Part Four

Heero handed a spoon to Quatre and Trowa, saving one for himself. He poured out a liquid that came in three different colors, one color per spoon. Quatre was the only one who commented.

"Tea? I thought this was medicine?"

"It is."

"Um, right." Mission completed, Heero went to his corner of the nursery and got out a gun to polish.

"Heero!" the twins shouted. "You're supposed to sing!"

"I. Will. Not. Sing. A. Lullaby." Various mumbles and grumbles were heard before Mirror was suddenly by Quatre and Image by Trowa, both whispering in the latter's' ear. Both pilots smiled and nodded, letting the twins disappear.

"Ne, Heero-nanny?" Quatre asked. "Could you read us a bedtime story?" A book appeared in his lap.

"No."

"I think you'll like this one," Trowa added quietly.

"Doubtful."

"The book is called Killer Angels," Quatre said.

"No," Heero said forcefully, trying to recall where he'd heard that title before.

"You don't like books about wars?" Trowa queried.

Heero raised an eyebrow. Oh that book. Semi-fictional interpretation of the battle of Gettysburg. It definitely caught his interest. Heero pulled a chair between the two beds and looked the book over.

"Hey, why a book written in 1974?" Heero called to the ceiling. "It's supposed to be 1910."

"Details details!" one of the twins answered.

"Mission accepted."

Wu Fei entered the dining room the following morning to a rather bizarre scene. Nothing looked out of place, nor did anyone in the room act differently, but something was amiss.

"Did you put the rotten food into my bag?" Sally was asking Catherine.

"Yes. The rally will go well today with those rotten eggs," the lousy cook answered. "Now if you'll excuse me."

"Sally-chan," Wu Fei said. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"Something's not right this morning."

"Really? I haven't noticed." They sat down. "By the way," Sally continued, "since you've hired Heero Yuy, the most amazing things come over the household."

"Really?" Maybe that was what was wrong.

"Yes, for example look at Relena. She hasn't broken a single dish all day, nor has she insulted Trowa." That was an achievement. "Also, Catherine and Relena always fight like Mobile Suits, but lately…"

Sally was cut off as Catherine came out, holding the door for Relena. Wu Fei looked on in shock. Relena set down the dishes, handed out breakfast and curtsied before leaving.

"What? How?"

"It's very simple, dear," Sally said. "Everyone fears Heero, so they'll do anything to prevent him from getting angry."

"Someone like that should be working for the Preventers," Wu Fei stated.

"True, but Trowa and Quatre couldn't be happier. They haven't gotten into any trouble and they seem brighter than before." As if on cue, said boys marched into the room. In good fashion, they saluted their "father", handed a bouquet to their "mother" and came to attention by the table.

Trowa gave Quatre a little nudge and the petite blond saluted and spoke clearly, as a solider would. "Otou-san," he said. "Heero, or rather Duo, has taught us the most wonderful word."

"Oh?" Wu Fei asked. "And what is that?"

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidosious," Trowa stated.

"??"

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidosious," Quatre repeated.

"Sooplica…supofrag…x..p..??" The Chinese boy shoved a forkful of food into his mouth and looked at the "children" again. "There is no such word." He started to wonder what Mirror and Image were up to. The twins appeared, looking very innocent.

"Why Wu Fei?" Image said, her voice dripping in sugar. "Why would you suspect us-"

"-of doing anything?" Mirror finished. Both looked all the more innocent and disappeared.

Clearing his throat, Trowa spoke up. "It's something to say when you don't know what to say."

"Whatever," Wu Fei snorted motioning for them to leave.

"Are you well?" Sally asked once they were gone.

"Of course. I feel fine."

"You seem out of sorts this morning."

"…perhaps it's the Preventers. Things still aren't going well."

"Well," Sally said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. "I hope today goes better for you."

"Arigatoo."

Heero exited the house with Quatre and Trowa following. When Heero turned to head down towards the park, he was rather surprised to see the "children" going in the other direction, Trowa showing off his balance by walking on the fence.

"Where are you two going?" Heero asked.

"Orders from Okaa-san," Quatre explained. He pointed up to Quinze's bizarre house. "We're not to pass him and break all the China."

The Japanese nanny looked up to see Quinze on the roof.

"GUNDAM SCUM!!! FIRE LIBRE'S MAIN CANNON!" The nameless flunky appeared.

"No can do, sir," he replied. "Cannon won't turn that far over."

"GUNDAM SCUM!! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS INDIGNITY!! COME BACK HERE!!"

"Very wise woman," Heero stated. "We're going several miles out of our way, but it's probably best that we did." Together, the trio went into town.

As they left the market, several hours later, all three had large grocery bags in tow.

"Heero?" Quatre asked. "Why are we buying food for Catherine-san?"

