---------------------
   Reconnaissance
~ A Moment of Haven ~
---------------------
~~ Early June AC 196 ~~

	They were starting some of the paperwork when they ran into a 
small snag.

	"Do you have any identification?" Jack asked.

	"ID?" Duo repeated.  "Ummm...."

	"Driver's license?" Jack offered as an example.  They shook 
their heads.  "You don't have driver's licenses?"  They shook their 
heads again.  "You pilot mechs, but you don't have driver's licenses?"

	"We piloted mechs," Heero pointed out wryly.  Duo snickered.  
"Why would we need a driver's license?"

	"But... I know you drove out here in that Jeep outside!"

	Duo snickered again.  "Driving without a license has got to be 
one of my smallest offenses."

	"Oh."  Jack looked a bit flustered, but recovered admirably.  
"Well," he muttered, "we'll have to take care of that... What about 
birth certificates?  Social security?  Passports?"

	Duo cleared his throat in amusement.  "'Fraid not."

	Jack blinked.  "Any proof of existence?" he asked timidly.

	"But we don't exist," Heero responded matter-of-factly.  "Not 
officially, anyway."

	Duo laughed again at the flummoxed look on Mr. Callahan's face, 
but he cut himself off to help the poor man out.  "Why don't we get back 
to you tomorrow?  I'm sure we can arrange for some documents."

                              ************

	They got what they could of the paperwork out of the way, and 
then Jack started to make arrangements for their stay.  There was some 
temporary housing set up in some of the old buildings, mostly for those 
people who only came to do volunteer work for a short time.  Others who 
were here on a temporary basis were also sometimes offered space in a 
family's home.  Jack, however, got the feeling that the two former 
pilots might be here for longer than a few days, so he flipped through 
his mental files for something a little more permanent, and came up with 
a little house that had been left vacant since the elderly couple had 
moved away to live with their son in the city.

	"A house?" Duo asked incredulously.  "You're going to give us a 
whole house?"

	"Well, you'd be expected to pay rent, of course.  We purchased 
the house from the previous tenants since they couldn't find another 
buyer, but you said you were of independent financial means?  And you 
didn't mind sharing accommodations."

	"A house," Duo repeated in the same disbelieving tone.

	"The rent would be pretty cheap, of course.  I mean, it's 
definitely a fixer-upper sort of place.  And it's only two bedroom.  
Kinda cozy.  But the last people left a lot of the furniture that they 
wouldn't need anymore behind, and anything else important that you need, 
I'm sure we could rig something up for you.  If you were planning on 
staying long, though, and it sounded like you were, you might want to 
see about acquiring your own things...."

	"A house."

	Jack was getting a little bit worried.  Heero, of course, was 
quiet, and even though Jack had only known him for an hour or two, he 
got the feeling that this was his habitual state.  But the other boy, 
Duo, seemed uncharacteristically speechless.  "A house," Jack repeated.  
"Is there a problem?"

	"No," Duo shook his head emphatically.  "It's just ... it's just 
a *house*."

	Jack blinked.  "...And you have some sort of bizarre 
housaphobia?" he hazarded.

	"No.  No, I like houses.  I like houses a lot.  But ... it's a 
house!"

	"... And?"

	Duo's mouth worked to form words for a moment before his lips 
spread in a wondrous smile.  "I always wanted a house," he confessed 
softly.  He turned hopeful eyes to his partner.  Duo waited for Heero to 
make what sounded like a satisfied grunt before turning brightly back to 
the director.  "Can you give us a tour?"

	It was a two-story affair, just one house on a street of houses, 
but it was going to be their house, their home, and that made it 
special.  The paint was old and peeling in some places, and the yard was 
in serious need of some weeding, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be 
fixed easily enough.  It was only in a state of neglect, not severe 
disrepair.  On the inside, a fine layer of dust had coated the plastic 
sheets covering the furniture, but at least there was some furniture.

