and turned off his car's ignition that he turned and seriously evaluated Wufei's condition. "Hell Chang, why didn't you tell me that you were this far gone?"

"It didn't occur to me..."

"To admit weakness to anyone, even me." Zechs glanced over at his partner, pinch-faced and pained in the passenger seat. "We shouldn't have stopped at your apartment today. It could have waited until tomorrow. You overdid things in a big way, my friend."

Maybe it was the calm assurance of someone who had been severely injured and understood what he was going through, or perhaps it was the sincere 'my friend' at the end of that statement. Wufei looked over the console between the two seats. "I'm going to need some assistance getting up to your apartment, Zechs."

Zechs gave him a level look. "Took a lot to admit that."

"Yes, well, if I can't admit to my limitations to my partner, who can I admit them to?"

Zechs laughed, and for the first time in weeks, it didn't sound forced or painful to him. "Well, there's that at least. How do you want to do this? You first or luggage first?"

"Luggage. Maybe the extra few minutes of sleep will help me regain my strength."

Zechs seemed doubtful that this tactic would be successful. "Right. Sure. If you say so."

Wufei's strategy wasn't very successful. By the time they managed to get Wufei into the elevator and up to the second floor, it was nearing midnight, and Wufei was listing badly.

"You're going to hurt yourself."

"It's not like my leg is broken, it's just a chipped bone and some stitched together skin. All I'm dealing with is blood loss and the possibility of infection, nothing more."

"And a concussion, and..."

"Fine. You win."

Zechs paused, staring down at him with interest. "Exactly what do I win?"

"I'll think it over and tell you later." Wufei rested his full weight on his crutches and glanced up. "Exactly how much farther is it to your apartment, anyway?"

"Okay, that's it. I've had enough of your macho bullshit for one day."

"Macho bullshit?" Wufei tried the words as if they were foreign on his tongue.

"One of your friend Duo's favorite pet expressions. Used mostly to apply to you and your stubbornness, or so I've found." Zechs held out his hand. "Crutches."

Wufei's hands tightened on the grips. "No."

Zechs tilted his head and considered both the situation and the late hour. "I'll let you win our next argument, if you let me with this one."

Wufei leaned to the left to check the long expanse of hallway behind his partner, and then surrendered with a heavy sigh. "Fine. You win."

"Good. Just think of this as our second honeymoon. I'll get to carry you over the threshold this time."

"Second?"

"Well, our first partnership ended in divorce. I'm hoping the second run will last a bit longer."

Wufei groaned. "Just promise me that the guys on the squad will never find out."

Zechs smiled back before lifting him to his shoulder. "My lips are sealed."

Restless, he moved quietly through the apartment in the early hours of the morning, eventually making his way from the master bedroom to the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet, searching for a generic painkiller to take the edge off. Anything to allow him to finally sleep. Despite the long day, the severe exhaustion, the stress of going to the office and then coming here, he just couldn't seem to drop off into slumber. He'd glanced out into the living room. Zechs didn't seem to be having any problems though. Restless to start with, now he was sleeping like the charmed. Or the dammed.

Wufei poked through the vials of medicinals, seeking something, anything mild and... He picked one of the prescription bottles and held it to the light, rotating it to read the label clearly. Owens, Brian. What were Owens' medications doing in Zechs' medicine cabinet?

Suddenly all of the rumors he'd heard beforehand had a stunning grounding in fact. Owens had lived here, with Zechs, and very recently, based on the refill date of the prescription, likely right up to the date of the shooting. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub, revelation in hand, to think. So, not a put-on or a joke, but something real.

Damn him.

Now he really wouldn't be able to sleep.

"Wufei?"

"Hmm?"

"I spoke with Une today. Sally cleared you for a light duty schedule, if you want to come into the office with me tomorrow. Nothing physical until she clears you though, so you're stuck living with me for a while yet."

Wufei padded into the kitchen on bare feet and sat at the table. "Sorry about that. Cramping your style, that is."

"You're not. Actually, I've been enjoying your company, so don't worry about it."

Duo stopped him in the hallway again. "What's this I hear about you staying with Zechs?"

"Just until Sally clears me. I can't exactly run up three flights of stairs with my groceries at the moment."

"Okay, but if you get tired of it and need another place, you can stay with Heero and me."

"And die on his couch?"

"Well, there is that."

"It's okay, Duo. Hell, that first night, I was so out of it, he had to practically carry me in."

"What? Bride of Zechs? I mean, it has a better ring to it if it you said Bride of Wufei, but I don't think you'd get Zechs into the dress and all."

Wufei really wanted to hit Duo for saying that in a public area where the other agents could overhear them. He really did, particularly when they started to tease him about his new 'relationship' with his partner, now that they had advanced to the stage where they had moved in together.

But all of his protests, no matter how carefully worded, seemed to do nothing to aid his cause for innocence. Even Une seemed to have heard of the rumors, and pulled him into her office for questioning. Though it started innocently enough...

"Chang? How have you been feeling?"

"Better, thank you. I'm looking forward to getting back into my own apartment and back onto my regular duty schedule, but other than that, just fine. Any news on when Dr. Po is planning on releasing me to active status?"

Une sat back in her chair and studied him, considering her options and the rumors she'd recently heard on the floor about the living situation between him and Zechs. She smiled at him.

Wufei sat a little more rigidly in his chair, as that smile was similar to one he'd seen her wear only once before in his presence, and that one time had turned out rather painfully for him. "May I ask what it is you are thinking, Commander?" Definitely he was going to have to do something about the curiosity.

Why not. "I was thinking about a rumour I overheard in the break room last week. About you and Zechs."

Oh hell, not that one. "Yes?"

"Well?"

"What did you wish to know, Commander?"

"How much of it was truth, versus fallacy."

"I would need to know which rumour you overheard."

"That in order to consummate the start of your second partnership, he picked you up and carried you over the threshold of his apartment, and then dropped you into his bed. And then told you that he'd be keeping you there for a week."

Wufei flushed bright red. "Truth."

Her left eyebrow lifted in surprise. "Explain yourself, Chang."

"That was the day I was... the first day I was out of the hospital. I was having difficulty negotiating on my crutches, and Zechs assisted me to his apartment. I have been sleeping in his bed; he has been sleeping on the sofa. Against my protests."

Her other eyebrow lifted as well. "Against your protests?"

Wufei reddened as he realized that could be interpreted in multiple ways. "I had no intention of putting the man out of his bed for the entire duration of my stay."

"Ah, I see." She moved a file across her desk, and Wufei felt something within him drop. "What is it?

"I have a special assignment in mind for you, Chang, once Dr. Po approves you for duty." She was planning something big. She had that sort of determination in her face.

"And you want to know if I'm interested in this assignment without knowing any of the details or particulars of the case?"

"Precisely."

He would have stood and stalked around the perimeter of her office, had he the ability to do so. "And this case of yours, you truly believe that I am the best agent for it?"

"I do."

His curiosity was working overtime, trying to fit active cases to available agents. She had him pegged. By not telling him, she was in many ways, doing a better job of convincing him to accept her out of the ordinary case than by telling him all of the details outright.

