The ride to the safe house had, so far, been made in utter silence. I think we were all just too damn tired to talk, even the normally irrepressible Duo. It had been a killer hand-full of months. Mission after mission, duty after duty, endless flights, endless fighting. It was grinding us down. I looked around the sparse back of the truck, at my teammates. Trowa sat across from me, somehow dozing sitting on the hard bench, his head resting against the wall of the truck, rocking back and forth with the sway of the vehicle. Quatre sat beside him, slumped into his lap, eyes staring straight ahead, but seeing nothing. Wufei was on their side of the truck, but further up, trying to prop himself into the corner the sidewall made with the cab. Duo was beside me, sitting sideways, keeping watch out through the rear flap. His shoulders were hunched, and I noticed him reach back to rub absently at tired back muscles.

I drug myself around and reached out to massage his shoulders, feeling his muscles hard and tense under my fingers. He sighed as I gently began kneading at them.

‘Feels good.’ He muttered, and I could hear the tiredness in his voice, ‘Know what would feel better?’

I chuckled faintly, ‘What?’

‘Sleep.’ He turned his head slightly, so I could see the small grin, ‘Sleep would feel better. I could sleep for days.’

‘Weeks.’ I heard Quatre’s grumble from across the way, ‘I could sleep for weeks.’

‘In a real bed; not a Gundam, or a sleeping bag, or a chair.’ Trowa chimed in, apparently not as asleep as he looked.

‘Without leaks in the roof or vermin in the bed.’ Wufei added from his place at the front of the truck, without ever raising his head to look our way.

Yes, the last couple of safe houses had been that bad. Especially the one with the fleas in the bedding. I shivered and had to repress the urge to scratch something.

I wondered about the hideout that awaited us. It was an odd arrangement; we were going to the home of an agent posing as the head of a sort of foster home/half-way house. The whole troubled youths thing. Well, you couldn’t get much more troubled than this group. I wondered if it would be as bad as the last few places. I glanced down at my watch, and decided that we should be arriving any time now and as if on cue, the truck slowed and made a turn.

When it came to a stop, we retrieved our gear and climbed stiffly down to the ground. I had time to note that it was gravel under our boots, and not pavement, when the driver called a cheery, ‘Enjoy!’ out of the cab of his truck, and waved as he pulled away and left us standing there in the last rays of the setting sun, in the middle of nowhere.

Nobody seemed to have the energy to move, we stood in the middle of the gravel driveway, listening to the sound of the base truck departing, and stared at the quaint little frame house in front of us. White, two-story clapboard, big wrap around front porch, flowers everywhere, with rocking chairs and a big porch swing. The porch light was on.

‘This is just…surreal.’ Muttered Duo, and I knew just what he meant. Not twenty hours ago, we were scrambling for our lives through a dark mountain forest, dodging bullets and grenades. Between the five of us, we had probably killed two or three dozen soldiers today. This switching mental gears was getting harder and harder all the time.

There was a loud squeal as the front screen door swung open, and a middle aged woman stepped onto the porch, wiping her hands on an apron and smiling broadly. Every one of us flinched.

‘Right on schedule!’ she called to us, beckoning us to the porch and holding the door wide, ‘Come along, boys; don’t want to let the flies in.’

I looked her over; she certainly didn’t look like an agent, with her iron gray hair pulled back in a coiled bun and her checkered apron. She was not a fat woman nor a skinny one, but solid, and strong looking; probably not as tall as the shortest of us. She wore a cotton dress that looked decades out of style, and that bizarre apron that covered her whole front. No jewelry, no make-up, and a pair of Nike’s on her feet. No; she didn’t look like an agent at all. To my right somewhere, I thought I heard Quatre giggle.

She planted her beckoning hand on one hip and cocked her head at us, looking vaguely sad, ‘Come on, kitlings; I haven’t bitten anybody in days.’

Quatre snorted out loud, and Duo broke our strange paralysis and made the first move forward, hoisting his backpack to his shoulder and starting up the porch steps as though he were climbing Mt. Everest. We followed him. He stopped in front of the woman and dredged up one of his bright smiles from somewhere, opening his mouth to begin the introductions, but the woman just smiled and shushed him.