	There was a small dining table, and a sofa-looking thing in 
front of the fireplace.  The stovetop had not been covered, and a 
month's collection of dust had fallen and stuck to the lingering traces 
of oil and grease, leaving a mess that they were not too excited about 
having to clean off.  Duo idly thought that it was a pity he hadn't 
thought to bring along any of the industrial strength cleaners that he 
had used to clean his gundam, but then, who knew?  The kitchen cabinets 
didn't seem to match the rest of the decor, as they were painted an old 
white, with red knob handles.  Jack informed them apologetically that 
the elderly couple had never gotten around to changing them to 
coordinate with the hardwood of the living room floor, then muttered in 
a very low voice that they hadn't gotten around to doing a lot of things 
around the house.  When they had finally realized that there were so 
many things left to do, they had moved out rather than invested in 
fixing it.

	Upstairs was the modestly sized master bedroom and the smaller 
second bedroom, which, Jack mentioned, used to be the room of the son.  
The mattress and bed frame had been left in the larger room, but the 
full sized bed in the other room had been brought to the temporary 
housing area.  Jack assured them that he could probably get it back.  
Duo called dibs on the big room, with the bigger bed, and Heero 
acquiesced without a fight.  Duo would appreciate it more than he would.

	They spent the next few hours removing all the coverings and 
generally making the house a more habitable place.  Or at least one that 
wasn't covered with dust.  Jack gathered cleaning products from around 
the area for them, and left them alone until dinner.

                              ************

	"Heero?" Duo called out on his way up the stairs.

	"Here," came the reply, and Duo tracked it down to the upstairs 
bathroom.

	He poked his head in the open door.  "Hey, you got the ...," he 
trailed off.  He blinked.  Heero, wearing kitchen gloves and kneeling 
before the toilet, waited expectantly for him to finish the sentence.  
"Umm,... I was looking for the glass cleaner.... What are you doing?"

	Heero indicated the toilet scrubber thing in his hand.  
"Cleaning the toilet."

	Well, that was blazingly obvious.  "But... why?"

	He shrugged slightly.  "It needed to be cleaned."  Well, that 
was blazingly obvious, too, but ... golly.  It was Heero.  Cleaning a 
toilet.  It was weird.  Duo shook his head and cleared the mild 
disorientation from his mind.

	Duo stepped around Heero and went for the bucket o' cleaning 
stuff that Heero had taken with him, fetching the bright blue glass 
cleaner as Heero methodically resumed his work, cocking his head at odd 
angles to make sure he had gotten every last bit of mildew and scum 
beneath the toilet's rim.  Duo noticed that Heero had already finished 
up cleaning out the bathtub.  It glistened whitely, and smelled chlorine 
fresh.  He grimaced, and opened up the window.

	"Say, Heero...."  He sat down on the edge of the freshly 
scrubbed tub, inspecting the blandly boring cream colored shower 
curtain.  They'd have to get a new one.

	"Hm?"  Heero extracted the scrub and flushed the toilet, 
watching in satisfaction as the bowl refilled clean and clear.

	Duo waited for the flushing to stop before continuing.  "You 
think...."  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and 
propping his chin in one hand.  "What do you think?  About all this?"

	Heero found a clean rag in the bucket, extracted the unused 
glass cleaner from Duo's lax grip, and sprayed the mirror above the 
sink.  "Nothing wrong so far."  Which in Heero-speak meant that it was 
pretty good, since Heero rarely said anything good about anything.  It 
was a good sign when he said nothing bad.

	Duo only sat pensively in response.  Heero waited patiently to 
see if the streaks on the mirror would fade, gave it a final swipe, and 
turned to study his companion.  "You're nervous," he observed, noting 
the way Duo was absently playing with the tail of his braid.

	"Hm?  Oh."  He tossed his braid back, but it just fell over his 
shoulder again.  "I'm just ...."

	Heero found the double-sided sponge and looked him in the eye.  
"It'll be all right," he stated quietly, but with conviction.  He held 
Duo's gaze for a long moment, until he was sure Duo had gotten the 
message, then doused the sink with cleaning fluid.

	"It'll be all right," Duo mouthed the words silently to himself, 
convincing himself of their veracity as Heero applied himself to 
scrubbing the sink with the yellow side of the sponge.  "It'll be all 
right."  He sprang from the edge of the bathtub and reached around Heero 
to reclaim the glass cleaner.  Right after exiting the small bathroom, 
he returned and stuck his head back inside.  "Jack stopped by and said 
to drop by the community center for dinner," he informed his new 
housemate.  "We can meet some people."

