Part Six of "Eien Ni" By Marie Whi Mitshue (6 of 6)
May 30, 2002
1 Author's Note: Last part, I swear! It, uh, didn't finish in the direction I thought it would, but these things happen when you write about the GW boys. They end up putting their two cents in, and next thing you know, the story is changed. Oh, well!
Duo: "Don't you like the ending, Marie?" (All pouty, you can see he's about to go SD any second)
Marie: "Yes, Duo! I do. But that wasn't how I was gonna end it."
Wufei: (sticks his head in) "Oh? Then *how* were you gonna end it, onna? It's been unfinished for a loooooong time." (snickers) "Tell the truth, ne? You weren't ever gonna finish it!"
Marie: (glares at Wu-Man) "You be careful, Justice Boy! I can finish that French Maid's uniform fic of yours very horribly!"
Wufei: (turns a sickly shade of greenish-white, while Duo sniggers behind him) "You *wouldn't*!!!"
Marie: "Try me, Wu-baby!"
(Wufei meeps and retreats)
The Red-Haired Devil: (looks after the retreating, pale Wufei) "Whassamatter wit' my Wu?!" (scowls at Marie) What did ya do to my sexy Dragon now?!"
Marie: (holds her head) "Why did I ever introduce you to the wonderful world of GW? Who would have ever though you would end up as a diehard Wufei fan?!"
Red: (the silliest of silly grins on face) "Wu-Bear is something, ain't he?" (wanders off in the direction Wufei went – if by wandering off I mean running as fast as she can while yelling "OH, WUUUUUU!!! WAIT FOR ME!!!!!!")
Heero: "Not to interrupt, Marie, but can we get to the story before Duo explodes?" (points to Duo , who is fidgeting impatiently, wiggling like a fish on a hook)
Marie: (sniggers) "Hey, Duo, what's wrong? You gotta pee?"
Duo: (Glare of Death() ". . . "
Heero: "OI!!!! That's *my* Glare of Death( !!!"
Marie: (throws up hands) "Alright already!! Going on to the story!" (Heero and Duo are Glare of Death( -ing each other) "Guys? Guys?! GUYS!!!!" (they look over, finally)
Duo: "What's wrong, Marie?" (Innocent Face on)
Heero: (shrugs) "Are we ever gonna get to the story?"
Marie: "ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" (throws fic at them and stomps off)
Duo: (picking up the scattered pages of the fic) "I wonder what she's mad about?" (looks after her )
Heero: "Hn. She'll be fine. You know she'll be back soon, writing more fics. She's addicted to us. She can't stay mad at us."
Duo: (shrugs and grins) "True. I am just *too* kawaii and sexy!"
Heero: (glares)
Duo: (rolls eyes) "Okay! *We* are *too* kawaii and sexy! Better?"
Marie: (voice far off and exasperated) "OH, JUST READ THE DAMED THING!!!!!!!"
Let me know if you liked it, hated it, had suggestions for improvement, whatever. No flames, though, please. kumiko_chan@gundamwing.net
//thoughts//
*emphasis* (the more **, the greater the emphasis)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duo Maxwell opened his eyes slowly. The pain in his body was muted; it felt like his body was wrapped in cotton. He didn't recognise the room he was in, but… his and Heero's possessions lay in a neat pile on the floor across from the bed.
And a familiar, beloved warmth and weight was against his back, a familiar, beloved arm carefully snuggled along his hip.
//Heero?!// He thought incredulously. //But I'm in a Romafeller interrogation cell! And Heero… is… dead?!// Duo's face paled and he swallowed a wave of sick pain as memory flooded back completely. //I… I betrayed them. And Heero came for me. He came for me… But I *did* betray them!//
Duo froze, sure that the person – that *Heero* snuggled so achingly familiarly against him was an illusion. Surely Heero hated him for betraying the gundam pilots. If he moved, the sleeping Heero wrapped around him would vanish, and he'd be left with nothing but broken dreams.
Then Heero stirred and sat up. "Duo?" His voice was rough with sleep and some emotion the trembling Duo couldn't identify, since his own emotions were clamouring at him. "Are you all right?"
"H..Heero?" Duo gasped.
Heero must've heard the confused, guilty, terrified pain in his voice. He slowly turned him to face him.
