The Beast In Me

by ajayd

A novel detailing Duo's early life on the street, through his Orphanage, Sweeper, Gundam years and beyond. Canon with artistic license. Can that many years of pain yield a happy ending? Slash romance far down the road. COMPLETE.

4. The Gundam Wars

WARNING 1: This chapter definitely has mature content that may be found disturbing by some. There are GRAPHIC TORTURE and medical treatment scenes below. You will receive an additional warning before scene begins, but then you are responsible for your own actions.

WARNING 2: This chapter assumes that the reader has seen the Gundam Wing series, but not the movie. There are brief recaps of outrageous plot that may be confusing without this prior knowledge.

Chapter 4: The Gundam Wars

"The beast in me that everybody knows, they've seen him out dressed in my clothes." – Nick Lowe, The Beast in Me

In a locked room off the central gym, Professor "G-like-the-force" (my joke after being corrected) was conducting another one of his assessments. Rubber bullets flew at me just as I leapt out of their way, and landed with a hard roll across the metal floor, adrenaline pumping steadily through my veins. I came up on my knees with my gun already aimed directly at my opponent, and then I emptied a clip at the automated piece of crap. If my opponent had been a human shooter, it would've only taken one bullet to incapacitate. I had definitely become a better shot under Professor G's tutelage, and had learned more about explosives and hacking than I had ever imagined possible.

Then Jug stepped out of the shadows, masked but identifiable by his muscled bulk, and signaling the beginning of the unarmed combat part of the eval. He charged at me with all the confidence of strength and size, but I nimbly darted away a couple steps before taking his opening and landing a round-house kick to his neck. Jug stumbled back, though his hundred pound advantage on me wouldn't let him fall, and my mind darted through the handful of obscure moves that could take this giant down without a weapon or prop.

Jug moved at me more cautiously this time, and we parried for several seconds in circling positions before Jug lunged again and I danced back, well aware that any contact between me and Jug's hands would quickly terminate this match in his favor. Another parry and lunge, and he was vaguely succeeding in cornering me, so I seized the last couple meters of space to launch myself up and against the wall. Jug leaped after me, as though I was a bird about to fly beyond reach, but it was hard to get significant elevation with that much heavy muscle.

With one hand I snagged the remains of the wall-mounted gun, and managed to hold myself up long enough to position my legs solidly against the wall and flip to a hard landing behind Jug. He swung around just in time for me to land a punch square in his jaw before darting off again. Okay, now that was just stupid, definitely Shinigami. The little street rat wanted to run away instead of infuriating the enemy with blows that left him fully functional!

When I fought during practice and killed during simulations, I often felt the familiar rush of adrenaline and urgency that always brought me back to those years surviving on the streets. Except that now it wasn't me fighting for survival, it was Shinigimi fighting for vengeance, and he was going to rip my enemies' limbs off and shower in the blood spray. He took wild risks and acknowledged the possibility that he might turn on me in battle, but it was not a possibility interesting enough to dwell too heavily on. Somehow I doubted the God of Death would let me off that easily.

So it was Shinigami that didn't give Jug time to recover, and launched my body at him so that my legs wrapped around his torso and my hands around his neck.

Then I squeezed, not with the force to kill instantly, but with enough to bring the massive man down to his knees suddenly.

"ENOUGH!" Professor G bellowed, blinding lights abruptly illuminating the practice room.

I quickly drew to my feet, allowing my hands to fall from their death grip, and turned to face the Professor's gust of attention – always a minor trial, whether the onslaught was complimentary or derisive.

"That was excellent," he purred in his freakish way. "I don't know how it's possible without years of requisite training, 02, but you are perfect for the mission you are about to embark on. A natural born guerrilla."

"I don't know how natural it was, surviving the streets as a toddler was some pretty intense survival training," I retorted, determined to be as much of an ass as the Professor. He relished in reminding me of what a fabulous killer I am, so I made a point of trying to make him feel guilty – an almost impossible task. Luckily, he was about as lax as Captain Howard when it came to interacting with subordinates, as long as he was getting what he wanted.

"Or maybe the streets simply eliminated the weak," he shot back, then rushed on before I could voice my anger. "It hardly matters now. It's time to discuss Operation Meteor."

That got my attention quick and I followed the Professor back to his office like a good attack dog. After his first mention of this operation, he had refused to say any more; now that his deadline was closing in, I was expecting some sort of debriefing. Of course, I hadn't been expecting the completely senile plan that the Professor laid out before me. It was suicidal, made no sense whatsoever, and harbored a veritable manifestation of unknown variables...

I absolutely loved it! I couldn't believe that the Prof was actually proposing to let me loose on Earth with nothing more than a memorized laundry list of targets! Shinigami and I both operated best with a little room to maneuver.

"Well, I certainly approve," I commented when Professor G came to the conclusion of his rather short explanation.

"I knew you would," the Professor replied grumpily. "However, despite the loose parameters of this operation, you are not to waver from the mission! Crippling the Alliance's infrastructure is critical to undermining their authority in the region. They have developed undue influence in colonial government–"

"Yes, yes, I know," I interrupted, tired of his lecturing rants. I hated the Alliance with a great deal of passion, and I was dedicated to the cause of bringing their leadership down, but this hatred and dedication came from personal pain, not impersonal evaluations and strategic planning.

Still, I was pretty good at compartmentalizing my rage in these days (after all, I couldn't let him realize just how unbalanced I was), so I may have come across as somewhat unmotivated outside the cockpit. Hence the Professor frequently tried to convince me of the importance of destroying the Alliance – using words so dull and dry that I almost didn't give a shit. I'd be glad to start OM just to get away from his nagging.

Now my friends and makeshift home among the Sweepers were a different matter. They had shown a respectful lack of curiosity when I had joined the Howard's 'pet project', and I sorta assumed that they would show a similar nonchalance to my departure. Easy come, easy go, right? Damn, was I ever wrong about that.

"YOU'RE WHAT?" Shaquita bellowed in the mess when I told her and Ally first. "No fucking way! We take care of you here, a young man like you has no business out on your own!"

"Shhh!" I hissed, trying to maintain a scrap of discretion. I hadn't told anyone about OM, but everyone on the ship knew that I had replaced Dìas as Professor G's little super pilot. Now I was going to tell people that I was continuing my flight training on L1, though the rumor mill would effectively connect my story to ill-defined terrorist plots.

"Duo," Ally said calmly, but with real concern, and placed her hand on my forearm. "You don't have to do this, you know. I know you and the Professor have invested a lot of time into this project, but you can still back out. You can choose to stay here, where people care about you. We'd support you," Shaquita nodded, "And Sa'ad, Thor, a lot of people. Even Howard, I think, would stand up for you. If you wanted to stay."

I flushed a little at the open affection, but then I felt guilty. After Solo and Father Maxwell and everyone else, I had not really allowed anyone to take their places in my life. It hadn't even been conscious, and I wondered now if I had lost the capacity to truly connect, then if I even cared at all anymore. Sa'ad and the rest were friends, sure, but they weren't a critical part of me, and I would not break when they died. I never wanted to feel that pain again.

"Thank you both. But I don't deserve this."

The big woman probably didn't read the sadness in my face correctly, but still Shaquita leaned over and wrapped her arms around me. "Of course you do, short-stuff."

And then Ally piled on, making it a three way hug on the bench. "Oh, Duo, don't leave us."

I think we were all close to tears, and I felt even worse. "I'm sorry, Ally, 'Quita. It's just... something I need to do. Not for the Professor, but for myself, and... and my dead."

The hug monster slowly dissolved, then reformed as three Sweepers. Between L2's past plagues and ongoing civil unrest, and the natural hazards of the salvage business, there weren't many Sweepers aboard that didn't understand the demands of one's dead. Ally's father had been killed when a small asteroid ripped through his spacesuit during a salvo-op near the Belt. Shaquita had a dead husband, but she wasn't interested in sharing the story.

Ally actually wiped a tear, and Shaquita ordered briskly, "Just don't join them. Let them stay dead, and you alive."

"That's the plan," I soothed, giving my most reassuring grin.

Thor and the guys from the hanger reacted significantly better, offering encouragement and even a little evidence of envy. I think Thor had always fancied himself as a heroic fighter or mobile suit pilot and he used his hug as an opportunity to whisper loudly, "Good hunting, you lucky bugger."

Unfortunately, Sa'ad held back during the entire public goodbye in the hanger, and I knew that he wasn't entirely pleased. Sure enough, he cornered me and dragged me off as soon as the hanger crew began breaking apart.

"Okay, okay! You got me here, now let go of my shirt!" I complained, straightening my priest's collar. At Professor G's insistence, I had modified it to fit with other pairs of black button-down shirts and slacks; I only complied because the original ensemble was practically falling apart from all the abuse it had survived. Of course, the past months of wearing my priest uniform had done nothing to assuage some of my friends' concern over my mental health.

"Duo, think about this! You're good out there, and I know you think you got what it takes to be the best, but you're only, what? Fifteen, sixteen?"

I sighed noisily and shuffled my feet, really not wanting to have this same argument with all my friends. "Fifteen, probably."

Sa'ad's frown grew even more pronounced, and he paused before continuing on a slightly different track, "You don't need to do this so soon, there's no urgency. War will be upon us soon enough without you going to find it. That's all I'm saying, that you should take more time to train and grow up. You've only been with us for a couple years, and you've only been training for, what? Like six months!"

Those couple years had felt like a lifetime, and I had survived two other lifetimes before that, so that now the entire argument made me feel old and tired. "I'm ready," I said firmly, feeling like a broken record, but wanting to be convincing. "And the time is now. War is at their doorstep because I'm bringing it there. Every extra month on this ship is another month of allowing the Alliance to grow stronger and bolder, to kill more colonists. They need to be stopped, and I am just the Sweeper to do that."

"Do you hear yourself, Duo!" he exclaimed, relatively worked up for the good humored Arab. "You sound like a propaganda piece, like Professor G has really gotten to you."

"No, Sa'ad," I returned immediately and forcefully, tightly controlling the tension in my body. "That propaganda was the polite way of saying that the Alliance tortured me, killed everyone I loved like they were nothing, and made me into a murderer. And now I'm gonna return the fucking favor, a thousand times. Or die trying."

