29-May-2002

Warnings?: tiny language. suggestive behavior-only if you read into it. violence? Yes, not nice things happen off camera, but I don't think that I made it... too scary. I couldn't.
Disclaimer: Having been inspired by muggy, hot August nights, Jillian put herself into a very *very* strange mood and wondered what would happen if Dick Tracy met Gundam Wing and tossed it into Alternate Reality. Used instances, characters, lines, etc were taken from their respectable owners and will be returned eventually. *ahem* names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Words You Say, The Things You Remember by Jillian

This is the report. This is the way I see it. This is Dorothy Catalina's universe. But I am Trowa Barton.

She was discovered rather than born. A Venus for our generation. I was a rather successful detective who had fallen on hard times and into the middle of practical bounty hunting. Some people see them as mutually exclusive. I used to be one of those people. Key word in that sentence? You've got it.

So what changed me? Was it the girl? Or was it a woman? A lady beyond a doubt. With layered locks of gold that fell around her gentle features and sharp eyes. Chilly blue eyes that reflected the violence of a summer storm on the ocean. And a voice that recalled the slow brush of wind that warned of violent possibilities.

Heero was more skeptical.

Heero was my partner. A dark man with a dark past that helped me slip from the golden side of law and benefit anyway. I had a green color and a decorated record from the Academy. Heero had years experience and come into his position through the back door of necessity.

We had brushed shoulders a couple of times in the hallway coming to and from the chief's office. The chief. Back when we honored one. Back when we filled our forms and papers and spilt ink after spilling blood. Back when Dorothy first came to us.

When Dorothy first came to me.

I had a lousy week losing one bloke and finding another one on the street lacking evidence. The friendly tipping of his hat and the wicked grin of darkened teeth drove me into the rain. Into a reflective brooding that chilled my narrow limbs and froze my shrinking heart. I loved my city. I wanted to protect her. And she defended the villains who wanted to violate her.

So the neon glow of the sign broke the darkness of the street. And I was swept toward it like a moth toward the fire. My spirit burning with anguish and my face frozen in a dispassionate chill. I don't drink, but many things were to change that night.

The first of which was the burning of my spirit. The liquor calmed the anger and some sort of warming peace fell over my mind instead. I leaned against the counter, still heavy with grief. But glowing with artificial possibilities. When I sensed another spirit glowing a few seats down and I had to look.

I have no time for dames. But I seem to care for many of them. My sister, Catherine, found a decent man to give her babies and keep her safe in a small country place miles from my district. Then there was Scarlet at the academy. A chaste fling that solved itself in friendly terms. And my mother. Well, God was going to take care of her for me. I never met her, but I'll never love another woman like her.

She comes to me in dreams sometimes and brushes my face. Delicately caressing the strands of my unruly hair from my face and tracing my cheek with a feather's touch. "Darling," she whispers...

"Darling," she whispers into her glass. But this woman isn't talking to me. She isn't pulling her fingers through my hair or tracing my cheekbones with anything. One glance, however, told me that I wouldn't mind if she did.

She pulls her finger around the rim of her glass and the echoes of a strange song reach my ears. I watch her retrace the pattern and the song wails again. It hurts to look at her intoxication with the movement when she hasn't tasted the liquid. The frowning tilt of her lips pulled down her eyelids over blue, tearless pools. Golden hair spills loose from where she's tried to tame it in clips.

I'm staring and it's making the bartender uncomfortable. She traces the glass again. The squeaking wail coming soulfully broken again. She needed to learn how to make real music.

"Darling, got an eye full?" She murmurs and it takes me a moment to realize that she's talking to me. But I keep staring. Whiskey made me unashamed. Beer loosened my emotions. And whatever it was that I had picked to tempt me that night didn't mind when she patted the seat next to her.

When my lips first parted she took the busy finger and placed it over them. "Don't tell me what I don't need to know." She whispered. At that moment, I wondered why I had bothered to tell anything to anyone but her.

The next morning I wished I could remember anything that had happened with her. But the bed was cold and crumpled and my head was buzzing with accusations. Reminding me why I didn't drink. Reminding me that the Lady City had rejected and deserted me. Reminding me that I still had to serve her.

And as I walked to the station, my step somewhat staggered with the new sensation of the earth's constant rotation, I knew that something important would happen that day.

First, I was sent on a rather harmless patrol. Either a favor upon the recognition of an incapable officer or a punishment for a reckless lieutenant. I sat in front of a flower stand watching the Chinese grocer weigh, trade and bag his goods. And when he left, I left too.

I might have thought twice before turning into the alley after my suspect if I had more of my wits about me. But I was busy pulling the brim of my hat down and trying to avoid the cruel mistress, the sun. When the three guys pounced me, I figure they were doing it for fun more than to protect anything I might find.

"Dumb dick." One of the Chinese fellows kicked my jaw back and I remembered that I liked my teeth long enough to swing back. Missing the guy I was aiming for and also off setting my balance enough to fall. They were having better success with their quick feet and I felt something in my stomach complaining about a sudden pressure. I curled instinctively. Straining for my mother's voice with ears that instead heard a delightful Chinese curse.

And the violence left me and the sounds of battle moved farther away as did my consciousness until I felt a cold slap against my cheek. "Stupid kid."

I was getting plenty of compliments that day and tried to grin but tasted the blood on my teeth instead when the simple motion failed. The scowling figure I recognized later at Heero Yuy, the dark angel in the force who made things happen. He served the Lady, the City, as well, but he was her secret lover. The beloved bastard everyone overlooked for the sake of usefulness.

We didn't have anything to do with each other before because I still polished the boots of the higher ups. I liked things clean. I did not drink. I did not hook up with beautiful mysterious women. I did not tail someone so poorly as to get pounced. I did not lean against Heero Yuy the entire way back to the station.

But we moved in mutual silence until he dropped me with a rather ungentle toss into the stiff chair of my recently earned desk. I wondered if I should murmur some sort of thanks, but instead was met by the stern grip of my boss pulling my chin up for a better look at my bruised face.

"OW." I hissed as unwanted tears threatened to rise.

"No more funny business, Barton." He growled in mock anger. I knew he was frustrated with me, but the vision of pain I must have appeared made him slightly wince. "Do the paper work. We'll send Yuy after the Chinese man."