"And this will be in addition to my regular caseload?"

"Yes."

He thought about that for a moment, as his caseload, even with a partner to assist, was monumental at the moment.

"But I will reduce your regular caseload a commensurate amount to compensate. Or at least as much as I am able to."

From Une, that was as close to desperation as it got. "Fine, I'll take your case. When's the briefing?"

"Not until Dr. Po clears you."

Wufei walked over to her desk and leaned over it, his sense of the curious at its limit. "It's a briefing, not an obstacle course. I can sit through a briefing without collapsing."

She shook her head at him. "I'll come and find you once I have your clearance papers in my hand, not before. You're dismissed, Chang."

He saluted her, finally. "Thank you, Commander. It's been a privilege."

She nodded crisply back at him. "It will be."

He couldn't have heard that right.

"You heard me Chang, you too Merquise. This is your new assignment; the terms are non-negotiable. Of course, if you'd rather not accept the responsibility, you do have at least one other option available to you."

Une paused, giving both of them a chance to accept the inevitable.

"You will continue to use Merquise's apartment. I will make a specialist available to assist Chang in getting up to speed as Owens' replacement in this sting operation. If you have any questions on how to act and react to each other, you will work directly with him. Now, do you have any questions that you wish to direct at me?"

Wufei looked at Zechs, he sure as hell wasn't going to say anything.

"Commander? How long do you expect this... particular assignment to last?"

Damn, Zechs almost sounded like he was asking her whether or not the motor pool was operating -- his delivery was that smooth. Une destroyed that composure with her parting shot though.

"As long as it takes Merquise. As long as it takes. I'm not interested in excuses; I'm interested in results. The people I report to are not pleased with the delay, and are expecting answers. The sooner we can get moving on this, the better."

She turned to address Wufei. "I apologize for not informing you of the details of this operation in advance."

Zechs raised his hand to interrupt, and she cut him off. "Yes Zechs, I fully realize the problems this may cause, but I believe that the two of you will make a believable couple. Since you have an established working partnership, and rumors are already circulating in HQ that it has been more than a strictly working relationship in the past, it would seem natural for you, Zechs, to turn to Wufei for comfort in the aftermath of Owens' death, and we are too deep in the case at this point to bring in another completely raw agent. Wufei is the best agent I have -- and though using him on this high-profile exposure case may damage his public persona, this case is so high profile that I just don't give a damn as long as I get the results I'm looking for." She paused to catch her breath and gave each of them a hard stare in turn, doing her best to impress upon them the gravity of the situation. "Is that clear, gentlemen?"

Zechs sat back in his chair. "Crystal, Commander."

Well, Wufei had suspected that the news wasn't good when she'd taken the time to hunt him down and deliver the assignment personally. He hadn't seen this coming though. Not at all. So, definitely the chatter in the break room wouldn't stop any time soon if this was the direction she expected them to take.

There was no way they were going to survive this with their sanity intact.

Among other things.

"Fine. Chang? You're going to need to put some extra effort into this assignment, and I'll do my best to see that you're compensated for it. Owens was selected for this branch of Preventers, not for his paramilitary expertise, as you well know by this point, but specifically for placement in this case and for his sexual orientation, which was a well known that we planned on exploiting with our blackmailer. Chang? Your main credibility as a target lies in your notoriety as a Gundam pilot and your easy accessibility as Zechs' partner -- you'll need some help with the sexual aspects of the sting operation and the "sell."

"Now that you've been briefed, We'll take a ten-minute recess while I go speak with our consultant on this case. Chang? This is your one and only chance to back out of this case. I want you to know that there will be no negative repercussions if you elect to do so. Zechs I'll see you in the room in ten minutes. Wufei? It's your choice."

Wufei sat in his chair long after Zechs and Une had exited the room, rocked by the sudden realization that Zechs might not be gay after all -- that this covert operation was in effect when Wufei made that 'discovery' and that the man might actually be straight. He thought back to some of the things Zechs said about Noin and Treize and couldn't come up with a workable solution to his quandary. He sat for five minutes more, to the end of his allowed time allotment, and decided for better or worse to take the assignment. To take it one day at a time -- at worst, he'd have some memories, either manufactured or real, that he could use to console himself with.

He picked himself up off of his chair and made his way to the private office Une had indicated had been reserved for their use.

"You're Une's expert?"

Wufei was not simply surprised; he was drop-jaw stunned. Duo took the moment to enjoy the revelation. Thoroughly. It wasn't often that he was able to rattle cool, professional Agent Chang.

This operation had the distinct potential to be wildly entertaining, and he'd jumped on the opportunity when Une had presented it to him. He'd be able to milk this for years. The potential to embarrass Wufei had been too good to pass up. Zechs, however, was an unknown quantity, and would have to be approached with considerably more caution. Still, if Wufei's dropped comment during dinner last Christmas was taken into account, a rare opportunity to play with both of their heads might exist.

Duo walked into the private office and closed the door carefully behind him, taking the moment to look over the two agents seated in front of him. They were looking at him -- not at each other. Wufei was still halfway risen from his chair -- apparently the news that Duo was Une's 'expert' in homosexual behavior came as a complete and total surprise to him. Agent Merquise, on the other hand, was sitting calmly, eyeing him consideringly, and waiting for him to speak.

Duo mentally evaluated both agents. Une wanted them to play a convincing couple. Hell. At the moment, there was no way on earth that an outsider would see any connection between the two men... yet. That was his job -- he needed to remedy this situation as soon as possible.

This was definitely going to be fun. Une had given him free reign over the two men -- they were 'his' for the duration. He could make them do anything short of actual sexual intercourse -- and they'd have to learn how to simulate that as well.

Oh, he loved his job. Too bad he couldn't tell anyone else about this.

"Chang? Merquise? You've both been briefed on this, correct?" Wufei was still crouched on the edge of his seat, Duo grinned to himself and checked to see what Zechs' reaction was. Zechs caught his glance, crinkled his eye towards Wufei and winked. Duo's smile broadened considerably. This guy was quick -- which should make this all the more fun. "Chang? You may be seated now."

Wufei grimaced and moved back into his chair, still in shock.

"Gentlemen? My job is to make you into a couple so convincing that no one will doubt your dedication and sincerity towards each other. Or the sexual attraction between you." Duo watched the men carefully, Zechs was leaning forward slightly, looking, if possible, even more interested in the subject matter than Duo had expected. Wufei, on the other hand, had shifted farther back into his chair and had crossed his arms over his chest. Duo didn't need an advanced degree to figure out what that meant. "Nothing leaves this room. Only you, me, Une, and my associate will know about these special training sessions."

Wufei looked puzzled. "Your associate? Why do we need another person who can expose this mission?"

Duo looked thoughtfully at Zechs and Wufei in turn. "Well, Wufei, I'd assumed that you'd prefer that I had someone else to demonstrate on, but if you'd be willing to volunteer either yourself or your partner?"