"Because Onee-san is cooking soup tomorrow." Heero and Quatre paled. "It's not that bad!" defended Trowa.

"But Heero," Quatre asked again. "You're the nanny, so why are you food shopping?"

"Because it is supposed to be Relena's job," Heero replied. "And I wonder how good the soup will be without half bad food."

"I told you her cooking wasn't that bad," Trowa said quietly.

"You mean," Quatre paled further. "That Relena has been getting bad food?" He suddenly turned green.

"She doesn't know what's good for her," Heero stated simply.

Walking down the street, a small dog ran up to them. It was the same dog that had bared the message "This could be you" to Relena. The dog started barking nonstop and Heero was somewhat amused that he understood what the thing was saying.

"Again?"

The dog barked in the affirmative.

"He's not there is he?"

Affirmative.

"Then there's still time." Heero pulled out a gun and pointed it to the grocery bags, which obeyed promptly, leaping out of everyone's arms and heading for their home across town. Trowa and Quatre blinked and Heero started to run down the street.

"Ano?"

"Just come on!" Heero called back, not even slowing down.

"Should we follow?" Trowa asked.

"I don't know," replied Quatre, who smiled. "Say, isn't this the first time we've had alone so far?" The corners of Trowa's mouth started to rise. "I wanted to talk to you about a few things…"

"Now boys," Mirror said, appearing in front of them. Both pilots sweatdropped. Couldn't they ever get some privacy??

"You're supposed to follow Heero!" Mirror commanded.

"But," Trowa said, thinking he had the upper hand, "Heero is long gone by now, following that dog. We wouldn't know where to find him." Quatre smiled as well.

"Turn around." Mirror disappeared and Trowa and Quatre found themselves right in the oncoming path of Heero. It as quite a loud crash.

"Out of my way!"

"Get off of me, kudasai!"

"Umph!" Once all three had sorted who's what went where, they took off again, following the dog that begged them to come.

"Where are we going?" Trowa asked.

"To prevent a disaster." No other answers were forthcoming.

They reached a small house and went up the steps. Heero swung the door open and saw Duo of all people.

"Duo?? What the HELL're you doing here?!" The nanny leveled his umbrella gun to the braided youth.

"Heero! This is no time to be jealous. I came over the minute I heard." The Japanese youth did not lower his weapon. Instead he started advancing, causing Duo to step back. Trowa and Quatre looked on in confusion.

"You knew it was contagious, you knew you were susceptible, you knew it was dangerous, so why the hell are you here alone with her unsupervised?!" He annunciated his words with several steps forward, Duo taking several steps back. The American boy started realizing that this was serious; his normally well maintained braid started sprouting stray hairs and several sweatdrops appeared around him.

"Heero, calm down. Now, let's talk about this. Ne?" Duo took another step back and tripped, crashing through a door and landing on the floor beyond. Heero followed, his gun still trained on the boy.

"Omae o korosu," he said calmly, meaning every word. And I mean meaning every word.

"A … Ano … Heero …" Duo continued to sputter.

Trowa and Quatre, however, were paying no attention to the spectacle. They were looking around the room. Since the pair had entered the house, they'd heard the muffled sound of laughing. Duo and Heero seemed unconcerned about it, more involved with each other at the moment. You understand. Anyway, when the pair had entered the room, the laughing increased in volume and proximity. The two were looking around, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was a large room, with an arched ceiling and large windows. The furniture was bare minimum-a table with a tea set up, some chairs, and a number of paintings adorning the walls. The floor was hardwood, as were the table and chairs, providing very little to contain the sound of laughing that Trowa and Quatre were hearing. In fact, the room was echoing with them, making it difficult to ascertain where the noise was coming from.

Trowa walked over to Heero and gently pulled on his tank top. "Chotto suminasen," he said politely. "But where is that laughing coming from?"

"Look up," Heero answered, not lifting his gaze from Duo. They had apparently entered a staring contest.

Following orders, Trowa looked up, Quatre following suit. The sight above them caused the Arab to gasp and the circus performer to raise an eyebrow. This time it was the blond boys turn to pull on Heero's tank top.

"Heero," he said nervously. "Constable Noin's on the ceiling."

"What?" Heero asked, generally confused. He looked up, giving Duo a chance to roll out from under the umbrella gun and move a safe distance away from the cobalt eyed boy.

"That's not Constable Noin," Duo said brightly from his sage position, glad he was still breathing. "That's Aunt Hilde."

"Aunt Hilde?" Trowa and Quatre said in unison. The pair looked up to the hysterical person floating around, only barely being able to sing a song about laughing The girl's back was too them. She bounced this way and that, much the same was Duo would on the ground. When she finally turned herself around, she showed a face almost identical to Constable Noin's save for the fact that it was much younger and cheerful looking.

Heero scowled. "Aunt Hilde, you promised."

