Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Gundam Wing AC
Pairings: no defined pair, hints of possible 1x2 and 1xR
Warnings: adult language, mystery, tragedy
Rating: T
Author's Notes: The Doe Network is a great source for finding missing loved ones, upon learning of this resource I decided to write a fic about it.
The Doe Network
Ever have that nauseating feeling in the pit of your gut that just screams "something's wrong!". Ever experience it before anything alarming has even happened? Wake up in the dead of night in a cold sweat, shivering and gasping for air, and it's not due to some horrid nightmare from your unconventional war-wrought teen years, but something far more ominous. That heavy dark cloud that rains over your head until it finally clicks, and you know what it is that has you feeling an unshakable foreboding that has been eating away at your insides like a fucking parasite. And once you know, you pray to every God, every deity, to anything that may listen in hopes of proving your fears wrong.
I spent three days with those irrational, unfounded, apprehensive emotions until I figured out the source. When he was due back and never showed up, I knew that was why I'd been silently panicking in my head. Everybody else thought I was overreacting, over protective, and indulging in my "overactive imagination". Hell, even the guys didn't think anything was wrong, and that I was just being a paranoid freak. But this was a far cry from normal – a fucking scream even – for Heero Yuy.
Everyone was under the assumption that he'd just gone off on his own for a while, which wasn't out of the ordinary for him, or any of us for that matter. Sometimes after returning home from an arduous solo mission you just had to get away, be alone, do whatever it is you needa do to get the fucked-up-ness back under control. We all did that every now and then, but we always let each other know that we were leaving and when we'd may be back. And Heero, being the creature of habit that he is, always came back after a mission, checked in with me before falling off the grid. Added on top of that was the fact that I knew he'd hadn't been on a mission that would make him feel the need for a brief escape. He didn't have some crazy, months on end undercover op. He'd been doing reconnaissance on a meth group in the greater mid-West of the United States, nothing too dangerous or difficult for him. So when he didn't come back after his last check-in, I knew something was wrong. Though everyone else, and even our Commander didn't think anything of it since he'd sent his final report in, I just knew. You see, he always came back to our dingy little apartment before going god knows where to clear his mind, and he'd always call or e-mail me back if I pestered him enough. That didn't happen this time.
When I checked the flight records, I found that he'd never even boarded his plane to leave bump-fuck-nowhere Montana. That only deepened my intuition that something was horribly amiss. Wufei convinced me to ease up and give "it", whatever "it" was some time. So for a week I sat back and did my work, tinkered on my car, and slept in a two-bedroom apartment alone. The silence in the evening was deafening. Though Heero was far from noisy, but the little sounds that would indicated his presence were greatly missed, like his soft footfalls, him checking and cleaning his guns, his inane never-ending typing. What he did on that laptop all the damn time I have no idea, but work didn't require that much shit. Maybe he kept some kind of hidden diary, or he was writing the world's next great epic novel for all I know. I'll never know. He'll forever remain a mystery.
After idly sitting back for that week, ten days since the last contact my blue-eyed partner made, I began to search. For anything. I called his cell phone and left a dozen or so messages, ranging from concerned to pissed off to pleading pathetically on the verge of tears. My e-mails held very a similar tones. I prayed that he'd walk through the front door and belittle me for getting so worked up over him. Then I would shout and scream about how he could be so damn insensitive, and we'd wrap the night up with a beer while still jibing each other. If only. The first thing I found into my search that unsettled me more than Heero missing was that he'd never made it to his flight, and that he never checked out of his motel room. The manager hadn't seen him in days. With the room left unpaid for, the douche manager confiscated all Heero's belongings from his room. He left everything behind; his duffel full of clothes, his weapons, and his dearly cherished laptop.
Trowa was the first person I went to. The news didn't sit well with him, but he still didn't think anything had happened to Heero. And why would he? Or anyone else for that matter. Heero was strongest one out of all of us. The bastard lived through a war, torture, and self-detonation, there was no way he'd been met with foul play and had been snuffed out.