‘No need, Duo, no need. I know who you all are. You may call me Mama-Marion.’ And she stepped aside, shooing us into the house.

The living room was…not cluttered, it was neat and clean as anyplace we had ever stayed, but…full. There was really more furniture than there was room. There was an enticing smell of spices and cooking, the warm glow of old-fashioned electric lights, and touches all over the room of handmade things. Afghans and embroidered pillows, those strange little white lacy things on the end tables.

As soon as we were all in the house, she let the wooden screen door close behind us with another of those loud squeals. Somewhere underneath the exhaustion, I felt a faint pang of guilt that none of us could seem to work up the energy to speak to this woman who was opening her home to us. She didn’t seem to notice, coming around us and clucking her tongue as she gave us the once over.

‘Your rooms are upstairs, mine is at the top of the stairs, there are three others, with two beds in each. I’m afraid you’ll have to double up, I hope that isn’t a problem.’

‘No problem.’ Duo assured her, his eyes glinting with amusement for a second.

‘Supper will be in an hour. There’s time for each of you to shower if you don’t take too long. There’s a basket here at the bottom of the stairs; dirty clothes go there, I’ll be washing tomorrow.’ She was brusque and all business, though not unkind, seeming to take us in hand as though she dealt with battle weary soldiers every day, and perhaps she did.

We stood for a moment, while the orders sank in. Quatre was in front, and somehow seemed daunted by the stairs, because he didn’t move, but just stood, alternating glances between her and the surrounding room.

After an odd, uncomfortable moment, the woman stepped up to him and tousled his hair lightly, ‘Go on, Sunshine; sooner started, sooner done.’

She turned away and headed for what had to be the kitchen door and my eyes flicked after her and I almost missed the moment when Quatre turned into a five year old.

His hand rose, slowly reaching up to smooth his hair back down, and a tiny little burst of a laugh escaped him. I blinked, and where Quatre had stood was a child of no more than five and he was grabbing Trowa’s hand and pulling him, laughing, toward the stairs.

‘Come on, Trowa! Let’s go see the rooms!’ He bounded up the stairs and Trowa chuckled faintly, dragging both his gear and Quatre’s, and followed after.

No one seemed to notice. Wufei hoisted his pack and went stiffly after them. Duo turned to me and shook his head.

‘Where does he get his damned energy?’ he muttered darkly and then applied himself to the task of dragging his weary body up the stairs.

I gaped after them. I started to call Duo back. I started to raise the alarm, to demand that we get the hell out of here, but…nobody seemed to have noticed but me. Maybe…maybe I was just more tired than I had thought. I went after them.

Wufei took the first available room he came to, disappearing inside without a word and closing the door firmly behind him. Trowa and Quatre had already claimed the one next to his, leaving only the one across the hall. Duo was just opening the door as I came up behind him, and we went in together, me stealing glances at the doorway across from us where I heard Trowa say gently, ‘Don’t jump on the bed, Quatre, come down from there before you hurt yourself.’

The room was much like the downstairs, more furniture than was really necessary. Two beds, two dressers, two nightstands, a desk, an overstuffed armchair. Bright, cheery quilts on the beds, paintings on the walls, more of those lacy doilies. There were two windows, and I suspected that we had managed to get the largest room somehow.

Duo went straight to the bed across from us, dumping his gear and dropping to sit down without so much as checking the closet.

I frowned; Gods, he must be tired for him to lose all caution like this. I let him sit there and moved to secure the room. Satisfying myself that the room was unoccupied, unmonitored, and danger-free, I turned my attention back to Duo, only to find him slipping into a doze where he sat. I sighed and went to kneel in front of him, unlacing his combat boots and pulling the heavy, uncomfortable things off him. He roused under my hands, eyes struggling open with a faint guilty look.

‘S…sorry, Heero.’ He slurred, forcing himself to come more fully awake. ‘I’ve got it…sorry.’

I left him to finish, and went back to my bed to strip myself out of my own sweaty, stiff camos, digging a pair of shorts out of my bag to wear until I got my turn in the shower. This was not one of the Winner estate houses with a private bath in every room, but I suppose it beat the hell out of the last place that hadn’t even had working indoor plumbing.

