Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine, nor will it ever be.

Author's Note: This one is a little on the weird side as well. Hope everyone likes it. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. Now – on with the show!!

Pushing My Luck

Chapter Ten

Once we'd landed, Howard's people came rushing out to greet us and take our suits back to the underground hangars where they were normally stored. Heero still hadn't woken up and I was getting worried. Before we left for the safehouse, there was a debate about what to do with Hilde.

"She can't come back with us!" Wufei hissed at me. "The safe-house is for us alone!"

My gaze flicked quickly over to Hilde and then back to Wufei. "She has nowhere else to go. She'll have been branded as a traitor by now. OZ will be looking everywhere for her. If she goes back to civilization, she dies." I looked at Hilde, now conversing with one of the mechanics. She was favoring one leg, and seemed to be refraining from using her left arm. With my eyes still on her form, I continued. "We haven't really got a choice. Without her...we'll never defeat the vampires."

Wufei rubbed his face with his hands tiredly. "Heero will kill you for this. You know that, right?"

I shrugged. "He'll understand. He knows we can trust her. Besides," I added with a dismissive wave of my hand, "he's in no position to complain. Without her, we would have died out there. You know that as well as I do."

Wufei sighed. "You're impossible, you know that?"

I gave a half-hearted grin. "I'm reminded of the fact on a daily basis."

After a long pause, Wufei spoke. "We still can't reveal our location to her. She needs to be blindfolded and handcuffed when we travel."

I nodded. "I know," I said softly as I began walking toward her.

I'd never been so happy to see a safe house in my entire life. As we pulled up to the house I noted that the windows were dark. The guys were probably keeping watch.

It took a couple of minutes to unload Heero and carry him inside. Hilde wasn't walking very well by this point, but seemed determined to move under her own power alone.

"You're stubborn," I told her as I fumbled with my key.

She shrugged. "I know," she answered, leaving it at that.

I rolled my eyes. "You're just as bad as Heero."

This caused her to grin slightly, but the expression quickly melted off her face as we walked into the darkness of the safe house, Wufei and I each supporting Heero.

Quatre's worried face appeared out of the darkness. "What happened?" he inquired as we started carrying Heero upstairs.

I grunted in reply. "It was a trap."

Once we reached Heero's room, we laid Heero onto the bed as Trowa stirred, waking up quickly. "What happened?" he asked blurrily as we flipped the light on.

"Mission," Wufei grunted. "It was a trap."

"Yeah," I muttered angrily. "Ten dolls pinned him on the ground. We just barely made it out of there alive."

Beside me, I heard Hilde wince as she tried to balance herself on her feet.

"You need to lie down, Hild'," I said worriedly.

"Take her downstairs, Duo," Quatre said as he began to examine Heero. "We can take care of Heero. Put her in your room. I'll stay up here with Heero while Trowa is on watch."

A part of my mind was surprised to think that anything as remotely normal as watch still existed after the night we'd had, but after a moment I nodded in agreement and led the way downstairs. "Let me know how he is," I called back softly and heard Trowa murmur an affirmative response.

We began to descend the stairs, Hilde still refusing to let me help her. About halfway down, she stumbled, and I caught her. From then on, I insisted on helping her to the room. She glared at me halfheartedly, but relaxed considerably as we completed the short journey to my room.

Once she was lying on Quatre's bed, I insisted on examining her.

"I'm fine," she protested grumpily.

"You can't walk in a straight line," I pointed out.

She grumbled and moaned, but finally agreed to let me take a look at her.

She didn't seem too bad, but her left arm was severely bruised, as well as her leg. "What happened?" I asked her.

She sighed in obvious frustration. "The dolls were harder to fight off than I'd thought. While I was keeping them off your back, they got in a couple of pretty good blows. I wrenched my leg when one of their shots hit me, and my arm slammed into the cockpit system when you went through me to get to that last doll."

I bit my lip as I continued my examination of her. "I'm sorry about that. Like I said, I wasn't thinking."

She shrugged and fixed her gaze on the ceiling. "It happens. It's no biggie."

I snorted. "Of course it is."

She didn't respond.

"Take your jacket off for me. I can't get a good look at that arm with it on."

She complied, holding back a wince as the sleeve slipped off her left arm. Underneath she was wearing a white t-shirt, under which a black bra was barely visible. I saw that there were bloodstains on the shirt, in lines that crossed over her torso.

"Take your shirt off too," I commanded.