How true those words would be. Silence reigned for weighted seconds as Sa'ad took my words in. "I'm sorry," he finally muttered solemnly. "I knew there was something, but not how bad… You never seemed to want to talk about the past."

"And I don't now either. There's nothing for you to be sorry about, it's done and gone. But I want you to understand that I know what I'm doing. I'm not being used by Professor G, if anything we're using each other. I want this."

Sa'ad smiled at me with a mixture of affection and a resigned sadness, and I got the impression that he had known his appeal would be useless all along. He only managed a reply after a wistful pause, "I wish you would change your mind, but I know you won't. You're just about the most stubborn person little weirdo I have ever me... Don't die trying, you hear? I'll miss you for sure. It was fun having you around, like you injected a little life into this old junker, just by being yourself."

I nodded, allowing a little grin and the still disconcerting pleasure of affection; it was almost too much and I was blushing in seconds. "Yeah, we had some good times... And don't worry about me, it'll take more than some spacesick dirt-humping Neanderthals to kill me dead."

"That's for sure," Sa'ad chuckled, regaining his usual equilibrium. "Come on, let's go to the rec room, Thor's probably already breaking out the party gin to send you off. It may be the last time you get to lose your shirt to him."

"Yeah, any day now."

Two days later I got the go ahead, with no opportunity for final good-byes except to Captain Howard, who came to say his farewell in the second hanger. He grasped my shoulder and said casually, "Good luck, Duo, and take care of yourself. It's been handy having you around, but I've got a feeling our paths will cross again soon enough."

"I hope so, sir." We shared a smile, then he left with a parting nod to the Professor – who then proceeded to harangue me with last-minute reminders. I tuned him out, impatient to launch because only then would I truly believe that all this was happening. I had gone from scrounging the L2 gutters to piloting the solar system's most powerful weapon, and I was possibly experiencing some sort of delayed reaction of shock and disbelief. Is that why it had been so easy to say good-bye to my friends?

Then, finally, I was scaling Deathscythe, and Professor G was yelling, "Remember to keep your mind on the mission, 02!"

With a roll of my eyes, I climbed into the cockpit and buckled myself in. I ran the startup sequence immaculately, just to please the eccentric old geezer, then launched into space.

!

Operation Meteor proved... destructive, to say the least. Shinigami blossomed immediately under these idyllic circumstances, fed by a steady diet of clear cut bad guys, and soon I was spending 24/7 in a state of blood-thirty mania devoid of boredom, worry, and pain. Either Shinigami was in my cockpit fighting, or I was trying to figure some way to put him there again. In the background, where Shinigami did not yet pervade, I reminded myself that my victims had forfeited their lives by joining the military, and that the lives of the few sometimes had to be sacrificed for the many; but it was frighteningly easy to get carried away with the murder and mayhem while insulated within a nearly indestructible Gundam. Taking out Alliance fortresses was comparable to squashing termite colonies under your feet, people fleeing the chaos like frightened bugs.

This trigger-happy overconfidence was quick to spill out into the 'real world', where I was not surrounded by protective gundanium. The first time I met Pilot 01, later IDed as perfect soldier Heero Yuy, we tried to kill each other. I shot first, I admit, but he was hardly any better; then that stupid cow Relena Darlian purposely got in the way, despite the fact that Yuy was also trying to kill her! Relena and her general girlyness were a little off putting, but I was impressed and intrigued by the 01. I must've recognized something of my darker self in him, only sharpened, more refined and dedicated than I could ever be. Plus he had the deadly strength and ability to follow through with such extremes focus.

So I decided to spring 01 from the Alliance hospital where he was being held, and concocted an outrageous plan to blow a hole in the skyscraper's wall and parachute out. It was dangerously flashy, but there wasn't really time for anything subtler, plus it seemed like a good way to channel this new and inexplicable desire to show off in front of the other pilot. As always, the plan only went half as expected, but both 01 and I managed to blow the joint, with Heero only a little worse for the wear as we literally limped away. And, of course, the obstinate mule still didn't want my help.

"Just trust me a little already!" I whined loudly, growing irritated at the Japanese boy's reluctance to join me at one of Howard's hideouts. "If I'd wanted to kill you, I would've taken you out at the lab. I just want to, you know, exchange information or something. God forbid we actually help each other!"

I was towering over him where he sat taping his broken leg. Heero glanced up long enough to give me a particular scowl that I had already seen several times, and it looked suspiciously like an expression of incredulity. I also got the distinct impression that it was directed more at me than my suggestion. "I don't need your help."

"You've broken your damn leg!" I grumbled with exasperation, not even mentioning how banged up he looked generally. "Now be reasonable. Whether or not you need my help, we do both need to do repairs on our Gundams, and it would be stupid to go to unnecessary risk when I have an accessible safeship." (Like a safehouse, but a ship.)

Eyeing the straining muscles of his neck, I thought I picked up the faintest hint of resignation, and took the opportunity to act. Alert but smooth, I crouched next to Heero and put my arm around his firm torso as though we hadn't just recently been trying to kill each other. "Come on, let's get the outta here before the cavalry come."

"Hn," he grunted, finally agreeing to something, and I felt his tense arm reluctantly grip my far shoulder. Then we pushed up together, and went for our Gundams. Despite his obvious injuries, the obstinate bastard pushed himself fast and hard, and again I couldn't help but be impressed and, well, inspired. Heero was everything I had wanted Thor to be, and that Solo had seemed to be all those years ago; he was a true hero. While raising the Gundams from the water, he actually set his own leg! And then went to work on his Gundam, Wing, way into the night and long after I crashed into oblivion.

When I woke up, the indomitable asshole was gone, and had used Deathscythe's parts to fix Wing! I was outraged, of course, almost homicidally so, but I was also faintly amused and, again, the admiration just kept coming. Then I bumped into him again on my very next mission (another deadly barrel of laughs) and he breaks apparent protocol to save my life, with his usual stoic flare. It kept me from sleeping later that night, forcing me to lie awake staring at the low ceiling of the underground shelter, trying to take stock of the spiraling situation. In all the chaos of killing, it was 01 that was tripping me up.

Just a couple weeks later, in what can only be a case of intentional redundancy or gross lack of communication, our Professors once again sent us on the same mission – this time requiring us to go undercover at a rich boarding school. Heero nicked my name to use as his alias, but I hardly cared; it was hysterical to watch Heero interacting with the student body. At least I had a background amongst children to draw on, but Heero was like an elephant among mice: even one false step could kill someone, and the elephant would barely notice or care.

As the two new transfer students, we were bunked together, and I could hardly pass up the opportunity to grill the perfect soldier a little. Finishing my homework and real work at the end of that first evening, I flipped my laptop shut, then rolled over on my belly and stared intently at Heero Yuy. His back was rigid and posture alert as he sat at the desk, typing furiously.

It had been a long day, what with fighting off the fawning girls and forcing a modicum of attention in class, and it was now easy to fall into an exhausted trance. The sound of typing soothed my ears, and his blurring form eased the eyes. I must've stared mindlessly at him for a good twenty minutes before he gave any indication of noticing. Without breaking the rhythm of his keystrokes, he grunted, "Don't you have anything to do?"

I shook my head, clearing cobwebs and slowly grinning with the awareness of my achievement. It wasn't much, but the bastard had actually spoken to me first! "I'm meditating!"

There was a snort that could've been amusement or skepticism, so I pushed my advantage, "What you doing? Surely not still going over the barge schematics?"

"No," his back responded curtly.

"Well, why don't you share a little?" I prodded, trying not to sound too much like the whiny kid that had begged Thor to let him fly a mobile suit. "Two brains are better than one, and I've got a knack for certain things."

Heero typed for a few seconds more, but then the rhythm shifted and I could tell that he was shutting his computer down. He got up with deliberate movements and came to sit on his bed, opposite me. He glared at me intently, not even trying to hide the fact that he was sizing me up. "You have a good comprehension of civilian behavior, correct?"

I blinked owlishly at him, quite dumbfounded for a moment. I thought it rather absurd that this isolated street rat could be considered an expert on any 'civil' part of the population, but then I had to think about where Heero was coming from. I had interacted comparatively well with the other students, while he had displayed all the social skills of a mild autistic. All I could offer was a weak, "I guess."

My inner turmoil was lost on the perfect soldier, who I suddenly realized was so caught up in his own problems that he was actually asking me for my opinion! This really was a breakthrough.

"Relena Darlian has witnessed too much." He explained after a slow start. "I know what needs to be done, she must be eliminated. . . but I need to understand her irrational behavior."

My mouth fell open a little, dumbfounded even as my mind scrambled to put together what little data I had noted on Relena Darlian. She was painfully girly (and this god-awful pink) on the outside, and had made some pretty questionable decisions when it came to Heero. Otherwise, she was definitely strong willed and independent, and at least believably honorable. "Well, she's crushing on you big time, obviously...," I started, trying to form an intelligent answer. "But, it's more than that. She wouldn't just latch on to you randomly. I think that she trusts that you are fighting for the right thing, you can be very convincing."

Heero nodded pensively, outwardly unaffected by my words. Still, he didn't move from his seat on the bed, so I tried to take advantage of his apparent willingness to converse. "Do you think she is a risk?"

We gazed oppositionally at one another for long seconds. Heero blinked first, somehow without conceding anything. "Of course she is a risk. But could she be worth it?"

I frowned at the perfect soldier, our eyes still locked, trying to understand what he was thinking, and where he saw the Darlian girl fitting into the mission and his life. Anyone else would probably already be dead by this point. In the end, all I could say was, "Trust your instincts, Heero. If something inside is telling you not to kill her, then you should probably listen."

Heero looked away then, out of the small dorm window, and only spoke after a heavy moment of silence, "An old mentor of mine said the very same thing."

I shrugged, feeling a little over my head, and my hands gestured meaninglessly as I tried to offer a little street wisdom. "Yeah, well, you know. None of this shit makes any sense anyway, so reason barely helps. Gotta go with your gut."

Heero kept his gaze trained on the scene beyond the window for almost a full minute after that, then he twisted around to lay down on his bed. I think he was asleep almost instantly, despite being fully clothed and still wearing his boots.

