Category: drama, crime, romance
Warnings: serious violence, BL lime, language, fluff
Pairings: 2x1
Notes: '...' = thoughts
I don't own the characters. This story is not for profit.
Chapter 2
~Pavlov's Dog, Swimming In A Sea Of Stars~
The journey from Nepal ended half a world away from takeoff. The two travel-worn ex-pilots arrived grubby and, to other disembarking passengers, inexplicably happy. Duo's countenance glowed under the grime and even Heero was smiling. Except for one sympathetic flight attendant, no one knew that the "mile-high club" now included two beauties who had come together in a multitude of athletic ways in various cramped spaces to end two years of self-denial. Given the volume of fluids exchanged, their in-flight entertainment should have drained them completely, yet a numinous energy crackled between them. They had become like two magnets whose north and south poles were unbreakably joined.
The two spent a week decompressing in Duo's one-bedroom apartment without worrying about Heero's unemployment. They spent an extravagant amount of that time in the bedroom, continuing to make up for two years of lost opportunities.
To Heero, living with Duo just seemed right. The weight set in the living room and the paperback mysteries on the bookshelf made the place perfect. Nevertheless, Duo was due back at MacTavish Salvage and the two had crucial decisions to make.
"Hmmm," mused Duo. "I don't see any help-wanted ads looking for 'Buddhist monk' experience. Seems like enlightenment's not a marketable commodity right now, 'specially if you have to fake it. But I know of an outfit that's wants to hire a few good ex-military people."
"The Preventers?" replied Heero. "I am sure I remember enough of my old skills to be useful. Of course in the military, enlightenment was considered dangerous because it could delay blind obedience to orders. The generals had a point—battle is unhealthy for philosophers. Hesitation gets soldiers killed."
"Yeah," sighed Duo, "seems like we always want our leaders to be noble philosopher-kings and then they turn out to be schmucks. It's like 'nobility' is an oxymoron. Some of 'em are in it for power. Some are in it for glory. Some are greedy fucks who just wanna get rich. Some are megalomaniacs. Some are naïve idiots who believe in total pacifism. They have one thing in common: They get lots of people killed who don't deserve it. Or at least most of them don't. That's why the nobility are all schmucks. It pisses me off just to think about it."
"Do you think that the Preventers are any better?" asked Heero.
"Hope springs fucking eternal, doesn't it? We're supposed to have rule of law now," replied Duo. "Or so we've been told. No political system's 100% squeaky-clean, But chances are, if the Preventers' leadership gets too corrupt, we can disappear and do what we need to do. Don't forget, hiding's my specialty. So I'm willing to give them a chance as long as we keep our eyes open."
"Of course, you would have to apply too," said Heero. "Otherwise, we would be separated, and that is the worst idea I have had in one year, eleven months, and twenty-four days..."
Duo pictured an abacus in Heero's brain, clicking at supersonic speed. "OK, Heero," he acquiesced. "I'll give it a shot if you're willing too. I think I can get Wufei to pull some strings. He and I had a teeny little misunderstanding shortly after you left, but we're all better now, thank you.
"I'm just wondering if it's really a good idea for you to do this, though," continued Duo. "You've already changed amazingly and I love that. Are you really sure you wanna return to military life? What if it pushes some buttons inside your head that shouldn't be pushed just yet?"
"The Preventers are more like peacekeepers than military, are they not?" asked Heero. "I think I will be alright if I am not required to strap myself into a mobile suit and start killing again." A grimace flitted across his face and Duo felt a little chill.
"Heero, the mobile suits are just scrap and junk now," said Duo, "but we need to know what we're getting into. The time will probably come when we'll have to start shooting even if we use low-tech arms to do it. There are still bad guys out there. That will never change."
Heero paused and looked into the distance. It seemed to Duo as if Heero was wrestling with a darkness that lurked inside his core, plotting to destroy what they had just begun together. Finally, Heero sighed fatalistically. "I am willing to deal with that when it happens," he replied. "I think we should apply."
Wufei's intervention, plus Une and Noin's combat-honed appreciation of the ex-pilots' skills, got them a place in the Preventers' officer training program. The academy was located at the main Preventers headquarters in Vienna and required the two young men to give up Duo's cozy apartment in the U.S. in favor of a shared flat on base in Austria, close to the Sanc kingdom.
The Preventers' command hierarchy knew of Heero's and Duo's relationship. Like other enlightened military organizations, it did not discriminate against same-sex couples. In fact, some generals believed that the fiercest warriors were lovers fighting side-by-side—the Spartan ideal. Accordingly, Heero and Duo were assigned to work together. Fall had turned into a chilly Central European winter when they faced Noin, ready to take on their first real assignment after three months of training.
Special Director Noin didn't much care for her desk job but tolerated it as unavoidable. The massive antique mahogany desk that separated her from the ex-pilots lent an air of gravitas to the briefing.
"Gentlemen," she said, "we have received word that Lucinda Peacecraft-Smyth has disappeared. She is a six-year-old child who doesn't yet attend school, so she is almost always at the Peacecraft-Smyth country estate in Maiernigg. Ordinarily, this sort of thing would be entirely within the jurisdiction of the local Sanc kingdom authorities but Lucinda is Relena Peacecraft's second cousin. We therefore must consider the possibility that the disappearance is politically motivated. Perhaps someone with a grudge against Relena Peacecraft has chosen this means to attack her indirectly. Your mission is to proceed immediately to the Peacecraft-Smyth estate as political observers. You will determine if there is a political dimension to this disappearance and you will report to me immediately if there is. Meanwhile, offer the local authorities any assistance you can."
"M'am," said Heero, "our training is military. We have no special competence in criminology or detective work. I want the definition of our mission to be clear and precise."
"I don't expect you to solve this case," replied Noin. "Leave that to the local detectives as much as possible. You are to assist them while trying to determine if any terrorist, military or political group is involved. If so, the Preventers will have to intervene. Is that understood?"
"Yes M'am," replied Heero.
"I'll contact the local authorities and tell them to expect you. Good luck, gentlemen."
The Peacecraft-Smyth estate consisted of a four hundred year old mansion of stone and mortar, standing on a large plot of mostly wooded land. The manor itself was surrounded by a half-hectare of lawn, whose smoothly groomed expanse was interrupted by ornate flowerbeds and phantasmagorically trimmed hedges. The effect was that of old money indulging its eccentricities with utter self-confidence.
