"Duo!" Hilde called as she entered the tiny little office house and shut the screen door behind her with her foot. "I'm here! Right on time too," muttered to herself. Duo was nowhere to be found. She sighed, shook her head at the lack of response and tossed her purse on the worn-down couch in the little living room beside the kitchen. Well, he wasn't watching television in the living room, he wasn't in the kitchen, and he wasn't outside in the junk yard, so there was only one place he could be. Hilde trotted to the stairs and shouted between her hands. "Duo, get out of bed and get down here! We have a lot to do today, remember?"
Duo groaned and threw the pillow off his head. Hilde was early again. He lifted his left wrist to his face and squinted at the time on his watch. Nope, she was on time and he was late. Chuckling to himself, he threw off the blankets and sat up. Rolling out of bed, he more or less fell into his clothes, stumbled into his shoes, redid his braid, and tumbled downstairs.
"Hey, Hilde!" he grinned boisterously as he leaped down the stairs two and three steps at a time. "Glad you could make it."
"Duo," Hilde reprimanded, hands on her hips. Her brow had wrinkled in the way it did when she was irritated. "That's not going to work today. We have shipments backed up almost a week. You really can't afford to sleep in late right now."
She was being pessimistic. Business was really good; they were just a little behind because they'd run out of some packaging supplies. "I know," Duo said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. "I'm going to go to go out to the shipping factories today and buy the stuff we need."
Hilde smiled as she picked up a clipboard from the kitchen counter and shoved it in his hands. "Well, you'd better get started. I'll man the phones until you get back."
Duo's grin slipped. "Don't I even get to eat breakfast first?"
Hilde handed him a paper bag. "Here's a bagel, an apple and some orange juice. You can eat on your way. You ought to make a deal before lunch and it's already going on ten o-clock. We really need to get these shipments out before dusk if we want to stay in the transport business."
She was right. Duo took his lunch bag with a wry smile. Giving Hilde a brief squeeze of a hug, he snatched his wallet from the coffee table, tossed a coat over his shoulder and was out the door.
The supplies he needed were manufactured in a factory and stored in a warehouse on the otherside of the L2 colony, so he ate his breakfast at the bus stop and took a bus to the industrial side of the colony. In truth, he actually travelled upside down to get where he wanted to go, but Duo was so used to the structure of the colonies, it didn't seem bizzare at all.
When he exited the bus, he shrugged on his black coat, crammed his hat over his head and strode out into the street. There were few people roaming about in this part of the city, so far from the neighborhoods, market place and city hall. There were some people going to work in the various warehouses, but not many so late in the morning. So Duo whistled to himself in solitude as he walked along, humming a cheery little song he had heard on the radio that morning. It had a bouncy beat.
The sound of voices arguing made him stop and listen.
"I told you, I don't know anything about it," a girl's voice came brightly, but defiantly from just around the corner. "I just do business with him. I run errands and stuff. That's it."
Duo paused and placed the clipboard in his jacket, sensing trouble.
"I don't buy that," a man's voice followed, cocky and threatening. "Why don't you just tell me why you're really prowling around here so I can do my job?"
Duo slipped up beside the wall and pressed his back up against it. Reaching in the other side of his jacket, he pulled out the gun he always carried since the end of the war, just in case. He listened while he loaded it.
"Look," the girl's voice came again. "I just want to know who you are..." There was a pause and then the girl gasped. "Are you going to shoot me?"
This scene felt very familiar. Duo grinned as he moved. Only, when he turned the corner it was not Heero holding Relena at gunpoint, but a stranger pointing a gun at a short girl with dark hair and brown eyes. He recognized her vaguely. Felicia. She had been at the party following the capture of Red Viper four months ago. No, wait, she had been the one to capture the Red Viper. Whoever she was, she was backed in a corner now, between a stone wall and wooden fence. The man who stood before her held a gun in his right hand and the safety was disarmed.
Well, the actors were different, but the same lines might suffice.
"Anybody can see that you're the bad guy here," Duo said, pulling his hat low to hide his face and holding his gun steady.
The man turned and cursed. With a sudden burst of speed, he leapt over a wooden fence and dissapeared. The girl, dressed in pale brown slacks and a short coat, lowered her arms and stood up on her tip-toes, peering over the fence in in the direction her attacker had fled. Finally, after several long seconds, she turned to him and grinned, teeth flashing. Duo smiled and put his gun away. She really was a tiny little thing.
"How do you know I'm not the bad guy?" Felicia demanded.
