X13 – PART 6
Quatre and Heero were in the dining room the next day, speaking to each other in soft tones, when Trowa and Duo finally made an appearance. Heero paid close attention when Duo chose to sit beside the tall man instead of by Heero as he normally would have and hid a pleased smile. It had taken a terrible situation for Duo to realize what he could have if he wanted it and Heero hoped the long-haired man would make the right decision for himself and Trowa.
“It’s about time you two decided to get up,” he commented as he picked at the sandwich Quatre’s cook had provided for lunch. “I was afraid we would need to send out a search party.”
Duo’s eyes were completely clear, his skin back to its normal color as he smiled, “Oh, we’ve been up for a while now.”
Quatre’s mouth dropped open and he gaped at the two men. “Again? I thought you would be tired of each other for a while.”
“I certainly hope not,” Trowa frowned, staring at the surface of the table. When he glanced up at Duo, obviously startled, Heero assumed the cobalt-eyed man had touched his leg under the table.
“We aren’t done with each other, Quatre,” Duo assured more for Trowa than the blonde. “And we weren’t doing…anything. We’ve been in the hot tub. Both of us were sore this morning.”
“For good reason. Trowa made sure you were taken care of yesterday,” Heero smiled wickedly, enjoying the way Trowa squirmed and blushed.
Duo tossed a napkin at Heero, “Leave him alone. What does it take to get something to eat around here? I’m hungry.”
Quatre snickered, wiggling his eyebrows and looking ridiculous as he did so. “You didn’t eat much yesterday, Duo. You were busy. Cook can fix whatever you like.”
Before long they were all eating, Trowa glancing up when he felt the weight of prussian blue eyes on him. “Why do you keep staring at us?” he asked bluntly.
“You two are hiding something. You keep looking at each other.”
“Heero, do you really want to hear the details of what they were thinking about?”
Snickering when Heero abruptly blushed, Duo shook his head, “He’s right, Quatre. Trowa and I did a lot of talking this morning.” Spying the cup of coffee at his elbow, he pushed it away with a wince, knowing it would be a long time until he would be able to drink the dark brew again. “We weren’t going to say anything yet, but I suppose we can tell Wufei later.”
“You’ve decided to get married,” Heero deadpanned, smiling when the others stared at him with wide eyes. “If it isn’t that you must have decided to become an actual couple.”
“That’s part of it,” Trowa nodded, sitting back in his chair with a glass of orange juice. He had also chosen to avoid the coffee.
“Will that work with you living so far away, Duo?” Quatre was concerned for his friends while being happy for them at the same time. The emotional conflict was enough to give him a headache.
“That’s the other part of it,” Duo reached over to pat the blonde’s hand, seeing the worry. “I’m staying here. I have to talk to Une, but apparently, I’ll be working for WEI soon.”
For a while the four spoke of Duo’s decision, all excited at the idea of Duo being close. When Heero mentioned the numerous benefits of the long-haired man leaving L2 they all fell silent for several minutes, until Duo broke the quiet. “Is Wufei still going through agent files?”
“The last time he called there was nothing. He’s almost finished going through them. No one has a reason to hold a grudge against you and no one had the opportunity to drug the coffee. Everyone has alibis for the time in question.”
“What if it wasn’t an agent?”
Three pairs of stunned eyes abruptly focused on him. “Not an agent?” Quatre finally asked.
“Is Wufei looking through just agent files? What about the receptionist and staff that refill the coffee during breaks?” The shocked looks he received told him no one had considered the possibility. Recalling the man he had run into, he frowned, “Would their files be included?”
“An agent refills the coffee. That’s the way it’s always been done.”
“The guy yesterday said he was a receptionist,” Duo was sure of that. “He was…odd.”
“Odd in what way?” Trowa leaned closer, watching his lover’s face avidly.
“I don’t know.” Duo tried to think of the meeting with the man that had made him uncomfortable. “He was…chatty. I know that doesn’t mean anything, but the non-agent staff I’ve met have always been subdued. There was something in his eyes that made me feel weird, but I thought it was just me.”
Heero was on the phone in a matter of seconds. After listening for a moment his face turned grim. Hanging up, he shook his head in irritation. “The agent normally in charge of refreshments wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so she had her receptionist fill in for her. She didn’t think it would be a problem since he recently worked for WEI and was hired less than a week before.”
“You can’t possibly be talking about Jeff Buckner,” Quatre was upset by the news. “The way he allowed a stranger through security should have been in his file. I stressed to Une he shouldn’t be allowed to do anything of importance, in spite of his record before that incident. Trowa told her the same.”
“I actually pointed out my coffee and asked him to fill it for me. If it was this guy, there’s no way he could have missed it.”
“There are too many coincidences.” Looking around the table, Trowa began listing things on his fingers. “Hilde somehow gets her hands on drugs when she has virtually no money.”
“That has been verified,” added Heero. “Her financial records are in the red. I doubt she has enough funds to do more than pay her current bills for another month or two and she’s already laid off most of her employees. She wouldn’t have that amount on hand to spend.”
“Then she also came up with the funds to hop on an unscheduled flight to Earth. We all know that isn’t cheap,” Trowa continued. “A week before Duo is scheduled to arrive, Buckner ignores protocol and nearly gets Quatre’s sister killed, then is hired on at the Preventers as a glorified secretary. Hours after the meeting began he was allowed to bring refreshments into a room where classified material was bound to be lying around and accidentally ran into Duo on his way there.”
“That bastard was gloating,” snarled Duo suddenly. “He was too damn cheerful and it struck me as wrong. He had everything planned out. He actually had the balls to talk to me before drugging me.”
“Maybe he didn’t expect you to remember a simple receptionist,” Quatre suggested. “A regular person wouldn’t after a confrontation like the one you had with Warren; they would still be focused on that. We were trained to observe everything and commit it to memory in case we needed to remember it later, at least I was.”
Duo nodded, pushing the remaining food on his plate away, appetite gone. “It could be that, or he didn’t expect me to live to remember anything.”
“Either way, I think it’s a good idea to have him taken to a holding cell until I can interrogate him.”
“Have him taken to a cell and leave him there for a while,” Trowa suggested to Heero. “We need to make sure he and Hilde are connected in some way. If they aren’t, we could have a larger problem.”
“A middle person.”
“Or the person that pulled all of this together. Hilde isn’t smart enough or cunning enough to do all of this, nor does she have the money. I don’t believe Buckner could have the available funds for this.”
When Trowa looked to Quatre for confirmation, the blonde blushed. “Why does everyone assume I know these things?” he demanded, giving in with a sigh when everyone continued to stare. “I can’t be sure without accessing his financial records, but he seems to live within his means, most likely from week to week. I can’t see him having a lot of free money and nowhere near enough to be able to do something like this.”
“So there has to be someone to finance this entire plan. Duo, do you know anyone with a lot of money that could benefit in some way if you were out of the picture?” Trowa couldn’t bring himself to say killed, though that was precisely what he meant.
Duo’s head jerked to meet Heero’s eyes as they both came to the same conclusion. “I can think of only one.”