SAVE ETERNITY FOR ME Unknown User Normal Unknown User 1 0 2001-11-02T10:09:00Z 2001-11-02T10:10:00Z 5 2279 12991 DellComputerCorporation 108 25 15953 9.2720 4.5 pt 2 2

SAVE ETERNITY FOR ME

by Ashura Nagisa

DISCLAIMERS:  Even if I save up my allowance for years, I will probably never own the characters of Gundam Wing.  The story itself and all original characters are mine.  It's a nice compromise, and in kindergarten I was taught to share my toys.

PAIRINGS:  1x2, 3x4, DxR, HxC, 13x11, 6x9, 5+?  (does not necessarily reflect seme/uke positions)

ARCHIVE:  Desolation Angels (http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura)

NOTES:  AU, Drama, Action/Adventure, Yaoi, Yuri, Het.   "Save Eternity for Me" takes place about one year after the epilogue of Niobe's Violets (two years after the bulk of the story).  Oz is in the hands of Treize and Une, and Romafeller has released almost entire control of the St. Gabriel School to Iria and the Winner Foundation.  Even Wufei seems to have recovered from the battle and Sylvia's death, and at the age of ten, Mariemaya is coming into her own Power at last....

[chapter four:  heart with strings of steel]

"No, look...you're adding too many steps.  Just add that to both sides and you're done, you don't /have/ to do all that stuff in the middle...."

There were several good reasons, Duo had decided, why Miss Noin had hired Meiran as his tutor.  The most obvious was that she knew /everything/...or at least everything he could find occasion to ask about.  Algebra, physics, literature, history—all the mundane sorts of things that he would have learned had he ever gone to school past the completion of the seventh grade—but more than that, he discovered, she understood most of what Treize or Une lectured on as well. 

They were huddled together at a round table in the otherwise-vacant library, books and notebooks scattered across the surface, most of which were covered in newsprint and Meiran's everpresent manga-style drawings.  They finished the math assignment and moved on to discussing Treize' (unfinished) unified field theory of magic, and Duo let out a long breath as he sank backward in his chair.

"I don't get it," he said flatly. 

Meiran cocked her head, questioning.  "Don't get what?"

"You," he answered, a grin breaking across his face at her surprise.  She'd been expecting another question on the material, then.   "I'm beginning to think /your/ Talent is learning things, but that doesn't explain why you don't have to go to school here with the rest of us!"

"Because I'm not a Talent," she answered honestly, whether or not he'd expected her to.  "Sorry...plain ol' human here, nothing special about me.  But the reason I know about this—" she gestured wildly with one bangle-draped arm—"is because my parents are.  They've got the Talents, I don't.  Didn't you know?  That's why Miss Noin's letting me do this."

That, Duo decided, did shed some light on a few things.  "Had no idea," he admitted, doodling eyes in the margins of the math assignment.  Miss Noin would hardly be offended by a few floating, disembodied eyeballs.

It was what Meiran had termed a "sketch break," and they took them frequently.

"So when do I get to meet your boyfriend?"  she asked, idly scribbling palm fronds around the faceless toga-clad form decourating the front of her notebook.  "I've been here every day for a week and you're still the only face I know."

"So stick around a bit longer," he answered.  "He'll come by when he's done with class, if you're still here you can meet him then."

She shrugged. "I'll try...I've got a piano lesson at four, though, so if he's not done soon I'll have to leave anyway."

The sound of the library door opening, then slamming closed—it was a heavy oak door that tended to slam no matter how hard one tried to ease it shut—drew both their attention away from both conversation and disembodied eyeballs.  It was not Heero—that would have been too convenient—but Wufei, his head bent over a stack of books cradled in his arms.

"Well there's somebody now...hey, Wufei!"  Duo called, waving to get the boy's attention.  "Come meet my new tutor, Meiran.  Mei, this is Wufei Cha—"  He broke off, because neither of them were listening.  Wufei had frozen in place as if paralysed, wide dark eyes staring at Meiran as if she were some creature from another world.  And she, not understanding the hostility in his gaze, stared back in bewildered puzzlement.

Abruptly Wufei turned, and wordless, stalked out of the room.

Duo glanced from departing firestarter to his tutor in frustrated confusion, torn between duty to remain and see to Meiran—not to mention his homework—and the urge to run after and find out what the hell was wrong with Wufei.

The girl made the decision for him.  "I think I'd better go," she said wearily, slumping in her chair for a moment.  "I still haven't quite got the layout of this place, want to point me in the direction of the door?"

Duo nodded, leading her through the labyrinth that was the St. Gabriel Institute.  "It took me a while to get used to the place too," he mumbled reassuringly.  She just shrugged.

