Chapter 4

Broznan heaved a sigh of relief, he was very thankful that Duo hadn't decided to wake up and come downstairs while the Preventers' agents were there. He wasn't sure if those were the agents that his friend had been talking about, but he figured that it didn't matter. After what happened to him, he figured that Duo wouldn't really want to have anything to do with any Preventers' agents, whether he knew them or not.

He was shaken from his thoughts as the brunette in question walked downstairs and into the shop, groaning. Despite his usual grumpy 'I just woke up' attitude, he looked a little bit more relaxed than he had before his nap.

"Morning sunshine," Broznan greeted.

"I was only out for a couple hours… it's not morning," Duo grumbled. "Anything interesting happen while I was asleep?"

Broznan seemed to ponder something for a moment, judging whether he should tell Duo exactly what happened or not, at least for right now. "There was a group of Preventers' agents that stopped in for a little bit about an hour ago." He finally said, testing the waters.

"A group…" Duo repeated, slowly. "How many?"

"Five, I think…" he replied. "One woman and four younger guys… all pretty good looking, I gotta admit."

Duo's eyes widened slightly. 'This can't be happening,' he thought.

"Everything ok?" Broznan asked.

"Yeah… at least I think so. Did they happen to give you their names?" He ventured to ask.

"Ummm…" His taller friend looked a little uneasy for a moment. "Well, I think they said their names were Agents Po, Yuy, Chang, Barton and Winner."

Duo collapsed onto the small chair behind the counter and took his head into his hands, mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like, "Why me? Why now? What did I do to deserve this?"

Broznan walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, in a comforting manner. For a moment he wondered if telling the other had been such a good idea after all. 'Oh well, he was gonna find out sooner or later… seems like he knew them after all.'

After what seemed like a long time, Duo finally spoke. "What did they want?"

"Help…" Broznan said. "They said they're on some sort of mission and they needed help blending in, or something like that." Duo nodded slightly, encouraging him to go on. "They were gonna ask you, if they could… but I volunteered instead."

Duo looked up at him, confusion evident in his features. "Really, why would you do that? You don't like the Preventers much more than I do right now."

He shrugged. "Well, I figured after everything you've gone through… you wouldn't want to have anything to do with them in the slightest. Besides, I can put aside my dislike for them temporarily if it means that they'll leave you alone." Broznan smiled and gave the smaller teen a gentle squeeze to his shoulder.

"Thanks man, I really appreciate it."

"What're friends for? Solo would have killed me if I'd done it any differently. But I do have a question…" Broznan said, looking thoughtful. "Who are they… I can tell you know them."

"Just some people from my past that I'd really rather forget about right now," Duo sighed.

Broznan just nodded. If Duo didn't want to share the details with him, then he wasn't going to be the one pry. He knew all too well what it was like to have a past that one wished could be forgotten.


When Sally, Heero, Wufei, Quatre and Trowa had gotten back to their 'home' that they were currently occupying while on L2 they'd sat down and agreed that the first step in their plan was to call up Broznan and see if they could get him to take them on a quick tour/History lesson of the colony, from the point of view of a local. He'd agreed to meet them the next day around lunch time at a little pub not too far from his shop, and he'd urged them to wear civilian clothing so they could blend in better.

So there the five of them were, in a round booth in the corner of a not half-bad looking pub in the 'slums' of L2... Waiting for their guide.

"So, what kind of things do you think we're going to be learning today?" Quatre asked.

"I'm not sure," Sally said after a few moments. "I don't know much about the colony I'm afraid, other than it's a very poor one. Did Maxwell ever mention anything to you four?"

At the mention of Duo, they looked quite saddened. But it was Quatre again that spoke up. "I'm afraid not. Duo always seemed a bit… reluctant to tell us about where he grew up. All he would say was that he wished he'd never have to come back here."

Sally nodded and was about to say something until a deep baritone voice stopped her. "Well, times a wastin' why don't we get started eh?"

"Hello again Mr. Broznan." Quatre forced out with a smile. He was afraid that the little remembrance of Duo had made them all a bit tense momentarily. "Why don't you sit with us for a moment and let us know where you'll be taking us today?"

Following Quatre's subtle order Broznan took a seat at the edge of the booth. "Well, for starters I thought I'd just take you around the colony a bit and answer any questions that you might have. Maybe a few of the places I knew from my childhood, and take it from there?"

"I guess that works for now," Sally said. "Well then I guess we'll follow you."

