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Part Nine:

Wufei helped me rebind my arms.  They needed to be bound, I guess, and I wasn't in much of a condition to do it myself.  After I had fallen to the floor, Wufei had waited a moment, then grabbed me by my shoulders and yanked me up.  Then he muttered something about blood loss and death and took a new roll of bandages out of my dresser drawer.  I asked him later- much later- how he had known that the bandages were in there, but he just shrugged and wouldn't answer me.  That's Wufei for you.

I was still sobbing, the entire time.  Trowa was edging away from me, probably making sure I didn't latch onto him again.  Or maybe not, that may have just been my tortured mind thinking where it wasn't needed.  Again.  Quatre was shocked,  I think.  Of all people, I was probably not the one he expected to be sobbing on the floor over a little blood.  Mostly because I don't, in most cases, cry easy, and Quatre knew that well.  Wufei and Trowa were probably just as shocked as Quatre was, though they didn't show it.  That's what it appeared to be, after all.  I was shedding tears over a bit of blood.

And I was, I suppose.  But I was also crying because the cuts just made it seem more as though my encounter with Heero had been real rather than imaginary.  But if it had been, how could I explain being dressed, and not having have heard him leave the room?

It seemed to me that maybe I really was missing a few buttons, and that Trowa was right after all.  I was definitely going to have to see that shrink tomorrow, like it or no.  And my dear friend the clown was going to make sure I got there.

When I finally stopped crying, Wufei took me by the elbow and led me to the bathroom, gesticulating to Quatre and Trowa that they could leave.  They went rather hastily, but I ignored that.  I was almost positive that I was going to be sick, but there was no way I was going to regurgitate in front of any of my friends.  Or any of my enemies, either.  I was Duo Maxwell, the one and only happy-go-lucky God of Death, and there was no way in this world or the next that I was going to toss my cookies in public.

My stupid stomach rebelled the second the door leading to the hallway shut and latched.  Thankfully, I managed to keep what little control I had, though I do believe Wufei knew what I was doing, as he quickly led me to the toilet and stood back, letting me worship the porcelain god on my own.  He held my hair for me while I did so, which I was extremely grateful for; it had been loose and knotted to begin with, I didn't want to have even more crap to deal with.

My lunch tasted a lot worse the second time around, but it was over quickly, thank the Lord, and, when I was done, Wufei handed me a paper cup full of water and a wash cloth.  I accepted both of them gratefully.  When I stood up, Wufei caught hold of my elbow, steadying me on my feet.  I'm glad he did; I know I couldn't have done it on my own.

"What happened to you?" he hissed in my ear, concerned.  "You're never like this, and a little bit of blood is nothing to cry over.  You are acting like an onna."

I shrugged, rinsing the cloth off in the sink.  "It's not the blood, Wufei.  It was the way it happened to be there.  Even I'm not dumb enough to be scared by a bit of blood!"  I was angry now, and I guess Wufei could see that, because he grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake.  I shook right back, making him let me go.  I wasn't your average happy-camper Duo right then, and I think Wufei picked up on it.  He left me in the little bathroom, then went over to my closet and threw some fresh clothes to me.  They landed on the floor unceremoniously with a quiet plopping noise.  I picked them up, trying to pretend I wasn't grateful.  I was in a nasty mood, and I wanted the world to know it.  Then, all of a sudden, I got a really weird idea.

I slammed the bathroom door about as hard as I could, pulling so that the loud bang that resulted resonated through out the entire room, and probably the entire building.  Wufei looked up from the place where he was sitting on my bed and gave me a confused look.  The second time I did it, he was on his feet.  The third he was trying to keep my cat from breaking through the balcony doors so it could run away.  By this time I was feeling a lot better.  On the fourth loud slam, Wufei was looking at me again, a bit angry now, I think.

I slammed the bathroom door for the fifth time, and a long, thin splinter of wood broke off the frame and hit the floor with a soft click. I grabbed the doorknob with my other hand and pulled the door open again. God, it felt good. When in doubt, take it out on an inanimate object. They can't take you to court.