Duo stared into that beloved, beautiful face, seeing only concern and worry and… and… *love?!*… in Heero's cobalt blue eyes. How could Heero still love him?! He saw no condemnation, no disgust, no hate. Duo had betrayed them all, and there was not a hint of ugly emotion anywhere within Heero's eyes, or on his face.
Heero brushed hair out of Duo's face with a gentle hand – that's when Duo realised his hair was loose about him, and clean, free of blood and dirt and tangles. Heero must've washed it and brushed it out. Tears stung his eyes.
"Heero… but I… be…be..trayed…." He couldn't continue; the tears slipped down his cheeks and he turned his face away from Heero, sure the Wing Zero pilot would sneer at him, or tell him he didn't love him anymore, no matter what promises of forever he had made.
"Duo." Heero's hand beneath his chin turned his head back to face him. Duo gasped as Heero's mouth moved over his face, kissing away his tears. "I love you, Duo. Forever. When I though you were dead…"
Now it was Heero's turn to sob, and Duo was unable to bear that sound of anguish coming from his beloved, from his Heero. He reached for him, ignoring the flare of dull, distant pain in his casted wrist, and along his ribs, and drew Heero tightly to him. His mouth settled against Heero's and both boys sighed. This was what each had been missing, this feeling of completion and rightness, of being whole.
Heero kissed him back with trembling lips, and it was a kiss of tender love, utter completion, of belonging and rightness.
"I love you, Heero." Duo whispered, when the kiss ended. "They… pumped me full of something… made me see things… I saw you, bleeding and broken, dying… and all I had to do to get them to save you was tell them… w..what they…wanted… t..to know…" Duo buried his face in his hands. "All I had to do… And I did it… and then… you were n..never there, it wasn't *you* and I had *betrayed* all of you and you were going to die because of what I did, I let my heart think for me, but how could I ignore what I t..thought were y..your screams, ignore the b..blood that dripped off you, I couldn't, I 'd rather die m..myself…"
Heero lifted Duo's face, again kissed away the tears with aching tenderness. "You couldn't help it Duo. You… no one blames you. Not Quatre, not Trowa, not Wufei… not me. We love you, Duo. *I* love you. You were drugged and tortured. You are *NOT* to blame."
Duo brushed the fingertips of his good hand over Heero's face like a blind man searching. "Why couldn't my body have broken before my heart and my spirit?!" Duo whispered. "I wasn't strong enough inside, and too strong outside. If my body had broken first…"
"Then you'd be dead, and *I'd* be broken." Heero said firmly. "Ask the others what I was like when we though you dead. It wasn't pretty. I was basically the Unperfect Soldier… I spent most of my time holding something of yours and crying, or fighting even more maniacally than you do. You are my *whole world*, Duo Maxwell. Eien ni." Heero cupped Duo's cheek, pressed his mouth reverently to Duo's forehead, his hair, his cheek, his jawline.
Still exhausted, Duo curled up to Heero, and at the Japanese pilot's gentle urging, closed his eyes.
But his last thought before sleep claimed him was, //…betrayed them…//
~~~
Quatre sat at the kitchen table, sipping tea. His gentle, beautiful face was unusually grave, for he was remembering the broken state Duo had been in when they had rescued the American last night.
He brushed golden bangs out of his eyes and sighed, his heart hurting for his dear friend. Then he started as a hand touched his shoulder, and twisted around in his chair.
Trowa's one visible emerald eye blinked down at him, filled with soft emotion. "Gomen, tenshi. I didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't, Trowa. I was just think about…"
"…Duo" Trowa finished for him. His handsome face was concerned beneath his long, razored bangs. "I know. Me, too."
"So is there anything we can do to help him?" A third voice asked, and Trowa Quatre turned as Wufei walked into the kitchen.
Quatre shook his head. "I don't know. The way he's feeling, like he betrayed us all, guilty and despairing… he might not be able to face us feeling like that."
"That sums up his feelings pretty well." A fourth, tired voice interjected, and the other three pilots all tried to conceal their reactions as Heero slumped into a chair beside them. His worry, his love, his anger, all his feelings for Duo, and over the terrible things his lover had went through, was clear on his face. On Heero Yuy's normally unreadable, stony face.
