Quatre finally found Wufei in the canteen, glowering at the gloop the cook had the nerve to call food as though he could turn it into something edible through sheer willpower.
"Wufei!" he said, throwing himself onto the bench opposite the man. "I need your opinion on something."
Wufei frowned at him. "Can't it wait until after I've convinced my stomach it really doesn't want to eat this?"
"No it can't!"
Wufei blinked at Quatre, who flushed. It wasn't like him to demand anything, except when in a boardroom meeting of some kind. He rarely, if ever was anything that could be called borderline rude with his friends. "All right, what is it?"
"The group Duo pulled off the station," Quatre began excitedly. "They're not lying, and they haven't been brainwashed! As far as anyone knows, they really have come from 2001!"
Wufei stared at him. "Quatre, are you feeling all right?"
"Never felt better. But I need to ask you, have you ever heard of something like this, people coming from the past, I mean?" Quatre implored him. "Anything, no matter how flimsy. A myth, a legend, anything."
Wufei frowned, thinking. After a moment, he said, "Not that I recall. However, I always found myths and tales
to be completely illogical and a waste of time and never really paid much attention to them."
"Well, maybe we could do some research then!" Quatre was almost bouncing in his seat, incredibly excited for a reason he couldn't articulate to himself, let alone anyone else.
Wufei sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Can't it wait?" he asked.
Quatre opened his mouth to exclaim that no it couldn't wait, before taking in how tired his friend looked. "You okay, Wufei?" he asked, concerned. "Haven't you gotten any rest?"
Wufei scowled at him. "I'll rest when I damn well feel like it," he growled, as much as yelling from the rooftops that yes, he did need rest if he was being so grouchy about it.
"Okay, whatever you say," Quatre hedged, holding up his hands as if to ward off a blow. "Um, I think I'll go see if Heero's awake . . . or Duo, Duo's more likely to know things like this. . . ."
"I'll come with you. No matter how long I stare at this stuff, it still isn't miraculously going to change to properly cooked food," Wufei said, standing. He collected his tray and dumped the contents in the bin, then marched out of the canteen without waiting to see if Quatre was following.
Quatre sighed, and jogged to catch up with him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Duo knew he was awake. He pretended he wasn't. Maybe if he tried hard enough his body would agree with him and send him back to sleep, so he could stay in this nice warm bunk without a care in the world. . . .
"I know you're awake."
Duo's eyes shot up and he sat up so fast he went dizzy. Once his vision had cleared, he blinked at the smirking Trowa beside his bed. He blinked a couple more times just for good measure, then launched himself off the bed and straight at Trowa. "You're okay!" he yelled, right in the man's ear.
Trowa hugged him back - or more like reflexively wrapped his arms around Duo to stop him falling over backwards. "Of course I'm okay, idiot," he said, taking advantage of their position to prop his chin on top of Duo's head. "You thought I wouldn't be?"
"You didn't come back, and I didn't see you in the battle, and I didn't know you'd gotten off the station. . . ." Duo trailed off.
Trowa sighed and pulled him further onto his lap, Duo's legs straddling his waist. "Idiot."
Duo was up in a flash, glaring at him from a hand's breadth away. "Whaddaya mean, I'm an idiot? I know you're as good as me at your job but damn it all to hell, am I not allowed to worry about my lover any mmph-"
Trowa shut him up the good old-fashioned way - with his mouth. Duo stared at him for a moment, but gave up on ranting when he felt Trowa's tongue sliding along his lips. Kissing was much more fun that arguing, anyway - especially when the arms that had been loosely embracing him before slid tighter around him, one hand coming down to cup his butt. Duo could feel Trowa's finger teasing his crack through the thin trouser material, and-
"Interrupting anything?"
Duo groaned against his lover's lips and flipped Wufei off without looking, if anything pressing closer to Trowa rather than moving away. A few months ago, Trowa would have pulled away at the first hint of someone else being in the room, and even as their kiss deepened Duo relished the fact that he seemed to have broken him of his shyness.
"Oh my," he heard Quatre say faintly. "Wufei, I think we should give them some privacy. . . ."
"What for? They can smooch in their own time. Maxwell! Barton! Stop traumatising the nurses and pay attention!"
"I'm not traumatised at all, Wufei," Sally said. Duo hadn't realised she was in the room, and the lascivious tone to her voice made him start sniggering, breaking the kiss.
Trowa pressed his forehead to Duo's smiling. "Later," he murmured, stealing a quick kiss. "Now get off me," he said, leaning backwards and smacking Duo's ass.
Still sniggering, Duo clambered off his lover and turned to Sally. "Why, Doctor, I didn't know you enjoyed . . . alternative entertainment," he said, trying to wipe the grin off his face and failing miserably. She grinned at him, moving on down the ward.
"Oh, can it, Maxwell," Wufei muttered grumpily. "And if you want to make out with Barton, next time do it in a more private place."
Duo looked down at Trowa, still seated in the chair. "Cafeteria good for you next time, darling?"