Zechs shot a half-disbelieving look towards Wufei. How could he not know about them? Really? He looked at Duo with the second half of that considering look, than back at Wufei to watch for the response. "I'm assuming that you're referring to your Mr. Yuy?"

Wufei shot Zechs a condescending look. "But Heero isn't homosexual. Neither is Duo. They're just good friends." Wufei stated it as an undeniable fact. They don't even live together. Heero has an apartment here, and Duo has one on L2 on V08744.

Duo smiled at both men, but his comment was directed solely at Wufei. "I can see that we have a long way to go."

Une knocked and entered the room, trailed by a circumspect Heero Yuy, who checked the hall thoroughly before carefully locking the door behind him.

Une took in Wufei's gape-mouthed stare and Zechs' and Duo's quiet amusement in her visual tour of the room. Correctly interpreting the response, she sat on the edge of the desk and spoke to the room.

"I believe that introductions are unnecessary. Maxwell and Yuy have agreed to this special assignment, and will be listed as consultants on Preventers' payroll for the duration. If anyone inquires, they will be told that you are discussing the outcome of the Eve Wars and dissecting the aftermath with two of the participants. You will address them respectfully as Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Yuy unless they indicate otherwise. Mr. Maxwell will be taking the lead in this training exercise; Mr. Yuy will provide backup and further instruction as necessary. In the event that your regular duties remove you from headquarters for any length of time, Mr. Maxwell will be assigned to Agent Merquise, and Mr. Yuy to Agent Chang."

"I'm quite sure that you wish to know the duration of this assignment and the limitations of the behavior that I am expecting of you. This is directed at Chang and Merquise, Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Yuy are present only to understand what I expect of them as instructors."

Zechs looked to Wufei to read his reaction. Wufei's face was white with shock. So he really hadn't known about the relationship between Heero and Duo then. Why hadn't they told him before this?

Une continued. "There are specific limitations to what I can and cannot ask you to do in your roles as undercover agents for Preventers. I need not restate the importance of this mission. This started over my head agents, but I was the one who chose this particular method of investigation, so if you have a problem with it, you will need to speak with me about it personally. Any questions so far?"

Zechs shook his head, he'd been through this briefing before. Wufei seemed incapable of speech, or indeed, any response at the moment. Une continued onward, "Good. Merquise? Because of your background, rank, and recent past, you are considered a high-profile risk. Chang, you are well known as a Gundam pilot and as my top-ranking, lead point agent. Together, the two of you pose the perfect target for our blackmailer. While he or she is known to target upper reaches of the political ladder, I am setting you up as an irresistible target -- one that could potentially damage Preventers as a policing unit among earth and the colonies, my position as chief advisor, and indirectly, Ms. Darlian's current position as Ambassador. I do not believe that our target will be able to resist such an opportunity."

"Which brings me to my next point. You two," she paused to look at Wufei and Zechs, "will have to be very convincing to pull this off. There should be no question regarding your sincerity towards each other and your dedication to my office. These two consultants," she indicated Duo and Heero in turn, "will help prepare you for this endeavor."

"You will continue to be partnered together in order to facilitate a reason for your relationship. You will be working on real cases, and on the surface, will be working a regular shift together. You will also be expected to be found in each other's company in off-duty hours, and will be expected to exhibit, however subtlety, the indications that you are attracted to each other. So, what I am asking you to do, is to prove to our blackmailer that there is enough evidence for him or her to act on, and for you two to maintain enough cover so it looks like you are concealing your growing relationship from your coworkers and superiors at Preventers.

"If this were less important, or an easier assignment, I would have assigned it elsewhere. But I need your talents on this. And I'm asking for your full cooperation in this matter."

Wufei looked thoughtful. "So this is what the assignment with Owens was about?"

Une regarded Zechs as she answered Wufei's question, "Yes, this was the special assignment that Owens was scheduled for. He and Zechs had been briefed on this assignment and had just started some of the preliminary staging before he was killed. Zechs' apartment was selected in case this eventuality became necessary."

Wufei quietly considered her answer, thinking about all that it implied about his partner and what it said about Zechs' devotion to Preventers.

Une addressed the room at large again. "So, in order for you to be convincing in your behaviors and actions towards each other in this relationship, you will have access to advisors who have been in a stable relationship for," she turned to Heero, "how many years now?"

Heero smiled at his partner before answering. "Officially? Three. Off the record? Oh, I've been interested in him since he first took a shot at me all those years ago."

Zechs checked on Wufei again to verify that he was still breathing. He was, in shallow breaths that barely maintained his regular skin tone. The poor bastard.

"As far as the limits of what I can ask of you as agents? While you're welcome to define your own parameters, I do expect you to show enough sexual contact between each other that there would be little to no hesitation on the part of our target that the two of you are involved with each other. While I do not know the surveillance techniques used by our target, it is safe to assume that he or she will not expect to gain direct access to your rooms, therefore, expect visual spotters, cameras and the like. I expect that you will customize your plan to exploit this assumption."

"Zechs? Your apartment is on a second floor in a central location. It also has the advantage of large windows across the street from a public park. I suggest that you take advantage of them at some point."

She looked at Zechs carefully, reading his hesitation. "What is it agent?"

"Commander? No disrespect intended, but what if our blackmailer sells this exposure material directly to the press instead of presenting it for sale to Preventers? I expect that there would be a wide market of buyers for such material. Not just those interested in discrediting either of us personally -- but also you, ESUN officials... other factions as well I expect."

Une looked thoughtful, and truth be told, reservedly sad. "Then the two of you will have a very public endorsement of your relationship from Preventers, the EarthSphere Alliance leaders, and myself. We will publicly accept your relationship, prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that we do not consider a homosexual relationship between established partners in any way, shape, or form, a limitation of your ability to perform your regular duties as Preventer agents." There was a significant pause as she made eye contact with first Zechs and then Wufei before continuing, "And both of you will support and agree to any public disclosure that this exposure would entail, for as long as I, personally, deem necessary."

Zechs seemed hesitant to interrupt. "And as to our continuing to work together? As partners?"

She hesitated not at all, apparently having given that some thought or checked into the written regulations beforehand. "Your job duties and functions might or might not change, as per our regulations on married couples working together. It would depend upon your duties and your psychological evaluations maintaining a standard level. And my personal discretion in the matter, of course."

Zechs, for once, seemed taken aback. "Of course, Commander."

"There you have it gentlemen, agents. If you have any further questions, you know how to reach me. In the meantime... enjoy your discussion on the Eve Wars."

And she was gone.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the middle of the room. Heero looked questioningly at Duo, who tipped a shoulder at Wufei.

Zechs sighed, successfully drawing the attention of the three other men, and spoke for his partner. "I believe that Agent Chang was... uninformed about the relationship between the two of you. He is now under the impression that you told me, a stranger, about your relationship before confiding in him."

Wufei looked at Heero and Duo, confused. "Why didn't you say anything? Do Trowa and Q..." There was a significant pause while Wufei connected a second set of dots -- best friends, went places and did things together, always politely affectionate with each other, shared an apartment. "Hell, am I the only straight guy in the room?"

