She stared at the paper with a mixture of disbelief and muted horror, shaking her head and running a long hand through her hair, pausing when her fingers brushed the loop of her ponytail and closing her green eyes. "This is," she said slowly, shaking her head, flashing her eyes up to meet his unusually serious eyes, "impossible." He shook his head, too, impatiently, his trailing braid whipping back and forth at the sharp severity of the motion, his hands, fingers curled to his palms, resting on her desk, knuckles balancing on the edge.
"How is it so impossible?" he urged, his lean body, cloaked in loose black jeans and a green button-up, moving back, then forward again, as if he was struggling with something. "Nobody ever managed to solve Catalonia's disappearance. And I might be jumping to conclusions, but I'm pretty damn sure Aimee wouldn't write something like that unless it happened to be true." He dipped his head forward, the brush of his braid sweeping his abdomen, tickling skin beneath the cotton shirt wrinkling as he bent his body in a hunched position. No love had been lost between him and the vicious woman, but he had respected her and been concerned when she disappeared years back in AC 199.
"It's just," she sighed, setting the paper firmly on the grooved mat inlaid in the wood of her desk before her, covering her face with her strong hands and breathing. "It's so bizarre," she finally continued, moving her hands down her face, cupping her mouth and chin, her eyebrows pushing together. "Word's been that the Cortez mess was the tip of an iceberg, but…"
He shoved off the desk, fingers clutching angrily at his braid and pushing through the weave, entangling in the tightly bound tendrils. Tugging down, he growled softly, staring moodily out the window, over the buildings in the colony, at the wetness pouring down from the piping system above. "I know I've only been at this job since Monday," he said quietly, "but I'm already sick of being left out of the loop. I don't need you to break the rules and tell me; just…report this to someone, okay?"
She sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose and chewing on her lip. "You'll need to borrow an umbrella from downstairs," she told him in a subdued voice, carefully controlled. "They didn't advertise this rain as well as usual."
He shrugged, rapping his knuckles against the desk as he stalked across the floor toward the door, an inexplicable irritation on his face. "Yeah," he exhaled deeply, casting one last look through the wide window, streaked with dead diamonds, the metal wreath of the colony weeping steady tears of darkest silver.
--
Requiem: Soubrette
--
She glared formidably at the computer screen, fingers hovering indecisively over the delicate keys and eyes squinting as she tried to choose from the words in her mental thesaurus. As a writer, she found it to be her greatest challenge, the opposition of seeking to use an adjective in a unique way, and so she found herself on the ninth page of a romantic short story, staring blankly at the screen. The one man she had ever had a seriously romantic relationship with had, as might have been morbidly expected, died when she was still a teenager, and her soon-to-be-ex-husband-praise-God-in-heaven had been anything but romantic, and, with a sense of inner doom, she swiveled around in her slightly broken computer chair. And immediately, her face contorted into a mask of skepticism, comical horror, and exasperated affection as she watched Heero systematically rearrange the contents of her spice cabinet, something she knew now was a sign of boredom. Go outside more, she ordered herself, rolling her eyes.
"Before you manage to destroy my filing system," she said cheerfully, the seven o'clock morning light and the tea sipped earlier fueling her into a brighter mood than before, and he glanced at her, "I wanna ask ya somethin'." Taking a breath, she looked at him for the go ahead and was granted a view of him crossing his arms over his white dress shirt, his immovable scowl a bit friendlier. "Now, y'don't hafta answer," she continued as if to placate him, holding her hands up peacefully and tilting her chin up, "but I'd be glad if you do." Inhaling, Nancy questioned, schooling her features into an award-winning expression of severity and keeping her tone teasingly serious, "You bein' a man and all, what d'you think is a good description for 'breast?'"
