Dealing With It
A story varying between being reflective and action-oriented
Note: This will hopefully become much bigger. Please foster it with R&R!
I do not own Gundam Wing.
Long hair has always just been a part of me. I don't think I could ever cut it off – not just for the obvious sentimental reasons, but just because everyday living would become an alien practice… falling asleep at night without the blanket of hair there against my neck; taking a shower without having to wash it all; going to the bathroom and worrying about making sure the braid didn't go in the toilet, only to realize it wasn't there. Those sorts of things. Routine little motions that I don't even think about now, I would start thinking about. I'm not ready for that kind of life-changing situation.
It can get annoying. Sometimes, I wish it would take care of itself. However, I can't just leave it untended or it would only become more of a mess. So, every morning, I sit on the edge of my bed, staring in the mirror I mounted on the wall – a plain little glass mirror, just for this purpose – and brush the entire mass of long, brown hair. The entire process of this brushing, followed by the braiding probably takes me about half an hour. I'm a rough sleeper – I get knots. Any girl – or guy -who's suffered the tats, rats' nests, and tangles that accompany long hair can tell you that getting them out isn't something to be rushed, or else you lose half the hair and most of your scalp in the process. And how am I supposed to be cheery all day following ripping my hair out? So I take my time.
Not that I really am cheerful all day. I try to be, I really do. Most of the time, I'm dandy – I have a job, a girlfriend, and a small but trustworthy number of friends… but when you've lived through what I've lived through, there are always moments when you just can't keep it up. The memories come back. It's at these moments when I can't bear to look in the mirror, because I'm afraid. I know what I'll see if I look there – a worn out, traumatized, scared little street kid named Duo Maxwell, the side of me that I can't share with anyone, not even myself. Because if I admit to myself that he's there, if I look at the mirror and stare him straight in the eyes, I'll lose myself to him and I'll never come back. So I only look in the mirror when I'm in a good mood.
This evening, I come home from work in a good mood, but tired. I flop down on my bed and close my eyes for a few moments, taking the time I need to relax and wind down. When I'm ready, I sit back up, thinking of dinner, and my reflection faces me. I smile. The sunny Duo inside the mirror smiles back. The rest of the day will be easy, and there's nothing on my mind other than the fresh air coming in from the open window and the fading sunlight peeking in through the curtains. That is, until I hear gunshots outside.
Gun violence in downtown L2 is not unheard of, but my mind still reels from the shock of the sound – one I haven't heard in months, at least not outside of a training facility. I bolt to the window at once, muscles tensed and brain alert. I fling the curtain aside as I stare out my first-floor window at the sidewalk. I guess I didn't think of the danger – I just reacted. My soldier instincts of self-preservation are obviously rusty. What I see outside is a man wielding a gun, wearing a uniform I don't recognize. It surprises me to see that no one is lying wounded in the street, there are only terrified people either frozen in place or running from the scene. What surprises me most of all, though, is what I hear next. The gunman turns to me, having seen me appear out of the corner of his eye, and grins the grin of a man who's found what he's looking for. "Zero Two," he laughs. "There you are…" Before I have time to react, two bullets are through me and I'm flopped on my bed again, wet with blood. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, upside down. There he is. The Duo Maxwell I had hidden away so well is staring at me in the mirror, telling me, "I knew this would happen someday." I find that I cannot face him any longer, and my eyes close for me.
-
"Mr. Maxwell? Mr. Maxwell, can you hear me? We're taking you to the hospital. You're going to be fine, but you've got to hang in there. All right? Come on Duo, hang in there." Aspen was used to calling those under her care by "mister" if they were of adult age, which according to his ID, this young man was. However, by the looks of him she would have guessed him only to be sixteen or seventeen, so she by nature wanted to call him by his first name. His face was round and a bit childlike, though handsome. She had wondered, upon taking charge of the scene, why anyone would feel it necessary to shoot this youth, who according to witness accounts was unarmed and unwarned? Even in the downtown of L2, the roughest colony in space, gun violence was two-sided, usually due to gang wars. This man… boy?… was shot out of nowhere, in his own home. Why?
Her questions were pushed out of her mind by the sudden coughing of her patient. She was surprised, mostly since he hadn't shown any signs of consciousness since her arrival at his home. She had heard shouts for help, but those were from the bystanders who had watched the gunman flee and were now standing helplessly by the boy, not having any first aid experience. Her own doctoral, and perhaps maternal, instincts had come into play upon hearing someone was hurt, and she rushed down the street, leaving a half-downed coffee upon the café table, never to be finished. He was in bad shape when she got there, but he was breathing, and she set to staunching his wounds as best as she could with the linens present, not finding a first aid kit anywhere in the room or adjacent bathroom.
Now, she bent over the ambulance's gurney to look down into her patient's eyes. Another surprise. His eyes were a blue she had never seen before, bordering on violet. He spoke as she appeared above him. "Who are you?"
"I'm Dr. Aspen Forth, Duo. You're on your way to the hospital. You've been badly wounded by gunfire, do you remember?"
Duo nodded, but confusion dominated his pale features. "Why…?"
Her brow crinkled at that. "I don't know," she sighed. "But don't worry about that now. You need to get better, first."
Another nod, and then the violet eyes closed again.
-
Quatre sat at his desk located on the 79th floor of his office building. He was completing his reviews of the company's financial status, eyeing the upward-streaming charts with eyes sore from staring at the screen for the majority of the afternoon, and now evening. In the bottom right hand corner of his screen, the latest news headlines popped up in a continuous stream. The one that came up most recently was "Man Shot in Downtown L2," which would not usually have caught Quatre's eye. Any form of violent headline that related to that colony was no longer shocking or surprising. But Quatre's empathic tendencies caused alarm bells to go off in his head, and he suddenly felt very ill. Clicking on the headline, Quatre's eyes raced through the article, his mind going faster, taking in street names, times, and circumstances, until the ex-pilot's fears became more and more valid with each sentence. Not even having finished the article, Quatre's hand landed on the phone and brought it up to his ear. "Rachel," he said to his secretary over the line, "Please get me Trowa Barton."
The phone rang into his ear and Quatre shook a little, with each second growing more tense. Then a calm, clear voice spoke. "Hello?"
"Trowa," Quatre sighed into the phone. Although he thought he sounded normal, at least as normal as he could manage, Trowa obviously picked up the tension in his voice.
"Quatre? What's wrong?"
"It's…" Quatre stared at the article in front of him. "It's Duo. Have you heard from him today at all?"
"I got an email from him at work," Trowa responded.
"When?"
"About 3:00. Why, Quatre? Tell me what the matter is."
Quatre scanned the article for the time of the shooting and grimaced. "Trowa, I think Duo was shot. There was a headline, and I just have this feeling… Duo still lives in that apartment on L2, right?"
"Yes." There was a sound of movement over the phone, followed by the clacking of keys. "I see the article. Quatre, I'll use the Preventer network to search hospital records on L2, to see if he was admitted. I'll also check…" Trowa stopped in his effiency to realize that what he said next would not be comforting.
"The morgue files," Quatre sighed. "I hope that nothing turns up there." In earnest, he silently prayed, 'Please, God, don't let him be dead… not after all this time… after all we've survived.'