It effectively broke the tension, and Duo laughed with relief. "Not when I'm through with you, you won't be."

Heero walked over and crouched by Wufei's chair. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you. I know we never said anything, but we assumed that you knew about us, we never tried to keep it a secret from you, but we thought you'd be uncomfortable with the two of us... um..."

"Getting affectionate with one another?" Duo supplied.

Heero nodded. "Are you going to be okay with this? With us? Seriously?"

Wufei cautiously looked at Heero, then Duo, putting the pieces together and coming up with a picture he could live with. "Yes. It's just... well... more information than I was expecting to receive at the briefing today."

"I guess that brings us to our first point then," said Duo. "Zechs was reading clues that you didn't know how to look for. Come to think of it, how did you know Zechs? Oh, and I'm making an executive decision here -- we're on a first-name basis as long as we're in this room. We're going to be talking about some very private and personal things here, and you two, especially, should get used to calling each other by your given names, got it? And let me reiterate, nothing leaves this room. Okay? Nothing."

"Done. In response to your question, well, OZ intelligence was remarkably, well, thorough, regarding your relationship with each other. As to why I thought you were still together? Well, you're finishing each other's sentences, touching each other casually, and Heero has warned me away from you about once every sixty seconds since he entered the room."

"And don't you forget it."

"Not that your partner isn't charming Heero, but he is entirely devoted to you. And he has never, to the best of my knowledge and limited access to modern surveillance techniques, ever shown an interest in anyone but you. A trait I believe you've returned? Yes?"

"There's no question."

"Now that you're done pissing over your territory, can we get started?"

Duo laughed at Wufei's impatience, "Gentlemen, may I present, the Alpha Male."

Heero and Zechs looked at each other and shrugged. They'd made their point, so moving forward was acceptable.

"Wufei? Zechs? Can you give me an idea of how much you know about homosexual relations? I need to establish what you already know so we can build on that information moving forward."

Wufei already looked lost. "I was married in AC194 -- to a female Duo!" Duo snickered. "She was killed later that year. I haven't, um, been interested in anyone since."

"Zechs?"

"This doesn't leave this room. Right?" He waited patiently for the three nods. "Une knows, no one else. Noin and I dated briefly after we graduated from the academy. Noin was my bodyguard, assigned to me by Treize. After the war, after I destroyed Epyon, I was picked up by the Sweepers and met... someone. He and I had a, I guess you could call it a relationship, for about six months. I returned to join Preventers when Relena was captured, he told me it was between her or him, and he left. Noin followed me back to Mars after that. We tried to make it work, but it was pretty obvious that we didn't have the same expectations, and she returned to Earth a few months later. There hasn't been anyone since. Despite my reputation, I've actually led a fairly protected life up until now."

"Okay Zechs, I'll need you to give me an idea of how far your relationship with this man went."

"We worked the same ship, got to know each other physically. I wasn't honest with him though -- never shared any of my real background. I only told him my alias and what history I'd invented for myself."

"How physically?" queried Wufei.

Zechs, lost in the memory considered how best to answer that particular question; Duo, firmly in the present nodded in a pleased fashion at Heero beneath Wufei's notice. Wufei was curious. Good.

Zechs looked at Duo and Heero for advice, "Just how clinical would you like me to be?"

Now it was Heero's turn to look embarrassed. "Just give me an idea of how far your relationship progressed: Kissing? Stimulation? Penetration?"

Zechs shifted in his chair, uncomfortable being the center of attention, at least with this sort of subject matter. "No kissing, some mutual stimulation, no penetration."

"That's good enough. Your age and experience relative to Wufei would make you the obvious pursuer in our scenario then. Are any of the details of your brief relationship within the Sweepers community known?"

"Duo? I would think that you would be ideally positioned to answer that question yourself." Heero was watching his partner carefully. Something wasn't adding up; Duo was looking puzzled.

"You were hiding out with the Sweepers?"

Zechs nodded. "Out within the Shifter mostly."

"You were in Shifter? Between the wars?"

Another nod from Zechs as Duo tried to piece together what he knew of that community. They were pretty tight-knit from what he could recall. "Who spoke for you?"

"Howard."

"Howard? Howard! We're talking about Mister Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses Howard? The sonofabitch never told me." And then with conviction, "I'm going to kill him."

Zechs seemed surprised. "I asked him to hold my secret -- never thought he'd withhold it from his favorite protégé though. I expect that I owe you an apology."

"Naah, forget it. Just keep Chang here from embarrassing himself. Think you can handle that?"

Zechs looked over to where his partner was silently bristling. "I suppose so."

"Shall we get started then?" Zechs checked with the others in turn, and then directed their attention to a schematic of his apartment building and the neighboring streets. "Une seems to think that the best opportunity for a third party to gain visual access to my apartment is by way of either the public park across the street from the kitchen and dining area, or by way of the neighboring buildings that parallel the windows in the master bedroom." He pointed to the locations on the map. "Owens was staying over at my apartment twice a week, and we were working with both of those views on and off during his time in the apartment, and then closing the blinds when we needed privacy for other activities. The living room is viewable only from a single apartment in a neighboring building, and that is currently leased by Preventers for the use of surveillance of the street and park environment."

Heero nodded, apparently already briefed or already familiar with the preceding operation. Duo was glaring at him again. "And how long had this been going on? I mean, prior to Agent Owens' death."

Wufei watched Zechs closely for any sign of remorse or mourning, but saw only professionalism in the response. "We'd just begun that phase of the operation. Two and a half weeks. Agent Owens needed enough time within the Preventers organization and as my partner for his cover to become established."

Duo studied the timetable Une had set before him. "Okay, and the two of you have been living together now for how long?"

"I've been out of the hospital for ten days."

Duo tapped his pen on the edge of the desk and smirked at Heero. "Okay, we're going to start slow then. Zechs? Wufei said that you've been sleeping out on your sofa, right?"

Why didn't he like where this was heading? Oh hell... what was he saying. He liked where this was heading way too much, that was the problem. "Yeees..."

"Well, you're going to stay out there for a few more days."

Damn.

"We're going to assume that we already have a watcher, and that he, or she, is confused by the change in personnel. Hopefully they've done their homework and they also know by now who Wufei is and the background you two have together, so the fact that you're going to become intimate with each other shouldn't come as a surprise. And he, or she," Duo rolled his eyes, "we'll be using 'he', damn political correctness, will take the bait, so to speak. Our job is to make the progression from partners to, um, partners, a realistic and believable one."

Wufei shuffled his feet before looking up at Duo. "And we do this how?"

"By walking around the apartment in your underwear and starting to touch each other more than casually." Duo resisted the urge to wink or otherwise share in his enjoyment with Heero. "Naked is good too, but it's more difficult to pull off in front of the windows, so better to save that for next week's assignment."

Wufei had to know. "And from there, what will we be doing?"

