Chapter 10

"Oh wow, it's so… vast!" The brunette woman whispered in awe as she looked out the window of the shuttle. "Wow…"

"Oh sure, it's huge… not like there's anything special about it, is there?" Duo grumbled. Sure, he was happy to be with his friends again. He was happy to get off of the depressing colony, despite everything Broz had done to make sure he had somewhere to go. He was ecstatic to finally be with Heero, something that he'd never even dared to dream would actually happen. But, he couldn't bring himself to be happy with his 'sister.'

"I've never been off L2 before," she pouted. "Why so sour, grumpy-pants?"

Duo huffed out a breath of air, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. "Why would ya think anything's wrong?"

Heero looked over at Quatre and saw the blonde shaking his head with a little chuckle, he also couldn't help the little smirk that graced his features. Both of them knew Duo never told a 'lie,' but neither could deny that he had a way of evading the truth… if he really wanted to. He was a master of it during the war, and it appeared that he hadn't lost his touch.

"I know I haven't been there for you much, growing up. But I know enough about you to know when you're upset." She said, softly.

"Much? I didn't even I know I had a sister… how can you say you haven't been there for me 'much?'" Duo responded. "What did you expect? Did you think you'd tell me 'hey I'm your sister that you haven't ever seen' and expect me to be all tears an' hugs?"

Aislinn looked down, sadly… clearly she hadn't expected to him to be as angry as he seemed. Heero couldn't blame him for how he felt however, he'd be the same way if he found out that he had a family that had known where he was and just never decided to say anything to him. He couldn't even imagine how it must feel for someone like Duo… someone who grew up on the streets thinking that all his family and friends were dead, for years. He must have felt, at least a little bit, betrayed.

"Of course I didn't expect all tears and hugs… that'd be like expecting unicorns and rainbows in a situation like this. But I at least thought we could talk about it."

Duo turned away from her, looking out the window, into the void of space. "Right now, I don't know what there is to talk about. I was right there… I'd even seen you around, talking to Broz, a few times. All you had to do was come up to me and say something. Why did you wait so long? If the guys hadn't found me, would you have ever told me?" Everyone could hear the restrained emotion in his voice, like he was trying to hold it back.

"Oh Duo… of course I would have told you, I was just afraid of something like this happening. I was a coward." She looked down at her hands, threading her fingers together uneasily.

"A coward… that's why you told me in the end though, wasn't it? You were a coward, you were afraid of losing me a second time?" He questioned.

"Yes, when you put it that way… I guess I was just being a coward. I've lost you so many times… I just couldn't bear it again," she whispered. However, it was easy to hear what she was saying. Everyone on the shuttle was deathly quiet, afraid to make the slightest sound… all interested in what was unfolding before them.

"I just don't know what to think about all of this… I really don't. I thought I was alone, I thought my whole family was dead. Now I find out that I have a sister… and not just that but a brother-in-law, a niece and a nephew as well? That's four people… four people that never even knew existed, that I could have gotten a chance to know." He wasn't even trying to hold back the emotion in his voice any longer… letting it all pour out, for everyone to hear. "Where were you when I was growing up on the streets? Where were you when Solo and the other kids died from the plague? Where were you when I was starving and had to steal just so I could live through the night? Where were you when the Church burned down, taking the closest thing I had to a family with me? Where were you?!"

There was a long pause… if a pin was dropped on the carpeting, you could have heard it clear as a bell. Then finally, "I wasn't able to be there, and keep you off of the streets. I wasn't able to be there, to protect you from all that death. I wasn't able to be there, to make sure you never had to starve or steal just to live. I was there when I you found that priest and nun. I was there when you looked at me and said I was a 'funny lady.' I was there, searching franticly through the ruins of the church, for any sign that you weren't there when it happened. I was relieved when the reports came that there was a boy that survived. I was scared when no one had been able to locate you afterwards. I was praying that you were safe all these years… and praying is not something that I do. And I was relieved when Broznan came to me and told me that he'd found you… that after all these years you were safe! I had faith that something out that had heard those prayers and I was happy that you were returned to me… even if you had no idea who I was."

Duo remained silent, trying to process everything he'd just heard. He closed his eyes, he remembered the day that the 'funny lady' had shown up at the church. He remembered thinking that she was strange, looking at him with tears in her eyes… no one had ever looked at him with tears in their eyes before. He remembered when she bent down and put a hand on his cheek, with a sad smile on her face. He'd found it strange that she had the same shade of violet eyes that he seemed to have, not many people had that shade of eyes. She'd looked heartbroken when he'd asked her if she was looking for someone. He'd called her a 'funny lady' and run off, to Sister Helen, giggling. "You were there, looking for me that day weren't you? You wanted to cry when I didn't recognize you, didn't you?"