"That's mine... " I started to complain, studying the pages he slapped on the desk and admiring how the words spun into a dance all on their own, spiraling into a dizzy haze. I knew I had picked up a pen, but the metal seemed no longer under the control of my fingers. My head fell hard against the hard wood I had so proudly earned as I heard the orders given, "Take Barton to the infirmary."

The cobwebs left my head the next time I woke up and were replaced by a sharp twinge of embarrassment. When had this started? And the memory of an angelic beauty seemed as distant as a dream. Was that how all of this began?

The vision faded in and out as did my consciousness. When I stirred into real wakefulness, I startled on the patient, chiseled feature of Heero Yuy.

"You're better." He announced. "Let's go." He tossed some clothes onto my lap. I recognized the garments as my own. Someone had picked them up from my apartment. No one from the station would have bothered, but I wondered if Heero had decided I couldn't go out in my bloodier version. Shrugging sore limbs into my clothes, I remembered that my life was only fulfilled by serving the City. And then I wondered how much my life was really worth. If I was serving the Lady, the City, in this condition.

"Where are we going?" I asked after I was checked out of the room and hurried down several blocks. I didn't immediately recognize our destination.

"You need food." Heero pushed open the door to the bar. And I shuddered looking at the evil glow of the neon light in the daylight. A hiss of frustration passed through my lips, but I was too weak with hunger to protest further.

We claimed a table near the far wall. All of the tables along the wall were claimed but one and I was positioned with my back to it. "What time is it?" I growled leaning in close to the menu, this time to keep the words from floating off the page.

"One thirty." Heero answered motioning the waitress over.

"Lunch, then." I decided, intent on the first column of choices since I couldn't seem to find any of the others.

"Coffee," Heero muttered, handing the waitress the menu without looking at her. His gaze was rather frozen on my hunched over posture. I was leaning heavily against the table.

"Reuben sandwich." I decided. "Toasted bread. Salad."

"Anything to drink?" She asked tapping the order pad lightly with her pencil. I turned my face up at her and the smiling lines around her eyes twitched enough to know that I did look as bad as I felt.

"Orange juice."

"Are you sure you'll be able to keep that down?" She looked worried as she took the menu from me. My hands dangled meaninglessly in the air in front where the menu had been.

"He'll be fine." Heero growled never looking up. Instead he crossed his arms and stared at the wall.

The waitress had been gone for some time. A few of the middle tables had been filled. A few of the edge tables had been vacated. I watched them blur past my vision. Uncertain of why I was back where everything had started. And the dark angel of the city sat across from me scowling at the wall.

The food came unannounced and quickly. Heero left his coffee untouched, and I stared at the sandwich as if I had never seen one before. My stomach rebelled against the idea rather violently.

"I feel like shit."

"You look like shit."

And suddenly my mind sparked with a brilliant flash and I laughed. Honestly. Until my sides ached as if they had been pounded with feet again. I held myself and leaned forward over the unwanted food. The sight of which made me laugh more softly.

I caught Heero's puzzled gaze as he watched me silently laughing. Nothing needed to be said between us and I knew that I liked this man.

I collected myself then waved the waitress back. "Soup maybe?" And as she left to meet the new request, my gaze followed her to the bar. When my breathing stopped.

"What is it?" Heero leaned toward me suddenly. "Who do you see?" I could sense his intruding presence, but my eyes never left the woman at the bar. I finally looked away, feeling my spirit burn with shame. Clenching my jaw and clenching my eyes closed against the room. I never drink. Why was I here?

"Is it that woman?" Heero hissed.

I opened my eyes to glare at him. His gaze was cool but not unfriendly. Demanding, but not without understanding.

"I have to leave."

"She'll see you." Heero reminded. And I had to fight down my every urge to flee. My cool reputation for a steady hand failed me as the juice glass shivered fearfully.

"You're weak from your injuries. That's why you're shaking." Heero growled angrily. I felt some comfort in those words and set the glass down. The excuse was a handy one. The truth was beyond my understanding. "You shouldn't be here."

"Nice that you care." I tried to joke and decided that I thought the wallpaper was incredibly fascinating--worth my close inspection. I tried to decide why Heero liked looking at it so much.

The hiss of his breath and the pull on his cheek was as close to a smile as I thought I could earn from Heero Yuy. And I felt small pride returning to its long forgotten station in my spirit.

"She's gone." Heero stood up. He glanced at my plates and then sat down again. "Eat."

And I did.

We left the smoky haze of the room later to re-enter the humid heat of mid-day. I felt better with the soup in me, but the world was still spinning a little. Heero glanced over at me. I managed to clear his height by a few inches, but his presence overpowered mine. Heero's reputation carried him far beyond my reach. Something about the dark, Japanese man that I admired.

I was uncertain. But Heero again gave me an escape. "You need to go home."

"Right." I set off on my new mission, somewhat surprised to see that Heero matched my pace. I slowed a little, but discovered that Heero actually kept my longer stride comfortably. Somewhat surprised that he was coming with me at all.

Not surprised enough to ask or complain.

"Carefully now." He murmured as we entered the building. It suffered from a little foundational sinking, but my room on the third floor had an excellent view of the building next door that I had a hard time turning down. I'd lived there for almost two years now and it was just starting to feel like home. The two years duty in this City's force hadn't made the station feel anymore homey, but I hadn't exactly gone out of my way to make friends.

I halted immediately on his words. The warm glow from my stomach hadn't completely overshadowed the tension and nervousness I felt from a few wrong choices I had leaped into during the past few days.

I don't drink. This is why.

I don't often have visitors, but I had a modest apartment with too few belongings to actually clutter. I pulled the keys out of my pocket, happy that I had remembered them from the infirmary. The bloodied clothes I had left.

Leaning towards the door, it opened on its own.

"I don't forget to lock the door."

"And you don't drink."

I paused, unable to remember if I had actually spoken that out loud.

Heero's cheek twitched in his warped version of a grin. Still, he agreed with me. "Someone else has been here."

I eyed him suspiciously, remember how he had brought the clothes I was wearing. Narrowing my gaze with an accusation, I witnessed his cheek twitched again.

"I locked it."

And we both stood taller. Heero pulled out his revolver. I didn't have mine. I didn't know where mine was. I hoped someone had put it in my drawer at the station. Or that Heero had picked it up from my encounter with the Chinese men.

He gave a quick nod and we both stepped into my abandoned apartment room. "Out." Heero ordered in such a tone that I felt knocked over with its intensity. "Down." He barked as we raced past the stairs.