Duo looked up at Zechs first, then continued with the prepared checklist. "Touching, kissing, and more of the affectionate and intimate forms of foreplay, and eventually, simulated sex in the bedroom in the hope that our blackmailer will attempt to capture some images on film to present to Une or another public official." Duo made it sound like he was reading off a laundry list. "We need to progress slowly enough to make it seem natural, but quickly enough to provide material to be valuable to our potential target."

Wufei looked over at Heero and Duo, still uneasy about the revealed depths of their relationship, "I think we can handle the first part without additional instruction. Zechs?"

Zechs chuckled. "It's called homework, Wufei."

Duo couldn't stop snickering as they packed up the room.

Homework was when he found Zechs leaning against the kitchen counter early the next morning, pajama bottoms slung oh-so-casually low around his hips, cup of coffee held negligently at his mouth as he looked out of the window. His hair hanging in damp tendrils, obviously towel dried and left to chance. Gravity seemed to be winning the battle with his hair, as a few drops of water caught in the light from the window and reflected in the narrow trails running down the man's chest as he turned to hand a second coffee cup to Wufei.

He looked incredibly edible. What was Duo's favorite pet expression? Fuckable as all holy hell? Wufei unconsciously licked his lips.

Zechs' attention zeroed in on his new target.

"Didn't mean to wake you."

Wufei stood near Zechs at the window and looked out at the park beyond, hesitating only briefly before remembering that, yes, this was probably exactly the opportunity they were waiting for. "You didn't."

Zechs offered a teasing smile in return. "You're lying, Chang."

Wufei turned quickly, irritation present in the movement.

"Wufei," Zechs offered in a quieter, more questioning tone. "Sorry. This is difficult for me, too." He set the coffee mug aside and reached out to touch Wufei's shoulder. Wufei turned into the movement, automatically leaning into the touch and warmth of Zechs' hand on his bare skin before he could catch himself and pull back. Zechs smiled, his expression soft, and he pulled Wufei closer.

Zechs whispered along Wufei's face with a rasping chuckle, as if he had a secret he was telling unwillingly, "I'm guessing that we have someone watching us at the moment, so you may want to look like you're pleased to be here."

While Wufei's mind was busy digesting the fact that, on one hand, this was all a game, a farce, and a staged play for their stalker; Wufei's body was quite happily informing him that Zechs was quite attractive, thank you very much, and that the upper and lower parts of him were quite pleased indeed to make his acquaintance.

Wufei muttered a mental, 'down boy' at his privates and moved closer to take advantage of the close quarters Zechs was offering. He sidled in and stroked his hand lightly down the side of Zechs' arm before leaning against him and taking up his coffee cup again and looking out of the window in companionable silence, tucked in against Zechs' side, leaning warmly.

It felt odd until he found his balance; then it felt oddly pleasurable.

"So you were going to go through all of this with Owens, were you?" Ouch. He hadn't meant to state that quite that openly, but the fact that Zechs had been willing to play... had started to play this game with a different agent, another man... well... that hurt, dammit.

There was a pause as Zechs reached for and took up his cup of coffee again as well, using that as an excuse to drape a familiar arm across Wufei's shoulder. An arm he left there, Wufei noted. "Yes. Yes, I was." There was the feel of Zechs' chest moving as he took another swallow from his coffee, and then sat the mug on the counter again before leaning back and drawing Wufei away from the window. "You have the clearance, now, to ask questions if you like."

"I'm not certain that I know which sorts of questions are safe to ask."

Zechs favored him with a close, level look. "Most of them are, at this point." He walked with deliberate grace back to the refrigerator and opened the door, perusing the contents. "Breakfast?"

"You cooking something?"

"You offering to help?"

Wufei hesitated only a moment. "Yes."

The rest of his day was disturbingly ordinary in comparison to its start, starting with the standard morning rundown meeting, and then light reconnaissance duty, which Wufei strongly suspected Une had arranged in exchange for the double shift the two of them were working for her now. Now only did it grant them some privacy time away from the office in which to discuss their other case, it also gave them an unprecedented amount of time together in order to help cement their credibility to their target. And then Wufei remembered the rumors that had circulated of Zechs and Owens kissing and having sex in their car, and he felt like a second wife.

More opportunity indeed. He stared at the empty warehouse, less please with the assignment, now that he'd put all of the pieces together. Zechs touched him lightly on his shoulder, disturbing his thoughts, and he realized with a jolt that he'd been nodding off, his head nearly touching his chest.

"I'll take first watch; see if you can catch up on some sleep."

Wufei looked thoughtful for a moment, lifted his hand as if to protest, then nodded in defeat. He unfastened his seatbelt and reached down to release the catch on the back of the passenger seat and it dropped flat with an unexpected lurch. He grunted in surprise, leaned back, and settled his arms comfortably across his chest before looking to Zechs again. "You'll wake me in three hours?"

Zechs studied his partner's face for signs of any other stress or carryover from his injury, but found none. "I promise, now sleep."

"If you start to get tired, wake me up."

Get tired of watching you? I don't think so. Zechs had learned to live for opportunities such as this. It was silly, perhaps, but it gave him the opportunity to fantasize about what his life would be like if they were more than just partners at work. Zechs would never confess to it under even the most sublime torture, but he'd developed a new and nearly full-proof strategy for staying awake on stakeouts, and this was it. He imagined Wufei as his housemate, his dearest friend and confidant, his lover. He built one endless scenario after another in his mind, each more detailed, realistic, and erotic than the last. Many built on simple wishes of household chores, holidays together, travel and shared experiences that had little to do with their day-to-day reality of investigative protocol and crime.

It was his coping strategy, and he'd had yet to find a better one. It was something he could pull out of the corner of his mind when things were difficult and he had trouble coping with the job, when he thought of Noin and Treize and his family and all of the others that were mere memories in his current life. And it helped him. It might not have been the healthiest coping mechanism out there, but it beat the hell out of drugs, alcohol, or any other number of vices he could think of. The negative repercussions from his therapy were acted out only in his deepest dreams and subconscious.

Where did his immense strength come from? And that grace? His life-long practice of martial arts was evident in very move Wufei made, but there was an underlying rhythm that was undeniably him that was more a reflection of his inner spirit than any applied training could have contributed. He had a wicked sense of humor, and could and often did serious damage with an acerbic dry comment dropped intelligently into a discussion. Those barbs usually slid over the heads of most of the agents, but Wufei would often look up, expecting to find Zechs' appreciative nod of acknowledgement.

For better or worse, Zechs found that he was beginning to lay his fragile trust in this man. For better or worse... he realized where his thoughts were taking him, and quickly diverted from that road before he found himself in more trouble than he was ready for.

He turned and faced the warehouse, monitoring it carefully for any signs of activity, but his thoughts remained focused on the man sleeping soundly next to him.

Their behaviors stabilized over the next few days, and became a regular part of their day, almost natural. Frighteningly real at times. "Only in front of the windows, Merquise," became a regular part of Zechs internal mantra, not that it was helping him maintain his control all that much.

Not only was Wufei within reach, not only did Zechs have permission to touch and to hold him, but he was returning the contact -- this was nothing like the casual play that he and Owens had worked to enact in front of the windows. Nothing at all.

