December 2nd

Fandom: Gundam Wing

Pairing(s): Duo

Dedication: This one's for RoseWalker.

The L2 cluster wasn't rich like the L4 or L5 colonies. Its weather replication system functioned solely to bring their plants to maturity, to ripen fruits and vegatables so that they could be picked and so they could rely just a little less on the expensive imports. Summer, autumn, winter, spring all passed with only a slight variation of temperature. The boy crawling out of the facility by a carelessly left unlocked window had never had a need for more than a long sleeved tshirt to keep him warm at this time of year. He was already out the gates and into the city by the time they realised that he wasn't going to be coming back from his bathroom break. He didn't care. They clothed him, fed him, sure. Hell they were even teaching him things other children would never know but he wasn't stupid. Duo Maxwell was no one's tool, and he wasn't about to spend today with more blank faced lab technians.

And hour of running along L2's dangerous back alleys got him there without anyone but the blank faced homeless seeing him and they knew better than to talk about anything they saw on the streets. It was an unwritten rule someone had taught him long ago. Someone with a bright grin he could barely remember now. Grey walls and target practice wiped away a little more each day; if he were honest he couldn't even tell you why he felt compelled to do this on Christmas day of all days. Still, something told him it was important, and he followed that impulse. He followed it all the way over a small overgrown gate and into the bottom end of an old graveyard.

Duo hesitated, and he did not know why. His hands trembled and he forced his legs to unlock, forcing him forward past the rows of paupers graves from a time before the colony could process burnings towards the top of a small incline. Memory crashed down upon him anew as he looked down at the scorched earth, bringing unasked for tears to his eyes.

"No."

He could remember their faces now. Father Maxwell. The Sisters. The other children.

"No!"

He could remember Solo.

In a poor city of blankfaced people, far out in space, one boy dropped to his knees on Christmas morning and wept for those he'd almost forgotten.