She regarded me, eyebrows raised. "What for?"

"It looks like the harness cut through and injured you. You're bleeding." At her hesitation, I raised an eyebrow. "Fine, bleed to death. See if I care."

"There's no way I'd bleed to death from these little scratches," she snarled at me as she twisted to remove her shirt. "And the bra stays on."

I smirked. "Aw. You know, you're awful' pretty when you're mad."

At this, she lashed out at me and slapped me in the ribs with the back of her hand. "Asshole." I could tell she was trying not to smile.

I grinned. "Ah, sweet terms of endearment."

Looking at her torso, I saw an almost exact imprint of the safety harness on her body. Along some of the edges she was bleeding, and under the blood I saw some serious bruising. "You need to be more careful," I said softly as I began to clean the wounds.

She winced before replying. "Look who's talking."

I snorted. "You're even more impossible than I am." I finished checking her over. "You're arm doesn't appear to be broken. If you can still move it, it's probably just twisted and should heal on its own. Same for your leg. Just a lot of severe bruising."

Once I'd finished cleaning and bandaging her wounds, I gave her a pair of my sweat pants and a t-shirt. "You can sleep in these. We'll get your clothes cleaned tomorrow."

I tromped into the bathroom and stripped down to my boxers. I began to brush my teeth as I contemplated taking my hair down and brushing it out. Nah. I'd do it tomorrow.

I bent down to spit in the sink, and when I came back up, there was another reflection staring at me in the mirror.

I jumped and turned around. "Hilde, what's wrong with you? Trying to give me a heart attack?"

She shook her head and smirked. "I just wondered if you had a toothbrush I could use." When I raised an eyebrow at her, she continued. "I do have my own personal hygine habits, you know."

"Oh," I said, mildly surprised. I hadn't thought about giving her a toothbrush or anything. "Well...we don't really have a spare one around here...in fact, we're due to go to town and get some supplies tomorrow. I mean, unless you want to use mine, there's - "

"That's fine," she said, cutting me off. "At least, if you can handle girl cooties."

I snorted and a bubble of toothpaste popped on my bottom lip. "Well, m'lady, I hope that you can handle my boy germs. I, on the other hand, am just fine with your cooties. Girl cooties are great." I started brushing again.

She shrugged. "It's all the same to me, as long as I don't get infected with your manliness and grow a penis overnight."

I started in shocked disbelief and half-choked on my brush. "Yeah, wouldn't want that to happen." I shook my head and began to rinse my mouth out, handing her the brush when I finished. "Toothpaste is right here. I'm going to get some shut-eye." I left her in the bathroom and she closed the door behind me.

Flopping down on the bed, I groaned and looked at the ceiling. I was so tired. In fact, it had kind of put me in a bad mood. On the bright side, I reasoned with myself, there was someone here to talk to – and she actually talked back. Even if we did bicker a little bit, it was playful bickering, nothing serious. There was also the obvious plus that she was hot...

No, no, Maxwell. Don't even go there.

I punched the pillow behind my head and pulled the sheets up about halfway. It was kind of hot in the room...in fact, the whole house was hot. Summer was a'comin'. Finally.

When Hilde finished in the bathroom, I was already halfway asleep. She crawled into her bed and flipped off the light that stood on the table between us.

After a few seconds of silence, she spoke quitely. "Duo?"

I mumbled, "Yeah?"

There was a pause. Then...

"Thank you."

I grinned into my pillow. "No problem, babe."

The next day came a little too quickly for my liking. While I was content to lie in bed and doze for a couple more hours, Quatre seemed insistent that we all wake up to enjoy the beautiful day. Oh. Right. We had to go get supplies. Again.

Agh.

I stood up groggily and heard Hilde stir beside me. "You can sleep, at least," I told her grumpily.

She sat up in bed. "No, I'd rather get up. I'm not that tired. Is there a towel that I could use? I need a shower." Ugh. She was obviously a morning person.

I shrugged and pointed to the bathroom. "There should be a clean one in the cupboard on the first shelf."

She grinned at me in response, and I nodded half-heartedly as I trudged into the kitchen for breakfast.

I sat at the table and poured myself a bowl of cereal. Wufei was sitting there reading the paper, and Trowa was drinking his coffee without a word to anyone. Hell, I was no one to complain. While many people think that my need for human contact is insatiable, I am far from sociable in the morning, especially the morning after a mission. In fact, I'm just downright cranky.

