The next day Dee was out in one of the practice rooms scrubbing the floors instead of working out. She had just finished when Li Mei came to get her, telling her to take a break before starting the next room. Knowing it would be better to go with her than to argue, Dee followed Li Mei into the kitchen. There, at the table, sat Benny and Trigger, the two clumsily fumbling with chopsticks as they tried to help themselves to the food in front of them. Li Mei pointedly left the room before Dee could protest to her.

"What are you two doing here?" she asked, pulling forks out of a drawer and handing one to each.

They stood, each giving her a quick, clumsy bow of greeting.

"You're not Chinese, so please don't try that again," she said sourly, more irritated at their appearance than anything.

"Sorry, Query," said Benny.

"It's Xiaohu. I'm no longer Query."

"Yes you are." Trigger sat himself down, looking fairly uncomfortable. "We know you and the boss is fightin'. But you gotta come back. You've got it all wrong about what was going on that day."

"I do, do I? And what concern is it if Edward and I had a fight?" asked Dee, leaning on the back of a chair.

"Usually, we don't care if he's fighting with a girl. Makes no difference to us. But we've never seen him like this. He went through a lot of trouble to get the place lookin' nice again just so you'd come back. New carpets, furniture, and all. I'll bet you didn't even notice it when you were there last," retorted Trigger, his voice properly admonishing.

All she had noticed was that there were new towels and things in the bathroom. He was correct that she hadn't noticed anything else. She had been too angry and hurt to see anything but the door.

"So what? I'm sure he'll find someone else in no time," she said with a careless shrug.

Trigger stood now, towering over her. "You don't get it, do you? He doesn't want anyone else anymore! He never wanted to see those two come back. I called him to have him come over to get rid of them because me and Benny both knew that you'd be mad if you saw them there. We couldn't do anything about the mess they made, but we were gonna leave that up to the boss to decide. Instead, you went and left him. Do you know how long it took us to get those two off of him? They handcuffed him, planning to do like they always did to him."

Dee looked up at him, confused. "Do what they always did? What was it that they always did?" she asked, curious, but uncertain if she really wanted to know.

"You wanna know?"

She took a deep breath and nodded.

"Sit down and we'll tell you," Trigger said, pulling a chair out for her.

"First tell me why you're being so nice to me, and asking me to come back?"

"Because you got him to treat us as more than fetch and carry dogs. We respect that." Trigger piled more food on his plate, shoveling some into his mouth before continuing. "Now you gonna listen, or you gonna ask more questions?"

"I'm listening," she said, refilling the teacups.

Trigger nodded for Benny to talk while he ate. "We know he slept with three of the girls that worked for him. And we know that he thought that they liked him for something more. At first, anyway. Mr. Nigma isn't dumb, and he knows when he's being duped. Only he has a weakness for a pretty face. These girls had him wrapped around their little fingers. The worst were Nina and Diedre, the two who you saw. They were once Echo and Query."

"He gave me the same name as one of them?" she asked, feeling bile rise in her throat.

"He uses the same names a lot. Query has always been a name he's liked, so he uses that one the most. Trust us that he doesn't make any link between you and the others. You're the only one he's ever shortened it to 'Q' for." Benny drained the tea, and Dee automatically refilled it out of habit. "But those two had been working as a team for a long time. He found them together. They tried to rob him one night after he had just robbed a convenience store. He wasn't as big then as he is now. He offered them jobs, promising big money. And he came through on that.

"The longer he was with them, the more they realized that they could mess with him, and he'd fall for anything. So long as they looked pretty and talked nice while doing it, he'd give them anything. After a while, they decided to see what would happen if they slept with him. Then it was the same as the other girl. Things started disappearing. Money, those little things... What are they called, Trigger?"

"Cufflinks and tietacks. Mr. Nigma had a real nice collection of them in the safe. Some of them had jewels in them. Most of them were solid gold or silver, shaped like question marks to go with his suits."

"Those things, yeah. They also started takin' all the money from our wallets, and we found out that they were making him give them a lot more than their share. We had to work more and more jobs just to try to make a profit. Then one day when we were out, the girls..." He paused, looking at Trigger, silently asking if he had to be the one to tell her.

"We came back to find the boss 'used' and roughed up. Everything worth anything was gone. The safe was empty, and all our stashes of money were gone. Me and Benny made the mistake of having some fun with the girls once or twice. They knew where we kept everything. After that, we made the boss swear that he wouldn't bring home another girl to join the gang. For a long time, he didn't. Avoided women, in fact. There was that stuffy woman, but she didn't last long. Then Isley got her hooks on him. We don't know what happened, just that he came home the next morning, muttering to himself about how he was worried he'd be getting the 'Green Flu.' See, anyone who's with her, and then displeases her, she makes them miserable. That's why we call it the Green Flu. He was lucky though, and managed to avoid her until he knew he was in the clear.

