In short, she drove him up one wall and down the other at times, but the more she got under his skin, the more he wanted to keep her there.  And yet…Oh, and yet…

He bound his hair back easily (having become quickly accustomed to the manner of it) and heaved a mental sigh.  ‘I really am such a coward about certain things.  Maybe she’s right.  Maybe outside of the battlefield I don’t really know anything at all.’

He was early and pinched the bridge of his nose as his soft mental sigh became audible.  “What am I doing here?” he wondered aloud, fingering the porcelain mask.

Three months.  He had made up his mind to work hard to make Catharine fond of him, as he was of her, but since buying the chocolates, he had done little, and since traveling to L-1 with the circus, and the first hatchings of spring, he’d done even less.

“Getting your skinny little ass out there, I should hope.”

Wufei turned.  He knew that voice.  He also knew that aforementioned ‘skinny little ass’ was getting slapped if he didn’t get it guarded, and quick.

“Michael.  What is it?”

“Always so professional!” Michael wailed.  “Aren’t you here for the girl?” he asked as if it were perfectly obvious.

Wufei’s eyes widened in surprise, but mostly that was making his utter horror.

“Relax man,” Michael laughed.  “She doesn’t know.  You haven’t given her any signs.  But if that’s why you’re here, then at least be honest with yourself about it.  Now get out there, isn’t today your big shot?”

Wufei put his mask on, thinking dryly, ‘no pun intended, I’m sure.’  “Don’t say it like that.  I’m still not certain why I let you convince me to get shot out of a cannon anyway.”

“Are you having second thoughts?  You were great in practice.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  I don’t have second thoughts.  I thought it was stupid then, and now I’m positive that it’s stupid.  Other than that…does this outfit have to be so tight?”  Wufei glared at the black and gold spandex jumpsuit in the mirror.  “I never thought I’d miss those idiotic suspenders,” he grumbled.  The spandex hugged every coiling muscle, left little to the imagination.

“Can’t risk the pants getting caught on anything,” Michael replied.

‘Yeah yeah.  I know that,’ Wufei thought, but outwardly, he simply grunted and walked out to get the show over with.

*#*

“It takes a confident man to wear spandex!” Duo chirped.

“How confident is he?  He’s wearing a mask,” Heero quipped back.

“Confident enough to get shot out of a cannon.  Now be nice!” Relena said.

“Isn’t that just reckless?” Duo asked.

“We need to use words that Heero will understand,” Relena teased.

“Hey!”

“What do you think Hilde?” Duo asked his girlfriend.

“I think he has a nice body, but no ass,” she stated frankly.

“Hilde!” Relena blushed on behalf of women everywhere.

“Shh.  Hey, it’s the same guy Catharine was throwing the knives at, I think,” Duo realized.  “Trowa is off with Quatre again I guess.”

Relena nodded.  “Quatre’s really needed the extra pair of hands around the office lately, and Trowa isn’t well-suited to staying in one place for very long.  Quatre keeps calling him ‘my favorite gypsy’.  Haha.  Trowa gets so annoyed!”  Relena saw  more of those two than anyone else these days, given her position as Vice Foreign Minister, and Quatre’s at the head of Winner Enterprises.  But since she finally had some leisure time, managed to escape work for the afternoon, and they were all on the same colony for once, they had decided to come to the circus and visit Catharine.

Heero’s eyebrow arched as the performer was shot upwards, streamlining into a series of flips and twists.  They were not gymnastic as Trowa’s were.  They did not have the same sinuous elasticity, and it was a grace of a different sort.  These flips, born of necessity instead of beauty, displayed strength—thighs coiling, abs flexing, arms following a central line of motion.  He’d seen movement like that before.

The performer made a landing that looked easy and effortless, absorbing the shock through the balls of his feet into his calves and thighs.  ‘He moves like Wufei.  I bet he’s a martial artist,’ Heero thought.

*#*

The crowd bellowed cheers at him.  ‘Phew.  Not dead,’ Wufei thought after performing the reckless stunt, just as he had after every practice of it.