The mission, of course, turned into just another opportunity for Heero Yuy to show off his superhuman abilities and inhuman determination – inspiring both admiration and jealousy in yours truly.

I look back on those early encounters with 01 fondly though. Missions up to that point had been almost ridiculously easy, as no effective defensive had yet been organized, so working/competing with the only other Gundam pilot was a welcome challenge. Back in the early days of the war, it felt like a game; before I realized how ugly, and dirty, it was all going to become. Heero and I played each other and off each other, in a deadly series of matches that brought our enemies crumbling, but left little resolved between us. Heero almost certainly viewed me as a nuisance, but I had definitely begun to think of him as a brother-in-arms.

It was no more of a violent mess, I suppose, than when the other Gundam pilots met each other. If it wasn't for Quatre's recessive gene for humanity, the five of us probably would've ended up blowing each other up. Quatre Winner, 04, sole son of the influential Winner empire, was the only one of us with any true social and communication skills, and I liked him immediately, despite our radically different backgrounds.

I went into hiding with him at one point, relatively early in the war, and made myself a lifelong friend. In an unexpected and terrible twist of fate, Heero proved that he was not perfect by getting trapped and tricked into assassinating the Alliance's leadership, and then self-destructing in Wing in defeat. Reeling from shock and the first tinglings of fear, I followed Quatre to hide in the desolate safety of Earth's greastest desert. It was hard to accept the preceding days' events, and we took advantage of several opportunities to engage in long talks, mostly about the current state of the war, but also about our Gundams and the other pilots, especially the supposedly dead Heero Yuy.

"I can't believe this shit with Kushrenada and Marquise. They're just going to take over Earth?" My question was redundant, and my voice rich with skepticism; despite having been a witness to the effective end of the Alliance at Wing's hands, the speed at which the battlefield had changed was a somewhat unnerving. The original mission parameters were shot to hell, and now I was forced to improvise... only I hadn't the faintest I idea what to do, and only an inkling of where to start. I vastly preferred the murdering and mayhem part of the job description.

Quatre was staring at the wall-mounted vid screen with open-mouthed disbelief, something that I had witnessed several times over the last few days as we watched OZ annex government after government. It felt almost cowardly to be laying low in Quatre's desert stronghold.

"Gods, how did this happen?" he asked mournfully, dropping his head into his hands where he sat on a crate (his stronghold was more of a highly fortified storage facility). After a long pause, he continued, "I just don't understand, and I was watching enemy movements so closely! It's hard to believe that this wasn't foreseeable. Preventable."

I really didn't know what to say; sure, Professor G had given me some background on my targets, but my understanding of the political sphere was rather limited and I was accustomed to the bafflement. I wasn't as disturbed as Quatre by this bizarre turn of events, and all I could offer was my usual callous reliance on the harsh lesson of my childhood, "Too late to worry about it now, we'll probably never know exactly what happened. All we can do is put them down like we were gonna put down the Alliance. It's mostly the same people, just a different name."

"I suppose so," Quatre agreed unconvincingly, though we had considered the idea before. After a long, longing glance at his Gundam, Sandrock, he finally continued, "I just feel like we're missing something important... and I can't stop thinking about Heero."

Me neither, actually. My feelings were a jumble of admiration, irritation, and surprisingly deep regret that I had not gotten to know our fallen soldier better. I couldn't deny that there was something appealing about him, about the way he had lived and died. "He really believed in the mission, I'll give him that."

Quatre snorted slightly at the understatement, then looked mortified that he had laughed at the dead. Bowing his head once again, he said solemnly, "We need all the allies we can get, considering the poor direction of recent affairs. He would have made an invaluable ally."

I nodded absently in agreement, wistfully reminiscing over my own interactions with him... my unsolicited and unappreciated offerings of peace... Heero had never wanted to be anyone's ally.

I could feel my mind drifting towards abstraction, so I pulled myself roughly back to reality. "It doesn't matter," I said harshly, jumping to my feet only to begin pacing. "01's dead. The mission's fucked. We're here hiding, but really it's only a matter of time before they find us..."

Quatre's eyes widened conspicuously, though that was not the sign of weakness that it was in other people. "Perhaps, but we have a long time yet. Any incursion will give plenty of warning, and we need to assess the situation on Earth before–"

I shook my head immediately, and decided to voice the plans that were congealing in my own mind. I glared at him meaningfully and said, "I'm not staying here. This new enemy, they've taken to space, and threatened the colonies. It is time for me to return home, to defend my people."

Quatre stared at me for a long moment with that unreadable, understanding expression of his, like he was reading your soul or something, then he nodded reluctantly.

Much excitement followed, none of it in space yet, but as fast-paced and action-packed as always. The history books mostly have it right. OZ tried to blow us to smithereens, but the Maganac Corps saved us, then Quatre saved me. In the end though, a Gundam soldier is always alone. . .

!

Before too long I was in space again, my medium, but it was no longer the comfortable environment I remembered. OZ suits patrolled every place that a person would conceivably want to go, and after sneaking under their radar for several weeks, they eventually tracked me to a friendly transport ship I was using to take Deathscythe between the colonies. It was inevitable that I would get caught, really, as Shinigami kept busy and felt little need to be careful.

When it finally came, the ambush was well executed. A swarm of mobile suits came upon on my transport ship with surprising speed, and Deathscythe was barely out of bay doors before they were pursuing me from multiple directions. The first few were easy enough to take care of, but then I was fighting them back en mass, and increasingly aware of the desperation of my situation. Enemy after enemy fell before my Scythe, but they got perilously closer with each new offensive, numbers soon overwhelming my natural speed. Again and again I swung with deadly accuracy, until a lucky blow made it through my defenses and hit Deathscythe like a ton of bricks. The Gundam was thrown back heavily, with a blow so hard that my head smashed against the loosened cockpit paneling. Deathscythe was suddenly spirally out of control, minus a very important limb.

With OZ hot on my heals and power failing, I thought that death was imminent, but all that flashed through my mind was Heero. The situation was desperate, and I wanted to know, what would 01 do? Given that Heero had so recently self-detonated, I maintain that that is exactly what he would have done in this context as well. It was imperative that my Gundam not fall into enemy hands. I only considered my options for a couple heart beats, then my palm slammed down on the self-destruct button –

Nothing at all happened.

Only then did I begin to feel the edge of real panic, though I flooded it out with a Shinigami's anger. "Fucking Hell! Only L2 mechs could be such incompetent fuckheads! Can't even self-destruct right! You deserve to rot on that shithole!"

My extremities were beginning to numb, and blood was running heavily down both cheeks, obscuring my vision as much as the black splotches of eminent unconsciousness. It was easy to ignore my physical pain, but I was grappling with the reality that OZ may capture Deathscythe, and I was suddenly all the way back to the basics: never allow yourself to fall into enemy hands.

I grappled for the now familiar handgun strapped to my hip, taking too long to free it from its holster and raise it to my temple. Deathscythe lurched violently, slamming my oozing skull wound against the dislodged panel, and then everything went black –

I came to in a small, brightly lit room, tied securely to a solid chair. I startled to consciousness when a shot of adrenaline was administered intravenously – never a good a way to wake up. The first thing I saw was the ugly mug of an OZ soldier, then behind him another uniform.

They took me through a typical interrogation sequence: threats and intimidation, followed closely by token violence; then, emboldened by the latter and annoyed by the lack of response on my part, the real carnage began. Within a couple hours, the OZ barbarians had already worked through their entire repertoire of torture. They were down right boring in their beatings, gave up too quickly on electrocution and cutting, and didn't have the subtlety to pull off any of the suffocation techniques. Too soon I was a beaten, bloody mess on the verge of losing consciousness, an infuriating smirk tugging at the corners of my lips. After all, I was in the hands of amateurs who didn't even have enough sense to keep their prisoner awake long enough to spill the beans.

I woke up in a cold cell, who knows how long later. I was heavily bruised and felt generally achy, an after-effect of the electrocution, but surprisingly whole. A tourniquet had been tied around my head, covering the earlier wound and a later injury that I remember soaking my face in blood and turning my vision a blurry red. My head hurt like a bitch actually, and I felt a unique nausea that suggested the presence of a mild concussion, but it didn't feel like anything to seriously hinder performance. Another tourniquet was wrapped tightly around my thigh, so I forced myself to stand and was relieved that my leg held my weight, if weakly. It rather reinforced my perception that my captors were amateurs. They were probably decent soldiers, but the art of torture required a… special kind of artist. It spoke volumes that I didn't seem to have any major broken bones or severed body parts.

Still, given my identity, it was only a matter of time before I was passed up the chain of command, into the hands of those with greater resources and fewer reservations. If I was to have any hope, I would have to make my escape now. Or terminate.

A shiver of adrenaline ran through me and I shifted seamlessly into Shinigami. I moved towards the door and meticulously ran my fingers along the frame. It was too dark to really see, but I could tell that the door was solidly constructed. I peaked through the tiny window and could make out the back of a soldier. I then turned my attention to the rest of the cell, checking every square foot, but there was nothing but cool cement and a solitary bucket.

Fuck, this did not look good. I could probably manage to strangle myself with my braid, but that morbid death was beginning to look like the only way out of the current mess. Dashing my brains out on the concrete was not a particularly appealing alternative. Alas, I have always been too arrogant for my own good. I wouldn't strangle myself because I assumed that I could create some kind of opportunity – either to escape or to drag a few others with me to hell.

A couple hours later, higher command did show up, and I had little to show for my recuperation time. Still, I hardly expected the dubious honor of...

"General Tye," I slurred between swollen lips, recognizing him from the case file pic. He stood just inside the door, flanked by two burly wingmen.

"Duo Maxwell." He stared at me, if the ball was in my court again, but I just stared sullenly at him, leaning against the far concrete wall. "My men tell me that you have not been very cooperative."

"Ha!" Shinigami barked harshly, obstinately. "Your men have not been very persuasive."

The General smiled creepily at me before turning to one of the guards with an outstretched hand. "If you don't mind."