I heard Duo sigh heavily behind me, ‘Heero, do you have an extra pair of shorts? I missed getting any of my clothes.’

I chuckled, remembering the mad scramble to vacate that last safe house before it went up in flames. It was a miracle that any of us had gotten anything out in one piece. If there was any consolation at all, it was that the explosion probably, finally took care of the damned fleas.

I dug another pair out, and turned to toss them to him.

‘Duo, why the hell didn’t you tell me you were hurt?’

He sighed heavily, ‘Because there wasn’t anything you could have done about it, it’s just bruises.’

Deep bruises from the look of them, and more than that, scrapes and scratches and cuts, across abdomen and back, across his shoulders and down his right arm. Knees and elbows. Damn.

I went to him, turning him towards the light and pressing gently, checking for internal injuries, and when I didn’t find any signs, took him gently into my arms. He leaned his forehead on my shoulder, sighing in the comfort I was offering.

‘I could have carried your gear at least.’ I told him affectionately, and he chuckled.

‘Damn, I’d have thrown myself down a ravine ages ago if I’d known that.’

‘And I would certainly have been more careful rubbing your back.’ I frowned, thinking back. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘Heero, don’t be an idiot; I would have said Ouch, Ok?’ He grinned at me, and then drew away, ‘I think I hear the water shutting off, I’m going to go see if I can get my turn in the bathroom.’

I let him go, and used the time to unpack what little gear I had into the waiting dresser, surprised and happy to find one drawer in each dresser stuffed with various sizes of generic, innocuous clothing. I laid a pair of tan cargo pants and a white t-shirt on Duo’s bed for him, and then gathered up the dirty clothes in a pile to go downstairs.

Try as I might, I couldn’t keep myself occupied long enough that I didn’t wind up standing in the doorway listening to Quatre’s voice giggling in the room across the hall.

‘Then what happened, Trowa? Did the lion save the little girl? Did the little girl find her Mommy and Daddy?’

I could hear the rumble of Trowa’s reply, but couldn’t make out the words.

‘Ahhhh, I don’t wanna take a bath!’

More indiscernible words from Trowa, and then the bedroom door flew open and Quatre darted out to run down the hall towards the bathroom. He barged right in, and the faint sound of running water became louder.

‘Duo!’ he hollered over the sound of the shower, ‘Can I have my bath next? Trowa won’t tell me the end of the story until I take a bath.’

Duo’s voice came, bright and laughing, ‘Sorry, kiddo; Heero’s next.’

There was an exasperated groan, and Quatre flew back down the hall toward me, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him.

He skidded to a stop in front of me, ‘You’ll go fast, won’cha Heero?’

I stared down at him, in his tiny combat boots and camouflage gear. I could see in his face, the man that he would become…the man that he was, damnit. The same sky blue eyes, the same corn silk hair, something about the shape of his face.

‘Heero…’ He whined, getting petulant, looking up at me expectantly.

‘S…sure thing, Quatre.’ I finally managed, and he turned to run back to the other room.

Why the hell was everyone else taking this all in stride? Why did no one else seem to find this strange? I doubted my sanity. I doubted reality.

Duo came out of the bathroom and found me still staring at the other room, listening to Trowa relent and tell just a little more of the story of the little girl who was rescued from an evil witch by a pride of friendly lions.

‘Cute; isn’t he?’ Duo smiled lovingly toward the sound of their voices and moved passed me into the room.

‘I…found you some clothes.’ I muttered distractedly, and made my way to the bathroom to take my turn in the shower, deciding I’d better ‘go fast’ if I didn’t want a certain five year old barging in on me as well.

After the shower, I dressed and fled downstairs with the pile of dirty clothes, trying to lose myself in the crowded living room, finding a bookcase in the corner laden with all manner of books, and I sat down there to peruse the titles so that I would have an excuse for being there if the mysterious ‘Mama-Marion’ came wandering in and found me here alone. I didn’t really think I was ready to confront her with any bizarre accusations just yet.