I wanted to go to Montana and check out his motel room, get his things, and continue my search for him there, but Cunt – excuse me – Commander Une refused to give me leave in order to do so. With nothing left to do, I sat back and waited for another seven days. I didn't want to do my next phase of searching, too scared of what it might turn up. During that week, I got a call from Relena asking to speak with Heero. Now, she and I have never had a shining friendship, we didn't see eye to eye, and we both had a vested love interest in the sapphire-eyed man. Everybody was waiting for Heero and Relena to get together, but something – or maybe someone – was holding him back. After the war and after living together for five years, I had begun the onerous task at chipping away at his frosty standoffish demeanor. I could get him to smile and laugh more easily over the years, and we had a few intimate moments. Nothing as intimate as I would have liked, but they were simple gestures that indicated to me that his guard was down when we were together. Nights spent on the couch watching movies and he'd fall asleep, leaning heavily against my shoulder. Cooking dinner together in our tiny kitchen, dancing around each other, brushing lightly up against one another. Instances where our eyes would meet, speak silent words of affection, too fearful to say them out loud. I may never know the depths of his emotions for me, but I do know there was something there. He also held some endearment for Relena, which is why she and I hardly got along. We weren't rude to each other, but we wanted Heero to ourselves.
When I told her that he'd hadn't surfaced from his mission and that he'd been MIA for fifteen days, she became unsettled. Finally, someone was as worried as myself and we ended up talking for a long time. A lengthy discussion ended with her pleading, "Find him, Duo." And I would, eventually.
Seventeen days missing and I made the first round of calls I didn't want to make. Hospital after hospital and there was no trace of him. In such a rural area, the hospitals didn't have any unidentified persons. Morgue's were the next on my list, and they didn't have any Heero Yuy's in their possession. No unidentified bodies matching his description. Nothing panned out, but I knew he wouldn't just leave me – us – behind like this.
Frustrated with Une for not letting me leave, and finally the others were growing as concerned as me, I decided to risk my career and just fucking go. I left without a words notice. Twenty-two days missing and something told me I was either going to find him dead or not at all. I retrieved his belongings from the motel manager and checked into his room. Searching high and low, I basically tore the place apart looking for any sort of clue that would lead me to where Heero may have gone. His belongings got me nowhere. You'd think after spending three days, forgoing sleep, and hacking into his laptop and decoding hundreds of encrypted files would get me fucking something. But it didn't. Going old school, I walked around on foot through the small town and asked people if they'd seen him. The manager at the motel had obviously, and he was the last person to see Heero as he walked into the parking lot, got into a dark vehicle, and drove away. And of course in that run down shit hole of a town, the motel had no surveillance cameras so his cars license plate is a damn mystery. I knew he hadn't been made by drug ring he'd been gathering intel on, he was too good for that.
Relena called me almost every day while I was in Montana, hoping I had some news for her. I didn't. It was like he vanished into thin air, evaporated into nothing, fell off the face of the earth. Sleeping in the bed he had, shifting through his clothes and inhaling the scent that was just him made me almost lose my mind. My little habit of having a cigarette once in a while became a whole pack everyday while I was in that hick state. Day twenty-eight and Une ordered me back to HQ, or I would be out of a job. With no choice, I went back.
Une chewed me out when I arrived, and thanks to lack of sleep and already tilting on the edge, I threw some very colorful language in her direction. She suspended me without pay for two weeks. Three days locked in our apartment, trying to track down where Heero may have gone, Relena came to me. She looked as fucked up as me; dark circles under blood-shot eyes, pale skin, hands shaking from a lack of food and appetite. She wouldn't agree to leave until I left with her. Tired of being alone, she had no one to talk to about her own worries, and I needed someone on my side, who believed he would be found. We spent a lot of nights talking, hypothesizing what the hell had happened. Was Dr. J somehow alive and called Heero back into some form of duty? Did he no longer want to be tied to a past he wished to forget? Had he fallen under some kind of transient amnesia?