The OZ soldier handed over his baton, then Tye used his free hand to gesture their departure. The door shut heavily behind them, and then locked loudly. The General turned around and fixed his gaze on me again, and for the first time I began to actually feel afraid. His look was calculating and predatory, and echoed hauntingly of monsters from my past. Shinigami reared up and I darted along the wall, trying to circle my opponent. There wasn't much space, and Tye's long strides quickly brought him within striking distance. He swung the baton at me, which I dodged easily, but the bastard was fast enough to follow up with a kick. I danced away, but still it caught me painfully in the shins. The fast movement only emphasized the strain my body was under; whatever I hoped to accomplished, it would have to be quick.

The General swung again, and this time I twisted closer, using all my momentum and body weight to drive my fists into the tall man's gut. He stumbled back, but his arm shot out and grabbed me by my throat. He stumbled sideways, dragging me with him, and we both crashed against the wall. I struggled to get out of his grip, but he pushed his considerable size advantage against me, pinning me to the hard wall. I tried to kick out, but I couldn't get enough room to do any damage and it certainly didn't shake the constricting grip on my windpipe. Black spots began appearing in my vision and my legs became like jelly, but still I stubbornly tried to grapple with the taller man.

Finally the hold disappeared as I sunk to the ground, but before I could even begin to recover, a couple well-aimed kicks to the gut made breathing almost impossible. I curled in on myself to protect my soft parts, only to feel the man's hands grabbing at my pants. For long seconds I was just relieved not to be kicked again, still struggling for breath, before I even realized what was actually happening. Terror gave me a new energy, and I began thrashing and screaming obscenities, which only earned me another shower of brutal blows. Then my pants were gone and Tye hauled me up by my shirt and slammed me head-first into corner of the concrete room.

((WARNING: GRAPHIC TORTURE/RAPE SCENE! SCROLL DOWN TO NEXT ALL CAPS LINE TO SKIP.))

The General was on top of me again in a second, and proximity to the wall forced me up on my knees. My arms struggled to push up, but Tye's weight behind me smashed my face and shoulders to the concrete, and I could feel his erection solidly pressing against my ass.

"You think you're a priest, boy?" he bellowed, echoing to my perception as though over the loudspeaker.

Hysteria released a string of curses from my lips, and fueled my efforts at thrashing further, but I was thoroughly immobilized and all it did was spur on my hyperventilation. The General's hands gripped my hips painfully, pulling and pushing at me so that his thick erection poked roughly at my asshole. I tried desperately then to switch gears, mentally screaming to myself that I could take this and survive this, that I needed to relax to minimize the damage, that this wasn't the end of the world...

But then the thing tore into me, and agony banished all thoughts. His momentum slammed my face against the concrete, and blood sprayed from my nose and lips. And yet the pain in my neck and head could not overshadow the pain stabbing inside me – against fierce resistance. Tye paused for a moment before forcing himself impossibly farther, until he was fully seated inside me. I could feel his thighs against mine, his body against my ass, even as my mouth smeared bile on the concrete.

"You will find that I do not tolerate disrespect," he whispered lethally, bending over so his wet lips could brush my earlobe. "Especially not from some godless L2 whore."

I released a weak, breathless whimper before he pulled out and plowed in again. This time the resistance gave, and I managed a strangled scream as I felt my insides rip apart. Desperation and panic overwhelmed me, and I was suffocating so bad that the vicious pounding into my wounded hole would soon be the lesser of my concern. I clawed at the stone floor, ripping and breaking fingernails, and tried to draw out Shinigami, but he –

He actually shrunk away from me in my darkest hour of greatest need. In my depthless despondence, I had one unwelcome revelation: Shinigami fought on behalf of my vengence, but he did not bear my pain. Only Duo would bear the consequences of our actions, and it was only Duo in this room being violated, trapped between concrete and cock, just trying to git and bear and somehow survive. Isn't that what Duo did best?

With the blood acting as a lubricant, and the concrete cage for leverage, Tye was able to speed up considerably, using his hands on my hips to impale my body on his quick thrusts. I focused on the pain in my neck and face and head, trying desperately to convince myself that what was happening below the vital organs was less of a concern. It was just pain, new and particularly horrific but not even the worst of my life. Of course, at the time Duo thought it would last forever, but in real time it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before the man's thrusts grew erratic and then he shot his burning spunk into my ass. Duo had no breath to voice a scream, just gurgled blood pathetically and made a boneless attempt to draw away.

The General laughed, but I only heard it distantly beyond the rushing of my own blood in my ears. A familiar, self-protective numbness began to settle in, detaching me from the sensations of Tye pulling out of me and blood streaming down my thighs. He rammed my face into the wall one last time for good measure, then stood, finally giving me enough space to collapse. I closed my eyes, but could feel his breath near my ear when he next spoke.

"I'm going to give you twelve hours to think about your predicament," he said with honey calm. "Then you can either answer my questions, or I'll use this baton next."

The baton pushed roughly between my ass cheeks, and it was so large that terror broke through my burgeoning numbness. "No," Duo croaked between split lips, again trying to draw away.

Tye chuckled, but withdrew the threatening weapon. "Unfortunately, I really do have some important business to attend to. Twelve hours, terrorist trash."

((END OF GRAPHIC TORTURE SCENE. GRAPHIC MEDICAL SCENE TO COME.))

Still I didn't open my eyes, listening to the sound of the General knocking on the door, the lock of the door behind him. I finally forced my body to peel away from the concrete wall, carefully stretching out on the cold floor. It was easier to regulate my breathing in the dark, and my compacted spine immediately began feeling better. I was even able to muster a little relief at being alive.

But one thought of the baton, and I knew that I had to consider the braid auto-asphyxiation scenario more seriously. For a long time, it was all I could do to stay calm and ignore the pain of my surely broken nose, and to not even acknowledge the abusing ache between my legs. Only when the cold began racking my body with tremors did I force my eyes open. Looking at the corner of the room, I could see my blood smeared on the concrete; turning my head away jerkily, I could make out my pants and boxers strewn on the floor. Every muscle screamed objection, but I forced myself onto my hands and knees and crawled towards my clothes. The bleeding had subsided somewhat when I had lain still, but it started again when I moved.

"I can't believe this shit," I murmured hoarsely to myself. How had I protected myself for so long, only to be violated like this at this late date? I had failed myself, had become another L2 stereotype, the saddest of victims. A lump lodged painfully in my already swollen throat, but I pushed on instead of giving in to the urge to cry. I grabbed my boxers and used them to frantically wipe at my thighs and ass. The bleeding still hadn't stopped, and I was too upset to do a good cleanup, so in the end I rolled up the boxers and stuffed them between my ass cheeks. I struggled to regulate the pain and keep my breathing even, but suspected that I was hyperventilating nonetheless. I finally wrestled my black pants back on, and it made me feel a lot better, as if the symbolic garments were somehow holding together my damaged body.

Only then did I turn to the mess of my face; I almost didn't bother, but decided that I couldn't seriously contemplate suicide why in such physical distress. Resetting the nose was relatively easy and quick, for an agonizing moment, while staunching and cleaning the blood took seemingly forever. Keeping busy had kept me alive, but now there was nothing left to do but evaluate my prospects and formulate a plan.

Prospects did not look good.

I reached behind my head and gently took hold on my thick braid, then ran my fingers along its length until its tip was pinched between my fingers. I stared at it sadly for a moment, almost lovingly, before reluctantly wrapping it around my neck. The trick would be not releasing tension in the braid when I lost consciousness, but I had long ago worked out how the knot to accomplish that. But still I hesitated. It had felt easier when the bringer of death was a self-destruct button or the trigger of a gun. This was morbid, and I felt more like a suicide than a martyr.

I tried thinking about my duty to the Colonies, about not allowing myself to fall into enemy hands, about what Heero Yuy would do in such a situation. When that didn't work I tried to think about had just happened to me and what the General had threatened, but my mind's natural defenses were already kicking in, repeatedly distracted me with desperate scenarios of escape. My thoughts were so slippery and spinning that I resolved to calm myself and clear my mind before killing myself. After all, if I did this wrong I would fail and just pass out again. Or was I just making excuses?

That is how the definitely not dead Heero found me, propped up brokenly against the cold wall across from the door and clutching at Sister Helen's cross. It didn't even occur to me to wonder how Heero Yuy had appeared suddenly in my OZ cell, or to question if I was hallucinating. I simply told him to kill me, barely expecting such a mercy, and was rather surprised to have my greeting returned with a cocked Magnum.

"You're really going to shoot me, aren't you?" I asked in wonder, suddenly overwhelmed with relief. I had been brought down so low today that a mercy killing at the hand of a friend seemed like the best ending to this nightmare. This was a death fitting for a body that had hosted Shinigami's power, and I felt an unexpected contentment. Like I was finally coming home to rest.

But as I gazed zombie-like into the eyes of my salvation, I could see the cogs moving in his brain, and had spent enough time around him to realize what he was thinking. His time away from Doctor J's direct influence was opening up Heero's eyes to the advantages of acting human, I think. My stomach plummeted nauseatingly (in disappointment?), but Shinigami's traitorous spirit suddenly sparked to life. When Heero lowered his gun, and instead wrapped his arm under my armpits as I had once done for him, the God of Death was ready. I gripped his shoulder hard enough to bruise, hauled myself to my feet, and then forced myself to move. Heero opened the door, propped me against the door frame while he dragged the guard's body inside, then we were running for our lives.

Compared to the slow torture of earlier, the entire escape rushed by so quickly that I can barely remember the details. Heero had everything figured out, I just had to keep myself together and moving. I stumbled repeatedly, but Heero never released his vice grip on my bruised ribs, and his steps never faltered. He got me away from the nightmare, to somewhere safe, explosions echoing in my ears all the way...

"Strip," Heero ordered as soon as we made it to a safe house on the nearest colony.

"No fucking way," I responded immediately, heading straight for the bunk. "I'm going to sleep for the next couple days."

I could hear the frown in his voice when he responded, "You need to be assessed for injuries. And you are covered in blood."

I carefully laid my aching body down on the bed and closed my eyes immediately. "I've already done all the assessing I need. A couple cracked ribs, a broken nose that I've already set, a mild concussion, and few flesh wounds that are bandaged and not currently bleeding."

