"Bad Company"

Written By: Clara Barton & Kangofu_CB

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said, these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask before reprinting.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence

Pairings: 3x2

Summary: "The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

This fic is dark. It explores the way the lines between good and bad, black and white are blurred, for those who work from the inside to bring down the bad guys. Clara and I do not, at any point, get graphic in our descriptions, but there is a lot of sensitive subject matter. We have tagged as clearly as possible, and individual chapters will contain individual warnings. As a general rule this fic contains: implied torture, death, description of a human trafficking organization and its methods, the surrounding implications of human trafficking including forced prostitution and what amounts to slavery, drug and alcohol use, and drug trafficking. We understand that these subjects are not for everyone. We have made every effort to be respectful and accurate without being gratuitous or disturbing. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are, sometimes, not much better.

We use a liberal sprinkling of Spanish and Russian in this fic, and neither of us are native speakers of either. We’ve relied heavily on the internet, and so we apologize for any mistakes. We have also included translations at the end of each chapter in the form of footnotes.

"Bad Company"

Chapter 8: Hurt

I wear this crown of thorns

Upon my liar's chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

-Johnny Cash

 

Someone was knocking on his door.

Duo didn't look up from the assortment of parts he'd methodically laid out across the small table that he'd rescued from the trash heap after Matvei had scratched it beyond repair trying to sharpen knives.

The knock repeated itself, loud and forceful, as though Duo were deaf, or hadn't heard the first time.

"What?" he called, letting the irritation he felt bleed into his voice.  Apparently, they couldn't take a hint.

He'd escaped to his room for silence.  Some time to gather himself, to realign his headspace and carve out some sort of- Well, not peace, but maybe acceptance of his current situation.

He and Trowa had finally reached an uneasy truce, a kind of balance that preserved their cover but still gave Duo the opportunity to offer Trowa some support.  Not that the taller man actually wanted that, but whatever.  He'd at least learned to accept it. Which was good, because Duo wasn't exactly going anywhere.

To the rest of the cartel, they were barely more than former rivals, united only for the sake of the cartel and nothing else, who occasionally liked to fuck.

In private, their arrangement was significantly different - better, more intimate, more comfortable - but it wasn't like home .  

It was fine.  It wasn't what either of them wanted , but it was enough.  

Except for when it wasn't.

Like now.

Like forty-five minutes ago, when Trowa had stalked past him on his way to Alessandra's office, having been summoned by Anhil, when he hadn't even acknowledged Duo's raised eyebrow, the question on his face.

Like when a half-hour had passed with no word, and then Trowa had stalked back out, slamming his way through the side door of the hacienda, and disappeared onto the grounds.

Duo had waited a solid fifteen minutes before he retreated to his room, to his rituals and his privacy.

Zechs's news had pulled the rug out from under them, straining the tentative intimacy they'd found on the beach, and left them both on tenterhooks waiting for word of the impounded shipment, waiting for the fury Alessandra and Salome would rain down on the unsuspecting cartel.

It left both of them brittle, strained, and snappish.

Another knock at his door caused Duo to draw his breath in sharply as he reached for the grip and slide of his H&K. Trowa jokingly called it his lucky gun, in what felt like another life, another time, where they weren't undercover every waking minute, fighting to stay alive, and Duo had a borderline unhealthy attachment to the piece. He could - and did - shoot other models, when the situation called for it, but the H&K was his favorite. In fact, he'd once told Trowa that the damn gun was lucky, because he'd shot Heero Goddamn Yuy with it, and that certainly earned it some sort of special prowess.  It was the same gun G had handed him when he'd given him Deathscythe's access codes, the same unregistered, unremarkable, serial-numbers-long-since-filed-off hunk of metal that he'd used to shoot countless OZ and Alliance officers, and that he'd used as his weapon of choice for over a decade.  

The act of disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling it was as crucial to his character as the religious conventions he'd learned from an elderly priest and a young nun - ingrained into him from an impressionable age, though the two things bore nothing else in common, least of all his soul's salvation.

He had just finished snapping the last of the pieces back together, the business end of the gun pointed towards the door, Duo checking the sight alignment, when Javier was stupid enough to open the door without permission.

The gun wasn't loaded, but the other man didn't know that.

"What the fuck do you want?" Duo asked, the pistol unwavering in his grip.

Javier swallowed hard, staring at the weapon.  " La mujer wants to see you," he croaked, licking his lips.

