Flashing light and an explosion was all Heero could really remember. Very slowly, so as not to agitate any broken bones, he sat up to glare at his surroundings. He was somewhere in northern Russia, covered in freshly fallen snow. The land around him glistened like cut crystal. So pure and untainted. Slowly he reached out his hand as if to touch that purity, but his hand left behind only a bloodstain. It always seemed that way to him. Always striving for perfection, but knowing that all he ever did was destroy it. He stood, looking at the charred remains of his Gundam, Wing Zero. Self-destruct meant you died too, right? Then how come he never died. He always thought that maybe not even death desired him. Off in the distance, brilliant against the snow, something gold glistened like the sun. It was Duo's cross. He remembered back to that morning when he had last seen Duo alive…
"Hee-chan! Be careful! You just about dropped that pot on your foot!" Duo lept up from his seat to take the pot of oatmeal away from him. "Sit down, Hee-chan. Let me serve the food."
"Duo……" Duo just hummed happily as he served the food, his chestnut locks flowing free from their braid. Duo never looked more magnificent than he did that morning. It seemed as if the sunlight danced around him, jealous of his awe-inspiring beauty. He was an angel, Heero always insisted to the voices that plagued him, an Angel come to set us free. He stared for a while, not noticing until Duo began to get upset that he had been talking.
"I'm sorry, Duo…" Duo just laughed, brushing his hair behind his ear.
"It's alright, Hee-chan. If I didn't like it so much, I'd ask you to stop." Heero reached up and pulled the young boy close to him, his face serious, but his eyes glittering in the light.
"Who says I'd listen?" Duo's eyes danced as he curled up on Heero's lap. He removed his cross from around his neck and placed it gently into the other man's palm.
"Take this with you today...f-for luck." He could see the tears welling up in Duo's eyes, momentarily caught off guard by the irony of the God of Death crying for him.
"I'll be just fine, Duo. I swear. I'll come back to you." Slowly Heero stood and kissed that violet eyed angel goodbye, perhaps for the last time. As he was walking out the door, he heard the scrape of the chair against the floor as Duo stood very quickly. Duo's eyes were slightly frightened, and his hands were shaking.
"I-I love you, Heero!" Heero turned and gave him a genuine smile, surprisingly full of warmth.
"I love you too…Duo…" As Heero walked out the door Duo slumped to the floor, burying his face in his hands and crying ever so softly.
Shaking his head, Heero began to dust the snow from his body as he picked up the cross from the snow. As Heero stood something else in the snow caught his eye. It was a piece of Deathscythe, Duo's Gundam. Fear gripped his heart as he rushed over to it, broken bones forgotten. Looking around he realized that all of the wreckage was not from Zero alone, but from Deathscythe as well. Duo, you fool...he thought.
Heero began to search the wreckage carefully for any sign of his one and only. Of his salvation. Perhaps death did not want him, but Duo was quite another matter entirely. He lifted a large piece of the cockpit and nearly collapsed at the sight of what lie underneath. A delicate hand that had once caressed his entire body, that had led him into so many nights of delight and pleasure, now lay lifeless and frozen in an awful shade of blue. Carefully and reverently, although knowing it was all to no avail, he pulled the rest of the wreckage off of Duo's form. Looking down he could feel his jaw clench, a lump forming in his throat and a painfully hot tingle behind his eyes. Duo's eyes amethyst were staring to the sky, unseeing and unblinking, and a large metal rod protruded from his chest. Grasped tightly in his other hand he held his broken escape lever, a sign that he had no intentions of dying. Slowly Heero lifted Duo from the Gundam, having all but forgotten about the searing cold around him and the various broken bones grinding together. Nothing outside could ever compare to the pain he left within. He plucked the rod from his lover's heart and tossed into the pile or wreckage. "Duo, baka…why did you have to do something like that? I told you I'd come back…You didn't need to..."
No response came from the lifeless form, but on the horizon, two bright white orbs began to grow larger. As they neared, Heero could see they belonged to a large Russian made SUV. The men were screaming things at him in Russian, but he didn't understand. He just held Duo's body close, tears forming in his eyes. Three men got out and leveled guns at him as another man stepped from the vehicle. He was a large man, dressed in fine furs and tasteful yet expensive jewelry. Small half-moon spectacles sat on his nose, threatening to slide off as he lowered his gaze to the two young men in the snowy wasteland.
"Who are you?" The man demanded, his voice thick and heavily accented with Russian. Heero looked up at him.
"I am Heero Yuy." They all seemed taken back by this claim. This young boy was the great warrior Heero Yuy? The wanted war criminal? A few of the men in the back began to chuckle to themselves, muttering quietly.