	Heero merely grunted an affirmative as he continued to scrub.

                              ************

	The large building looked like it had seen better days, but Jack 
had asserted that their primary concern at the moment was functionality, 
not form.  They would give the old center a fresh paint job only when 
they were finished building the rest of the community that it would be a 
community center for.

	They circled around the building and entered through the 
unobtrusive door out back.  Through a small room and down a hall, they 
made their way to the kitchen, where they found Jack and a middle-aged 
Japanese woman scraping food off of plates and into different bins, 
depending on whether it was worthy to be composted or not.

	"Hey, it's about time you guys got here," Jack greeted them.  
"Dinner's officially over, but we saved you some."

	Duo grinned at him.  "Sorry we're a little late.  We encountered 
this small invasion of ants around our back door, you see...," he 
explained apologetically.

	"Say no more," Jack forestalled him.  "Ants.  Eww.  Vile little 
creatures."

	"You make them sound like the spawn of the devil, Jack," the 
woman reprimanded him mildly.

	"They are!" he protested.  "The little buggers get everywhere 
they shouldn't be!"

	She rolled her eyes dramatically at him.  "I swear, you must 
have had some traumatizing experience as a child.  Did ants used to 
steal your lunch when you were in grade school or something?"  Jack 
opened his mouth to protest, but she skillfully cut him off, introducing 
herself to the two boys.  "Hello there.  I'm Mutsuko Suzuhara.  You must 
be the new recruits Jack mentioned."

	Duo liked her already.  "Duo Maxwell, at your service, madam."  
He bowed gallantly in her direction.  "And this is my faithful sidekick 
--"

	"Heero Yuy," Heero interrupted with a nod of greeting, with only 
a partly irritated glance out of the corner of his eye at his companion.

	She nodded pleasantly in return.  "Jack tells me we're 
neighbors."

	"Oh?" Duo perked up.

	"You're living in the old Browning house, right?  I'm two doors 
down.  I can't tell you how nice it is to have someone living there 
again.  It's become quite the eyesore lately, but just no one has found 
the time to look after the property."

	"Muchi!" Jack whined playfully.  "You can't tell them the truth!  
And here I wanted them to think they'd gotten a good deal."

	"Hmpf."  She got up and retrieved the leftovers.  "I was going 
to drop them off for you on my way home, if you didn't drop by yourself.  
But now you've saved me the trouble.  Aren't they splendidly nice boys, 
Jack?"

	The two splendidly nice boys took the offered meals, and soon 
after Duo's elbow nudged him in his side, Heero's murmured thanks joined 
Duo's.

	"Wow, this is great, Mrs. Suzuhara," Duo enthused as they dug 
in.  "You make it yourself?"

	"Mostly, yes.  It's my turn in the kitchen tonight.  And it's 
'Ms.', not 'Mrs.'," she added cheerfully.

	"Oh."  Duo cringed slightly.  "Sorry."

	"Not to worry," she calmed.  "Jimmy may be gone now, but he went 
down fighting, just the way he would have wanted, and that's just the 
end of that story.  He wouldn't want me pining over him now."

	Duo stiffened a little when he heard of her husband's death.  
Heero's eyes flickered in his direction briefly before returning to pin 
Ms. Suzuhara with a deep, unreadable look, which she didn't notice since 
she wasn't looking in his direction at the time.

	Duo bit the inside of his lip for a moment in consternation, 
then asked hesitantly, "Did he die in the war?"

	"Yes, he ... Well, not this last war, I suppose.  He died about 
eight years ago, during the original colony uprisings against the Feds."

	Duo silently let out the breath that he had been holding.

	Ms. Suzuhara raised an eyebrow at him.  "Is it that important?  
You seem relieved."

	She was a sharp one.  They would have to remember that.  Oddly 
enough, it made Duo like her even more.

	Duo didn't know how to express his concerns to her gently, and 
he didn't want to lie, so Heero just went ahead and stated it bluntly.  
"We just wanted to make sure we couldn't have been the ones who killed 
him."

	Jack winced.  Ms. Suzuhara blinked in surprise.  "Oh my.  
But...."  She looked back and forth between the two of them.  "You two 
are much too young to have been in the war."  It came out as a question.