On my second week of suspension, I ran into a fellow agent at a coffee shop who asked about Heero, and I told him that he was missing. He thought I should file a missing persons report, put Heero's fingerprints, DNA, and dental records into the system, but on the off-chance that he was alive somewhere and not wanting to be found, I figured that wouldn't be a good idea. Another alternative he gave me was to check a database of found unidentified persons. The Doe Network. All found unidentified bodies from the colonies and earth were placed into this online databank for anyone to sift through in hopes of finding a missing loved one.
With that helpful piece of advice, I manually went through all the reports starting with Montana and branched outwards. I never comprehended just how many people disappeared until I searched this website. It only added to my depression knowing so many people died alone, unnamed and forgotten to the world. Unfortunately, the database is a little outdated so I had to go through every John Doe from the last month and a half by clicking on each link from every goddamn state. White male, black male, Latino male, Asian male, brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes, hazel, violet, grey, short, tall, slender, medium build, average build, overweight, age eighteen to twenty-five, so on and so forth, homicide, traffic accident, suicide, undetermined cause of death. Goddamn they need to update their system to make it easier to find a specific type of person.
I got through thirty states, finding five persons that matched his description, though the artist renditions never looked much like him. That was the case…until I got to Alabama.
A male of approximately twenty to twenty-five years of age.
Race: Asian, most likely of Japanese decent.
Height: 5'10.
Weight :170.
Hair Color: Dark brown.
Eye color: Blue.
Date of discovery: June 6th AC 204. (Heero's last contact was May 27th.)
Location: Montgomery Alabama.
Estimated date of death: one week prior to discovery. (Making the official date of death May 30th.)
State of remains: no sign of decomposition, skull fractured.
Cause of death: Drowning.
Distinguishing Marks/Features: None
Dentals: X-ray/photographs available through NCIC. Teeth 8, 9, 24 are missing due to incident.
Fingerprints: Available through NCIC.
DNA: mtDNA and nucDNA are available with NCIC and USA FBI databank.
Clothing: Black shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes.
Case History: Unidentified Asian male found on the banks of the Alabama River, off interstate 65. Official cause of death is drowning though impact injuries on the body indicate the he was hit by a vehicle and thrown to the river shoreline where the unconscious man drowned to death. It is unclear whether victim was projected from a vehicular accident or dumped purposely. Facial damage has made it difficult to render an accurate sketch of the victim. Running DNA, dental and fingerprint records through IAFIS revealed no matches.
Though all that matched Heero's description, it was the artist rendition of the victim that sent a jolt of tingling fear down my spine.
It was him. I just knew it.
But I needed confirmation first. Definitive proof.
Sending his dental records over to Montgomery City Morgue, I told no one of my suspicion, not wanting to give into the fear or hope. If it was him, that opened a whole fucking can of questions. What the hell was he doing in Alabama? Why would he have been walking along the side of an interstate? Was it an accident or a body dump? What the fuck happened?!... those questions would never be answered.
That night I sat up in my bed, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily was the day that this unidentified male died, the day after Heero vanished.
Day forty, I met up with the guys to have lunch. They were worried about my well-being. Halfway through my salad that I wasn't really eating, my phone rang. Seeing the US number, the touch screen telling me ALABAMA was the area code, I excused myself from our outside patio table to answer the call. Before I even mumbled out a hello my palms were sweating and my heart beating hard enough to hurt painfully. As the woman informed me of the results, my heart plummeted to the ground, eyes stinging with tears.
It was him. The dental records confirmed his identity.
The kind woman asked what I wanted to do about his remains. I told her to ship him home, like he was fucking lost baggage.
Seating myself back at the table, I sunk into my seat, rested my elbows on the arms of the chair, and buried my face in my hands. Trembling like a Parkinson's patient, Quatre was the first one to ask me what was wrong.
"I found him," I answered upon a whisper.
Trowa asked, "Heero?"
I nodded in response.
"Where is he?" questioned Wufei.
"Alabama."
"What the fuck is he doing there?" Trowa asked, irritated. Heero's absence hadn't been easy on any of us.
"Lying in Montgomery City Morgue."