I moved swiftly and blind to his intentions, but trusting in his motivation.

"Left." He spun sharply after running out the front entrance. I followed him as he turned down the alley between my building and the next. Halfway down the length, Heero stopped suddenly. His gun balanced between both of his hands. Ready. Breathing quickly, but controlling the volume so that he could listen.

Then I heard the steps on the metal fire escape. Both of our eyes met on the figure above us. Heero muttered our choice oath and took aim.

"You don't know who that is!" I protested. Pulling down on Heero's arm. He shook me off, impatient, taking aim again. The figure was gone.

He shot me an icy blue glare, before running back out to the street. "Take the back. Watch for a gray coat. Brown slacks."

I looked at my empty hands. No weapon. More cautiously than when I chased after the Chinese man, I peered around the other side of my apartment building. The light was dimmer back here and the air was tighter. I walked as quietly as I could and glanced behind the dumpster. In the doorways. I stood and listened. Nothing. I took a good look up, just in case. And caught a rare glimpse of clear blue sky.

An innocent color that reminded me that blue-eyed Heero was still searching for this potential intruder on the street.

I took my time though. The running had made my head spin again. I didn't think that the Chinese men had beaten me this badly. Maybe it was from when my head slammed into my desk. I felt my ears turning red. I hoped it was from the running.

"Trowa?" Heero's voice was concerned, his gun was put away, and he reached out to steady my shoulders. "Did you see him?"

"No." I decided against shaking my head as I might have otherwise. "I'm fine, just winded. A little."

Heero skipped past my weakness again. "Right. You're fine." He slapped my arm and continued. "Let's go back and check out your room."

Heero glanced around my stuff and I tried to make a more thorough check. But after fifteen minutes, I decided that I would investigate how comfortable my couch still was. I leaned back against a pillow and closed my eyes. The couch wasn't long enough. One foot dangled over the end. I kept the other braced against the spinning ground.

"Her name is Dorothy Catalonia."

It took me a minute between waking and drifting off into sleep to realize that Heero was talking to me. Then a few more seconds to realize exactly what it was that he had said. The rest of the connections seemed a little beyond me at that moment so I asked, "Who?"

"The woman at the bar."

I didn't reply. Instead, I felt a flash of confused memories. The sorrowful sound made against a glass. The smell of alcohol. The taste of lips against my own.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

And I was instantly relieved that Heero didn't know more about her than I did. "She's trouble. Somehow, she started this."

"Did she tell you anything? Barton!"

The snap of my name brought me back from the dreaming sensation that Dorothy's memory was recalling. I might as well have gotten drunk again. I didn't need to drink to remember how to feel this way again.

"I hate her."

"Sure you do." Heero's voice interrupted my scattered thoughts.

"Do you love someone?" I asked.

"No. And neither do you."

"I know."

"She's connected to the Chinese men." Heero's voice pulled me back again.

My jaw worked but nothing coherent was uttered. So, I tipped my jaw forward enough so that he knew that I was listening still.

"I pulled you from the infirmary early because I had to know if she was the woman you saw last night."

"Woman. I saw." My skills of analysis drifted in and out of consciousness.

"Yes." Heero's voice came from far away. And I was alone in the dark.

I remember that when I in junior high, my sister and I had this tree house in the back yard. I spent most of my summer there. Until Catherine decided it was a great place to take her boyfriends. Still, if I could sneak out the back door before my aunt and uncle heard me, I often climbed up to the solitude and sanctuary of that small building.

I liked to watch the spiders build their webs. Even Catherine let them to their business. One evening, before the sun had stolen away its light completely, I saw one scrawny spider catch a gnat in its web. Using some legs to stand in the snaring web, others to hold the struggling victim and the free ones to weave, the fragile spider worked the gnat to death. And then partook of its meal with gentle kisses.

"Was that what she asked you, Trowa?" A voice that seemed familiar asked near me. I opened my eyes slowly to see Heero's face only a few inches from my own. He leaned back and I stretched, trying to remember why Yuy was in my apartment. Tried to remember why I was napping on the couch. Remembering why my stomach ached and my jaw complained.

"You talk so softly in your sleep." Heero explained, tipping back on his heels from where he had crouched by the couch and then stood going back to his original seat.

"I was talking in my sleep?" I asked. Feeling more alert with each breath I took. My limbs felt strangely tense. I tried to relax them. Heero had been here. I must have been safe. But the vulnerability of my unhindered speech troubled me. "What did I say?" I whispered.

"Do you feel better?" Heero studied my face.

I sat up carefully, and then put both of my feet on the floor twisting to rest my arms against my knees. I nodded. Leaving my question to linger until he answered it.

Heero looked at me for a good while. The seconds ticked past and I found my eyelids drooping again.

"You were drugged."

My eyes opened wide.

"The drink," Heero stopped to breathe a small laugh. "The drink was done up so that you wouldn't remember her asking but that you could still answer her questions."

"What does a small-town-detective-come-to-the-city know that this Dorothy needed to know so that she planned this scheme so completely?" I whistled. It was easier to think about myself and about the circumstances at a distance.

Heero tilted his head to consider that for a moment. His eyes never left my face. "She was expecting someone."

"Someone?" My brain began to pick up its characteristic ability to analyze and evaluate. "It wasn't me."

"You don't drink." Heero actually laughed.

"My happening into the bar then was an accident." I puzzled over the radical possibilities. "But why would she think it was me? Did I accidentally respond to a code? Do I look like someone else?"

Heero pondered those a moment. "Perhaps its because you're a cop."

I stopped my contemplation of the chance circumstances and asked again, "What did I say in my sleep?"

"She wanted to know if the deal had been made."

I pulled that one around for a while. "A deal? Like a deal to get out? Or a deal to get in? Or an underhanded deal?"

"Do you always think out loud?" Heero asked, actually grinning.

"Only when there's someone near who can help me out by listening." I answered quickly, still working the problem in my head. Trying to remember hearing someone actually saying that to me. Flashes of dark blond hair cascading around me like a web.

"Go to sleep, Trowa." Heero commanded after I sat silent for a few minutes.

I might have protested that I'd just woken from a nap, when I realized that I was tired. Somehow, between the late lunch, the chase, my nap and the possible solution to the mysterious woman at the bar, I was ready to rest. My body yawned rebelliously.

Heero glanced around then said, "I'll stay here."

"Take the bed." I offered.

