Part 3
a Gundam Wing Faerie Tale
by Krista Perry

Notes: 2+H, TWT (Timeline? What Timeline?), Alt. Universe, violence, lime, disturbing themes, less-than-pure language

~*~

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

                        - A bedtime nursery rhyme

~*~

        Sharon gasped as the wet, freezing, long-haired boy collapsed against her in an unconscious heap. The protective instinct that flowed through her overrode her immediate suspicion at his unusual appearance, and she scooped him up into her arms, wincing as the icy water that drenched him soaked her as well. As she lifted him, she couldn't believe how light he was. He was so slight of frame that, were it not for the chill weight of his sopping hair and clothes, she doubted he would weigh more than six or seven stone.

        Curiouser and curiouser...

        She looked down at his pale, young face -- appalled at how she could feel the cold coming off him in waves -- and took quick note that his ears were not in the least bit pointed, though that would hardly matter if her suspicions were correct. Disguises and glamours were common amongst the fey folk, if the legends were true.

        But that was half the problem, wasn't it? She didn't know which legends were true, and which ones weren't. Too much time had passed, and too much knowledge had been lost.

        But no matter what this boy was, he was in trouble, and she couldn't just shove him back out into the storm without knowing the truth. That he was still shivering was a good sign, all things considering. For one thing, it meant that he might be human, and if that was the case, it also meant that his hypothermia wasn't so severe that he would die from it... yet.

        On the other hand, the whole thing might just be an elaborate trick -- a ploy to get past the defenses of the local order of druids, on the eve before the Winter Solstice sealing ritual...

        Tis the season to be paranoid, she thought.

        The boy moaned, shivering convulsively in her arms, and her indecisiveness galvanized into resolve.

        "Agnes," she called over to the tavern owner, a plump, elderly woman who stood behind the bar, a half-filled pint hanging forgotten in her hand. "The spare room--"

        "By all means, love," the woman said, as she peered at the trembling figure huddled in Sharon's arms. "And there are dry towels in the bathroom cupboards, and warm blankets in the linen closet." She clucked her tongue. "Why, the poor thing's practically blue, out in this bitter weather and soaked to the skin! I'll make some of my special soup--"

        "Hot cocoa," Sharon said. "He'll need something warm and sweet, with calories, to bring up his core temperature. But if you could add some of your special ingredients..."

        Agnes grinned and winked. "I'm on it, love. We'll have the poor thing fixed up in a jiffy."

        Sharon nodded gratefully, and headed for the narrow wooden staircase in the corner of the pub. Neville followed her closely, his face creased with worry. As the high druid, he *should* be worried, she thought, and she was glad that he apparently shared her suspicions.

        It wasn't every day, after all, that a strange, fey-looking boy appeared out of the night, with silent Fox Fire flashing amidst the storm not an hour before. Aside from the boy's slender build, and his impossibly long hair, the memory of his large, violet eyes wouldn't leave her. Though his eyes were now closed, thick lashes dark against his pale skin, and his thin, shivering body was solid in her arms, he still seemed... ethereal.

        And all this, with the foreboding premonitions of days past, and Winter Solstice only a day away...

        "I don't suppose you have any cold-forged iron on you, do you?" she whispered to Neville as she trudged up the stairs with her burden. "Just in case this is a trap?"

        "Sorry, left all my cold-forged iron in my other pants," he muttered back.

        "Damn."

        "What can I say? This crap wasn't supposed to start happening until tomorrow night."

        Sharon glanced at him. "Weren't we supposed to keep it from happening all together?"

        Neville sighed.

        At the top of the stairs was the spare room that Agnes kept in her apartment above the pub as a place for recovery on the very rare occasion when she misjudged a patron's tolerance for alcohol. Rather than allowing them to drive home, or even stumble their way on foot, she insisted that they sleep it off in the comfort of her own spare bedroom, which she kept decorated in classic Victorian.

        Neville opened the door. Sharon sidled her way in, then carefully placed the shivering, wet boy on the bed. She turned, only to find Neville already there again, shoving a handful of Agnes's large fluffy white towels into her hand.

        "Have you looked?" he asked.

        "Just a second," she said. And as she turned back to the boy, wrapping a towel around his head and squeezing the moisture out of the thick locks, she peered into his blue-tinged face and looked, not with her eyes, but with her Sight...

        ... and gasped.