Winter had done its work on the landscaping. The lawn was a brownish green, awaiting the arrival of a still-distant spring, and the flowerbeds were covered with protective tarp. There were occasional piles of sooty, half-melted snow sitting on the frozen ground. Beyond the lawn's perimeter, the leafless trees stood skeletally in the winter afternoon's half-light, their trunks and branches merging into a gloomy tangle in the depths of the woodland.
Heero and Duo arrived shortly after the local authorities, who had been busy interviewing the family and servants. The two young men were greeted at the door by a gray-haired cop in his mid 50s.
"Aah...you must be Maxwell and Yuy. Please come in," said the officer, offering his hand in turn to each of the Preventers. "I'm Detective-Inspector Johann Himmelfarb.
Heero didn't waste any time. "Detective-Inspector," he said, acknowledging the introduction with a brief nod. His eyes flicked around the room, briskly absorbing the understated opulence of the interior décor. "Can you tell me what you've learned so far?"
"What is it you want to know?" countered Himmelfarb. "The Preventers liaison told me you were coming to investigate possible political aspects of the case. I'm not altogether certain what that means or why the Preventers need to be involved in a local matter."
Duo fell into the unaccustomed role of peacemaker. "Not to worry—we're not trying to step on anyone's toes here. We're not glory-hounds," he said. "As you surely know, Lucinda Peacecraft-Smyth is a second cousin of Relena Peacecraft. Relena has plenty of political enemies and Special Director Noin thought this disappearance might have political overtones. Maybe someone is trying to get to Relena by attacking her extended family. We don't know yet, but we want to be involved in case Director Noin is right. We're happy to offer you any assistance we can."
'Perhaps these boys are not as politically naive as they look,' thought Himmelfarb. 'I was afraid that they might have Gundam-sized egos but so far I see no evidence of this. I probably shouldn't give them a hard time unless they provoke me.'
Duo was glad that Himmelfarb seemed mollified. "Alright, fair enough—this is what we know so far," said Himmelfarb. "Mr. Peacecraft-Smyth is Chairman of Smyth Industries, and he left for his office routinely this morning at 08:30."
'Aah...' thought Heero, '...this must be the same Smyth Industries that was alleged to be a major munitions maker during the war. Supposedly, they would sell to anyone with hard currency. OZ, White Fang, the Alliance...it didn't really matter to them as long as they were paid in hard currency.'
"When I look around here, I am impressed," observed Heero to Himmelfarb. "It seems that war was profitable."
"Well, be that as it may," replied Himmelfarb, "they seem to have adapted to peace with no problem at all. They still have their hands in a lot of businesses—sophisticated organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, even vehicles."
Himmelfarb allowed himself a smile. "In fact," he said, "I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of those little Aston-Smyth JA800s. Those babies are fast!"
"Considering what we get paid as Preventers, a bright red JA800 is just a dream to me," said Duo. "But yeah, I hear ya!"
Himmelfarb crisply steered the briefing back to business. "Mrs. Peacecraft-Smyth had a social engagement in mid-morning—her bridge club," he said. "Evidently Mrs. Peacecraft-Smyth was an expert bridge player. So at 10:00 Lucinda was left alone with the housekeeper, a Mrs. Kleindienst.
"According to Mrs. Kleindienst, she checked on Lucinda in her bedroom at 10:30, and everything was fine. She was playing with her toy stuffed animals and her dollhouse. At noon, the housekeeper called Lucinda for lunch, and there was no answer. She went upstairs to Lucinda's room, and the girl was missing. She searched the house and the immediate grounds and there was no sign of her. She called Mr. Peacecraft-Smythe at the office, and he immediately called us.
"We thoroughly searched the house and grounds but we found no sign of the girl and no evidence of what might have happened to her. Since it was a suspected kidnapping, word immediately went out to regional law enforcement. I imagine that's when the Preventers picked it up."
"Has there been any word from a kidnapper? Any ransom demand?" asked Heero.
"Not yet," said Himmelfarb. "But it's only been three hours since she's been missing. She may have just wandered off, although that's very unlikely—that would be completely inconsistent with her personality and usual behavior."
"What's your next step?" asked Duo.
"We're bringing in some dogs to help do a wider search," replied Himmelfarb. "They should be here within half an hour. There's thirty hectares of woods out there just within the estate, and most of it is tangled up with underbrush. We could spend days in there and walk within ten feet of her and never see a thing. But we have some very well-trained tracking dogs, and, with any luck, they can pick up her scent and give us some idea where she went."
Duo had some time to think about the situation and to watch Heero. He was getting some strange vibes from the taciturn pilot. Duo took Heero aside.
"You look a little off-balance," said Duo quietly. After all, it was Heero's first encounter as a Preventer with a potentially tragic case involving civilians. Given Heero's recent history, Duo was concerned about the mental well being of his partner.
"I will be alright," said Heero, not entirely convincingly. "Somehow, this whole situation just feels odd. But it shouldn't bother me. I just need to focus."
"Why don't you read the case file while you're waiting?" suggested Himmelfarb to the two Preventers. "We haven't been able to assemble a whole lot in three hours, but you're welcome to examine what we have."
"Thank you, Detective-Inspector," replied Heero. "Duo and I will study the files until the dogs arrive."
Twenty minutes later, three big dogs—two 40-kilo Rottweilers and a German shepherd—arrived with Anton Kohl, who was not only the dogs' trainer but also the officer in charge of the K-9 corps. Upon being introduced to the beautiful female German shepherd by Kohl, Duo immediately took to the noble animal. "Awww, good girl," crooned Duo, stroking the dog's back and scratching behind her ears. The feeling was evidently mutual, because the dog looked up at Duo and started licking his hand.
He looked up her trainer. "What's her name?" he asked.
"Feuhrer," replied Anton. "She leads; we follow."
"Feuhrer? Die Feuhrer?" asked Duo, only half-smiling. "I was unaware that your organization has such a polished sense of irony. I thought Germans are supposed to have no sense of humor."
