Author's Note: hahaha! My story is totally and completely The Bourne Identity meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I'm NOT EVEN TRYING to hide it. Not even.
Yessssss. I'm enjoying the sweet ride. Thank you other writers for providing me with material to jack! Well... sort of jack. Well, all fanfiction really is jacking off somebody else...
...err...
Well, you know what I mean.
-Onions
Title: Forgive and Forget
Chapter: II- The Welcome Home
Author: Onions Make Me Cry
Rating: pg-13!
Pairing: 1 x 2
"Home sweet dump!" Hilde proclaimed aloud, and smiled brightly as she slammed the door of her old, beaten blue truck shut with a resounding crash. Duo had climbed out some few seconds earlier, though with slightly more caution, and had managed to shut his door with almost no noise at all. Gathering his hospital bag up, he followed his friend down the drive.
The scrap yard lay spread to the left of the couple, piled high against a tall wooden fence which was beginning to lean backwards from the stress of bearing so much weight. Broken sheets of glass and hunks of crumpled metal winked and sparkled beneath a pristine blue sky, and a myriad of dark shadows spread out back behind the towering edifices like inky reflections of a deserted city.
Directly to the left of the scrap yard was the house. (Duo felt a dull jolt of familiarity pass through his stomach as he looked on it.) Two stories and a partial basement high, the dirty yellow paint on the wooden siding had sent chips of the butter color down to shower the untidy scrubs and bushes which clumped unevenly along the base of the house. The windows were drafty looking, and a few of them were propped open with odd objects on the second floor, like stacks of books, and even an old globe on the far left. However, there was a pleasant sort of awning above the back door, which doubled as an upstairs balcony, and both up there and down on the ground were host to a series of assorted, mismatched potted plants. Duo even smiled a little at the tomato vines, which were tied up with socks and panty hose, as they bowed with the weight of their heavy fruit over top of a neighboring cactus. As they approached, a variety of small animals dashed from amongst the pots and into the surrounding bushes.
"I'll make us some lunch once we get settled again. How does that sound?" Hilde called casually back over her shoulder as she pushed the back door open and moved gracefully into the kitchen. "I'll have to go to the market for a little bit, but that shouldn't take so long. What do you think about soup and sandwiches?"
Duo trailed in after the girl, and looked around the kitchen. Just like the outside, the inside of the house was dumpy. The walls were chipping like the siding, though the boy could tell the walls were once an eggshell blue. Wooden hanging cabinets had been nailed up wherever enough free space would permit one, giving the room the look of a very large pantry instead of the kitchen it was supposed to be. But where food was sparse, picture frames and nicknacks filled the shelf space instead. Almost museum-like, the items were like a documentation of someone else's life... something personal and sacred, which at the moment made Duo shift from foot to foot in discomfort. Yes, he remembered vaguely having been here once... but it felt more like it had been ages ago, instead of the few days in actuality it really had been. But the doctor had said such a reaction was normal with minor amnesia, and it would wear off in a couple of days when his memory would return to fill in the uncomfortable blanks. And then there was Hilde, so familiar and full of love that it felt wrong to even think of denying her hopes of a hasty recovery. And so Duo took another step into the room. And another.
Soon, walking along the perimeter of the room, Duo had taken up examining the shelves while Hilde bustled around the tiny room to gather supplies for their lunch.
"Lets see, what else?" She hummed to herself, bending into the refrigerator to take mental note of what she needed at the market. "Tomatoes? Oh, no, bless me we've got a ton of those outside... I'll have to go pick some before the rabbits eat them up like last year."
Duo grunted, his eyes skimming over an old muffler pipe, a handful of toy cars, a line of fresh green apples, a block of knives, a box of spices, a tin soldier, a picture frame... pausing, the boy examined the photo. It was of himself and Hilde, both dressed in their Sunday best and sitting on a picnic table. A blue suit and a white tie for him, and a powder blue cocktail dress for her. White pearls. He didn't remember the pearls, but the dress and the suit seemed familiar... something about an estate sale, and an evening party. There had been lights that evening... loose hanging lamps and tiny twinkling Christmas strands wrapped around a wood and wire frame in a garden with a tall hedge. He remembered a table with an ice sculpture shaped like a rearing horse, and the sound of a crowd clinking glasses. But that was all that came. Frowning, Duo looked closer, and noted how the wind had been blowing, and the tiny sliver of thumb interfering with the shot in the far left bottom corner. Who had been taking this picture?
"I'll need to get some ham, I know how you like it. I'll get the honey ham thinly sliced. Or maybe some bacon so we can make some BLT's?" Hilde continued to clink around in the fridge, temporarily oblivious. "We don't have any bread, except these English muffins... egh! They're molding!" The sound of the English muffins hitting the trash can.
