Silent Waltz by Comet~Princess

Disclaimer: <insert standard disclaimer song from last chapter> What? You thought I was kidding?

AN: The poll for who Minako ends up with is still OPEN!! Please vote! Duo is winning right now, and Quatre is a close second. I think Wufei has one vote and Trowa has one too. Oh gee! That just didn´t give away who Usagi´s paired with, not at all. Oh well, most of you probably figured it out anyway. And if you didn´t, you would probably have by the end of this chapter, so I don´t feel so bad now! ^_^

Aidenn Legacy: Duo didn´t make anything off Wufei. *snicker* All the quarters fell out into a pile at Wufei´s feet, then Duo got chased around the airport, remember? Too bad. ^_^

Seeking Serenity: Me be the bad guy? Am I that bad? *starts crying* Hee-chan! They´re being mean to me! *runs off to Heero*

Timeframe: Two years after EW, AU for SM.

That was unusually short. *smiles* On with the story.

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Chapter 2 - Location Confirmed

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Quatre led the three guys and two girls down the halls of his mansion to the rooms they´ll be staying in. They had decided to stay at his place for the time being. Lady Une still had to sort through some final details, and Usagi´s parents would be able to find them if necessary. In addition, he had 40 extra bodyguards with him, the Maganacs. They had just arrived and Quatre was taking them to settle in the guestrooms.

"Wow!" Minako exclaimed. "This place is huge!"

"Yea, Q-man!" Duo chimed in. "You got a map of this place?"

Quatre smiled. "Sorry, Duo, I don´t," he replied.

Trowa remained silent, Wufei mumbled something about a braided baka with a poor memory, and Usagi merely smiled. Quatre opened one door on his left to reveal a room decorated in pale yellow. There was a queen-sized bed with a sunflower design comforter, a dresser and a desk made of wood, and paintings on the walls. Two large windows at the opposite end would let in some sunshine when the yellow curtains were drawn back.

"That door leads to a walk-in closet," Quatre pointed out, "and that other one is connected to a bathroom."

"This is so nice!" Minako bubbled. "Usagi, I love the décor in this room! You don´t mind if I sleep in here, right?"

"No, I don´t," Usagi responded with a bright smile. "I´d really rather have a balcony in my room."

"The one next door has a balcony, Miss Usagi," Quatre supplied.

"Just Usagi´s fine," the girl replied.

"Why do you want a balcony, gorgeous?" Duo asked, puzzled. The only other person who ever asked for a room with a balcony was Heero, and that was because it made it easier to escape, or something like that. He had forgotten Heero´s three nanosecond explanation.

It seems like the same thought crossed all the pilots´ minds, because now, they were all staring at Usagi. She just shrugged, saying, "It reminds me more of my room back home."

Minako nodded. "Oh yea. You always just stood there staring at the moon and stars," she said thoughtfully.

"Oh," Quatre blurted out, obviously satisfied with the reason. "But it might be safer if you stayed inside. The property´s guarded, but just in case."

Duo and Wufei nodded, but Trowa eyed the girl carefully.

Usagi smiled. "I understand, Quatre, I just miss home," she said.

"Alright," Quatre started, "Why don´t I show you the room then?"

He led them next door into a room done in white and silver stars. It looked the same as Minako´s, except instead of two large windows, there was only one large window. The place where the second window was in Minako´s room was replaced by a set of glass doors that led out onto a balcony overlooking the gardens.

Usagi beamed. "This is perfect, Quatre!" she complimented.

Quatre smiled. "That´s good. Duo, Trowa, and Wufei will be across the hall from the two of you, so just holler if trouble arises," he explained.

The two girls nodded. Then, Duo spoke up, "So who´s guarding who?" he asked. "Since we´re supposed to be in teams and all that."

Minako immediately looped one arm through Duo´s and the other through Quatre´s. "You can guard me!" she suggested.

Quatre blushed and Duo laughed. "You´re leaving your cousin to a cruel, cruel fate," he joked. "Tro-man and Wu-man can be mute for days!"

