Title: Ghosts

Warnings: Read the last few chapters -.- You should know by now.

Disclaimer:…you know what goes here…x.x Ownership = Not mine.


SI: Sorry I haven't updated for…495749 years -_-

Duo: Yooooou should be! *Bops on head with newspaper*

SI: Heeee~eeeeey! I've had school, 'n now I have limited net access, and I have the flu!..or..something!

Duo: *blinks* Ok..here's what we do 'kay? *Evil grin* You, go make yourself some chicken soup or pour a few tons of alvedon down your throat, and I, the almighty Maxwell, will finish this fic off!

SI: I doooon't trust you with that…

Duo: *Pouts, eyes going all watery* But…but…

SI: Nuuuu! Not they cute sad expression! *Hiss* I'm melting, I'm melting!…ok sure take over. *Defeated look* You can't DO anything about…'The Look' *shuffles off, pouting*
Duo: *Tries to suppress evil laughter* Works EVERY time, my friends, every time…*cackles*

Heero has always been good at hiding things.  His laptop, for one. I can never find that damn thing when I want to bulldoze it and crush every wire that causes it's evil self to work and function properly. I can't express how much I loathe it.  He's good at hiding how he feels too, I mean what he really feels, the deep-inside-your-heart brooding, but that's actually not too obvious until you actually know he's hiding it. You may just mistake the whole sour angry cold blank attitude with a side order of 'I obey all rules imposed' as the real Heero. In a way…yes, it is. Dr. J did a fine job of ruining what might be a wonderful human being, didn't he?

It's all closed up in there, locked away tightly with the key thrown somewhere for a miracle-worker to relocate. But still, it IS there. He has emotions, he gets angry, sad, frustrated, happy, of course he does, he's not made of metal and wires for crying out loud. He is quiet and withdrawn by nature, so it's not a complete character change you're expecting. Just as I'm active and outgoing by nature, or at least that's what I put out for people to see. But the training, that course should be renamed "Robotisizing with side effects" if anything, crossed the line. I'm sure, had he not gone through with that load of brainwashing bullshit, he wouldn't be making himself out as flawless, as I suspect he's doing. It's the whole issue of denial, of weaknesses – in turn linking to emotions - trying to convince himself that he is just what Dr. J wanted for his terrorist. Perfection. 

Here's a little secret, but keep it under your hat. He isn't perfect. A little closer than your average Joe, but still light-years away. At least not Dr. J's kind of perfect. Heck, that man is insane at any rate so his opinions and what-not are something I don't give a rats ass about. If I ever meet up with him, be it this life or another one, I'm showing no mercy for that sleazebag or his freakishly fake limbs. Maybe, if he was put into our little world of war and battles, he'd see just exactly what his experiments have done to Heero. He's strong. But for crying out loud, he is fifteen years old and has already seen more war than anyone else ever recruited for one, killed more than any high-ranking soldier or officer could ever hope to. Enough already.

A 'superman' type warrior even though he's only in his mid-teens.  That's his 'problem' if I should refer to it as that.  Not that his emotions are gone, but that he refuses to understand that he can't withstand everything, getting frustrated when there's something that gets him from behind.  It's in that which you find his emotions being trained inwards in a form of intense concentration. He's good at what he does. Really good. But the world is expecting too much from him, and he from himself.  So what you can say is that slowly but surely, he's wearing himself out from the inside and out. Sometimes it surfaces, the sheer fatigue, self-hatred…the lot of emotional problems normal people may acquire. I know for certain that when he was trained, the part of wartime fact that says 'People will die, people you care for will disappear forever and sometimes you will be the only one to blame.' was conveniently left out in hopes that he would assume it was just a minor factor. Fact is, he's fighting for humanity, isn't he? They didn't change a thing; they might even have reinforced his humanity if anything.  But they fucked it up anyway.  I don't know how much more he can take.  I'm sure he used to be a really nice boy. Who wouldn't be? It's so simple. It's not about draining emotions, deleting humanity, human robots with flaws, Heero being trained to listen to his mind and not his heart, nothing of the sort.  It's war. He was raised a soldier, fighting for peace mind you, and he's doing what he has to in achieving it.  He does more than any other pilot is expected to do, and I'm not so stupid as to say I'm better at this than he is. He was trained for it, he has an abnormally strong will to get what he's after. And he's wearing himself out. Fin. 