"Fine.  Get out."

Duo trudged downstairs, Javier blessedly nowhere in his sight, to Alessandra's office, knocking briskly and waiting until he was invited to enter.

Inside the room was a man Duo had never seen before.  The snake tattooed on his forearm, reminiscent of similar markings on the gang members Duo had helped Trowa kill not so long ago, made him easily identifiable as a member of the rival organization Alessandra was anxious to eradicate.  The fact that he was gagged and tied to a chair only further cemented his impression.

"Ah, zero-two," Alessandra greeted him, looking especially pleased with herself and putting Duo instantly on guard. She never called him by his pilot designation, not unless she was looking to intimidate or impress.  "So nice of you to join us. Is your little gift for our friends ready?"

Duo could only assume she meant the virus he'd been prepping, the one intended to totally disrupt if not destroy the Snakeheads' entire operation.

"Yes."  He continued to stand just inside the door, tense and waiting.  The room was filled with a sickening combination of fear and anticipation, Anhil in his customary spot near Alessandra's desk, with his leg still propped on a pillow.  The doctor had brusquely informed him he would need to keep his weight off of it for some time yet, hindering the other man's ability to do more than instruct Trowa from afar.   Salome looked positivelydelighted , something else that set Duo's teeth on edge.

Nothing about this was going to turn out well.

"This is Jun Li.  He's going to help us deliver our little present."

The man looked mulish, even behind the gag, his expression fierce.

"He don't look too much like he wants to help us out," Duo offered with a snort.

Alessandra's smile sharpened.  "Well, zero-three can be very convincing."

Another pilot designation.  All intended to intimidate the Snakehead, to inspire fear.  And that she'd instructed Trowa to coerce his cooperation...  

Duo swallowed hard, nodding.  "Undoubtedly," he said, caution keeping him quiet.

"Get one of the others," Salome demanded after a few moments of silence, Duo wondering what, if anything, to say, "and have him help you take this one outside."  She jerked her chin at the bound Snakehead, her blonde and pink locks swinging, the color and playfulness of her hair at complete contrast with her vicious personality.

Duo turned on his heel and stalked out into the main living area to find Tomas sitting on the couch, a video game controller in his hand and Veta practically sitting in his lap.

"You," he snarled, making the other man jump, "get off your ass and give me a hand."

Tomas nearly vaulted off the couch to follow Duo back down the hall.  Together, they hauled the uncooperative gangbanger out of the back of thehacienda to the shed near the edges of the jungle, the one that even animals avoided.  Depositing him in the single chair bolted to the floor, Tomas left as rapidly as he'd come, looking pale and green under his tan, and very carefully not turning his gaze towards the table near the back of the shed.

The one Trowa was currently standing in front of, his back to Duo, shoulders tense.

Duo sighed.  

Once their 'guest' was secured to the chair, Duo moved to the other side of the shed, leaning against the wall near the door.

After a moment, he opened the door and looked outside, finding Tomas long-since gone and no one else around.  He nodded in satisfaction, shutting the door.

He crossed his arms and ankles, preparing to wait.

Trowa turned around, looking grim and ferocious, and startled to find Duo still inside the shed.

"Go back to your electronics, lisichka ," he growled, clearly frustrated.

Duo shrugged loosely.  "I'm fine," he responded, settling against the wall.

All the pilots had been trained to resist interrogation.  Duo had spent four years with G, and a significant portion of that had been deeply unpleasant.  He imagined that Trowa's training, though shorter, had included similar lessons, as had Wufei's and Heero's, and probably even Quatre's, though maybe not to the same extent.  

They'd also learned how to interrogate.

Duo was no stranger to either side of the equation.  As Trowa knew better than most, considering that one of the times Duo had enjoyed OZ's hospitality, Trowa had been wearing the organization's uniform.

" Pozhaluista , " Trowa begged, and Duo raised both of his eyebrows in surprise.  He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to convince Trowa of his need to stay, his ability to handle it, but before he could, Trowa spoke again.

" Ya ne mogu smotret', kak ty smotrish' na menya. "  The words were harshly spoken, but the look in his eyes was agonized as he pleaded with Duo to go.

Duo closed his mouth with a snap, whirling around to leave without a word and shutting the door behind him with force, just shy of a slam.

Once outside, he took a deep breath, glancing around at the silent jungle, the blindingly blue sky.  After a moment, he propped himself against the outer wall of the shed in much the same way he'd done inside.