"Maxwell, I thought I told you not to call me Wu-man!" Wufei shouted.

"Yea, yea, whatever, Wu-man," Duo replied nonchalantly.

Wufei growled, and Quatre immediately stepped in between them. "Guys, we shouldn´t fight between ourselves," he said reasonably.

"I´ll guard Usagi," Trowa spoke up. Everyone in the room turned to him in surprise. Trowa almost never talked, and he almost never volunteered either.

Duo grinned. "Is Tro-man interested in something other than being a guard?" he teased.

Trowa gave him a glare that could compete against Heero´s. "I´ll remind you, Duo, that this is a mission. I´m not Heero, but I don´t take pride in failing missions," he stated. "You should keep your mind on what´s important." That said, he walked out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Duo stood, staring at the door with open-mouthed shock. "Hey," he managed to say after snapping out of his stupor, "how many complete sentences was that from Trowa?"

"Braided baka," Wufei muttered. "The guy´s right. You have to remember what´s important."

Usagi smiled. "So, that´s one down. Who do you guys want to guard?" she asked. Pilot 03, always the one that catches on quickly, she thought with amusement. She could already tell that he didn´t volunteer to guard her because he was interested in her. He suspected something.

"I´ve got Minako!" Duo practically shouted.

"Alright," Quatre agreed. "That means I should probably guard Usagi, unless we want to leave her with two guards who don´t say anything."

"What?!" Wufei blurted out. "I´m with Maxwell?!"

"Guess so, Wu-man," Duo said with a grin.

"Agh!" Wufei yelled. "It´s Wufei, not Wu-man!" He brought out his katana and chased Duo out of the bedroom and down the hall.

"This happens often, doesn´t it?" Minako commented, thinking of the event back at the airport.

"Was it such a good idea to pair them up?" Usagi asked. "I don´t mind if you guard Minako."

"If real trouble arises, they´ll be serious about it," Quatre reassured her. "I´ll leave you to settle in." With a small wave, he left as well.

Minako beamed at her cousin. "So, which one do you like best?" she asked.

"Duo´s a flirt. Trowa´s practically mute. Quatre´s really naïve. And Wufei´s a bastard," Usagi summarized, counting each guy off her fingers.

"So what?" Minako retorted. "They´re all really hot!"

"Minako, do you ever think about something other than hot guys?" Usagi questioned, amused.

Minako grinned. "I can be serious when I want, but if you don´t entertain yourself in life, you´ll shrivel up and die fast," she replied. "Don´t tell me you didn´t think they were hot."

"Fine, they were," Usagi answered.

"So, back to question one," Minako said slyly. "Which one did you like best?"

"Quatre, I suppose," Usagi responded. "He´s the nicest one."

"Want me to set you up?" Minako asked.

Usagi raised an eyebrow at her cousin before turning to unpack her clothes. "Like best, Minako," she reminded the girl, "not like."

Minako sighed. "You can be honest with me, Usagi," she stated.

"What?" Usagi inquired, puzzled at the meaning.

Minako took a deep breath. "Are you a lesbian?" she blurted out.

"WHAT?!" Usagi yelled. Silence ensured for a couple of seconds before Trowa and Quatre burst into the room with their guns.

"What happened? What´s wrong?" Quatre asked worriedly when he spotted the two girls.

Usagi finally turned her disbelieving gaze from Minako to Quatre. "Uh. . .nothing at all," she answered weakly. "Minako just . . .um, said something strange to me."

Quatre blinked. "Oh," he said.

Trowa nodded. "We´ll leave then," he finished quietly.

Quatre gave the two girls another worried glance before following his comrade out of Usagi´s room.

As soon as the two boys left, Usagi glared at Minako. "Just because I don´t have a crush on any of them doesn´t mean I´m a lesbian," she hissed.

Minako shrugged. "Hey, they´re four of the hottest guys I´ve ever seen, and you don´t even like one of them," she explained. "That´s not all. You haven´t even had a crush, dated, or done anything like that in two years. What am I supposed to think?"

"Has it crossed your mind that I might be interested in someone else?" Usagi asked crossly.