I think Wufei picked up on how upset I was fairly quickly, probably because it was pretty frigging obvious. Before I could slam the door again, which would probably have knocked it off its hinges, he had one hand against the other side of it, making it immobile. I tried to pull the door open wider to knock him off balance or make him back off, and he grabbed the knob as well.

Well, that had just about ruined all of my fun.  Wufei cursed, then glared at me, telling me with his eyes alone that I had gone a bit too far.  I mean, a few minutes ago I'd been about as close to catatonic as I was probably ever going to get, and now I was beating up the door.  Wufei was all done being sorry for me.

"Maxwell, what are you doing?  Is there something wrong with you, or are you just returning to your idiotic subterfuge?" he bellowed.  I winced, because it hurt my ears.  If I could yell like that, I wouldn't have to slam doors.  He was mildly annoyed, I do believe.

I was silent, which, I think, pissed him off even more.   "Maxwell, answer me,  dammit!"

Biting my lip, I looked at the floor.  "Heero."

"What?"  I had almost stunned Wufei to silence at that.  It's amazing what a single word can do to a person.  "What about Heero?"

"Heero came back."

Wufei gave me a really odd look.  "Repeat yourself, please."

I shot him a reproachful look.  It had been hard enough to choke the words out the first time, and now he wanted me to do it again?  No way.  When he realized I wasn't going to repeat myself, he shot me a perturbed look.  Like it was my fault he didn't care to understand me the first time around.

Neither of us spoke for a long time.  I think that we were both trying to get our heads straight.  After all, I had just had the worst temper tantrum of my life, and Wufei was ready to rip my ears off of my head, if he could only get a hold of me without letting go of the door.  And, if he did let go of the door, I was going to run as fast as my legs could carry me in the opposite direction.  Blood stains a carpet so badly, you know.

Then, to my great surprise, Wufei laughed.

I snapped my face up from the spot on the floor that I had been staring at and shifted the stare to his face.  The fact that Wufei was laughing was shocking enough to me, just because it was Wufei, but it was really the fact that he was laughing now, of all times, was what really got to me.  I started to laugh along.  Wufei was laughing.  Wasn't that a pleasant shock all by itself?  But even that wasn't going to make all my hurt go away.  Sure, it was pretty great, and slamming the door had felt really good, but still...

It was only later that I wondered if Wufei had known what his laughter was doing, what it was going to do.  The second I began to laugh along, the smile in his eyes was real, not composed.  Not made up for my benefit.  Yeah, Wufei was a great guy to have around as a friend, even if it didn't seem like it to start out with.

When our laughter finally died away, Wufei spared a glance towards the clock, then assumed his comfortable, familiar role of Lord of the Universe.  His air of self-righteousness may have died down after the wars, but it had a long way to go before it died out completely, if it ever did.  It was a bit stifling, true, but I kind of hoped it never went away.  Wufei just wouldn't be Wufei without it.

"Get changed.  Barton and Winner are waiting for us," he ordered haughtily, smile still evident in his eyes.  I grinned, picking up my clothes.  It struck me as funny that he could call me by my first name but not Trowa or Quatre.

"I think that Q will be too busy stuffing his face to notice, and I doubt that his Love Camel would say anything at all anyways."

Wufei smirked in amusement- and, I would like to think, agreement- at that.  "So Barton does have a nickname."

"Not that I'd say to his face, Wu-man.  I, at least, know that he's handy with a gun," I told him, shutting the bathroom door behind me.  A small portion of it was missing from my crash bash.  The administrators wouldn't like that much.  Oh well, not a problem.  I would just blame it all on Lon; he'd be able to afford it once he got hitched.  Hey, for all I knew, he may have been rich already!  Not that it mattered anyway; I was rather doubtful that the administrators would even notice it.  As far as I knew, no one went into my dorm when I wasn't there.

The outfit Wufei had thrown me looked like something he had just randomly pulled out of the closet.  For that matter, that's most likely what it was.  It wasn't a bad outfit or anything, it just wasn't something that I would pull out of my closet just to go down to dinner and come back up to do more or less nothing.  Too nice for something so simple.  But it was there, and I was too lazy to go out and pick an outfit out for myself.

