Disclaimer: I don't own anything, characters especially, from Gundam Wing (much as I want to); they belong to Sunrise, Sotsu and its creators, so don't sue me. You wouldn't get anything for it, anyway. The only things I own from this fic are the story line/plot and the ideas. (And don't take those from me!)
Note: This will eventually become a 1x2 yaoi/shounen-ai fic. If you're not comfortable with it, don't read this! Oh, and 3+4 also exists here, as well as 5+S.
Note 2, to all readers of this fic (mainly KAVVI and HOPE129 -- thanks for reviewing, guys!) …CHAPTER 1 GOT DELETED. Yes, you read that right. All my hours spent on TEN PAGES that chapter of this part of the fic…GONE! All gone! (Imagine my reaction to all this…Mad! Mad! Mad!) And I was wondering why everyone was saying this was too short. Grr! So now I must rewrite Chapter 1: Alibi. Aiiieeeeeee…
So here goes again…Gomen nasai, minna-san…
On Trial…for Murder
Written by Arkenjil
[This section completed July 24, 2001
Chapter 1
One of the policemen stepped forward, flashing his badge quickly before pulling a disappearing act with it. "We're here to arrest you, Duo Maxwell, for the alleged murder of one Relena Peacecraft."
*-*-*
Duo felt his mouth drop. He knew that he looked like a gasping, beached fish, but at the moment, he really didn't care. "I did wh-hat?" he sputtered indignantly. His mind was whirling. "You're accusing me of murdering Lena?"
The policeman didn't even bat an eyelash. "I'm not accusing you, Mr. Maxwell, I'm apprehending you," he corrected stolidly. "You are the prime suspect in this case, and if you would come along nicely-"
"Come along nicely?" Duo repeated, voice rising an octave. "You expect Shi-"
"Duo," warned Quatre from his place next to the door. Evidently, the little blond had recovered his voice.
" 'Shi' what?" the police queried.
"Shi~it!" cried Duo, red in the face. He'd almost blown their cover -- almost, but not quite, and he wasn't going to chance that again.
The policeman gave him a bored look, one that clearly said, 'That's nice -- when can I get this over with?' Apparently, he was used to dealing with uncooperative, pugnacious people in his line of work, and Duo's language was no exception. "Now, Mr. Maxwell, please. It'll be a lot easier on all of us if you'd just come along nice- if you'd just cooperate with us."
Duo made a flagrant attempt at trying to forcibly crush his rancor but failed. "I object! This is injustice!" insisted Duo irascibly. Great. Now I sound like Wufei, he thought, but discarded the thought. "I would never have killed Lena, you understand? You've got it all wrong-"
"I'm afraid you're the one who's got it all wrong, Mr. Maxwell," the policeman interrupted callously. "Killing the Queen of the World is just one thing on your criminal record. Now come along."
"My- criminal record?" Duo repeated, his mind working furiously. I don't have a criminal record! I haven't done anything wrong for years. And besides, I'm with the Preventers! he wanted to say but couldn't. "What- criminal record?"
"Oh, many things, Mr. Maxwell: arson, theft, murders…much more. I don't personally remember them all." He took advantage of Duo's stunned silence to slap handcuffs on him.
"This is a mistake," Duo whispered, the shock of being accused of so many things stymieing his thinking. "This is all a huge mistake."
"Well, Mr. Maxwell, if you'll come with us, we'll try to rectify this 'mistake.' Shall we?"
Nodding dumbly at the police officer's exhortation, Duo followed him to the squad car. His mind was still spinning. Arson? Theft? Murder? …Me?
Quatre, standing at the door, watched as the car door was opened for Duo to get in. He would've stopped them, but they represented the law, and he knew that the Preventers would get his friend out of this mess. He knew it.
"What's going on?" came a voice from behind him.
Quatre turned to see a messy-looking Heero rubbing sleep from his eyes the second time that morning. "They're taking Duo away," he answered mournfully.
"Duo?" Heero suddenly became awake. "Duo?" he cried out again, running to the door and looking out.
The American was being put into the police car, still lost in thought. Heero? his mind wondered sluggishly, only faintly registering what was going on. Then his head snapped up, focusing on Heero. "Heero?" he called, and a look of wild panic entered his eyes.
"Duo!" Heero was out the door by now, speeding toward the police car.
Struggling in vain against the police, Duo cried, "Heero!" The door was shut and locked in his face as the police moved quickly to get into their cars. Duo tried the locked door in vain, then resorted to putting his hands on the window. "Heero!"