Maybe Trowa couldn't watch him, but neither could Duo leave him here alone.

Duo didn't know how long he stood there, resolutely ignoring the sounds that, while not loud, were impossible to miss coming from the shed, staring out across the grounds, waiting.  Long enough that his knees got stiff and his back started to ache. Long enough that the sun dipped just below the treeline in the beginnings of evening. Long enough that both Javier and Tomas had come out from the house just far enough to see that he was still there, guarding the door, and leave again.  Not close enough to accidentally stumble upon or hear anything their delicate ears couldn't take.

Duo was disgusted by them, most of all.

Fucking cowards.

When Trowa stumbled out of the shed, he was stone-faced, his lips pressed into a thin line, scrubbing at his hands, though they appeared clean and unblemished.  He rocked to an abrupt halt at the sight of Duo shoving off the wall to meet him.

"How long have you been out here?"

Duo shrugged.  "Since you threw me out."

Trowa's face, already drawn impossibly tight, paled.  "What do you want from me?" he hissed, eyes bleak.

"Nothing!" Duo exploded finally, in a furious whisper.  "Nothing, I just... fucking want to be here, you moron.  I'm trying to help ."

"It doesn't help," Trowa retorted, keeping his voice as low as Duo's.  There was no one around, wasn't likely to be for some time, and there werecertainly no cameras in the vicinity of this particular shed.  Alessandra and Salome would want no evidence that it even existed.  Trowa's voice dropped even lower, though, barely audible. "It doesn't help to have you here, Duo.  This isn't... this isn't what I wanted."

Duo blinked at him.  "Well, tell me what the hell you do want, then!  Fuck!"

"I want-"  Trowa reached out, his fingertips hovering just shy of touching Duo's face, and Trowa looked from his hand, to Duo, then back to his hand, and he let it fall, dropping between them to hang at his side, limp.  "I just want to be with you. With the only person in the world who thinks I'm good ."  The words were bitter, anguished and awful , and they made Duo's guts twist.

Taking a step forward, Duo reached out and took the hand that Trowa had refused to touch him with, stroking his thumb over the palm and looking it over thoughtfully.   He gave it a squeeze and let go, allowing it to fall between them again.

Ignoring how much he wanted to keep holding it.

To hold it forever.

"There was a guy on L5," Duo began, and his words, now, were clipped and devoid of emotion.  Clinical. "Yong. He was an alright guy. Low on the totem pole, but his sister liked me, y'know?  Thought he was my friend. "  

Trowa nodded, his brow furrowed.  

Duo took a deep breath.  "He found out something - maybe saw me make a drop, meet a contact, I dunno."  He shrugged. "Yong confronted me on our next run together, waited until we were alone between hops, bein' a pal .  Accused me of bein' jingcha ."

Trowa's eyes were wide with understanding.

"I spaced him in his sleep."

He watched the knowledge penetrate, watched as Trowa made the connection in his mind, finally seemed to understand something he should have already known.

"Neither of us is good , Tro."  

The other man swallowed, hard, as Duo continued.

"I just wanna make sure we live through this.  I don't want - or need - anything but you." Duo took a step back, waiting for Trowa to nod.

When he did, Duo whirled on his heels and strode away, heading back to his room.

And his gun.

*

Duo had enough nightmare fodder to keep him awake for years.

But he never slept deeply enough to have any when he was working an op.  It was part of the reason he let Une keep him so busy. If he couldn't sleep, he couldn't dream, and if he couldn't dream, he didn't revist the faces of the men he'd killed or the children who'd died or the screams he'd heard.

Tonight was no different.

He'd woken alone, pulse thrumming, the barest edge of panic on his tongue.

So, he'd gone for a run.  The guards were used to him by now, and Trowa, asleep in his own bed, in his own room, a few feet that felt like miles away, hadn't been there to question him. The run hadn't helped, really, not that it ever did, just gave him an outlet for the adrenaline saturating his system.

Despite the exertion, he still wasn't able to sleep, so after a shower, he was back on his network.  Back to watching endless data scroll across the screen, back to wondering what it would take to finish this op, to get him and Trowa out of it, alive and as whole as they could be after all the shit they'd done.