"You remember that?" She asked, looking up at him.

"Yeah… I remember thinking it was strange that we had to same color eyes… not many people do." He turned away from his spot at the window, looking in her direction as well. "You said you 'weren't able' to be there all those times… where were you? What happened to our family?"

She sighed, looking down at her fingers again. "I don't know exactly what happened myself, honestly. I mean I know what happened, just not why," she explained. Leaning back in her seat, she exchanged her gaze with her fingers for one with the ceiling, closing her eyes as she spoke. "It was late on a Sunday night… you were four at the time, I was 13. It was a normal night, mom and dad were talking while I was playing with you in the living room. It was quite boring, actually. Mom asked me if I could take you up to bed, you protested as usual… you wanted mommy to take you to bed, and she promised she'd be up there in a little bit. I always used to joke around, calling you a mommy's boy."

Duo leaned against Heero, feeling the other boy's arm snake around his shoulders… pulling him closer as he listened, trying his best to picture what she was saying. The others just watched her, entranced.

"It all happened so fast, I heard shouts coming from downstairs. The sounds of glass breaking, bodies being shoved to the ground. You were so scared, you weren't making a sound… I took advantage of that and put you in your closet. I'm glad I did… I was halfway down the stairs when I saw them shoot dad in the head, mom was crying. I screamed at them to stop when they pulled her up to her knees, by her hair, and shot her 'execution' style as well. I don't know why they didn't shoot me too, but they grabbed me and dragged me away with them… maybe they thought if they had a hostage then The Alliance would give in to their demands. They held me for questioning, taking me with them everywhere they went. When The Alliance didn't give them anything, they decided to use me as some kind of servant…. Serving up their meals and bringing them whatever they needed. They told me that they found you, they had you somewhere else, to try and force my cooperation… and it worked.

"Three years later, I think one of the younger rebels took pity on me. They told me it was all a lie, that they'd never been able to find another child in the house. I guess you ran and hid way too well, you were always able to find the best hiding places. A few days after that, the Alliance raided the warehouse they were hiding out in, and I took the opportunity and ran for it. I looked for you, I searched for months… then I ran across Broznan. He told me that I looked just like a boy he grew up with on the streets, went by the name Duo… after questioning him a bit, he told me I could find you at 'the old Maxwell Church.' When you didn't recognize me, I was sad… then again, part of me was expecting it, I think. You ran off to that nun, smiling, and she held you close… just like mom used to. You looked happy, so I resigned myself to just watching you from a distance… I didn't want to bring back any bad memories in case you did remember anything. Then the church burned down, I searched, heard about the boy who survived and held onto hope that you would be ok… I prayed that I'd get to see you again. Now, here we are." She looked up at Duo, her tear filled eyes meeting his. The story had brought Quatre and Sally to tears as well, the other three were just too well trained to let theirs slip… even though they threatened to anyway.

"But…but why would the rebels want to kill our parents…" Duo asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Like I said, I have no idea why they did what they did… I can only guess it had something to do with what they were working on. Mom and Dad were scientists, working for The Alliance. I think they came to the house that night to get the plans and formulas for whatever it was they were working on at the time. When they couldn't get what they wanted… they killed them." She said. "The rebels ripped apart so many families. The Alliance weren't much better, but the rebels were more brutal about it… more barbaric."

Over the next couple of hours on the shuttle, Heero listened quietly while Duo and his sister talked about years worth of things they'd missed out on. He was saddened by everything that she'd said, but he couldn't deny that he was happy with the way things had turned out. If none of it had happened, Duo might have grown up to be a member of the Alliance, or even OZ… he never would have met him. Or even worse, they might have wound up being on opposite sides of the war, he might have been one of the soldiers that Heero had killed… granted he never would have known or cared. But part of him was being selfish, he didn't want to not have the braided boy in his life. It took losing him, for him to realize that those confusing 'feelings' that he'd had since he met the other… were those of 'love.' He never thought that he'd understand what this 'love' thing was that Relena, Duo and Quatre were always going on about… but when Relena had told him Duo was dead, and his heart shattered into a million pieces, he finally figured it out. Now that he had Duo back… he was never going to let him go again.

AN: I wanted to do a little chapter devoted just to Duo and his sister. I feel like a lot of stories out there that feature Duo having a 'long lost sibling' don't really offer any kind of plausible or 'believable' explanation, that fits in with the story line, as to where they would have been when he was growing up. They always just kind of throw them right in there and hope that the readers just roll with it.
Anyway, let me know what you think.