"How's Duo?" Wufei asked, as Quatre hastily poured tea for Heero.
Heero sipped it absently. "He's asleep again. I just came down to grab a sandwich. I need to be there if he wakes..."
Suddenly, there was a crash from upstairs, and an anguished shout of "*HEERO!!!!*"
Heero bolted out of his chair and flew up the stairs, followed by the others instantly.
Heero skidded to a stop in the doorway to his and Duo's room. Duo was stood in the middle of the room, dressed only in the faded pair of black boxers he'd been sleeping in, his hair loose and falling all over him in a cloud of chestnut. The sheet that had covered him was tangled on the floor behind him, the nightstand was toppled over, and broken pieces of the lamp that had been on it was scattered near it. Blood from a reopened wound made a dark crimson stain on the crisp white bandage on his chest. His face was pale, horrified, sick.
Heero's handgun, which had been in the nightstand's drawer, was clenched in his right hand, his grip so tight his knuckles were white.
Heero took all this in one swift glance. "Duo." He stepped slowly into the room then stopped, afraid to come any further lest he provoke the distraught boy in front of him into doing something terrible. "Duo, what are you doing?"
"H… Heero…" Duo whispered brokenly. "I…"
"Duo, what are you doing with my gun?" He asked carefully when Duo's voice trailed off.
Duo looked at it as if he'd never seen a gun before. "I was… dreaming… I was so scared… and …and then… you weren't here… you left me alone… I knew you would… after what I… I did…" A tear trickled down his cheek, gleaming briefly as it caught the light.
"Duo, I never left you. I went down to get something to eat. I was coming right back. I'm sorry I wasn't here when you awoke."
Quatre, Trowa and Wufei stood in the doorway, not moving or speaking. Duo's eyes flickered over them, haunted and sad. "I'm *sorry*…" he whispered to them.
"Duo, there's nothing to be sorry about." Wufei said briskly – but his jet- black eyes were anxious. "It could have happened to either one of us."
Duo snorted and shook his head fiercely. "NO! Heero would have…d..died before breaking, you wouldn't have broke, it would have been a insult to your honour and strength, Trowa wouldn't –"
"Any of us, Duo." Trowa said firmly. "Me, Quatre, even Justice Boy and the Perfect Soldier would have."
"Duo, please give me the gun." Heero asked calmly.
Duo looked at the gun in his trembling hand. Slowly he raised his arm, gun held before him for a long moment – then he placed it into Heero's outstretched hand.
Heero took it, glanced at it quickly, saw that the safety was off, flicked it on and passed it to Trowa. Then he gathered the trembling American in his arms.
Duo collapsed against Heero, burying his face against his neck, his hair spilling all over the Japanese pilot in a wave of chestnut silk. His quivering arms wrapped tightly around Heero's waist.
"… forgive me…" Duo's muffled voice barely made it to the other three pilots' ears.
Wufei cleared his throat. "There's nothing to forgive, Duo." Quatre and Trowa echoed him, and Quatre added, "We love you, Duo."
"…thank you…"
They left as Heero gathered up his koi, and laid him gently on the bed. He curled up with him, holding him close, stroking his hair. "Ai shiteru, Duo."
Duo hiccuped a shuddering breath. "I love you too, Heero. But I still… feel like I betrayed you. I keep waiting for you guys to hate me."
"Never. Did you think I was lying when I said I'd love you forever?" Heero kissed Duo's smooth cheek. "Nothing you do or say will ever cause the death of my love for you."
"Heero…" Duo held Heero tight, almost desperately, as if he were trying to meld them into one person instead of two. "I love you."
~~~
Nights are the hardest. That's when the dreams come. The dreams of seeing my beautiful Heero bleeding to death on a cell floor before my eyes. The dreams of betraying our cause because of my love. The dreams of realising that I'd been tricked, that Heero had never been in danger – until I had betrayed him and the others. The dreams of their deaths, because of me.
The nights are the worst.
But when I wake up in a cold sweat, trembling, or on the really bad nights, when I wake up screaming, Heero is there. He holds me close, strokes my hair, tells me he loves me over and over, in both Japanese and English. He calms me, reassures me – and then he loves me, tenderly, gently, passionately.