"I'll get the hang of it."  She looked troubled, gnawing pensively at her bottom lip, her stack of books cradled against her chest like a shield.  Still, she shot him a smile when she caught him looking at her with concern.  "Stop worrying, Duo, everything's fine.  Well, with me at least.  Might want to go check on your friend."

"Yeah," he admitted, "I was going to."  He ushered her to the door and they stood there shuffling their feet awkwardly for a moment. 

It was Meiran who broke the tension, hefting her books to redistribute the weight of them, and winking at him through flyaway wisps of black hair.  "Get going, huh?  Don't stand here all day, you've still got algebra to finish."  And before Duo could come up with a suitable comeback, she was already halfway down the walk to her bike.

Even once Duo could settle on hunting for Wufei, it took over a half hour to find him.  It seemed the firestarter had disappeared completely—not hard to do in a building with as many hidden places as St. Gabriel's, but disconcerting nonetheless. 

Duo would have simply decided that meant he wanted to be left alone, but his friend's abrupt reaction still puzzled him—and he was more inclined, at the moment, to believe that Wufei's absence meant there was something wrong that needed to be addressed.

Pausing in an alcove, he closed his eyes, his hands open, palm-up, at his sides.  It was a new power, or rather the application of it, and one he wasn't particularly practiced in, but his feet were starting to hurt from searching the old-fashioned way, so it was worth a try.  He relaxed his mind—which always seemed to feel more like relaxing his ears, when it came down to it—and "felt" about for the presence that was Wufei.  

He couldn't concentrate quite that well yet, so he also found out that Heero was in class with Cathy, Trowa, and Relena; that Dorothy playing the videogame again, and Hilde was outside with her dog.  Mariemaya was in the kitchen with the cook, and Wufei was—

What on earth was Wufei doing /there/?

Duo took a very long, deep breath, and headed for the basement door.

He hadn't been below in—how long had it been now?  A little less than two years, because they had all gone down together with the intent of cleaning out Sylvia's studio, since she was no longer there to require its use.  None of them had been able to bring themselves to actually move anything, and they had given up; thus the room had remained untouched as she had left it.

He eased open the door, his heart clenched almost to bursting in his chest.  He didn't think he was /afraid/, exactly.  It was more a reminder of too many things he didn't have the strength to think about.  And it worried him that Wufei had chosen this place as his sanctuary.

He expected dust, but there was none.  The room looked exactly as it had the time he'd seen it last, as if it were only mere hours ago that he had come rushing down to retrieve Sylvia for their final battle against the demon Dekim.  The box that had held her sword, now empty, was half-covered by scraps of paper and cloth, one end hidden beneath the battered table.  Scattered paint pots were left lidless, their pigments dried and cracking.  The stiff end of a paintbrush still poked out of one of them, waiting to be returned to use.  A sheet was thrown over half the sofa, and a heap of clothes had been kicked into a corner.

And Wufei perched on the back of the sofa, resting his chin in his hands, staring blankly into the air.

"Wufei?"  Duo ventured tentatively, letting the door swing shut behind him.  "Um...are you okay?"

The Chinese boy jerked out of his reverie, turning his sheepish gaze toward Duo.  "How did you know I was—never mind, I know."  He slid down the sofa-back to curl around his knees on the middle cushion.  "You may as well come in, then.  I...I keep the place dusted.  I haven't been able to bring myself to move anything yet."  A wry, self-deprecating grin, without a trace of humour in it.  "I don't even want to put her brushes away, so they sit there and get ruined, which isn't what she'd want at all.  She took good care of them."

Duo joined him on the sofa, sinking gingerly into the worn cushions.  "I just thought I'd come find you," he explained unnecessarily.  "You looked—well, the way you left the library so fast—"

"Ah."  Wufei's eyes closed as he let his head fall back, the syllable no more than a sad, weary exhalation of breath.  "I am afraid I was rude to your friend.  I apologise."

"It's all right.  She said to tell you it's okay."  It was close to the truth, at least, and Duo suspected it was at least partly what Meiran had /meant/.  "Want to talk about it?"

A shrug, then.  "I recognised her," came the flat reply.  "I—it was sudden—just a flash, when you called my name and I turned—I /knew/ her."  Apologetic half-smile.  "It kind of shocked me, I guess.  Next thing I knew I was running down here to think, but the truth is I don't know what I'm supposed to be thinking /about/."

Duo shifted, making himself more comfortable, adjusting his weight away from where the spring beneath the cushion kept trying to poke through.  "Meiran isn't one of us, Wufei...her parents are, but she's not.  She's just my tutor."

Wufei snorted, opening his eyes at last to peer at Duo through narrowed lids.  "Like it's ever that simple when dealing with us?  You know better than that.  There are no coincidences."