Looking next to the picture frame, Duo paused again. For a stretch of about a foot and a half, the shelf was empty. Why waste the space, when everywhere else was cram full? But examining the empty stretch again, the boy noticed a series of fine strips of dust-free wood, suggesting whatever had previously been there had been recently removed. Other picture frames, by the look of the clean spots.
"Duo?"
What pictures could have been here? Something like a burning tingle started up at the pit of Duo's stomach as he stared at the blank length of shelf.
"Duo!"
It was almost as if he knew the answer already, and were simply refusing to tell himself what it was. All in all, it was a very strange reaction, and Duo frowned to himself in consternation.
"Hey, Duo!" Hilde stomped over to her friend and jabbed him in the shoulder.
He glanced up at last, and looked down at the girl with vague recognition. "Huh?"
"Jeez, you were out of it. What's up?" Hilde glanced at the shelf where Duo had been looking, and for a moment grew silent. Watching her, she seemed even to grow a little pale. But the look became indiscernible as she turned back again to Duo with a firm expression of schooled care.
"You need some real rest." The spritely girl decreed, and steering Duo by his shoulders, pushed him out of the kitchen and up the rickety wooden stairs.
"You ever had a real Cristmas, Heero?"
"No."
"Nah, me neither." Duo huffed, grinning a little as he waved a dismissive hand at his friend across the narrow tent they were currently occupying together. A storm was blowing outside, making the walls of the tent bellow and churn. "Not that we ever needed one or anything, but it would have been nice as a kid, dig it? It's this snow, makes me think about it."
"Mm." Heero grunted a vague reply, and wrapped his blanket tighter around his shoulders. His eyes were closed as he leaned instinctively, even inside the tent, against the direction of the wind. Silence took them for a little while, and all the boys could hear was the screaming of the storm outside.
"You cold?"
Heero flinched at Duo's jarring voice, and seemed annoyed even before he opened his eyes. "No."
"Well, shit, I am." The braided boy gave Heero a look like he were crazy. "Cooped up here on this fucking godforsaken planet in the middle of a fucking blizzard like chickens in a box waiting to see if we can dig our way out in the morning with the obviously useless supplies we have... I mean, I think you're great and all, man, but I don't want to freeze to death tonight out here all alone. Why didn't Quatre give us a heads up about the weather in this sector before we leapt into this god damn mission? I would have brought my footies."
Heero quirked an eyebrow. "You have footies?"
"Well, never mind. Yeah, yeah, okay, I do." Again the dismissive gesture, though this time Duo turned a little pink around the ears. "But I'd be way happier wearing them and being warm and having you laugh at me than be freezing my ass off like now with you laughing at me."
"Quatre did warn us about the weather. And I warned you. It's your own fault that you didnt adequately prepare yourself."
"That's not true! Hey, don't be such an asshole! Have some empathy! Have some compassion! I can't feel my toes!"
"Come here."
For a moment, Duo looked alarmed, and drew up a little in his blanket. Suspicion laced his expression as he stared across their distance. "What for?"
Heero glared. "Fine. Stay there."
"Okay, okay, jeez..." The American submitted, and still wrapped in his blanket, clambered as carefully as he could manage across their distance and sat by his companion. "What now? What, you got some weed? Wanna smoke up?"
Rolling his eyes, Heero opened up his blanket and pulled a corner over Duo's shoulder, tucking the edges in tight.
"There. Now shut up so I can go to sleep."
Duo did.
Evening was setting when Duo slowly began to come around again. He woke in his room, and for long minutes simply stared out across the wooden floor at the long strip of orange light which blazed inside from his curtainless, open window. It was a lovely sight, though a little surreal. Somehow, waking up and still being unsure of who he was and what he was supposed to be doing was almost a confirmation that he hadn't woken up at all. That he was still dreaming a dream from which he might never wake up. But the chill of October had leeched the heat out of the air, and after lying idle for a few more moments, Duo was forced to get up and plod across the room to shut the window. He hated the cold. That, he knew.
An untouched sandwich sat on the side table by the bed, and spotting it, Duo briefly felt a flash of guilt. Hilde. He'd slept through lunch, even though she'd made him food. But the guilt faded, and for the first time, Duo actually began to take stock of his surroundings. He'd been surprised at how tired he'd actually been when Hilde had initially shoved him into bed in the first place, and so he hadn't given his room the time to inspect it. But now that he was a little more rested, he realized, and not without a slight pang of alarm, that out of all the rooms he'd seen so far, this one was the most unfamiliar.
For one thing, and feeling a little strange thinking it, the bed was too big. Glancing over at it, his eyes slid over the delicate ironwork of the bedframe. But the quilt was familiar... slightly musty. Patched. Faded. Known. Loved. But that was it. The bed was too big. The frame was too fancy. Hell, the floor was too clean. Frowning, Duo wondered why it was that he thought dirty would be better, but his desire to hurl the clothes in the laundry basket out across the swept wooden floor was steadily growing more and more powerful.