"Heheheheheheheh hahahahahahahahahah! I know, Heeeeeheheheheheroooooororo. I tried. Hahahahahahaha. I tried but hahahaha, I can't heeehehehelp myself. Hmmmmhmhmhmmmm. You can seeheheheh that! I just like laughing, that's all!" The line somehow struck her funny and sent her in another wave of giggles, hehes, hahas, and the occasional hmhm. It was all very amusing, and Quatre was soon smiling, trying very hard to stifle a laugh.

"I lohohoohohve to laugh! Hahahaha. Loud and long and cleheheheher! I love to laugh! Hahahah, it's getting worse every year!" Hilde was trying very hard to sing, and had she had a straight face she might have sounded very nice indeed. But trying to breathe correctly when laughing, let along singing is very difficult and Aunt Hilde couldn't quite pull it off. It was, however, very funny listening to her. And Quatre was soon giggling uncontrollably. Duo was already in a full out guffaws.

Heero rolled his eyes, totally immune to such immature and pointless behavior. He stole a steely glare to Duo, who immediately shut his mouth. But he was still laughing.

"Some people laugh through their noses," Heero said instead of sang.

Marshall Novente showed up and gave an example of such a laugh. He then promptly disappeared.

"Dreadful," Heero said with utter disgust.

Meanwhile up on the ceiling, Hilde was fighting a hard battle to keep herself under control. She was loosing. About all she could manage was a snakish sound threw her teeth.

"Some people laugh through their teeth," Heero continued to say.

Next to appear was Minister Darlian. He also gave s prime example of laughing threw one's teeth.

"They don't sound much better." Heero crossed his arms and looked away, bored. Quatre was starting to graduated from giggles.

Duo picked up where Heero had left off. "Some laugh to fast-" Mirror appeared, did her example, and left. "Some only blast!" That was Image as she made her appearance.

"Others they twitter like birds." Duo pointed, and the floating camera panned over to see Quatre giving a good example of that. Trowa was by his side.

"Then there's the kind what can't make up their mind!" Duo himself took that example as he gave a perfect imitation of Dick Van Dykes version. All the way down to the "Heuh?" at the end.

That sent Hilde in another reel of laughter, and she could not get out a coherent word for her next line. But Duo, who'd been laughing since this song started, took his cue and started floating up, walking as he did so, to Aunt Hilde.

"Oh, hi!" Hilde managed. "Glad you could turn up!" She greeted Duo with a warm hug, which sent Heero into a red faced rage to quiet for anyone to hear over the pair laughing on the ceiling. And even if anyone could hear it, we're not about to repeat it. So there nay!

Moving right along, the pair (not that Heero would call them a pair) continued to sing very badly on the ceiling, bouncing and swinging all over the place. It wasn't long until Quatre, now incapacitated with laughter, floated up to join them. Trowa looked up as the boy did so, sad that he could not laugh. Heero came over and joined him.

"Why aren't we up there?" he asked quietly. The boy was only barely heard over the riotous laughter above him.

"We don't laugh," Heero answered. "At least not as much as they do. It's contagious only to those susceptible to it."

"Oh."

"Oi, Heero!" Duo called from his place on the chandelier. "Come on up! The gravities fine! It's just like on the colonies."

Heero mutter something before replying, "Why should I? You seem perfectly happy on your own up there." The nanny pulled a watch out from somewhere and looked at it. "According to British culture, it's time for tea."

"Tea?" Quatre said, currently in the middle of doing a summersault in midair. "I love tea! And I see a tea set on the table down here! This is great!"

Trowa walked over to the table. "It's getting cold," he called up. "Why not come down here while it's still a little warm."

"Well," Hilde said. "I had hohohohohped, that maybehehehe, that you would just, that-" She was interrupted as the tea table inexplicably started raising itself to the ceiling. "Oh wonderful!" she exclaimed. "This is great! Heero, Trowa, come and join us!"

Heero rolled his eyes. "If I must I must." He almost negligently started floating up to the table, leaving poor Trowa all by his lonesome on the floor.

"Trowa, come on up!" Quatre urged. The boy just stared up at him, unable to produce a laugh even if he wanted to. The little Arab frowned. "Heero," he said, turning to the nanny. "Can't you do anything?" The boy started to slowly sink. "I want Trowa up here with us. Please?"

"Oh, alright," Heero said, unable to resist those big eyes. Nobody could resist those eyes, actually, and Quatre knew it. Heero looked down to where Trowa was standing, looking thoroughly depressed.

"Trowa?"

"Hai?"

"Dying hurts like hell."

It took a moment to set in, but Trowa finally started laughing. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get him into the zero gravity up on the ceiling. It also, incidentally, sent Duo and Aunt Hilde into another fit of laughter.

