Chapter 5—Part 5: Heero/Duo

It's been a month now since Duo Maxwell has gone missing, presumed dead.

I remember it so clearly, much more so than I wanted to. The way his eyes had widened as I grabbed his hand, the slight opening of his lips, and then the fireball that engulfed both of us. I was assured again and again by the doctors that he was dead, and in the impossible chance that he wasn't, he would at least be horribly scarred. It scared me that no one else knew, really, but me, that Duo would never let himself die in that way.

And so I returned to the others. I felt bad, bringing on both shocks to them at once, but I knew they could handle it. Quatre burst into tears at the news and an ashen-faced Trowa comforted him as best as he could. Wu Fei went into his room and shut the door, looking blank. I alternately felt like crying and raging. You shouldn't criticize the dead for dying....

But I could certainly blame myself.

There was a chance that, if he were scarred, he would stay away from us. Duo had always been slightly vain—just take a look at the hours he spent on his hair—and it's possible it upset him enough for him to leave. I refused to believe he was gone for good.

Instead, I threw myself into the investigation of why this had happened. Apparently, it was just a renegade group taking out a suspected traitor, but as I searched and hacked on, the targets truly showed up as Duo and I, with an emphasis on myself. That was not something I enjoyed hearing. It seemed that the bombing was in retaliation to the destroyed base of two years ago. I had been marked as the perpetrator, and Duo, as a companion, was also under suspicion.

In other words, Duo had been murdered for something neither of us had done. For the first time in my life, I wanted to scream and cry and kill all at once.

So, instead, I stalked around the house. The door was the target, I think. It didn't really matter. Nothing did.

An entire month. A month without contact or messages or news. If Duo was alive, was he stuck somewhere, hurt? Was there something I could have been doing during this time that would have made a difference? Is he laying somewhere, wondering why we had forgotten him?

One by one, the others tried to convince me and themselves that he was dead. I refused to even listen most of the time. I would give it a year, and if he didn't return, then maybe I'd consider it. But it had only been a month, and he might still be there, might still be alive.

Then another month passed, and another. Duo's favorite season, autumn, rolled around, and it was when the last leaves were starting to fall that I received the phone call.

"Heero, will you please come visit me? If it wasn't important, I wouldn't ask." It was Relena. The second sentence mattered little as Relena thought that dishware and hairstyles were important enough to warrant my presence. However, some reluctant part in my brain urged me to go and talk to her. I had waited nearly half a year now and still no word or message from Duo had arrived. Perhaps I could sign on as a guard or something for the ministeress. Relena certainly enjoyed having me around, so I might as well make someone happy. I wasn't doing anything productive at the house.

My footsteps were un-muffled for once as I walked down the streets in the cool evening, feeling the growing dread I always did when dusk neared. I could barely stand to be in darkness with the possibility of the night lighting up in fire again. It was childish and shameful, but not even the training I used to overcome fear could convince me otherwise. With a glance around, I walked faster.

The mansion was nearly in sight when a figure on the street passed close by me. I wouldn't have usually given them a second look despite their strange cloak outfit, but a hand emerged from the folds and grabbed my arm.

"Don't go in," the raspy voice warned. "It's an assassination attempt."

Without really knowing why, I grabbed the speaker's wrist, about to demand an explanation—why would Relena want to kill me? but then I noticed the scar that trailed across its—no, his—delicate fingers, and I think I gasped.

"Duo!"

Instantly he wrenched out of my grasp and fled. I pursued for a few feet, and then cursed. Duo always had been faster than me, something he learned to be on the streets, and I hadn't a chance to keep up with him. Instead, I cut around a building I hoped he wouldn't have noticed and waited in the shadows. I waited for nearly an hour before realizing how stupid it was to assume Duo wasn't aware of anything. He might have even planned for the fact I would have gone around the building. Through my mistake, I had lost him.

If that even was him. All of my senses were telling me that it was, but doubt assailed at every corner. It was possible that Duo had paid someone to look like him to intersect me as I went down the street, but that would have strange, and anyway...

It hit me, then. It didn't matter if that was Duo, or someone he paid to look like him, or someone who just copied what he looked like down to the last detail for no real reason. The only thing that mattered was this: Duo had survived.

I had to find him. There wasn't a choice. Duo may have been better at hiding than anyone, but I knew him. I knew the places he hung around, the hats he preferred, the mannerisms he displayed no matter what costume he was donning. Unfortunately, he knew me as well, and could conceivably counteract anything I should think of. That was if he didn't want to be found, of course... and Duo loved company more than anything else. If he was alive, there was hope that he would return.

My steps were light as I fairly ran home, completely disregarding the message about the assassination—I wasn't going to Relena's house anymore, and the bearer overrode all other thoughts. Things like this were further signs of the degradation of my training. So when the pain exploded in my leg and back a moment later, I realized I had forgotten one important detail: Duo never wasted his time on futile causes. I remember sighing out a word as I collapsed, world darkening.