"No, Duo!" Reaching the car, Heero futilely tried the locked door and pounded on the window. He could still hear Duo calling his name from inside the car as the engine started up, and the fact that he could not reach the braided American when he so obviously needed to was driving him crazy. Then Duo, realizing that it was useless, put his hand on the window, his palm facing the Japanese man. There were tears in the large cobalt eyes.
With a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Heero understood. He wants to say goodbye while he still can. Wordlessly, Heero put his hand on the window, matching his large hand with Duo's smaller one. He could feel his own hot tears gathering in his eyes, obscuring his view of the American's beautiful, heart-shaped face.
The car lurched forward and started away, carrying its precious cargo with it. Heero trailed alongside the car, hand still on the window, until the policeman driving decided to shake him off. He was left with a cloud of dust, a voice echoing in his ears, and a pair of large cobalt eyes crying in his mind.
They watched him crumbled hopelessly to the ground, unconsciously repeating the braided ex-pilot's name over and over into the wind. Quatre turned his tear-streaked face into Trowa's shirt, clinging to his tall lover, completely enervated from the morning's events. Wufei sighed and picked up the phone to inform headquarters of Duo's arrest.
*-*-*
"I'm telling you, Bauhaus, he'd never kill Relena! Not now, not ever!" Quatre shrilled into the videophone.
The lawyer visibly winced. "I understand that, Master Winner. I never doubted it for a second. Now, can you tell me what he was doing when Relena died-"
"He was sleeping. We were all sleeping. We'd all have hangovers except we were all sobered out of it when we discovered Relena's dead body at 4 am!" Quatre was hyperventilating and he didn't care.
"Please calm down, Master Winner. He'll be all right. I'm going over to the prison now to check his alibi with what you said."
"Check his alibi my-"
"This is all customary procedure, Master Winner -- it must be done." Bauhaus was trying to make Quatre hear him. "Don't worry. If he checks right with this, it can only help his case. I'll call you later and tell you what's going on, okay? See you later." Seeing the worried look on Quatre's face, he added sanguinely, "I'll prove him innocent, never fear."
"Yeah, you'd better," Quatre muttered as he hung up. "With the amount of money I'm paying you and your freaking elevated, well-spoken-of reputation, if you don't get him out of this, I'll shoot you myself."
"Bloodthirsty, Quatre," remarked Wufei, entering the kitchen. He'd heard most of Quatre's little rant.
Quatre blushed but didn't take it back. "Duo's innocent," he stated stubbornly.
"We know, koi, we know," Trowa murmured soothingly, coming up from behind the little blond and taking him into his arms.
Instinctively turning his head into his lover's chest, Quatre replied, "But Duo-"
"We can't do anything about Duo right now," whispered Trowa into Quatre's soft hair. "This is all legal matters. We've just got to do what we can."
"And that means keeping Heero sane," the Chinese pilot muttered, glancing toward the main hallway. Just then, the doorbell rang. "Speaking of which-"
Quatre and Trowa both turned to see Heero sprinting for the door. "I wonder who that could be?" Quatre wondered aloud.
"It could be anyone. There have been so many people in and out of here this morning." Trowa mindlessly ran his fingers through Quatre's hair.
They heard the door shut before Heero appeared again, his dark brows drawn together like storm clouds gathering. "It's the police. They want to reexamine the crime scene," he intoned, answering Quatre's question.
"Well, let them in," Trowa said, almost cut off by Quatre's exclamation of, "Did you shut the door in their face?"
Heero shot the latter a look, his utterance being the only one that required an answer. "Yes."
"Heero!" cried the Arabian. "Go let them in."
"I," the Japanese ex-pilot practically snarled, "have a personal grudge against police as of this morning. Someone more…convivial go do it. I don't want to see them again for a while." With that, he made a beeline for the stairs, unmistakably heading for his and Duo's shared room.
"Wufei?" asked Trowa laconically.
"Fine. I'll do it." He gave Heero's back a withering, vindictive glare before heading for the front door to let the odious police in.
*-*-*
Bauhaus the lawyer stared up at the looming, fenced-in edifice that was the prison, reminding himself that there were so many miscreants and their ilk in the world that they had to have large buildings like such built especially for restraining them. Guards strolled around in seemingly desultory patterns -- on closer inspection, it could be concluded that it was to fool anyone trying to get in or out.