Once Trowa was happily with his brother, said blond started pouring the tea. "Who likes sugar?"

"Me! Me me me!" Duo grabbed the lumps of sugar out of Quatre's hands and dumped the entire contents into his teacup. Sweatdropping slightly, Quatre continued to pour the tea, handing the cups to their respective owners. Trowa was the only one to accept it tactfully. Heero was busy staring angrily at Duo, who was already eating the sugar and entering a sugar high surprisingly fast, and Hilde was still laughing. She would have been rolling on the floor, except, well, you know. Quatre poured his own tea and drank it thoughtfully.

"This is good," he commented.

"Thank you," Aunt Hilde managed, finally getting at least partial control over herself. "My sides hurt," she mentioned as she reached weakly for her cup. "And so does my face, I think I'm gonna cry I'm so happy." She started to giggle again, showing signs of loosing control. She kept herself quiet, however, due to the cold anger emanating from Heero. "I want to thank you ALL for coming," she said, trying to appease the ticked off nanny. "I'm having such a good time."

"Speaking of time," Duo said cheerily. "It reminds me of this guy I know. He's got this job at a watch factory."

"Really? What does he do?" Hilde asked, intrigued.

Heero interrupted. "He stands there and makes faces. Duo, it's been used and it's not even that funny."

Duo fidgeted under the blue eyed stare. Actually, he would have fidgeted anyway, all the sugar was making him giddy. He wanted to do something downright hilarious. But what? His mind was going to fast to come up with a coherent idea. That thought seem to strike him funny, and he started laughing again. Hilde was going to follow suit, but Heero kicked her under the table. Instead of laughing, she winced.

"You know," Quatre said. "Nothing like this has ever happened to us. Is this kind of thing a normal occurrence?"

"Only in this fic," Heero answered. "If this starts happening regularly, threats or not I'm going to have a serious talk to those twins. This is humiliating." He emphasized his point by pointing to the sugar high Duo, who was doing all sorts of acrobatic flips and summersaults in the air, giggling all the way. "You'd think he could sit properly at the table."

"Speaking of names," Duo interrupted for no reason. "I know a Gundam with a system named Zero."

Hilde joined in. "What's the name of the Gundam?" She, Duo, and Quatre went through another episode of laughter, and Duo continued to work off the extra energy by dancing on the ceiling and the walls. Heero turned to the floating camera.

"You see what I mean?"

"Oh, that was funny!" Hilde finally managed to say. "I wish you all could stay here."

"We might as well have to," said Quatre as he finished his tea. "There's no way to get down. Is there?"

Hilde frowned, already sinking slightly at the thought. "There is, though I don't like mentioning it. You have to think of something sad."

"About time," Heero muttered. He looked to the Noin double. "Do get on with it."

"Hn," Hilde mumbled, her brow creased in thought. "Oh, I know. A few weeks ago, the lady who lives down the block, died in childbirth."

"Oh, that's sad," said Quatre empathetically. Trowa's face also darkened. Even the hyperactive Duo paused, all three boys starting to sink.

"Yes, she died under a birch tree. When her husband came home, the midwife went up to him and said, 'You now have a son. What will you call him?'"

Trowa looked up. "A son of a birch?" Everyone looked to him as the quick line set in. Oh well. So much for sad. Everyone cracked up, even the still-angry Heero, at such a line. Poor Mirror and Image fell out of their chairs, unable to type for several minutes, laughing so hard. Whatever sinking they had done was undone as they soared up to knew heights. Literally. Duo, his giggles already enhanced by the sugar high, shot up to be face to face with the ceiling, and everyone else was suddenly level with the tea table again. Laughter ensued for several minutes as the Gundam boys, poor Aunt Hilde who was clutching her sides in pain from laughing so hard, the twins, and even the floating camera that was shaking itself from laughter, fought to regain their composure.

Once everyone had settled down at least marginally, Heero pulled his watch out of hammerspace again.

"It's time to get out of here."

Now THAT had the desired effect on everyone.

"Oh, that's sad," said Quatre, sinking immediately. Trowa silently followed suit.

"That IS sad, that's the saddest thing I ever heard," Hilde cried out as she sank to the floor. Her big sky blue eyes filled with tears as Heero and the boys headed for the door.

"Ne, Heero, do you want me to sit with her a while?" Duo asked. He had sunk considerably, but his rampant sugar induced high still kept him about a foot off the ground.

The nanny turned to the pauper. "No." Heero grabbed the Americans braid and started pulling him out the door; a simple thing to do since Duo couldn't plant his feet to the ground in order to resist. "The last thing I … we need is for you to be alone with that girl. You'll probably get her up to the ceiling again and we'd be right back where we started." The two boys joined Trowa and Quatre outside and began casually walking down the street. Despite the stares and comments of the floating Duo.

Go to Part Five