	Duo's lips twisted into something akin to a bitter smile.  "How 
old d'you really gotta be to kill a Fed?"

	She knew an uncomfortable conversational topic when she heard 
one, and decided it was time to change the subject.  "I don't suppose 
either of you knows how to cook?" she asked brightly.

                              ************

	Duo woke the next morning to the sound of the bathroom door 
opening.  They had burnt a little bit of midnight oil last night, with 
both of them collapsing into bed and falling asleep easily.  Cleaning 
was hard work.

	"What's up?" he managed to ask him around a wide yawn, as Heero 
came in, still in the rumpled tank top and shorts he slept in, and 
rummaged through his pack.  It was about two hours earlier than they had 
to be awake, to get down to the site of one of the new houses for their 
orientation and introduction.  They had shared the room and queen-sized 
bed last night, since they hadn't gotten around to reclaiming the second 
bed from wherever it was at the moment.

	Heero had been about to sleep on the floor of his room, and then 
the couch downstairs in the living room, but Duo had adamantly refused.  
It was their first night in what was pretty much their very own home, 
and gosh darnit but he was going to spend that night in his very own 
bed, not sleeping on the sofa like a stranger.  Heero pointed out 
logically that it wasn't his own bed, it was Duo's bed.  Duo smacked him 
lightly on the head and made him sleep beside him anyway.  Weariness, 
and a lack of concern one way or another, made the ex-soldier capitulate 
easily.  There was plenty of room for the two diminutive teens.

	Heero studied his friend, and judged him awake enough for 
conversation.  Of course, neither of them were particularly heavy 
sleepers, and they each had the ability to get themselves out of bed and 
ready for action in a very minimum of time.  Wasting time to be groggy 
could be hazardous to one's health.

	He pulled a change of clothes from his bag and straightened.  
"Recon," he informed his companion laconically.

	Duo eyed the fresh tank top and shorts in his hand, and the 
athletic socks, and snorted in amusement.  "Can't you just call it a 
'morning jog' like a normal person?"  Heero did not deign to answer.  
"Wait up for a few minutes, will you?  I'll go with you."  Without 
waiting for an answer that may or may not have come, Duo bounced out of 
bed and down the hall, stretching as he went.

                              ************

	They jogged around the neighborhood, and a little beyond, taking 
in the sights.  They passed by the community center again, somehow 
looking more glum and run down than it had beneath the evening street 
lights.  There was an old church, too, that looked like it had seen 
better days, but next to the church was a small park, and a playground 
set.  There was a medium sized sand castle rising proudly from the 
formless dunes of the sand box, with a plastic fork stuck in the top as 
its standard, but it was falling over as its tower began its collapse.  
Before moving on, Duo made his companion stop for the few moments it 
took to straighten the plastic flatware and shore up the failing walls.

	They made a brief tour of the residential district as well.  It 
wasn't so early that they didn't see a few people out on the streets, 
but they didn't stop to say hello.  There would be time to meet everyone 
later.  None of the houses were anything fancy, but they all had a 
comfortable, lived-in feel.  Some of the houses looked as old as theirs, 
but most of them kept the walls clean and the grass trimmed neatly.  The 
brightness of the flowers and the fresh green of the hedges were dimmed 
somewhat by the early morning light, but when the sun was up, they 
promised to add a bit of vibrance to the landscape.

	Finally, they got back to their own street, and as they jogged 
down that final stretch, a door opened, and Ms. Suzuhara stepped out to 
fetch her newspaper.

	"Good morning, boys," she greeted them.

	They stopped by her mailbox and said their good mornings, each 
thinking to himself that he really shouldn't be as winded as he was, and 
he would have to make it a point to do this regularly.  Not that they 
were very winded, mind you, and compared to the average person, not at 
all.  But complacent times spent in school had resulted in a slight, but 
noticeable to them, degradation in physical performance, and it would 
just not do at all.

	"You boys been settling in all right?" Ms. Suzuhara inquired 
solicitously.

                              ************

	Across the street was the home of the Kellers.  At the moment, 
Hope Keller had invited her friend Lindsay over for an early breakfast, 
and they were breakfasting in the nook in the front of the house when 
Hope noticed something quite remarkable through the window.

	"Oh my.  Would you look at that?"