Duo.

.

.

Shivering, I pulled the cloak closer around my shoulders. It was heavy wool, but the tremors raking through me were not disease or coldness, although both had before. The dank material brought no comfort.

I had calculated perfectly the route that he would take, just as I had said I would. This skill had always been a pride of mine, but now I hated it, loathed it, wished for any other curse—I had escaped the one person I longed to be with. Heero Yuy, formally the perfect soldier, a sensitive boy even further in his past, and now a senseless, romanticized citizen. Someone had changed him, and I quaked with rage and grief that I had not been there to bring about this amazing transformation, that made him fail to recognize the fear and panic in Relena's voice as she had left that message. The gun at her temple had evoked feelings she seldom displayed. The same gun, in fact, that I had been holding minutes earlier, as I forced the distraught but still composed girl back into the basement.

The job was simple enough: come up with and execute a plan to execute Pilot 01. There was only one person qualified to do the deed, and my employers knew this. The sum they offered me was great, and my poor, starving waif-form leapt at the money.

Of course, they doubted me at first. I was kept under constant surveillance, tested again and again until their trust was secured. They sent me on missions that were cancelled, changed, and openly disregarded in terms of my part and still I served them faultlessly. Finally, they accepted that I was not going to betray them, and I had convinced them that I in fact fully agreed with all of their ideals and plans.

So, now was the ultimate test. My employers actually did place an operative to make sure I was, once again, still fully cooperative. They were apparently pleased with my treatment of Relena. For some reason, they thought it wasn't a huge temptation to push around the girl that had stolen Heero's attentions for so long.

And now I raised the gun, sighting along the barrel, and fired the two shots into my beloved. I waited a few moments to make sure he wasn't going to rise, then went over, lifting him as well as I could and starting towards the designated warehouse. Instead of going in, however, I took a detour around to the apartments next door, carefully unlocking one wooden door and letting Heero fall to the scuffed, well-patched floors. There were a few spots of blood on my shirt from where his head hit the ground, but otherwise he seemed fine.

After a moment he stirred, opening up those lovely blue eyes of his. Paralysis struck me briefly until I remembered, pulling my hood across the charred half of my face. There was no use in frightening him needlessly, if it was true he was completely civilian now. He stared at me for a moment, then joy, joy spread across his face in the most indescribable way.

Joy... to see me? Why would anyone feel that, now, or ever? I had always been a nuisance—the one that talked too much, made inappropriate jokes, and couldn't save the one he loved, over and over again. And still there was that ultimate happiness as he spoke my name with a smile even Quatre couldn't hope to match, and took my hand as if it were an honor to grip the ruined, dead skin. I didn't dare to breathe, fearful that any movement could break that grip and the expression that I never, ever thought to see on his brilliant Asian features.

"It is you," he said, voice thick with disbelieving wonder. "I thought—" He stopped, having to contend with the fact I had dropped to my knees on the floor, unable to bear that kindness, the tone I had always dreamed of him using as he looked upon me. There was a moment of silence, and then there were arms around me—arms that were no longer solid muscle, but plaint softness—cradling as if I were something precious to behold instead of a useless piece of trash. He gently unwound the gun from my fingers, emptying out the remaining concussion pellets, and set it to the side without a word or even a questioning glance.

And just like that, I had Heero back. The men waiting in the building nearby did not scare me—we had been built to be the best, and together we could assuredly escape my employers. It would be easy to live under assumed names, for it was something we had done all of our lives, and money would be a cinch.

That is, if he even wanted to go with me. He hadn't seen what I looked like, yet, and there was no reason to think this was any more than greeting a friend. I shivered again, and his grip tightened around me in a manner that stole my breath from me. When those fingers let me go and started to slide beneath my hood, though, I had to rise, babbling about how good it was to see him again to hide the action. Not, of course, that it was particularly hard to talk about that subject. This transformed Heero didn't seem alien to me, but rather like how the boy ought to be, how he could have been before the robots ruined his life as they did mine.

"How have you been?" I asked, cutting off my nonsensical speech. Now that I had stopped, there didn't seem to be anything to say. It was strange to imagine, but I hadn't had a normal conversation with anyone in months, and I was out of practice. It seems I had changed as much as the boy in front of me.

Before he could answer, a door slamming elsewhere in the building reminded me that we were still in danger. Tripping over words that wouldn't come, I tried to give him a rough summary of the situation and outline and escape plan, but to my surprise he just shook his head and pulled me into his arms again.

Honestly, how was I supposed to protest that?

"I missed you."

"I.... yeah, I missed you too. But really, Heero, we have to be going."

That got a nod, although he didn't move. Worry finally beat up complete bliss and I broke away, hauling him up also. I scooped up the gun off the floor in a quick motion, and then grabbed his hand, intentions at least having something to do with getting him out of there. Instead of dropping it when we took off, though, he just squeezed back and I nearly lost my footing. Something was wrong with this scene, but I can't say I protested it too much.