        "What do you see?" asked Neville, at her shoulder. His red beard still dripped with sleet, just from the brief effort of closing the door against the storm, and his gray eyes were serious and apprehensive. "Is he..?"

        "No," said Sharon. "He's human. But... he's been Touched."

        "Bloody hell." Neville stepped back and pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Are you absolutely sure?"

        "I'm just going from what I see, and what the book says about it," Sharon said. "And that's what it looks like to me. If you don't believe me, why don't you see for yourself?"

        "Because I'm trying to save up my energy for tomorrow night," Neville replied. "And, from the look of things, I'm going to need every last scrap of it, if we've already got Touched children showing up on our doorstep, and Solstice still over a day away."

        "Yes, of course" Sharon agreed, apologetic. "Sorry."

        "How bad is it?"

        "I don't know. Bad." Sharon's mouth pinched in a severe frown as she worked to dry the boy off as much as possible, focusing on wringing the water from the hair that remained in his thick braid. Most of his hair had come loose in the storm, and spread about him like a curtain of wet silk. She had never seen anyone with such long hair, and of such a rich color and texture... In spite of his black jeans and leather jacket, he already half-looked like a thing of Faerie. It was no wonder he had been Touched.

        "From what I could see," she continued, "it could be madness, it could be a claiming, it could be a curse... I can't tell, really. The Good Folk haven't been around for over two thousand years, and the book generalizes a lot, so you can't expect me to do a detailed analysis of their handiwork. We barely know what we're dealing with here as it is." She sighed in frustration, and threw her soaked towel onto the floor. "Anyway, we can worry about that later. Touched or not, he's human, and he's going to freeze to death at this rate. Here, help me get his clothes off."

        Neville nodded. "Right. Then, once he's back on his feet, maybe he can give us some answers about what's happening, so we can know more of what it is we're up against."

        Sharon reached behind the boy, and lifted him up by his shoulders, then held him gently by the back of his head and neck, so that Neville could remove the leather jacket.

        As she did, the shivering boy groaned and stirred, his eyes blinking open groggily.

        "H... Hilde?" he whispered, struggling to sit up on his own.

        "Shh." Sharon grabbed a dry towel and carefully wiped away the icy water that was dripping from his hair and streaming down his face. "You're safe. We're going to help you, so just relax."

        "There... was a big b-black d-dog..." His eyes were unfocused, and his words slurred slightly.

        "A dog?" Neville asked.

        To Sharon's surprise, the boy grinned and laughed a little, even as he shivered. "A dog f-from Hell. Huge. B-big as a damn horse w-with t-teeth like knives and r-red eyes that glowed in the f-freakin' d-dark."

        Sharon exchanged an alarmed glance with Neville.

        They both knew the legends of the Barghest, the Black Dog. The legends that said that anyone who saw the Dog would die soon after the encounter. And the boy had just described the monster perfectly.

        "What happened?" Neville asked, feigning calm as he pulled off the boy's black leather jacket -- and then froze, staring wide-eyed at the gun resting comfortably in the shoulder holster against the boy's side. Sharon saw it too, and blinked, stunned.

        "I sh-shot it." The shivering boy laughed again, and it wasn't a healthy sound. "S-sent it b-back to Hell. S'what I do. S-send 'em all back t-t-to Hell."

        "Um. That's... good," Sharon said hesitantly, suddenly afraid for more than one reason. The kid was Touched, he had seen a Barghest, and he was freezing to death. On top of that, he carried a gun, and now, a rather frightening gleam lit his unfocused eyes. She knew she had to get him out of his wet clothes, but the task had just become dangerous. She looked up at Neville, and saw the same thoughts in his expression.

        She would have to handle this carefully. "Are you cold?" she asked.

        Blank violet eyes turned in her direction, even as the boy's shivering intensified, as if the reminder alone made it worse. His voice sounded small and lost for a moment, as he curled in on himself. "I... n-need to make a ph-phone c-call."

        That was the second time he'd said that, in the midst of his hypothermia-induced delirium. At least, she hoped it was the hypothermia talking, and not a madness induced by the touch of Faerie. Hypothermia she could deal with. "You can make a phone call," she said, as gently as possible. "But first you have to let me help you. You have to let me get your wet clothes off, so that you can get dry and warm, okay?"

