There Ain't Nothing About You

Song by Brooks & Dunn

Once I thought that love was something I could never do
Never knew that I could feel this much
Duo yawned one of those huge, back breaking yawns that requires you to lift up your arms and open your mouth as wide as it can go. It was late, much too late since they had to work the next day. Duo grimaced a bit, thinking about all tomorrow would hold. A new load of junk was due to arrive. Just waiting for them to 'salvage' it. God, it will take all day.

But that was all right, in a way. Duo didn't mind the work, hard as it was. It was pie compared to what he had been doing. And once the day was done he usually managed to feel happy, this was for them, after all. It's our company, Hilde's and mine, he though. It pays our rent, our bills, buys our food.

Duo reached for the remote and turned off the TV, cutting off the announcers voice mid sentence.

"Now, for a limited time only, you can g..."

He listened to the sudden silence that filled the house and then, the sounds of the colony that began to drift through walls. A car alarm, a baby crying, the hum of late night traffic, Hilde's soft snoring.

"Come on, Babe," he told the girl besides him. "Tomorrows gonna be a long one, better-" but the end of the sentence died in his throat. Hilde was curled up, asleep on the couch. A beam light from the streetlight outside hit her hair, turning it blue in the darkness. Black eyelashes fluttered against a pale cheek. She snored, softly, her nose wrinkling a bit. God, Duo thought, She's beautiful. Then he carefully gathered her up in his arms and carried her upstairs.
But this yearning in the deep part of my heart for you
Is more than a reaction to your touch

On the colony, land was expensive- so the previous owner of their home and salvage yard had built up, instead of out. The house was three stories high, plus the attic, but the floors were tiny. First floor- small kitchen, minuscule laundry, and den barley large enough to hold the couch and television; second floor- bathroom, closet-sized office and Duo's bedroom; third floor- Hilde's bedroom and the larger bathroom. Normally, Duo could race up the stairs two or three at a time. But tonight, his heart was pounding out of control and his breathing was fast.

Duo smiled, remembering the arguments they had had over whose room would be whose. The view from the top floor was beautiful, especially at night with the lights of the colony shining- Hilde had said as much when they had first arrived and climbed the stairs up to the top of the house. So Duo had told her to keep it. Hilde, however, had refused.

'You keep it, Duo' she had said. 'I'm just going to sleep in there, anyway.'

'I'll just be sleeping there too,' Duo had said.

Neither one of them really spoke about the reason they were so adamant that the other should have the room. The truth was, they couldn't sleep. And when it was impossible to sleep, gazing out of the window was not a bad thing to do.

Duo had finished the argument by sleeping on the couch until Hilde relented and finally took up residence on the third floor. But, listening to his quickened breathing and aching heart, Duo thought that maybe he should have let her had her own way. It seemed like a lot of effort to haul Hilde up three flights of stairs.

It can't be the climb, he told himself, as he reached the landing. I never get tired walking up these stairs. As he paused, he reached a decision. He couldn't haul Hilde up the remaining flight of stairs to her bedroom. But, he didn't want to wake her up; she looked too peaceful and happy. All right then, he told himself, my room it is.

It's a perfect passion
And I can't get enough

Gently, Duo laid Hilde down on the bed. He rummaged around in his closet a while, before finding a blanket to cover her up with. He tucked the blanket around her shoulders and then turned to go back downstairs where the couch was waiting for him. He grabbed his pillow and was at the door when a soft voice broke the stillness.

"Duo?" He turned, slightly surprised.

"Go back to sleep, babe." Hilde looked bleary and mussed. Her hair was sticking up in the back and her eyes were still half closed.

"What? And let you sleep on the couch? It's lumpy and this is YOUR room. I'll drag myself upstairs soon." Duo shook his head and then sat on the edge of the bed.

"You do know that it is twelve thirty, right babe?"

"I know. Tomorrow..."

"Is going to be hell."

"Yeah."