Duo conceded the point.  "All right.  So who is she?"

Wufei huddled around himself, his gaze settling somewhere in the middle of Sylvia's cluttered table.  "I was married to her," he said miserably.

It was not the first thing Duo had expected to hear, and he hoped he did at least a passable job of concealing his surprise. 

"I didn't love her," Wufei continued hurriedly, refusing to give Duo time to formulate a response.  "Not at first, at least.  She was a daughter of the dragon clan—a cousin of mine.  Her name was Ying.  We were only married to give me legitimacy, being half human—we both knew it, and she resented me for it.  We weren't really happy, but we did our duty."  His voice took on a faraway note, as if he were only vaguely aware of Duo's presence.  "I think we would have grown on each other, given time.  I respected her, even liked her.  I think I was beginning to love her, deep inside."

"But she died," Duo inserted.  It was no real insight on his part—that was how all of their stories happened.  They all died. 

"I couldn't protect her," Wufei acknowledged bitterly.  "I wasn't strong enough—I was too human, in the end, incapable of even fulfilling such a simple duty as protecting my wife.  I was...exiled, soon after, and given refuge by the Khushrenada clan."

Tentatively, Duo reached across the sofa to squeeze Wufei's hand in his own, and lace his fingers through his friend's longer ones. 

An answering squeeze, and Wufei didn't pull his hand away, just let his gaze flicker to Duo with a sad, quiet smile.  "What was your friend's name again?"

"Meiran."

The firestarter nodded, assimilating the information.  "I'll apologise to her next time."  He sighed.  "It would have confused the hell out of me anyway, /knowing/ her like that, any time I'd seen her.  Even if I was...."  He faltered, unable to complete his confession, motioning around the room with his free hand.

"Even if you were over Sylvia?" Duo asked softly.

Wufei let out another long breath.  "Yeah.  Even if.  And I'm not.  I should be—I mean, we never did anything, you know?  I just looked after her when I could, tried to keep her from falling to pieces.  Most the time I wasn't sure if we were even friends.  But I've loved her for such a long time.  I loved her as Cassandra, but after I'd failed in everything else—I wasn't worthy of her.  At least I didn't think so at the time."  A short, bitter sigh.  "And I probably wasn't.  But now, being more modern and more human, I kind of think, who cares?  What's worthy, if you love somebody?  But it doesn't matter now, obviously.  And I look around at you and Heero, or Quatre and Trowa, or Dorothy and Relena—who were together before, and found each other again—and I think, well shit, that should have happened to me too, I should have gotten a second chance."

"But I don't, because she's dead, and even when she was alive she was insane."  His head dropped forward, hiding his face in his hands, Duo's fingers pressed against the warmth of his cheek.  "And I can't help thinking, maybe it's because of what happened before...maybe the reason I didn't get a chance this time around is because I was too much of a stubborn idiot to do anything about it the first time."

They sat there, fingers tangled, curled on the sofa, for what seemed like a very long time—in silence, because Duo couldn't think of anything to say, and Wufei had already said it all.  Duo found his eyes straying around the room again—to the walls this time, and Sylvia's macabre murals.  He'd avoided looking at them before, especially the unfinished portrait of himself that brought too much to mind his strike against the demon two years before.

But he found this time that the images weren't nearly as frightening.  He remembered being terrified by them, but now he only found them sad.  Sylvia had said they were pictures of truth, even if it was unpleasant. 

He kept looking back the image of himself.  She had never finished it, and it only lent to the feeling that this room had somehow been sealed so that time could not touch it—he found himself subconsciously waiting for a blonde wisp of a girl in a paint-spattered smock to appear from the shadows and start asking uncomfortable questions.

But she didn't, and the loss grew with each passing moment.

Duo finally broke the silence.  "If we don't go back, somebody's going to come looking for us."

Wufei nodded, letting go of Dou's hand as he rose.  "I still have research to do, and I believe you were in the middle of working on algebra."

"Or," Duo suggested dryly, "it's dinnertime, which I have no intention of skipping.  C'mon, Fei.  Five minutes with Hilde and you'll be totally distracted from this, I promise."

A slow but genuine smile spread across the firestarter's face.  "I think you're right."  He paused, just inside the door, his dark eyes serious again.  "Duo—thanks.  For coming to see if I was all right, I mean."

Impulsively, Duo wrapped him in a clumsy hug, and a moment later Wufei's arms raised to pat his shoulders tentatively.  "We gotta take care of each other.  Hell, nobody else is gonna do it.  So, ya know...if you need me another time or anything...."

A nod, wordless agreement.  Duo slipped out the door ahead of Wufei, giving the firestarter a chance to look once more around the quiet, timeless room.

****