Heero stared at her for several long seconds as she bit down on her cheeks to keep from snickering, her smoke blue eyes glittering dangerously, and he, stiffly, returned to his chore of organizing her spices, albeit more slowly. An odd sound escaped her lips, like a quiet squeak of helium, and she clamped her hands over her mouth as she swerved in her chair, back to the computer screen, shoulders vibrating from the suppressed laughter. He switched his blackened blue eyes to her back, subconsciously reading again the letters of the political statement on the back of her sweatshirt - 'Voting is against my religion; try again later' - and placing the rest of the collection of herbs in, doing his best to keep them in some sort of order. Snorting under his breath, he closed the cabinet silently and stalked across the floor, grabbing one of the chairs from the small double-seat table and flipping it around to face the computer desk-and-chair she had set up in the corner. He seated himself quickly, leaning forward to stare at the modem and making a rude noise in his throat.
"Do you have any shame?" he questioned vaguely, and she twisted in her chair, looking at him strangely.
"Don't do that!" she whined, startling him, and she winced at the noise of her own voice, scratching distractively - for him, in the least, though he hid it skillfully - at her collarbone. "Sorry," muttered Nancy, quickly pressing the yellowed ivory keys needed to save what she had written, and she minimized the file before clipping the screen off. "Anywho, ya wanted me to spiel, right?" Heero's legs crossed at his shins, sprawled out fully, and he, as per normal, hooked his arms over his front, the thin tail of his left eyebrow quirking the tiniest fraction upwards. He was, in his own suitably non-vocal way, telling her she might as well spare them both the aggravation of senseless banter and she grinned approvingly, casting her own legs out and sticking her heels on the in-steps of his feet lightly. His response was an affectionate glare, and she picked at a loose string in the ribbed cuff of her sweatshirt. "Well, the obvious step would be to do that genetic stuff everyone hypes: blood, skin, whatchamacallit, and so on." Taking one look at his indecipherable face, she blew air out noisily, her lower lip closing temporarily over her upper lip. "And I'm guessin' ya already tried that. So," she trailed the word out, tucking frizzy carrot hair behind her seashell ear, "then you do the next obvious thing and advertise it everywhere, t.v., newspapers, movie screens, and soda machines, askin' for help or testimony or people overridden with guilt, blah-blah." She cut off and stared at him, her mouth still hanging open slightly from talking, and she gave him a concerned look. Either she was a genius or he was about to kiss her, the two not necessarily being connected, and she found it unnerving, as neither was going to happen anytime soon.
"Obvious," he murmured, eyes flattening in the curious way they had when he was thinking furiously. "Of course, the best route is always the one overlooked," and he grabbed her hand, springing to his feet and yanking her out of her chair, sending the worn device spinning unevenly. She yelped and, instinctively, pulled back, which only served to trip her up, her sweatpants being a size too large for her legs. "Get your shoes on," he grunted at her, jerking to a stop at her front door, and she dusted at her hair, glaring weakly at him. "I need you," he continued in a manner that was most assuredly not a passionate one, cementing her opinion that he thought she was a genius.
Blinking, parts of her mind still pushing at gears to catch what precisely had just happened, Nancy stabbed her feet into her worn sneakers, the backs crumpling easily under the mild weight of her body. "Wow, since you're being so dashingly romantic about it," she managed breathlessly, snagging her keys as he yanked her impatiently out the door, his hand like a band of molten steel on her wrist. The cloth of her shirt was wrinkled up at her lower arms as she tugged the door shut, flipping through her key ring and slipping the keys into their allotted spots, twisting firmly. "Ow!" she squealed, nearly falling down the steps leading to the thin sidewalk. "Not so hard! Are we taking your car or mine?"
He angled her around the front of a smooth blue car she would never have noticed in a crowded lot, popping the door open and helping her in. Bemused, she obeyed without a word, fingers clawing at the seatbelt and pulling it over her chest, clipping it into place. "Hey, this is the driver's side!" she protested as he leaned in the opposite side, and then she mouthed soundlessly as she saw the steering wheel constructed plainly on the right half of the vehicle. "Stupid Japanese cars," Nancy grouched, rotating her shoulders to loosen the uncomfortable tightness of her collar from the sudden seating.
