Author's Note: Thank you for being so patient with me, your lovely reviews were great. I had a really rough semester at College and I could not afford the time away from my schoolwork to write. I had hoped to have a couple of weeks of free time in which to work on my fics but that is not to be, I start work on Sunday night on the midnight shift. I will try to get some work done on the next chapter of this fic and Malaise but no promises. The only thing I can promise is I will finish them eventually. I have started playing with the idea of working this story into a linked series of fics around all five of the pilots and the idea of there being a leak in the Doctors' information network. But that will be in the future. Enjoy the chapter and until next time happy reading.

Warning: Heero is very OOC in this fic, as he has actual emotions. As we saw in Endless Waltz he does have feelings and a conscience but they are buried beneath some serious mental baggage.

As The Snow Comes Down

By Wavewalker

Chapter 5

Heero let his body, work on autopilot as he prepared lunch for himself and Duo; his mind was busy going over the events of the past hour. He was pleased with Duo's reaction to his tentative advances and they reaffirmed his decision to leave of his mask of the perfect soldier while they were stuck here. He had told Duo that they could get out at any time but in all likelihood the trap door was just as buried as the cabin as no sound of wind could be heard, as there would be if the roof were clear of snow. There was no point in needlessly worrying Duo at this time, as he had said they had plenty of food, water and fuel for both the fire and gas stove and oven.

He became aware that there was no sound coming from behind him, he turned to check on Duo and found him asleep again. Heero frowned as he considered Duo's condition; he was lethargic, very pale, hypoglycaemic and exhausted. He mentally ran through the last few missions that Duo had been assigned, his frown deepened as he realized that Duo had been on five missions in the last week. If you factored in travel time Duo would have likely had approximately four to six hours down time between missions and probably very little time during the missions for things like sleep and food. Add to that the stress of not knowing if the information they received from the Doctors was accurate doubled the tension since the potential for traps was higher. This forced downtime is was likely the best thing that could have happened, the Doctors knew their position and would not send them any missions until contact could be re-established after the storm.

They canned beef stew was finished so he ladled out two servings into the waiting bowls and placed them on a tray already containing a basket of sliced bread and a dish of butter and the necessary cutlery. He paused and turned to the refrigeration unit and pulled out a jar of raspberry jam, he had noted that Duo often had bread and jam as a snack and preferred raspberry to other flavours. The sugar in the jam would help boost his blood sugar level and the rest of the food would prevent it from crashing again. He poured two glasses of water, placed them on the tray and carried it into the living area.

Heero carefully set the tray on the ground out of the way in case Duo woke up on full alert and left the bed in a rush this morning's violent awakening reinforcing his natural caution. Heero move to the end of the bed bumped the mattress with his knee while calling Duo's name. He was tensed ready to evade or deflect any attacks Duo might make and was pleasantly surprised when all Duo did was jerk his head up but relaxed when he identified Heero as the one who awakened him.

A small smile appeared on Duo's face as he slowly settled himself in a more upright position against the pile of pillows behind him. The smell of the food was making his mouth water and his stomach growl quite loudly causing his to blush slightly. At the sound Heero looked up at him from his crouched position by the tray, one of his eyebrows rose upward and the corner of his mouth twitched up as well as he remarked, "I must make note to make sure you are fed before missions involving stealth, your stomach would give away your position very quickly."

As this statement was delivered in a serious tone of voice it took Duo a few seconds to realize that Heero had actually attempted to make a joke. Duo eyes widened and his smile stretched into a grin as he chuckled in response. He watched as Heero settled the tray on the middle of the bed and carefully climbed on behind it. He scanned the contents of the tray and smiled when his eyes landed on the raspberry jam, the first real jam he had ever eaten had been raspberry. One of the Sweepers had come back from a vacation on earth not long after he had met Dr. G; she had shared one of the ridiculously expensive jars with the entire ship. It was one of his fondest memories of his time training with Dr. G, the old reprobate weird training methods, most of which did not lead to happy memories.

Duo smiled once again when Heero passed him one of the bowls and a spoon. Duo curled himself into the pillows behind him and dug into the first real meal he had had in days. Before he knew it he had cleaned out the bowl, he blushed slightly when he realized just how fast he had eaten. Heero just set down his own bowl and held out his hand for Duo's; with it in hand he rose and returned to the kitchen to dish up another portion. This courtesy left Duo a little stunned; his smile of thanks was shaky.

Duo ate this bowl at a much more sedate pace, glancing at Heero from beneath his lashes the whole time. Instead of his usual stone face Heero had much softer expression on his face, there were no drastic changes really only a general relaxing of his facial muscles. It was his eyes though that contained the greatest changes, they had lost their icy hostility and Duo would swear they had deepened in colour as if they really had had a layer of ice on them before. Duo stared down at his empty bowl lost in thought, over Heero's new openness. He could feel hope rising within his heart, he struggled vainly to squash it before it got any bigger. He loved Heero but would not jeopardize his friendship with the Japanese pilot; it had taken him too long to gain that tentative friendship to risk it all on a couple of hints of softer feelings that Heero might harbour for him.

His musings were interrupted by a piece of bread spread with butter and jam into his field of vision. His eyes snapped up to meet Heero's and he was once again shocked at the amount of emotion to be found there, that and the slight smile hovering on Heero's lips. He numbly accepted the bread and nibbled on it slowly his thoughts once again drifting off into space. He barely felt Heero remove the bowl from his lap and leave the bed to return the dishes to the kitchen. At the shifting of the mattress signalling Heero's return Duo blinked his vision back into focus and found Heero much closer than he expected. Their faces were only centimetres apart.

"You have a bit of jam right there." Heero murmured raising his hand to touch a spot to the left side of Duo's lips. Heero's next action caused the braided pilot's breath to catch and his heart to start pounding, as Heero had slowly leaned in and licked the smudge of jam from his face. Deep blue eyes met violet as Heero gently skimmed his lips over Duo's before pulling back to gauge his reaction.