Trowa just chuckled.
Quatre pushed his way past Wufei, who had been blocking the doorway. "Duo! I need your help!"
Duo blinked at him. "What's got you so excited?"
"You know the four guys you dragged off the station?" Quatre said, his enthusiasm rekindled now he had another person to tell the incredible finding to.
Trowa looked sharply at Duo. "You took four men off the station?"
"They were gonna die, Tro, what was I supposed to do?"
"Duo, they weren't lying!"
"You shouldn't have taken on the extra weight. What if you'd been caught in the blast? You could have died!"
"Uh, guys. . . ."
"Well, excuse me for caring about the preservation of human life!"
"HEY!" Quatre yelled, then flushed as both Duo and Trowa turned the glares they had been giving each other on him. "Argue later," he said firmly. "Right now there is a matter than needs all of our attention."
"What?" Duo said curtly, folding his arms over his chest.
Quatre took a deep breath to calm himself, then launched into his tale. "You remember the four men you took off the station? I checked them out, and they're not lying, and they haven't been brainwashed. What I wanted to know was if you knew of any way - be it a myth or even a story - of people coming from the past to the future."
"I think I missed something," Trowa murmured.
Duo was staring at Quatre. "You're kidding me, right?" he said.
Quatre shook his head. "Nope, sorry."
Duo shook himself slightly, staring bemusedly around the room. "Jeez, what a mind job. . . ." He frowned then, staring up at the ceiling as though it would provide all the answers. At last he sighed, shaking his head and looking at Quatre again. "Nothing, sorry," he said. "Anyway, what are you asking me for? 'Fei here's the genius."
Wufei snorted. "Genius I may be, but myths and legends never interested me so I paid no attention to them. All the intelligence in the world is no help to you if you don't actually know anything."
"Well, damn." Duo looked stumped. "What do we do now?"
"Research is an idea," Wufei suggested. "We do have a very good, uncensored connection to the UESA net, after all."
Trowa nodded. "Research sounds good," he said. "Just one thing: what exactly are we researching, and why?"
Quatre jumped in to explain exactly what was going on. "The four men Duo dragged off the station claimed to have come from 2001. Duo and Wufei both checked them out before me, and decided they either weren't lying or had been brainwashed. When I checked them out, I found out that they weren't even brainwashed! I left to find Wufei to see if he knew of any other incidences like this, but he didn't, so we came here to ask Duo."
Trowa blinked at him. "That sounds . . . a little extraordinary."
"That's my Tro-chan, master of understatement," Duo announced to the room in general.
Wufei snorted and crossed his arms. "We'd best find a net outlet, if you're serious about doing research."
Duo nodded. "This is just too weird to leave alone. Hey, maybe someone should tell Zechs about this - he is in command of the Libra, after all."
"I'll tell him," Quatre said. "I'll see if he knows anything, too."
Duo nodded again. "Okay, that leaves Tro, Wu and me to go find a net outlet. I think there's one in the officers' mess - we can always pull rank if someone's on it." He suddenly stood to attention in his rumpled uniform, saluting the empty doorway. "Onward and upward, gentlemen!"
Wufei snorted and whacked him across the back of his head. "Idiot. I suppose the only question now is whether or not to wake Heero."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Yohji was bored.
Truly, honestly, stick-a-fork-in-it-it's-done bored. He'd just about memorised the ceiling of the small cell he and the others were contained in. He'd found a coin in his pocket and was amusing himself by flipping it and catching it one handed, over and over and over again.
Aya had pulled his chair into a corner and was sitting there glowering at his feet. Or the floor by his feet. Or a tiny speck of dust that he was trying to will out of existence. Who knew. Anyway, he was glowering.
Ken was on his sixty-third circuit of the room. Yohji had counted.
Omi had brought his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged on the chair, chin in hand, staring into space. Every so often he would give a gusty sigh.
Yohji wondered when the idiots who'd left them in there would remember where they were.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Well that was a bloody waste of time," Duo said disgustedly.
Wufei patted him consolingly on the back. The four of them trudged along the corridors towards the cafeteria - after much debate, they had decided not to wake up Heero, leaving him to his rest so that even his miraculous healing rate would get some help.
"It might help if we knew a bit more about them," Quatre said, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean, just their names isn't much to go on - if we knew where they worked or lived, maybe, then we could get something more."
Trowa blinked at him. "Didn't any of you ask them that?"
Wufei frowned. "Come to think of it, we didn't," he said slowly. "I assumed Maxwell would have asked, but considering he ran off as soon as he realised you hadn't returned, perhaps he didn't get that far."
Duo stuck his nose in the air. "I was concerned for Trowa's welfare. Excuse me if my lover takes precedence over interviewing a bunch of delusional morons."
"They aren't delusional," Quatre put in.
"I thought they were!"
"Enough," Wufei interrupted. "We can always go back and ask them. Quatre, what rooms did you assign them?"