It had been nearly a week since Alessandra had deposited Jun Li back to whatever cesspool she'd found him in.  Or rather, she'd had an associate do so. Jun Li, who had looked bruised and haunted, despite the distinct lack of marks on his body.  Jun Li, who was supposed to deliver Duo's package to the Snakehead system or risk not only his own life, but that of a variety of close friends and family, which Salome had insisted Duo discover and provide details for.  Details Salome had used to ensure that whatever remaining resistance he might have had following his time with Trowa, Jun Li was going to be imminently cooperative, unless he wanted the people he cared about to spend some quality time with Pilot Zero Three.

Trowa hadn't been quite the same since.

Three days later, the latest shipment from L3 had been seized by Preventers authorities, just as Zechs had predicted, and it could not have come at a worse possible time.

Salome was indescribably enraged.

Then Matvei had made the suggestion that Jun Li had betrayed them, and she'd found a target for her rage.

In Trowa.

Duo deflected, diverted, did all he could to distract the blonde-haired woman, and Trowa, in turn, did all he could to keep her attention focused on him and not on Duo.  She was convinced Trowa hadn't done a good enough job of dealing with the Snakehead unfortunate enough to be caught in their grasp.

Duo could see that Salome was pulling her little tricks with Trowa.  Had seen her corner him often enough, trapping him in some spot he couldn't easily leave, or forcing him into conversation, and he never quite heard what exactly it was that she said, but he knew whatever it was, it was doing a number on Trowa.  The other man became increasingly shifty, pale and withdrawn. Started avoiding Duo again, leaving them both stewing in their own frustrations.

Trying to draw the blonde-haired woman's attention to himself, trying to give Trowa some sort of relief, only seemed to increase the green-eyed man's agitation, causing him to pull further and further away from Duo.

It all came to a head just two days later, Duo's attention wrenched away from his work by the sounds of a muffled slam and shattering glass.

Curious, Duo got up from his desk and made his way to the kitchen, looking for the source.  He wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't seen Trowa go that direction only a few minutes before.

When he walked into the room, Salome was leaning against the counter, and she'd have looked casual if not for the expression on her face.  A mocking, raised-eyebrows 'oops' that was as insincere as the coddling tone she took with the palomniks she invited back to the hacienda.  Trowa was cradling his left wrist, his face tight with pain, jaw clenched and lips thin.  There was broken glass scattered across the tile, the fragments reflecting the fiery colors of the sunset burning through the large windows.

At first, it had looked like blood.

It only took Duo a few seconds to understand what had happened, and less than that for his rage to bubble upward, his face flushing as he fought to keep control of himself.  Salome had clearly caught Trowa unawares, or set him up for failure, waited until he was reaching into the large, industrial-sized stainless steel refrigerator, and then she'd slammed the door as hard as she could, the resulting pain and shock causing Trowa to drop the glass he'd been holding.

Before Duo could say anything, insert himself into the situation, Salome spoke.

"Hmm...  I have been thinking perhaps I would take over the interrogation of prisoners in the future.  It seems, though, that I might need a little more practice." She turned her icy gaze towards Duo, something in it evaluating, before turning back to Trowa.  "Good help is so hard to find."

She sauntered out as Trowa flinched at her words, leaving the two of them staring at each other over a sea of broken glass, like a metaphor Duo didn't want to think too hard about.  He sighed, swallowing down his anger and frustration.

"C'mon, lemme-"

"I can handle it," Trowa growled, moving towards the pantry where Duo knew they kept a small first aid kit.

"You know I can't fuckin' stand the sound of someone setting their own fuckin' bones, so just shut up and let me wrap your goddamn wrist up."

Trowa swallowed hard, but followed Duo up the stairs to his room, where Duo slammed the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.

He directed Trowa towards the bed, where the taller man reluctantly laid down and held his injured arm out.  Duo dropped the stiff tape he dug out of his own bag on the bed beside him, along with the practically useless first aid kit.  Duo kept his own supply of stuff, including pain medication, but he doubted Trowa would take any.

"It's gonna hurt," he warned, holding Trowa's hand up above his shoulder, letting his arm dangle.

"It already fucking hurts," the other man growled. "Just get it over with."

"I can give you-"

"No."

Duo shrugged. He wouldn't have taken the meds either, so he couldn't blame Trowa for refusing them.  He tugged at Trowa's limp wrist, pulling and manipulating until he felt the bones slide into proper alignment, trying his best to ignore the pained grunts and wheezes escaping the other man's clenched jaw.