The road whipped up, the motor revving and the car jerking into the street, and she cried out, her hands flying to prop along the dashboard to keep her back against the chair. With a wary glance at the snow-sleek roads, at the sky still fairy dark, she asked in a tight voice, "Don't drive so fast, okay?"
"Life is cheap," he said and she caught the hints of a mocking smile on his lips, as if he was speaking a private joke.
"Not when I'm in the car it isn't!" she snapped, and she was both angered and cheered when she heard a low, majestic laugh tumble from his lips, coloring the air something new with the sound she had not before known.
--~--
*
--~--
Mina hummed softly, hauling her purse to the clean counter of the receptionist's desk, flicking on the lamp perched at the head of the computer. A single bright beam of light tore through the dimness of the area, punctuating the air with a shine the hallway's glow could not produce, and she undid the clasps on her purse, slender fingers picking at the stacks of magazines and other not-so-essential essentials. Guiltily checking she was truly alone in the waiting room, her blue eyes picking out the shadows in each corner, along each wall, she carefully dug out the latest Nancy Trishmore novel, a thick book with a noticeably red cover, 'The Duchess of Fire' scripted elegantly at its top. A gratuitously enflamed plaque was engraved directly below the writing, an image of a rather grand-looking man clutching possessively at a young woman who seemed neither fully horrified nor exactly attracted, and she mashed aside the urge to giggle like a teenager on her first delectable date. Placing it in a spot of honor by the computer's slick hard drive, she tugged out a twin set of thin books and held them like she would a vial of plague, sticking her tongue out briefly in a show of her lack of appreciation for the subject matter, a hefty box of pre-sharpened colored pencils following. "Chemistry coloring books," she muttered with a telling roll of her eyes, dropping gently the cardboard box of pencils on the gaudily bright books and collecting the entire package in her arms, precariously punching in the password.
The door sighed and jerked open, huffing its compressed air out exhaustedly, and she hurried across the tiled floor, her thick blonde hair catching the lamp's shafting light in the elaborate coifs of her braided bun. Idling into the hall, she tapped the release button carefully with her hip, pausing for the door to slide shut once more before stepping briskly in her attention-grabbing orange clogs down the narrow length of the patient hall. B-902 was easily attained and she shifted her burden so it was pinned between the curve of her hip and the lean press of her arm, adjusting it slightly to ensure it was balanced and picking the master key out of her flaring skirt's pocket, pushing it into place and thumbing it in the appropriate direction.
Mina was careful to move the inner light switch up, pushing the door open gently and stepping inside with a soft, "Aimee? It's me, Mina." The lights were marginally duller inside, from frequent usage where it had rarely been used in the past, and she figured, quickly, they would last a bit longer. The girl was, as she expected, sitting up straight in her makeshift bed, skin uncovered but for the swathing bandages and the grey-black quilt serving as a comforter. Dark blue eyes adjusted to the light and thin fingers scratched hesitantly at one bandaged leg, and Aimee studied her silently, curiosity on her face in place of fear or simple awareness.
"Hi," the blonde woman smiled, edging the door shut and mentally noting to ask Doctor Anders why a guard was not secured for the witching hours. Waving the books and pencils from their position at her side into a giving form in her hands, she stepped gingerly forward, moving in subdued, slow movements and keeping a kindly smile on her lips. "I've noticed you don't have much to do and you aren't much of a sleeper," she explained, her voice nearly ducking into a whisper out of respect for the quiet pacifism on the younger girl's face. "So I brought you something to do." Aimee scrambled back, folding her legs up and her arms betwixt her legs, tilting her head down to better view the coloring books as Mina shifted the two onto the lower quilt, flipping the cover of the top one open to expose the rough first page, an easy drawing of a curved laboratory bottle.