"No." He stood from his chair and waited until I stood as well. "I'll fit on the couch. Give me a blanket and go to sleep."

He didn't quite fit. But the match was better than if I had tried to sleep there longer. I curled against my pillow. Not remembering the night that left the sweet perfume I could almost smell. I shifted and caught a glimpse of Heero standing in the living room. His back to me, and his gaze onto the city. What he could see of it around the view of the neighboring building.

I didn't particularly enjoy many of my recent waking up experiences, but, after a more or less comfortable and full night's sleep in my own bed, I managed to make the transition pleasantly enough. Heero left as soon as I was moving. His presence a dark shadow in front of the window when I first noticed him. I wondered in passing if he had stood there all night.

I called into the office to let them know that I was coming and wanted the information on the Chinese case. And my gun. After the impromptu encounter with someone in my apartment, I didn't want to wander very far unarmed.

I walked. Pulling my hat down low, but keeping an alert watch on everyone around me. Blond women I studied the closest. I knew that the next time I saw Dorothy Catalonia, I was going to be the one asking the questions. And something inside me burned with the possibilities of her answers.

I walked into the common office and sat at my desk long enough to satisfy the chief's curious gaze as he peered out of his office door. Looking in my general direction. I shuffled the papers on the Chinese case back into their folder, collected my gun from the drawer, and walked over to Heero's dark corner. I managed to walk with the air of invisibility so that no one noticed the sudden interest I had in the black sheep officer.

"Ready?" I asked. Heero stopped his pencil work to lift his eyebrows wonderingly. His lips twitched as he hesitated just a moment longer then dropped the pencil and stood, swooping up his over shirt and weapon in one smooth motion.

We stepped out into the morning again, with a renewed interest in justice. "Let's chat." I suggested. Walking briskly past the street which the bar was on. I didn't want to go there ever again, and yet I had to resist the unholy desire to go back every time I thought of it.

Instead, I pulled us along to the coast of the bay. The breeze pushed us back. I felt a salty spray ravage my face with watery kisses as the waters moved in a rather ferocious manner.

"It's going to rain." Heero said dryly.

"Hn." I agreed and then sat down on the nearest bench. I felt somewhat better that I was taking the initiative. I appreciated Heero's help, but I wasn't ready to become the completely faded lapdog of such a disreputable officer. "Now these Chinese men." I ruffled through the top of the papers.

Heero sat down next to me, glancing around and satisfied that we were alone. "Generic thugs."

I was amused by the image of Chinese thugs, and then my jaw ached with the smile-reminding me how quickly the same men had tackled me earlier. "Meaning?"

"They don't do much but a few underhanded deals. Hardly worth our time, that's why you were put on patrol duty with them... when you came into HQ so hung over." Heero's eyes were narrowed to focus on something far out to sea. I glanced out there nervously, but couldn't tell on what Heero was visually meditating.

"So they simply decided to do a number on a dumb cop?" I clarified.

"More or less." Was Heero's uncommitted answered.

"Marvelous." My concealed ego wilting. I found the identification slip I was looking for in the pile of reports. A surveillance photo dated several years ago showed the Chinese man. In the background was the fuzzy reflection of the woman at the bar.

"Dorothy." I heard Heero speak the name I was afraid to think.

"She is... ?" I let the question drift out on the next gust of wind cold and fresh from the far-reaching seas.

"With the Chinese men quite a bit." Heero shrugged. "I've actually been banished to the paperwork around this assignment for... my reasons. After going through the history on this organization, I think the force has underestimated the ambitions of this group. She's friends with the leader's son. Seems that the two of them are rather clean of the underground racket that the others like to cause, but she does small transportation jobs now and again."

"Transporting?" I asked, "Transporting what?"

"Money. Boot-leg goods." Heero left a pause suggesting more. "Nothing too unusual or too illegal."

"Too illegal." I repeated, letting the distaste of that phrase roll over my tongue.

"We leave them alone, pretty much." Heero shrugged.

"Why don't they leave us alone?" I asked gingerly touching my stomach.

Heero thought for a moment. "Yeah, I was rather surprised that the chief didn't move the entire force after they attacked you. Even if you were drunk." His cheek twitched. He was probably remembering my declaration that I don't drink. And I won't. Never again.

"I was brash." I paused. "I had been frustrated."

"You're their golden boy." Heero disagreed. " Showing up a little under par doesn't mar a reputation like yours."

"Well, where do we start to find the answers then?" I submitted to Heero's better experience with this assignment.

"Dorothy."

And the chill of the coming storm traced icy fingers down to my core. And I shivered.

Reporting back to the station, I told the secretary a vague excuse that she seemed more than eager to leave as vague. Heero shrugged when I offered him the phone, saying that he never checked in.

"How long have you worked with them?" I asked. I'd heard rumors about Yuy's involvement with the force, but suspected that none of them could be as bizarre as the truth.

"With them?" Heero let out a hoarse mockery of a laugh. "I've been a servant to the City since I was born, Barton." And the look he gave me told me better than any words the cold life the City had given him.

"Foster kid?" I asked, suspecting.

"More or less."

"Lack of commitment." I made a mental note. Heero's cheek twitched. I made a mental note of that as well. It was becoming easier to earn humorous marks from the dark Japanese man.

Then he answered. "Twelve years."

I was taken back a little. "How old are you?" I asked, trying to evaluate the possibilities myself and getting no specific, reliable guesses. Heero looked older than he should and seemed younger than he was. Not that he acted younger, just, at times, he seemed hopeful for something that most people lose when they get older.

"Twenty-seven."

"Hm." I replied. Accepting and acknowledging that he honored my prying questions with answers. "You seem so much older than me though."

"That's life."

I nodded. Realizing that the city was aging me faster as well. I simply hadn't gone as far as Heero had. "You were fifteen then?" Heero nodded.

I tried to ease the emphasis I'd loaded over his past. "I have a sister."

"Catherine."

I started. My expression questioning. Had he searched my apartment? Read and researched my records? Nothing seemed too underhanded.

"You talk in your sleep." His cheek pulled back slightly. "A lot."

Our surveillance took all day and edged into night. The shadows of bad weather looming closer and closer but never quite breaking. I was painfully aware than my body was tiring. Whether the coming weather or the stillness that I was forcing it to maintain so much caused it, I still could feel the throbbing of the Chinese men's blows.

The throbbing kept me from dozing off. And for that I had to be grateful. I couldn't afford to let Heero hear all of my secrets.