After the mind-shattering encounter with something I think Heero has very close connections with, I'll try to wring it out of him later, he bolted out the door faster than I could blink.  I'll be damned if I knew what it was, and right then, I was too spooked to really make sense of very much. Later on, it wasn't something I cared to go over again, either.  I didn't have time to say anything before I was in the room on my own again, watching the ancient lights slowly revive themselves with hisses and sparks. The eerie thing was, they decided to come back to life the very moment the slamming door marked Heero's exit. It was only our room that had a short-circuit, too, as I discovered when I inquired with the others later on. By that time, morning was nearing a start.

The hallways were beginning to flood with students, dressed in the same boring old dark blue and white uniform as I was forced to don. The starched shirt and tie was choking me, and the finely pressed dark blue pants made me look like an office worker, which is of course, to me, a disgrace.  Passing people kept staring at my braid as if it was a sign of a foreign occult. Look at my braid in a way I don't approve of, and you life will be considerably shortened. I scanned the mass of foreign largely Scandinavian heads carefully – from a stairway mind you; Europeans are tall – for any sign of Heero marching with dogged determination to class as he always did. I figured it wouldn't be hard to find him in the mass of fair heads swarming through the wide brick-walled corridors with their bright yellowed lights, but it turned out to be a hard feat to accomplish. Being constantly distracted by the array of disturbingly dark and gloomy paintings hung off nails in the walls, and the fact that the house looked as if Dracula had been its interior designer, wasn't much assistance.  It took me a good fifteen minutes to locate him.

It was on my way back from the cafeteria that I caught sight of Heero again. I'd just snuck in to down a few glasses of orange juice, eat a sandwich or two, and flash sarcastic smiles at all who stared at me as if I was labeled 'Danger. Flammable'. I needed something to keep me going until that night, when we were meant to go through the mission plans, again, my boredom couldn't rise to any higher level. Necessary, yes, but we'd been through the lot of it a few times already. But anyway, just as I passed the library, there he was, flicking through a huge old book with what looked like elderly pages with a lack of wrinkle-cream and soap to brighten their appearance. Yellow and crinkly, in other words. He looked…well…he looked fine, from what I could see from there. See what I mean about him being good at hiding things? He was a wreck last time I laid eyes on him. Not even Quatre, therapist and psychiatrist extraordinaire, would be able to clean up a person mentally with so little time. And Heero rarely spoke to Quatre more than in the language of 'Hn' anyway.

"Hey, Heero!"

Nope, I couldn't help myself. I waved a hand containing a half eaten sandwich at him, an unstoppable grin already on my face. Damn smiley-ness. Sometimes I wish I could just morph into a depressed Goth with social problems, at least SOME times. Heero usually didn't approve of my spontaneous outbursts of happiness and joy and right now, I didn't want to cross him.  A pause, which I figured must have been a tool to make me feel unintelligent and juvenile for greeting him in the first place, was all that followed. He nodded quietly, and I was appalled to note the absence of a customary greeting 'Hn' as he returned to flicking the pages idly.

"Hey…ah…history class in half an hour, want me to wait for you?"

He shook his head again. I would wait, whether he approved of it or not, I needed to keep check of him. I purposely avoided the subject of the early morning happenings, as he seemed to have recovered from that pretty well, and reminding him as I guessed would probably result in me lacking a head.  Though I was tempted to ask him what the hell happened, as I was genuinely confused.  I'd just heard some voices and the wind blow a bit, the lights went out, yeah, I'll give him that…but Heero isn't afraid of voices, nor does he give two craps about the dark. He works in it at least fifty percent of the week. And a flower? Why would Heero be afraid of a dying specimen of flora?  I hate needing half an hour to wake up properly.  It deprives me of useful logic and general wakefulness if it's needed directly upon waking up, which this situation demanded.

"…What're you reading? We haven't gotten any assignments yet you know…"

I decided to joke with him; having always been the one who liked teasing him for studying out of class even though I knew it was because he wanted no attention drawn to him for slacking off. I bet, had we been 'normal', he'd have skipped his summer and winter holidays to do homework, just out of habit.

"Nothing very important, Duo," He replied in an agitated voice, obviously wanting me to piss off and die. Or at least that's what it sounded like. You never really know until you've toed the line, do you?

"Like hell it isn't, how stupid do you think I am? Dusty old volume, reading in the early hours of school, look of concentration on your face, equals without question: important. Common sense, and believe it or not I've got some," I replied casually, sweeping a finger over a page to leave a trail where dust had been carried away.