"Well…centuries ago, a certain narcissistic, sociopathic megalomaniac named Adolph Hilter called himself 'Der Fuehrer'. He cast some sort of malignant spell over the German-speaking world and brought it to ruin within a decade," said Anton. "Real Goetterdaemmerung stuff. Counting soldiers and civilians, 50 million people died and many of those were murdered in cold blood." Anton winced. "Of course, no one has tried to do that lately, now have they?"
Duo frowned. "Amazing how human nature never seems to change at all, isn't it?" he said. "Every time we think that civilization has progressed, some asshole pops up and drags it back down."
Anton looked down. "All too true," he replied. "No matter how powerful, the old lessons fade from memory, although that history is still a required part of our school curriculum. Anyway, we thought that if Hilter were still around, he'd be really pissed if we gave his title to a dog, and a bitch at that. We pictured him spinning in his grave fast enough to power half of Vienna," he said, stroking the dog's shiny coat. "If you really know the history, it's hard to joke about it, but sometimes you have to remind people that the devil is eternally opportunistic…"
Concerned about the urgency of the investigation, Himmelfarb interrupted the bonding session. "OK, enough history," he said. "People, let's get to work searching the woods before daylight fails. I'll go with Marshall and take the 120-degree arc centered north. Kohl, you go with Berger and take the southeast arc. Maxwell, since Fuehrer seems to like you so much, why don't you and Yuy take her and work the southwest arc?"
Himmelfarb reached behind him and held up a little toy animal. "Lucinda loved stuffed toy animals and she has a big collection up in her bedroom," he said. "According to Mrs. Kleindienst, this little toy rabbit was one of her favorites, so let your dog get Lucinda's scent off it before you start out."
"Fuehrer is well trained," said Kohl. "She'll let you know if she's following a scent. Just let her take the lead."
"Got it," said Duo.
After familiarizing Fuehrer with the missing girl's scent, Heero and Duo set off with the leashed dog towards the edge of the woods southwest of the house. Fuehrer walked quickly, nose to the ground, searching for a trail. After traversing about 70 degrees of the arc, she barked and pulled at her leash, urging the two Preventers into the woods.
"Heero!" exclaimed Duo. "I think she's found something. Let's go!"
Fuehrer pulled hard on the leash, leading the two young men through the thick, denuded underbrush. Dead leaves and sticks crunched underfoot as Duo and Heero pushed their way through the dense growth. The sun was low on the horizon and the light was already dim under the spiderweb-like maze of leafless branches that formed a canopy above their heads. They were constantly dodging obstacles, following Fuehrer over rocks, fallen branches, and patches of unmelted snow left over from a month-old storm.
Fuehrer kept panting and pulled hard on the leash. Clearly, she sensed something as she dragged the two Preventers into the dimming light.
The search party heard the brook before they saw it. Although its banks were covered with ice that extended partway into the water, the center was open and frigid water ran swiftly through it, bubbling and swirling against the rocks. Fuehrer sniffed anxiously back and forth, but it seemed that the trail ended there.
"We're going to have to cross this," said Heero. "I see a fallen tree bridging it about thirty meters upstream. I hope your balance is good."
"Heero, give me a little credit, will ya," replied Duo. "Somehow I managed to pilot Deathscythe in zero-gee. I'm not gonna worry about slipping off a damn log!"
True to his word, Duo led the way, coaxing a reluctant Fuehrer to cross behind him. Heero followed up to the rear. "Seek, girl!" Duo told Fuehrer, and the well-trained German shepherd aimed her nose toward the ground and started padding down the brook's bank, back toward where the trail first disappeared. About 25 meters downstream, her ears pricked up, she barked, and then pulled on the leash again. "She got it!" exclaimed Duo.
The dog moved rapidly through the woods for another 40 meters. Then, suddenly, she stopped short.
"Merciful Jesus Christ in heaven!" gasped Duo in horror.
Heero felt his emotions spiraling out of control. He had seen dozens, if not hundreds, of similar scenes during the war. But those were soldiers, and that was before his conditioning started to break down. He watched in icy detachment as the contents of his stomach spewed onto the frozen ground in spasm after spasm.
In the dim light of the woods, the boys saw something that looked like a broken rag doll. What was lying there seemed to bear little relationship to the innocent little girl who had loved to play with dolls and toy animals. Her water-soaked frock was tattered and frayed. It was pulled away from her lower body, which was bruised and bleeding from some kind of obscene, unspeakable violation. Two meters from Lucinda's pathetic remains, a filthy toy dog was resting on the ground. Part of its white stuffing protruded from a violent tear in its belly and one little button-eye was missing.
Duo's shock was interrupted by a howl of anguish from his lover. It seemed to have erupted from the deepest, most animalistic part of him, beyond the borders of rationality. Duo could never remember having been so frightened by a sound or so frightened for the man he cared about more than anything else in his life. Startled, Fuehrer whimpered and pulled against her leash. She had never heard this sound from a human before, either.
"Heero!" shouted Duo. Dragging Fuehrer behind him, he ran to his shaken partner and put his leash-free arm around Heero's trembling shoulders.
Trying to bring himself back under control, Heero began the calming, deep-breathing exercises he had learned at the monastery. "Oh my god, Duo!" he panted, as much to himself as to his partner, and forced himself to take deep, slow breaths.
"Heero—you've got to pull yourself together!" pleaded Duo. "We need to deal with this situation as officers. You can't fall apart now!"
Heero's face was still pale but he seemed calmer. "I'm sorry, Duo," he managed to say. "This...this scene has caused me great pain. There are personal reasons. But you're right, of course. We have a duty to perform. Call Himmelfarb."
'Oh crap,' thought Duo, 'this isn't good. I'd hoped Heero's mood swings were getting better, but that one was nasty and we've got a job to do.'
Duo dialed Himmelfarb's number on his cellphone. "Himmelfarb! This is Duo. Very bad news. We've found her, and she's dead. Looks like a sexual assault. Very ugly. You're going to need a forensic team in here. We're not trained in that sort of thing, so all we can do is to stay away from the body and not disturb the scene."
Duo held the phone away from his head for a moment. "Heero! What are the coordinates here?" he asked.
