Chapter 1: The Familiar Stranger

Short disclaimer: I do not own any of the GW boys. Full disclaimer at the end.

Part One – Duo's past

Chapter one: Familiar Stranger

A slim figure was typing away in an over-crowded cockpit of a mobile suit. The figure was downloading some information from the suits main database, when a small fox-shaped mouse curser moved to the address box and clicked.

"Hmmm, wonder who I should send it to? Peacemillion..nope…the Lunar base..oh please!…Winner colony...like they would take time out to answer a distress plea…AH! This is what I was looking for, Gundam Pilots. Now which one…Heero?" the figure's laugh rang like a bell, "Puh-lease!  Wufei? Yea and get this 'woman that, woman this' crap, I don't think so," she messed with her hat to let the bill rest on the back of her neck. "Trowa….Quatre? Um, and get help after I turn into a skeleton? Riiiiiight…they can barely keep from…never mind. There you are! Duo Maxwell, you little cutie you." ::click::

A small box appeared in front of her with two little buttons on it: send now…delete. "Well Seraphim, can you spare some energy to send a message?" The suit clicked the send button and the colony.

She patted the armrest tenderly, "Thanks pal. They'll answer the message, if not Duo defiantly will." Her copper brown eyes widened in shock as she remembered something and her hands flew to her mouth, "I forgot to put my name in it!!!!" She pounded a fist on the armrest, "Damn!"

************

            "Hey Hee-chan! I got a message!" cried Duo Maxwell, using his lover's nickname fondly. A soft gasp came from his lips when he saw where the mail was from, The L2 colony?! I thought it was abandoned! Wait a sec…He looked in the upper right corner of the message and saw a small fox smiling and laughed, I don't believe it, she's alive!

            "Who sent it?" said a monotone voice that belonged to none other that Heero Yuy.

            "No clue," Duo winced as he lied, I hate having to lie to him…but I have to, for her sake, then he put on his airhead act, "But it has some neat MS specs!" Heero stuck his head into Deathscythe Hell's cockpit. His cobalt eyes looked up at the screen, noticed that Duo had already opened up the mail, and hit him upside the head.

            "Hey! What was that for!" While holding the back of his head, Duo got up quickly from his chair to reach for Heero. But Heero had already jumped into the zero gravity and was drifting towards Wing Zero.

            "That, ::thunk:: was for opening it." Came Heero's short reply.

            An incredulous look passed over Duo's angelic features, then he just shrugged and went back to the cockpit to read the rest of the letter. "Sometimes I wonder why I love that baka so damn much," he whispered, sitting down in the chair.

************

A couple of hours later, the door to the MS storage room opened and in stepped Quatre Rabarba Winner. A look of confusion was etched on his face at the silence. "Duo-kun? Heero-kun? Are you two doing anything up there?"

Quatre was now very cautious of walking into a room where Heero and Duo were alone. The last time he had, Heero had tried to splatter his brains on the wall. But a well-timed 'move' from Duo made Heero's bullet miss his head by an inch. Thank god I never told Trowa that. He would have killed Heero, then Duo would have killed Trowa, I would have killed Duo, and then Wufei would have killed me for the hell of it!

An angry shout came from Deathscythe's cockpit, "I don't know what you are talking about, Q-man, but Heero and I are DEFINITLY NOT 'doing' anything!" Then the braided bishounen stuck his head out to look down at Quatre. It was then that Duo noticed his friends confusion, "What's the prob', Quatre?"

Must have had a fight with Heero. Quatre cleared his throat upon seeing Duo's maniac grin. "Um, nothing. I just came to tell you that lunch is ready."

Duo jumped down and tilted his head. "Is that all?"

"Yes, that's all," Quatre sighed with relief as Duo ran past him and out the door.

 "Thanks a lot buddy!"

****************

"…And finally if you choose to come and rescue me, bring lots of food. The replicators went out a few weeks ago." Duo folded up the printed copy of the letter as he softly smiled.

"That's it?" questioned Trowa Barton, "No name or it's location?"

Duo grinned, "Nope, but it did have where it came from." Everyone just stared at Duo in silence for a while, until Chang Wufei spoke up.

"That 'is' its location, Duo."

