By Nix Winter
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.
Warning: Suicidal themes, major angst, and sap, swearing.
This is a gift fic for CJ! ☺
They'd been partners. Crouched at the edge of the ally, gun held between his knees in both hands, New York cold around him as deadly as his mood. He had a ticket for a first class seat on a shuttle to L2. He had a new music player for Duo filled with ten thousand songs. He had thirty-two stuffed animals for Duo's kids, and a bottle of very nice perfume for the nun that worked with Duo. His shuttle was leaving in an hour. It would take longer than that to get to the shuttle port.
He didn't have time to call Duo and tell him that he'd be late. He hadn't even had time to call him to tell him that he was coming. They'd been lovers before Duo got injured. There were things that could be fixed and things that couldn't.
"Yuy," Nelson's voice snapped. "Target approaching, moving south through Dane Alley."
"Acknowledged," Heero snapped back. Keeping people safe was something Duo had always approved of. Heero couldn't go off on holiday without taking care of problems at least as good as Duo would have done. New York had plenty of police officers and crime for them to fight. The really evil kind that wanted to spread lethal viruses on New Year's Eve though were all up to the Preventers. Heero inched back up the ancient brick wall. They'd been chasing this target all day.
If the target was a normal target, Heero would have been on a shuttle already. He wasn't the only person who had been the target of military medicine and conditioning in the war though and this person's keepers had been less kind than Heero's.
Heero sprung as her footsteps brought her close enough. Pistol aimed, red dot tracking her. "Halt. Your mission is complete."
The woman, hair short as velvet, eyes also disturbingly blue, gave him all her focus. He could almost feel her calculating his movements, deciding he was older and less of a threat than she had expected from him. He was only twenty-five. He'd had every bone in his body broken at some point, been shot too many times to count, and the worst wound was when Duo had left Preventers. He'd failed to protect his partner from a hail of bullets and no matter what he'd wanted, Duo would never fully recover his speed and strength and Heero hadn't been able to recover something. He hadn't seen Duo since he'd left for L2 after being released from the hospital. The happiness they'd had before, well, Heero had let it die, somehow and he didn't know how to get it back. Duo had his disability pay. Heero had overtime.
"My mission includes your death," the female soldier said. "You still breath."
She wore military fatigues, Oz variety, as if she'd just stepped out of the war to draw him back into the conflict. Lunging, she suddenly had a pair of blades in her hands, the blades curving back over her forearms.
Heero fired, missed, dodged, felt the burn of sharpened steel across his arm and jaw. He retreated; she pressed forward, slicing at him. Her attacks were a flourish of blade and impact, so full of hatred and personal attack that, stunned, he fell back against the wall. It was happening again. This freezing. The mission that Duo had gotten hurt on replayed in his mind even as he dodged his opponent's slash at his throat.
"You are being retired!" She snapped. "No one wants you. You failed in your missions. You abandoned what you were meant to be! Die!"
"Heero! Withdraw! It's a trap," Nelson screamed in his ear. "Heero!"
Her words echoed within him and he crumbled, sliding down towards the filthy ally, centuries of filth until he almost felt soft and slick to him, letting him slide down towards the end without even being aware of his own blood, black and dark on the old bricks and debris of time. The gunshot shattered in the ally, loud and ugly. From where he'd slide, he looked up and in the light of a single street light, Duo turned to him, blue tee-shirt, bangs framing his face, a grin like the world couldn't end, and he said, "Heero, it's a hard time of year. You understand, don't you?"
"I understand," Heero said, convinced in that moment that Duo was really there, his ghost and that conversations about Christmas had come true. Duo had killed himself. How Heero drew that conclusion, he didn't know or examine. This had always been the hardest time for Duo when memories of the church and expectations of family had come to him. Heero had never been able to fulfill those expectations, never. Maybe that was why it had been three years since he'd seen his lover. He'd let him down terribly and it was all his fall. "It's not your fault. It's mine. I'm worthless."
At the end of his reality, Heero heard Nelson, his second partner, calling for medical techs. "He's been drugged. There's a purple gel on the perpetrator's blades. He's delirious. No, I can't get the gun from him. I don't give a damn what Maxwell could have done. Don't give me that shit anymore. I don't care if Maxwell blew his head off, that's not my concern. Heero's my partner now, tell them to get through the fucking traffic!"
Heero woke up in the hospital, restrained, feeling like an idiot and a Christmas turkey. He'd been a fool to think he could just pick up his bags and go see Duo. It wasn't like Duo was going to open the door and welcome him. For all he knew Duo had a new lover.
Duo was beautiful and full of life, except for the occasional nightmare and a couple weeks in December. Heero closed his eyes and wished for the millionth time that he'd been faster, that he'd protected Duo or that he knew how to apologize to him.
"I know you're awake," Une said, droll. "You've only been out for a day. There is still time."