Heero pulled out the mobile GPS receiver from his kit and read off the latitude and longitude to Duo, who repeated the numbers to Himmelfarb. "OK, Himmelfarb, we'll stay right here until your team arrives," Duo said. "Oh, by the way, you can tell forensics to ignore the recycled lunch on the ground. That was me. Civilian casualties look bad enough from the cockpit of a mobile suit, but it's amazing how much worse they look when you're up close. 45 minutes? All right—see you then."
"Forensics will be here in less than an hour, Heero," Duo informed his partner. "Meanwhile, there's really nothing more we can do but wait. We need to keep the scene as unspoiled as possible."
"Duo," said Heero angrily, "why did you tell them that you lost your lunch? I thought you never lied. You don't have to protect me. I mean, why is that so important?"
"Well, I never lie if it would hurt someone else or give me an unfair advantage," explained Duo. "But this was just a little white lie, and I don't feel bad about it at all.
"In fact, I think it's important I said it because Noin and Une are watching you. There are rumors running around headquarters that you cracked up after the war, and I don't want to give them any ammunition to use against you if they want to blow you out of this job. As far as our commanders go, you still have to come across as the perfect soldier. I'm just the crazy idiot anyway, so I can get away with a little regurgitation in the normal course of business. But with you, they'd interpret it as a sign that something wasn't right, just because you never did stuff like that back in the war. They wouldn't understand that it's the downside of struggling to grow, or that I like you a thousand times better now than the way you were then."
"You know, Duo, maybe I was better off then," sighed Heero. "I may have been an incomplete human being, but at least I had my self-respect and a sense of purpose."
"These things that happen to you—they're just growing pains," replied Duo. "Every time you show some human weakness and true emotion, a little bit more of that old conditioning cracks and breaks away. That's a good thing, Heero. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Well, I am embarrassed, Duo," said Heero petulantly. "I hate not being in control."
"Just give it time," said Duo. "What you're doing is really difficult. Every day you grow, and..." Duo squeezed Heero's shoulders. "Every day I love you more."
"I don't know why you even tolerate my weaknesses," replied Heero.
"C'mon Heero, don't even go there. Just cut the crap!" replied Duo testily. "You know that somehow, we're bound together. I put up with you because...well, there doesn't have to be any 'because'. There's just us."
"Hn," observed Heero.
'When you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit,' thought Duo in wild frustration. 'There's no way I could really put into words how I feel about him. I'll just have to keep showing him love and hope that, somehow, he understands...'
The forensic team had arrived as promised and had gone about its business. There are few things sadder than a child-sized body bag, particularly when it is fulfilling its intended purpose. Nevertheless, an autopsy was unavoidable, so Lucinda left the place of her death ignominiously, surrounded by darkness.
Heero and Duo returned to Preventer headquarters to make their preliminary report and to await the results of the autopsy. Around 20:00 Duo's phone rang; it was Himmelfarb.
"Well, Duo, we have some good news—as if any news can be considered good in this situation," reported Himmelfarb. "The monster who did this thing left a calling card. We have a semen sample, and that means we could do DNA matching."
Starting in AC110, every child born under ordinary circumstances was required to supply a DNA sample for national databases. Privacy advocates had screamed at first, but after the databases had yielded the solution of some particularly brutal crimes, DNA matching became as accepted and ubiquitous as fingerprinting had been two centuries earlier. Some ninety years after the databases had first been established, the results were more reliable and quicker than fingerprint matching had ever been.
"We already have a match," continued Himmelfarb. "One Joseph Berger. He lives at 29 Grabingerstrasse, flat 3B, in Wuermla. I think it would be a good idea if you and Heero accompanied us as political liaisons. We still don't know what Berger's motivation might have been. Meet us at the corner of Grabingerstrasse and Kirchenstrasse at 21:00. It's about two blocks from Berger's flat. We'll have a search warrant and we'll go together on foot from there. Be discreet—we don't want him to run."
An hour later, Himmelfarb's crew, Heero, and Duo stealthily made their way up the stairs to flat 3B. The lights were off but Himmelfarb pounded on the door anyway. "Joseph Berger! Open up! Police!" he shouted.
There was no response. "I think I can help," said Duo. "You have a search warrant, right? No need to break down the door; lock picking is one of my specialties."
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Duo pulled out a series of small picks from his braid. "I keep them there for sentimental reasons," he explained to the bemused officers.
In a few moments, Duo had the door open and the search party entered Berger's gloomy flat. "Lock the door behind you and don't turn on the lights. Work with your flashlights only," commanded Himmelfarb. "If our suspect comes home unexpectedly, we want everything to seem normal from the outside. We don't want to scare him off."
The officers started a through search of the untidy flat. There were the usual artifacts of a bachelor's existence, but nothing incriminating. There was, however, a locked closet.
"Duo, would you do the honors?" asked Himmelfarb.
Duo picked the flimsy lock in record time, and opened the door. "Christ!" he exclaimed as he got his first look at the walk-in closet's contents.
The door might as well have been the portal between a dimension of utterly ordinary banality and the ninth circle of Hell. Every square centimeter of the wall was covered with kiddy-porn—pathetic Lolitas servicing menacing, degenerate adult men. A data terminal and attached printer were installed in the cramped space; Berger evidently did his "research" through the global network.
"Well," said Himmelfarb dryly, "I think we've found our man."
"I thought I heard something," murmured Heero. They all immediately shut up. In the abrupt silence, they could all hear the metallic scratching of a key fumbling to engage a lock.
"Take him as soon as he enters the flat," whispered Himmelfarb. Marshall and Kohl drew their weapons and moved quickly and quietly into position.
The door opened and a man entered the dark flat, still holding his key in his right hand. He pocketed the key and switched on the overhead light.
"Joseph Berger, you are under arrest for the murder of Lucinda Peacecraft-Smyth," growled Himmelfarb. Berger froze in confusion and dropped the small bag of groceries he had been carrying under his left arm. The officers heard the tinkle of shattering glass and the scrunch of breaking eggs. "What...how...!" stuttered Berger.
With a snarl of rage, Heero launched himself at Lucinda's murderer. He would have done severe damage to Berger if it weren't for Duo's throwing himself between the two to prevent a debacle. Duo went down hard as Heero collided with him, and Heero's face turned white with shock when he realized what he'd done to his slender partner. In the resulting confusion, Berger turned to flee the flat, but was tackled and handcuffed by Marshall and Kohl.