No, Mina realized, not simple awareness, for her dark eyes, those eyes reminiscent of death begetting life begetting death in the exotic swirls of deep whirlpools, sparkled from inside, crackles of intelligence and the desire to know, to understand, shading everything. Breathing out, she found she was staring at the girl, and she blinked, shaking her head to clear her mind and touching the open coloring book with her hand, holding it still as she drew the second one from beneath it. She stood the box of pencils carefully, working the top open and drawing out a random color, flipping the second book open to reveal a simplified diagram of a tree, the sort a child learned in kindergarten - roots, trunk, leaves, branches, bark. "See, you use the pencils to color the picture," she explained in a gentle voice, rubbing the pencil, a pitch brown, over the bark, leaving textured trails. "And, well, you can color any way you want to." Satisfied with her example, she slid the pencil back into place and tapped the container in Aimee's direction. "Here. They're for you."
Aimee hesitated, looking warily up at her and reaching slowly for the golden box, and she pressed her lips together as if in thought, grasping the pointed tip of the same pencil and pulling it, as well as two lighter shades of brown, from the innards of the gift. Studying Mina for a few pounding seconds, she finally returned to the page, sweeping her fingers over it and softly moving it over, grabbing a few more pages with it. Her eyes flickered over the pictures briefly, selecting nothing and discarding everything, until she discovered, relatively soon, a rendition of a female doctor with straight hair hanging to her shoulders talking to a small child of unknown gender. A smooth ebony pencil was taken out to join the browns and she wielded it tenderly in her hands, under Mina's elfin eyes, and pushed the tip at the drawn woman's far armpit, sketching wispy, but firm, lines that straightened her bust into a blurry flatness.
"Wha'cha doing?" Mina asked innocently, unthinkingly, realizing she should expect no answer but still harboring a small disappointment when she received none. Lines continued whispering, lengthening the shoulders and widening the breadth of the hands with bolder darkness.
The black pencil was placed into the box and she carefully chose the dark brown from the three cylinders left. She touched it at the ends of the adjusted being's hair, curving the strands and adding careful wisps higher along it, then loosely drawing tightly plotted curves down the length of the back, picking in her other hand another of the artistic tools. Following her other hand, she filled in the thin, empty space with the two shades, layering one over the other, and she abandoned the first for the final pencil, quickly refining the color of the hair extension, changing and finishing with obvious care.
"Geez," Mina muttered, watching over her shoulder as she tucked away the trio, plucking out a dark purple one. The woman had been lined to be more masculine, flatter and broad-shouldered, and a braid had been improvised. "He really is something special, isn't he?" she murmured to herself, smiling lopsidedly whilst Aimee began coloring the dotted eyes.
--~--
*
--~--
He knew it was foolish and, in a sense, somewhat vain, but the fact remained that Duo had curved his body on the couch, hips and legs flat against the cushions with his upper body twisted into a position reminiscent of sitting up, with a bound book of ancient Greek myths clutched in his hands. They were fairy tales of a sort, ones filled with complexities and shameful things no self-respecting fairy godmother would ever condone. He had read the tale of Hades and Persephone habitually, tapping his thumb impatiently on the sides of the pages as he struggled to immerse his mind in the dead mythology. Inanely, he considered the oddity of the standard choice of a wife for the God of Death in the old religions, staring blindly at the image of a maiden dressed in a ruffled robe and flowers cascading about her form, wondering pointlessly why most cultures had him wed to a goddess of life. "Celtic beliefs," he heard himself speak in a sighing voice, "held Beli, the death deity, was the husband of Danu, the mother goddess of life, blah-blah, blah-blah." Flipping the page, he tried to force his consciousness to comply with his efforts to separate work from home, only to read the same line in Cupid and Psyche's romance several times. With a noisy curse, he slammed the book shut and tossed it to the floor, twisting his waist so his entire body was facing the ceiling.