Bauhaus had dealt with many murder cases before this one, and he knew that most murderers were either misanthropes or something close to that. However, from Quatre's description of him, Duo Maxwell didn't fit this profile at all. Duo, he was told, was simply garrulous. He could talk on and on and on. He could be recalcitrant if he wanted to be, but it was always with good intentions and usually was just for fun. Most importantly, Duo Maxwell had a penchant for telling the truth.
This totally did not match what the lawyer had come to see in murderers. Bauhaus was pretty sure that Duo was innocent. However, there still was that other, far more inscrutable part of the case…
He paused in his thinking to show his I.D. to the guards around the prison, confirming that he had indeed come to see Duo Maxwell. Yes, he had been taken into custody that morning. Good. He entered the room he had been shown to and was told to wait. Left alone, he resumed his train of thought.
Theft? Arson? Duo Maxwell, a serial killer? Bauhaus couldn't believe that charges being pressed against the 21-year-old. He was certain there was either something really strange going on, or there was a deeper, darker side of Duo Maxwell that no one had seen yet. Well. He'd be meeting him soon. Time to pass judgement for himself.
The opposite door opened and a prisoner, dressed in the bright orange prison uniform, braid swinging, was roughly shoved in. "Thanks for your consideration!" he called out sarcastically after the guard who pushed in him. "I'll make sure to send you a thank-you card next time!" He turned to face the lawyer. "Great place, isn't it? Reeks of squalor. Haven't met my roommates yet." At that, a sudden, dark shadow crossed over his face, but it was ephemeral. The lawyer almost missed it.
"So!" Duo said, sitting down in a chair, "you must be the lawyer Kat hired, huh? The name's Duo Maxwell." He extended his hand over the table. "Nice to meet you."
Duo continued chatting away as if he'd known the lawyer all his life. Duo Maxwell, thought Bauhaus, what are you doing here? The cheerful, braided American was totally incongruous in this dark prison. He tried to focus in on what Duo was saying and discovered that Quatre was right. The only word he got into the entire conversation that Duo acknowledged was his own name. "Mr. Maxwell," he finally said. "Duo!"
"Yeah?"
He turned the recorder he had on, raising it so that Duo could see it. "I've come here for some important things."
Duo leaned forward, face becoming serious. "Shoot."
"All right. Mr. Maxwell, can you tell me in all veracity what you were doing when Miss Peacecraft was killed?"
"And when was she killed, Mr. Bauhaus?"
The lawyer glanced down at his open file. "From the coroner's report, it says around 3 o'clock this morning."
"Then I was sleeping." Duo leaned back again.
"Also from this report, the coroner states that Miss Peacecraft was shot multiple times." He looked up at the American. "Why didn't you hear?"
Duo rolled his eyes. "I was out cold. You know, when someone with my body weight drinks as much as I did last night, they tend to be pretty conked out."
"And your roommate, Mr. Maxwell?"
The shadow dropped across Duo's face again, but vanished just as quickly as before. "Also had been drinking. There are only five of us regularly living in that house, Mr. Bauhaus, and all of us were drinking last night." He paused, considering something. "And to be perfectly truthful, there is no way for you to prove I was sleeping, either. We don't videotape ourselves."
"Mr. Maxwell, do you have a hangover?"
"No, but I would if Relena wasn't dead."
"Would you like to explain that?"
Duo looked at him strangely. "Have you ever had a hangover before, Mr. Bauhaus?"
"Yes."
"Then you understand that discovering Relena's mutilated body shocked me out of it." There was silence in the room before Duo added, "But I do have a small headache, now that I think about it. But maybe it's a concussion from my wonderful treatment down here."
They were silent again. Finally, Bauhaus cleared his throat. "Well, Mr. Maxwell, I am pleased to say that your alibi has been completely corroborated by your roommates back at your home. However…"
"However?"
"Your name, Mr. Maxwell, has a lot of disrepute connected to it."
Duo frowned. "And how's that?"
Bauhaus shuffled through his papers, searching for a few articles and reports in there. "Well, there's been occurrences that have been happening for a few years now, all signed by a 'Initial Maxwell' -- initial being a letter the police haven't yet been able to decide was a 'D' or a 'S' yet. Once, this person left an audio cassette on the crime scene for the police to find." He looked up into Duo's wide eyes. "The person introduced himself as the sole survivor of the Maxwell Church Massacre on L2, over a decade ago."
Duo's face paled. "Then that's- me," he whispered brokenly.
*Tsuzuku*
So what do you think of it? Review, onegai!
Author's Note: Yes, I realize I'm using big words in this fic…It's to help me remember them, because I'm studying.