"You shouldn't sleep if you have a concussion." His voice was uncomfortably close and clinical, and my eyes flew open to see him standing ominously over me.

Assuming that I had received the concussion during Deathscythe's capture, my observation period was long past. Still, there was no doubt that I was filthy, and I hardly felt like sleeping with him so close anyway, not with my heart racing this fast. Actually, I kinda felt like he could see right through me, and suddenly I was acutely aware of my boxers wedged between my legs. I rolled over and abruptly got to my feet, despite the ache in my bowels and ribs that came with major movement. Without ever meeting Heero's eye, I slinked away from him and towards the bathroom. "You're probably right. I'll just go clean up and change my bandages. But then I get to sleep, okay? This torture shit really takes it outta you."

Heero's gaze followed me into the bathroom, but luckily seeing through walls was not one of his superpowers. I steeled myself as best I could, emulating Shinigami at his best, though of course I was again alone in my weakness. I shed my black clothes quickly and mechanically, then I stepped into the shower and used the soap to shed several layers of sweat and dried blood, carefully keeping my hair out of the spray. It certainly needed a clean, but I was not up for its care right now. After one of the shortest showers of my life, I was half heartedly drying within minutes. Opening the first aid kit, I used peroxide to clean my flesh wounds, then meticulously taped up the gashes in my head and leg; a tight wrap around my torso took care of my cracked ribs, as did some supportive tape over the bridge of my nose. Then for a couple minutes I stood staring forlornly at the ointment tube that I held in my hand.

I was having difficulty taking the next step, as my mind warred between the pros and cons of reality versus denial. I knew that my internal damage could kill me if not properly treated. The first-aid kit provided antibacterial and regenerating medicines, but if I needed surgery then I would have to go to a hospital. Still, the bleeding had mostly stopped, and I dared hope that the medical ointment would be enough. I made myself breathe deeply for a couple long minutes before taking action.

I smeared the ointment on two fingers, then bent in front of the mirror, with my free hand bracing the sink. I tried to be careful, but my arm was shaking so hard with stress and pain that I ended up just jamming the fingers into my wounded asshole. I yelped loudly, and black blotches appeared in my spinning vision. I barely realized I was falling before I hit the tiles, my knees and elbows knocking loudly against the sink and floor, and pain exploding through my body even as I curled instinctively into fetal position.

Heero burst into the bathroom almost immediately, and stood over me glowering. "What happened?"

The last thing I wanted was for Heero to learn of the shameful attack on my person, but embarrassment was a poor excuse for fucking up further. I was dedicated to the colonies, I told myself, and that dedication dictated what needed to be done. It was no problem, really, to sacrifice any chance at Heero's respect in favor of living to fight for the colonies. Still, my tight grip on sanity was definitely slipping, because as I straightened my limbs I heard Duo joke weakly, "Apparently, there are limits to self abuse."

Heero's frown deepened, and I swear I saw concern in his expression. I must've made quite a pathetic picture, lying mostly naked and deeply bruised on the bathroom floor, making smart-ass remarks about the ugly damage. "What do you need me to do?" he asked after a searching pause.

I was in full-on autopilot mode, because it wasn't me that held up my fist; my fingers held the regenerative ointment in a death grip. Heero reached for the tube and had to pry it out of them, his scowl growing noticeably. "Duo," he spoke openly, and it was the first time I can ever remember him calling me by my name. "Where do you need this applied?"

Like an out-of-body experience, I felt my mouth twist into a sick smirk and heard Duo again try for flippant, "Can we move this to a bed?"

It was lost on 01, but it was more of a reflexive action on my part anyway. Heero offered his hand to help me up, which I took, then quickly released to limp reluctantly towards the bed. Careful of my ribs, I lay stomach-down on the mattress, turned my face towards the wall, and closed my eyes tight. Forcing myself not to feel a goddamn thing, I managed a deep breath, then let the awful truth out, just this once, "I was raped, and there was... a lot of blood. But with a little luck, maybe I can escape this ordeal without a hospital visit."

Heero was eerily, if typically silent. The mattress dipped when he sat next to me, and I held my body still against the onslaught of twitchy impulses. My ears picked out the sound of him unscrewing the cap, and squirting the goo onto his fingers. By the time he parted my cheeks and brought his fingers to my anus, every muscle was solid as a rock and I was just barely restraining a berserker fit. I was biting my lip so hard that it had started bleeding again.

On the brink of inducing hysteria, the blunt fingers withdrew, and instead a hand came to rest hesitantly on my shoulder. Heero spoke with calm and reason, "You have to relax, Duo, or this'll hurt only more."

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and forced myself to keep breathing through tight lungs. I managed to unclench a few muscles, but the idea of relaxing was ridiculous. Heero's clean hand moved to rest comfortingly on my hip, but his fingers were back at my abused entrance within moments, and it was impossible not to tense up.

"Relax," he repeated, softly, and two slippery fingers began to gently massage my clenched, swollen orifice. It hurt, everything down there hurt, but the strained muscle gave in with a little persistence.

"Ahhh!" Duo cried out wretchedly, as he had not been able to before, but I choked it down quickly and was instantly ashamed of my weakness. The ointment was supposed to contain a light anesthetic, but the feel of Heero's fingers in my wound was still an appalling agony and a profound humiliation. I did a pretty good job of not moving, but I couldn't control the odd spasm as he slowly pushed into me.

"Breathe. This will only take a moment." His voice was surprisingly soothing, and I made myself inhale and exhale methodically. The extra air made me a little dizzy, but helped me pull away from my body a little. Heero prodded my insides for a few seconds, finally provoking another hiss of pain when he withdrew his fingers. "There. I think you'll be alright."

My every tense muscle collapsed so completely and instantly that my head spun, like fainting without the blacking out. I melted bonelessly into the mattress, my mind and body giving in to absolute physical and emotional exhaustion.

"Thanks, Hee-chan," I slurred, burrowing my face into the rough material as though to escape this life all together. A few seconds later I felt a blanket being pulled over me, then I let myself slip off to sleep...

... I woke to the smell of hot food, mysteriously dressed in dark blue sweats. When I opened my eyes completely, Heero was about a meter away, holding a bowl towards my face. I blinked owlishly, completely unprepared to confront such bizarre and unprecedented behavior upon first waking. "Uh... what are you doing?"

Heero continued to hold out his offering, studying me critically. "Startling you did not seem like a wise way of waking you."

I smirked weakly, finally drawing upon the wherewithal to reach out for the proffered bowl. "You can say that again. I'da probably tried to take your head off... Thanks."

Never one to turn down free food, I took a sip of the hot soup, and was quite pleased with its hearty thickness. Concentrating on each spoonful made it relatively easy to think around recent memories – like making space for unacknowledged ghosts.

"You'll need to stick to a liquid diet for the next few days, and take antibiotics," Heero stated cautiously, as if unsure of my reaction. I was familiar with the procedures for this kind of medical care, so I nodded, though I suddenly didn't have the stomach for eye contact. Heero was a witness to my complete degradation; I had lost my Gundam and my dignity, and then, in the end, had failed even in the simple task of offing myself.

My mostly negative emotions swelled in me and I had to give voice to something, but I couldn't expose Heero to the unplumbed depths of my suffering. My eyes trained on the bowl warming my hands, and I tried instead to focus my emotions on my small puddle of gratitude. "I want to thank you, 01. For saving me, for being willing to finish me if necessary. I never imagined that anyone would come for me… and I'm sorry you had to. I'll repay you, if you ever need my help."

I didn't raise my eyes, but I could tell that Heero was still staring at me. "I couldn't let what you know fall into enemy hands. And I didn't kill you because you're an asset to protecting the colonies, a good fighter. There is no need for thanks, or for repayment. You yourself assisted in my escape from the Alliance."

Only then did I look up at him, and we shared a long, weighted moment. I think we both wanted to say more, but the fact that he had woken me from a healing rest meant that he had some pressing matter. Sure enough, after several strained seconds he spoke, as gently as was probably possible for him, "I need to go. Can you take care of yourself?"

I rolled my eyes and grinned at him, giving my most convincing, "Of course! I'll rest up for a couple days, then I oughtta be up for leaving the hideout."

Heero frowned skeptically. It would certainly take longer than a couple days to get back into peak condition, and he must've known it. "I've enrolled you in a nearby boarding school, under my name. It would probably be safest if you stayed there while you heal."

Heero didn't ask me what I would do after that, nor did I question him on his plans, though I think we both wanted to. War had turned all five of us child soldiers into quasi-sociopathic killing machines, and there was no questioning that, so what we wanted didn't really matter. Heero left the safehouse within the hour, and two days later it was once again nothing more than an abandoned building in the warehouse district.

I was a different person in the wake of my victimization, and I definitely needed the weeks I spent at the harmless boarding school. It was nothing like the Maxwell Church Orphanage, but I found myself pretending that it was. I tagged along with my new classmates, a shadow of my former self, but much more comfortable out of the spotlight. I imagined that I was Mandela or Shaka or one of the other adopted orphans, and it was the exact crutch I needed to get away from myself... and from the jittery fear that exhausted the waking hours, and from the nightmares that dispelled any rest from my sleep. The only comfort was my single room, in which I could hide my condition and recover in private. I got some attention because I had transferred in halfway through the school year, but that also made it easier to be a stranger. I eventually left Earth for L1 when I felt well enough to travel.

Outside my isolating shell, the war continued to mutate so rapidly that the original mission and battlefield were no longer recognizable; but I wasn't nearly so eager to carve out a role for myself in the mayhem. For the moment it seemed as though my role in the war was over, and the part of me that was tired of hurting was glad. Almost as big a blow as the rape was the public destruction of Deathscythe shortly thereafter, which I watched anonymously from the crowded colonial streets below. I was certain then that my place in the war was gone and done, for I had failed completely; not only had I gotten caught and tortured, I had permitted my Gundam to be captured and destroyed! I was nothing without Deathscythe. Without Deathscythe, Shinigami was trapped in a human body, and the human body was only good for feeling pain…

Revenge just wasn't igniting the same fire as it used to, and now it couldn't even melt Duo's fear of continued suffering. By now I had shuttled from L1 to L2, my first time home since I had stowed away with the Sweepers. I didn't leave Mainport though, unwilling to get too close to buried memories. Plagued already by nightmares and flashbacks, I retreated into the shadows of the street, to hide for a while in plain view.