God help him, he wanted this.

He wanted more of this

God save him when they escalated the activity beyond what they were doing now.

"Control, Merquise." Ah hell... he'd give their target a show, hell yes. The trick would be talking Wufei into going along with the idea. He sighed. And Wufei was too honor driven, and he just plain respected the man too much to resort to subterfuge and lies to get him into his bed. His mind happily supplied the thought that 'handcuffs and ankle restraints would do a nice job of keeping him there once he got him there,' but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind and tossed a sheet over it. And added a blanket over top of that for good measure. God save him indeed.

Duo and Heero were going to torture him to death first.

Duo had that gleam back, the one that spelled trouble in big doses. "Okay, now I think it's time to throw some major kissing into the mix. After you do that, I think it's pretty much up to you how you want to handle the rest of it, as we can work this so the blackmailer will assume that you're either sleeping together, or that you're taking the slow and cautious route to sin."

Heero chimed in with, "That translates to, 'Duo's way or Heero's way'."

Wufei leaned back in his seat and said, "I think I want to hear more about Heero's way," the exact same time Zechs started laughing.

Duo licked his finger and drew a line in the air with it, and Heero smiled back at him.

Wufei frowned. "You were betting on me again?"

"Yup."

"Fine. We'll do it the other way then. Your way."

In the other chair, Zechs mouthed the words 'I owe you one' to Heero.

Wufei caught him at it and smacked him in the shoulder with an open hand. "Idiot."

Duo laughed. "I know, on one hand, Wufei's ready to gut me, but it proves my point. You're comfortable enough with each other and within each other's personal space now that the next step won't look as forced as it would have before." He grinned. "Which means Une got what she paid for in her consultant. So, on to the next step."

"Next step?" Wufei slid his glance over to Zechs again. "You mean the kissing, right?"

Duo nodded. "You want me and Heero to demonstrate how it's done?"

To see his best friends kiss... now there was a novel thought. "Um... no. Thank you, but no."

Zechs considered the problem from Wufei's point of view. "Duo? Perhaps if you approached the exercise from a... generic standpoint first. Talk it over instead of acting it out?"

"Other than get close and suck face?"

"Other than. I mean, in the interest of avoiding making Wufei feel any more uncomfortable than we have to, how much of this do you think we can safely simulate for our remote camera?" Zechs had a closed and thoughtful look on his face, one that Duo was at pains to remove.

"Short of you standing in front of Wufei and blocking the view, not much. And that would sort of avoid the reason behind doing this." Duo looked from Zechs to Wufei and back again. "Alright, it limits the fun factor, but you can stick with lips-only and open mouth kisses. That means no tongue, Wufei."

Wufei flushed red. "Hell, Duo, I know what that means."

Duo put on his serious face, the one reserved for business. "I know it's no cakewalk guys, but you're doing a great job so far. Heero and I are really impressed."

Under the scrutiny of the honest praise, Wufei's fluster collapsed. "Thanks."

Okay, so start with the sensual touching that we've been working on. Get close within your personal space, and extend the touching into kissing. "Wufei?"

"Yes?"

"You want a shortcut for this?"

Wufei gave him the finger.

"That's not included in my consultation fee, Wufei. No, I was going to tell you to close your eyes and pretend Zechs has tits."

Wufei looked up at his partner, who was looking down at his chest and trying to stifle his laughter.

Duo winked at both of the agents. "Now go knock 'em dead."

That night, they stood together at the window again, still gambling on that unseen voyeur, staring at the park across the street, Zechs a warm, steady presence along his ribs. Wufei settled hard against that strength, giving in at long last to the urge to simply accept some of what their viewer was expecting -- what Zechs was offering -- and dammed be whatever the troubling consequences handed back to them.

Zechs' play started this time with a gentle but firm touch across Wufei's arm, pushing his hair behind his shoulder, tucking it behind his ear. The fingers continued, tracing the firm translucent shell of his ear, studying the shape of it from behind, as careful lips began nuzzling the back of his neck.

Wufei considered. So... this was what it felt like to give in. So easy. More like finally, at the very last moment, slipping under smooth water than making the decision to take that sudden high dive. Wufei turned his face into Zechs', reached a hand up to still the surprised, reactive flinch, and touched his lips to his partner's, easing the transition from explorative touch to deeper contact. He caught the flash of surprise in Zechs' eyes before opportunity upended the moment and turned it into something unexpectedly passionate and hot. The kiss sweetened into something intimate and memorable as they gave their watcher the kitchen window show of a lifetime.

Zechs pulled away from Wufei's lips with a rasping gasp for air, but refused to release his hold, instead surveying the rest of Wufei's face with interest: his dilated eyes, swollen lips, open mouth. He licked his lips once, then again, liking what he tasted there and forgetting in his moment of reflection what he intended to say. Wufei reached up a hand, noting with fragmented objectivity that his fingers seemed to be trembling somewhat, and pulled Zechs down for another round.

"Wufei?"

"Mmm?"

"Are we going to bed now?"

Oh, holy hell yes. Oh, wait. Actual sex wasn't part of the program, just the sleeping together at this point. Damn. "Okay."

Zechs maintained the routine they'd established since Wufei had moved in to his apartment, and after they moved away from the target window in the kitchen, he was back to his usual self. He closed the blinds, carefully adjusted the internal lights in the room, and suggested that they act out their new bedroom routine as well, in case the other window was 'active.'

Active. Right. At least he knew for a fact now that Zechs was interested in him.

Timing. It all came down to timing.

The bedroom routine they'd worked out was a fairly basic one. So far they'd had been counting on the blackmailer following the police reports and knowing about Wufei's injury, so while Zechs had moved from the living room sofa into the bedroom a few nights ago, they hadn't tried simulating sex yet.

Wufei was rather hoping that they wouldn't have to simulate much, but not have to show much for the camera either.

Sleeping in Zechs' bed hadn't been much of a hardship. Sleeping in Zechs' bed with Zechs in it was a different prospect altogether. He was a restless sleeper, usually apologetic about it as well. So after enough time had elapsed to establish that they were actually sleeping together, he would usually get up and wander off to the living room and watch the vid or read case files until morning, or, more likely sleep on the sofa in order to ease Wufei's supposed feelings on the matter.

"You go in first tonight. I want to call Duo and check up on the guys. I'll be in bed in a few minutes, okay?"

Zechs stood in the doorway to the bedroom, watching as Wufei sat down at the vid console.

"Listen, if I get too... just yell at me or something to wake me up, okay?"

Too what? Loud? Sexual? Restless? What? "Okay."

"Night, Chang."

"Night, Zechs."

The dream always started the same way, with Treize's face on his communications monitor in Epyon, talking with him, repeating his final private transmission to him on continuous loop. "No one understands the abuse of power quite so well as those who share the potential." And then in the manner of nightmares, the dream seized him, taking him to the moment Epyon exploded along with Libra. His world went suddenly white, his body involuntarily shuddering in response.