They took me to see my empty grave. Heero thought it was a *bad* idea, but I insisted. And I admit, when I saw the words on the headstone – Honoured Soldier, Cherished Friend, and especially the Immortal Beloved – and the flowers slowly dying on the grass, I nearly fell apart. I knew what each of those flowers meant – it had been I that had taught Heero that flowers had meanings and what they were. But those words – Immortal Beloved. They hit me somewhere deep inside my heart, deep inside my soul. Heero *meant* it when he said eien ni. Nothing will keep him from loving me forever. *Nothing*. I know this now. When I saw those words, I knew.
So going to my grave had been a good idea. It made me realise that our love was True Love. You think that happens everyday? Hell no!
There is no disgust, no condemnation, no contempt in their eyes. Only understanding, friendship, sympathy. . . love. I can see that now. They do not blame me, and slowly, I am learning not to blame myself. It might take a while, and the dreams will still come, but Quatre, Trowa and Wufei are with me. Heero is with me. So let the dreams and the guilt come. With Heero beside me, and my friends behind me, I can do *anything*.
That is the power, and the strength, of love.
~~Owari~~
Onna – woman
Kawaii – cute
Tenshi – angel
Owari – The End
Another Note: Okay, I don't know why I suddenly went into first person for Duo's spiel at the end. He just tromped up behind me and tickled me with the end of his braid until I wrote it the way he wanted it. (hehehehe)
Oh, and part 6 is for The Red-haired Devil, who read parts 1-5, asked for the next part and almost murdered me when I said I hadn't finished it yet. So this part is for her.
Oh, the conversation with Duo, Heero, Wu, and Red at the beginning? Just chalk it up to lottsa caffeine, little sleep, and a severe addiction to Gundam Wing.
Heero: "I *knew* you're addicted to us" (smirks)
Marie: (cradles head in hands) "Heero, go away. It's three in the buggering morning, and I gotta get up early!"
Heero: (grumbles) "Fine! You don't want me around! (leaves and slams the door behind him. Glass ornaments fall off the shelf and smash into a gazillion pieces)
Marie: " Wonderful. Even the Perfect Soldier can act like a spoiled teenager!" (shakes her head, sighs and starts picking up glass)
May 30, 2002
1 Author's Note: Last part, I swear! It, uh, didn't finish in the direction I thought it would, but these things happen when you write about the GW boys. They end up putting their two cents in, and next thing you know, the story is changed. Oh, well!
Duo: "Don't you like the ending, Marie?" (All pouty, you can see he's about to go SD any second)
Marie: "Yes, Duo! I do. But that wasn't how I was gonna end it."
Wufei: (sticks his head in) "Oh? Then *how* were you gonna end it, onna? It's been unfinished for a loooooong time." (snickers) "Tell the truth, ne? You weren't ever gonna finish it!"
Marie: (glares at Wu-Man) "You be careful, Justice Boy! I can finish that French Maid's uniform fic of yours very horribly!"
Wufei: (turns a sickly shade of greenish-white, while Duo sniggers behind him) "You *wouldn't*!!!"
Marie: "Try me, Wu-baby!"
(Wufei meeps and retreats)
The Red-Haired Devil: (looks after the retreating, pale Wufei) "Whassamatter wit' my Wu?!" (scowls at Marie) What did ya do to my sexy Dragon now?!"
Marie: (holds her head) "Why did I ever introduce you to the wonderful world of GW? Who would have ever though you would end up as a diehard Wufei fan?!"
Red: (the silliest of silly grins on face) "Wu-Bear is something, ain't he?" (wanders off in the direction Wufei went – if by wandering off I mean running as fast as she can while yelling "OH, WUUUUUU!!! WAIT FOR ME!!!!!!")
Heero: "Not to interrupt, Marie, but can we get to the story before Duo explodes?" (points to Duo , who is fidgeting impatiently, wiggling like a fish on a hook)
Marie: (sniggers) "Hey, Duo, what's wrong? You gotta pee?"
Duo: (Glare of Death() ". . . "
Heero: "OI!!!! That's *my* Glare of Death( !!!"
Marie: (throws up hands) "Alright already!! Going on to the story!" (Heero and Duo are Glare of Death( -ing each other) "Guys? Guys?! GUYS!!!!" (they look over, finally)
Duo: "What's wrong, Marie?" (Innocent Face on)
Heero: (shrugs) "Are we ever gonna get to the story?"
