Warning: Time changes a lot in this fic. Whenever there are lyrics, they explain what happened above them, then give the signal for a change in time. Some are a few minutes, a few days, and even one that is about 50 years.
Alleluia- Duo x Hilde songfic
Duo walked through the deserted streets of the colony L2. His holidays - especially Easter - were always spent like this; he was alone with the world, with no one to see and no where to go. The only thing to do was go to the Church and ask forgiveness for his actions, and for letting Father Maxwell and Sister Helen die.
He neared the rebuilt church of his youth, and played his violet eyes over the exact replica of what used to be his home. He was an innocent child then, without knowing of war or death - not even his parents. It was only a few years later that he learned Father Maxwell was not his father; priests of the Catholic religion could not marry or have children.
Music was flowing from the open windows of the Church, organ notes and beautiful chords telling of the Easter holiday. The song ended, softly, beautifully. As soon as Duo walked up the stone staircase that led to the grand wooden doors, another song began, and the chorus of all those inside began to flow through his ears.
Alleluia, Alleluia
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this - the fourth the fifth
The baffled king composing Alleluia
He remembered what it was like to be on that colony, so many years ago. He remembered the sweet fullness of the air, the pure filtered sunlight that was magically artificial. The music came back and filled his ears again as he walked on Earth, years after the wars. There was a mission here for him.
A mission to redirect his future from that ugly revelation that he might, in fact, be alone for the rest of his life. There was someone, however, that he knew would be able to change the lonely and darkness of this boy's soul. Someone who was here on Earth.
Hilde lived in the deep mountainous terrain once called the Rocky Mountains of North America. Now it was deserted, with the only exception of a few people who wished to live there rather than move to the mysterious colonies that had once been so easy to destroy by the swoop of a certain Gundam's scythe. She knew she was safe here, from everything that was man's influence. But she had never expected someone to visit.
That night, she was sitting in her outdoor bathtub, under the vast expanse of the stars. She watched them wink at her knowingly, as if they could remember what happened amongst them just as well as she could.
Duo was in the woods, shivering slightly at the chilly spring air around him. He watched warily as Hilde washed herself, bathing in a sky of stars that sparkled above her. Her hair had grown, he noticed, but she seemed to like it somewhat short - for it was only to her shoulders - as he spared a glance at her nude form.
She got out of the tub, steam rising off her gooseflesh as she rose into the cold air. Something was not right, she thought to herself, looking around the outer edges of the woods around her. No one lived in this part of the mountains, and no one dared to enter her property without promised death.
She hastily threw a towel around her and reached for her gun, which sat on a small table beside the lip of her tub. She aimed it at the precise location that she heard a twig snap.
Without hesitation, she shot into the perilous darkness. A howl rose, low and guttural, from where she fired. There was a man out there.
She jumped off her roof, her towel rising above her thigh and then her stomach in the wind, onto the soft carpet of grass, her feet silenced by the lush blades. Hilde was never afraid of anything - or anyone - until this moment. Her eyes narrowed in the dark to make out any forms in the small amount of moonlight; she waited.
Duo came out of the woods, holding his shoulder. Blood was issuing from the small wound, and it oozed through his fingers and soaked the black jacket he was wearing. He watched as Hilde's gun suddenly pointed upward, then went back to aiming at him.
He was not Duo Maxwell. The man she knew as a teenager was dead. The media told them so. All the pilots had self-destructed in their Gundams after the war with Mariemayia, and hadn't seen them since.
"Imposter!" she yelled, waving the gun at her side, the fist holding her towel up clenched in silent fury. She moved forward, keeping her eyes fixed on his, which were rapidly glazing over. She knew he was losing blood, since she hit an artery, and knew that in just a few seconds he would fall unconscious.
"Come with me," she beckoned coldly. All ready prepared what was ahead of him, Duo shrugged and let go of his shoulder for a moment to rake the other through his hair.
"I'd rather not," she heard him reply, followed by, "and I'm not an imposter."
With that, he was unconscious, falling to the ground.