!

Beyond a doubt, Hilde Schbeiker is one hell of a chick. Obnoxiously pushy and foolishly brave, sure, but also super hot and totally in love with me. I was certainly in no condition to return her feelings, but she did help resuscitate my eviscerated pride – and, in the process, my personal interest in current events. There I was, relatively content to nurse my significant wounds for the remainder of the war, when this militant babe comes up to me and tries to convince me to sign on with OZ! She even had a spiel on how working with OZ was advantageous to the colonies and their future! I all but laughed in her pretty face, but I think she liked the challenge because she tried really hard to convince me.

She was, of course, just another victim of OZ's 'public relations' campaign, but it did give me a spectacular, disturbingly feasible idea for getting back into the fray. I was disappointed in myself for being both exhilarated and unenthused by this opportunity, so unlike my old self, though my choice was unwavering nonetheless. Once I had reasonable opportunity to take on the enemy, whoever that may be, it was my duty to act, and thereby protect the colonies. Right? I had never been big on the conventional sense of duty, but in the absence of vengeful passion, this compulsive sense of responsibility did step up to the plate. Perhaps it was a duty spawned from loyalty to dead, but it forced action just as surely as anger.

Reluctantly disregarding the sense of foreboding that colored all my recent thoughts of the war, I embarked on a cockeyed scheme to infiltrate OZ. Looking back, I know I was needlessly reckless, but that's a recurring theme. I felt a new fearlessness now; it was not Shinigami's confidence, but Duo's underlying assurance that nothing worse could happen to us. All I wanted to do was get in, kick some ass, and get this shit over with. In my haste I slipped undercover at the nearest OZ outpost, where I had the misfortune of again running into that trouble magnet Hilde Schbeiker. To make a long story short, I made a break for it, jacking a Leo and jetting off the colony. Hilde tried to blast me out of space, then I saved her sorry ass from OZ crossfire, only to get captured again. I was running on pure fumes, and yet the part of me that usually shot off panic signals was oddly silent. Duo was oddly un-invested in these wild happenings.

Hilde, meanwhile, was apparently everywhere, even in the transport shuttle that I was handcuffed to. I schooled my features, and let my big mouth fly. "I'm fighting to get back the smiles that the colonists lost," I blurted. "But I get back to the colonies and guess what? The people don't want their smiles back. Tell me something. How did the colonies become so twisted?"

I thought my words were ill formed, but they must've hit some target because Hilde suddenly pulled her gun on me. Relief flooded through my veins and I froze, shocked by the strong, alien urge to place my forehead to the gun's barrel… or to fellate it as I had done years ago. It was only then that I truly recognized my condition; and I wasn't fit to be fighting for anything. In my line of business, there is no room for sublimated self-sabotage or delusional thinking. I was a danger to everyone, and would be safer dead...

"I'm not afraid to die," I threw out defiantly, wavering off balance between Shinigami's desperate frustration and Duo's indifferent depression.

I held her gaze for a long moment before she lowered her gun and turned away to hide her softening expression, then left the room. Like a cockroach from Hell, I took no time in again breaking out of captivity and high-jacking another Leo, marveling all the while at the complete idiocy of OZ, that a half-crazed fifteen-year-old street rat could repeatedly evade them. Maybe I really would have to put myself out of commission, if only there weren't so many enemy targets to distract me!

I purposely crash landed on a nearby moon and was about to be gunned down by pursuing Tauruses when Hilde's mobile suit swept in and destroyed them. I couldn't help a smirk then; I had suspected before, but this was proof that she liked me! I thanked her, and convinced her to retreat to safety... while I sneaked onto the OZ lunar base nearby.

Super sneaky me, I stumbled right into the Professors' secret hanger, where I could see Deathscythe and Shenlong being rebuilt, then took a beating to prevent their exposure. Once again, I ended up behind bars, where I was truly shocked but pleased to recognize Wufei and Heero. And then Trowa showed up dressed as an OZ soldier! For a moment I thought I was hallucinating, but I've had enough hallucinations in my life to tell when I'm not having one.

We survived and escaped, as always. It had only been a matter of time anyway; with four Gundam pilots in close vicinity of each other, total mayhem and havoc was inevitable. And like the cursed horsemen of the apocalypse, we emerged from the explosions and rubble not only alive, but sporting shiny new Gundams as well.

I fled into space with the still unfinished Deathscythe, then met back up with Hilde, who let me hide out at a large salvage yard that her father owned as a side business. It was easy to take cover there and complete my new baby's systems, and a pleasure to reconnect with a Gundam like I never thought would be possible again. Unfortunately, it also grew impossible to avoid Hilde's romantic advances, which only seemed to escalate by the day. I worked long hours on Deathscythe, and tried to talk down all overtures, but was otherwise defenseless against the force of nature that was Hilde Schbeiker.

"Duo, Duo, Duo, Duo. Duuuuuuuuuo. Duo, Duo, Duuuo. Duoduoduo. Duo," Hilde harangued for minutes on end, reminding me of my own embarrassing behavior towards Thor. She had climbed up on Deathscythe to lure me away from repairs, but was so stubborn that a good half hour later she was lying on the small plank of scaffolding, just being obnoxious. In her defense though, it was close to midnight, and she did not yet know that my nightmare-induced insomnia let me work way into the next day, and even longer if necessary.

At the moment I was perched somewhat precariously on Deathscythe's soldier, working on the upper faceplate sensors. I had my own gift for gab, but Hilde was an outright blabbermouth. I brushed a sweaty strand of hair from my eyes and sighed, my mouth responding with automatic banter, "At that rate, sweetie, I'm gonna start charging."

"We should go out undercover. I'm sick of being cooped up all the time," she pouted.

She made this suggestion just about every other day, more out of boredom than a genuine belief that it was a good idea. I had made it very clear to her, and myself, that I was going to be cautious and meticulous this time around, and that I had fucked up too many times already. Professor G would've throttled me.

"Yeah, right. Your big mouth would blow your cover every time," I sniped distractedly, eyeballing an off-center washer.

"That was mean," she returned effortlessly, not sounding a bit offended. "Don't bite the hand that feeds."

Our banter reminded me of my time with the Sweepers. If I succeeded at talking to a hot chick, would I be expected to follow through romantically? The thought was unsetting, so I tackled the washer enthusiastically with my wrench and grumbled, "You don't feed me half enough."

"It's no small feat to fill that bottomless pit that is your stomach," came her inescapable voice.

That remark was, unfortunately, right on target. I yanked the washer loose and repositioned the screw, conscious that I felt a little peckish at that very moment. Stupid stomach.

"Well, growing boy and all that rot," I retorted between clenched teeth, using all my strength to tighten the washer.

Hilde didn't answer for a long moment, and when she did she had apparently moved on to a new topic. "Why do you dress like that?"

I was currently stripped down to an undershirt and a pair of black pants, but she was obviously referring to the priest's shirt that I usually wore. Sighing, I backed off the washer for a moment, but purposely avoided looking down at Hilde as I allowed myself to give the shallowest truth possible, "Black doesn't show the blood and dirt so much, does it? And I hardly have the time to be changing clothes all the time."

Hilde digested that for a second before further questioning, "But what about the collar?"

It was strange to be having this conversation without being able to see the other's face, but it made answering so much easier. Tackling the faulty washer for a second time, I practically grunted, "The Church I attended as a kid was very good to me. I fight for them."

Given the weight of the topic, I was surprised to catch the traces of a girly giggle from down below. "You sound sexy when you're exerting effort like that," she ventured, too loudly to really be seductive.

I felt my cheeks warm. I was relieved to be off the previous non sequitur, but still not entirely comfortable with Hilde's increasingly obvious attempts to redefine our relationship. I felt neither emotionally capable of intimacy nor ethically permitted to divert my attention from my duty to the colonies, though I did like the idea of someone finding me attractive. It soothed an old, recently resurrected fear that others could tell; that they could somehow sense that I was freakish and damaged. And Hilde was a real woman – slightly older than my meager fifteen years, and a hottie to boot. So what if she was so misguided that she had thought OZ was great, and that she still thought I was boyfriend material?

My fatigue suddenly let itself be known after hours sweating over gundanium, and I really didn't feel up to the challenges of this supercharged repartee. So, like a real sucker for trouble, I climbed down from Deathscythe's shoulder, fully aware that I would have to pass Hilde before I could get to the ground. Sure enough, she was standing when my feet hit the scaffolding and I almost instantly found her face inches from mine. Her eyes flickered to my lips and back up to my eyes.

"You've been avoiding me," she whispered, her breath ghosting cool over the sheen of sweat on my cheeks.

It wasn't technically true, but again I knew what she meant. Had I been leading her on by not outright rejecting her? I was such an asshole for not even knowing what I wanted. What would Shinigami do? The monster had been unusually silent and reticent since my victimization, and the question didn't even compute. What would Heero do? He'd gotten caught up with Relena, but surely he'd never let himself get tangled this way...

"My first responsibility is the freedom of the colonies," I recited weakly, shrugging, and turning my face away in embarrassment.

Hilde pressed forward suddenly, so that I clumsily stumbled back against Deathscythe's leg. She grabbed my cross and used it to gently pull me towards her lips. That it was warm and dry is about all I can say, but it was my first real kiss, and I was just relieved that it was not an unspeakable disaster. Indeed, I spent the entire couple seconds trying not to completely spazz out. When she withdrew an inch, I couldn't help but shiver slightly.

"Oh, come on! It wasn't that bad," she joked, but I could tell that I only had a few seconds before her puzzlement turned into hurt. I needed to give her a reason that had nothing to do with her...

"I'm n-nervous. I've n-never done anything like this before," I forced out, wondering if it was so hard to say because it was a lie. Was it a lie? I felt irrationally guilty and confused, I'd never doubted myself so much in my life. I also felt twitchy, like I was about to flash back to –

I forced my eyes to focus, as Hilde smiled widely, apparently taking my words as approval. She gently aligned her body with mine, her lips coming towards me, and I closed my eyes tightly…

Something wet licked lightly at my lower lip, and I gasped, eyes flying open again. She took full advantage of the situation by slipping her tongue between my lips and making contact with my own tongue. Just when I thought I might start noticeably trembling, she pulled away and studied me for a long moment with a satisfied expression on her face.

