title: The Steps Between
part: 1/1 complete
date: 24 September 2007
author: Thanatos_Aire (Airi M.)
contact: death. in. a. box13 (at) gmail .com
archived?: FFN, .com, GWU (soon)
genre: Shin Kidou Senki Gundam Wing
rating: PG13/teen
warnings: dark, grief/death elements, Heero POV, Prevs-era (post-EW), brief cussing
cast: 1x2 friendship, past 2552
notes: I'm not sure where this came from, or even if it makes sense to anyone else. Lesighe.
trailer: Heero's latest assignment connects some dots to form an image he'd really rather not have to deal with. Random NCCs.
disclaimer: I don't own, claim to own, make profit off the use of, or even have permission to borrow any canon or otherwise copyrighted elements contained herein
it's the journey, not the destination, that really matters
--anonymous
I pick my way through to the upright icebox. There's mold or mildew of some sort all over the division of fridge and freezer, and I cautiously pull the doors open.
The freezer is completely empty of even frost. The fridge contains nothing but fuzzy Chinese take-out and an empty wine bottle on its side. There's a milk carton in the door, the cardboard lip popped open, but the contents are a solid mass on the bottom. I close the doors.
"Any idea what happened?"
Roscoe shakes her head, flipping through the piled up but unopened mail scattered on the coffee table. Empty liquor bottles clatter to the rug as the papers shift. "Partner was killed. IA said it wasn't his fault, but you know how it is."
I grunt, flipping on the light in the washroom. "I've got pills."
My current Preventers partner -- and longest lasting, somehow -- comes in to view the scene. "Anti-depressants, sleep aides, anti-anxiety, mood stabilisers… Are you allowed to have all this at once?"
"Not from a single doctor."
She catches my frown and tilts her head. "You all right, Yuy? You've looked a little pale ever since we got this call."
I shake it off, examining the bathtub. "There's no blood, I think we can rule out self-injury."
Her infinite-seeming patience is a blessing, as Roscoe simply nods. She understands my quirks, knows that whatever this is it won't interfere with the assignment. It's probably why she's the only partner I haven't kicked out of Preventers, much less switched to a new rookie from.
I'm leaving the washroom when the vidcomm trills. It stops me in my tracks, hand on the butt of my gun in the holster at my hip. The answering machine picks up and the disembodied voice announces that the utilities are on final notice.
The last time my own vidcomm rang, it was Duo crying.
"The water's already been shut off," Roscoe's voice breaks through. "The letter's in that pile. Comp Rec's said he's got plenty in the bank, so it's not as if there was no money to pay the bills."
"He didn't even read through half his mail." I remind her, standing over by the far wall where plaques are hung. "He was probably too depressed and then too zombied from the drugs to care about writing out the cheques."
She goes into the small bedroom as I study the framed certificates and blocks of brass and wood. Outstanding Achievement, medals and honours and merits galore, a Hero of the Year… A few are facedown on the floor, the frames dented with broken beer bottle glass scattered around them.
"He was a good cop." She hums in response from the other room. "Why didn't anyone notice this before it got too bad?"
Roscoe leans into the doorway with a badge in her hands. "They all figured he needed time," she wisted icily, "Said he was the type who took care of his own problems and didn't need or want anyone else interfering."
My chest tightens. I pointedly keep my gaze from the collection of photographs on the shelves nearby, recalling how Duo had always had a thing about filching pictures of everything and everyone. He would laugh and frame it on the wall until there was no room and he had to put them on the countertops.
The last time I had been there, he had taken them all down.
He did give up one for the memorial service though, a stolen late-night image of Wu Fei curled up in an easy chair with his glasses falling off his nose, a book open in his lap as he slept.
"And I guess he was kinda a loner anyway, never went out with the other cops for a drink after work." Roscoe snorts, "Kinda like you, Yuy."
I don't grace her with a reply, and like always, she ignores it. Pretends she never went down that road -- she knows me too well maybe.
"I think I found a suicide note,"
I turn, blinking away the sudden sting in my eyes. Roscoe gives me a peculiar look but says nothing about it, just rests her hand on my shoulder surreptitiously while showing me the ragged page. The ink was smeared, the handwriting nearly illegible, and cross-outs covered most of the note, but phrases like "I'm sorry" and "it's all my fault" and something that could have been "he haunts my dreams" could be picked out.
We peruse it for some moments, my keen eye noting the jerked angles of the lettering. I shake my head, "The writing's different. It doesn't match the handwriting LLE has on file."
Roscoe turns it over and there's a byline reading that it was in fact from him to "whom ever it may concern". She takes up the two-way mounted on her belt and asks for the file. It takes a few minutes, but we discover his hand had been broken in that last assignment.
She tucks the note in a clear bag with a frown and shows me the badge. "On the pillow,"
It's not his number.
"It wasn't buried with him? Or kept for the memorial?" She shrugs and goes back to the living room. I look around the apartment with a sigh, brows knitted. The garbage is piling up, cheap plastic vodka bottles strewn on the sofa with half a case of flavoured waters, the dishes all older than a few days -- he hadn't been eating at all by now then.