I felt Heero's hand touch my shoulder. Looking up, I saw her. A vision of golden glory in the stormy glow of a setting sun. We'd moved from the Chinese man's store in the day to sit by the bar for the evening. Heero told me that the Chinese man's son owned the bar.

"Let's go." Heero started toward the neon sign.

"Wait." I protested. "Didn't you just say that man's son owns this place?"

"Yeah."

"Is it safe?" I noticed my hand straying toward my concealed weapon. Heero noticed.

"With that, and me, you're as safe as you're ever going to be in this City. Kid." He added the bit at the end with an affectionate lilt to his tone. I scowled at him in return, but followed. I swallowed my heart and prepared myself as a keeper of the peace. I was born for this occupation, and I had legitimately earned my reputation for quality service.

And I wanted to impress Yuy with what the "kid" could do.

My resolve was all that saved me when those sultry eyes found me coming close. The sweet perfume I remembered from my pillows surrounded her like an invisible shield. My body responded to the warmth of the room, but nothing was said. Heero stood next to me, an imposing figure.

"Yes, darlings?" Her voice broke the spell that held me transfixed. The reality of the moment freed my integrity.

"Dorothy Catalonia."

"You remember me?" Her voice was dangerous, and somewhat something else. I fancied it was startled.

"That's not what I've come here to talk to you about." I matched the dangerous tremble of her voice with a deep one in my own.

She glanced at Heero, then back at me. "I don't go anywhere with strangers."

"Are they bothering you, doll?" The bartender wandered down to where we were gathered.

"We're just chatting." Heero shot the man a lethal look.

"You're not wanted here. Just more tough ass acting cops." The bartender responded in turn. He continued to wipe the glass clean, but his motions were more powerful and deliberate.

Dorothy's eyes shifted a little. "Let's take this outside. Now."

"Now, Dorothy... " the man protested.

"I'll be *fine*." She emphasized the last word with a practiced bite. She had been overly protected before.

The night was cooling with sudden anticipation of a cleansing shower. Dorothy stopped just outside the door. "You're both cops?" She asked looking pointedly at Heero.

I nodded. But her gaze never moved, and she never noticed my response.

"Now, puppies. Don't come back here again." Dorothy warned, putting one hand on a shapely hip.

Heero smirked, and spun on his heel. I hesitated for a moment. Torn between the angst and shame I was fighting down in Dorothy's presence and the professional loyalty I felt bonding me to Heero. Then I followed Heero.

"What's this?" I hissed, but the words came out coolly. Sometimes, I surprise myself with how detached I can sound.

"Don't worry." Heero said without explanation.

I continued to follow, feeling somewhat like a mindless, scurrying mouse chasing after the smell of cheese. While we moved, I tried to remember why I trusted Heero. My memory was dazzled with a barrage of shortly barked commands and a few brotherly encouragements. That was what friendship with Heero Yuy was--barked commands and a hesitant reaching out. So I kept following, as we went farther from the heart of the city and out to the gentler suburbs. I wished I had a car. Or had picked up a squad car from the station.

Heero stopped and consulted the hasty scrawl on a piece of torn napkin.

"What's that?" I asked leaning in to notice we were very near the address noted there.

"A clue." Heero lifted an eyebrow and gave me a mock incredulous look. I started somewhat. Wondering why Yuy was suddenly so playful after we had distanced ourselves from our most likely lead.

"From Dorothy?" I assessed.

"Very good, detective." Heero glanced at house numbers. "Now to figure out what the clue is meant to tell us."

"Can we trust her?" I had to ask. Not entirely eager to become as vulnerable in her hands as I might have been a few nights before.

"If she had her reasons for give us this information," Heero found what he was looking for. "Yes."

I frowned somewhat on whatever detective style Heero was demonstrating, but as he had mentioned before. With my gun, and with him, I was as safe as anyone in the City could be. We stepped onto the front porch of the specific house. The entire place was badly in need of a re- painting. I glanced up and was impressed with the quality webbing that the spider's had liberty to construct. An old bird's nest in one corner sealed the natural art's brilliance.

"Nice place." Heero noticed my observations, and knocked a second time.

"It is late." Our journey across town had let the sun set and a few brave stars were visible beyond the hazy city lights. I wondered who would greet us, and what exactly Heero had in mind.

The silence became uncomfortable. Heero settled his hand against the doorknob. With a firm shove, the door broke open. "Hn, unlocked." Heero said.

I shook my head, dismayed with the obvious lack of protocol. But I still followed him into the shadows. The two ingredients necessary to keep the City safe. Yuy, and a gun.

The place smelled, and the electricity was off. Whether cut off or discontinued, we were walking into darkness. I had walked into placed before, just never so blind to my intentions.

Heero muttered our favorite foul word. "We're too late." And he was right. Smeared across his table and half still in his chair was someone. Someone dead.

"Do you know this guy?" I asked, grimacing. I didn't like watching death working so closely. Death had done it's job with style.

"This will be hard to explain." Heero wasn't listening to me. Instead, he moved past the kitchen and down the back stairs.

"How are you going to see?" I asked, following apprehensively. The body was cold, and I hoped that was a good sign that whoever had done the killing had simply left a hot trail.

Heero swore again and then stomped back up the stairs. "There's nothing down there."

"What's going on?" I was suspicious watching Heero with a calculated caution. He knew more than I did, which made me nervous.

"Well, we're going to have to report this guy as dead." Heero pointed over to the stiff with his chin.

"Do you know him?" I asked, no longer veiling my suspicions.

"His name was Duo Maxwell." Heero nodded. "Worked for the Chinese man. Duo Maxwell meet Trowa Barton." He waved his hand between us in mock greeting.

I frowned on his morbid humor. People react strangely to death, and I hoped this twisted side of the dark Japanese man was merely that. A helpless reaction in the face of death.

"I've seen him while doing the 'paperwork' on the Chinese." Heero explained. "The hair is unforgettable."

Right then it was a twisted mess, but the fellow had a braid about four feet long. I whistled. I shouldn't have. It's not right. But standing in the presence of death has a funny effect on people.

"Let's go." Heero turned.

"Shouldn't we search for clues?" I protested, glancing around the kitchen. Looking for a weapon. Looking for any explanation. "What was in the basement?"

"Nothing." Heero paused, letting his speech trail over his shoulder but didn't turn back himself. "This is the only clue we were meant to see."