"We thought he was definitely done after that. Then you came home with him one night. Things changed after that. We didn't trust you for a long time. Truthfully, it wasn't until halfway through the trip we started to respect you." Trigger shrugged. "You have to understand that after everything we saw, we didn't think you'd be any different. We know now that you are, and we'd rather have you come back than give him the chance to be swindled by another girl."

Dee sat there stunned. Was she hearing them right? "So you're saying that you approve of me being there." She felt like these two were children, telling the woman who would be their stepmother that they were ready to accept her being with their father.

"That's what it boils down to. If anything, just come back and talk to him, please? If you two wanna go your separate ways after that, fine. The man hardly leaves his study anymore. We know he showed up here. Benny and me had people looking for you. We heard rumors that you were around here, so we made certain he heard us talkin' about it. It got him moving. He took the first shower he had taken since the day you left. Do you know that he sat around in the same clothes for two weeks?"

"No. I didn't. That isn't like him at all," she said, disapprovingly. She realized she was being hypocritical. After all, Li Mei had had to force her to bathe and eat.

"Of course it isn't like him! He's one of the cleanest guys I know! All he did was drink all the scotch in the place and listen to country music. Do you have any idea how annoying that stuff is?! We had to listen to it for two weeks!" He shot her a glare, clearly laying the blame for that on her. "But he heard us mention you were here, so he got himself cleaned up, and came down."

"He did. I didn't talk to him. He took off."

"So we noticed. He came back to the warehouse more paranoid than when he left! Had a big bag with him filled with more scotch. Locked himself in the study and proceeded to get roarin' drunk again! I'll have you know that the man is still sitting in that suit he came to see you in."

She set her jaw, glaring back at him. "It isn't my fault!"

"Yes! Yes it is your fault! Were you too busy that you couldn't give the guy a half hour to talk to you? Maybe if you had sat down with him, you could've gotten him to eat. He hasn't done that either the whole three weeks. Or didn't you notice that he's lost weight? Whenever he's been down about a girl, he usually will go to the Iceberg and drink. A few hours, or a few days, and he's over her. But not this time."

That she had noticed. The suit he wore hung loosely on him, and his cheeks looked sunken. But she hadn't realized that he had had nothing at all to eat since she left.

"Quit actin' like the guy means nothing to you. We were there when those guys threatened to hurt him. Who do you think it was that buried those three?" snapped Benny. Dee and Trigger looked at him, surprised by the outburst from the generally quite man.

The two stood, leaving Dee sitting in the seat, feeling small once again.

"We need to get back and make certain he isn't drunk and wandering around again. You're both pigheaded, and one of you has to give. Think about what we said," Trigger said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Tell the lady thanks for the food."

Barely nodding, she continued to stare at the tabletop feeling herself shrink further in her seat. She watched the smears of sauce on the plates congealed as they cooled as the minutes passed, feeling like hours.

{Well, those men certainly spoke some sense. And I think that you're ready to hear sense, finally,} Li Mei said, coming over and rubbing Dee's shoulders.

{How long have you been there?}

{Long enough. Before you ask, yes, I was listening the whole time. Someone needed to since we aren't certain you even know how to listen to reason anymore.}

{I listened to you and Tangram yesterday.}

{You did. I realize it's a big step for you, growing up. But we all need to at some point.} She took up the dishes and the empty teapot. {Those boys certainly know how to eat. It's a shame they didn't take some home to Edward. He likes these little potstickers.}

{You heard them. He wouldn't have eaten it. He hasn't had anything to eat.}

{Yes. Just like you the first week. Also just like you, he isn't taking care of himself. What did Li Rong tell you when you were little?}

Dee tilted her head up to look at the Chinese woman. {That a woman holds a great power over a man. That when I found someone, I would take care of him because I wanted to, not because I had to.}

{Yes. Did she also tell you that he would care for you just as much? He might not always show it, but he will. Men never do well showing their feelings, and are sometimes worse at expressing them. They learn of ways to say the things with gestures that simply won't come out of their mouth. What has he done for you?}

{They said he cleaned the place up, bought new stuff... Oh, Li! What good is that when we're just going to keep fighting when these pieces of his past keep popping up at all the wrong times?!} she sobbed.

{My dear, I think it is time that I told you what Edward said when he was here last week.}

Bringing a fresh pot of tea to the table, Li Mei sat and slowly told her all that Eddie had said. Li Mei knew it would hurt her to hear it. She attempted to comfort the girl with tea and candied melon rind, a particular favorite of Dee's since childhood. Though she wept quietly, Dee listened to everything.
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