Disclaimer: Gundam's not mine, I don't own it in any way, shape, or form, etc.
The Lost Girl
Part 11
The next hour or so was a blur. Heero had handcuffed me, the metal chafing my wrists, cutting into the wound he'd made only days before, but he didn't seem to notice. He'd led me over to his Wing Zero, and he'd shoved me in the back compartment.
I'd been shut into the darkness, and I'd been in here for an hour, at least. I'd heard Heero and Wufei drag Binns up, heard him punch the coordinates in, heard Binns call to the OZ base.
"I've been captured. They know about Alison."
I'd heard Heero talking to them.
"I've got something you want," he said. "You have something I want. If you don't agree to a trade, I'm going to destroy you and the pilot. Then you'll have nothing."
They'd agreed. I was sure the quiet talking that Heero had done after those initial sentences - the other words I couldn't hear — had had something to do with that.
"You can't have the Gundam," the voice from the OZ base had said. "We don't have it anymore. It's been sent somewhere else." They were lying - even I could tell that.
"Then send me the coordinates. Or I'll kill one of your agents."
The voice on the other end had chuckled. "Will you, now?"
And Wufei had killed Binns.
I'd heard it, the quick *swish* of metal, the sound of the blade Gasping for breath, slowly becoming quieter, less-desperate I had nearly been sick. I had wanted to be sick. I had wanted to die.
There had been silence. Then, "We'll trade. The girl for the boy. That's it."
More silence.
Heero's voice, hard and cold, and very unhappy. "Fine."
He wasn't mad because he had to trade me. He was mad because they would only give him Duo, and not Deathscythe as well.
I had wanted to die.
Now, sitting here in the dark, I still wanted to die.
I was going to die anyway. Heero was going to kill me. And I knew he was good to his word. He *would* kill me.
Somehow I'd detached myself from the whole thing. Somehow I wasn't frightened. I was just kind of floating, my mind chasing itself in lazy circles, running back and forth through hazy half-memories.
Duo would be safe, at least, I told myself.
I was going to die, but he would be safe.
Somehow that mattered more to me than my own life.
Somewhere, *that* frightened me.
That, and the fact that I couldn't possibly see how Trowa and Quatre could doubt Wufei and Heero now. How they could have stood behind me at all. How I could not be a spy and a traitor, after what I'd been told, what I'd been through.
Not that I was a very good spy, granted. I didn't know I was a spy. But I was a spy nonetheless.
Heero had begun speaking again.
"Wing Zero ready to dock. Have my package ready, and I might let you escape before I blow this base to hell." His voice was so level, so emotionless. Like it had been before, when he'd kicked me out of his cockpit. When he'd told me I was a traitor.
Now I believed him.
The base replied; I couldn't make out what they said, but suddenly the mobile suit shuddered. We were docking.
The compartment slid open and Heero's slim arm reached in and his iron grip grabbed me, dragging me out, not caring as I banged my still-bruised head on the overhead piloting panel.
Not that I was going to cry out, or anything like that. Not now.
My emotions had drained out of me, I felt. I was a walking automaton, my body breathing and pumping blood and pain through my limbs. Nothing more.
I blinked in the harsh white light - light that I had spent a day in before, trapped here with Duo, watching him being forced to betray the other pilots
And then I saw him.
And the emotions came flooding back, and my eyes stung, and Heero kicked at my legs so I fell to the ground, scraping my knees, but my gaze never left the boy before me.
"Heero Alison!"
He was thin - so much thinner than he had been before, his face gaunt, his braid unkempt and dirty. Loose strands fell about his face, and the handcuffs that bound him looked almost big enough to slip off. But the huge guard holding him by his arm was there to make sure they didn't.
His left arm was badly bruised, blotched purple and brown against his pale skin, and I couldn't tell if the bone had reset or not.
His eyes, though
His eyes held hope. Still sparking blue. Still full of life, although the rest of him seemed so dead. And his voice - it had not been that of a broken person. It had been that of a playful, loudmouthed boy who'd just been forced to do something unpleasant for a while. That was it. *Duo* was still safe.
And part of me was happy, joy flooding in through gates I had thought were closed, washing over me and warming me just a little.
They hadn't broken his mind, his spirit. He was going to be okay.
It was over,then. For real. It was over.
Heero stood, looking Duo up and down.
"Here," he said flatly, kicking me over. My face hit the metal grating, scraping skin off, but I didn't care. It just didn't matter anymore.
I pushed myself up to my knees again. Duo was looking at me with that still-sparkling gaze, but it was partly clouded with confusion and concern.
"And here," the guard said, shoving Duo at Heero so hard that he crashed into the icy-eyed brunette before pushing himself off and pinning Heero with a confused gaze.
"Get outta here before the Lady changes her mind," was the guard's advice.
And he grabbed my handcuffs, pulling me up to my feet.
"Heero?" Duo asked softly, confusion now clouding his voice. "What are you doing?"
"Ending this," the boy replied, and pulled out a handgun.