When he was done, he wrapped it in the stiff zinc tape, up past the elbow and back, and then a second time with softer, more flexible athletic tape.

"Fingers feel ok?"  If they were tingling, or numb, that was a bigger problem.

"They're fine."  Trowa sat up, grimacing.  He moved to stand, a clear indication he planned to leave, and Duo nearly lost his shit.

"Why can't you just fucking let me do any goddamn thing around here?"

Trowa just stared at him, his expression bleak.  "So she can take her frustration out on you?" He shook his head.

"Better me than you," Duo muttered, nearly inaudible, cradling the injury on his lap under the pretense of checking Trowa's circulation.

"No," Trowa said again, his expression hard.

He wrenched his hand from Duo's grasp, gritting his teeth either in pain or frustration, and left swiftly, the door shutting behind him in near-silence.  But the effect was nearly as pointed as Duo's slam.

That was when Duo had begun fingering Quatre's little black disk in the dead of night and contemplating guard rotations.  

Then, miraculously, his little gift had begun depositing nuggets of information into his network.

Relief hadn't been a strong enough word for his feelings.

Alessandra and Salome were ecstatic, the 'mishap' with the shipment seemingly forgotten, their faith in Trowa and Duo immediately restored, their focus on the leak once again external.

All of it had left Duo shaken and enraged, Trowa skittish and more withdrawn than ever.

Duo was going to kill Zechs.  As soon as the opportunity arose, or he could create one.

Sometimes he imagined it, as a way to pass the time.

Ways to murder Milliardo Peacecraft, AKA the Lightning Count, AKA Zechs Merquise, AKA the biggest pain in his ass to date, and not get caught.

His email pinged at him.  Swapping tabs, he opened it, full as it was of porn spam and garbage subscriptions, scanning the subject lines. He'd had a sudden influx, six messages in all, from a variety of mundane-appearing spambots.

But appearances could be deceiving, and these held a message.

*

Sally Po was waiting for him, sitting on the back of a bench in Old Mazatlan, blazer and sweats thrown over a striped bikini in deference to the brisk spring breeze coming off the ocean, newspaper and coffee in hand.

Duo wandered over, all studied nonchalance, to lean against the same bench, facing the opposite direction.

They'd done this dance a thousand times.

Today, he'd lost all patience for it.

Maybe he'd never had the patience for it to begin with.

Sally's paper rattled in the breeze, along with her hair, the sunlight reflecting off the dark lenses of her sunglasses, and suddenly Duo couldn't stand any of it for another fucking moment, the subterfuge, the lies, the endlessness of it all.

"What the fuck am I doing here, Sal?" he asked finally, his voice low, and he could hear the desperation bleeding into it.

She turned to blink up at him above her shades, surprise in her blue eyes.

Sally had been his handler since he'd agreed to provide his services to Preventers.  Had, for years, been one of his only honest contacts in the world, one of the only people who knew what he had done, could do, was capable of, and had still been able to look him in the face with compassion and respect.

It was a damn shame that Trowa had been saddled with Zechs, given the interaction Duo had witnessed between them last week.

"Saving the world, just like always," she said finally, and her hand moved to the back of the bench, where it brushed against his, just barely.  The smallest gesture of support. Of recognition.

"Saving the world is cool and all," Duo said, bitterness lacing his words, "but my main objective is staying alive.  What do you need from me so I can get the fuck outta this dump heap?"

What did Duo have to provide to Une and Sally and the Preventers to get him and Trowa out of here, away from Alessandra, and safe ?  That's what he wanted.  It went without saying that they could leave, anytime.  It wouldn't be that difficult to sneak out, to leave on one of their off days and never come back.  To run back to Howard or disappear off-planet.

But they would never be safe .

Alessandra would never forget, and Salome would never stop looking, and Duo had lived that life of being hunted before, and he wasn't particularly interested in doing it again.

No, the best way to do this was to do it right, to ensure Alessandra and Salome went down with the ship, putting Duo and Trowa out of their grasp forever.

Making the Earth Sphere a little safer in the process was just a bonus.

"We need to connect the dots," Sally said briskly, turning back to her paper.  "Supply to demand. Colonials to Earth, shipments to buyers."

Duo grit his teeth, his frustration and rage and impotence boiling over.

"I could have had that already," he ground out, "except fucking Count Barbie let us get raided , all for some fucking good press. Could have gotten either one of us killed in the last week, for nothing ."