Everything fell silent after that. Even the noise around us seemed to dissipate, at least to me. The first one of us, the strongest one, had died. No one, not even I thought Heero would be the first one to fall under Death's grasp. It was inconceivable to us. I mean, this was fucking Heero goddamn Yuy, the survivor of anything and everything, and he was taken out by a vehicular accident? Drown unconsciously in a bed of running water? It didn't seem plausible, but none of his injuries showed human malevolence. He, savior of the world, former Gundam pilot, the terrorist know as zero one, was dead. Gone. And I knew, deep down inside, within my suppressed intuition that he'd be gone all along. I just didn't want to face or accept it.
Part of me wanted to wring them a new one for not believe me. Not trusting my instincts. But that wouldn't have done us any good. Only added resentment. Their guilt was already building and I didn't need to dump on top of that, and make them feel like shit for not listening to my warnings.
Later we would try to find out what had truly happened, but evidence was limited. Everything was so unclear and there were no signs of intentional homicide. But questions would forever ring in the backs of our minds. Why was he there? What had he been doing? Was he really a victim of circumstantial events? The wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing, or was it more? His early life shrouded in mystery, and the boy soldier, the man we knew as Heero would forever remain a mystery.
Honestly, I wanted to blame someone for his death. My heart craved for vengeance, and it would be a long time before I could willingly let it go, and accept that no one would be brought to justice.
That night when I got back to Relena's estate, I sat on her staircase until she came home. By that point I had allowed the necessary tears of grief to fall from my eyes, and when she saw me, she knew. Before I could get even one word out she dropped her briefcase, clutched her chest and whispered "no" over and over and over until she was screaming it. Jumping from my place on the stairs, I wrapped her in my arms and held her as tightly as I could. I thought I might snap her spine until her own inner strength embraced me in an equally violent bond.
Through the night and into the early morning hours we reminisced on our time spent with former Gundam Pilot 01, and how he shaped and changed our lives. When she admitted nothing intimate happened between her and him, I was glad and saddened. We both pined after him and desired his wholehearted affection, and now neither of us would receive it. She knew he had some kind of interest in me just like I knew he had an interest in her. We'll never know who he would have chosen, but that doesn't matter now. It's enough knowing he may have loved the both of us and couldn't decide on whom to pick. Maybe it's a good thing we never bridged the gap of friendship to lover. If we had, all those "what-ifs" would have plagued my mind more than they already are.
Over the next few days, Heero was shipped back home. I still hate thinking he had to rest in the luggage compartment of an aircraft like an over stuffed carry on. If I could have, I would have flown myself to Alabama to bring him back more respectably. But no one thought that was a good venture for me to embark on, especially when I made it very clear that I wanted to go alone. Relena wanted to take care of all the funerary arrangements despite the media attention it would bring to her, so I let her take over.
Forty-five days gone to pass and we lowered the man known as Heero Yuy into the ground in a veteran's cemetery. As suspected, news crews and cameras awaited the Vice Foreign Minister outside the gates of graveyard. It was unheard of for her to be present at the burial of a Preventer agent, and everyone wanted to know why she was there, and how she knew the deceased. She never gave them an answer. Refused to comment. Rumors flew around that he was her secret lover, to a dear friend, and a Gundam pilot. Though that latter suspicions were true, we all knew Heero did not want to be remembered for that, regardless of his sacrifices and triumphs throughout the war.
After the funeral I couldn't live in that – our – apartment anymore. The guys helped me pack up my belongings before we took down Heero's room. We all took something of significance to remember him by before packing up the rest to be donated to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. I found a box of screws and wires, but didn't know what they were for a long time. Wufei took his Preventer issued jacket. Quatre claimed his nine-millimeter gun. Trowa wanted his laptop. In the back of his closet, hanging solemnly on a plastic hanger was the green tank top he wore throughout the war. I almost fought with Tro for the computer until I found that memorable article of clothing. I thought he had gotten rid of it since he never wore it, or anything like it since the Eve's war. When I pulled the tattered fabric to my face, I inhaled his scent and a new wave of misery hit me like a ton of bricks. This, this would be the item I would keep. I wouldn't find anything to give to Relena until we found out Heero had five safe deposit boxes in a local bank.