The thing consisted of some nice black pants, per usual, and a white muscle shirt.  Okay, that part I was fine with.  But the long-sleeved button-up over-shirt really got to me.  It was about the same shade of black as my pants were, but it was silk.  I love silk, but I somehow always managed to ruin it somehow.  I would probably go down to eat and wind up with some sort of mess all over the front.  I put it on anyway.  My day hadn't been going well anyway, might as well make it into a vicious cycle.  I rested my head against the wall for a minute, smiling to myself.

Actually, when I thought about it, my day had started off well enough.  It wasn't until breakfast that things started to go crazy.  First there had been the news that I was going to have a new room mate, then that Relena was coming to stay, and then there had been that gruesome, horrible Algebra class...

My head jerked up, whacking the back of my skull against the shelf above me.  Dammit!  Math class!  I had totally forgotten to see Mrs. Glebes after classes let out!  I let out a string of curses, well aware that I was in for it now.  The horrible, maniacal Mrs. Glebes held some sort of grudge against the Gundam pilots anyway, but why did I have to add this to the brew?

Anyway, after this horrible realization had revealed itself, I got changed and stepped out of the room to see Wufei look up and start staring at me with an odd expression on his face.  Standing in front of him, I grinned, mostly to hide my nervousness.  What the hell was going on with Wu-man?  And why was he looking at me like that?

"What?  Something wrong?"

"Duo..."  Wufei swallowed, then blinked.  "You look like an onna with your hair down."

I groaned.  "And you're just now noticing that?"

"Yes."  The tone of Wufei's voice told me that he felt a bit foolish for just noticing that now, but that he wasn't about to admit it.  I guess I understood why this startling realization had just come upon him.  After all, until now, I'd been acting like I was out of my mind.  Could I really blame him for thinking about other things at the time?

I went over to the mirror in the bathroom.  The mirror is floor length, more or less, and I could really see what Wufei was talking about now.  I hadn't looked at my hair loose in a long time, and it went almost to my knees now.  I really did look like a girl, with a few tendrils of hair going down in front of my shoulders so that they were in front of me, and the rest behind.  It looked pretty weird, my face and my body with that hair.  My braid had always been my prized possession. Before I had my Deathscythe, I had my hair. It had served me well over the years. Been my constant companion. It hid hairpins that had gotten me out of more jams than I cared to count. It was a familiar, well-loved piece of me. I guess the point is this: I like my hair; I like my hair a lot, when it's tied into the braid anyway, but right then I was wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea to snip a bit off so I didn't look so much like a girl.

I discarded the idea rather quickly.  Just tie it back in a braid, I reasoned, and it'll be just fine.  Problem solved, even if it was going to be a bit painful.  Going back into the bedroom, I picked up a hairbrush from my drawer and threw it onto the bed.

Wufei gave me a strange look as I started dragging the brush through my hair and cursing.  "Are you having problems?"

I gave him a weak grin.  "A few.  I'll be a minute, Wu.  I'll meet you down there, okay?"

Wufei shot me a suspicious look.  "You'll be fine on your own?"

I rolled my eyes at him.  "Wu-man, brushing my hair and walking down the stairs to the cafeteria isn't going to be life threatening.  Might not even be an adventure; now what do you say about that?"  I said with a wide grin and a chuckle.  Wufei smirked.

"I say that you're acting more and more like a lunatic every day you walk on this soil."

"It's a possibility, Wu-man."  I waited until he had left the room before I bolted the door and sat down on the bed, dragging my kitten into my lap and dropping the brush on the floor beside my book where it fell with a thud.

I stroked the cat's back, pressing her closer to my chest and letting her warm breath stream against my skin, which had suddenly turned cold.  She mewed and wriggled, but I only held her tighter.  I had no idea why, but I needed the extra comfort, and I wasn't about to ask Wufei or Trowa for a hug.  Quatre, maybe, if I was desperate, but I was kind of squeamish about even that.

The only person I really wanted a hug from was Heero, but he was nowhere to be found.  So I guessed I'd have to make do with what I had; a kitten that didn't want to be held, three friends who thought I was looney tunes, seven insane teachers who were going to have my head tomorrow, and a room mate who really needed to get a stick out of his ass.

When Fate steps up to bat, she always hits a home run.