"Jesus, Heero! That hurt!" moaned Duo as he lay sprawled on the floor. "What's gotten into you, anyway!"
"Duo—are you alright!" mumbled Heero, furious at himself for his loss of control and his loss of face in front of his colleagues.
Duo inspected himself cautiously. "Well, nothing's broken, but I'm going to have some major bruises tomorrow," he said. He got on his feet gingerly. "Ow! Shit! You don't know your own strength, Heero."
The ringing of Himmelfarb's cellphone interrupted Duo, but he couldn't make out Himmelfarb's lengthy, murmured conversation. He finally broke the connection, looking grimly satisfied.
"Well, everything's pretty much fallen into place," he told the assembled officers, making sure that Berger heard every word. "Our database mining revealed that Berger was formerly married to Mrs. Kleindienst's sister. They divorced two years ago.
"We sent a detective to confront Mrs. Kleindienst back at the Peacecraft-Smyth estate. It wasn't hard to get her to spill once she found out that Lucinda was dead. Evidently, Berger came to her to propose a kidnapping plot. All she had to do was to leave the front door unlocked and to hear nothing when he entered the house and grabbed the child. In return he promised her a share of the ransom."
Himmelfarb turned and looked contemptuously at Berger.
"Of course, he was just using her to get to the child," he continued. "He never intended to carry out his side of the bargain, or to go through with a ransom plot at all. The only thing on his mind was molesting her."
Berger was sweating heavily. "No! It wasn't that way at all. I swear!" he blathered. Himmelfarb glared at him.
"You moron!" he snared. "You're nailed. We have semen samples. We have a DNA match. You're never going to see the outside of a prison again. And if I had the choice, you'd be dangling on the end of a rope. But we're civilized now. No more death penalty—too inhumane.
"You know, there's only one thing that gives me comfort. I think your time in prison is going to be very short. In cases like yours, some inmate will decide to deliver a little rough justice. It'll happen soon. It's almost a matter of honor with those guys," he finished, looking grimly satisfied. Berger, on the other hand, looked like someone has just kicked him in the gut.
Himmelfarb turned back to address Heero and Duo. "It wasn't a bad plan. It just wasn't good enough. He assumed he could count on Mrs. Kleindienst's silence because she was involved up to her eyeballs. But he didn't consider two things: first, that the child wouldn't survive the rape, and second, that Mrs. Kleindienst had a conscience and some degree of love for Lucinda."
He turned around to face to Berger, who was cringing away from him. "After all," said Himmelfarb, revulsion painted on his face, "you told her that Lucinda wouldn't get hurt."
Addressing Marshall and Kohl, he ordered, "Take this piece of shit out of here."
The two officers marched Berger out the door to his fate. Meanwhile, Duo took Himmelfarb aside. "Detective-Inspector, a word if you will," said Duo. "You know who Heero is, of course."
"Yeah," replied Himmelfarb. "He's the kid who saved our collective asses—twice. You don't see genuine war heroes too often but Heero certainly qualifies."
"What are you doing, Duo?" interrupted Heero. The drift of the conversation was making him distinctly uncomfortable.
"Just trying to reach an understanding with a fan of yours," replied Duo. He turned back to Himmelfarb.
"Heero went through a lot of shit in the war, and every once in a while it still gets to him. Like tonight, when he went off on Berger and I got in his way. Look, Heero's a good man, and I'd appreciate it if you left that little incident off your report."
"Duo!" said Heero, tightly.
"No problem," replied Himmelfarb. "For a while I was in the military with the Treize Faction, so I've seen how mobile suit combat can affect good people. I don't think anyone with a conscience can go through that experience that without taking a few nightmares with him."
Heero just stared at the floor, mortified.
"I think you gentlemen can go home now," said Himmelfarb. "There's no evidence that there's any political aspect to this case at all. It was just one freak and one greedy, naïve woman. And one poor, dead little girl."
"Thanks, Detective-Inspector," said Duo.
"Thank you for your understanding," added Heero tensely. Only Duo could sense how humiliating it was for Heero to have to thank a fellow officer for overlooking his screw-up. The two young men left the depressing flat in a somber mood.
The trip back home seemed to drag on forever. "That was way too easy," complained Heero morosely. "You love those mystery novels where it takes a whole book to work out who done it and human cleverness always gets the mystery solved by the end. But it was a computer that nailed that freak Berger. It is as if humans aren't even necessary anymore."
"We were just doing our jobs, Heero," replied Duo. "The Preventers needed a political liaison with a certain amount of smarts; tag—we were it. You and I are soldiers and pilots. We're not professional detectives. That was Himmelfarb's crew's job, and they did it well. The computer was just a tool for them."
"As for Berger," continued Duo, "he got careless and slipped up. I'm surprised he wasn't caught doing some other bit of nastiness before now. Yeah, I like to read detective stories, and I read a lot of them in the two years when you were gone. But real-world crime is usually much more boring. Either the culprit is an amateur and finally makes a mistake like Berger, or he's a pro and doesn't get caught at all. There's a reason why organized crime has stayed in business for millennia—usually the cops just don't have the resources to make a case against a group that's professional and clever. We should be glad that this one got wrapped up as easily as it did. Even though Himmelfarb would have never said it out loud, it's probably only because Berger chose to go against a powerful family. Otherwise, he might have gotten away with killing nobodies for years without the cops' ever connecting the dots."
"The whole thing was just humiliating," grumbled Heero. "Other than your breaking and entering skills, our only contribution was finding that poor little girl. And that was just the luck of the draw. We might just as well have found ourselves assigned to one of the other quadrants. Then we wouldn't have contributed anything at all. We would've been nothing more than Relena's little functionaries, sitting there looking like fools."
He turned away from Duo in embarrassment. "I bet those cops are laughing about us right now, cracking up about the big bad Preventer who lost his lunch the first time he saw a dead body on the ground."
"Heero—for God's sake!" said Duo, getting more and more exasperated with his depressed partner. "Stop beating up on yourself! Given our assignment, we did the best job we could. Noin didn't ask us to solve the case. She just wanted to know if it had something to do with the Peacecraft family. We can report—accurately report—that the crime had no political motive. So just calm down, guy!"