Une was not one of Heero's favorite people. Laying on a specially made hospital bed, restrained and naked from the waist up was not how he wanted to greet his boss. "I'm sorry. I may have killed the perpetrator."
"May? I think that's what happens when a bullet is discharged into the brain at close range. You may be interested in knowing that she was not human. She was an organic machine, designed by some very unpleasant people with the purpose of killing you."
"She failed in her mission," Heero said, deadpan.
"Not by much. Heero," Une said, reaching out to touch his hand for just a moment before pulling back. "I am reassigning you.. You have given more than a person should to all of us. I knew about you and Maxwell. Did you think I didn't? All the way back in the war. I knew then."
Heero was sure he wasn't able to blush, which didn't explain why his cheeks were feeling warm. "It caused no complications to any mission."
"I know," she said, softly, "But Heero. The connection between you and Duo is something that doesn't happen all the time. Most people never come close to what you and he have. He called us, about ten minutes after I'm told your heart stopped from the poison on that creature's weapons. Frantic, hysterical, talking about an airlock. We haven't been able to reach him back."
Heero turned to look at Une, already struggling with the gundanium straps holding him down. "I have to go to him."
"I know that too," she said, "Which is why I'm here. L2 is a stubborn and backwater place. They will release no information to me on any recent events. All I can get is what is on the general news. An unidentified male went out an airlock without a suit. He wore black. He had brown hair. I don't believe it's Duo."
Heero pressed his head into the bed, tipping it back. Tears he couldn't cry pooling in his eyes.
"I have a Preventer shuttle waiting for you. If it was Duo, then his children will need someone to take care of them. If it was, he was ill, but the Duo I've known would have cared about his kids and wanted someone to help them. If it wasn't Duo and he was upset about something else, he still needs you. Will you go? Tomorrow is Christmas. You can be there by then."
"I saw him, his spirit," Heero confessed, "When I was down. He came to me. Asked me for my understanding."
"So you'll go," Une asked.
"I'll go," Heero said, locking down his emotions, all the emotions that Duo had woken in him. He didn't need them. He would take care of all the tasks that Duo would have done. That's how he'd make it up to him.
"I'm putting you on six months paid administrative leave, Heero," Une said, "Use that time to find your way. If you see Duo, tell him I wish him a merry Christmas."
Heero was released within the hour, his system now free of the poison, his body healing.
Wearing a light grey suit, he boarded the shuttle Une had prepared for him. Earth was not his home. He wasn't sure now why he'd stayed so long. Maybe because he and Duo had shared an apartment. They'd shared dishes and shampoo. That had held him, maybe. Duo wasn't coming back though, that he knew for certain.
At first there had been promises of visits. Heero had bought other tickets to L2. To see Duo's home there, his new family, and each time work had come up, but as the door sealed and he stood there looking at the pile of presents he'd bought, he understood that he hadn't gone because he hadn't wanted to see how badly he fit into Duo's new after war life.
Photos had come, of children and swings, of Duo doing dishes with too much soap until bits floated and clung to his hair. There was a garden and a goat, and in some of those photos, Duo had looked so… perfect, leaning close to the camera, smiling, saying Heero's name, telling him all the good things about Maxwell Place. Duo's skin was warmed by the artificial sun on L2, darkened his arms, making the bullet scars shine like silver in the beautiful skin covering strong, perfect arms. Such a place, with laughter and light, and Heero didn't belong there. He couldn't go there. He'd ruin it.
The photos had stopped coming. Just at Christmas time, as if that time where somehow meant to be magical and safe and something that normal days weren't. Duo's only message was, "Heero, please come. I need you."
Heero hadn't gone. He'd meant to go.
There is a darkness in the soul that can strangle all light and Heero knew Duo had that as much as he did. Duo could be dark and brooding, violet death who knew nothing about life, and Heero could well believe that Duo had put himself out an airlock. He'd been abandoned by his lover.
Heero sat down on this shuttle that felt so much as if he were crossing the River Styx. He'd go to where Duo was, wherever that was.
His dreams were dark and jumbled, full of programming from his childhood and the stuff of Duo's nightmares. Violation, torture, pain, hunger, and loneliness stabbed at him. Maybe it was the drugs or that his body was still healing or that Une had really went all out on energy expenditures to get him to L2, but when he woke they were already docking.
The pilot promised to see that his packages were delivered to Maxwell Place, and Heero left the shuttle as it was still going through immigration. As soon as he had signal, Heero tried Duo's phone, only to get a message that it had been disconnected or changed. That was no different than when he'd been on Earth, but he'd hoped, that maybe it had been some kind of routing error.
Panting with panic, a very unfamiliar emotion for him, he waved down a taxi, gave his destination as Maxwell Place, and told himself it would be fine. Duo wouldn't have killed himself. Duo would have contacted him more first, would have spoken with him directly before he did that. He couldn't quite convince himself that three years or broken promises didn't somehow negate other promises.
"Yeah, too bad about what happened there," the driver said.