A week after the funeral, a few days after I moved into the Peacecraft estate for a brief, undetermined amount of time, a simple will Heero had created came directly to me. His testament requested that his war funds be transferred to me, and in a simple short note he asked that I disperse half his money to orphanages' throughout earth and space, and the other half to charities that helped struggling war vets. It also stated that he wanted the four of us to open his deposit boxes.
So when we arrived at the bank, and the boxes were opened, I was confused. Inside five separate boxes laid blots, as big as our feet, twenty pounds in weight, different colors each.
"I don't know what this is," I admitted.
Quatre and Trowa seemed as confused as me until Wufei picked up a dark green bolt from one of the multiple boxes.
"It's from Nataku," he whispered.
And that's when it dawned on the rest of us that these pieces of metal were the only remaining items of the infamous Gundams we once piloted. Quatre lifted a dark blue bolt from Sandrock Kai. Trowa a forest green bolt from Heavyarms Custom. Mine, a black bolt from my ol' buddy who went to hell and back with me. We all shredded tears at the funeral, but now this was different, and we allowed ourselves to succumb to the heartache we were all feeling. I'll tell you one thing, it's hard to see your friends cry, and it's even harder to hold back your own sadness when everyone around you fights against the unyielding sobs that want to escape. This was the best gift I had ever received. After speaking with the bank manager we found out he'd planned to hold them in secret until the tenth year anniversary of the Eves War. Heero was going to gift us with these treasures after ten years of fighting and preserving peace.
Wings bolt, the shiny silver metal peg I gave to Relena. She shook under the weight of it, but clutched it close. I knew she wanted something personal of his to keep, and I couldn't withhold that and his shirt, so I decided on which to give her.
Later I would stare at that box of parts I had found and realize what they were from. That one time I had tried to self-destruct the mechanism had failed. These were the missing components. He saved me from suicide and saved me from the enemy. You would think a mission, single-minded person like Heero was at fifteen wouldn't have given a fuck if one of his comrades died. But he went out of his way to make sure I lived. That meant something…rght?
Une gifted Tro, Fei, and I with one month's vacation. She never apologized to me for not heeding my doubts or for ordering me back, so I've never really forgiven her. But after that month I couldn't go back, and I wasn't the only one to leave. Trowa finally decided that if he wanted his turbulent relationship with Quatre to work – they had gotten together, broken up, got back together, and broke up again many times – he had to leave the Preventers and cease the long undercover missions they always sent him on. Curly-Q responded by stepping down from his father's position. The business tycoon thing never suited him. He relinquished his control over to Iria, his sister. They disappeared to the Middle East for a full year, working out their differences and shortcomings until they came to the decision to marry. When that news came through, I was very happy for them, and I played best man to Quatre and Wufei to Trowa.
Wufei stayed on with the Preventers for a while longer than Tro and I. After three months he quit. Went to China to reconnect with his roots. Found solace in the discovery of distant family. When he came back he knocked up Sally pretty fast and she was three months pregnant when they tied the knot, five months after Q and T. His first child was a beautiful bouncing baby girl. He's a great and devoted father, loving husband.
Me…Well I left the Preventers after my one-month plus vacation. Though Heero and I weren't partners – it doesn't work that way. You get paired up with Agent Whatever for any specific mission requiring a designated skill set – I couldn't keep working there. He was my most frequent and trustworthy partner. Devoting my skills to the Vice Foreign Minister's guard detail was the best way I could think to honor Heero. He would have wanted her safe, in the hands of someone he trusted, respected. Though Relena and I hadn't been off to a good start, his death brought us together. In my free time I volunteered to redo the Doe Database, pro bono. Now people can input the physical characteristic information of the one they sought in hopes of finding the person, whether they're in the colonies or on earth. I read too many articles about how a person went missing from a colony only to be found years and years later on earth. This way, anyone can search a specific area or any type of individual they needed to.
