*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Heero slowly opened his eyes. It took him some time to figure out what was disturbing his thoughts. Then he let out a small grunt, his equivalent to a sigh.

He had been thinking about Duo. The braided baka had been away for over a week now and Heero had just a few minutes ago realized that he missed his roommate. At least the always-talking boy distracted him from his boredom. He didn't know how *bored* he was when he first met Duo. The Japanese was even surprised that he *liked* the braided baka. It seemed like the American had somehow found a way to reveal that Heero *did* have emotions.

[You worship the things you like most only when they're gone...]

Relena had a similar effect on him. They both irritated him. He did things he would never have done if they had not been around him. He saved Relena, played basketball like an average youth with Duo and *heck* was not able to kill any one of them. That turned out to be a good thing in the end but the Perfect Soldier who he was cursed himself to fail on such a simple mission.

[What is it? Why can't I kill them? What's stopping me every time I have the chance to? It is or was my mission, right? So why do I fail? I don't fail on missions! I do *not* understand this...]

But now another mission had made his way onto his laptop. That would occupy his mind for at least the next minute.

Heero Yuy,
We have mission for you: accompany senator Secunda's niece, find out about his company's weaponry, destroy it if necessary and convince the Senator to leave OZ and join Sanc in the name of Peace and Justice.
If you choose to accept this mission you will have to think of a name and hack yourself into the computer of the niece's school to inscribe yourself. The niece will be your contact person, so you will act as a close friend of hers.
You will find detailed information in the attachment.
                                       N.

Without further thinking Heero muttered, "Ninmu ryokai", wrote a mail to confirm his decision and started reading the attachment.

[Kuso! I run out of ideas for names! Let me see... one... eins... uno... een... ichi... that sounds good... now a piece of my name... Heeichi... no... Roichi... nah... Yuichi... hm... sounds okay. Family name? Hee... Ro... hm... Hino! That's it!]

He remembered Duo calling him like that when the longhaired boy had had a bad cold and was sneezing all the time. Also he had heard that name somewhere else and it fitted to his chosen name.

He started hacking the school's computer.

[Hino Yuichi... Age: 17...]

He worked on the details until it was way past midnight. At last he turned off his laptop and went to bed.

~z~

He was not surprised to find a reservation and further explanations within the next mail. His flight was taking off in three hours, so he had plenty enough time to prepare a proper breakfast (he chose to refuse his usual nails and oil {1} but to take a bowl of a few corn-flakes and lots of milk), dress in his jeans (that he wore now instead of his spandex) and his beloved green tank-top. Then he took his jacket and his laptop (which was his only baggage), said goodbye to Wufei, Quatre and Trowa and left the house.

~z~

He had a smooth flight. Absolutely *nothing* happened, not mentioning that the stewardess asked him politely to turn off his laptop because it was disturbing the plane's system.

He grunted but did what he was asked to. After that he was bored as hell and nearly slipped off to sleep while staring out of one small window.

[If I only still had Wing... It'd be a lot faster than this... I *hate* business-class!]

He tried not to be bored and reconsidered the background of his mission. The person who he had to accompany was of his age. Unfortunately there had been no picture of her to let him find her easier. So she had to find him.

This girl had come to her uncle about a week ago after she was believed dead. It had seemed she and her whole family had died during an asteroid hail three years ago that destroyed a deep space colony. But by lucky coincidence said niece, whose name was Diana de l'Amour, had been away on a field trip to a nearby planet with her school and survived. But they had had problems to get to a civilized world to contact their relatives. It took them over a year just to fly to the next planet that had contact with OZ.

Oh yeah, this colony had really been *that* far away.

It took another year to find out who those children were, to tell them what had happened and the rest of the time to cure the shock and the mental injuries it had caused. But it took the longest time to search for other relatives. Some of the children didn't even have other relatives for all their family lived in that remote colony. Who was not old enough to live on his or her own was sent to an orphanage and had to wait for someone to adopt them.

Senator Secunda's relationship towards his sister had not been that close since she had moved with her husband's family to that remote colony. He had seen his niece only once in his life, when she was born. Then he somehow lost contact with his sister and the next thing he heard of her was that she had died. He was very happy to find out that his niece had survived. Being most eager to adopt her, it was only about a week ago that she had come to his house.

While she was staying in an orphanage, agents of Sanc were successful to make her some kind of spy for the kingdom. She agreed to try to convince her uncle to leave OZ and join Sanc instead.

[So she failed with that... maybe not completely... Why do *I* have to help her? ... Maybe it was her who found out that the senator had a huge armory... Quatre would have been better to show up as her "close friend"...]

Maybe someone *knew* how bored he was and sent him on that stupid mission. He could only guess. He sighed inwardly and continued to stare out of that boring window.

~z~

He finally arrived where he was supposed to meet this ominous girl. It was a huge park with high trees of every sort and large fields full of flowers in every color you could think of. The look of these vast fields touched something deep in his heart and made it hurt like it was cut by a knife. If it wasn't for the mission he could have been standing there for eternity to watch these flowers as the wind played with them. It was so calming and relaxing he would have fallen into a trance if he hadn't spotted the bench where he was supposed to wait for Diana. With a small grunt he sat down on it and stared into the blue sky. He slightly wondered what she would look like. Maybe like Relena? Or more like one of Quatre's 28 sisters? Or even like Hilde or Noin?