        When he didn't respond, she reached out slowly, towards the holster that would have to come off before his red t-shirt. She touched his shoulder--

        --and found herself staring down the barrel of the pistol that had been in the holster a moment before. The boy's eyes were wild as he pushed himself away from her on the bed with his legs, while pointing the gun at her with trembling arms. "Y- you're n-not Hilde," he snarled, his teeth still chattering.

        "Shit," swore Neville, startled at how fast the boy was, and he stumbled back a step before tripping and falling on his rump. Sharon found that her hands were instinctively in the air in a surrendering posture, and that her mouth had gone bone dry.

        "Wh-who are you?" he demanded. "Where th-the hell am I?"

        "Wait," she said, with a calm she didn't feel as she tried to force some moisture into her mouth. "I... I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Sharon Shea, and that's Neville Winston." Names had power, she knew, and if she gave the boy their names, it would create trust where there was none. "We just want to help you. Right, Neville?"

        "Right," said Neville, from his awkward position on the floor. "Sharon and I want to help." He knew the importance of using names as well.

        Uncertainty flickered in the boy's fevered eyes, but the gun remained remarkably steady, for all that he was shaking like a leaf. "Are y-you w-with OZ?"

        Sharon suppressed the panicked urge to look over at Neville. If this kid was an OZ soldier, they were in deep trouble. The last thing they needed was to attract the military's attention to themselves, especially at this crucial point in time.

        "No," said Neville, who hadn't moved since he'd fallen to the floor. "We're not with OZ. We are just civilians. But we want to help you."

        "I d-don't need y-your help," the boy responded stubbornly, but the wild gleam was fading, and he seemed a bit more lucid. "I j-just need to u-use the ph-phone and g-get out of-h-here."

        "Listen," Sharon said, as reasonably as possible. "You were out in the storm. You have severe hypothermia, and if we don't get you warmed up and raise your core temperature, you could die. Let us take care of you, and you can use the phone later, okay?"

        Her words seemed to reach him. His eyes cleared a little, and the trembling arms that held the gun lowered slightly. "Y-you're n-not w-with OZ?" he asked.

        "No," said Neville. "We are not with OZ." After a moment, he added, "We don't have anything to do with them."

        Sharon was surprised that Neville would say such a thing, until she saw wariness warring with relief in the boy's expression.

        So, Neville had guessed it. The boy wasn't an OZ soldier after all, but part of the Rebellion.

        "How d-do I know y-you're n-not lying?" he asked.

        "You don't," she said. "You'll just have to trust us."

        And with that, he looked directly into her face. His blue-violet eyes, though still glazed with illness, pierced her with their intensity. But, she noticed to her relief, there was no madness in them.

        After a long moment of burning scrutiny, the boy lowered the gun. "Ok-kay then," he said, "I w-will." And then, all the tension seemed to drain out of him, and he sagged limply against the wall. Still shivering, he offered her a weak, apologetic grin. "I f-feel l-like shit anyway."

        Sharon laughed in spite of herself. The sudden release of tension left her feeling lightheaded, and slightly off-balance.

        She wanted to ask him if he remembered talking about the Black Dog, since he seemed to be much more lucid after his little adrenaline rush. Instead, she said, "You're an excellent judge of character."

        The boy snorted, but was too exhausted to make another reply. It seemed as though, having decided that he was not among enemies, the fight-or-flight instinct had left him. She hoped that wouldn't mean he would slip back into the semi-delirious state that had gripped him earlier. But he had spent precious heat and energy, and was once again struggling to stay conscious. He didn't even protest when she reached over and removed his shoulder holster, and then pulled his sopping red t-shirt off over his head.

        He was wearing a small gold crucifix on a chain underneath the shirt. She raised an eyebrow at it.

        "Christian?" she asked.

        "N-not really," he muttered, as another violent shiver wracked his slender frame. "It's a... m-memento."

        Which was too bad, she thought. She wasn't Christian, but faith of any kind was a good weapon. And in her experience, symbols of faith were effective tools at warding off the otherworldly only in as much as the wearer had faith in the symbol. Still, she couldn't help but notice, as she removed the cross from around his neck, how he tracked it with anxious eyes as she put it carefully on the night stand next to the bed.

        It was only went she went to unzip his jeans that he stopped her with a shaking hand.

        "Uh..." he said, holding her wrist. From the flustered look on his face, she half expected him to blush, had his freezing body been capable of it.