The way you look, the way you laugh, the way you love with all you have
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me

Suddenly, Duo was tired, very tired. So he let himself fall backwards on the bed, next to Hilde.

"Hey! You almost squashed me!"

"I didn't. You're feet away, I didn't even get close!"

"Right. That was a close call though..." Her words faded off and her eyes closed. Duo laughed to himself and scooted up higher on the bed- his neck hurt from lack of pillow. When he reached the pillow, however, it was flat. So he was obliged to sit up and punch it a few times.

"That's better," Duo told himself. Hilde laughed at him.

"Hey, I thought you were asleep."

"I think I was, but it's hard to sleep when the person next to you is punching pillows," she said. Then, Hilde did something particular. She rolled closer to Duo and snuggled into his side. Duo froze for a moment, before gently putting his arm around her shoulders and sighing. His last thoughts, before falling asleep, were that it was nice to have her there.

The way you kiss, the way you cry, the way you move when you walk by
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me

At first, Duo didn't know what had woken him. It was still dark but it was the gray darkness of pre-dawn. And something was not right. Then, Duo realized that he was still wearing his shoes, he was in bed with another person, and that person was crying.

"Hey, Hilde. Babe, what's wrong?" She jumped and turned to him. Duo sat up and looked at her, waiting for an answer.

"Nothing, it was just... a dream. Stupid really." Her eyes were red and puffy. Her cheeks were stained with tears.

"It's alright, babe." Duo said, trying to sound consoling.

Hilde bit back a sob. "No, it is not! I hate them, god I HATE them!"

"I know, I know. I get them too." He knew what she meant. Dreams, sometimes, were worse than real life. Duo reached for her and she crumbled into him, crying on his shirt and snuffling.

"Why do they keep coming back? It's been years. Why can't they just leave me alone?"

Duo didn't have an answer straight away. "I think... maybe we weren't meant to be able to forget. Maybe we need to remember everything, all the bad stuff and the good stuff, too."

In my life I've been hammered by some heavy blows
That never knocked me off my feet

"What was your dream about, Hilde?" Duo asked, when she had calmed down.

"I'm not sure. But I was alone, in space, I think. Sounds lame, but it was so terrifying because there weren't any stars, or earth, or colonies. Nothing. It was empty. Black and empty. I was the only speck of matter in the universe. It was horrible."

"Sometimes, I dream that I am back at the church, after it was destroyed." Duo said. "The timbers are still hot, there are some small fires going, but the main building is gone. The smell is there. Burnt wood, burnt flesh, burnt dreams. It's the smell that's the worst. It's like I can't breath without choking on it. In the dream, usually, I walk through the church, down the aisle towards where the alter should be. Only, it is gone, and in it's place- there are people. Burnt, like everything else. And, as I walk, my footsteps stir the ash and it floats behind me. When I turn back, to run away, there is so much ash in the air that I really do choke on it and I can't breath at all. I fall down, next to the bodies, gasping for air and looking at them. Sometimes the face next to me is too burnt to see. Sometimes I recognize it. It's Sister Helen, or Solo, or you, babe. Then- I wake up." Duo wasn't sure why he told her. Maybe because she had told him her nightmare, and he felt the need to give her something in return. Payback, maybe, only not the malevolent sort, the nice kind.

All you gotta do is smile at me and down I go
And baby it's no mystery Why I surrender
Girl you've got everything

Duo was tired to the very marrow of his bones, and not even close to being finished with the day. The load of junk had arrived, true to form, four hours later than expected. The man who had delivered it was, true to form, in a bad temper. He almost drove right over the chain link fence surrounding the property and then did everything but accuse Duo and Hilde of being the reason he was four hours late.

Duo left the man complaining about how the gate was 'much too small to even try and drive a truck through' and how they 'should be grateful to him for managing such an impossible task'. He went to the office in the back of the shop to try and find a receipt to give the man. Where were those damn papers?

The first indication that anything was wrong was the noise. Duo could hear Hilde's voice, raised in anger, floating through the walls. He paused, holding a large stack of papers, and listened.