Minako blinked a couple of times before the meaning of Usagi´s question sunk in. She grinned and practically pounced on her cousin. "Who is it? What´s his name? What does he look like? Is he hot? Is he nice? Where did you meet him? How´d you meet him? How come you never told me?" she interrogated.

Usagi sighed. "I said ‘might´ not ‘am´," she replied. "Now don´t you think you should go unpack?"

"Fine," Minako answered, feigning hurt. "I know when I´m not wanted."

"Sorry, Minako," Usagi apologized. "I just don´t feel like discussing my love life, or lack thereof."

Minako´s eyes softened. "Sure thing, I´ll see you at dinner, okay?" she said.

Usagi nodded and Minako left. I´ll find you, I swear, she thought as she stared out the window into the sky.

~*~*~*~*~

Usagi clicked a few keys on her laptop and sighed. She needed a faster computer with more power. But where the heck was she supposed to get that? She couldn´t ask for one. She sighed again. Guess it was time to see if her skills were still as good as she believed. Snapping shut the laptop, she checked the clock on the wall in her room. A bit past midnight. Everyone should be in bed. She went to her closet and changed into a black bodysuit, strapping on a holster and her gun around her waist after. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Her normal hairstyle was just too identifiable. She walked quietly over to the balcony and lowered herself to the ground soundlessly. It was a good thing she and Minako got a tour of the gardens and house after dinner. Otherwise, she wouldn´t have found her way around Quatre´s estate.

She snuck back into the house through a downstairs window and found the door that had a computer lock on it. She had noticed it earlier when they were touring the place and had asked about it. Quatre had said that there was a high-powered computer inside that he used to use, but hadn´t for a long time. He didn´t offer to show them, and Usagi and Minako had gotten the hint that it was a private thing. As guilty as she felt about sneaking around her host´s house, she needed the computer right now. The code on the lock took her a good ten minutes to break, but it was to be expected from the ex-Gundam pilots.

Quickly, Usagi snuck in and shut the door behind her. She was awed by the set-up in the room. Judging by the musky smell and dust, Quatre was not lying when he said he hadn´t used the room in a long time. It looked like a control of room of some sort. A large computer stood on one side. The other side was a massive empty space with what Usagi could make out was a catwalk.

This was the place they stored the Gundams in during the wars, Usagi realized. Snapping herself out of her thoughts, she walked to the computer and started it up. The security system was good, but that didn´t mean it was impossible to access. She started up a few trace programs, and using what she had started to do upstairs, finished the tracking. She found people that moved a lot, whose backgrounds were a mystery, and she used all the information she knew to locate the one person she was looking for.

"Bingo," she whispered, rubbing her eyes. It was 4:30 in the morning. She hacked into the Preventers´ e-mail and sent him a message, copying and pasting from the ones Lady Une sent the other four guys. She yawned and erased any evidence of her presence before shutting down the computer.

Usagi managed to stay awake long enough to get out of the room, sneak back into the garden, climb onto her balcony, get into her room, change, and into bed. The sun was rising by the time she fell asleep.

~*~*~*~*~

"Does Usagi get up this late all the time?" Quatre asked as he checked the clock on the kitchen wall, which read noon.

The four guys and Minako were sitting around the kitchen table, eating lunch. Duo was shoving food into his mouth faster than you can say ‘pig´. Wufei was muttering something about injustice and braided bakas between bites. Trowa was reading the newspaper, and Quatre was talking to Minako about a piece of music they both liked. Minako had checked on Usagi in the morning to find her asleep. So, they had let her be.

"Actually, no," Minako replied as she put down her spoon.

"Should we check on her?" Duo asked, finally stopping his eating frenzy.

"I´ll do it," Minako volunteered. Duo and Wufei stood up to follow her.

"So, babe, what do you want to do today?" Duo asked.

"I don´t know," Minako answered. "Can you believe that Quatre doesn´t have a single comic book in his entire library?! I spent the whole morning looking for one!"

Duo laughed. "Yea, we need Q-man to find a new book collection!" he chimed in.