He aimed it at my head - I could look right down the barrel into the belly of the gun; I could imagine the bullet there, waiting for me, calling my name.
"Hey!" Duo's voice pierced the air, too-loud and urgent. The guard was still holding me, looking at Heero like he really didn't care if I lived or died, now that his job was done. It seemed almost strange to me that he would have let Heero pull a gun in the first place but what wasn't weird at this point; maybe it was part of some bigger plan, get rid of me now
"Heero!" Duo continued. "Listen, I know you've got some weird-assed idea of the word 'rescue', but let me tell you -"
"I'm going to kill her," Heero said flatly, coldly, cocking the gun.
"YUY!" Duo's voice was more urgent; he raised his handcuffed arms, reaching for the weapon. "There's no way in *hell* I'm going to let you kill my -"
"Then you'd better look someplace else."
*BANG*!
"Please! Help me, oh God, please!" I screamed, I was screaming, incoherently, anything, anyone, please, please -
"Hey! Calm down!"
I shot straight up in bed, sweating, heart racing, confused. I was in a dimly-lit room, posters on the walls... The complex?
"Shh, shh..." I was pushed gently but firmly back onto the pillow and blinked up as a hand ran over my forehead, wiping some of the sweat away.
It was Duo, looking down at me, concerned yet comforting at the same time.
"D-Duo?" I managed to get out between suddenly nearly-chattering teeth. It was cold in here.
"Shh, you're awake now. You're home - it's safe here. Don't worry. Just stay there, I'll be right back." He swept up off his chair and out of the room, but was back in what seemed to be seconds, a steaming mug in one hand, a towel in the other.
He set the mug on the nightstand and ran the towel over my forehead, sitting back down as he did so. "How are you feeling?"
"I... I don't know. Okay," I mused. Nothing hurt, although I was dizzy, scared, and confused. "I'm kind of dizzy though."
He nodded. "Just stay down there, okay?"
"What happened? I...Heero"
There was a bit of a grin - a grim smile, really - as he answered. "Yeah, well, you're okay now."
"I I thought he was going to kill me."
He nodded slowly. "You worried me."
"What?" I could feel myself flushing the slightest bit. "Sorry."
He shook his head. "Not your fault," he said shortly.
"Don't worry about me. It's ended up causing more trouble than it's worth," I told him weakly.
"Can't help it." He smiled down at me, a suddenly weak, scared smile, not at all like the regular Duo grin that I was used to.
And I was still confused. "How did you how did you convince him not to - "
"I didn't. He did."
The air in the room suddenly became freezing - it was like being in a block of solid ice. I shivered again.
"But this -"
"Shh," he whispered, placing a finger to my mouth, bending down. "I'm not going to lie to you. I'm the God of Death, I've got a job to do -"
Something exploded in my stomach and I screamed -
"Shut her up!"
That voice - I knew that voice. The voice from my dream, days ago, cold but laughing, just before I'd woken up to find myself in the complex on the docks near Tokyo
The voice of the woman, with the tight braids and sharply-glinting glasses, the ice-cold tones as she told Duo what she was going to make him do.
I was in hell.
But then the screaming stopped.
I opened my eyes to find myself on that bed again - that table, really, strapped down at the slight angle with the harsh light in my face. My head hurt, my chest hurt, and my stomach was on fire like it was going to burn me up from the inside out. I probably couldn't have moved even if I could have tried.
Maybe this had all been a dream, maybe Duo hadn't had to betray
No. That had been real. And this was real too.
That woman was looking down at me, her lips pressed together, her face stern.
There was someone bustling about to the left.
"Better, Lady?" a male voice asked.
"I suppose," she snapped. "But really, having to go through all that trouble just to save her nearly-worthless little life and after losing Binns to those "
"Easy, my Lady," the man said. "She is of some use yet."
I opened my dry mouth, tried to speak. I had screamed, I should be able to speak -
But I couldn't. Nothing came out. I stared at the woman, both frightened and angry.
What had they done to me *now*? And where was Heero, where was *Duo*?
Why was this place still here? Hadn't Heero been planning on blowing it up?
Hadn't he *killed* me?
"And the neuro-inhibitors work, see, my Lady?" the man asked. "Not a sound out of her now. Nothing but information."
She nodded curtly, then walked away, leaving the air cold behind her, like it would break and fall to the ground in tiny shards. She sat in a metal chair off to the side, and fixed her icy gaze on me from there. I could just turn my head enough to see her, and I gave her the angriest look I could manage.
I still wanted to kill her.
Despite those dead men, tearing at my soul, telling me I was no longer human
*She* still had to pay
"I see your 'friends' had lost faith in you by now. Too much evidence to the contrary," she said icily. "Ah, well, we had meant for it to be that way. I've found that when you break their spirit first they tend to render up their brains' information more easily. Haven't you found that, doctor?"
"Yes, Lady," the man said gruffly, now working at some controls.