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
Duo woke up an hour later with a horrible headache and a throbbing shoulder. Instinctively he tried to raise his hand to put pressure on it, but his arms were bound to a chair. He tried to shuffle his feet. They were tied as well. Well, well, he thought. Looking down at his waist, he noticed that a rope was bound three times around it. His thighs were secured to the chair as well.
Whoever tied him here knew about his escape record.
Hilde walked into her kitchen, where she saw Duo fidgeting in one of her wooden chairs. She laughed at herself for not getting a chair made from Gundanium, because she knew that if he was the real Duo Maxwell, he could get out of those binds even if he was strapped to a metal seat.
He noticed her presence and turned his head over his shoulder. "Mind if I ask why you bound me up?"
She scoffed at his ignorance. "You… you pervert!" She rounded his side and slapped him on the cheek, making sure there would be a red blotch of heat there. "I know exactly what you were doing! Spying on a woman in her most vulnerable state! And it's no secret what you were doing in those woods. Your pants might as well have been circling your ankles for all it's worth."
Hilde's hand reached for her back pocket. If Duo's hands - hell, if his whole body - were free, he would have tackled her and kicked the weapon from her grasp. Thinking about getting shot again was not so pleasant.
But it wasn't a gun. What the beautiful, grown, mature woman in front of him held were a pair of scissors.
"Get those things away from me!" Duo yelled loudly, his face mirrored with fear. When he lived with Hilde during the war, she knew that all scissors were to be used somewhere - anywhere else than where he was. His fear of scissors and his hair being caught in them was far too great, and Hilde managed to keep them away from him.
Until now. Was there a reason for this? Sure, his hair might need some trimming, but there was no need for her to cut it while he was conscious. Or maybe it was…
"This is a test, Duo," she said mockingly. Holding the 'deadly weapon' a few inches from his face, she made a snip. "This is to see whether or not you are the man you say you are."
Duo blinked back frustrated tears. She didn't think it was him. Why not? Just because he hadn't come to see her right after the war didn't mean she had to go and threaten him with one of the things he hated most.
She took a few strands of his bangs between her fingers and cut them slowly, keeping an eye on his facial expression. She noticed his eyes were tightly shut, his lips murmuring something she couldn't hear or understand. She slowly started to understand the Japanese he spoke.
"Onegai…onegai…please…no…"
She reached around him and touched his braid, aware of his violent shuddering. Quickly, she released the auburn strands from the braid, running her fingers through it and smoothing out all the tangles that had settled in it since the morning.
Duo kept whispering his plea, drowning out the sound of the scissors that rested in Hilde's hands. When he heard the sound no more, he opened his violet eyes slowly, not wanting to see the destruction of his precious lifeline. What would he do without the prized three-foot braid that swung behind him and helped him in making first impressions?
Hilde was there, inches from his face, watching his eyes. She knew it was him as soon as he bowed his head while she was cutting the ends of his hair, hearing his ragged sob of defeat. She knew he wouldn't jump out of his chair and hurt her, because if he had, it wouldn't have been Duo. He trusted her.
He was Duo Maxwell.
"Look at me, Duo," she said softly, her breath tickling his lips and nose. When he obliged, she got lost in those deep indigo orbs, with their midnight blue flecks. He got lost in hers, and they both just stared in awe of the other.
Something warm collected into a puddle in the pit of her stomach as she watched his heavy-lidded, wet-eyed gaze. She knew one thing: She had never stopped loving him, even after they had came out to say that he was dead. She took a glance down to his full, desirable lips, which she thought screamed "kiss me".
He saw her eyes watch his lips, and he leaned forward, watching her immediately look up into his eyes again. He stopped, the restraints holding him where he was. He couldn't move forward to kiss her, and he was only a mere two inches from her. Suddenly, all his self control left his body. He had to kiss her. And that was that.
Every muscle in his body tensed, and he heard the wood crack in the chair. The chair splintered as he rose, and the shards that dug into his legs didn't hold him back from pushing his mouth onto hers.