We escaped from the building and I led Heero down night-black streets to the safe house I had prepared. It wasn't much—just a dingy apartment in a so-so part of town, but the organization had no idea it existed, which was good enough for me. Just to be safe, though, after unlocking the door I went from room to room, carefully checking for intruders. Heero caught on quickly and searched the spaces I didn't, seemingly back to his old self for at least awhile. Check done, I paused longer than needed in the bathroom, watching the mirror. It was a nightly tradition that I uselessly continued ever since the bombing and I once again allowed myself to succumb to grief and crushed hope as I slid the hood back.

Just as the night before, there weren't any changes in my state. The scars had not conformed to the miracle of finding Heero, and the burn marks still were etched in their ugly streaks across my face. I didn't have time to take off the cloak fully, but it was fair chance that the marks still continued down across my chest and back, and that the same cause as always still rendered my hand nearly useless. Like every other time, I replaced the hood and turned my head away in shame.

Completing the slow spin to the door, I didn't realize Heero was standing there until I ran into him, and by then it was too late for me anyway. Instead of the silence I expected from him or the hostile disgust of others, the gentle grip was once more placed around my shoulders.

"Why did you leave, Duo?" I wanted to shout at him for not turning me away like I deserved.

"Isn't it obvious?" My voice was bitter, but it didn't matter. "I didn't want to scare you off."

His was soft where mine was loathsome. "So you left because of me."

Something about this seemed familiar, but try as I might, I couldn't remember it.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," I responded.

"We're even, then."

I looked up at him incomprehensibly, until realization dawned and I shook my head. "No. I told you why I left."

"I know," he answered. Heero looked uncomfortable, although I couldn't guess why. He leaned forward, tantalizingly close, and brushed his fingertips lightly over the smooth side of my jaw. For a brief moment, I had a crazy idea that he was going to kiss me, and I jerked back to rid myself of the thought. A startled expression flashed across his face and then went blank for the first time since he had followed me to the apartment.

"Listen," I said quickly, "Neither of us are safe. They know where you're staying with the others, and they'll find you there if you return. W...you need to go somewhere else. Do you have anywhere in mind?"

He thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "Won't you be in danger also?"

I couldn't help but twist my lips into my old smirk. "Who, me? I'm Shinigami. How could I be in danger?"

That just received a nod, and we walked to the kitchen. Luckily, one of the items I had thought to store in the faded-paint cupboards was food, and I dug through the shelves to try and find some. Eventually my searches turned up some only half-stale bread and a jar of partially eaten peanut butter. There didn't seem to be anything better than fingers with which to apply them to each other, but when I turned to make sure, Heero handed me a knife he had found somewhere.

"No, you aren't."

I looked up from my bread slicing, surprised. "Aren't what?"

"Shinigami."

"Why do you say that?" After a moment of deliberation, I took the end piece for myself. Heero promptly switched his sandwich with mine, and it made me oddly happy that he remembered I hated bread crust.

He was silent again for a long time while I carried the plates over to the couch and started eating. The bread was staler than I had thought, but there weren't too many other options. I swallowed gingerly and looked over to see if Heero was going to join me or not.

"Is this place safe?" he asked instead. I shrugged.

"Safe enough. Why?"

"Could I stay here with you?"

Of all questions, I wasn't expecting that one. There wasn't anything I could say for a few minutes, and my voice was hoarse when I did speak.

"What?"

A crushed expression went over his features and I was compelled to put the plate down and go over to him. "Hey... why would you want to? It's not like there's plenty of other places to go. Nicer ones, too."

Heero shook his head. "Would you be staying here?"

"Where else would I go?"

His voice was almost too soft to head. "You could come with me."

Why was he saying this? The pain was shooting through me with nearly unbearable strength, and the urge to break down was stronger than it had been in years.

"No!" I cried, voice harsher than I wanted it to be. How could I explain to him why I could never do that, when I barely knew myself? All I could understand was that I didn't want to hurt or shame him, and that maybe a little pain now would spare him grief later. The monstrous form that was my body and soul would only drag him down, even if he didn't realize it now.

"Do you hate me?" he whispered. I wanted to confirm it, to drive him away, but all I could do was shake my head and turn away.

No, I didn't hate him. But if loving him could tear him apart, then maybe I had better learn how to start.

Okay. I lied. This isn't the end, of course. However, I wanted to get a chapter up before the year ended, so here it is! XD It's been deleted twice and neglected, deliberated over, and cursed at for months, but it's posted! Anyway, the next chapter honestly shouldn't be up in too long... I just need to figure out how to end things. Thanks for being patient, and thank you tons to everyone that has reviewed... it really makes me smile ) BTW, if you see any huge grammatical or stupid spelling mistake (like 'lunched' in the last chapter ;) it's just because I was so pleased at finishing this that I didn't go back and read over the whole darn thing enough times. Even so, hurrah for long chapters!