"Weak onna. Braided baka," Wufei grumbled.

"What the hell is your problem?" Minako questioned crossly.

Before Wufei could say anything, a new voice from the top of the stairs was heard. "If I wasn´t in such a good mood this morning, I´d sock you a few times in the face," the three heard.

They looked up to find Usagi standing at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed and glaring at the Chinese boy.

"Usagi!" Minako greeted. "How come you´re up so late?"

Usagi walked down the stairs and shrugged. "Couldn´t sleep till dawn," she answered. It wasn´t lying. She just didn´t tell them why she couldn´t sleep till dawn.

"Oh, so you have that can´t sleep in a bed other than your own thing?" Duo asked.

"Something like it, I suppose," Usagi replied. "Got any food? I´m famished!"

Minako grinned and dragged her cousin off to the kitchen, where Usagi ate even more than Duo, to guys´ shock.

"Whoa!" was all Duo could say when she stopped.

"What?" Usagi asked innocently. "I didn´t have breakfast."

The phone chose that moment to ring and Quatre answered it. A minute later, he turned back to the chattering group. Well, chattering trio and silent duo. "Lady Une said she´d like to talk to us at the office, so we´re going to leave now," he informed them.

Everyone stood up and followed Quatre to the garage, where they piled into a van. Quatre drove and Wufei sat beside him, after having refused to sit next to Duo. Minako and Usagi were in the middle bench, and Trowa and Duo, in the back.

"What do you want to do on this car trip?" Minako chirped.

Duo thought for a moment before an almost evil grin spread across his face. "Let´s sing songs from The Lion King!!" he suggested.

"I love that movie!!" Usagi and Minako blurted out together.

"What?!" Wufei shouted. "This is injustice!! I forbid it!!"

Ignoring Wufei, the three started to sing. Halfway through the first song, Quatre decided to join in, and by the time they were at the Preventers´ office, even Trowa was humming along quietly, even though no one heard him. As soon as the car stopped, Wufei practically kicked the door down to get out, running smack into Lady Une.

"Wufei, what´s wrong?" Une asked. The Chinese boy usually did not run into things.

"Injustice!" was his answer.

The rest of the gang piled out of the car. Taking one look at Wufei´s face, Duo burst into laughter. "Yea, what´s the matter, Wu-man?" he questioned.

"Maxwell!" Wufei warned.

Lady Une cleared her throat quickly. "Anyways, I talked to Kenji yesterday, and he´ll be transferring some information to me later today. He had some conditions to this bodyguard thing, so I´ve asked you to come to clear things up," she explained. "If you´d follow me to my office."

The group followed as Une took the lead. Quatre chatted lightly with her about the weather, the news, and such. Minako was giggling quietly with Usagi and Duo over Wufei´s reaction to their car ride. Trowa followed in silence, thinking to himself, and Wufei brought up the rear. He was taking deep breaths and trying not to chop everything in sight into a gazillion pieces.

"Now, as I was saying about this protection thing," Une started as she opened the door to her office. She immediately stopped talking when she saw that there was someone in the room. Cold, emotionless eyes stared back at her.

"H-Heero?" Une managed to stutter out when she finally found her voice. The group had stopped behind Une, but as she was blocking the doorway, none of them could see inside the room. When she acknowledged who was inside, all the guys looked at each other and almost shoved Une out of the way and into the room. They stood there, looking at their comrade who had disappeared off the face of the Earth for two years in shock. Usagi and Minako followed them inside. Minako blinked at the sight of the five astonished figures, and Usagi smirked a little.

"Hey," Minako started, trying to snap them out of their stupor, "I know the guy standing there is hot, but four of you are guys too. Why are staring at him like that?"

Usagi sighed. Trust Minako to say THAT. Her comment did not help the five, but it drew Heero´s attention to the two girls. He looked at Minako for a brief moment before turning to Usagi. Their eyes met across the room, Usagi saw a streak of longing in his eyes before they became unreadable again. She gave him a tiny smile before tearing her gaze away. If she stared any longer, she´d drown in his eyes and collapse onto the floor. At least you´re here now, she thought as she studied the patterns on the carpet.

