Broken Reflections by Angel Barton
• Chapter Four: Eyes From the Past •
"You're a… a girl!" stammered Duo. He gawked at the person before him, wondering how he had missed
seeing it before. The shadows, her hair tucked in her cap, the wrappings covering her
face, the loose jumpsuit masking her curves. Duo realized he hadn't even heard her talk. No
wonder I mistook her for a guy. Grinning, he realized that no one who looked at her now would
mistake her for a member of the opposite sex.
He took in every detail of her face, letting his eyes meet her resolute
azure orbs.
She fixed the boys with a frigid
glare, apparently undeterred by their open stares. "Is there a problem?" she asked.
"N-no," Duo stuttered, slightly
taken aback by the apathetic tone of her voice. It didn't seem quite right to him. A girl as pretty as she was should have a pleasant, melodic
voice, not the utterance void of feeling he had just heard. "I just thought you were a guy." He mentally kicked himself for not being
able to salvage enough of his wits to come back with a snappy reply. "Um, back to my earlier question. Why in the world did you launch those
torpedoes?"
"I had my orders," she replied
evenly. "We can talk later. Do you mind if I take a shower first?"
"Uh, no. Go right ahead," said Duo.
"Go through that door into the main hallway. Showers are in the fourth room on the left," he said, pointing
her in the right direction.
Nodding, she turned to leave. "Hey, do you need some clothes or
something?" he asked as she opened the door.
"I have something on under this,"
she answered, walking through the door to the walkway beyond.
Grinning slyly, Duo turned to the
boy next to him who, to his amusement, was still staring after the girl. "Man, she's hot," said the braided boy,
shaking his head as he walked back to
the control booth of the crane.
Heero still stood where he was,
gazing at the opened doorway. Although
he hadn't let it show, he was almost as shocked as his annoyingly talkative
host. That guy is right. She is beautiful.
But there's something else about her.
It's almost as if I know her…
• • •
Half an hour later, the same thought
was still echoing through Heero's head as he stared into the dark liquid in
front of him.
Duo sighed. He had been sitting that way ever since they
had retired to the small closet that Duo and the rest of the crew considered a
lounge. He hadn't even taken a sip of
the coffee Duo had given him. He just
leaned forward, fingers wrapped around the white porcelain mug, letting the
steam waft eerily around his dark features.
Duo regarded him steadily from his
position across the small room. I wish I at least knew his name, he
thought. He reflected back on the
conversation he had tried to start when his "guest" had first woken up.
"Hey, how are you feelin'?" Duo asked cheerily.
Silence.
"Okay, what's your name?" he ventured. The boy shot him a hard glare.
"Sheesh, are you always like this, or did
that shot to the head leave you
mute?" he asked, grinning.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on his
back, sprawled across the
metal floor.
Duo sat up, rubbing his jaw where the boy's
left hook had solidly
connected.
"Baka," muttered the boy as he stood over
Duo, who chuckled.
"So, the Iceman speaketh," he said.
After that, all Duo had managed to
get out of him was confirmation of his guess that the spandex-sporting boy was
indeed the other Gundam's pilot. Well, thought Duo, smirking, that and the fact that he's antisocial,
physically violent, and hardly speaks.
Now that he had fit this one piece
into the enigma that had been bothering him ever since he had first seen the
abandoned Gundam, his thoughts turned to the attractive markswoman who had
joined the swirl of unanswered questions in his head. Just how does she fit into
this? he wondered.
As if on cue, the door creaked open
and the girl in question walked in. Duo
tried to keep his mouth from dropping open, but failed miserably. He looked at the silent boy across from him
and was pleased to notice that his eyebrows were raised and his eyes a bit
wider than normal. Feeling better, Duo
turned to gaze at the blue-eyed vision standing in the doorway.
Her skin fairly glowed, a slight
pink from recent scrubbing flooding her lightly bronzed color. Her hair, freshly washed and slightly damp,
reached slightly past her hips in waves of silky, light brown shot through with
honey-colored streaks. Her shapely
torso was covered in a black tank top, not unlike the one his silent companion
wore, except hers, much to Duo's delight, was slightly tighter. Duo let his gaze fall to take in her cut-off
blue jean shorts, sneakers, and smooth,
well-toned legs.
Ignoring the boys' lingering eyes,
she strode over to the wall behind Heero's chair. Slightly to his right, she leaned against the wall and folded her
arms across her chest. Her eyes
wandered, taking in every detail of the room.
"Well, you sure clean up nicely,"
stated Duo before he could stop himself.
Her blue eyes locked on his, and he could almost feel the fire behind
her glare burn through him. Sweatdropping, he put his hand behind his head and
laughed nervously. Just be glad she didn't pull as gun on you, Maxwell, he thought.
"Yeah… okay then. Well, let's get down to business," he
announced, trying to returning to his normal cheery self. He turned to the moody boy sitting at the
table. "The Mobile Suit I pulled up is
yours, correct?" asked Duo, although he already knew the answer. The boy glared
and nodded. "And Deathsycthe," he said,
referring to his Gundam, "belongs to me."
He shifted his eyes upward to look at the girl. "So that would make neither of them yours,"
he said, grinning cynically. The girl
merely looked at him. "So," he
continued, "I wanna know what in the hell made you think that you could blow up
things that don't belong to you!"