He came back to consciousness with a jolt, and fought his way back to awareness, trying to find his bearings in the shattered remains of his craft. He fought the controls to turn Epyon to center an image in his main monitor screen, wanting to see Earth and the aftermath, but the rotational thrusters were disabled or destroyed, and the one remaining camera showed only the massive debris field floating in the microgravity around him. In his dream, the time he spent floating in and out of consciousness coalesced into a moment, and his timeline came back at the moment his camera was struck by a piece of his ship, tethered and unstable, that shattered the lens.

The feeling of vertigo that ensued was all encompassing. He had trouble orienting himself without aid of his monitors, and he went intentionally limp, trying to relax his body, wrapping his arms around his torso as he'd been taught at Lake Victoria all those years ago in order to minimize the zero-G nausea. He felt the sensation of his mobile suit shuddering and beginning to collapse, and his vision went as black as his monitors, lowering him into oblivion. He remembered clawing his way into consciousness at the sound of someone on the outside doing their best to cut the bolts holding the hatch in place, and to the radio contact of the Sweeper ship that Howard had sent to look for him and salvage what was left Epyon.

His remembered his life support systems failing, even as they were working to free him from the cockpit, the lights dimming, and then the carbon dioxide alert sounding, warning him that the level was beyond tolerable levels. He began to struggle to draw breath, flailing in his sleep and tearing out at the blankets.

"Zechs? C'mon, Zechs, wake up."

He gasped his way awake, and for the first time in his life, there was someone there for him, someone real. Someone who would understand him.

He grabbed hold, and held on through the night.

It was just two bodies pressing close to each other for warmth. It shouldn't have meant more than that. It shouldn't have, but it did, at least to Wufei.

Zechs was curled up along the length of his back, and warm, so very warm. Wufei lay there, considering, trying to place the feeling in his chest, and settled on 'protected.' Zechs was with him, holding him and guarding his sleep, and for the first time in many years, it didn't bother Wufei to release responsibility unto another soul. It felt right in a way that his brief time with his wife hadn't. He didn't have to pretend to be anyone else for him. Zechs knew him -- his highest highs and his lowest lows -- he'd seen it all and stood by Wufei without complaint through the best and worst of it.

He knew the worst and darkest things about him, and they didn't matter to him. He'd been assimilated and accepted into his life.

Wufei shifted against Zechs, tentatively testing both his limits and his. He pushed back experimentally and tilted his hips to better align with the hollow of his partner's, and felt his body awakening with the subtle erotic contact. There was a shift of Zechs' hand under the sheet, curving around the side of Wufei's chest as he murmured, "Be sure you don't start anything you're unable to finish..."

"I was shot over two weeks ago; I'm not dead." he paused as he did, thinking. "Unless I am dead, and this is one of the gifts bestowed in the afterlife."

"Let's test that theory, shall we?"

Hell... was Zechs implying what he thought he was implying? Or was that just his hopes getting in the way of reality again?

Heero walked back through the rented apartment, carefully checking the light-dampening drapes positioned through the 'vacant' unit Preventers had rented for surveillance purposes on the building across the street from it. He shifted the takeout box from one arm to the other, and lifted the drape to the back bedroom where they had set up their monitoring equipment for the exterior and street views of both buildings.

Duo was positively glued to one of the small video monitors, both of his hands clamping the earphones to his head.

There were only three feeds with sound. Heero could think of only one that could have Duo that fixated, and only one subject...

He set their dinner aside and moved closer, peering over Duo's shoulder at the small camera image. Despite the angle distortion, it was an amazingly sharp image of Zechs' apartment, the living room, if he wasn't mistaken. Preventers bought only the best equipment. Their covert installation was top notch.

He tapped Duo on the arm, and Duo obediently moved one of the earphones aside so he could hear him. "Are they doing what I think they are doing?"

"You mean, is this an x-rated movie you can watch? Yeah, it is."

Duo turned the volume down and handed Heero a second set of headphones.

Heero held up a hand in protest. "No thanks."

"You sure? I mean..."

Distracted, Duo turned back to the monitor and stared at what the couple on the screen was doing then, and Heero watched along with him, hearing a faint echo of ambient sound backwash through the open headphone. Wufei was... well... flexible. And vocal. And Zechs was driving into him very hard, the muscles on his back and thighs tensing with each thrust until he lost his rhythm and collapsed along his lover, sated at last.

"I guess they're finished." Duo checked to make sure that unit was still recording.

Heero blinked. "I thought Zechs would have had more staying power."

"You missed the part when they were over on the chair in the corner with Zechs pounding up into him for a while, and I mean a long while, and before that Wufei got off twice. I'll have to rewind the tape so you can see that part. Zechs has been holding back on us. Bastard. He knows a lot more about this than he's been letting on. He apparently gives one hell of a blow job."

"Does he?" Heero watched the screen where the two men were being quietly affectionate with each other. Wufei did appear to be rather well taken care of for the afternoon.

"Yeah, if they had been in the kitchen or the bedroom, it would have been some really wonderful material for our blackmailer. You know, nipple licking, throat biting, and I don't know where the two of them have been practicing all the kissing, but they've obviously been practicing a helluva lot." He pointed at the monitor. "See? There they go again with the kissing and fondling thing." He narrowed his eyes at the monitor image. "Cuddling too. God, that's pathetic. Look at the two of them on the sofa. They've been at it all afternoon. You've missed some great footage."

So this is how Wufei had felt when he and Duo had demonstrated homosexual behavior patterns for him at HQ. It felt... odd... With a decidedly erotic edge to it.

Duo looked down at the erection straining the front of Heero's pants. "Our turn now."

"We can't, we're on duty."

"If they can fuck while they're on the cock... Did I say on the cock?" Duo laughed and started taking off his shirt. "Then we can fuck while we're on the clock. The cameras will do all of the recording for us anyway. We're still here to change tapes and check the equipment. Besides, as fired up as we both are after that, this won't take long."

"Oh yeah? You sure about that?"

Heero glanced up at the live feed. "I take back any negative comments I said about the man's endurance."

"Heero?"

"Yes, Duo?"

"I know how your ethics work, but we can't allow Une to see that tape of Wufei and Zechs together. I know it's Preventers business, but..."

"We'll destroy the tape. Some things are meant to be private." He looked at Duo. "Okay, mostly private." He looked around the room and the inventive use they'd discovered for the spare blinds, the chairs, and the take-out food. "I had no idea that voyeurism was such a turn on for you."

"Then we can keep a copy of the tape for ourselves?"

"No."

"Just checking."

"Zechs?"

"Yes?" The reply was mumbled somewhat, as it was uttered into the soft skin of his partner's neck, said partner still covering him like a warm and very agreeable blanket at the moment.

"I need to ask you something."

Zechs had just started mapping his way into more interesting territory, namely Wufei's chest, but something in the tone of voice stopped him, and he looked up. "What is it?"

"Well, that's it. What do we have now? I mean..."

"You're never going to get back to full-time undercover work so long as you're partnered with me you know."

"Well, you can hardly wear that helmet of yours anymore, not out in the general population anyway."

"The thought doesn't bother you then?"