"Hnn," was Heero's only reply, and the rest of the long ride home was spent in silence. Duo was becoming progressively more concerned about his partner's state of mind, knowing that his crumbling wartime conditioning could still cause him major psychological l problems.
By the time they got home, Heero was pale and sweating. "Duo, I don't feel very well at all," he choked out as he paced restlessly back and forth in their little bedroom. His hands were balled tightly into fists so tight that his fingernails cut little bloody arcs in his palms.
"Heero," said Duo anxiously, "does this have something to do with your conditioning? Is it breaking again?"
"I don't know I don't know I don't know!" gasped Heero. Rivulets of sweat were pouring off his face and he started to tremble violently.
Duo was frantic with anxiety. "Heero! What do you need! How can I help!"
But something had swept Heero beyond the point where he could reply rationally. Without warning, he stripped off his sweat-soaked clothes and threw himself on the bed. Lying tense and naked, he stared at his standing lover with anguished eyes. His pupils were dilated and his skin was pale.
He sucked air in through his teeth with a little hiss. "UHHH!" he gasped, as a tidal wave of remorse swept through him. His face was icy. Frozen with guilt. Anguished. Something diabolical and reptilian had commandeered his consciousness, yanking it through a dead-black corridor into a featureless chamber of horrors that was cold as space and perfectly concealed within him. Trapped there, it replayed the murder of innocent children again and again and again and again. Lucinda in that bleak wintry woodland. Countless others whom the war had dismembered. Collateral damage…he had killed them unknowingly. Their brutal violation looped in an endless, keening shriek, as if his skull were locked inside an air-raid siren. "Dead," he sobbed…"killed them all…killed them all…nothing but ashes…everything's dead…brokenbrokenbroken..."
Duo twisted around, horrified by Heero's sudden transformation. "Who did you kill?" he demanded. "I don't understand! What's happening to you!"
"Make it stop! Make it stop!" moaned Heero.
A devil's carousel inside his brain spun out of control, faster and faster, tilting and weaving as if it wanted to uproot itself from hell, fly up, and blot out the sun. No festive colors adorned it. No laughing children rode wooden horses. Instead, children's broken bodies whipped up and down, dancing to the shriek of a gibbering calliope. They whirled about like vengeful ghosts and glared at him through the garish neon of the diabolical carnival. Images of tattered frocks, bloody limbs, tiny, torn bodies, and blank, dead eyes swirled through him. The calliope spewed out an eternally banal, Satanic tune in triple meter and it bounced around like a squash ball inside his skull—Ooompahpahclangclangclang… Ooompahpahclangclangclang … Ooompahpahclangclangclang…another endless waltz...
Duo stiffened and looked at his suffering partner in horror. Panicked, he stared directly into Heero's eyes and gasped out, "Oh sweet Jesus! What's wrong, Heero!"
Blind instinct thrust him to his lover's side, so quickly he scarcely seemed to move. Throwing himself down beside the bed, he embraced Heero's trembling, exposed form. Duo's heart was pounding and fear overwhelmed him. He called out to Heero: "Heero, please! The last time this happened, I lost you for two years. I almost lost you forever. This can't be happening again! It can't!"
A vision of St. Sebastian, his martyr's body wounded and bleeding from the sting of myriad arrows, snapped into Duo's mind. But Heero's wounds were internal and it was his psyche that was spewing blood. The words spilled out of Duo without conscious thought: "Heero! Don't go! Not there, Heero! Not again!"
Ashes to ashes we all fall down…
Heero stared blankly at the ceiling. "I can't stand it! They are all dead! I did it! PUNISH ME!" he pleaded rawly to his unseen lover.
Horrified, Duo thought, 'What if Pavlov weren't just a scientist who conditioned a dog to drool when it heard a bell? What if he were a monster who used his dog amorally, yet never paid a price? What if Pavlov's dog was self-aware? What if Pavlov's dog had been trained to kill yet had a pure heart? What if Pavlov's dog had a brilliant mind and a conscience and a will to atone for its sins? What then?'
Acting on purest instinct, he shook Heero's shoulders and choked out, "NO! I will not hurt you! You don't deserve to be hurt, Heero!"
He moved his face close to Heero's. "Heero," he pleaded, "come back to me. I'm here."
Duo stroked Heero's cheek. With all the warmth he was able to muster in his voice, he repeated, "I'm here."
Slowly, Heero's shaking lessened, and he took a few shuddering breaths. "Duo?" he said weakly, finally able to look into his partner's eyes.
"I'm here, Heero," came the simple, perfect reply.
Heero reached out and gently pulled Duo, still fully clothed, next to him on the bed. Heero looked exhausted. He took a wobbly breath and tossed his head as if to expel the darkness. He looked at Duo and gave a tired sigh. "Uugh! That was a bad one. Really bad. Every time I think I have this craziness under control, it turns out I really don't," he said shakily. "I keep wondering if it's ever going to stop."
"It's getting better, isn't it?" asked Duo anxiously. "I mean, this time you're not going to run off to kill yourself or become a monk or something, are you?"
Heero gave Duo a wan smile. "No, not this time. Leaving you is the last thing on my mind right now. And I definitely do not want to die."
Duo's panic faded. His adrenaline high had worn off and he felt like he was going to sag into Heero like a rubber creature with no bones at all.
"There's a big difference between then and now. Now I look forward to seeing someone I love when I come home," continued Heero. He sighed softly, as if he were exorcising the horror from his brain by exhaling it into the cleansing light. "Now I can tell the difference between reality and the nightmares summoned by my broken conditioning. Each time I go through one of these episodes, I feel freer when it's finally over. It's as if part of the nightmare breaks off and disappears. It seems like it should all be gone someday. So yes, I think it's slowly getting better."
Duo stroked Heero's hair. "We'll get through this together, Heero. God knows, there's no shortage of garden-variety nightmares," he sighed. "It just sucks that you have to have extra ones too. Fuck J. Just fuck him!"
Heero looked at Duo, hoping he would understand. "Duo, sometimes it takes me a while to come down after a really bad attack," said Heero, still somewhat shaky. "This is the first brutal one I had since I was at the monastery. When I lost control back there, the monks thought I was an imperfect student. You've never seen a group of people with so little tolerance for bullshit! They could give a good goddamn about my past brainwashing and behavioral modification conditioning. It's old news to them because they sort of invented the technique millennia ago. Science finally proved that meditation really does change how your brain is wired, but the monks had always known that it worked. I just wish it had been powerful enough to undo what J had done to me."