Overhead, I heard the pounding of Quatre’s feet as he thundered to take possession of the bathroom, and he must have ‘gone fast’ himself, because, in a surprisingly short amount of time, he pounded back down the hall yelling at the top of his lungs.

‘Trowa! I’m done! Now tell me if the lions beat the evil dragon!’ There was a pause, and then, ‘Awwww! You didn’t say you had to have a shower too!’ Trowa’s voice held firm, and then Quatre came scrambling down the stairs, bellowing for,

‘Mama-Marion!’ It was amazing that he had grown up to be such a quiet young man. I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts together. It was almost as though something were trying to soothe me into not worrying about it. I had trouble keeping it firmly in my mind that this was wrong. Quatre was not a damned pre-schooler.

‘In the kitchen, Sunshine.’ She called cheerily, and thankfully, Quatre sped passed without seeing me and disappeared into the bowels of the house.

I just stayed on the floor by the bookcase, trying to get my tired brain to work this through. What in the hell was going on? Why was I the only who seemed to think anything was odd?

‘Trowa said to come see if I could help you with dinner while he’s in the shower.’ I heard Quatre telling Mama-Marion.

‘Think you can set the table, poppet?’ she asked him, and there was the rattle of dishes and Quatre relating the tale of the lions and the evil dragon, in an odd never ending string that didn’t seem to require him to draw breath.

Why wasn’t I acting? Why wasn’t I overcome with panic? Something had just taken one of my teammates and turned the clock of his life back a dozen years, I should be quaking in terror. My entire team should be quaking in terror.

I heard the sounds of Duo and Wufei coming down the stairs.

‘Maxwell, are you well?’

‘Yeah; fine…just tired. I guess.’

‘You look like shit.’

‘Uhmmmm….thanks, man.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Even their banter was blunted with exhaustion. Not just Duo’s, but Wufei’s as well, though he seemed to be holding up better. But then, Duo ran himself so close to the edge most of the time, that he didn’t have the reserves that Wufei did.

I rose from my spot on the floor and glanced at Duo critically.

‘He actually looks better since the shower.’ I grunted and was rewarded with a chuckle from Wufei and a glare from Duo.

My mouth was open to broach the subject of Quatre’s uncanny transformation, when said five-year-old burst out of the kitchen and almost plowed into Wufei’s legs.

‘Mama-Marion says supper’s ready!’ He beamed up at Wufei and I held my breath waiting to see what would happen, but Wufei only smiled down and said,

‘Tell her we are on the way, little one. Trowa is right behind us.’

All I could do was follow them to the kitchen and take my place at the dinner table.

The kitchen was large and spacious, warm and…full, just like the rest of the house. Things everywhere. There was a large metal and Formica table on the right side of the room, with the stove, sink and refrigerator on the left. There was a huge hutch where the dishes seemed to be displayed, near the table, and a large counter top ‘island’ in the center of the room. The smells were making my mouth water. We had been eating our own cooking for so long, I had forgotten how good real food could smell.

Marion was bustling about, plopping huge dishes of food on the table, beaming at each of us as we came into the room. There were large glasses of milk at each place, and I caught Duo eyeing his with a resigned air and I knew he was longing for a bottle of soda.

There was enough food here to feed an army, and I almost snorted at the bizarre thought; we were an army, in our own way. I caught Marion catching me with the faint smile on my face, and she flashed me a cocky grin, just as though she knew what I was thinking. I looked away.

There was a huge platter with a pot roast on it, already sliced, and surrounded by those strange little potatoes that seem to always be with pot roasts as if one can’t exist without the other. There were green beans and corn, biscuits and apple butter, the milk was icy cold, and I had no doubt everything on the table was made from scratch. I ate because my stomach was growling, but I had to admit everything was delicious; fresh and hot and cooked to perfection. Even Duo, normally a light eater, especially when he isn’t feeling well, ate his fair share. Quatre didn’t seem to stop talking through the entire meal, so much so, that both Trowa and Marion had to admonish him not to talk with his mouth full more than once.