"Why are you in my head?" he asked Aimee who was not there, Dorothy who did not exist, loved ones he had lost from his own foolishness and poor luck. Years of darkness had broken free, pounding undesirably in his skull, and he fought the memories for a moment, shoved at them and scrabbled to hide them in the corner, in the desert with the cages and the monsters of his own evils. And still the scent of blood rushed into his nostrils, thick and nauseating, reminding him a thousand-fold of the sheer apathy felt when in the heady clinch of battle, neither wishing to spread the heated liquid nor feeling any sense of responsibility to avoid bloodshed. It did not matter when no one was left to care, and then when he did have people to care for, he fought to protect them from the folds of death forever following him.
Selfish reasons tinted so many of his actions, be it mildly or wholly, and though he knew it was basic human nature to do so, it was a blow to his sense of humanity to understand the depths of his own self-motivation. It was fear and need and such primal behaviors that drove the fighting, the protecting, and even his career choice had been a way to help cope with the darkness. Freud's pessimism was alarmingly brilliant as he thought, and he wondered that perhaps nothing was truly ever done without one's self in prominence, all emotions tainted with negativity.
"I don't want to accept that," he said to the quiet, anger exploding in his chest, and he pressed his fist, hard, into the soft give of the couch. His fingers vanished into the depths, wrist still exposed with its jutting curves and flowing arm, and he found he needed to sigh, to breathe out, closing dark eyelashes to the contours of his cheeks. "I don't want to accept that!" he found he was nearly screaming, face suddenly streaked with shuddering wetness beneath his eyelashes, touching his skin in drying streams. The silent moans hit his shoulders then, convulsing muscles into tense agony, releasing in a second's worth of relief before tightening once more, and he reopened the minor cut in his tongue by biting down. "I'm not entirely selfish," his voice whispered, rasped, and he opened his eyes, imagining Sister Helen as he often did, sitting primly in the armchair facing the couch.
Folds of guarding black, a habit of purest white under her head wrapping, quiet eyes watching with love, and it helped him to pretend she was in the room with him, pretending she could hear his words. "I'm afraid I'm failing as a person, sometimes," Duo spoke in bare tones to the motionless air. "And am I crazy, to pretend you're here with me, listening? Because I need someone to listen to me so badly right now, and I can't bug the guys…not for a while, at least. I don't even know what I want to say.
"I've," and he hesitated, curling his fingers over his lips and frowning in a minuscule twitch of the corner of his mouth, closing his eyes to the woman he wanted once to be his mother. "I can't tell if I'm even thinking of her," her, dark blue hair, eyes that feared and watched with reluctant curiosity, small and waif-like and brilliant, "as an individual. Maybe I'm just turning her into a representation of everything I want to get rid of: evil things and people being turned into victims. But she isn't helping! And I know it's only been three days, but she…it seems like longer." An old soul, he thought, and he was not overwhelmingly surprised to learn his mind had exchanged Sister Helen for Aimee of the heady silences.
Knees tucked into breasts, fingers locked delicately around shins hidden by the stiff cotton of a hospital gown, her eyes did not meet his in his mind like Sister Helen's did, buried in the shifting colors of her outfit. How could he have locked her up in the back of his memories, amongst the demons he alone was meant to carry as a burden, on that Monday, leaving her? Dorothy was set free, as he could never help one who had died, abandoned the binds of flesh and mortality, and he felt the briefest twinge of regret for the loss of a strong foe, a formidable companion, but it passed as the darkness faded, receding against its will into the waiting twine of sanity.