"Have you been listening to what I've been trying to tell you?" Hilde hollered. "We are NOT paying you anything! Your employer gets a check from us and then he pays you whatever he sees fit. We are not handing you anything but a receipt!"

"I have a note from the boss," yelled the man in response, "Telling you to give me the money!"

"No! We have a longstanding agreement with your employer. We don't give ANY driver ANY money. We will give you a receipt to say that you did deliver the junk, even if it was four hours late!" Duo rose from his chair.

"Fine, you traitorous bitch!" Duo was past the desk and out of the office . "That's right, I know all about you! You left Oz to go play whore to a Gundam---" The man never had a chance to finish his sentence- he was on the ground clutching a broken nose before he knew what hit him. What had him was, of course, Duo. A very, very angry Duo. The way you look, the way you laugh, the way you love with all you have
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me Duo looked down at the man on the ground before him. He had an excellent view of his head, which was bald in the center and then surrounded by thin greasy hair. Blood from his nose had dripped down to his shirt. Duo unclenched his fist, and looked over at the girl besides him. Hilde looked pale. Her face was pinched in a combination of shock and rage. Her back was ramrod straight and she was staring at the man as if he were a very vile piece of dog shit. Duo was sure that if he had not punched the man then Hilde would have.

Hilde took a careful step forward. "I," she said clearly, "Am not a whore." She turned her back on Duo and the man and started to walk away, back towards the house.

Even past the broken nose the man managed to sneer. "Everyone lies about sex." Hilde paused mid-stride and then, without even turning, she kept walking.

Duo's hands curled into fists again. He wanted nothing more than to kill the man before him. "Get the hell off our property," he said. It took the man less than a minute to jump in his truck and roar out of the gate in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes.

The way you kiss, the way you cry, the way you move when you walk by
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me

Duo opened the door to their house and stepped in. The place was dark because they left the blinds pulled down during the day, to keep the rooms cool. Duo walked to the kitchen. He could hear Hilde in the bathroom upstairs. Probably washing her face. Duo thought. She does that when she gets upset. He decided to wait for her in the kitchen. And maybe pull out a drink for her. She could probably use it.

By the time Hilde came down the stairs into the kitchen, Duo had already half finished his own beer. Her face was clean and she had different clothes on.

"I got you a beer," he said, gesturing at the chair across from him. "And I locked everything up. Figured we could call it an early night."

"Thanks, Duo," said Hilde as she sank down in the chair and opened the can.

Duo was trying to think of what to say. "I, uhhh..."

"Duo, that's alright. I'm okay- just shaken, I guess." Duo met her eyes across the table. He wished he knew exactly what to do, to make her feel better. This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened. There had been people before, people that remembered the war, and their parts in it. People that thought Hilde should have been locked up in the darkest place imaginable for leaving her station, for not following orders. People that thought that Duo should have gone before the firing squad for what he did, the lives he ended. People that refused to forget.

"Not everyone is like that, you know," said Duo.

"I know," said Hilde. "I know. It's just that every time we get close to forgetting it someone else pops up who drudges it all back up again."

They were quite for a long time. Duo finished his drink and sat back, watching Hilde sip from hers.

"Do you think that if you had it to do over again, you would?" he asked her suddenly.

"What?" Hilde looked mildly startled by the question.

"Well, what I mean is, if you could go back and make the same choices, would you still have helped me, still have left Oz, still be here?" Hilde was silent and Duo felt himself holding his breath.

"If you had a chance to go back and re-do things, would you?" Hilde asked him, throwing his question back.

"No, I think I'd just end up doing it the same," Duo answered.

Hilde smiled at him. "Well, me too."

I love your attitude, your rose tattoo, your every thought
Your smile, your lips

"Do you remember the time you got that tattoo?" Duo asked. They were on the couch, channel surfing. Hilde was leaning on Duo's side and he had a comfortable arm around her shoulder.

"Yeah," said Hilde slowly.

"It was a rose tattoo, wasn't it? On your shoulder?"

