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Redemption The Bible on the table was covered with a thick layer of dust. Etched into the dust was the handiwork of a small child, a smiling face followed closely by a tiny heart that really didn't look like a heart at all. The pages of the Bible were crisp with age and disuse, no one opened that Bible anymore. The table surrounding the Bible was littered with water rings from various past drinks left there. A few pictures sat on the table. One was of a smiling little girl with golden curls that looked like silk even in the picture. Another was of the same little girl with her arms around a tall man with a sad smile and a long brown braid. Her tiny dimpled hands clutched his braid as she sat on his shoulders. Hidden by the other two pictures sat another. This one contained two happy boys with their arms around each other. One was the man from the previous picture only younger and the other boy had messy brown hair and piercing blue eyes. The sound of light footsteps jarred the silence of the room. The little girl from the pictures entered the room, followed by the man from the pictures. "Daddy! Daddy! Can we have pizza now?" The braided man, the little girl's father, smiled. "Sure. Only if you help me make it." The little girl clapped, curls abounce. "Yay! Let me change out of my pretty dress first. I don't want to get it dirty." She cocked her finger at her father, as if to tell him that he too should change before making pizza. "Is that man in the pictures coming over tonight, daddy?" The girl's father nodded. "Do you think he'd like to help us make our pizza?" "Of course, daddy! You make the best pizza!" She tugged gently on her father's arm. "Let's go change, daddy." She smiled up at him and skipped off down the hallway to her room. He watched her leave with a wistful expression on his face. He slipped his shoes off his feet and padded down the hallway towards his own room, the thump of his daughter changing in the next room reaching his ears. He smiled secretly to himself. That little girl was the love of his life. Yet, she was the reason he had lost the other love of his life. "Heero..." "Daddy?" The little girl stood at his doorway, staring at her half-dressed father. "Are you sad?" He turned around. "No, sweetie. I'm not sad." He ruffled her curls. "What makes you think I'm sad? I've got my little girl." He scooped her up, spinning her around. She giggled and stared into her father's eyes. "You had the sad face you have when you look at the picture by the big book. Your eyes looked sad, daddy." The man hugged her and set her down. "Let daddy get dressed. Go watch TV for a little while. We'll make pizza when I'm finished." Her eyes searched his face. "Go on, Ashley. Heero will be here soon and we need to be ready." The little girl Ashley ran down the hallway. The sounds from the TV reached his ears and he laughed. Her outfit hadn't matched at all. He sat down on his bed and sobered as he glanced at the picture that sat next to his bed on his nightstand. It was of him and Heero before everything happened... The doorbell rang and jolted him from his reverie. "Daddy! I think Mr. Heero is here." The TV turned off and the front door opened. "Hiya, Mr. Heero." "Ashley!" In his bedroom the man quickly fastened his jeans and pulled a shirt over his head as he walked down the hallway. "Ashley, how many times have I told you not to answer the door without me there?" He came to the front door and found Heero staring at Ashley in unabashed shock with Ashley staring right back. "Ashley, come here." He said this in a hushed voice. Ashley tore her eyes away from Heero and stumbled towards her father, holding her arms out to him. He shook his head. "Haven't I told you not to answer the door without me?" She nodded, glancing every so often over her shoulder at Heero. The man turned his attention to Heero. "Hello, Heero." Heero blinked. "Hello, Duo." He looked at the little girl who now clung to Duo's leg. "She has your eyes. But she looks like her..." He crouched and reached his hand out, almost touching her silky hair but not quite far enough. She turned her face and buried it in Duo's leg. "Her hair color. Your texture." Duo furrowed his eyebrows. "Go play with your dollies, okay, sweetie?" He ruffled her hair, causing her to indignantly smooth down her curls. "I need to talk to Mr. Heero." Ashley's mouth dropped open and her little foot stomped the floor. "But you said we'd make the pizza as soon as Mr. Heero got here." Duo's voice gained a warning tone. "Ashley..." Her lower lip trembled and Duo softened. "We'll make pizza when I finish talking. Promise." He smiled. "Now go play with that new dolly that Uncle Quatre gave you." "'Kay, daddy!" Ashley turned on her heel and ran down the hallway. Soon the sound of dolly conversations could be heard from her room. Duo turned to face Heero, an unreadable look on his face. Part of him was angry with Heero for not believing him when...And part of him was just glad Heero was back. "I think you unsettled her. She's not used to people like you." "People like me?" Heero's lips formed the words but the sound never came out. But he knew that Duo heard him. Duo nodded. "Why now? Why have you come back to me now, Heero?" He paused, doing small calculations in his mind. "It's been almost six years." ----- The mirror was still fogged over from the warm shower. Relena stared calmly at her reflection. She was about to do something drastic. She needed Heero and this was the only way she knew how to go about getting him. It called for many great sacrifices. Her maidenhood, which she had planned on saving for Heero, would have to be compromised. She would have to touch HIM in order to put the plan in effect. She swiped a dark lipstick over her lips, adjusted her hair, and walked out of the bathroom in swift steps. Her purse, containing the most integral part of her plan, slapped against her bare thigh. When Relena reached the bar that was her destination she promptly sat down at the table occupied by Duo. She all but purred into his ear. "Hello, sexy." Her tongue darted out to lick at the lobe of his ear in order to distract him enough to slip the drug into his drink. When she sat back, he gazed at her in shock. She grinned at him, knowing he didn't have a clue who sat across from him. "I've been watching you all night, handsome." Duo blushed and hid his embarrassment by taking a large sip of his drink. Seconds later his eyes went out of focus and he drank the rest of the contents of his glass. Relena smiled and scooted closer, nearly sitting on his lap. She looked over Duo's shoulder to see Heero glaring angrily at the two. This was her cue. She took Duo's hands and led him upstairs. Heero stood