The closet door should be open. Answering the impulse, Duo walked across the room and opened it. But he stood still at the entrance, one hand still resting on the knob. There, neatly hung on wooden hangers, were the blue suit and the cocktail dress from the photo downstairs. In fact, the entire closet was full of such fancy garments. Both Duo and Hilde's clothes were arranged with care according to season and need. The only messy aspect of the closet were Hilde's shoes, mostly sneakers, though with the occasional pair of high heels. They lay in scattered piles beneath the clothes, no boxes or even stacks to define them from one another, spread across the closet floor. Not for the first time, Duo allowed a feeling of falseness to wash over him as he looked at the neatly arranged clothes. Farce. They were a farce. Somehow.
The rest of the room was just as alienating. Strange blank spots on the wall. Objects missing. Duo specifically remembered a card table had once been in the middle of the floor. He'd gone for a month with no chair, simply pulling the table up to the edge of the bed instead while he was... what had be been doing? Some activity at the table... something using his hands.
It didn't matter now. But Duo still looked down at his palms, vaguely hoping that some groove, some scar, would give hint to one of his many mysteries. They didn't.
By the time the light had faded from orange to purple, to the blue-black of night, Duo had made his way down to the kitchen again, where Hilde was cooking dinner.
As he crossed the threshold into the heated room, his companion glanced over her shoulder and gave a start. "Oh! Duo! Here..." Stopping slicing rolls, Hilde turned and scampered across the kitchen floor to take up Duo's hands. "There you are! Did you sleep well? I have a surprise for you..."
Duo raised his eyebrows, allowing himself to be pulled along by his friend. "A surprise? What kinda surprise?"
"Just, come here..." She lead him across the room. "Close your eyes!"
Duo did. The back door opened, and he felt the chill of the night air, and the crunch of loose dirt underneath his feet.
"Stay here. Don't open your eyes! Keep them closed!" Hilde demanded, and left Duo standing in the middle of the yard. He could hear her scrambling around, and then, there were the strong, wafting melodies of a familiar big band record playing in the background.
"Okay, now!"
The American opened his eyes.
The empty lot leading up to the scrap yard had been decorated with tiny sparkling Christmas lights. Even the cactus by the back door had been wrapped in the twinkling decorations, and fed the line up along the ledge of the balcony and down the other side again.
And there, sitting directly in the middle of the cleared space, was Duo's missing card table, with a frosted birthday cake sitting happily in the center on a pink doily.
"Happy birthday, Duo." Hilde said, and a softness was in her voice. He looked over at her, and for the first time took stock of her. She was wearing a pretty floral skirt, and a thin white blouse which flattered a triangular patch of chest on which a silver locket rested. But more importantly, she had a touch of womanly radiance about her. She smiled, and Duo couldn't help grin a little stupidly back.
"Wow... this is..."
"Not too bad for a little girl like me, huh?" Hilde laughed.
And for the first time since waking up in the hospital bed three days prior, Duo felt a glimmering of happiness.
"Yeah," Duo agreed, closing their distance, and laying hands on her shoulders. "Not so bad."
Turning a delicate shade of pink, Hilde smiled sheepishly and scuffed a toe in the dirt. "Aw shit, Duo, I got Paul next door to do the lights. I just made the cake."
"No, I like it! I like it all! It's all 'real pretty." Duo assured her, squeezing her shoulders. "Really, Hilde. This is great. Thanks."
She smiled again, this time a kind of fluttering smile reminiscent of a little girl in love, and Duo took her up in his arms and danced with her. It felt like the right thing to do.
But as they danced, Duo holding Hilde's powder-soft hand in his own beneath his chin, he couldn't help but feel a vague sense of longing for some missing component. Some reality still yet to be uncovered again. But what was it? It felt like... almost like, someone was watching him. Someone knew he was doing something wrong. Hell, like he knew he was doing something wrong and was trying to incriminate himself. But why should he think such a thing? Now wasn't the time. Not when Hilde was so sweet smelling in his arms, and he had a hand again on something which felt right.
Dancing, and wishing with everything in him to leave those thoughts behind for now, Duo sighed and pulled Hilde closer.
It was only after the dancing had ended, the cake had been eaten, and one by one the lights in the windows had all winked out, that the figure who had been lingering just beyond the bowing wooden fence turned again to walk down the street.
TBC
Author's Note: AAAAH! Who is this mysterious figure? okay, it probably isnt that hard to figure out. Come on. But anyway, sorry to everybody who feels repulsed at the Hilde x Duo action, but.. hmm, you can deal with it, because it will service a much grander reunifcation later down the road! ah-haha! And one which will tickle the borders of that outlawed nc-17 rating! well, hopefully. If I can write something like that without just breaking down and giggling so bad i have to cut the whole damn section out. Anyway, Heero enter next chapter, so keep the faith.