December 29, AC 199

I can't tell you what I was feeling after I'd seen and heard what amounted to Instructor H's last will and testament. I could say I felt nothing at all, but that was a lie; I felt plenty. I just couldn't deal with the loads of emotions I was experiencing at the time.

Judging by what I saw over the vidphone after the recording had shut off, though, neither could the others. They all just sat there staring at the playback screen as if they expected H to pop up again, grinning, and tell them it was all a joke. I did too, to tell the truth.

After about a minute of sitting around like statues, I saw Duo made the first move. He reached out toward Quatre, probably intending to hug him, but then Quatre suddenly put his helmet back on and grabbed something out of Heero's hand, moving almost too quickly to see. Things got a little noisy then.

"Master Quatre, what do you think you're doing?"

"Winner, put that down! NOW!"

"Q, get your crazy ass back here!"

"Quatre, don't make me break your other arm."

They were all yelling over each other, but time seemed to have slowed down and I can still remember what each of them said and can still see how they all scrambled to get their helmets on and prepare to follow Quatre out of the shuttle. I finally found my voice.

"Guys, what's going on?" Not the most intelligent or profound statement, to be sure, but I was very tired and very confused…and very worried.

Wufei heard me and turned around to face the transmission camera. "Quatre took the beam gun that we found on H's body and he is exiting the shuttle." His voice sounded calm, but I could tell by his breathing and the wild look in his eye that he was just as confused and scared as I was.

I said, "He wouldn't…would he? I thought he was better?"

"I thought so too, my own, but obviously a lot has happened and—"

I waved a hand at him. "I know, I know. You have to go help him. Just leave the line open, okay?"

He nodded at me. "I'll patch you in on the team com line. You can listen in. I have to go now, but I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Understood." I said, but that was more out of habit than anything else. I hoped, I feared, and I guessed, but I didn't understand.

It went to show you how distracted I was that I didn't even notice my sister had entered the room until she stole the coffee cup from my hands. "What's going on, Trowa? I heard raised voices."

"You'll probably be hearing a lot more." I told her. I patted the seat next to me in an invitation to sit down. "Just watch with me and I'll explain everything later."

She sat down next to me, sipping my coffee, and rested her head on my shoulder. Mercifully, Cathy is not very talkative at four o'clock in the morning. Thank God for small favors.

December 29, AC 199

I had wasted precious seconds telling Trowa what was going on after Quatre grabbed the gun and bolted, but I didn't really have a choice. If you have ever seen Trowa really worried before, you would stop to explain things too, even if you were standing in the middle of a burning building with six sticks of dynamite in your shorts. He's a worrier of Olympic standards.

However, as a consequence of that I was trailing behind everyone else and I had nothing but my locator device to tell me where they were, which was no help in the maze of dark corridors. It was of no use to me to know that Rashid, for example, was ahead of me and to my left if I didn't know exactly what turns he had taken. Not knowing what else to do, I said, "I'm lost in corridor JJ-719. I'm staying put. Chang out."

I don't think anyone but Trowa heard me. The rest of them were yelling at Quatre--ordering him to stop, to come back, threatening various parts of his anatomy with grievous harm, cursing his ancestry, his personal hygiene and his probable mental status--and Quatre himself was eerily silent except for his harsh breathing. All that was alarming enough, but it was even more alarming when the shouting stopped and the shooting started. I counted five or six blasts of the gun before it stopped. After that, the shouting never resumed.

I was beginning to think the worst when Duo finally broke the silence. "Quatre," he said in a voice that sounded a little sick, "that was totally gross."

"Then don't look." Quatre replied in an oddly reasonable tone. I heard a door sliding closed. "Wufei, what section did you say you were lost in?"

I told him, and a few minutes later the four of them came drifting by with Rashid in the lead. He, Duo and Heero looked grim. Quatre looked calm, but he was covered head to foot in something resembling overcooked oatmeal; it was grey, slimy, and very lumpy.

As we made our way back to the shuttle, I grabbed Heero's arm. "I might not want to know the answer to this, Heero," I said, "but what is that stuff all over Quatre?"

He didn't look at me. "Instructor H."

We made Quatre change in the airlock.

December 30, AC 199

It's a damn good thing Wufei volunteered to pilot us back to Earth. What with the long trip to the satellite, the icky events that happened there, and the fact that I was in the head throwing up for an hour after we got back, I was in no condition to pilot a tricycle, let alone Rashid's shuttle.

Luckily, Heero was in a pretty cuddly mood. I guess he was freaked out a bit too, although he would never admit to such a thing. He let me come snuggle with him in one of the small, private berths after we had taken off, and we would have done a whole lot more than snuggle if said berth didn't belong to a seven foot tall Maguanac with an overly-developed protective instinct toward a certain blond friend of ours.