We parted. Silently agreeing to let ourselves sleep one more night. On cases like this, one never knew when one could rest. We were our only counsel on this independent investigation, however, and Yuy sent me home.

I was relieved to find the door locked. I was even more relieved when the lights turned on with the switch. The helplessness in the dark of that other house had been unnerving. I was surprised to see Dorothy sitting on my couch. Lounging rather.

"What are you doing here?" I growled not really liking her at that moment. Dorothy was a black hole in my memory and the introducer of corpses. "You're not invited."

"You wanted to see me earlier." She purred watching me stand awkward and tall in the doorway. "I wanted to finish things."

The suggestive husk in her throat made me panic inside, but I maintained my silent guardianship of the entrance. Did she mean finish the deal? Finish the murders? Finish me? Finish me how?

"I want out." Her voice was so soft I almost missed it. She looked away and her lips twisted into what she tried to pass off as a smile. It looked more like a sneer. She was darkly beautiful and terrifying. I decided not to move. Not to speak.

Dorothy turns back to look at me, her golden hair cascading in different directions as if they had a life of their own. Waves of greedy gold. "Is he dead?" She asked.

With my silent nod, a rush of emotion caused her to tremble. "I didn't know. How long he would last." Her eyes were glowing with pain, but nothing more came of it. This woman didn't cry. And I felt a sneering sympathy. Dorothy was definitely the daughter, the mirror reflection, of the City she grew up with. A cold, unfeeling wench.

"Who were you with tonight?" Dorothy asked. The pain in her eyes vanished and were replaced with something vacant.

I didn't answer. Still standing. Every silent gesture of my body screaming at her, "Leave!"

"The dark officer. Asian." She spoke to herself. "I suppose he was the one."

My ears caught her words and my voice was low, "What?"

"The one I was waiting for... " her voice trailed off and her eyes wandered around the room. Observing, taking account of the inventory, furniture, table, mirror. Was she remembering or seeing it for the first time? Then how did she know where to come? "But you came. You were with the dark angel. His partner? But you know so little."

My fingers form silent fists. My lips pressed together. What was she saying? Why was I angry? What did Heero know?

"You're always so quiet." Dorothy stood, somewhat between saucy and demure in her false emotions. She watched me from a tilted head as she slowly stepped closer.

Silence was my only strength right then. And I didn't like this game. I stepped aside and pushed the door farther open to grant her clear access into the hallway.

She seemed to move out, before stepping in close to me. She pause with her mouth stretched up to hover by my ear. Her breath tickled my cheek with a burning ember. "I would have told you anything. If you had asked."

And she was gone.

I shut the door. Locked it. Checked the lock. Then I stepped stiffly into my bedroom. I stared at the bed. I couldn't sleep there now. I turned back into the living room, the picture of Dorothy on the couch burned in my mind. I wasn't going to get any sleep.

So I stood at my window, staring at the brick wall beyond. Feeling very trapped. With the only visions of freedom far beyond the edges of my eyesight.

I imagined grabbing her and slamming her back into the couch. Roughly making her answer my questions. *What have you done? What have you done with me?* Terrifying her until she finally cried.

But as quickly as the images came, I swallowed them down and remembered how I had stood silently. Taking all that she said. Letting it wash over me. Taking the analytic and distant stance. Letting the cool calculations justify letting a potential murder suspect simply walk out of my room.

My detective practices were becoming as unscrupulous as Heero's.

As I walked up to the station the next morning, Heero met me on his way out.

"I reported the Maxwell finding." He turned me and pulled me along by he hurried pace. "We've been official put on the case."

That was good. I relaxed somewhat knowing that we were moving back onto the more legal side of the issues. The streets were busy and I found myself having to actually quicken my pace to keep site of Yuy.

We ended up in a surveillance position over the Chinese grocery. Watching out the window, seeing who came and who went. I wanted to take advantage of our relative solitude to ask my questions.

"Tell me what's going on, Yuy." I bit off his last name. Heero was my comrade, but this other side of the Japanese man, his mysterious involvement and motivations, annoyed me. "Dorothy was meeting a cop wasn't she? You knew that because it was you she was waiting for, right?"

Heero leaned against the window sill. His arms crossed and his gaze unwavering from the street below. He trusted the afternoon glare to cloak his presence from the eyes of people on the street. But I saw him. And he had to answer to me.

"I'm sorry."

That wasn't what I expected. My mouth parted somewhat and I suddenly found myself leaning against the opposite side of the window. Watching Heero's chiseled features. His jaw was clenched tight, but his focus was on his duty.

Did he feel responsible for what happened afterward? The jumble of coincidental mishaps that deposited me in the middle of his investigation with the Chinese? The anger I might have felt shifted into simply curiosity. The answers might be understandable. Something I could find empathy in.

"I had been in contact with Dorothy." Heero continued. "She was leaking me info, but we never made personal contact." Each sentence came deliberately. With time and consideration taken between each. I waited patiently to hear it all. "Then she wanted to end things. Her connection to the illegal traffic was slim and she could stop it before her friend, Wufei, or others got hurt. She wanted to confess in court. We agreed to meet. But I was suspicious, since she had chosen Wufei's bar as the meeting location. She didn't know I was thoroughly informed of the place's ownership."

Heero breathed. "I planned on showing up late. Simply to observe her. Follow her home. And then make contact. But when I arrived, she had already left. With you."

"I'm not Japanese." I said simply.

Heero's cheek pulled back his lips in a half-smile. "No. But all Dorothy knew was that she was meeting a cop." He took my figure in with a full glance before resuming his watch. "Your appearance is undeniably officer-of-the-law."

I winced at the teasing. "She gave us the information on Maxwell as her bargaining chip?"

"Yeah," Heero nodded. "But that didn't go according to plan. He was dead and the evidence was gone. So now she's more guilty while she's associated with killers."

A chill spilled down my spine, and I saw the Chinese man's son enter the store. "Wufei." I murmured.

"Yeah." Was all that Heero replied.

"Someone should follow him when he goes out." I suggested. "Oh, and by the way," I let my voice drop to almost a threat. "Tell me what it is exactly that we're looking for here."

"The person who killed Maxwell."

I rolled my eyes, but had to admit that was all we had for a conviction. Even criminals deserved justice after they were wrongfully killed. And now, instead of solving a mystery to convict an entire criminal organization, we were after one assassin. We were nothing more than professional, paid and somewhat respectable bounty hunters. I had never dreamed that my career would take such a terrible twist, simply because I can't handle my liquor.