Gobbling down my cereal, my thoughts turned to Heero. I wondered how he was doing. Quatre was conspiciously absent at the table, so I figured that he was probably upstairs with Spandex Man. Out of all of us, Quatre was the most like a mother hen – if you were injured or depressed, Quatre was your man.

After I finished my cereal, I put my bowl in the sink and trudged upstairs to see how Heero was doing.

The door was slightly ajar and I pushed it open carefully. Sure enough, Quatre was there with Heero, who was obviously sleeping, and seemed to be examining him further.

"How's it going?" I asked him in a soft whisper, closing the door gently behind me.

Quatre turned to me and shrugged. "He's going to be fine. He's just been put through quite an ordeal. Amazingly enough, nothing seems to be broken. Just some major bruising, minor cuts and scrapes, and a mild concussion. It'll be time to wake him up again in about another half an hour."

I looked at Quatre through the dim lighting in the room – he looked exhausted.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" I asked him carefully.

He shook his head. "Trowa was on watch and Wufei was asleep. I figured that since you and Wufei had gone on the mission, you should be allowed to rest."

I snorted. "You're even stupider than I thought. You have to rest, Q-man."

He sighed. "I know."

I shook my head and rested a hand on his shoulder, propelling him toward the door. "Sleep in Wufei's room for a while. It'll be quieter and Wufei will understand. Let him take care of Heero for a while. I'm going into town today to get some more supplies." I opened the door to Wufei's room and nudged him inside. "Stop worrying. You're not the only person here who can help Heero, so stop acting like it." I winked at him as he sat down on Wufei's perfectly made bed.

He looked down at the floor. "Thanks, Duo."

I smiled smugly. "You know, you're the second person to thank me this week. I should keep up my good work around here."

He smiled tiredly at me as I shut the door. "You always do good work."

Once I got downstairs again, Hilde was up and dressed in the same t-shirt she'd slept in and the pair of leggings she'd been wearing under her combat gear the night before. She was sitting at the table eating breakfast under the scrutiny of both Wufei and Trowa. I had to admit, I felt sorry for her. Those two together were like an entire interrogation crew.

"Wufei, Quatre's resting in your bed. I figured it was the quietest room in the house." I leaned against the doorframe as I spoke and crossed my arms.

Wufei merely nodded knowningly – no doubt he'd seen Quatre already and knew exactly how tired he was. "Are you still going into town for supplies?" he asked as he stood and took his dishes to the sink.

I nodded. "Yeah. Anybody want to come with me?"

Wufei shrugged. "I'll stay and look after Heero."

At this point, Trowa stood too, making his way over to the sink and beginning to fill it up with hot water. "I'll stay behind as well. I want to clean up here and then check on Quatre. I'm sure he'll wake up sooner or later and try to overexert himself again." He paused, looking back at me. "Can you handle everything in town alone?"

I shrugged. "Maybe I'll take Hilde with me." She looked up as I said her name. "That is," I continued, directing my gaze at her, "if you want to come. If you'd rather stay, I understand."

She shook her head slowly. "No, I'll come with you. I need to get a few things in the city myself."

I nodded and grinned. "Great. Then let me just take a shower and we'll be on our way."

It was a nice day. The leaves on the trees were just coming in and the sun shone brightly. The drive into town wasn't nearly as boring as it usually was, but then again, neither was the company.

Hilde was blindfolded in the car once again as a safety precaution until we got close to town. She seemed to be okay with it and understood that we were just following protocol.

Downtown was teeming with people, all coming in to spend the summer. It took me half an hour to find a place to park the SUV, and by then it was about eleven o'clock.

"Where do we need to go again?" I asked as Hilde pulled the list out of her bag. We'd all decided that she was the best person to hold it, considering my habit of losing little things like lists and receipts and socks...and Gundams...

She rattled off the address of our first and most important stop, a feuling station just outisde of the district we were in, and we grabbed the first bus we could in that direction. We had to get some stuff for the Gundams that Howard's people didn't have time to go after. Certain parts they could supply – others, usually the most basic and least suspicious, we needed to get ourselves. Couldn't have those guys running all over the place looking for basic parts instead of working on our machines.

Once we'd given the shop our shipping address, which was really an abandoned house close to the hangar, we grabbed the bus back downtown and went on to complete our "missions" of the day. We grabbed a couple of basic supplies, toilet paper, toothpase, shampoo and the like, stowed them in the SUV, and then went to have a quick lunch at a cafe nearby.