Speaking of Quatre, he seemed to be far less affected by the whole thing than any of the rest of us. You'd think that after he'd discovered that he'd been a pawn in some crazy man's idea of war, had his mind tampered with, been driven to the edge of suicide, and then done the Mashed Potato all over the corpse of the man who was supposed to be his mentor that he would have at least been a little upset, but he wasn't.

When I asked him about it, all he said was, "it's really over now," and then he'd curled up to sleep. I love the guy, I really do, but he confuses the hell out of me.

Anyway, all of us made it back to Earth in one piece, obviously. Trowa and Cathy met us at the port. Cathy was looking hot in one of her little crop-tops and a pair of shorts, and I held out my arms to get a big ol' hug from her. She doesn't really hate me, you know. She just doesn't fully appreciate my sense of humor.

So there I was, holding my arms out, hoping to get a nice big handful of Trowa's sexy sister, and do you know what happened? She ran right past me! She ran past Duo Maxwell, the Adonis-like icon of lovable sexiness, and she didn't even look at me! She just left me there with my arms out in front of me like Frankenstein's monster! Talk about embarrassing.

Luckily Trowa came to my rescue. He took my right hand and gave it a shake. "Nice to see you're all back safe, Duo," he said, but I could tell he was trying hard not to smirk. That bastard. I'm going to get him.

I looked over my shoulder to see who Catherine had been running toward and I was not entirely unsurprised to find that she was pressed up against Quatre and crying on his shoulder. He was holding her and stroking her hair and talking to her and doing all that comfort stuff, and she was sobbing her little heart out. The poor girl was nearly hysterical. "Jeez, Trowa, what did you tell her?"

"Everything."

"Well, couldn't you have toned it down a little? She's crying!" And she was, too. It's a good thing Quatre's had a lot of experience with emotional females. If it had been me, I'd have broken down and started bawling right along with her.

Yes, I cry sometimes. Fuck you.

"It'll be all right, Duo." Trowa said in that ever-so-calm voice of his that make me want to smack him sometimes. "She just needs to get it out of her system." And then he smiled, weirdo that he is.

Christ. Why can't I have normal friends?

December 31, AC 199

I was glad to see my own bed again. I think we all were. Of course, Duo is normally very happy to see our bed, but this time he only wanted it for sleeping. Similarly, Wufei seemed all too willing to have Trowa drag him off to their room. Catherine and Quatre, however, each insisted that the other take Quatre's room, and they had a long argument over who would take the bed and who would sleep on the couch. Duo found that amusing. I found it tedious.

According to the calendar, today is New Year's Day. I don't know if that accounts for everyone's strange behavior or if it's a result of emotional strain. I certainly don't feel any different, but then these things don't particularly affect me.

To be more specific, both Duo and Wufei seem to be in on some huge, unspoken joke. Of course, that's not exactly abnormal in Duo's case, but it is a bit disconcerting to watch Wufei trying to hide his laughter behind his hand.

I'd say that Catherine and Quatre were acting weird too, but they disappeared shortly after breakfast so I can't confirm my initial observations. They didn't seem to be very well-rested and they were both abnormally quiet, but they were both grinning almost as much as Duo was.

Even Trowa has been walking around all day with a smile on his face and a rather glazed look in his eye. He looks suspiciously like that time he accidentally ate a couple of Howard's marijuana brownies. When I tried to check his pupils, though, he just laughed it off and explained that he was feeling happy. Whatever.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Catherine and Quatre decided that Quatre's bed was big enough for both of them last night?

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It is half an hour till midnight. On the roof of a rambling white beach house just south of a small town on the Pacific coast, a skylight opens, and six young people climb out of it bearing blankets, bags of delicacies, and one large picnic basket. They are noisy and rambunctious, and if anyone had been on the private beach below them, they would have heard much laughter, friendly name-calling, excited chatter, and snatches of spontaneous song.

After several minutes of this, the young people settle into three pairs and turn their attention to a barge floating in the shelter of the bay to their north. A sudden hush falls over them, but it is broken by a loud cheer as the first of the fireworks is set off. The display is spectacular. Their awed, happy faces are lit up silver, gold, red, yellow, green and violet as the sky above them bursts into fantastic color. (One of the young men begins a lecture on the ancient and venerable history of fireworks, but he quickly shuts up when he realizes that no one is listening to him.)

With only seconds to go till the new century begins, the pyrotechnic display culminates in a stunning climax that leaves our watchers breathless and laughing, and they burst into spontaneous applause. One of their number shouts over the noise: "Kiss! Kiss! Everyone kiss for good luck!"

They don't need to be told twice. Six pairs of lips meet with varying degrees of enthusiasm, tenderness and passion, and they each privately think that their kiss is more spectacular and exciting than any fireworks display could ever hope to be.

May the New Year bring them all the luck in the world.

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