Marie: "ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" (throws fic at them and stomps off)
Duo: (picking up the scattered pages of the fic) "I wonder what she's mad about?" (looks after her )
Heero: "Hn. She'll be fine. You know she'll be back soon, writing more fics. She's addicted to us. She can't stay mad at us."
Duo: (shrugs and grins) "True. I am just *too* kawaii and sexy!"
Heero: (glares)
Duo: (rolls eyes) "Okay! *We* are *too* kawaii and sexy! Better?"
Marie: (voice far off and exasperated) "OH, JUST READ THE DAMED THING!!!!!!!"
Let me know if you liked it, hated it, had suggestions for improvement, whatever. No flames, though, please. kumiko_chan@gundamwing.net
//thoughts//
*emphasis* (the more **, the greater the emphasis)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duo Maxwell opened his eyes slowly. The pain in his body was muted; it felt like his body was wrapped in cotton. He didn't recognise the room he was in, but… his and Heero's possessions lay in a neat pile on the floor across from the bed.
And a familiar, beloved warmth and weight was against his back, a familiar, beloved arm carefully snuggled along his hip.
//Heero?!// He thought incredulously. //But I'm in a Romafeller interrogation cell! And Heero… is… dead?!// Duo's face paled and he swallowed a wave of sick pain as memory flooded back completely. //I… I betrayed them. And Heero came for me. He came for me… But I *did* betray them!//
Duo froze, sure that the person – that *Heero* snuggled so achingly familiarly against him was an illusion. Surely Heero hated him for betraying the gundam pilots. If he moved, the sleeping Heero wrapped around him would vanish, and he'd be left with nothing but broken dreams.
Then Heero stirred and sat up. "Duo?" His voice was rough with sleep and some emotion the trembling Duo couldn't identify, since his own emotions were clamouring at him. "Are you all right?"
"H..Heero?" Duo gasped.
Heero must've heard the confused, guilty, terrified pain in his voice. He slowly turned him to face him.
Duo stared into that beloved, beautiful face, seeing only concern and worry and… and… *love?!*… in Heero's cobalt blue eyes. How could Heero still love him?! He saw no condemnation, no disgust, no hate. Duo had betrayed them all, and there was not a hint of ugly emotion anywhere within Heero's eyes, or on his face.
Heero brushed hair out of Duo's face with a gentle hand – that's when Duo realised his hair was loose about him, and clean, free of blood and dirt and tangles. Heero must've washed it and brushed it out. Tears stung his eyes.
"Heero… but I… be…be..trayed…." He couldn't continue; the tears slipped down his cheeks and he turned his face away from Heero, sure the Wing Zero pilot would sneer at him, or tell him he didn't love him anymore, no matter what promises of forever he had made.
"Duo." Heero's hand beneath his chin turned his head back to face him. Duo gasped as Heero's mouth moved over his face, kissing away his tears. "I love you, Duo. Forever. When I though you were dead…"
Now it was Heero's turn to sob, and Duo was unable to bear that sound of anguish coming from his beloved, from his Heero. He reached for him, ignoring the flare of dull, distant pain in his casted wrist, and along his ribs, and drew Heero tightly to him. His mouth settled against Heero's and both boys sighed. This was what each had been missing, this feeling of completion and rightness, of being whole.
Heero kissed him back with trembling lips, and it was a kiss of tender love, utter completion, of belonging and rightness.
"I love you, Heero." Duo whispered, when the kiss ended. "They… pumped me full of something… made me see things… I saw you, bleeding and broken, dying… and all I had to do to get them to save you was tell them… w..what they…wanted… t..to know…" Duo buried his face in his hands. "All I had to do… And I did it… and then… you were n..never there, it wasn't *you* and I had *betrayed* all of you and you were going to die because of what I did, I let my heart think for me, but how could I ignore what I t..thought were y..your screams, ignore the b..blood that dripped off you, I couldn't, I 'd rather die m..myself…"
Heero lifted Duo's face, again kissed away the tears with aching tenderness. "You couldn't help it Duo. You… no one blames you. Not Quatre, not Trowa, not Wufei… not me. We love you, Duo. *I* love you. You were drugged and tortured. You are *NOT* to blame."