	Lindsay looked, and gave a low, sweet whistle.  "Dibs on the 
Asian one," she grinned.

	Hope tore her eyes away from the two gorgeous guys across the 
street for a moment and gave her friend a long suffering look.  "Just 
what is it with you and Asian guys?"

	Her friend licked her lips in appreciation of the fine sight 
before her eyes.  "Girl, so long as he looks like that, I don't care 
*what* he is."

	"Whatever.  The braided one's mine."

	Their breakfast lay cooling and forgotten on the table as the 
girls' appetites were diverted to the teens talking to their neighbor.  
"You think he might be related to Ms. Suzuhara?" Lindsay speculated, 
referring to the Asian one who had captured her fancy.

	Hope shrugged.  "I don't know.  I think Erin did mention 
something about there being some new volunteers."

	Lindsay giggled.  "Young, handsome guys like that?" she asked 
incredulously.

	"You complaining?"

	"Nuh-uh, no ma'am, not me."

	The braided one across the street laughed, and from what they 
could hear through the closed window, it sounded like a warm, friendly 
laugh.  Hope swooned dramatically with a sigh.  "I think I just might 
take up jogging in the mornings."

	That was enough to draw Lindsay's attention from the spectacle.  
"You hate jogging."

	"I think they might persuade me otherwise...."  She gave her 
friend an arch look, and they both dissolved into laughter.

                              ************

	"-- so we've been assigned to meet up with the construction crew 
later this morning, and I think we're really looking forward to it," Duo 
was explaining.

	Ms. Suzuhara looked from the bright, clear eyes of the braided 
one to the sharp, attentive eyes of his darker companion, and concluded 
that she couldn't imagine Heero really looking forward to anything, but 
she'd only known him for an hour or two, so who was she to say?  "Well, 
you be careful, dears.  Don't try to take on more than you can handle.  
It's only your first day and there's no need to go and try to impress 
the rest of the folks around here with any displays of masculinity and 
testosterone."

	"Naw," Duo disagreed cheerfully.  "I think we know our limits."

	Ms. Suzuhara rolled her eyes.  "Ah, youth.  That's what they all 
say, you know."

	"And sometimes it might even be true, then, don't you --"  A 
moderately loud noise resounded down the street, and Heero and Duo 
snapped around so swiftly that Duo's lengthy braid nearly whapped Ms. 
Suzuhara.  Heero's right hand had gone instantly to his side, 
reflexively going for a gun that wasn't there anymore, and Duo had 
partially dropped into a relaxed defensive crouch.  Both stayed tensely 
frozen for a moment until they realized that the sound had come from the 
old truck that was bumbling its way up the street.

	"Old Mr. Farley's car, I'm afraid."  Ms. Suzuhara's heart had 
jumped for one startled moment when they spun into action.  At least now 
she knew what Duo had meant when she had asked them if they didn't mind 
living together.  He had answered blithely that they were much too jumpy 
to live alone by themselves.  Well, she understood the jumpy part, 
maybe, but not necessarily how living with someone else could make you 
any less jumpy, especially if that person was just as jumpy as you were.

	"Heh," Duo coughed, embarassed, as the two slowly straightened 
and turned back to her.  "Sorry about that.  Habit."

	Ms. Suzuhara decided to just let it slide, even though she 
wanted badly to know what kind of people they were, if jumping like that 
was an engrained behavior, but she decided there would be time enough 
later for her to figure that out in more discreet and subtle ways.  "The 
engine coughs and backfires once in a while, but he's had it for so 
long, he just can't bring himself to part with it, and he just never 
finds the time or interest to have it looked at."

	"Hmm, I wonder if maybe I could take a look at it one day."  
Duo's eyes chased the outdated yellow truck as it disappeared around the 
corner.  "I've got something of a fascination for machinery, especially 
old stuff."

	"I'm sure he'd just love that."

	Heero cleared his throat just enough to draw Duo's attention.  
"Time," he reminded quietly.

	Duo glanced down at his wristwatch.  "Oh, yeah, time."  He 
looked back up at their neighbor, and smiled apologetically.  "Sorry, 
Ms. S, but we gotta be going about now.  Wouldn't do to be late on our 
first day, right?"

_________________________________________
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http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 2/11/2002 20:35:18 PST