After lunch it was more errands – boring, tedious stuff that we needed to do to keep the house in order and all of our bills paid.

That afternoon we went shopping to get Hilde some new clothes. Apparently, there was no way she was going back to her house to get her own stuff, and after a couple of hours of shopping, it was six o'clock and I was beat. We trudged down the street with what seemed like a gazillion receipts and five million bags of clothes.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating. Really, Hilde was a quick shopper and had managed to get another wardrobe together pretty quickly. It was a small wardrobe, yes, but it was enough to wear for a week without washing anything. After we were done, she took out the credit card she'd used to pay for everything and made a call from a payphone, obviously to an automated service that would transfer the required amount from another account and pay off her card.

When she hung up she looked at me and shrugged. "Hey, just because I'm going into hiding doesn't mean that my credit score has to suffer." She then proceeded to take out a little pair of scissors and cut the card into strips before depositing it into the trash.

I nodded as she did so. She was smart. Use the card once and then trash it so that it couldn't accidentally be used again and get us followed. I was, howerver, scratching my head at the thought that she actually carried scissors with her. That was weird. Even I wasn't paranoid enough to carry a survival kit with me...at least, yet. I wondered for a moment whether she had duct tape with her or not.

"Let's throw this stuff in the car and then get some dinner," I suggested. "We'll probably get back home too late to eat there anyway."

As we sat down to eat our hurried meal, Hilde and I started talking about various things. Of couse, we eventually narrowed the discussion topic down to the one thing we both had in common.

"You know, they'll come looking for me soon." Hilde took a sip of her water and sat back in her chair, avoiding eye-contact.

I nodded, chewing my food thoughtfully. "As long as OZ doesn't find you - "

"Not just OZ," she said sharply, cutting me off. She lowered her voice. "The vampires."

I jerked my head back in surprise. "What? Why would they come after you?"

She licked her lips. "They're allies with OZ. In fact, a lot of soldiers are vampires. They have to get their jobs somewhere, you know. As long as they're professional killers..." She trailed off and looked out the window toward the street, her gaze roaming across the cars and people that were hurrying by without a backward glance.

I sighed softly. "Allies, huh?"

She nodded. "Most likely they know I'm with you. They've probably put that together by now. I was with you when you were attacked, I was with you during the last battle...they're not stupid, Duo."

I rubbed my temples with my fingers and closed my eyes. "This is just like a fucking nightmare." I laughed bitterly. "Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse."

She leaned forward suddenly and placed her hand over mine. I felt a weird kind of energy shoot up my arm, but it was gone within seconds, leaving me wondering if I'd just imaginined it. She said, "I need to get my things together here and leave. I can't come back into the city anymore. It's too dangerous. I may have control over my own father, but if he decides to send others out after me, it's all over and I won't be able to help you anymore."

I looked her straight in the eye. "That isn't going to happen." I leaned back, releasing my hand from her grip as I picked up a toothpick and started chewing on it. "We're the pilots, baby!" I grinned at her. "The G-boys! We aren't that easily found. This is how we've been living ever since we were born."

"Isn't that a little cocky coming from a guerilla fighter?"

I shrugged her off. "Maybe it is, but still, we've been doing just fine until now and I can't see that changing anytime soon." Something jiggled in the back of my mind and I went through the process of actually pulling it up to see what it was. Ah, that was it.

"The Chosen," I said suddenly. "What about them? We've been looking at some data we've collected and it looks like they're in with OZ too...lots of money being drained off to various accounts. Looks like they sucked us in to their big plot. A lot of cash is going to one particular fat cat who goes by the name Ubithe." I snorted. "If going by that name isn't cocky, I don't know what is."

Hilde straightened up a little in her chair and I glanced over at her. "What is it?" I asked. "You know that name, right?"

She nodded, paling a little, or maybe that was just a trick of the light. "I know him."

I leaned forward eagerly. "Great. Tell me about him. We need all the information we can get. Who is he, really?"

She licked her lips nervously. "He is who he claims to be."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mean he's Ubithe? The Ubithe? The original, one and only, one-of-a-kind, genuine Ubithe? That would make him, like, over three hundred - "

"I know how old he is," she said quietly. "And I know who he is."

I sat back and waited for her to finish, sensing that the worst was coming. "And that would be...?"

She took a deep breath and spoke.

"He's my father."