Actually, he was thinking, ‘Phew.  Not dead,’ quite a bit lately.

After the show he had to help pull down the props.  It was his turn.

When he returned behind the tent curtain to the dressing area, he grumbled, “I thought I was going to die.”

“Relax Wufei, you did fine!” Catharine waved it off like it was nothing while four faces stared in shock at the man who, in idle irritation put his mask on the nearest dressing table.

“Next time, you get shot out of the cannon and I’ll throw the knives,” he barked.

“Okay, but no complaining about the skirt,” she retorted, earning another glare and a grumble before the Chinese man notice four of his friends standing with her.

‘Oh…crap…’  He could swear he could hear a toilet flushing.  Oh, wait, no.  That was just his reputation going down the drain.

Duo blinked.  He blinked again….And then he fell to the floor clutching his stomach and laughing hysterically.

Wufei glared at the braided baka, yanked one of the bobby pins from his hair and chucked it at his friend, which only made the self-proclaimed shinigami laugh harder.

Finally, Heero managed to ask the obvious question as the spandex-clad Wufei pulled the remaining clips aggressively from his hair.  “Wufei…what are you doing here?”

“Having pointy objects thrown at me and getting shot thirty feet in the air.  Isn’t it obvious?  Maxwell, stop laughing or I swear I’m dressing you in that plastic nurse’s costume,” Wufei said, pointing at the white mega-mini and barely existent halter top with the matching shiny white hat, “and shaving your legs in your sleep,” he threatened.

Duo clapped his hands over his mouth and honestly tried to stop.  He was not wearing the nurse’s costume.

“I think Heero meant to ask you why,” Relena clarified as politely as possible.  She was just as dumbfounded as the boys were, and Hilde was just speechless.

“…A job is a job,” he stated.  He knew it wasn’t even remotely close to the truth and wondered why Catharine was being so quiet.  It wasn’t like her to not take the opportunity to throw barbs at him when given an opening.  She wasn’t even looking at him long enough to scold him for being rude or slap him (as she did have a tendency towards doing.)

“Michael.  Zipper,” Wufei barked at the blonde man who, silently for once, did so.

Wufei walked into the small changing trailer grumpily.

Catharine finally let out her breath.  Wufei had looked…well…edible, though she was loathe to admit it.

“Michael, was all that really necessary?” she asked, proud of how steady her voice sounded. 

“You mean you didn’t like it?” he asked innocently.

*#*

“Why are you really here?” Heero asked.  He’d slipped into the trailer while the others were occupied. 

“What do you care?” Wufei returned casually.

“It isn’t like you, this sort of thing,” Heero stated.  “I can’t figure out what you’re trying to accomplish.”

“I’m not trying to accomplish anything, Yuy.  That’s the difference.”  Wufei sounded bored with the conversation.  “Treize is dead.  I don’t have to fight anymore.”

‘Wufei…but, even that doesn’t explain why you’re here,’ Heero thought.  “Is that why you left the Preventers?”

“…something like that, yes.”

They stood in silence for a while.  The answer was close enough to true that Wufei didn’t feel his honor lapsing for not being entirely blunt.

There was a certain chemistry among the five pilots—who you talked to, who you fought beside, who understood you better than anyone else, who could comfort you with even the smallest gesture…

For Wufei, these were four very different people.  In battle, it was Duo he would choose to have by his side—they fought the same way, with all of themselves, saving nothing for the next battle, without a single thought of tomorrow, without reservations or regrets, for justice and to punish evil, and consequences be damned.  For conversation, it was Trowa, ever since—ever since the first time he had failed to kill Treize, really.  For confessions, the same.  For comfort, it was Quatre, though the Oriental pilot would never admit it.   The blonde Arabian’s presence could put his worried mind at ease.  But it was now and had always been Heero Yuy who understood him best.  And it was Heero for whom, in so many instances, words were extraneous and unnecessary.

‘Wufei, you’re still nothing more than a lost soldier, aren’t you?  You can’t find peace and you haven’t found anything to protect.’  “I understand,” Heero stated, and without a further word, left the solitary dragon to his thoughts.