Melody puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast. She loved the chibis, but they sure seemed to attract messes! Next time she asked John to cook for them, she would have to remember to specify, 'No oatmeal!'. She was busy wiping down the table and chairs, after finally getting the walls clean, when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!!" an excited voice rang out and a braided chibi bounded down the stairs. Melody just shook her head and smiled as she heard Chibi Duo open the door and start talking to the visitor. After a few minutes of what sounded like a thrilling conversation, he entered the kitchen, tugging another familiar figure behind him.

"Look'it who came to visit!" he exclaimed, pointing to his older counterpart.

The older Duo just grinned at her. Melody gave him a searching look. "Well, it's nice to see you, Duo, but might I ask why the honor today? I thought you wanted to work on your Gundam this week."

Duo shrugged with an almost embarrassed grin. "Well, I thought I'd come by and say hi and all. Ya know, see how I'm doing and everything."

Melody raised an eyebrow at that. "So Du's on the warpath again, right?"

He laughed a bit nervously. "I wouldn't exactly call it that, but she wasn't too happy with the radio I installed in her car. I mean, she actually did ask me to install it, so I thought I'd add a few things while I was working on it. Granted, she can't pick up anything but AM right now, but I can fix that, if she just gives me some time! She's really not in a good mood today, though, so I thought I should clear out for a while."

"Is that all?" she asked him, placing one hand on her hip.

"Well, now that you mention it, and ya know I hate to ask this, but you wouldn't happen to have a spare bed I could borrow for a few days, would ya?" He gave her his most charming smile with this question, while Chibi Duo stood uncharacteristically silent to one side with a hopeful expression on his face.

"Heero wouldn't let you borrow his safe house?"

He shook his head. "Naaa. He just laughed when I asked. Of course, that could be because he's rather annoyed with me for hotwiring his car a few weeks ago, but I can't be sure about that."

Melody rolled her eyes. She looked at the two Duos, each wearing an identical artfully innocent look. 'Two of them!' she thought to herself. 'But I just can't say no.' She sighed as she said, "You can sleep on the sofa for a few days. But I'll need you to help out around here."

"No problem! What ya got that needs fixing?" he asked eagerly.

"No, there's nothing that needs fixing!" she said quickly, wanting to head off that train of thought. Not that Duo wasn't good at fixing things; in fact, he was very good at working with machines. But his desire to upgrade things sometimes caused disasters. She didn't want to lose the use of the furnace, for example, or some other necessity, for any length of time, no matter how good his intentions were. "However, you can give me a hand by watching the chibis. Think you can handle it?"

"Oh sure! Hey, if I can raise myself, the others can't be that bad!"

Melody just smiled knowingly as Chibi Duo launched into his usual victory dance; he very likely would have burst into flames if he had been quiet for any longer. This was probably a record. "C'mon, I'll show ya the Nurs'ry! You'll love it 'cause it's in black and it's really cool!"

Duo grinned and allowed himself to be steered away. "Sounds neat, little dude. Let's see what's up there!" The two headed upstairs, talking rapidly to each other. Melody just shook her head again. This was going to be an interesting couple of days.