"I want to know who you are," he said to the shimmering vision of Aimee, his voice a husky burden of tears and informality and a kindred, though different, spirit. He knew, as any might be able to see, they were vastly different, with her quiet solitude and his sheer gregarious spirit, but he could sense the pain that had drawn people together in the past, the pain so many felt but so few shared. "Do you have a favorite color? Why do you fear? What drives you, what makes you? Do you like classical music or Led Zeppelin? Your answers to the age-old questions: soda or pop? Chocolate or vanilla? Books or movies? Comedy or drama? Do you like Dante or Yeats or Stephen King; coffee, tea, or hot cocoa? Neither, either, or, whichever one you choose." He breathed, filled his lungs with air that pulsed and shifted, wanting so desperately to connect with this patient not with him, this the patient he knew he needed more than anything to save. It mattered little at that moment if she was the crux of some shadowy plan hatched by criminals or Preventers or alien, for all he damn well knew, and it echoed dully in his bones, he must save her.
"We're hardly alike at all," he continued, speaking rapidly to the motionless image of Aimee, her face still turned into her legs, "and if we met in a different way, I'd bet you wouldn't look at me twice. And God knows you need salvation other than me, 'cause I might not be the best help for you, especially with the stuff happening, but we're just the smallest bit similar. Like someone cut a piece of the cloth I'm sewed from and stitched it into you, plaid on blue, or whatever."
She did not speak, and that was expected, for she did not exist in the room of his apartment, hunched in perfect solitude amidst the puffing swells of the armchair. "I want to help you," he whispered, balling his hands at his stomach and leaning over them, holding his heart in as it sought to break in empathic sorrow. "I know, just a little, what you feel. You're hurting so bad inside you only see double-images, thinking everyone has a second motive hidden behind every smile or frown or tear. And I wonder," as she was cleansed from his mind, swept from his imagination and the room, "if you realize you have no secret motive yourself."
Her purity shone in his mind like a broken beacon, shattered by mirrors hurled in accusatory arcs through the lighthouse she must be, and he could tell, empathetically, against every rule of psychology demanding careful thought and precision, it was true. She felt no evil, not now, in her soul, as she tried, confusedly, to tear herself from the blinding fog of the darkest seas.
"When the hell did I become a poet?" he demanded of himself.
--~--
*
--~--
The first time she ever entered the Preventers headquarters, unable to still the excited thumping of her heartbeat in her ears the shade of soft pink cockleshells, her sneaker caught on the doorjamb, the lifted metal stabbing into the arch of the rubber bottom and firmly holding onto the swirled surface. A surprised squeak tore embarrassingly from her lips and she wobbled her arms futilely to still the inevitable plummet to the slick finish of the floor, already preparing a pained groan for the expectedly injuring fall, and instead of smashing horrifyingly into the fine dusting of dirt, she somehow landed squarely in Heero's arms.
Not that she was complaining or the like, as he had rather incredible arms to fall into, all strong muscles and supple skin under that classy uniform shirt of his. But considering she was still technically a married woman and he was her closest friend, and it was incredibly disturbing to even think of him - due to both reasons - as a romantic interest, she wondered it might have been more tolerable if her nose had been broken by the tiles in place of being saved by the pleasant crook of his elbow. Why did he have to go and save her dignity anyway? After all, she was wearing sweatpants and ancient, semi-Paleolithic sneakers on her unclothed feet, and she had finally managed to go and trip in a federal building whilst crossing its hearth on her first visit. "Who do you think y'are?" she grumbled sweetly, prying her foot from the doorjamb and hopping a few steps as he released her shoulders.
She followed him, as she was quickly becoming accustomed to, reasoning he was probably a little more used to the relatively bland hallways than she, seeing as he happened to be an employee of the organization. He turned sharply, down a short hallway, and then to a door on his left, and she trailed after him, twisting her heel in her sneaker absently to scratch a minor itch. Palming the pad beside the door, it swooshed into the wall and she swallowed a startled yelp, resulting in an odd, strangled noise filtering forth from her throat, and to his credit, he only looked back to check she was still breathing. Had it been any one of her other friends, wisecracks, insults, and obscene hand gestures would probably have been presented to her absolute lack of any tech-savvy fragments in her brain. And, though she blushed in mortification, she followed him through, praying the door would not close and spear her leg. As if she was supposed to know anything about automatic doors, she certainly hoped it was like an elevator, more or less.