"Not as much as I thought it would."

"And if this sting operation of Une's goes in the wrong direction..."

"That doesn't bother me either."

"No?"

"No."

Zechs held him tight. "Good."

Zechs and Wufei approached her desk with reservation, until Zechs saw the folder centered on her desk. "Is that what I think it is?"

Une smiled. "You two are, shall we say, a very photogenic couple."

"And?"

"Our lab is working on the copies as we speak, but they've assured me that they can calculate the angle that the photographs were taken from based on the stationary objects in your room, and we can project that back on the neighboring building and get a location."

"What else?"

Her smile faded as she lifted one of the images. "You two seem to be putting more... enthusiasm into this cover operation than I'd anticipated."

Wufei looked at Une, then back at Zechs. Definitely, he wasn't going to ask. And the crime lab had the pictures? Hell. Maybe he could get a job on one of the colonies. Maybe Zechs would be willing to go back to Mars and take him along...

"Which building exposure seems to be the target location?" Well, at least Zechs still maintained his composure.

"It appears to be the one facing your bedroom. Our blackmailer apparently felt that that room had the greatest, shall we say, potential, for activity." Wufei winced. Zechs flushed and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "Though there are some nice examples of the two of you in the kitchen area as well, so the park was utilized as well."

"None from the living room?"

Une's response was thoughtful. "No."

Zechs and Wufei's eyes met, and they both let out a deep breath of relief. Small favors at least.

"Pending any problems with the seizure of the evidence or the legal end of the process, I believe that this will conclude your covert involvement in this case. What are your intentions moving forward, gentlemen?"

Zechs stepped forward. "I don't believe that either of us were expecting such a quick wrap up to our part of this case. Might we have a few days to consider our options, Commander?"

"Certainly. You will, of course, maintain your cover and current living arrangements until we have final seizure, but I anticipate word of that within the next forty-eight hours. Thank you agents, you are dismissed to go about your duties."

They parted just outside of Une's office, Zechs to finalize the collection of material with Heero and Duo, and Wufei to assist in the processing of material down in the investigation lab.

Wufei stared down at a color image of himself. He was facing the camera, Zechs was in profile next to him, and they weren't kissing, or having sex, or participating in any activity that could be construed as carnal. It was the look in his eyes that was holding him in place and so very damaging. Taken by an as yet unidentified stranger only a few days prior, what he was holding could destroy his career. No doubt, there would be Photostat duplicates all over the building by the time this case was over. Une had already seen this image. Zechs had not.

He fingered the plastic sleeve thoughtfully, and wondered how a stranger could so easily reveal in a picture what he couldn't tell Zechs was in his heart.

"Remember when you got perforated during the Owens fiasco?"

Wufei winced; even now, the mere mention of that name caused distress. He turned and nodded bleakly at Noin. She walked over to the table spread with the photographs, adjusted a few in passing before leaning against the table next to him.

"Well, you may not remember it at all well, since you were pretty drugged up at the time, but I was there when he picked you up at the hospital."

Wufei nodded again; it seemed the safest recourse.

"Do you remember what he said?"

Wufei gave her a puzzled look. Whatever it was she was trying to get across to him, she was dragging it out. That wasn't like Noin at all.

"You want some advice? I don't know who said it first, but it's true. Don't listen to what a man says, listen to how he says it." She looked up from her paperwork and took a gamble. "He didn't say that you would be cared for, he said that he was going to take care of you."

Noin took in the pole-axed expression on Wufei's face, and softened her approach out of mixed respect and pity for the poor man.

"Listen Chang, you didn't hear it from me, okay? But that man is so in love with you that it's a miracle of modern science that he can still tie his bootlaces in the morning."

She took the photograph from his hand, glanced at it, and then added it back to the others on the table, leaving him and his thoughts sagging against the counter together.

So he had his answer. Now what was he going to do with it?

He could think of one good man to ask.

Wufei tracked Zechs down in their office. After asking after his whereabouts all over the building and enduring yet another round of 'misplacing his partner' jibes from the day crew on the main floor. He hadn't expected to find him in the one predictable place in the building. Out in the field, yes. Still working with Heero and Duo, certainly. Sitting in their office, kicked back in his chair and catching up on paperwork? No way in hell.

"Was trying to find you."

"I've been here for a while. Heero and Duo are finishing up with the video work. They've got footage of a man leaving the building from the apartment the crime lab marked, so they're working their way through the rest of it to see how many dates and times they can come up with."

Wufei closed the door to their office, and pulled the blind completely shut. Zechs raised his eyebrow and but his reading aside. "What is it?"

"I've got something I want to say to you, Zechs."

Zechs righted his chair and gazed back at Wufei. "Okay, but first I have another confession that I think you should hear."

Wufei flinched and dropped back into his chair. "Not another one?"

Zechs lifted his eyebrow. "You're not running out on me this time? No issuing of ultimatums?"

Wufei waved a hand back at him. "Not anymore. Do your worst."

"It's like this... I was rather hoping that our blackmailer would go public. Then you wouldn't have to move out of my apartment." He continued, hesitant, testing. "That we'd have a reason to stay together. And I could tell you that I think I'm... falling in love with you."

"Are you telling me that you love me?"

"I think so, yes."

"Well, to use Duo's favorite expression, you suck at saying it."

Zechs smiled back, taking Wufei's rant in the spirit it was given. "Okay, how about... 'I was initially attracted by your body, but I fell in love with your mind, and I worship your soul. You have the purest soul of any person I have ever met'."

Wufei nodded. "That's better."

Zechs met his eyes. "Tell me you'll stay with me?"

"Alright."

"And?" Zechs moved closer, hoping that the door would remain closed.

Wufei reached for him. "And I love you too, but you already knew that."

"Suspected. Hoped. You never know for certain until you hear the words." He had an afterthought, a frightening one. "Promise me something?" Zechs suspected that kisses stolen under the cover of office security were better than the ones at home. But he was willing to experiment.

"Anything."

"You'll tell the rest of your friends about us living together?"

"Anything but that."

Epilogue

"Heero?"

"What, Duo?"

"If we put it under the tree, Quatre and Trowa will ask questions about it."

"Ask questions, hell. They'll want to watch it."

"Okay, so we can't do that."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"Maybe we should just ship it to Wufei and Zechs."

"Right, and run the risk that it'll get lost in the mail and someone will wind up with Preventers' Greatest XXX Hits."

"Okay, so we can't do that."

"So we'll disguise it as something other than a videotape and put it under the tree."

"Duo? Using the wrapping paper with the fornicating polar bears is going a bit too far, don't you think?"

"No."

"Right, there's no such thing as too far in the Maxwell dictionary. I keep forgetting that."

"And we'll make the card out to 'Wufei & Zechs, Merry Christmas, From Heero and Duo'."

"You don't like 'Wifey & Sexy, Have a wonderful time in the sack, From the Guys'."

"Duo? It's your Christmas party. Whatever makes you happy."

"Heero?

"Yes, Duo?

"If you really loved me, you'd just let me copy this."

"No."

End