Duo chuckled weakly at the mental image Heero's remark invoked. Monks and bullshit just didn't seem to mix. And monks with soldering irons working on brains? It was enough to make him feel giddy, although the adrenaline crash had already accomplished that.
"I'm sure it was that poor murdered child who set it off this time," sighed Heero. "And that little torn up toy dog was just the icing on the cake."
The usually talkative Duo sensed that Heero needed to unburden himself. He sat quietly rubbing Heero's shoulders and just listened.
"Duo, I want to tell you about something strange," Heero said. "Ever since the war I've been haunted by the ghost of a little girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. During a firefight with OZ, I killed her and her young dog by accident. Now her ghost sometimes appears in my dreams. She's not a scary ghost—she's just sort of poignant and sad. Her puppy is always with her. Maybe the dog's a ghost too."
Heero frowned, as if disgusted by his weakness. "A girl and her puppy. It sounds like a picture that should be on some frilly greeting card," he said. "Or maybe in a shoujo manga. But I think her ghost is angry at me—it's been years now but she won't leave me alone and move on."
"I don't believe in ghosts," responded Duo. "Even Shinigami was never more than just the berserker part of me. I do believe in the power of guilt, though. It's so supercharged that you could run an entire colony on it! You know what I think? I think that little girl's just another memory your unconscious mind uses to beat you up."
Heero looked sad. "Someone needs to remember her, Duo," he said.
"Yeah, Heero—but there's a big difference between honoring her memory and torturing yourself over her," replied Duo. "Maybe it's something you should mention the next time you talk to Father Wernicke. After all, he's been a military chaplain. He's more likely to understand how much accidental killings can torture your conscience when you're a soldier who tries to hold onto his honor."
Duo looked wistfully at his partner. "I think most soldiers carry ghosts around in their heads," he said. "I'm here to tell you that I have a few of my own. After a while I think they just become part of you, 'cuz that what they really were all along."
For a short time both young men were content to just lie together quietly, with Duo's arms around Heero. Heero's heart rate slowed and he allowed himself to relax as he accepted the fact that his panic attack was truly over. As Duo felt his lover's mood lighten he said, "Well Heero, I guess we made it through another one. I feel good—sorta like I did when we came back from kicking OZ ass and I felt invincible 'cuz I knew we'd beaten the odds again." He flashed his patented grin at his partner. "I'm here to tell ya that there's nothing like surviving massive panic and total chaos to make ya feel all alive and tingly!"
Heero looked seriously at his lover. "While we were riding back, I had some time to think," he said. "The monks taught me that all life was sacred because even the lowest forms of life can eventually reach higher levels through multiple reincarnations. Although I was unable to find a solution for my own problems through Buddhism, its teachings about the sanctity of life felt true to me.
"That experience back there in the woods hit me very hard, even though two years earlier I would have shrugged it off," he continued. "You know something? I want out of the death industry. I don't want to consort with death myself and I don't want to bring it to others. I had way too much of that in the war. I simply don't want to see any more corpses in the course of business, even if we're on the side of the angels. So I was pondering whether I really wanted to be a Preventer."
"What do you mean, Heero?" asked Duo anxiously.
"It seems to me that sweeping and salvage isn't such a bad career," observed Heero. "It's different every day. And if we went back into space, we could use our piloting skills again, but with one huge difference—nobody would be shooting beam cannons at us!"
Duo paused to think. This was unexpected.
"Well of course I like doing that kind of work," he finally replied. "And I think I agree with you about the Preventers. It's probably time to retire Shinigami permanently. Hang up his jersey and get him outta here. Salvage can be a little dangerous, but mostly if you get careless. I think it's way safer than being in the Preventers, 'cause sooner or later someone's gonna be shooting at us again. And I don't want to lose you. I don't even want to think about losing you."
"Noin and Une aren't going to like it," said Heero. "And I think Wufei is going to be really angry considering that he pulled all those strings for us."
"Granted, they gave us a chance, and we owe them a lot. I just hope they understand that we're together now, so we have a lot more to lose," replied Duo. "I think we just have to be forthright about your PTSD. Everyone in the military understands it. We need to spell out how you've changed and why Preventer work was a bad idea for you right now."
"Admitting that to them is going to be very hard for me," said Heero. "But you can't cover up my lapses forever. It's obvious from today's events that I still have some healing to do and it's clear that a military job is the wrong thing for me right now. PTSD is a like a bill collector who keeps showing up at your front door even though you thought you'd paid in full. You never quite know when you've paid off all of the interest."
Duo responded by giving his lover a quick hug. "It takes a lot of guts to stand up in front of the world and tell everyone that you're not perfect anymore," he said.
"I never was perfect," replied Heero. "I was just the perfect soldier. There's a huge difference. As time passes I understand it more and more."
Duo stroked Heero's hair, which was becoming its old unruly, sexy self after three months of growth. Duo liked it that way. He was glad that the Preventers hadn't required military haircuts—he would never have allowed his braid to be shorn.
"Anyway, I believe we've just made our decision," continued Heero. "When we think about our future, another thing to consider is that salvage pays well. I don't know if you've heard about genome fusion technology. It's brand new."
"I must have missed that one," replied Duo.
"From what I understand, two males can now father a child together," said Heero. All the lab needs is two semen samples and a lot of science, and nine months later, there's an infant to take home and raise. I thought we might want to do it in a few years, once we're sure that my PTSD is under control for good. Some people consider it akin to what Dr. Frankenstein did in those silly old movies you like, but early results have been promising. There seems to be no psychological trauma and the children do just fine when two parents of the same gender raise them. It's still really expensive, though, so we'd have to make good money and put a lot of it away."
Duo's violet eyes got shiny and intense. "Heero," he sighed, "I'd love that so much! I think that Father Maxwell taught me by example how I could become a good father. I hope I'm right."
He grinned at Heero. "And furthermore, I volunteer to help you extract your sample. Of course, that's only if you help me get mine. I can just see us in some cozy romantic little booth with fluorescent lighting, two plastic cups and a bunch of totally useless girly magazines! Dog-eared girly magazines. With funny stains. And photos I don't even want to think about! Lions and tigers and beavers, oh my!"