        Sharon found his embarrassment terribly cute. Now that he wasn't waving a gun in her face, she found the boy amazingly likable, in a little-brother sort of way. "Sorry," she said, businesslike, to cover the smile tugging at her mouth, "but it's all got to go."

        The boy rolled his eyes. "J-jeeze, can't a g-guy have s-some p-privacy?" he moaned.

        "Not if the guy is on the verge of freezing to death. And I'd let you do it yourself, if you could, but you're not supposed to be moving at all. At least not until your core temperature rises, and you've already wasted heat and energy with your little firearm fiasco."

        He scowled, but fortunately had enough sense to realize she was only being practical. He collapsed back onto the bed, and stuck his tongue out at her. "F-fine, strip away." He closed his eyes, too weary to argue further. After a moment, he said, "S-sorry about th-that, b-by the way."

        He was apologizing for the gun, she realized, and not the tongue. "I'm just glad you didn't shoot."

        "W-well," he said, without opening his eyes. Another violent tremor shook him. "You guys d-don't feel l-like OZ."

        Sharon looked over at Neville, who had been strangely silent for a while. "Give me a hand here, would you?" she asked. "Get his shoes off, so I can take off his pants."

        The shivering boy in the bed snorted a weak laugh. "T-there are so m-many good c-comebacks t-to that, I c-can't pick one."

        "Hush, you." Sharon again stifled a smile, as she tugged the wet jeans down around the boy's hips, to reveal a pair of simple black boxer shorts, as Neville pulled the shoes off his feet. "You don't know me well enough to be saying such things."

        "So says the w-woman t-taking off my pants," he quipped back.

        That clinched it. She liked the kid. Anyone who could joke while on the verge of freezing to death was in good with her. She glanced at Neville, and saw a smile hiding in his beard.

        Once the pants were off, she covered him up with a blanket to preserve his modesty before reaching under and snagging his boxers. A moment later, the shorts were in her hand. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

        The boy still had his eyes closed, and he looked too pale, but he grinned a little. "Real p-professional. J-just l-like a hospital nurse."

        And Sharon wondered briefly, as she piled warm, dry blankets on top of him, what had happened to him before to put him in a hospital.

        "Here," she said when she was through, handing the boy's shorts to a perplexed-looking Neville. "These need to get dried."

        Neville raised an eyebrow. He already had the boy's dripping pants, shirt and jacket draped over his arm. "Since when did I become your maid?" he protested mildly.

        Before she could respond with an adequate comeback, Agnes bustled into the room, carrying a steaming pot in one hand, and an empty mug and a bag of marshmallows in the other.

        "Here we go," Agnes sang cheerfully, going over to sit down on the side of the bed and setting her haul on the night stand.

        The boy cracked open one eye to look at her, but he didn't look like he was up to doing much more than that.

        "Oh, love, you look terrible," she cried. Agnes was in her element as she reached over and propped up the surprised boy, stuffing pillows and blankets behind him. "Look at you, all trembly and blue-lipped. Poor duck!" She impulsively kissed him on the forehead, then gasped. "Land sakes, you're an icicle! Why, one more hour in that weather, and I dare say we would have found you frozen to the ground in the morning. Not to worry, though, I've got just the thing to warm you right up from the inside out. My extra special hot cocoa!" She winked broadly at Sharon, and grinned.

        Sharon grinned back, mostly because of the boy's reaction to the whirlwind of motherly energy that was Agnes. Both of his eyes were wide open now, and he regarded Agnes with a strange mixture of amusement and trepidation. A moment latter, Agnes held a mug of hot chocolate to his lips.

        "Drink up, dearie. Not a moment to waste, if we're going to get you back on your feet again!"

        The boy sipped cautiously, casting a rather anxious glance over at Sharon over the rim of the mug.

        "This is Agnes Peabody," Sharon informed him. "Don't worry, you're in good hands." Agnes was not only an excellent barkeep, she was also the best potions mistress in the whole of Britain. She had no doubt the boy would make a full recovery, after drinking enough of Agnes's special cocoa.

        "Sharon, love, would you tend the bar while I mind this young one? Neville, you just leave those clothes on the chair, I'll take care of them. And don't either of you worry none, I'll keep you appraised of this one's progress."