Then it began - a slow, insidious pain that crept into my head, into my mind, as if it were trying to tear my being - my soul - apart. Slow, piercing, needle-sharp pain.
I tried not to wince, tried to keep staring at her. I wanted to kill her wanted to kill her so badly
Why was this place still here?
"You little friends got away," she spat at me. "Just barely — the Wing Zero was too crippled to carry out the threats on our lives, here in this peaceful little base of ours." She smiled sweetly and it made me sick.
"They're not going to come back for you," she said. "They don't trust you. None of them do. You know that, and I know that.
"He doesn't love you anymore. You betrayed him."
I blinked. *What*?! My mind hissed. That word. He he hadn't in the first place she was just trying to get at me, break me
But I was already broken. Duo was safe - they were all safe, I guessed - and I had no more reason to go on. I couldn't remember what I had had before this, I couldn't remember something that I wanted to go back to simply because I couldn't *remember* -
I blinked again. That pain it was steadily growing, steadily ripping my brain, my mind, to pieces, cauterizing as it went, burning away, chipping away
"I'm nearly finished, Lady."
"Good. Little girl, you've been such a help, it's almost a shame to finish what Yuy started. You were such a good spy, you know. You didn't know you were a spy - you couldn't remember." She smiled again, eyes flashing dangerously. "And putting you back in that complex, unhurt, well that was just fun. I knew they wouldn't trust you then, knew you couldn't explain that one away. But I had *no* idea - not before we'd captured you and your little Maxwell No idea. Got so close to him, didn't you? And it hurt, didn't it, good little girl, good spy. Such a good job, little girl." And she laughed, and the pain increased, until I wanted to scream, *tried* to scream so hard -
I *was* a spy. That was why I'd been saved, not killed, put back in the complex and had been able to go after Heero so easily. That was why they were tracking me, both mechanically and with Binns.
I *was* a traitor. And I couldn't even remember it.
Well wouldn't the best spy be one who didn't know they were a spy? One who went in and became part of the group they were sent to gather information on, better able to fit in because they *weren't* acting?
The perfect spy.
Nearly killed by the perfect soldier.
No. He'd killed me. With those eyes, those words. I'd wanted to die then, I'd thought.
But I had died.
Anything I'd had, anything I could've gone back to, even if I couldn't remember it
It was all a lie anyway. It was all gone.
And they weren't coming back.
And they hadn't even been kind enough to kill me.
Only OZ was going to kill me now, do what they would with one of their own, only they couldn't kill me because I was already dead. Heero's eyes, Heero's gun had told me so.
My body just didn't know it yet.
The pain was tearing me apart; my eyes were stinging, watering, sound had become silence, the room was turning a greyish sort of red, and she was smiling - no, laughing, softly, to herself.
"I told you it would be fun, didn't I? Don't tell me you didn't have fun "
"*I* didn't have fun. So guess what, bitch - you're not gonna have fun either."
A singsong voice filled the air, loud and obnoxious, and there was a crash. A bang. A flash of light - sparks.
The pain stopped, almost such an abrupt absence of it that its leaving almost ripped me to shreds more painfully than its presence had.
The world slowly resumed its motion, its life, air on my face and in my lungs, eyes showing me
I was dreaming. I had to be. Or I was dead. That was more likely. My brain's last dying moments, concocting this
This angel.
The angel dressed in black, clothes just a little to big on his gaunt frame, holding the gun to the woman's head as she sat, motionless, her face devoid of emotion.
The doctor's body on the floor, his white lab coat stained red, the puddle spreading, dripping through the floor grates.
"Who the hell are *you* to tell her I don't love her anymore?" he asked. "Eh, wait, I'll answer that myself. You're *dead*."
And then something exploded - a gunshot - and I winced and there was something wet on my face
I opened my eyes. It was blood, drenching me, and the woman's dead body on the floor was spreading more of it across the paneling
The angel - no, the god; the God of Death, Shinigami, that's who he was - came over and untied me. Flipped me over his back, and carried me out of there.
There were voices in the hall. Three of them, to be exact.
"Is she all right?!"
"She'll be better once we get out of here."
"Let's go then."
"That's the most intelligent thing I've ever heard you say, Wufei."
"Duo - "
"Shut up, Trowa. Just help me get her out of here and wipe this place out of existence."
Walking, shoes clicking on metal. Doors opening and closing.
Climbing, swinging up a rope with me still on his back.
If I was dead, and my brain was inventing this, shouldn't it be running out of oxygen soon?
Sitting, laying me across his lap, cockpit panel sliding shut, taking off and flying out into space
"Ready to do this?"
"Yes. On three."
"One two three!"
An explosion, rocking the entire suit, filling the screen and bathing the cockpit in red and yellow before dying out in the blackness of space.
"Let's go home."
Then my brain's oxygen ran out.
AN: Okay! Look, you got Duo back! And there's only one more part to go if I can get around to it I might put it up tonight.
Thanks to those who have stuck with this and enjoyed it; I'm glad you did!