The only thing Duo didn't have in his data was all of the suppliers. He'd managed, over the last few months, to trace all but one of them, the last supplier on L3, the one who provided Alessandra with roughly 60% of her 'merchandise' - drugs and people alike. The shipment that had been seized was to have come from this mysterious salesman.  But Zechs had as good as told them that they - the Preventers - knew who it was. They had tracked him down on L3, had to have, to follow and seize the shipment of palomniks , to know the date and time for the raid, and if the shipment had instead just reached the compound on schedule, Duo would have had electronic tracking records of the shipment - including the supplier.

Sally's back stiffened, and a muscle in her jaw jumped.

"It wasn't my call," she said after a moment.

"It wasn't your fucking-" Duo cut himself off.  Took a deep breath and blew it out in frustration, head tilted back to stare at the bright blue sky.  "You gotta be fuckin' kidding me."

It wasn't the first time that someone over Sally's head had made a call that compromised his op, that from his perspective - inside the mechanisms, with a very personal view of just how sideways it could go - was the wrong call.  But it was the first time his own life hadn't been the one in the balance.

He was, he decided, done.

He'd - they'd, really, he and Trowa - had done a lot of good for Preventers.

And they'd done a lot of bad.

And the line between the two was often blurred and murky, and Duo could accept that when he had to, when there weren't any other options.  The world wasn't black and white, and there was no one who knew that better than he did, no one who had learned it at a younger age, except maybe Heero or Trowa.

But they were done doing bad things so the Preventers could get good PR.  

There had always been an element of grey to their work - though in the beginning, it had been much more clear-cut.  Terrorist cells and illegal weapons factories and smuggling operations - it was pretty easy to sort the good guys from the bad guys in that situation.  But as the Preventers had come down on that sort of crime, as peace had settled in around the Earth Sphere, the nature of the ops changed too. Gone were the days of infiltrating a terrorist hideout and blowing it to kingdom come, and more and more the ops became deeper, more intense, and required more and more of Duo and Trowa's souls to accomplish.

Every op seemed more fucked-up than the last, and Duo was starting to feel like he wasn't sure if he was a good guy or a bad guy anymore.  

Wasn't sure if, on the next op, he wouldn't be rounded up as one of the co-conspirators for real, his paper-thin cover all but forgotten, and he would find himself locked up in prison for his necessary but unsavory crimes.

All done in the name of 'peace' and 'justice'.

And Trowa, Duo could see, was unravelling.  He'd retreated so far into himself that he was barely the man Duo knew, was almost the No-Name soldier he had been before the war, brittle and hard and barely surviving, and Duo was sure if he had to shoot one more pithy gangbanger or bury one more dead palomnik that Salome had ceased to be amused by, he'd probably eat a bullet.

And he wouldn't let Duo do anything about it.

Sally's paper rattled again, distracting him from his thoughts, and he turned his head to look at it.

Preventer's Raid Saves Hundreds

Look at that, they'd made the front page news.

He sucked his breath in through his teeth.

"The next shipment goes through," he said finally, his voice devoid of emotion, "and I'll have your fucking data."

Sally nodded, opened her mouth to speak, but Duo cut her off.

"And then I want out.  Both of us."

Sally's jaw shut with a snap, and she turned to look at him again, her eyes searching his face before she nodded.  "We'll pick you up."

Duo knew what that meant, had done it before and hated it.  It meant being picked up with the rest of the cartel, handcuffed and dragged away, preserving his cover and hiding his extraction, and he hated, hated that not only would he have to do it again, but that Trowa would have to do it as well.  That they'd likely be separated and debriefed and kept apart until the evidence was collected, at a minimum, before they were released and allowed to go home.

Sally, at least, would ensure that Duo was kept in comfort, away from the other prisoners.  

Protected.

He was, suddenly, unsure how Trowa would fare.

"Hey, Sal," he said, and his voice was quieter, more subdued, "make sure you pick Tro up too, yeah?"

Her brow furrowed in confusion.  "Of course we'll-"

"No, no."  He sighed. "Make sure you do it."

"Alright," she agreed, and his shoulders relaxed, the tension in his spine easing.

Sally would make sure Trowa got the same treatment Duo did, whatever it was, and that was the best he could hope for, really.

That, and, if he was very lucky, someone might shoot Merquise when they raided the compound.

The thought only cheered him a little.

Chapter 9

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