"Wha...?" Duo began. He shoved back his hat. "Don't you recognize me? We met just a little while back."
Felicia blinked. "Yeah, Duo Maxwell, gundam pilot 02. Good to see you!" she said cheerily, and laughed, but then swallowed her mirth, peering out over the fence again. "You shouldn't have let him get away; he'll cause trouble."
Duo sighed. The first girl yells at him for shooting, the next because he didn't shoot. "You just can't please everybody," he lamented. "What'd you want me to do? Kill him?"
"No, it's okay," Felicia said grudgingly. "I'll just have to be careful now." She moved to the fence and pulled herself up and over it in one fluid motion. Light as a mouse, she dropped to the other side.
Duo frowned, moving to the fence himself. "What do you mean? Are you going after him?"
"Not exactly. I just have to run some errands," came her voice from the other side of the fence. Duo moved closer.
Peering through the cracks between the boards, Duo saw the girl standing on the other side, looking the way the man had run. "Why was he threatening you?" Duo asked. She had never explained how she had her friend Cor had captured an assassin. "Are you dangerous?"
Felicia scuffed her shoe in the ground, kicking the dirt about. "I told you I wasn't an assassin or anything at the memorial party and I'm not. I'm really not. What I told that guy was true. I run errands and stuff."
Duo scratched his head. "Who for?"
Felicia looked at him sidewise through the cracks in the fence. A smile seemed to be playing on the corners of her mouth, but her eyes flashed. Secrets. She had a secret and enjoyed keeping it from him. That was irritating. Heero used to be like that too. "Well, a bunch of people," she said vaguely. "Right now I'm doing something for Mandred."
Duo shrugged. Inwardly, he wasn't convinced. Something was very fishy here. "Well, I guess that's your business, but I'd like to know a little more about it before I just let you go. Seems like kind of a funny errand."
Felicia laughed and pressed her face up to the fence, right up against his in the most flirtateous way. He could see into the depths of her eyes, beautiful brown, almond-shaped eyes. Not that he was attracted or anything. He had Hilde after all, and he could tell this girl was merely playing games. Yet he was capitvated by her eyes, her child-like face, and every word she whispered in soft, secret tones. "There's a man who'd trying to steal some very expensive jewels from this warehouse," she whispered mysteriously, "Some beautifully crafted crystals and diamonds. They're in the possession of the owner's wife, not the businessman or his business. I'm going to stop the thief."
"You call that an errand?" Duo said incredulously. "Is that guy I ran off the one who is going to the steal diamonds?" Clumsy fool. "He probably won't get passed minimum security! He ran away from me even though he had a loaded gun."
Falora chuckled, her smile wide and mischievious. "Not him. I think he's just a scout. But he will cause trouble."
Duo felt responsible, and torn. Some fine diamonds, huh? How many? Maybe he could get one little one as a reward... He sensed an adventure. "Well, I'm going to come with you," hje exclaimed grandly. "You shouldn't be doing something like this by yourself, a little girl like you, especially unarmed! This Mandred guy has funny ideas about appropriate favors."
Her expression was like a flashflood of delight. Her eyes gleamed and she stuck her tongue out at him before laughter overcame her. "I don't need your help," she said, trying to control her giggles. "No, no! It's not an insult against you or anything, really," she stammered at his own expression of indignance, pounding her hands against the fence. "I just don't want to get you in trouble and I can handle it. Please just let me do my thing."
"Can't risk it," he said, shaking his head. "I hate to see pretty girls in trouble. I'll follow you if you leave me behind."
She eyed him askance, grumbling to herself, and crossed her arms. "Going to be difficult, eh? Cor told me that you were the last person I should ever do a mission with. We're both too chaotic."
"That's okay," Duo said. "I'm not as flashy as Heero. You know, it's the quiet people who make the most noise."
"It'll be a disaster," she said emphatically, shaking her head.
"No it won't," he retorted, more determined now.
"Yes it will."
"No it won't."
"Ah, come on!" Duo complained.
"No. Even Cor said no."
"He's not here," Duo reminded her.
"No!" she yelled, stamping her foot.
"Where is your friend Cor?" Duo asked politely, unphased.
"Home, I think. I don't need him either." She frowned, crossing her arms. "You're not going to just go away are you?"
"Nope."
She sighed. "All right, I guess you can come, but it's going to be a mess and we're both going to regret it."
Duo grinned.
Well, what do you think of my Duo fic so far? I really really really like reviews, so please give me a head's up, even on this silly stuff!! There's four parts to this one too.