        Sharon was about to protest that she wanted to stay as well, but Neville touched her elbow and nodded to the door. She looked back at the boy, who was watching her. "I'll be back later to check on you, okay?"

        He nodded over his mug of cocoa.

        Once they were in the hall with the door closed firmly behind them, Neville held something out to her in his palm that looked like a small, black golf ball.

        "What's that?" Sharon asked.

        "A grenade, if I'm not mistaken," Neville said. "It was in his jacket pocket, along with several more of the same, and a few extra clips of ammunition." He sighed, and ran his free hand through his thinning hair. "The kid's a bloody terrorist, Sharon."                        

        Sharon crossed her arms over her chest. "Thanks for the bulletin, but I figured that one out after he pulled a gun on me. And if you asked me, a terrorist is better than an OZ soldier any day. So what's the problem?"

        "The problem is that if OZ finds him here, the ritual tomorrow is as good as sunk."

        Sharon's eyes narrowed. "What are you suggesting? That we throw him out, on the off chance that OZ might find him?"

        Neville sighed in exasperation. "I'm not suggesting any such thing. I'm just saying that we can't afford to let anything interfere. It may already be too late."

        "Oh please." Sharon frowned severely. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't know what's at stake here? The kid is Touched, Neville. As in, by Faerie. Which means that he's either going to go insane, or worse. On top of that, he's been stalked by a freaking Barghest, which is as good as a signed, sealed death warrant, according to the book." Sharon threw her arms up in a gesture of frustration. "We were all worried about what might happen if the seal was broken. Well, now we don't have to wonder, do we? Now we've got the concrete evidence that something is trying to break through. We're druids, Neville. Guardians of the seal. It was our job to keep something like this from happening, and we blew it, and that kid in there is the one who is going to pay for our mistake, unless we figure out some way to help him."

        "I agree completely," Neville said.

        Sharon exhaled sharply in surprise, the wind taken out of her rant. "You do?"

        "Of course. I think that it is of utmost import that we protect the boy as best we can, since we failed to prevent his current problems."

        Sharon blinked. "Then why...?"

        Neville shook his head. "He's a terrorist, Sharon. He's on a mission of some kind, or at least he was, until he got detoured here. He's fighting the war, and that means that as soon as he is capable of getting up and leaving, he's going to do just that. If you think for one moment that he's going to just sit back and let us keep him here to protect him from some threat he doesn't even believe in --"

        "But he does believe," Sharon protested. "He himself said that he saw the Barghest."

        "And he's already dismissed it as some sort of nightmare, or part of the delirium of his hypothermia. You saw how his demeanor changed. Demon dogs were the furthest thing from his mind by the time we left that room."

        Sharon was silent, biting her lip. "You're right," she said at last. "Damn. Why do you always have to be right?"

        "Hey," Neville said, chuckling. "That's my line."

        Sharon punched him in the shoulder.

        "Ow."

        "That didn't hurt, you big baby." Sharon's smile faded, and she sighed. "We're going to have to explain things to him."

        "Even if, by some amazing chance, he believes, do you think that will stop him from leaving?"

        "Probably not," she admitted. "But I like the kid. I have to try." She sighed again. "Come on, we'd better head downstairs before Agnes has our heads on a platter for not tending to her patrons, like she asked."

        "She asked?" said Neville, in mock surprise.

        Sharon shook her head and laughed as they walked down the stairs together.

        She spent the rest of the evening standing behind the bar and serving drinks to rowdy druids, while trying desperately to think of the best way to convince the boy to stay.

~*~

        Duo eyed the bottom of his empty mug morosely, then held it out to Agnes with hands that, to his amazement, no longer shook with cold. Whatever she had put in that cocoa was powerful stuff. It had been less than an hour since his first cup, and he was already feeling worlds better. Giving the elderly woman his best puppy-eyed stare, he said, in a falsetto voice with a phony British accent, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"

        Agnes laughed delightedly at his Oliver impression, and ruffled his nearly-dry hair. "Aren't you just the sweetest thing? Of course, love, have as much as you want."

        Duo couldn't help grinning as she poured him another cup. He liked this old lady. Everything about her just screamed "grandmother." He'd never had a grandmother that he could remember, but Agnes fit the bill of everything he thought a grandmother should be.

        There are people in the war that you fight, he thought, and people in the war that you fight for. Agnes had just made the top of his personal list for the latter.