I go to the small desk in the corner, finding the tower's light blinking but the monitor off. I depress the button, and it flickers into life. The light floods the dim room, and I sit down in the chair with the broken armrest, intending on searching the computer for any incriminating files.
I don't have to go far.
A document had been left up, the cursor blinking where his signature would go at the end: a letter of resignation. Personal matters, it outlined, pointing directly to that last assignment he had been on. The death of his partner was too traumatic to continue the line of work -- they'd been together for a decade or more, were family. Comrades like that, you don't forget so easily.
I swallowed, looking away as I selected the print command. It had been almost fifteen years since Operation Meteor, and as little time as we spent with each other these days, the other pilots are still at the top of my kinship list. In case of emergency, please contact the following people: Quatre Winner, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Bloom, Wu Fei Chang, Relena Dorlian, Sally Po…
No, I still haven't taken Wu Fei off.
Trowa had made a quiet comment about never doing it, and Duo had said nothing.
At that, we made sure Duo's file had our contact information, and left it at that. All this time… maybe no news is good, but… I always used to get photos in the mail; inane tourist-y snaps of random things that caught his eye. The last fat envelope or attachment-loaded email I remember receiving was before--
"Address book. Partner's family outnumbers his own,"
I hand over the letter, "He didn't have family. Just colleagues from the force and some old girlfriend. Partners are more family than relatives half the time, they probably--"
Roscoe shakes her head as I stop, looking questioningly at that peculiar look again. I snort. "Just because you've been here longer than any of the other nitwits I've been paired with doesn't make us obligated to each other," I warn, but she waves it off knowingly. Sometimes I think she's too smart for her own damn good, with a base understanding of people that rivals Duo's.
It used to drive me crazy, how he could always read everyone so well. Then I admired it, and now I'm not so sure if he could even recognise it lately.
"There's a suitcase laying open, looks like part of a set. Can't tell if he packed, since the whole place is a mess."
"A cop wouldn't forget to tell someone about leaving. Especially since he was due back on active."
She shrugs and slides the few bags into a brown paper grocery-bag. "Maybe he didn't have anyone to tell. Everyone he knew was either a cop who thought he needed space or a loved one of his dead partner. I don't imagine either party being particularly receptive, at least in his mind."
After a moment, I hear her pause. Roscoe leaves the bag to take my elbow, giving me a look that dares me to shake off her hand. "What's wrong, Yuy? Christ, you're paler than--"
The door opens. She turns, gun in hand, and I feel too vulnerable with my back to the entrance but cannot bring myself to turn around. Her breath catches and I hear her handgun sliding back into the holster.
"Hey. We were wondering where you were," she tried gently, walking further from me towards the door. "You okay, detective? You had half your department scared witless,"
He whimpers something, and I finally turn. He looks like hell: eyes sunk with papery skin and limp, greasy hair. His clothes are a dirty mess, a bag of more alcohol and what could be peanut butter in his arms. He looks surprised; then again, no one's bothered to even ring him for almost three months.
I don't think I've spoken to Duo since the funeral...
Roscoe takes him by the bicep casually, trying not to pity the no-longer-missing man overtly, and leads him to a clear spot on the sofa. His glassy eyes glance at me and know. I can tell.
I turn away, the situation finally too much, heading for the hallway as Roscoe uses the two-way to call it in and request an ambulance. She says my name as I'm halfway out of the apartment, but I shake my head, pulling out my mobile without looking back.
"It's Heero. Pick up the phone." She's taking his bag, tucking it away and talking to him in a soft voice. He shakes his head, looking miserable with a downcast face. "Maxwell, pick up the curséd phone."
A click. "Yeah?"
It's faint, tired. All this time…?
"I'm inviting myself over for dinner. What do you want me to pick up?"
There's a long pause. "Chinese?" Duo asks softly, proddingly, disbelievingly almost, "The real stuff, from that place Fei liked downtown?"
"Anything else? Shampoo, food for the cupboard?"
Another unending silence. Roscoe's handing the man a glass of water and a tissue. Then, "Yeah."
I nod to myself, blinking and swallowing. I'm worried that means I'm too late, so I tell him that I'm moving in for a while and if he has any extra blankets.
"Just the one Fei's grandmother gave us."
"Keep that on your bed, I'll bring my own. Expect me around six, and don't clean up or anything."
"But--"
She's leaning out the doorway, still talking to the wayward detective inside. Roscoe hands me a tissue and waves to the stairwell as the elevator dings. I nod and leave her alone in the apartment to walk away, other officers and paramedics coming out of the lift to join them. She'll push later, after I've taken care of it, but not now. There's a reason she's lasted so long with me.
"No. And Friday, we'll fly out to Quatre's. Tro should be up there with the circus, and I'll ring Po to see if she can make it to L-4 as well. We can all spend the weekend together."
"… Why?"
It takes a moment to put the feelings into words as I sit on the stairs. "Because I don't want to go through losing you like you are over Wu Fei. You don't need anymore space or time alone and I'm your friend dammit. At least, you were always mine and it's about damned time I return the favour."
When I get there, arms laden with bags of food and living supplies, Duo is in the middle of hanging all his picture frames back up on the empty wall.
fini--