"I think you've had all you can take," Hilde smirked kindly, looking as stunning as I did overwhelmed.

And then she turned away and left me alone on the scaffolding, with nothing but turbulent thoughts. I wasn't turned on exactly, but I was strangely satisfied with the whole experience. I hadn't freaked out or passed out or anything too inappropriate, I had acted mostly normal (or so I hoped). I was a little trepidatious of the future, but that just added a little nervous jitter to an excited teenage bubbling. I had kinder feelings towards myself than I had had in a long while.

Turns out, there were more important things to worry about than any romantic future with Hilde. OZ hotshot Trant Clark tracked me down and kidnapped me to pilot his Zero system. This capture shit just got easier to deal with each time it happened, but I cannot emphasize enough how fucked up the Zero system was. It shows you every possible outcome, not just of your combat maneuvers and strategic thinking, but of your gut reactions and personal inclinations. You know the outcome of following the angel's voice, or your baser instincts…

I'm horrified by what Quatre did while using the Zero system, but only someone who has experienced that can really understand the insane thinking that overtakes you. The possibilities are infinite and inevitable at the same time, so wondrous and horrible that I was overwhelmed by the absolute hubris. I remember thinking that this is what it must feel to be Heero, to be able to calculate and execute a strategy perfectly, to see the potential in any situation. But that was just the insane arrogance talking, pretending that this power was perfecting my inner soldier. Instead, I was the demon Shinigami, possessed by all the worst qualities and all the abilities to make them manifest, but no Duo to ground us in humanity. There was no perfect soldiers in sight, just crazed kids on uncontrolled killing sprees...

That is why I can understand how Quatre, the kindest and best of us, could be tricked into destroying a whole colony under the Zero system's influence. As much as I dress up my fractured emotional life as multiple personality disorder, I know that I do not suffer from the actual disorder; but Zero system allows you to see the paths walked by each of your dimensions. That I chose Shinigami's resurrected destruction is no surprise to me, nor that Quatre chose his own neglected knack for demolition.

Trant yanked me back to reality before I could cause 04's level of devastation, ripping me out of the Zero system like being pulled from freezing water. Then he tossed me out an airlock, and I was so disoriented and hopped up on adrenaline that I wasn't even flooded by the usual relief. Death by suffocation in deep space, while fast, is a horrible way to go, but I barely had time to register the thought before Hilde came to the rescue! I had never been so happy to see her stalking, overly-affectionate self in my whole damn life. I was reeling nauseatingly from my recent encounter with Zero system, but I still felt possessed by a particularly manic version of Shinigami, so I took Deathscythe out, like a demon nutbat from Hell, and destroyed that fucker Trant.

Unfortunately, the effects of the Zero system far outlasted the experience itself. My nightmares, already enough to drive me to insomnia, were even more tormented and twisted, distorted memories morphing into disturbing imaginings. I dreamt often that I was back in the Zero system, transformed into something else – sometimes Shinigami, sometimes Heero, and sometimes Duo, always laying waste to everything in my way. If I didn't wake up in a sweat early enough, I was confronted by General Tye, who was still scary as fuck, climbing into Deathscythe, where I was trapped and unable to escape. When I was Shinigami or Duo I wore my face, but when I was Heero I wore his, and the General would lean towards me, flashing into Hilde, and whisper, "Oh come on, it wasn't that bad. . .", then I would wake up half hard and terrified, appalled at my own mind and fighting back tears.

I had refused to masturbate since my victimization, and I think my body had noticed. It kept trying to insert unwelcome wet dreams into my nightmares, which only succeeded in making the latter that much more disturbing. A couple times I had gagged upon waking, and spat up some bile.

Hilde would often find me in the early morning, scowling into a bowl of cereal that had been marinating for a couple hours, and she'd try to cheer me up. It mostly didn't work, but the effort kinda did in a small way. Sometimes I felt like I was floating away from my place in the world, but Hilde always brought me back; she had certainly saved my life enough times. We'd actually come to know each other rather well in all the time we'd spent together.

"Yikes, Duo. Did you sleep at all last night?" she asked, sitting across from me at the little kitchen table, then reaching across to take my hand. Deathscythe had been able to rest in the bowels of this small transport, but I had spent most of time trying to hack into the highest security levels of Romefeller's online network – with limited success.

A grimace was the best I could do in the way of a smile, "A little. . . I was thinking about our next move."

"Yeah, so was I," she said with a sigh, running her free hand through her hair. It was a topic that came up frequently in the absence of a bigger plan. I could only guess what the other pilots were up to, and there was a limit to the effectiveness of a one-man guerrilla war against OZ.

"I think we should go back home," she blurted, referring to one of the safer neighborhoods on L2. "I've been thinking about this a lot, and I have a good plan. I know a couple former OZ soldiers there, real miscreants, but I'll bet they could get us in contact with those rebels from the vids. I still have some of my old contacts there, and could probably access a few new ones. If you can safely get us there, I think I can make it worth our while."

I took a good look at Hilde then, taking in how much she had grown. In only a couple of months, she had gone from naïve OZ newbie to hardened revolutionary who had my back. I was actually pretty impressed with the change.

This time I was able to manage a real smile, easily warming to any excuse to return to one of the colonies. Out in space like we were, with the broadcast news as our only connection to humanity (aside from the rare lead from Professor G), it was hard not to second guess your very perception of the situation. We were so eager to keep hidden that even our refueling missions had avoided any contact with people. "I'm so sick of this transport, just getting off would be worth a little risk."

"Getting off is definitely worthwhile," Hilde returned with a wicked smirk, making sure I registered the predatory gleam in her eye.

"Put your eyeballs back in your pants, young woman!" I joked back, growing more comfortable with her brazen flirtation since she had backed off some. In the wake of the Zero system disaster, I'd been putting on a particularly poor show of hiding how distressed and damaged I was, and I think even the normally thick-skinned Hilde could finally tell that I needed some space. I knew she still wanted me, loved me even, but I respected her more for giving me that distance.

Hilde laughed at my words, then got to her feet. While preparing her own breakfast of eggs, she laid out who and what she knew, and how she would go about arranging a meeting with the local underground. I even knew the neighborhood well enough to remember a secluded and discrete port nearby to dock.

We eventually met with the rebels, who left a kinda mixed impression. They were mostly ex-military punks, thrown out of or denied by OZ for every imaginable reason. They seemed competent enough, but also hinted at dangerous radicalism in their hostility not just towards OZ but towards the people of Earth – not unlike White Fang. Still, the decision to work with them was interrupted when I recognized 03 at the visiting circus show.

I was absolutely shocked, really. I had given into Hilde's pleas with shamelessly little resistance, and had agreed to this quasi-date to the circus. When Trowa's buddies refused to let me near, I knew that I had to get 04. Something was dreadfully wrong with Trowa Barton, and the two gundam pilots were... close. Quatre was a pretty good friend, so of course I knew that he and Trowa were together, but no one ever spoke of it, and I only ever tentatively thought about it. My bones were curious, but my brain could sense the forbidden – and staunchly limited my interaction with this idea.

With a little investigation, I managed to locate 04 on another colony and put him on the right path, all without saying anything that would offend my own delicate sensibilities regarding this matter – though Hilde thought I was crazier than ever. I watched Quatre go after Trowa with a heavy heart, almost not wanting him to go. Trowa deserved every priority, but that didn't stop me from missing Quatre's comforting presence. Did no one notice the gaping hole in my soul? Hilde was great, but I was constantly on my guard with her.

A couple space battles later, I found myself answering a hail from another friend.

"Howard!" I practically squealed, leaning forward in my Gundam's harness so that my nose almost touched the screen. I was so used to losing my parental figures that it was almost like seeing someone come back from the grave.

"Duo," the Captain returned with a chuckle.

"Captain Howard!" I shouted again, my excitement turning me into a complete babbling idiot. "What's going on? Is Sa'ad an-and everyone okay? How-? How'd you get this contact code?"

Howard's rascal grin only stretched wider. "Let's just say that I've gotten myself involved in some activities that you'd be proud of. Got a new sweetheart too, the Peacemillion. You're gonna wet your pants when you see her."

I laughed, and of course could not turn down the offer of shelter when it came. I had thought of the Sweepers surprisingly little since leaving, but with Howard right there, it felt as though I had missed them unknowingly for all this time. Howard hadn't changed a bit, though I was pleasantly surprised to find myself the subject of a new respect. There were only a few men and women from the old Sweepers crew, as most had stayed with the original ship, now with under the captaincy of former second-in-command Manuel Rodriguez. I did take the opportunity though to call Sa'ad and Ally. It felt good to reconnect, even if there was so much that I just couldn't talk about. Ally told me that Shaquita was pregnant and was back on L2, while Sa'ad told me that Thor was still the same, just a little older. It was almost strange to fully realize that these people had continued living after I had left.

Howard wasn't kidding about Peacemillion though, she was a deadly beauty; and he really was deeply involved in the underground activities. I reunited with Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei, and had only the briefest down time before we were off to battle again – this time against OZ and White Fang. Shinigami may have been robbed of his former passion, but he had learned to bring death with unceasing diligence and dedication instead. I was in tune with Deathscythe's every moan and shudder, wielded her arms and legs as they were my own, and flew like some kind of space hawk. I didn't need anger or rage to channel death anymore, I was just a medium through which Death delivered, as calm and unstoppable as yoga.

After the destruction of Barge, we ended up back on Peacemillion again, this time with Heero as well. Of course, things were about to get hairy again, but for a short while we were just five teenage boys, appreciating any relief from the fighting. If only for a night, it was always nice to have a good meal and a safe place to bunk.

Dinner had been a fun affair. I had eaten in the ship's mess hall, with Quatre and Trowa. Quatre had done the bulk of the talking, which was fine by me because I was doing the bulk of the eating. Trowa listened attentively to the blonde drone on about everything from homeopathic medicine to gundanium particle physics, but was obviously distracted by my boisterous eating – which, yes, was an intentional exaggeration of my normally enthusiastic performance (did I say that black also hides food stains?). I had never realized how dull Quatre could be when he was trying to sound sophisticated in front of his beau.