Hilde gasped, her open mouth considered an invitation to Duo. She wanted this as much as he did, and she fought to help him out of the ropes he was tied up in. She quickly undid the ropes that bound his wrists together, and as his hands reached up and dug themselves deep into her hair, he panted a soft and rushed, "Alleluia".
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your breath she drew the Alleluia
Moments later, or maybe it was hours, Duo raised his head and brushed it lovingly against Hilde's cheek, looking around the lighted room. He felt he had been in a room like this once, a small, square box. But this one was made into a home, not the bland, ghastly white box that OZ used as an interrogation room. That's what this room reminded him of. The time that Hilde - Officer Hilde - had interrogated him while he was bound to a chair. He got out of that, and coincidentally, he got out of this, too.
Hilde looked up at him, brushing a piece of hair from his eyes. She knew what he needed. Watching him clutch his injured shoulder again, Hilde stroked Duo's arm and kissed him soundly. He purred in her ear. That's just what she'd do.
Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken alleluia
Duo remembered what it was like when he was fifteen, coming home from a long battle and dragging himself through the door. Sometimes he couldn't even make it, but Hilde persisted in taking care of him. She did a good job, and she never asked questions. Not until that night.
He walked through the door and sat down on the hard couch, his eyes full of frustrated tears. He held it back, choking back his yell and cry. She sat beside him then, asked him what was wrong and watched as the tears would brim his eyes as he told of the troubles of the war. She cried with him, too, that night. She sympathized and told him her opinion of what to do. She also added that everything she said was nonsense and she would never know anything about battles or serious wars. But her advice carried through.
Duo gave her advice to G, and he told him what a brilliant thinker he was. The young pilot offered G's thanks to Hilde. Without her, he would be dead.
Sometimes he thought he'd be better off dead, and he told her once, too. She was very worried that he would go out and commit suicide. But he told her as gently and firmly as he could at the same time that he was not looking for death, it was looking for him.
He awoke from the daydream when a slack arm across his midriff rubbed gently, alarming him that the person next to him was waking. Sweat was still present on his brow, and he remembered what he had done less than half an hour before. The bed sheets were in a huge tangle at the foot of the bed, and a body was instinctively cuddled up to fit the outline of his form.
Hilde murmured something to him that he didn't hear, and he asked her tenderly to say it again. She looked up at him then, full trust apparent in her round blue eyes, as she spoke the words he had said before.
"Alleluia."
There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was alleluia
"Hilde, dearest." Duo placed a hand over hers, watching her turn her head away from the beautiful sunset in from of them. His eyes reflected the red in the sun, and she listened as he sang her a song that she thought she heard faintly in the past. Somewhere, a bird descanted his beautiful words, and a few others joined in.
Hilde's eyes brimmed with tears. Now in her late eighties, she and her husband sat side by side on the roof, watching the sun set behind on of the mountains. She remembered the doctor's words as she listened to Duo's emotional song, and recalled his diagnosis of cancer for both of them. They laid here together, for the last time on a blanket on their roof, and he was singing he a seranade of the past.
"I love you, Duo Maxwell."
"And I love you, Lady Maxwell."
She laughed softly, her age making the bell-like laugh of her past crackle with much use and old age. A smile dawned her as the sun melted away into the mountain.
"I think I will kiss you, Duo."
"By all means, do!" She leaned towards him and sealed a final kiss on his dusty lips, enjoying the electric pulse of love that coursed through her. It was not a deep, passionate kiss, but it did last. She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes for a final time, then settled down next to him on the blanket, curling into the curve of his hip.
Without words, they left the Earth, and met again in a secret place that looked like the middle of space, with stars surrounding them forever. The love they shared passed on to their children, and their children… And the memory of Duo Maxwell remained locked away in a grinning cadaver under the soft ground.
At the funeral, the song Duo sang to his wife was played, and it echoed all the way to the heavens, where Duo and Hilde danced. "It's our favorite song," they both said, and waltzed among the numerous stars.
Maybe there's a god above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold, and it's a broken alleluia
A/n: Wow. I think I just surprised myself. ^.^
Disclaimer: I don't own GW or any of it's characters! But maybe someday… just kidding!