She nodded. "You know, Henna doesn't really count as a tattoo."

Duo looked down at her. "What ever possessed you to get a rose tattoo?"

She smiled at him. "You did."

"How?" Duo couldn't think of a thing he had ever done to convince her to do something like that.

Hilde laughed at him. "You said I was boring."

Duo said, in a mock serious voice, "I would never call you boring."

"Well, you did. So I got a tattoo that only lasted six weeks."

"Oh," said Duo.

"Why did you ask if I remembered it?" Hilde asked.

"Well, on one of those garden TV channels you just flipped past, you paused just long enough for me to see that they were pruning a rose bush. And then my brain just sort of jumped to your old Henna tattoo."

"Well that makes sense, I guess," said Hilde.

And girl the list goes on and on and on

"You know I love you, right?" Duo asked Hilde.

"Yeah, of course I do, I love you too," said Hilde her position leaning against his shoulder.

"No, really, Hil. I'm serious." Duo sat up straighter and turned so that he was looking at her straight in the eyes. It's now, or never, he told himself. "It's not something I usually think about, but I do. It's like my eyes. I never really think about how I love my eyes, but if they were gone- I don't know what I do. And, well, your like that to me. I could survive without you, but it would be awful," Duo ran his hand through his hair, "Oh God, I am messing this up."

"No your not," said Hilde quietly. Her eyes were large, staring into his, not blinking.

The way you look, the way you laugh, the way you love with all you have
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me
The way you kiss, the way you cry, the way you move when you walk by
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me

"Yes I am. What I meant to say is that I don't think there is anything about you I don't like. I love the way you look and the way you laugh at me when I do something stupid, or when you smile with your just eyes. The way you just throw yourself into things because you can't help yourself. How when you speak, I can still hear that faint hint of German." Duo took a deep breath, and then tried to keep going.

"I hate it when you cry, but I love how it feels with you all curled against my chest because you think I can actually help you feel better. I think I even love the way you walk down the hallway, or the way you always make sure that have something to eat, even when I forget food myself. The way you hum when we are working out in the yard- I love it.

"It is just- that I love all of you, everything about you. There isn't a thing about you that doesn't do something for me."

The way you look, the way you laugh, the way you love with all you have
There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me

For a moment, there was silence. Like the world had just stopped. All Duo could hear was his own breathing and his own heart pounding like a maniac drummer against his chest. Duo still held Hilde's gaze. All he could see were her eyes, her large, blue eyes. He felt like there was an elephant standing on his chest.

Hilde blinked, once. And then she was hugging him, laughing and crying at the same time.

"I love you too, Duo," she said, and Duo hugged her back, as fiercely as he could. And then he kissed her, as gently as possible.

"I'm not really that wonderful," she said when they paused to breath again. "I don't want you to wake up one morning and realize that I am really un- wonderful."

"Don't worry about that," said Duo, smiling. Then he kissed her again, but not quite as gently this time.

Your dance, your drive, you make me feel alive
The way you talk the way you tease, by now I think you see

There ain't nothing about you that don't do something for me..............

The End

Disclaimer:

I am not recieving any money from this story. Brooks and Dunn, and the folks that own Gundam Wing, please don't sue me!!!!!!!!

Authors Note:

So, what do you think? I've written something so fluffy or sappy before. But I figured I'd give it a try. It's all my Dads fault really, He is an old rocker who got tired of listening to the same old things again and again and again, so he converted to country. I, myself, think country is just fine- but I don't listen to it by choice very often. But when I am in Dad's truck, he picks the music, and so I do listen to country. Anyway, this song came onto the radio and I just knew it was about Duo and Hilde. I just had to try to write it. So I did, Tell me what you think...

Oh yes, I swear I will update Sherwood soon, I have the next chapter half written and have figured out the plot all the way to the end of the story- But I have no idea what to do next in the wall. Anyone with an idea or suggestion, please!!! Let me know what it is. I am stumped.

: ) May the force be with you all! Langsiell

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