Duo was the first to come back to reality. "Heero, buddy o´ pal!" he greeted before running across the room to give his old friend a big bear hug.

"Omae o korosu," Heero stated, wrenching Duo off him.

Usagi suppressed a giggle while the rest of the group, minus Minako, smiled at the statement.

"Glad to see you haven´t changed a bit!" Duo exclaimed, slapping Heero on the back, which earned him a death glare.

"Well, this is a nice surprise," Une said with a smile. "So, what brought you back to us?"

"You e-mailed me," Heero answered in monotone.

Une frowned. "No, I didn´t," she replied. "I lost track of you two years ago. I couldn´t find you at all."

"Then who contacted him?" Quatre asked, speaking all the pilots´ question.

"Admit it, whoever it is," Wufei insisted. "Maxwell´s your slave for a week."

"What?!" Duo blurted out. "I didn´t mean it!"

"Sure you did," Minako spoke up. "I asked you and you said you meant it for real."

All the pilots looked at each other. "I didn´t do it," Quatre supplied.

"As much as I would like to have Maxwell off my back for a week, it would be injustice to take credit for something I didn´t do," Wufei added.

Trowa and Duo shook their heads and looked back at Heero as though he´d have the answer. Heero was staring across the room at Usagi. The girl purposely avoided his gaze, knowing that he had figured out that it was her that had contacted him through the Preventers´. Not to mention, she didn´t want to embarrass herself by running into his arms right now, and if she looked at him, she´d do just that.

Duo noticed Heero´s stare and mistook it for something else. He nudged his friend in the ribs and grinned. "She´s gorgeous, huh? Want to be her bodyguard? You´d have an excuse to be in her bedroom at night," he stated rather loudly and suggestively. He didn´t think he´d live to see the day the Perfect Soldier got interested in girls.

Usagi started to blush and Heero had his gun aimed between Duo´s eyes in half a second. "Omae o korosu," he said.

"Sorry! It was just a joke, and you´d think you have something other than that to say after two years," Duo apologized. "Hey! Different gun!"

Wufei rolled his eyes. "Only you´d know if Yuy changed his gun," he commented.

"Yep!" Duo said proudly. "I´ve had the old one pointed in my direction quite a few times!"

Before anything could get out of control, Lady Une stepped in. "Heero, these are Minako Aino and Usagi Tsukino," she introduced. "Girls, this is Heero Yuy, the last of the . . .gang, I guess you can call them."

Or the last of the Gundam pilots, Usagi filled in mentally.

"Why are we here?" Heero asked, putting the gun away.

"You´re supposed to protect these two girls. Usagi´s father works here and asked that they be under protection," Une supplied.

Heero nodded. "Mission accepted," he stated.

"Excuse me for a second," Usagi interrupted apologetically. "I´m going to use the bathroom." She turned and left the room.

Heero followed her out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Was that necessary?" Minako asked. She thought it was bad enough that she got followed around Quatre´s house.

"Heero takes missions really seriously," Quatre informed her.

"Yep," Duo chimed him, "and if he fails them, he´ll kill himself."

Wufei smacked Duo in the back of the head. That was giving out too much information, but Minako didn´t seem to catch on.

She merely blinked a few times and muttered, "What a weirdo."

~*~*~*~*~

Usagi walked down the halls to the bathroom. She didn´t need to go. She just needed to get out of the room. She sighed and stopped in the middle of the hallway. "You can come out," she said. "I know you´re there."

Heero stepped out from behind one of the pillars in the hall, but didn´t say anything.

"So," Usagi started without turning around to look at him, "we meet again."

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End of Chapter 2.

AN: Whoo-hoo! This took me all day, so you´d better appreciate it!! *mock glare* Anywho, keep voting for who Minako´s going to end up with. And does anyone mind if I bastardize Mamoru? I didn´t really want to, but an idea popped up. If a lot of you mind, then I won´t do it. Tell me, okay? Oh yea! Don´t forget to review!