Heero smiled back at his braided partner and kissed his cheek. It was clear that something else had entered his mind besides career opportunities or dam-building, flat-tailed rodents. "Stay right there, Duo," he commanded. "Don't even think about moving."
Disentangling himself from Duo, Heero stood up from the bed and strolled over to his duffel bag, casually naked. Duo often wondered how it was possible for Heero to be so oblivious to his own beauty. He wolf-whistled and hooted "Hey, hot stuff! You could give a guy a heart attack, runnin' around with all those muscles and that tight butt! Better be careful, or someone's gonna jump ya!"
Heero tore through his duffel bag, finally finding the item he was searching for. Duo got the full frontal treatment as Heero sauntered back to the bed and opened a little white box.
Duo was obviously enjoying the view, a fact not lost on his partner. "Sit up, you perv," growled Heero with mock seriousness. Duo sat up and, before Heero could dodge out of the way, he kissed the end of Heero's nose. In return, Heero rewarded him with one of his rare, full-on grins. He then reached out for Duo's face, and placed one hand on each of Duo's warm cheeks, gently steering Duo's gaze straight into his intense cobalt eyes.
"We spent a lot of time together during the war," said Heero. "After a two-year absence—which was far too long—we have been with each other almost constantly for the last three months. We've come to know each other well. During our time together, I have become more and more certain about something I want.
"I was going to get you a ring," Heero continued. "But I decided that this was better. You gave me something precious of yours and now it's time for me to give something back."
Duo intuition told him to shut up for once, even if he had to bite his tongue to do it. He could feel that something important was about to happen.
Heero reached in the box and removed a gold cross on a fine chain that was nearly identical to the one Duo had given him at the monastery. He carefully threaded Duo's braid through the chain and then placed it around his neck. The cross gleamed in the light like a benediction.
Heero clasped his right hand into Duo's left. He said, "Duo, please consider this cross as both a symbol of your faith and a symbol of my love for you. I want you to remember today as the day when I asked you to marry me."
Duo's face lit up. "Heero, if that was a proposal, the answer's yes. YES! I'll be whatever you want me to be. I'll be the bride; I'll be the groom." He stopped and snickered for a moment. "Actually, if ya wanna be realistic, I'll probably be 'all of the above'. It'll depend on the mood. You've seen that I'm flexible…in lots of ways. You know I'm creative. Whatever works for you works for me! I never thought you'd actually ask and I am so happy!"
Duo pulled Heero to him and gave him a big, wet kiss. Its effect on Heero was lightning-quick and very obvious. "Hey there, soldier boy," grinned Duo, "that thing wasn't nearly so huge about two seconds ago. Is that big ol' thing just for me, or what?"
Heero looked into Duo's eyes. "You alone," he replied. Despite the playful mood, it sounded like an oath.
Rubbing the bulge in Duo's uniform with the palm of his right hand, Heero asked, "Are you sure you're not feeling light-headed? Could it be that your blood rushed from your brain to somewhere lower? Or am I the only one with that problem?"
Duo chortled and said, "Yeah Heero—this is a serious medical emergency. Call the ambulance! Turn on those spinning red lights! Crank up the siren! Ya better loosen my clothes before the family jewels get crushed and I pass out. In fact, for the sake of protecting my delicate health, you'd better get those clothes off me right now. Hurry, before it's too late! I think I'm a goner! Heero—save me! Gaaaakkk!"
Heero discovered that playing doctor was fun, although his professional facade crumbled as soon as his patient dared to kiss him again, hard. He made short work of Duo's belt and the buttons on his shirt. In a few moments they were naked in each other's arms, celebrating their betrothal.
Questions floated through the night.
Who can explain how such a familiar joining can feel so different each time it happens? Perhaps it's the little details—the pressure of a caress; the scent of a body's natural musk; the pattern that tongues make when they duel in the heat of a kiss and caress every secret opening and portal, ignoring propriety or rationality or convention.
Why did Duo need to be filled with Heero, lost in him and owned by him, and to be locked to his partner's eyes when Heero took him? How did their touch become a barrier that insulated them briefly from the world's harshness?
Why did they grow dizzy, as if the room had vanished and they were floating in a realm of pure sensation? How did Heero's essence satisfy Duo so fully when Heero gasped and shuddered and spewed?
What to make of this night when Heero first allowed himself to be taken completely—to let Duo fill him; to be lost in Duo's eyes and to drown in them; to feel Duo's thrusts inside his body; to be bound together by their mutual release?
How did this night differ from the others—the first fumbling, clumsy couplings during the war; the darkest of nights when love fought death to an uneasy standoff; the playful encounter under an airline blanket at 10,000 meters? The answer was simple: There was finally balance in ecstasy and the two knew that their wedding vows were true:
"I will love you as long as our lives drift like conjoined leaves on the river of souls. From this moment may its currents sweep us onward. May our spirits float on its calm waters and run wild through its rapids and cascades. May it carry us along through the days and nights of our existence until the moment when, in the fullness of time, we reach its end. May it then cradle us in its essence and carry us off with infinite gentleness into an endless sea of stars."
In the afterglow of their lovemaking, the pair lay intertwined, naked and alive. It was late, and their joining seemed to have exorcised the ghosts of the innocent dead, if only for a moment.
Peace crept over them like an indigo shadow sneaking across a snow covered, moonlight meadow. It engulfed their tangled limbs as two gold chains melted together in the darkness. Heero laid his head on Duo's chest and the braided boy's fingers caressed Heero's unruly hair. Duo's new cross glistened on his chest next to Heero and it occurred to Duo that he could easily worship both, each in a different way.
Duo's voice snuck into Heero's sleepy consciousness like a lullaby or the cadence of a medieval hymn. "Rest easy, Heero," whispered Duo, as Heero's breathing slowed and steadied. Ever so gently, Duo rested his palm on Heero's cheek.
"I'm here," he said.
"I'm here."
~End~
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Bonnejeanne, FractalForge, and Vonecia (in alphabetical order) for helpful and detailed C&C of the original version of this story. Because it has been revised extensively since then, the author bears sole responsibility for any added errors.
Reviews are welcome. Thanks for reading.