"Rooms?" Quatre asked. "Oh shit!" he exclaimed, slapping a hand over his mouth, eyes wide in shock - possibly over his mistake or possibly over his unintentional profanity.
Duo groaned. "Don't tell me you forgot to assign them rooms."
Quatre scowled at him, hand dropping back to his side. "I was distracted. It's not like you didn't forget to ask them for crucial information-"
"Enough," Wufei said again. "You both made mistakes, now drop it. Quatre, I take it they're still in the interrogation room?"
Quatre nodded, abashed. "They should be, unless someone else has moved them," he said.
"Then we go to the interrogation room," the Chinese man continued, glaring at Duo out of the corner of his eye. "And not one more word from you, Maxwell!"
"What? I wasn't going to say anything," Duo complained to Trowa. The green-eyed man just smiled at him, and moved on, following Wufei down the corridor.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Yohji's head snapped up as the door opened, welcoming the intrusion into the thick miasma of boredom that had settled over the room. The blond one, Quatre, led the way into the room, Wufei and Duo following along with some taller man he didn't know. "So, you finally decided to return to the scene of the crime," he quipped, tilting the chair forwards so all four legs were on the ground. "What took you so long?"
"I'm afraid that was my fault," Quatre said, looking abashed. "I completely forgot to assign you rooms in the ship's quarters, since I was so excited over this discovery. . . ." he trailed off, still looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
"What discovery?" Aya asked flatly.
"That you're not a bunch of delusional lying morons," Duo informed him cheerfully, perching on the edge of the desk. His uniform was rumpled and creased, as though he had slept in it, although the braid was somehow still pristine.
Ken walked over to stand behind Omi, having stopped pacing when the door opened. "You only just figured that out?" he said disdainfully. Being locked up in a room with nothing to do for several hours had not made him any nicer, his excess energy rapidly turning to frustration.
Duo held up a hand. "Calm down, tiger, can you really blame us? I mean, consider it from our end - your story seemed pretty ridiculous. I can assure you, it is AC 203, not CE 2001. We had to check it out."
"But we can't check it out enough," Wufei interrupted. "Quatre has determined that you are not lying, nor have you been brainwashed, when you say you have come from 2001. However, we know that our enemy organisation existed at that time, as did the original roots of the Preventers. We need to know exactly who you were and what you did at such a time so that we can begin to determine why you are here, and whose side you are on."
"What if we're on no one's side?" Yohji asked, still flipping the coin indolently.
Wufei inclined his head towards the lanky blond. "If you are neutral, then we will give you free run of the ship, as we have all other neutral parties, and transport you to a safe location as soon as possible, so that you may get on with your lives."
"A safe location being one entirely controlled by you?" Aya said flatly. It wasn't a question, more of a statement.
Wufei gave him a withering look. "A safe location being one with little chance of seeing fighting," he told him. "I understand your reluctance to trust us, but if you don't want to spend the night in this cell I suggest you cooperate."
Aya narrowed his eyes at him. "Whatever you determine, we have to get back to our own time."
Wufei raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Aya looked away. "None of your business."
Wufei crossed his arms. "Anything that requires my help, as this is undoubtedly what you are asking for - in a very rude way, I might add - is my business."
Aya glared at him. Wufei glared back.
Duo rolled his eyes. "This is getting us nowhere," he said. "What it comes down to is that we'd like to at least know your former address, just so we can verify that you did actually live back in 2001, and so we can check that you weren't part of Estet. It's not likely you were, since most people back then wouldn't even have heard of Estet - hell, a couple of years ago we didn't even know about Estet - but better safe than sorry." He grinned.
Omi, speaking for the first time, suddenly rattled off the address of the Koneko. Yohji's head whipped around and he stared at him, alarmed. If they went digging into the background of the four of them, they were bound to notice that despite being registered as florists working and living at that address, their death certificates gave the date as being a couple of years before 2001, for all of them - if they dug further, they might find Kritiker - he knew they kept records on them, kill count and all-
Duo smiled at Omi. "Thanks, kid!" He turned to the taller man, leaning against the wall behind them. His face was half-hidden by a falling shock of auburn hair, and he hadn't said a word nor moved since the four had come into the room. With a start, Yohji realised he'd forgotten the other man was there. "Got that, Tro?"
'Tro' repeated verbatim the address Omi had reeled off. "Correct?" he asked the small blond boy.
Omi nodded affirmatively, bright smile firmly in place. "Yes."
"Thanks - Omi, right?" Duo said, jumping up from the table. "'K, sorry about this but we've gotta leave you here for a while longer while we check that stuff out. We'll try not to take too long this time," he grinned, "and I'll see if I can sweet-talk one of the kitchen staff to bring you guys some food. Coming, 'Fei?" he said suddenly, turning to the Chinese man - who was still engaged in a glaring contest with Aya. "Yo, 'Fei? Hey, Wufei!"
Wufei's head snapped around, and he blinked at Duo for a moment. "Oh, yes. I'm coming."
The clang of the cell door shutting as the four left the room seemed inordinately loud.
[End Part 4]
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