"Oh, come on Duo!" Quatre finally exclaimed, when a chunk of cornbread stuffing flew straight across the table and into his soup with a noticeable splash.

Of course, the whole situation made me laugh loudly with a full mouth, which I covered poorly with my hand. Then Quatre was snickering too, and I swear I even saw that stiff Trowa crack a smile – I could almost see what Quatre saw in him when he looked happy. Only then did I apologize lazily, "So sorry. It's hard not to get carried away with all this free food."

"Remember your limits. We don't want a repeat of dinner with Rashid," Quatre scolded, reminding me of the time that I had eaten so much humus, pita, and baklava that I had ended up puking on Rashid's shoes. Rashid, of course, was the leader of the Maganac Corps and matched me mouthful for mouthful. Not bad . . . even if he had an advantage of over two hundred pounds.

"You're never going to let me live that down, so I'll just have to prove myself," I answered with a smirk, throwing back my braid and taking a flamboyant bite of hotdog.

This time both Trowa and Quatre shook their heads. "You're incorrigible," the latter said with a smile.

That's exactly what I wanted to hear. It made me feel like my old self for a while, and let me leave the mess hall with a rare spring in my step. I entered my assigned cabin with a sense of being at home. I crawled into my cocoon of blankets to revel in the warmth, and for once felt optimistic about sleep, though I hardly felt tired.

Knock knock knock.

It was easy enough for me to jump out of the bunk, pleased with the idea of a guest that wasn't Hilde the Stalker and almost excited at the prospects that lay behind the knock. Howard had taken several opportunities to visit me on Peacemillion, and was a good bet considering that I had just come from Quatre and Trowa.

I touched the keypad and the door slid open – and my eyebrow slid up. He looked the same as always, serious as death and triggered to kill, and all my nerves jumped to attention.

"Heero."

He held my gaze immediately and completely. "Maxwell... Can I come in?"

After a frozen heartbeat, I shifted to life and took a step away from the door. "Sure. Of course, Hee-chan."

"Don't call me that."

He followed me in, only breaking eye contact for a moment to automatically scan the cabin. "You seem very comfortable here," he observed awkwardly, ever vigilant to the point of discomfort.

I shrugged, smiling weakly. "It just easy here... to forget about the outside for a short while. I like it with Howard around, and all us pilots, you know? No matter how prickly some of you are."

Heero nodded vaguely, impervious to any attempts to lighten the air. Glancing at the bed and only seating arrangement, he asked, "May I sit?"

It was my turn to nod, watching his movements hawkishly as he stepped over and sat on the edge of my bunk. I didn't even want to consider the source of my vague sense of alarm, but it was put to rest when he reached up and ran a hand through his hair, somewhat uncharacteristically. He took several tired seconds of silence before he looked back up at me. His expression was as stony as ever, but I knew him well enough at his point to recognize that something was bothering him or he wouldn't be here at all.

I moved over and briskly climbed onto my bunk to sit cross-legged against the bulkhead, feeling jumpier than usual. "What's up?" I questioned sympathetically, trying to seem more relaxed than I was.

"I know I have no right to burden you, but I . . . ," Heero trailed off in a rare display of uncertainty, brow deeply frowned as he stared at the floor. "I don't know who else to ask who might know something about this subject."

Both intrigued and alarmed, I immediately responded, "Ask. I owe you one, and it would mean a lot to me to be able to repay it."

After a long pause, Heero glanced up at me, stoic but just slightly . . . regretful? "It's about Relena."

Relena again, and I couldn't help but laugh with the release of tension. Even though Relena Peacecraft was hardly my favorite topic of conversation, coming from Heero I was definitely getting off easy – though God only knows why he'd still think I know something about girls. "What about her highness?"

My ears picked up the traces of a sigh. "She's obsessed with me."

There! His expression was tinted with embarrassment, I'm sure. I grinned like a maniac, and consoled, "I hear you, bro. The girls involved in this war are completely unhinged. Hilde's been following me around like a lost puppy... a rapid pitbull puppy."

Heero nodded solemnly in understanding, again locking eyes with me. "And that doesn't bother you?"

I shrugged, immediately discomforted by the mere thought of just how it bothered me. "It does," I admitted quietly before trying to steer into safer territory. "But it's kinda normal, right? If we weren't here, doing this crazy shit, we'd be in high school flunking history and flirting with girls. This is a good sign, it means that we aren't such freaks that the opposite sex finds us repulsive."

Turning to gaze thoughtfully at the wall, Heero eventually responds blankly, "Relena consumes too much of my time and demands too much of my attention. We are not in high school, this is war."

It was my turn to nod, slowly, giving inevitably into Heero's weighted drag back to the stark reality. His words were exactly what I had imagined during the course of my own issues with Hilde. "Which is why we are here preparing for battle, and not in bed with our lovers."

Heero frowned deeply for a long moment, but I couldn't tell why; nor did I get an answer when he asked coldly, "Have you had sex with her?"

I couldn't help but flinch a little at his words, which he would've had to be blind to miss. I couldn't bring myself to lie, but the truth shed light on some of my most buried fears. A normal fifteen-year-old would've jumped at the opportunity to bed a hot chick, but I was way past normal. Rather, I had reached a point of sexual dysfunction. In full defensive, I shot back, "Have you had sex with Relena?"

"No!" Heero responded immediately and emphatically, leaning towards me for emphasis. "I don't appreciate her advances at all."

I tried to soothe my flustered quills and reestablish equilibrium, telling myself that Heero wasn't hinting at anything, that he was just unfailingly blunt. "Then what's the problem?" I asked, insightful enough to realize that Heero's main issue was with the unacceptable distraction that a crush would be.

"I try to keep a distance, but she interprets my actions as reason for further admiration... ," he said fatalistically, again releasing an almost audible sigh. "It's disconcerting and undesirable."

Trust Heero to be troubled more by Relena than anything else in his crazy life. I finally felt comfortable to admit, "I've... never had sex with Hilde either."

Heero glanced over at me, inscrutable as ever, but not unkind, "You want to though?"

I chewed my lip for a second, oscillating between a reactive hostility and a commitment to honesty. I closed my eyes, my arms and back seeping in strength from the bulkhead – strength to reach for the truth inside. Finally, I confessed curtly, "No. I am too fucked up for that."

With eyes closed, I waited in the dark for Heero's response.

"I think that maybe I am too."

The words were an unexpected balm, and I cracked my eyelids to see the world in narrow slits. Heero was vaguely staring at the floor, but his hand was reached far out to his side, dangerously close to mine. Trembling slightly, I inched my hand along the mattress until our fingertips brushed together. He continued to stare at the floor, and after a moment of stillness I closed my eyes again, briefly allowing myself to relax in the strange comfort of 01's presence. His fingers were rough, but warm and solid.

After long, peaceful minutes he spoke, "When you fight with Deathscythe now, it's different. Are you... at full capacity?"

I bit down on my tongue to prevent the flippant response that suggested itself, recognizing that this was Heero's way of expressing concern. Had he been truly worried about my performance, it would not have taken him this long to address the issue; and if anyone knew what I had gone through, it was him. He deserved as good an answer as I could give – however poorly formulated. "I never though it possible, but Shinigami has actually grown tired of all the killing and chaos... And yet my body just keeps on piloting Deathscythe with deadly accuracy, like, like riding a bike. But with bazookas. "

He withdrew his fingers then and I opened my eyes to his frowning inspection. I must've sounded crazy, but I had no other answer for him. I couldn't imagine him fighting without 110% dedication and determine, and that's why he was the perfect soldier while I was just good survivor.

After several tense heartbeats, he spoke with careful determination, "That does not answer the question. Are you functional?"

Jeez, was Heero actually trying to ask a personal question? Uncomfortable with my gut's sudden clench, I shrugged reflexively and tried for an appropriately composed response, "I'm holding together as best I can, better than a couple months ago. I am struggling to carry my burdens, just like the rest of us… It hurts to see what this war has done to us. Quatre's weighed down by guilt because of Zero system, Wufei morns the destruction of his colony, and Trowa's amnesia... Well, like I said, we all carry our burdens."

Heero and I search each other's eyes for seconds longer, before he finally decided to retreat – metaphorically and literally. Getting to his feet and facing away, he said, "Thank you for speaking with me. I did not want to... add to your burden."

With that, he left my quarters, and on impulse I called after, "Hope it helped!"

Sleep was difficult after that, so I just lay in the dark, trying to maintain a restful trance instead of thinking about Heero, Hilde, or any of the horrible memories that haunted the edge of consciousness. It would've been nice to talk to Quatre, but he had too many of his own problems for me to be harassing him in the middle of night. Not to mention that we were all only hours away from once again fighting for our lives, and for the very future of humankind.

!

The final battle in this twisted and evolving war was against Zechs Marquise and White Fang, with their Libra super-ship and advanced mobile dolls. Hilde managed to infiltrate Libra and provide us with schematics, though even with my assistance she barely escaped with her life. Working together for once, under 04's guidance, the Gundam pilots mounted a joint offensive, and in the course of several consecutive days and nights of fighting, we systematically destroyed the White Fang forces. I eventually took off on a separate mission to rescue the Professors and safely bring them through the space battle to the Peacemillion. With the crafty Professors on our side, victory began to seem inevitable... and near. All us pilots were running on adrenaline fumes, but inertia seemed to let us go even farther and faster. Piece by piece, we managed to destroy the giant Libra before it crashed in Earth, with Heero hammering the final nail into its coffin. With the corpses of our slaughtered enemies cluttering the vicinity, we were the clear victors of the war and as such ordered all surviving resistance to surrender. Peace had finally come to Earth and her colonies.

! END of CH 4!

This chapter was definitely the hardest to write because I wanted to stay faithful to the anime series without being too repetitive, while also developing an original plot. I have not seen the Gundam Wing movie, and so my next chapter will be AU – and a nice relief for the constant referencing I did in this chapter. I'm sure there are still plenty of inconsistencies, but I did my best. PLEASE REVIEW.