"You must be kidding us, boy?" The man smiled disarmingly, and Heero just glared, returning to his stoic warrior state.
"No…I never kid…" The man passed a large hand over his face wearily.
"You know we have to kill you if you really are, right?"
"Would you?" The desperation in Heero's voice was hardly hidden as he eyed the guns hopefully, almost hungrily. Once again the man was left in a confused stupor.
"You…want to die?" Heero nodded, gripping the hand of his fallen angel.
"Without him, I am nothing…" The man took a moment to puzzle over this, looking from the dead boy to the still living one. Slowly he nodded, gesturing to the men behind him and shouting something in Russian.
"Alright, boy. We shall do as you ask us. In Russia at least, we understand such needs. Sleep well, Yuy." The man turned and climbed back into the vehicle. As the soldiers lowered their guns at him a large siren went off and several international planes landed around them. A sneering voice came over the intercom, as if barely hiding laughter and contempt.
"Halt! That boy is ours! You will hand him over to us, Czar Vlemya!" The large weary old man who had spoken with Heero stood inside the open-topped vehicle.
"Let the boy die already! He has been through so much! He deserves at least that!" His thickly accented voice as filled with tightly controlled rage. Heero wondered at this as he looked at the man curiously. Why should he be so concerned about his safety?
"That will be for the courts to decide." Soldiers, lots of them, exited the planes and surrounded Heero. Zechs walked out of the main one, a sneer of contempt on his face. Wufei was right behind him, looking frightened and worried. When he saw Duo's lifeless form, his jaw set and he turned to glare at Heero.
"You did this to him..." Wufei said no more to him, just those few words. The soldiers picked him up leaving his Angel broken and frozen in the snow. Czar Vlemya gestured and two of his men wrapped Duo in a warm wool blanket and placed him carefully into the back as if he were made of glass.
"We'll take care of him for you, Yuy!" Vlemya yelled out to the boy, watching with sad and angry eyes. Heero looked back and though his voice was quiet, all there could hear his words clearly.
"Bury him warm."
The sentence had been given and now the courtroom was thinning out. The trial had lasted months, with families of victims coming to state things and even Dr. J himself. Wufei, wearing only the purest white, as Chinese do to mourn, hissed at Heero as he passed,.
"He trusted you, Yuy...you were who he ran to in the end. I could have protected him! All you ever did was lead him into the maw of danger and death!" Wufei drew up roaring with rage. "YOU NEVER LOVED HIM AS I DID!" Taking a shuddering breath, Wufei tried to stop the tears now flowing freely down his cheeks. "Rot in your hell, Yuy. It's all you deserve." Heero watched his once friend walk out with Trowa in tow. Quatre paused for a moment next to him, chewing on his lip.
"I don't blame you, Heero. It was all meant to happen. But…I...I'll write you, Heero." He sighed and turned, leaving Heero to be carried off to his new lifetime home of cold concrete and iron. Life in prison, when all he had wanted was death. The weeks passed in an agonizingly slow pace, with only the delivery of meals and letters from Quatre to keep him busy. Voices crept to life in his mind, talking to him, hissing and cursing at him. Even they blamed him for it all. He had killed, he knew, but Duo was not his fault! He would never hurt Duo! He had punched the wall many times as he failed to silence the voices, his hands constantly blood stained and covered with scabs.
One day, after a very vocal and violent argument with himself, he received a visitor. Czar Vlemya. The old Russian Czar sat across from him in the cell, his hands in his pockets. He and Heero sat staring at each other for near half an hour, neither one really moving or making a sound. Eventually the Czar cleared his throat.
"Heero…I'm sorry I couldn't kill you out there." Heero said nothing, just staring at him. Vlemya was taken back by home much the boy had wasted away in here. His hair had grown longer, matted and greasy against his head, and he was quite sure that the boy's ribs could be seen from space. Once it became apparent that Heero wasn't going to say anything more, he continued. "We buried Duo in America. We did some research and found where he was born, so we buried him there."
"That's good," the boy said at last, his voice dry and hoarse, part from screaming, part from not drinking. Vlemya visibly winced at the sound, looking solemn for a moment.
"I've brought you something, Heero," he said quietly, his voice full of resolute sorrow.
"What would that be…?" He smirked at the man, sure that any measly trinket he had brought would be as useless as all the times he pounded his fists into the wall. Vlemya pulled his hand out of his pocket and leveled a small pistol at Heero's head.
"Peace, Comrade. Peace…" Heero smiled invitingly as he heard the familiar cracking sound of gunfire, the smell of is burning, and the hot burning metal zipping through his chest. He didn't have time to say a word as he was lowered into a dark abyss, following a pair of violet orbs...