in shock for a few moments before heading upstairs. He stood outside of each room until he heard the voice that was distinctly Duo's. He recognized those sounds that he thought were for him only. And his heart broke into a million pieces on the floor as he turned the knob and walked into the room. Duo didn't even look up. Heero stared at the two for a few moments before he ran from the room and Duo's life. ----- "Quatre contacted me." A considerably older Heero shifted on his feet. "He told me that you needed me." Duo shook his head, eyes suddenly cold. "I haven't once needed you since you left me that day." He noticed the startled expression on Heero's face and melted to the floor. "I haven't needed you...but not a day goes by that I don't want you badly." Heero kept the stunned expression that graced his face. "But I thought that you wanted..." He trailed off, unable to say her name even after it had been five years since her death. Duo looked oddly defiant. "I never once wanted her. You were watching, correct?" Heero nodded and Duo went on. "Did you notice the drug that she slipped in my drink? I didn't find out until later that it had all happened. By that point I had no choice but to join the charade." ----- "Duo?" A soft voice interrupted Duo's thoughts, forcing him to look up. A pregnant woman stood before him and he knew her. It had been months since he had last seen her and she had changed drastically. "Relena?" Shock was evident in Duo's voice. He wondered if Relena were the reason why Heero hadn't spoken to him in months. Heero must have gotten tired of Duo and decided to try out Relena for a change. He missed Heero, but if this was why Heero didn't speak to him, than Duo was much better off without him. Relena nodded mutely. Her mouth opened and closed a few times. She wanted to say something, but couldn't seem to find the words to use. She smiled ruefully. "I'm pregnant." Duo nodded stupidly, not knowing what he had to do with her. "It's yours." Duo stared. That was all he could do given the situation. "Mine...?" His eyes searched her face, looking for a sign that this was a joke. He was utterly floored, at a loss for words. He didn't know what to say. "How...?" Relena chewed on her lower lip for a few silent moments and related the whole story to him. The bar. The drug. The plan. The reason why. It had turned out to ruin her whole life in the end. Just to get a boy to be her own. She was sorry. So very sorry. And she knew that no apology could fix what she had done. She had known that Heero had stopped talking to her. She had been right there to cheer poor Heero up. When weeks turned into months and things were changing, it finally dawned on Heero what had happened. So he threw her away. He yelled at her. He HATED her. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't Duo's fault, but Heero had left. He was gone from her life, just as he was gone from Duo's. Duo stared at her again. A mixture of anger and pity boiled inside of him. "How could you do that to me?" Accusations ignited his eyes and he stared at her all the more harder. Relena was crying by this moment. Tears staining the front of her shirt. Her whole body shook. "I didn't know..." The pitifulness of Relena's situation made Duo want to forgive her. His love for Heero, however, made him want to hit her. His eyes glanced over her figure and rested on her eyes. Her eyes were so sad. Duo forgave her at that moment. He put his arm around her and walked her inside of his apartment building. From that moment on, Duo was with Relena through every step of her pregnancy. ----- This time it was Duo telling the story of the bar and the drugs and everything else that happened. Heero listened intently. When Duo was through, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that his daughter wasn't listening in. Sure enough, dollies speaking to each other could still be heard. Then he returned his attention to Heero, hoping that his reaction was a favorable one. Heero's mind was racing. His heart thumped loudly in his chest. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. "I'm sorry." His eyes looked everywhere except at Duo. "I should have gotten the whole story. I shouldn't have shut down like I did." "It's not your fault, Heero. Anyone would act that way in the same situation. I'm sorry too...but I'm not sorry that I have Ashley. I'm glad I have Ashley. I wouldn't change a thing in my life, because then I'd lose Ashley." Heero nodded. "That's understandable. She's a very cute little girl." Duo smiled wistfully. "I remember them placing her in my arms for the first time. It was right after Relena died..." ----- The chairs in the delivery room were too hard. There she was, laying out on the table. Head covered by a blanket, but every person in that room knew that those eyes were still open. Her feet hung limply over the edge of the table and there was blood everywhere. Duo refused to leave. They brought in Quatre in hopes of getting him out of there. Quatre's hand comfortingly rubbed Duo's back as he cried. "There was something I could have done! We could have moved to a house. We were going to move to a house after the baby..." Quatre's hand paused for a moment. "There was nothing you could have done, Duo. It was out of your control. Relena fell because she tripped. It wasn't your fault." A nurse walked over then, carrying a small bundle that moved occasionally. "Meet your daughter, sir." She then laid the small bundle in Duo's arms with an expectant look on her face. Duo gawked at the baby in his arms. Already she had curling blonde tufts of hair and large blue eyes that stared into one's soul. She was perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes. A perfect little nose. Her little mouth opened in a small yawn and the tiniest of noises came out. Duo wiggled a finger in front of her face and on of those perfect little hands wrapped around his finger. He was in awe. Quatre smiled at the little bundle and then at Duo. "I'll be out in the waiting room with the others." He left, leaving Duo alone with the bundle. Duo stood then and walked out, carrying the baby with him to the waiting room. He stood in front of his fellow pilots. Even Heero was there, though he had been strangely silent the whole time he was there. Duo smiled at them all and proudly displayed his daughter. ----- Duo and Heero were silent for a moment. Then they both began talking at once. Duo laughed. "Go ahead, Heero." Heero took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. For everything." His eyes met Duo's and he leaned forward. "Do you forgive me?" Duo blinked. "Yes, of course. But-" "Daddy!" Ashley stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. "When are we going to make the pizza?" -fin- |