At this point, Duo completely lost the control he
had been trying to recover since she had walked in the room. "I mean, is this some way you take out your
aggressions or something?! Or did you
just happen to walk by and think 'Oh, I bet it would be fun to blast those two
Mobile Suits out of the water!'? Not to
mention shooting some guy in the head!"
The seated boy's eyes narrowed visibly.
"By the way, thanks for stopping him from shooting me. But geeze, what was running through that
pretty little head of yours? Why? Just tell me why!" Duo paused to catch his
breath as he looked expectantly at the her.
The girl, who had remained silent
during Duo's ranting, looked unfazed.
"I had my orders," she stated simply.
"Arrgg!!!" Duo said, throwing up his
hands in exasperation. "What is it with
you people! Don't you know how to say
more than five words?!" he wondered aloud as he turned to the empty wall behind
him. Regaining composure, he spun
around to face the two annoyingly brief girl.
"You had your orders," he said suspiciously. "Orders from who? The
Alliance? OZ?" The girl's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Don't even suggest," she said, scorn flooding her
voice, "that I am in any way affiliated with either of those organizations."
Duo's cobalt eyes widened. So she
isn't an enemy, he thought. Does that make her an ally?
"Okay, if you're not with them, who
are you working for? Or are you a
private citizen who just happens to carry around a handgun and has an obsession
for blowing things up? Although," Duo
said, rambling on, "I'd have to doubt that, since your marksmanship is above
average. Unless you meant to kill this
guy and you missed your…"
Duo never finished his
sentence. As soon as he had let the
word "missed" roll off his tongue, the girl had whipped out a pistol she had
hidden behind her back. Quick as lightning,
she brought it level with the braided boy's head and let off a shot. Duo yelled and threw his arms over his face
as the dark-haired pilot whirled and leapt to his feet, his own gun leveled at
the girl, who merely smirked.
Duo stood frozen. Slowly, he dropped his arms and looked over
to his right. There, about an inch from
his head, was a small, neat hole in the wall.
He turned to gape at his assailant.
She simply returned the gun to its place behind her back. She glanced at Duo. "I don't miss," she said evenly. The other boy kept his weapon trained on her
as she returned to her spot against the wall.
"All right. Enough small talk. Who are you working for?" the boy said coldly.
She didn't flinch at the sight of
the gun's muzzle aimed right between her eyes.
"Kill me if you wish. I do not
fear death." She regarded him with
empty eyes. "Though the plot has
thickened enough to keep me interested.
The boy seemed to struggle with his
decision, but he slowly lowered his firearm.
Duo
breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Okay. I get the point. No smart-ass comments and don't doubt your
shooting expertise. Got it."
He looked at her in a new light. It just blew his mind that someone who
looked like the Cover Girl of his dreams could be so deadly. He smiled wryly as the other boy turned his
back on her and sat down again. I gotta give him credit, thought Duo. I
know I wouldn't want to turn my back
on psycho-chick.
He crossed his arms over his
chest. "You know, we all got off to a
pretty bad start, what with the shooting and the torpedoes and all. I think we should start over." He grinned and held out his hand. "My name's Duo. Duo Maxwell. Or if you
prefer, you can call me the God of Death, hehe." Neither of the room's other occupants took his offered hand. Duo withdrew it, waiting. After a moment, he put his hands on his hips
and said, "You know, it's customary that when someone tells you their name, you
tell them yours," No answer. "This is
starting to get a little creepy. You
guys are acting almost exactly alike.
What, were you like separated at birth or something?" He stopped and bit his lip. It
was more than a little unnerving to have both sets of frigid glares on
him at the same time. So similar… definitely a little creepy. He brushed off his jitters. "Tell me one thing," he asked, looking at
the two. "Why won't you tell me your
names?"
"It doesn't pertain to the mission,"
both replied in unison. Duo stared.
Heero spun to face the strange
girl. She merely stared back, the
barest hint of a smile playing over her lips.
He had been more than a little caught off guard when he heard his response
echoed word for word by her soft, yet firm, voice. He looked her directly in the eyes and, for the slightest moment,
remembered.
*~ Heero walked through the hanger of Dr. J's
laboratory. A stone-faced, attentive
boy of eight years, he watched as the various engineers and technicians
scrambled over the huge forms of the various Mobile Suits housed in the hanger.
A flash of movement caught his eye and his gaze was drawn to a particular Leo
MS.
Sitting atop the suit's massive "shoulder" was a small figure clad in a
black, skintight flight suit. Heero
quickened his pace as the person moved down to the open cockpit hatch of the
Leo. He stopped beneath the MS and
looked up at the stranger. A black
helmet covered the person's face, but through the tinted visor he thought he
saw a flash of intensely blue eyes. ~*
He didn't allow his shock to show. His mind raced. There's no way, he
thought.
Dr. J told me it was a mechanic that was taking the suit for a routine
test flight. Would he have lied… But if that was her, how and why is she here?.
No, it can't be. But what she
said, that response… the one I had been trained to say… how could she know?
Heero looked again more carefully. Her face was composed and imperturbable, her
eyes glacial and expressionless. Those eyes… he thought. They're
so cold, so emotionless, so… like mine, he realized.