His thoughts were cut off when he heard a sweet voice behind him saying, "Excuse me, do you like the Moon?"

Heero froze. The code!

"Only when it's full. And what do you think of the Sun?"

He turned around to see a smiling face leaning down to him, covered in a frame of chestnut hair. He nearly gasped out loud.

[Beautiful...]

"Just in the morning when it burns or in the evening when it dies," a not so sweet but rather deep familiar voice answered.

Heero blinked several times in surprise as he took a closer look on that girl. He spotted dark blue eyes that looked a little purple and somehow even the color of the girl's hair looked familiar. Then he saw the girl smirk.

This time he did gasp out loud.

"Duo?"

The person in front of him grinned even wider.

"Yep, it's me! So you're the one Noin send me as a back-up, huh? That's quite a surprise, ne Heero?"

Heero cursed himself for calling this braided baka beautiful even if it was only in his mind. That's why he nearly missed Duo's question.

"Didn't she tell you that this girl was me?"

After blinking again Heero let out a snout and shook his head. He could feel that Duo was going to say something inappropriate nanoseconds before he opened his mouth.

"You thought I was beautiful, didn't you?"

"..."

All he couldn't hide from his teammate was the blush on his face as he stared down to his feet. He heard the American laugh out loudly.

"Yo, Heero! Don't be ashamed! I *do* look good! Even *I* flushed when I first looked in a mirror dressed up like this."

"Hn."

"So you admit I look good?"

"... Boys aren't supposed to look good."

"But here I am! Shinigami dressed up as a girl! And I look marvelous!"

Duo had jumped up and pointed at himself. His normally braided hair surrounded him like a floating mane. Heero caught himself thinking again that Duo looked cute as a girl.

[If he had really been a girl, damn, I would have fallen in love with him right from the start!]

He blushed again at this thought. He mentally cursed himself and tried to change the subject.

"What happened to your voice? At first it sounded really sweet, just like a girl's, but now..."

"Do you want to say my voice is that ugly?"

Heero allowed himself a little quirk of the right corner of his mouth.

"That is so *mean*!"

Duo did something with his tongue in his mouth and when he spoke again, it was with the sweet voice Heero had heard at first.

"You like that better?"

"HN!"

"HEERO!"

Heero nearly chuckled when he saw how upset the normally cheerful boy was by his teasing.

But then they returned to seriousness.

"So, why do you dress up as a girl? Couldn't you just be his nephew or something? Was there nobody else?"

Duo looked down to the ground sadly. He changed his voice to normal again.

"No. We had luck to find out Secunda *did* have a niece that could have been among these lucky children that survived by coincidence."

Heero nodded to let him know that he understood what he was intending to say.

"There actually was *one* picture of the real Diana de l'Amour. Surprisingly we both look much alike... we could be brother and sister... if I hadn't been an orphan for my whole life..."

Again Heero nodded. He fully understood how Duo was feeling. He always wanted to be part of a family and after long fifteen years the other Gundam pilots had become his family two years ago. That was why Duo always tried to loosen the atmosphere that surrounded the young warriors. Personnally Heeero granted Duo for doing so. Wufei, Trowa and he sometimes seemed to take things too seriously while Quatre always tried to make friends with that desperate puppy-look on his face. Duo just walked in and a few seconds later he almost made Heero laugh. He really made them think they were one family.

But Duo wasn't finished by now.

"Noin was the first to recognize the resemblance of me and the girl and supposed making up as her to me."

He shrugged as if he didn't want to go further into that subject. Heero guessed that the braided boy had some kind of fight with Noin about disguising as a girl.

[Some *great* deal of fight, that is...]

"So, what have you found out so far?"

"Secunda's got a great armory under his premises... We think he might help OZ to start a new war."

Heero nodded again.

"We have to convince him to leave OZ! Otherwise..."

Duo's outburst made Heero look at him in surprise. Then he completed Duo's last sentence with an almost death-frightening callosity.

"Otherwise I'll destroy the armory."

They didn't say anything else. Both were aware of the fact that this would destroy every building surrounding the premises as well. With all the people who lived there. The silence became tense. Neither of them liked killing. They both had their masks to hide behind when they kill, Perfect Soldier and the God of Death. But they still didn't like it.

Duo let out a loud sigh and crossed his arms behind his head. They sat silent for a couple of minutes, each one sunk into his own dark thoughts.

Eventually Duo changed his voice again and stood up to offer Heero a hand.

"Let's go," this beautiful female voice came out of the male's mouth, "I have to give you your new clothes. My uncle is most eager to meet a close friend of his long lost niece."

Still caught in his apathy, Heero looked up, stunned by the beautiful sight in front of him.

[It is *so* easy to forget that this is a male...]

Then he took the offered hand and followed Duo to their current home.

To be continued...
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{1} MWAHAHA... *ahem* bad joke, I know...
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Please R&R...