"What happened," Heero asked, the panic dropping to a cold blackhole in the pit of his stomach.
"Oh, you didn't know? The priest that runs the place put himself out an airlock. Big scandal, but they're keeping it out of the news because Maxwell, the guy that survived that massacre there, he's involved and the powers that be like to keep things about him quiet. So this priest, turns out he was in love and having some kinda taboo sex. They say the church was going to excommunicate his ass."
Duo wasn't a priest. "The person who died, what was his name?"
"I don't know. No one prints anything about that place, unless it's nice. I think one of Maxwell's rich friends paid them off to help cover up the shit about the church and the old priest that died there. I guess I can understand why. Must be hard on the kids. Even this, it's all quiet. The news feeds just ran the story really small and quiet, but us local hear all kinds of shit. They say Maxwell was a gundam pilot and that he killed ten thousand people before he got religion and became a priest."
Duo had become a priest?
"It wasn't so many as ten thousand," Heero said, hands under his arms.
"Oh," the taxi driver looked in the mirror. "Oi. You're Heero Yuy."
"Yes," Heero said. The rest of the ride was very quiet.
Maxwell place looked like a gingerbread house. The day was ending and lights were just blinking on. All colors, around the windows, over the roof, and the word 'peace' strung up in white.
"The ride's on me. Merry Christmas, Mr. Yuy," the driver said.
"Thank you," Heero said, stepping out in front of some place that hardly seemed like some place a real person would live.
There were lamp posts at the edge of the walk way up to the front door and both of them had black ribbons fluttering on them. Heero hoped he wasn't bleeding anywhere and that his eyes weren't red. Be embarrassing to scare the nun.
He put one foot in front of another. His throat had turned into the desert and when he knocked he had to be careful not to just punch the door down.
A girl, maybe thirteen answered the door, hair in dreadlocks, her tee-shirt sporting a burning Christmas three in a circle with a line over it. "This is an orphanage. We don't donate," she snarled.
Heero blinked. Polite, careful, he wanted to be polite. What did one call a man who worked in a religious orphanage. Brother? Father? Not lover. "I'm Heero Yuy. I'm looking for Father Maxwell."
She smirked, green eyes narrow, "He's dead. You're way too late." Then she slammed the door.
Heero's mouth fell open and he would have had dark thoughts if his mind had worked at all. Duo was dead. An airlock. He'd put himself out an airlock.
The door jerked open again, this time filled with light as someone had turned on the hall light. The man there was as tall as Heero, dark brown hair around his face, a braid on his shoulder. Red santa cap pushed own over his head, and violet eyes sparkling, "HEERO!"
He was totally off guard as Duo threw himself at him. Strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him close, holding him tight as the sun holds her plants. "I'm so glad you came! Heero! I love you! You do still love me, don't you?"
Heero's mouth dropped open, closed, and he just pulled Duo back close, holding him almost too tightly, feeling the beating of his heart, the strong rise and fall of his chest in breath, and the warm of his face as Duo rubbed his cheek to Heero's. "I do love you. I thought you were dead."
"Shhhh," Duo hushed, pulling the door closed, "That was father Pete. Not all of the kids know and I want it to stay that way. He was a headcase, and, damn, I tried to stop him. I called and talked to Une. I just lost my mind over it for a while. She said you'd been planning on coming and she was going to make sure you got here."
Duo slipped a hand between them, pressing Heero's belly lightly. "Dude, you're bleeding."
"Perhaps a little," Heero conceded, not caring. "I had a mission failure right before, and Une's reassigned me here. Given me six months paid administrative leave. I can't live without you."
"Merry Christmas!" Duo cheered, out enough that dozen's of faces peered against the glass. Only Duo could make 'Merry Christmas' sound like 'Hot Damn'.
The door opened again, and a nun, who had to be ninety, opened the door, "Duo, is this your gentleman?"
"Yup, this is my fiancé," Duo said, grinning at Heero, daring him to disagree.
"I am his fiancé," Heero agreed, smiling for the first time … since Duo had left for L2. "This is not an issue for you?"
"Why would it be," the old woman said, arching an eyebrow. "Duo's not a child. Come inside! We have ham."
The inside smelled of pine and gingerbread, ham, and Duo's children crowded around, petting at him, greeting him, as if he belonged and this was just what they'd been waiting for. It was Duo, after all, and no matter what his programming said, Duo's word counted more. "I'm home?"
"You're home, Heero, and we want you here," Duo promised.
Anti-christmas tree girl, smirked, "Yeah, you can keep Duo busy so I don't have to learn Trig."
"Heero's good in maths," Duo said, grinning. "Yeah, like 1x230 or so?"
Heero snorted, an arm around Duo's shoulder, and he didn't know what was coming, how to do this, but if this was Christmas, he liked this. "I am not a good teacher," Heero said, "But I will try."
"S'all anyone can ask," Duo said.
Someone slammed the door shut and the black ribbons were left outside. Orphans all, they'd make their own path.