Duo brushed the fingertips of his good hand over Heero's face like a blind man searching. "Why couldn't my body have broken before my heart and my spirit?!" Duo whispered. "I wasn't strong enough inside, and too strong outside. If my body had broken first…"
"Then you'd be dead, and *I'd* be broken." Heero said firmly. "Ask the others what I was like when we though you dead. It wasn't pretty. I was basically the Unperfect Soldier… I spent most of my time holding something of yours and crying, or fighting even more maniacally than you do. You are my *whole world*, Duo Maxwell. Eien ni." Heero cupped Duo's cheek, pressed his mouth reverently to Duo's forehead, his hair, his cheek, his jawline.
Still exhausted, Duo curled up to Heero, and at the Japanese pilot's gentle urging, closed his eyes.
But his last thought before sleep claimed him was, //…betrayed them…//
~~~
Quatre sat at the kitchen table, sipping tea. His gentle, beautiful face was unusually grave, for he was remembering the broken state Duo had been in when they had rescued the American last night.
He brushed golden bangs out of his eyes and sighed, his heart hurting for his dear friend. Then he started as a hand touched his shoulder, and twisted around in his chair.
Trowa's one visible emerald eye blinked down at him, filled with soft emotion. "Gomen, tenshi. I didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't, Trowa. I was just think about…"
"…Duo" Trowa finished for him. His handsome face was concerned beneath his long, razored bangs. "I know. Me, too."
"So is there anything we can do to help him?" A third voice asked, and Trowa Quatre turned as Wufei walked into the kitchen.
Quatre shook his head. "I don't know. The way he's feeling, like he betrayed us all, guilty and despairing… he might not be able to face us feeling like that."
"That sums up his feelings pretty well." A fourth, tired voice interjected, and the other three pilots all tried to conceal their reactions as Heero slumped into a chair beside them. His worry, his love, his anger, all his feelings for Duo, and over the terrible things his lover had went through, was clear on his face. On Heero Yuy's normally unreadable, stony face.
"How's Duo?" Wufei asked, as Quatre hastily poured tea for Heero.
Heero sipped it absently. "He's asleep again. I just came down to grab a sandwich. I need to be there if he wakes..."
Suddenly, there was a crash from upstairs, and an anguished shout of "*HEERO!!!!*"
Heero bolted out of his chair and flew up the stairs, followed by the others instantly.
Heero skidded to a stop in the doorway to his and Duo's room. Duo was stood in the middle of the room, dressed only in the faded pair of black boxers he'd been sleeping in, his hair loose and falling all over him in a cloud of chestnut. The sheet that had covered him was tangled on the floor behind him, the nightstand was toppled over, and broken pieces of the lamp that had been on it was scattered near it. Blood from a reopened wound made a dark crimson stain on the crisp white bandage on his chest. His face was pale, horrified, sick.
Heero's handgun, which had been in the nightstand's drawer, was clenched in his right hand, his grip so tight his knuckles were white.
Heero took all this in one swift glance. "Duo." He stepped slowly into the room then stopped, afraid to come any further lest he provoke the distraught boy in front of him into doing something terrible. "Duo, what are you doing?"
"H… Heero…" Duo whispered brokenly. "I…"
"Duo, what are you doing with my gun?" He asked carefully when Duo's voice trailed off.
Duo looked at it as if he'd never seen a gun before. "I was… dreaming… I was so scared… and …and then… you weren't here… you left me alone… I knew you would… after what I… I did…" A tear trickled down his cheek, gleaming briefly as it caught the light.
"Duo, I never left you. I went down to get something to eat. I was coming right back. I'm sorry I wasn't here when you awoke."
Quatre, Trowa and Wufei stood in the doorway, not moving or speaking. Duo's eyes flickered over them, haunted and sad. "I'm *sorry*…" he whispered to them.
"Duo, there's nothing to be sorry about." Wufei said briskly – but his jet- black eyes were anxious. "It could have happened to either one of us."
Duo snorted and shook his head fiercely. "NO! Heero would have…d..died before breaking, you wouldn't have broke, it would have been a insult to your honour and strength, Trowa wouldn't –"
"Any of us, Duo." Trowa said firmly. "Me, Quatre, even Justice Boy and the Perfect Soldier would have."