I vowed never to drink again.

Heero laughed. I must have said that one out loud.

I'm not as bad at tailing a suspect as I demonstrated the other day. Heero must have known that because he let me tail the Chinese man's son. Wufei was a decent citizen, more or less. He had the bar and stayed clear of his father's ambitions. According to the records anyway. Dorothy and he were considered peaceable enough that they were left alone.

But if Dorothy was eager to get out of some sordid affair, chances were that Wufei was involved in it as well. He had walked over and back from the bar on foot. This was an undeserved blessing since neither Heero nor I had provided ourselves with a motored form of transportation.

He had stayed to chat with his father, then made his way through the crowded market streets back to the darker avenues and twisted alleys. Back to where his neon sign called to the disheartened bums wandering the streets. Inviting them to come in. Take a beer. Drown their sorrows. Perhaps meet a beautiful woman.

I wondered why people just didn't go home and appreciate their families. Read a book. Listen to the radio. Converse. I wondered what had happened to verbal communication. Between Heero and I, we had wasted few words. Necessity and fear drove the chatter away. There were other ways for humans to connect emotionally and often words are false. But honest communication.

"I would have told you anything. If you had asked."

Dorothy's words haunt me. So different than the words I do remember her whispering on our first meeting.

"Don't tell me what I don't need to know."

And I shudder inwardly. Understanding that those were the words of a desperate woman who knew about a potential murder that had been actualized. A woman who thought that she was talking to a cop. Or, at least, a cop who would help her get out. Dorothy thought she had been talking to someone else.

"Officer."

"Detective?"

By the second call, I knew that I wasn't imagining Dorothy's voice this time. And that she was trying to get my attention. I shot a hasty glance in Wufei's direction. Was she trying to distract me from her friend? Had she recognized me and was seeking my help?

"Trowa."

I stopped. How did she know my name? My heart beat faster. Alert.

"It is Trowa." She had been walking up the stairs of an apartment building. Her key was still out in her grasp. Her other hand held a small purse. It was dark and she had been going home. She lived here.

She stepped toward me once. Down the stairs. Hesitant between two levels. Uncertain if she should have stopped me and realizing that she truly had.

I wanted some answers. I glanced along the road. Wufei was out of sight. Turning back, I spoke in a low voice, "I want some answers."

"Of course," She glanced up the building most likely to consider her own window.

Would she invite me up? I wondered, but her gaze once it returned to meet my own eyes, held all of the invitation that I could have imagined.

Justifying it quickly in my own mind, I knew that I could learn more from a conversation with Dorothy than all of the tracking I did of the Chinese man's son.

Her apartment was golden with light. I walked over to the window, unable to see very well, studying my own face amid the reflected glow. I shifted my eyes to see Dorothy where she had stopped halfway across the room. She was watching me. Then she tossed the small purse onto the white couch and sat next to it. She was wearing a black jacket, totally unnecessary in the current weather. It made her look like someone with something to hide. She wrapped the coat closer to her.

She knew I was watching her.

"I won't apologize." She started.

"For what?" I asked quietly.

"For the drugs." She bit her lip. Worried it a little. I wondered if she was trying to concoct a tale that made her part seem gentler. Less uncaring. "It didn't help much really. You didn't know anything, so you couldn't answer my questions."

I frowned, staring at my reflection. Hurt in my eyes. My other features frozen. Frozen over the glass.

"And I didn't ask anything personal." Dorothy added a more light-hearted inflection at the end. I didn't say anything, so she continued. "I was only trying to protect myself. See if my valiant officer was on the level about helping me." She tried laughing again. "And it seems that the dark Japanese guy didn't trust me either. My actions were justified."

"What does this have to do with the dead fellow?" I asked, changing the subject before she spoke more about that evening. The evening that was erased from my memory, except flashbacks of a touch. Fingers brushing back the hair from my face.

"Duo." She sighed. It wasn't a genuine sigh. Her nature wasn't genuine. "He was serving as sort of an underground railroad of sorts for illegals."

"Illegals?" I lifted an eyebrow. "Not only goods, but people?"

"Both. A little business on the side." Dorothy nodded. "And not the imported variety either. Escaped cons."

"What?" Trying to disguise the disbelief in my voice.

"Some of them were coming to work for us." She might have stumbled over saying that last word, but continued just as quickly. "Others were marked. Contracts on their heads. Wufei was going to buy them off in turn for services."

"Wufei?" I asked. So this was separate from the Chinese man and his petty crimes organization. When she nodded, I asked about Duo again.

"He was the middleman really. Propositioned the inmates. Polled them. Pulled the best candidates. Interrogated them and sent them to the bar." Dorothy guessed my next question. "And he'd been doing this for almost a year."

"Unnoticed." I breathed.

"It's easy to buy off the guards when you're simply exchanging the con from one sort of imprisonment to another." Dorothy shrugged. "And it sounded okay to me, so I went along with it."

"But you want out now. Why?"

"It's crazy." She snapped. "Wufei's over his head. He's got these sick people loose doing sick things. It's not *^mildly* illegal like simply carrying things. It's not even the rehabilitating justice he hoped for."

"Maxwell's picks weren't so good?"

"No. They were great. Too good actually. Some of the guys lied well-just to get out. Others had multiple contracts on their heads. Wufei settled the ones he knew about, but not all of them."

I shook my head. How could one man do all of this? "What did he think he was doing?"

"Saving them? Giving them true justice?" Dorothy laughed. "He doesn't care much for your sort of law." She had stood by then and walked forward to point her finger in my chest with her last words. "You guys... "

"What about us?" I asked. She's good looking if she's crooked. Something in the way she talks so sharply and looks so teasing while talking about crazy plots to rehabilitate the guilty. Dorothy's confident to say the least.

Seductive at her most. She's pulled at my collar. I haven't twitched a finger. This wasn't what I want, but I'm curious about what she thinks she can get. And she smelled good. Fortunately, I was at my most resolved.

"You're just as reluctant as last time." She licked her lips.

I'm wondering what she means. This uncertainty causes a familiar buzzing in my head.

"I thought you wanted out?" I ask after a secret inward choke.

"I do." And then Dorothy backed away from me, stepping into the room, touching her face with pale, long fingers. Holding her head as if it's buzzing as well. Did I do that to her?