"Heh," Duo put a hand behind his head, "I knew that. I was…just testing you!" (Everyone face-vaults while a sweat-drop appears on Duo's head)

Heero recovered and took a drink from his glass of water as Quatre looked up at Duo. "So where did it come from, Duo? Obviously the person must know you?"

Duo cleared his throat and turned slightly pale, but kept a fake grin on his face. "The L2 colony…"

Heero's eyes widened in shock as he spit up his last drink of water. Duo ran over to him and started to try to comfort him. Heero bolted up and left the room, causing a very worried Duo to follow. At the end of the corridor Heero stopped at spun around to face Duo. "I thought you said that your old colony was an abandoned wreck."

Duo skidded to a halt. His eyes were almost as big as plates, "It is."

"Then why do you want to go back? And I know you know who wrote the letter, so don't lie to me." On Heero's face was that 'if you don't tell me, I'll hurt you' look.

"It was from an old friend of mine," Duo swallowed hard as the look intensified. "That's the truth." He walked up to Heero and placed a hand on his cheek. "Can we go Hee-chan? I that I would get 'em off of that waste dump one of these days."

Heero's look softened as he looked at Duo's watering eyes, "Yes, but you have to do something for me first."

Duo's face brightened, "Name it Hee-chan and I'll do it."

 Heero pushed Duo against the wall and kissed him hard. "Stop calling me Hee-chan."

"And if I don't?" Duo asked. Heero got off of him and went over to the other side of the hall, leaning against the wall. Duo laughed under Heero's hard stare, "Alright, alright, I get it. No more Hee-chan." He opened the door beside him and went into the room. "I'm getting some sleep. Feel free to join in though."

Heero followed in the room and the door closed and locked.

****Two days later****

The Gundams were coming up on the darkened colony when Duo got an audio call from Heero. "Yeah, Heero, wadda ya want?"

"When we get into the colony, I want you to go and search for that friend of yours."

Duo laughed, "Actually I was thinking of finding somewhere to crash for the night."

"::sigh:: Fine do what you want but come back to the space port when you find something. Ok?"

Duo punched the thruster button and rocketed to the open shuttle bay doors. "Yeah Heero, ok."

When all of the Gundams landed in the colony, each pilot got out of their respective MS. Duo walked to the row of buildings in front of them. "Ah, so good to be home." He took in a deep breath, and then started to cough. "Ok enough of stale air." Duo turned to face Wufei, "I want you to go to that building (pointing to the control center beside the bay) and start up the life support systems. And use the Gundam's spare batteries if you have to." Then he turned to the rest of them after Wufei left, mumbling profane things under his breath. "And I want you guys to stay here till get back…if you see anything it's probably a cat or a fox, so don't shoot it." With that he ran into the darkness and disappeared.

*************

Trowa sat down against the cold metal wall and grunted as Quatre snuggled into his side. "I can't believe he just wants us to sit here and do nothing."

Quatre smiled softly and gently kissed Trowa, "You know there are other things than just sitting here…"

Heero groaned and turned around so he couldn't see the two lovebirds. He snapped his head to a sound that came from his left and walked over to it, walking away from the group. Heero bent down to pick up the empty soda can that had caused the noise, while cautiously taking out his gun and cocking it. He looked up at a slight breeze and saw a gun barrel in his face and his eyes boring into feminine copper brown ones. He snapped his head to the side, barley missing a bullet and jumped back leveling his gun at his opponent.

All of a sudden, right before Heero was about to pull the trigger, Duo jumped into the middle of the two, arms spread. "Duo get out of the way"

Duo swallowed hard, but stood his ground, "No, I can't let you hurt my friend. Even if it means you have to kill me to get to her."

Heero glared at him, "I mean it Duo, get out of my way."

A female laugh echoed through the colony, "Yes Duo," Copper eyes glaring into Heero's blue, pure white hair covering her face, "Please move. I want some fun…"

Authors notes: Wow one night to write. I've been wanting to write this for a while now. So I did! Ok ….I don't own any GW characters or places. So read and review….PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Next on – It's all in the Past!

       Will some one die?

       Who is the mysterious female stranger?

        And how does she know our lovely bishounen?

All this and more next chapter!