"Suppose you're right about that," He came with, raising an eyebrow amusedly at my logic before returning to his reading. I wasn't going to get much out of him, was I.  What was I doing, anyway? He was often reading, why was it so odd this time around? I must be getting paranoid. Like a mother goose character. Urgh.

I took a seat across from him, grabbing the nearest piece of reading material available to me.  I couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at the title.

"Local Horror Stories," I read with an obvious air of confusion. I turned to look at Heero, who looked up at me with an eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Um…Heero…since when are you interested in fictitious horror stories?" I asked calmly, as if he was an insane man and I was interrogating him. He let the soft 'hm' of what I suspected was a chuckle escape him before returning to his book once more, without answering my question. I shrugged my shoulders and replaced the book, assuming that maybe it was someone else's and I'd made a simple mistake in thinking it was his. That or he'd just grabbed random books off the shelves to evaluate the libraries selection, or something of the sorts. Settling back in my chair, hands held comfortably against the back of my head, I waited the arrival of the first lesson.

Shouldn't it have been obvious, that lessons were announced by the sharpest, most ear-wrecking bell known to man? To put it simply, as soon as that terror of sound-making-mechanisms began screaming, all hands were clamped over the owner's ears and eyes were squeezed shut in anticipation that it'd just shut up soon. I managed to topple off my chair and crash into a heavy book case (Yes, because of it's weight I was able to avoid the bookcase domino effect), Heero was content with covering his ears and glaring at his book while the shock to our hearing senses subsided.

"Ah cripes…" I muttered quietly, getting to my feet and rubbing the spot on my head that had been unfortunate enough to collide with solid rock floor. While my vision slowly rolled into focus, I fumbled for my bag and slung it oddly over my shoulder. Heero was already on his feet, closing the book and pushing his chair in neatly behind him. He waited for me to stop wobbling around like a madman before beginning his way out of the library doors.  My dazed expression prompted him to remind me exactly what I was meant to do next.

"History class. Third floor," He paused, casting a glance at the clock located above the exit, " You've got five minutes," He declared, turning on his heel and melting in with the crowd that had assembled outside.

I would've liked to have followed him, but my aching head was preventing me from going anywhere in the next few seconds.  But lo and behold, speedy recovery was with me, and my vision cleared up in less than half a minute.

"First I wake up too early, then the whole weird thing, and now that nasty old bell…" my mutterings attracted the attention of the elderly librarian, whose mouth scrunched up in disapproval at the curses that followed. I had a good urge to tell her to shove her face down a toilet bowl, where it clearly belonged. No, I'm not a morning person at all.

I was about to leave for class – I knew I was late. But the knock to my head served some use at least, and I checked the title written on the cover of Heero's book. Or tried. It was hard to make out, it being an ancient book and the letters were peeling as I looked at it. I saw a 'G' and some other letters that looked oddly like 'Oatmeal' when put together. Hmph, dumb thing. I felt extremely juvenile, and wanted to throw a tantrum right there and then…ok, so not quite. I was just in a sour mood, it happens.

Flipping the book over, I pulled the sign-out card out of its conveniently located pocket in the back.  A few signatures, all in different colored pens on the familiar blue-grid piece of placard paper and printed at the top in Times New Roman print, a title…

"Ghosts"

I don't know why my blood froze; there really was no reason for it to. I don't know why I suddenly felt so cold, but it was something about that simple title that in this castle was so wrong.  And something else, something to do with this morning that stirred up a awful feeling of nausea and dread in the pit of my stomach. I knew exactly why Heero – of all the books he could be reading - had been reading this one. My mind was cleared instantly, all against my will, and bits of an unfinished puzzle flew together to give me a glimpse of the picture it would form.  I didn't like the picture.

I passed the librarians high desk.  I put the book in front of her. I signed it out. And all the while, I couldn't help but thinking.  About the gutted children.  The voices.  The rotting petals of the flower. And it struck me, like a blow to the side of the head but in a kind of numb slow motion.

Shit.

I wasn't imagining it all.

TBC

A/N: SI:*Blinks* Umm…yeah…this whole fic is in general gonna be a bit weird, but I think you guessed that already e.e; Sorry AGAIN that I haven't updated in such a long time! Blahblahblah..x.X Anyways, this fic is…maybe halfway finished? I don't really know, heh. ^^

Shinigami: She just admitted to being stupid…which…shouldn't be hard to do in her case.

Kame: *nods*

SI: Tell me, why are muses always so…arrogantly sarcastically super evil?