She suddenly looked very small. "It's wrong. Very wrong. Wrong for Wufei to try this."

I nodded sharply. Uncertain if I should say anything. She's beautiful in a simple way too. But suddenly more complicated than I can handle. Was she falsely cloaking herself with this vulnerability or was she really seeking help? I wanted to trust her. But I couldn't.

"Stop him."

"Ok." I agreed. I could agree to that. "But what about Duo?"

"He's dead. Killed." She's standing taller now. Her pale face glowing with some renewed inner strength.

"Who killed him?" I asked. "Do you know?"

She smiled, the sort of scary smile that lets you know that someone is keeping a secret. "Yes. It was him."

"Him?"

"Wufei's father."

I hesitated. Uncertain how to proceed, when she said what I wanted to hear.

"I think it'd be best if I went with you to the station, now."

I closed my eyes, making the world disappear for that fraction of a moment. Was Wufei's father responsible? Or would Dorothy have tried to stop Wufei herself? She was the one eager to finish Wufei's latest scheme. What was most important?

When I opened my eyes, I replied in cool Heero Yuy fashion, "Come with me."

The overnight crew was dozing through their paperwork when I escorted Dorothy Catalonia back to my desk. From the shadows of the corner, I could just make out Heero's eyes watching me. I wondered how long he had been waiting there. I nodded him over.

"Sit, please." I offered Dorothy a stiff, cold chair which I set to face my desk. She gracefully slid into it, noticing when Heero stepped up just behind where I half sat on the desk.

"Dorothy is going to testify against Wufei and his father regarding the murder of Duo Maxwell." I explained simply.

Heero's eyes noticeably widened. He glanced at the blond woman and then back at me. This time I was the one keeping secrets. I shook my head almost indiscernibly. Heero pulled my sleeve in the back. A small tug that Dorothy wouldn't notice. He wanted to talk with me.

I had to smile a little. Obviously, Yuy could keep secrets himself, but could not bare them kept from him.

Stepping out of hearing for a moment I summarized quickly. "She thinks that Wufei's trying to rehabilitate convicts in a special way. Maxwell was helping traffic them, select the most likely candidates."

Heero wrinkled his forehead. "The Chinese man killed Duo Maxwell?"

"Why not?" I shrugged. "Perhaps he's got something against his own son? Besides, they were chatting at length today and rather strongly arguing about something."

"Hn." Heero grunted. "Do you trust your instincts?"

I glanced over at Dorothy. "She'll testify. And I don't think she'd go to this trouble if the Chinese man wasn't guilty of a great many other things."

Heero's eyes narrowed. But where I feared his judgment, all I saw was his understanding. "And Dorothy will accepting a conviction as an accomplice with Wufei. Who we'll bring in as well. The whole operation is finally brought into the light."

I nodded.

"Do you think she killed Maxwell?" Heero asked me. I watched her sit demurely in the wooden chair. Taken out of the bar, she seemed strangely vulnerable and fascinating. I remembered how she had traced her finger around the glass. As reflective, distressed and lost as I had been at the same moment. Both of us scared, confused, and terribly human.

"I wouldn't put anything past her."

I sat in on every court hearing. I watch her speak clearly to answer every question put to her. She was alert and impeccably frank in her replies. The prosecuting lawyer had little to worry about because she sealed his conviction. And the recently neglected folder dedicated to the Chinese racket was hidden away with the solved cases.

Dorothy elegantly accepted her own conviction. Her every word projected that desire. Small deals were cut for her assistance in convicting the others. She would return to the City a free woman in under a year.

Even Wufei had come under the justice of the shadier laws of the City. Soon after the news of Dorothy's upcoming testimony, Wufei was found dead in his own bar. His death had been strangely similar to that of his accomplice. Heero and I could only wonder at the connections.

And, thanks to Dorothy, the murder of Duo Maxwell fell on the shoulders of the Chinese grocer. It was the only crime for which they had evidence to convict him.

As the judge read the final verdicts, I peered through the railing to study Dorothy's features. She had become strangely fascinating, having ensnared my curiosity like a delirious fly in the spider's embrace. I let my thoughts linger on her every word. Trying to understand the things that baffled me about her.

The nagging in my mind that reminded me not to forget that she was a spider.

While the bailiff escorts her from the room, she turns slightly. Her head lifts. Her gaze might have settled on my own. But just as quickly, she was gone.

With Dorothy, I'm forever standing on the outside. Looking in.

Justice doesn't satisfy. Not in this City anyway. And I was never going to get all of my answers. This time the realization didn't drive me to the streets in despair. I was not lulled in by the neon lights. This time I had helped put away a lot of rotten people that littered her streets. And I had finally found myself a partner in the force, a friend.

Heero let the stack of papers fall onto my desk with a smack.

"What's this?" I protested.

Yuy smirked. "A list of small fry for you to bring in since you brought them all to our attention. Good job."

"I see your name on this as well." I pointed to the top of the folder. Heero shrugged. Sighing, I asked, "Did Wufei really set *all* of these cons loose? They're all somewhere in the City?"

Heero shrugged again. "If they haven't left." He replied dryly.

"That's still a tall order." I grimaced. "We help convict a true menace to society, and now they want us to act as petty bounty hunters?"

Heero's shoulders began their upward pattern again when I reached up with one hand. A gesture on surrender.

"Well, it'll be a less painful?" I suggested, hopeful, touching my healed jaw.

"I'm thinking of it as job security."

I laughed quietly, glancing at the quantity. Heero had a point. "Let's get started. Tomorrow."

There's a point between sleeping and waking when I hear the gentle voice of a woman. She reminds me of my mother. She calls me her darling and brushes my hair back from my face. It's a small motion, but it gives me the most comfort. The day always seems brightest when she calls to me.

"Darling, Trowa."

"Do you remember me? Do you remember who I am?"

"You haven't forgotten me already have you?"

"What's that you say?"

"You love me? Is that it? Is that what you want to tell me?"

"You wish that you had a chance to get to know me? To see me everyday?"

"Darling, Trowa." She says. The purr in her voice this time reminding me of someone else. "You talk so softly in your sleep."

The End

(*whew* It's over. Over! Let me tell you this was another bizarre creation that spilled out of my head onto the paper and I almost wish I wasn't responsible for it's outcome. But still, I do like Alternate Reality. And I love Heero/Trowa fics. Let me know what you think.)

(:./jillian/words)