‘…and there’s kittens, Trowa! Mama-Marion showed me before supper, she said we can feed them after supper, they eat the scraps, there’s a pot on the back of the sink and all the stuff goes in there and it’s really gross and you gotta carry it way out here like this, ‘cause it stinks really bad, but Mama-Marion says the cats like it and we can take it out after supper, she feeds them every night and she says…’ I had never been around a child like this before; he talked without punctuation or breath either one. I alternated staring at him with staring at my oblivious teammates.

‘I’ll expect you all to carry your weight around here.’ Marion was saying, I could not bring myself to think of her as Mama anything no matter how hard I tried, ‘This is a self-sufficient farm and there’s plenty to do to keep idle hands busy.’

No one responded, except Quatre who wanted to know if she had cows.

She smiled at him warmly, a twinkle in her eye, and shook her head, ‘No cows, Sunshine, just a couple of chickens, the cats and the dogs.’

Quatre forgot the cows and came around the table to Duo, ‘You wanna go see the kittens with us, Duo?’ he asked brightly and I turned to see my partner with his head braced on one hand, eyes heavy-lidded and blinking.

‘Not tonight, kiddo.’ He smiled down at the little blond head, ‘I’m kinda tired.’

‘You sick, Duo?’ Quatre’s voice became concerned, his five year old mind not able to comprehend Duo’s resistance to the lure of kittens.

Duo chuckled, tousling Quatre’s hair, ‘No. Just really, really…old.’

Quatre raised himself up on his toes, and wrapped his small arms around Duo’s neck, squeezing tight. ‘Maybe tomorrow night.’ It surprised Duo, and he took a second to return the hug, a strange look of pain washing over his features. I caught it, and Marion did as well, I saw the sad frown cross her face. Then Quatre and the look were both gone. Duo’s pain, back behind the gilded mask he could pull on at will. Quatre to Trowa’s side, who wouldn’t refuse his partner anything, not even a trip to the barn at this Gods awful hour.

As Trowa and Quatre took the, as promised, truly gross pan, out through the pantry to the back door, the rest of us rose as one to begin the job of clearing the table and doing the dishes. But Marion put the lie to her earlier remark about us carrying our own weight, and shooed us out the door.

‘Not tonight, sweetlings.’ She told us, almost tenderly, ‘You’ve had your showers and your dinner; now off you go to bed.’ And she tousled Duo’s hair as she came by him.

My heart staggered, and I stared at him hard, moving to slip an arm around him in support, as if my presence could keep the thing that had happened to Quatre from happening to him.

He smiled at me softly, accepting the support, telling me just how very tired he must be. I thought back, realizing his fall had to have happened not long after the explosion, just before the twenty mile run through the damned, dark forest, under full pack.

‘Marion,’ I asked, not liking to speak with her directly at all, but having little choice, ‘do you have any…’

‘Pain medication’s in the bathroom.’ She told me, before I could finish the sentence, and I glanced up to see her busily clearing the table, not even looking our way. I shivered. Duo didn’t seem to notice.

‘Let’s get you upstairs.’ I told him softly, and the three of us left the kitchen.

I would have carried him, but he wasn’t so far gone that he was ready to put up with that, glaring at the both of us as we hovered over him on the stairs. I made him stop off in the bathroom and convinced him to swallow a couple of the pain pills. He was starting to complain rather loudly about being treated like an invalid, but I was just so relieved that he was still…normal, that I didn’t respond to his barbs.

Wufei vanished into his own room while we were still arguing in the bathroom, and then finally, I had Duo stripped and in a pair of shorts, sitting on the side of his bed and we were alone.

‘Duo…’ I began, and then I heard the pounding of little running feet and the sharp squeal of Quatre’s laughter and…something else.

I went to the door in time to see Quatre and Trowa racing each other down the hall, laughing in wild, childish screams. I hadn’t been there to see Trowa’s transformation, but there he was…no more than five. They darted into their room, and I watched long enough to see them climb together into the center of one of the beds and begin to bounce like they were on a trampoline. I closed our door and turned away only to find Duo curled in a ball in the center of his bed, sound asleep.

I sighed, went and drew his quilts over him and sought my own bed, suddenly just too damned tired to care.