I lived with Relena in her estate, giving and receiving comfort for a year and half before moving out. I'm still the head of her guard detail, but I'll be never be anything more. Even if she wants me to be, which on desperate occasions she indicated of desiring. By now, she fell in love with another politician with a background in the Alliance military force. Such associations don't matter anymore as long as they aren't Oz or Romefeller. They're as disgusted by the public as Nazi's. I'm happy she's found someone. At least one of us can move on. Not that I'm saying I was so far gone in love with Heero that I may never find another living soul to love again but…I don't know.
For me, I date, but no one comes close to understanding me the way Heero did. I'm perfectly fine with spending my days alone in solitude.
If anything came from Heero's death is that we realized we aren't the indestructible immortal beings we thought. His and our lives are just as fragile as the rest of humanities. Now we attempt to live each day as if it might be our last and live it up. You Only Live Once and all the fucking shit. One day, I may find love like that again, but I know if I seek it, it won't be found. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn't…well I have no control over that. So I'll wait, and hold the memory of the boy, the man known as Heero Yuy close to my heart. / I feel you, Heero./
-Change to Third Person Narration-
His death had hit her hard. Almost has hard as the death of the man she believed to be her father. But it was a different kind of pain. A different kind of "loved one lost". The Vice Foreign Minister spent many late nights in her office, long after her work was done, pondering if she should divulge the truth she knew to her new braided friend. She never hated the violet-eyed man, but she certainly found his abrasive attitude unsavory at times. Relena was by far a woman of pretentious high-caliber, despite however the media portrayed her. She wanted Heero in every undignified and lustrous way. But their last conversation rang despondently in her ears all the time.
He had just told her he was leaving.
"Where are you going?" She asked knowing she wouldn't get a straight answer.
"The States," Heero responded from the chair he sat in on the opposite side of her desk. His answers were always of that nature. To L1, Asia, Africa, L4, the Antarctic, South America. Never a definite destination, but as vague as possible while giving her some kind of honest answer.
"Well," she began gently, "when you get back, we should enjoy a dinner together."
"Relena…" he murmured. Always that ambiguous tone that insinuated so many things and so many emotions.
Finally, she was fed up. Relena knew there was a bond between them, and that a similar of affection rested between him and that infuriatingly rude Duo Maxwell. "Heero!" she exclaimed as she slammed her hand full of papers down on her mahogany desk with an echoing thunk. "Don't string me along anymore. It's not fair. To either of us."
"Either of who?" Heero asked indignant.
She harped, "Me or Duo! You can't have the both of us so you've got to decide!" He didn't respond, only rested his eyes on the floor. "So who will it be?" she asked in a desperate tone.
He raised his steely blue depths to her sky blue eyes and she knew the answer. It wasn't her. Would never be her. Though her heart broke a little at that moment, she was relieved to finally have an answer.
"Okay," she muttered. "Do something about it. Don't leave him hanging in the wind."
"I would never do that," he answered simply.
That last conversation plagued her mind. Relena felt Duo should know. He was the one who'd won their silent war. But after their talk one night where Duo disclosed his gratitude of not knowing – never knowing - she decided against telling him. Maybe one day she would tell him that he held Heero's melting heart in his hands, but now would not be the time. Duo needed to heal, accept the death of his friend. Maybe one day she would tell him, but today was not that day.
Over time, as he aged working under Miss Peacecraft – who inadvertently never married despite falling for another man – he would feel the undeniable sensation of being watched. Despite the raised hairs, goose bumps, and chill, Duo knew the difference of paranoia and real stealth. He could feel Heero's ever observant eyes watching over him from time to time. Though he thought it a shame that he nor Relena would experience the depth of love they felt for the long departed Japanese man, he never tried to find a replacement for it. Never denied to himself that he felt a love so deep for Heero even long after his death. He would, and so would Relena find "love" that mellowed out the heartbreak, but neither of them could find that equal amount of trust, devotion, commitment, trust in anyone else.
At the approximate age of thirty-nine, Duo was shot fatally in the chest while protecting the Vice Foreign Minister from a terrorist attack. As his life blood pulsed out of his body, he thought, /I'll finally meet you again./
Though his parting was just as hard to handle as Heero's, Relena let Duo go with the same dignity and integrity. And despite her qualms about the afterlife, she prayed they would find each other.