And with that, the six of them got up and left the pub for the dusty streets of L2.

One of the first things that they noticed, while Broznan was busy pointing out little places where his childhood street gang would hide out, was that the weather on the colony was either freezing or scorching… there was no happy spring or fall type of weather. Quatre's heart began to ache for all the children that were stuck living on the streets in conditions like these with no place to call their home. No one should have to live like this… especially after the war had been over.

Broznan just kept going on about a lot of the horrible things that ailed the street kids, like the outbreaks of disease that could cut their groups in half in a matter of days… to the times when the Alliance soldiers saw fit to use them as targets for their anger, whether they were the cause of it or not. Each thing that their guide said just brought a new pang to the blonde's heart. He thought that they'd heard the worse of it, that was until they came to the ruins of an old building with a memorial plaque in front of it, that read 'Site of the Maxwell Church Tragedy' and he froze.

"Maxwell Church Tragedy…" he read out loud, gathering the attention of his companions. "This is the site of the Maxwell Church tragedy, where 245 people were killed. The colony's rebellion suppressed by the Alliance and OZ's crack troops. The people came to call this incident 'The Maxwell Church Tragedy.' Despite all the death and carnage that was suffered here there was one survivor, an orphaned boy that the Church's proprietors had taken in as their own. Though, to this day no one knows what has become of the boy that had been dubbed 'Maxwell's Demon.' He ran his fingers over the lettering and looked at the ruins.

They were all broken from their thoughts by Broznan. "They were kind people, Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. They took in a lot o' us street kids back in the day, gave us food and a place to live until we were adopted. There was only one of us though that never left… I'm not sure why exactly, but he just kept gettin' sent back." He shook his head, "I was relieved when we heard that he wasn't killed in the explosion, or the fire after. He was alive and I felt like I hadn't broken my promise to ol' Solo, a promise to keep him safe. But he disappeared, and we had no idea where to."

They looked at him, wondering if the boy he was talking about was the one they had been thinking about just before he'd shown up at the pub. Looking back at the ruins, Quatre felt his heart clench tightly again, thinking about what it must have been like to have to live on the streets, find a home in a church and then watch it all burn away in a matter of moments. If it had been Duo that Broznan was talking about, then some of the things that he'd let slip during the war about feeling like the 'God of Death' finally started making sense. To someone like Duo, who would have had all of this happen to him, it would really start to feel like death followed you everywhere you went. Quatre had always had the feeling that out of all of them Duo didn't feel like he had anything to lose. Quatre had his family, Trowa and Heero had pasts that they couldn't remember and Wufei had his honor. With this new revelation it seemed like Duo didn't have anything to look forward to after the war, and his suicide seemed to make more sense, though Quatre couldn't ever fully understand it… after all he did have them.

Shaken from his thoughts again by Broznan's deep voice, he looked up. "Well, I think that this will be the end of the history lesson for one day."

"Mind if I ask you something before you go?" Quatre ventured.

"Shoot."

"The boy you were talking about… his name wasn't Duo Maxwell was it?" The other four looked at him with wide eyes, having been wondering the same thing but not sure if they wanted to know the answer.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, you see we had a friend in the war named Duo Maxwell, that was from this colony. He never really told us much about where and how he grew up… and we never got to ask him about his past before we were told that he'd taken his own life. I guess knowing a bit about his past… it might give us some closure?"

"Well," Broznan stammered, looking slightly caught off guard. He'd have to ask Duo about this staged suicide thing later. "Yeah… yeah his name was Duo, though I had no idea that he ran off and fought in the war. What did you guys do anyway… you don't look old enough to be soldiers, no offense."

"We were pilots," Heero stated, "Gundam Pilots. I was the pilot of Wing, Winner of Sandrock, Barton of Heavyarms, Chang of Shenlong and Maxwell was the pilot of Deathscythe."

"Wow…" Broznan said, which was the only thing he thought he could get into words at that moment. Yeah, he was definitely going to have to have a little chat later with Duo.


AN:

To Pikeebo: Yeah, one would usually think that after the war Duo would have known his friends better than that. But for this story I wanted to play on what I thought might have been Duo's insecurities. Following the deaths of those close to him, I wanted him to have a kind of vulnerability where as he wanted to feel that they were friends, but deep in his mind he wasn't going to allow himself to be completely open with them and let himself to get hurt. So when Relena said what she said in a way it was what he always dreaded would happen.