        Sipping his hot chocolate, he winced a little as he burned his tongue again. He found it a bit odd that the rich concoction was still as piping hot as when Agnes first brought it in, but he wasn't about to question small blessings. It was probably one of those self-heating pots or something. Amazing.

        But not more amazing than Agnes herself. In the hour that she'd spent doting on him, she had not only made good on her promise to warm him up from the inside out with her special cocoa, but she had proven herself a highly entertaining conversationalist. Duo was pleasantly surprised to discover someone who talk his ear off for a change. She had also made sure his clothes were put in the dryer, including his leather jacket which, after that sleet storm, was a total loss anyway.

        He had, of course, emptied the pockets before relinquishing it back into Agnes's care, and had noticed that one of his grenades was missing.

        No surprise there. He thought Neville had been looking at him strangely, even after he had put the gun away. The strange thing was, while his natural suspicion was telling him that he was in danger of being exposed by these people, and that Neville might turn him over to OZ, his gut feeling told him differently. His gut was telling him, against all reason, that he was safe here.

        Or maybe that was just the hot chocolate.

        It didn't matter either way, actually. He was grateful for the help, but he didn't have a choice. If he stayed, not only would he be further endangering himself and the mission, he would also be endangering everyone else here. So he had to leave tonight. He had to contact Heero and let him know that Deathscythe was down, and that he needed backup to destroy the OZ base as soon as possible.

        *Deathscythe isn't down.*

        And that was another thing, he thought. The way Deathscythe had just stopped working was just too weird. There had to be something he had missed. He was sure that, once he got back, he'd be able to figure out what the problem was, and get his Gundam up and running again.

        *That's it. You can fix it. You can fly the great beast again.*

        That's right. He could fix anything that went wrong with Deathscythe. What in the world had he been thinking, leaving Deathscythe in the first place? It must have been the crash. He probably hadn't been thinking straight.

        *You have to go back.*

        He had to get back to Deathscythe. He never should have left his Gundam, laid bare and vulnerable to the enemy out on the flatlands. That much was crystal clear to him now.

        Clear... crystal clear... crystal.... He could hear crystals chiming; a single pure, high note ringing in his ears...

        His head ached suddenly. He clenched his teeth, fighting the feeling back. He couldn't let a little headache get in the way of going back. If OZ captured Deathscythe and made it so that he couldn't fly again, it was the end.

        The end of what? a small, drowning part of him wondered. The ringing in his ears was getting louder; almost painful, and he closed his eyes. What.... what am I...

        The thought struggled weakly, not even fully comprehending the danger it was in, before a sea of silver fire washed over his mind, submerging his sudden confusion, and filling him with bright conviction. He stiffened slightly under the power of the realization, and opened his eyes

        He had to fly Deathscythe again. As soon as possible. That single thought filled him until he could think of nothing else.

        He would fly Deathscythe, and break everything and anything that got in his way into little pieces.

        *It's what I do, after all.*

        Ethereal voices filled his mind, but they were natural; they had always been there, hadn't they? They whispered and laughed and hissed, congratulating him on his wise decision. A small, half smile turned up the edge of Duo's slack mouth.

        As soon as Agnes left him alone, he was out of there, and nothing was going to stop him.

        Not the storm, that had put him in this sick bed in the first place.

        Not the sharp, fearful memory of blood red eyes gleaming in the night mist, nor the steaming breath against his face, full of the stench of rotting corpses, that haunted him every time he closed his eyes.

        Nor even the half-remembered dream of a Lady's silver-white touch, burning across his skin, and searing through his soul...

        ...the sound of her voice calling to him... summoning him to her side...

        "Did you hear something?" Agnes said, pausing abruptly in her never-ending patter. She tilted her head to once side, a slight frown dampening her usual smile, as her eyes strayed to the window, where the frozen sleet pounded against the window pane. "Just now?"

        Duo shrugged. "Nothing unusual."

        "How odd, I could have sworn..." Agnes shook her head. "Ah well, that's what happens when you get to be my age. You start hearin' all sorts of things that aren't there." She smiled at him again. "More cocoa, love?"

        Duo handed his mug to her. The smile he returned didn't quite reach his eyes. Behind his eyes, the sea of silver voices shimmered and ebbed in a tide of gleaming moonlight.

        "No thank you," he said. "I think I'm finished."

~*~

To be continued.        

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