"Duo, please give me the gun." Heero asked calmly.
Duo looked at the gun in his trembling hand. Slowly he raised his arm, gun held before him for a long moment – then he placed it into Heero's outstretched hand.
Heero took it, glanced at it quickly, saw that the safety was off, flicked it on and passed it to Trowa. Then he gathered the trembling American in his arms.
Duo collapsed against Heero, burying his face against his neck, his hair spilling all over the Japanese pilot in a wave of chestnut silk. His quivering arms wrapped tightly around Heero's waist.
"… forgive me…" Duo's muffled voice barely made it to the other three pilots' ears.
Wufei cleared his throat. "There's nothing to forgive, Duo." Quatre and Trowa echoed him, and Quatre added, "We love you, Duo."
"…thank you…"
They left as Heero gathered up his koi, and laid him gently on the bed. He curled up with him, holding him close, stroking his hair. "Ai shiteru, Duo."
Duo hiccuped a shuddering breath. "I love you too, Heero. But I still… feel like I betrayed you. I keep waiting for you guys to hate me."
"Never. Did you think I was lying when I said I'd love you forever?" Heero kissed Duo's smooth cheek. "Nothing you do or say will ever cause the death of my love for you."
"Heero…" Duo held Heero tight, almost desperately, as if he were trying to meld them into one person instead of two. "I love you."
~~~
Nights are the hardest. That's when the dreams come. The dreams of seeing my beautiful Heero bleeding to death on a cell floor before my eyes. The dreams of betraying our cause because of my love. The dreams of realising that I'd been tricked, that Heero had never been in danger – until I had betrayed him and the others. The dreams of their deaths, because of me.
The nights are the worst.
But when I wake up in a cold sweat, trembling, or on the really bad nights, when I wake up screaming, Heero is there. He holds me close, strokes my hair, tells me he loves me over and over, in both Japanese and English. He calms me, reassures me – and then he loves me, tenderly, gently, passionately.
They took me to see my empty grave. Heero thought it was a *bad* idea, but I insisted. And I admit, when I saw the words on the headstone – Honoured Soldier, Cherished Friend, and especially the Immortal Beloved – and the flowers slowly dying on the grass, I nearly fell apart. I knew what each of those flowers meant – it had been I that had taught Heero that flowers had meanings and what they were. But those words – Immortal Beloved. They hit me somewhere deep inside my heart, deep inside my soul. Heero *meant* it when he said eien ni. Nothing will keep him from loving me forever. *Nothing*. I know this now. When I saw those words, I knew.
So going to my grave had been a good idea. It made me realise that our love was True Love. You think that happens everyday? Hell no!
There is no disgust, no condemnation, no contempt in their eyes. Only understanding, friendship, sympathy. . . love. I can see that now. They do not blame me, and slowly, I am learning not to blame myself. It might take a while, and the dreams will still come, but Quatre, Trowa and Wufei are with me. Heero is with me. So let the dreams and the guilt come. With Heero beside me, and my friends behind me, I can do *anything*.
That is the power, and the strength, of love.
~~Owari~~
Onna – woman
Kawaii – cute
Tenshi – angel
Owari – The End
Another Note: Okay, I don't know why I suddenly went into first person for Duo's spiel at the end. He just tromped up behind me and tickled me with the end of his braid until I wrote it the way he wanted it. (hehehehe)
Oh, and part 6 is for The Red-haired Devil, who read parts 1-5, asked for the next part and almost murdered me when I said I hadn't finished it yet. So this part is for her.
Oh, the conversation with Duo, Heero, Wu, and Red at the beginning? Just chalk it up to lottsa caffeine, little sleep, and a severe addiction to Gundam Wing.
Heero: "I *knew* you're addicted to us" (smirks)
Marie: (cradles head in hands) "Heero, go away. It's three in the buggering morning, and I gotta get up early!"
Heero: (grumbles) "Fine! You don't want me around! (leaves and slams the door behind him. Glass ornaments fall off the shelf and smash into a gazillion pieces)
Marie: " Wonderful. Even the Perfect Soldier can act like a spoiled teenager!" (shakes her head, sighs and starts picking up glass)