Nancy stared, gawking at the blinding rows of white cubicles, countless squares chalked together on either side of a wide aisle stretching from the door, down the entrance-way, and thickening fractionally once the entrance gave way to the massive work area. The loud, steady hum of a thousand some computers running, accented punctually by a rhythmic typing reminiscent of bees throbbing and droning, and she suddenly felt rather self-conscious of her AC 198 Holman-T4O hard drive, the slow modem, and a particularly aged keyboard from somewhere around the dawn of time, or her father's high school prom, whichever happened to have come first. Earnestly aware of her casual early morning wear, she shuffled in her shoes, rubbing anxiously at her arms and wishing her friend had given her time to put something more suitable on before literally dragging her out of her cozy home.
"Yuy!" a woman's voice, strong and crisp, carried over the soft sounds of talking intermingled with the computer work. "You aren't supposed to be here until Monday. Where's Relena?" A tall woman, elegantly trim and rounded perfectly, strolled quickly down the darkly carpeted aisle, her blue Preventers jacket open and flapping idly at her hips. Her hair was a slick ivory violet, bangs haphazardly combed to one side so they fell lopsidedly over her matching blue-violet eyes, a few strands wafted over the left as the majority obscured the Mediterranean tip of her right eye, and Nancy felt a small doom in her chest at the beauty and friendly recognition on the woman's face.
Not that she liked Heero that way, or anything, incredible arms, gorgeous eyes, and standoffish, yet cuddly, personality aside. Because none of it mattered in any case, and she was not attracted to him, nor had she been for the three years of their friendship, and she was not going to listen to her damn subconscious anymore, because that too did not matter. In the least. She shifted uncomfortably again, tucking one sneaker around the heel of its partner, ducking her head to avoid the woman's scrutiny and sensing his gaze on her, penetrating, solid, and warm.
"And who is this?" the woman asked, interest in her smooth voice, eyes flickering over her formless body, hidden under the folds of her sweat-suit. "I'm Lucrezia Noin, by the way," she added after a few seconds of thought, holding her long hand out in a kind gesture. Still feeling somewhat inadequate, Nancy took her hand with her freckled one and shook firmly, her grip a bit weak in comparison with the taller woman's military grasp. "I'm going to assume you're Ms. Trishmore, the woman Yuy's always consulting in e-mails and whatnot. He has told you you're officially filed as a consultant to the Preventers…?"
Memories of old cop shows watched with her father as a child filtered into her mind, the prominent one being that of the classic 'Monk' series, and she turned an amiable glare to Heero, who steadfastly refused to react in any form or manner. "Nope, can't say he has, Miz Noin," she informed her brightly, flashing her sweetest smile, and the woman laughed quietly. "And how do you know m'name anyway? Y'know, other than that little job I don't seem to be getting paid for…" A slightly more resentful glare was sent in his direction and he replied with a minute frown, resisting the temptation - weak though it was - to smile unashamedly.
"Oh, we have a policy of monitoring our employees' e-mails when they do so on campus, so to speak," Noin said off-handedly, accepting a manila envelope from a harried worker emerging from the door at their back. "And, yes, it is completely legal."
Nancy blanched visibly and even Heero looked mildly unsettled, an uneasy expression touching his usually stoic features. "Um, about the, uh, rough drafts I send for my romances," she began nervously, all but wringing her hands pitifully, "you don't--"
"No, I have no worries you've been having an illicit affair vicariously through your characters," she was answered breezily, and she giggled in spite of herself as Heero snorted rudely, "as you are involved in a divorce at the moment, and that always seems to ruin relationships of the loving sort. Besides, I can't imagine how any woman could survive with a man like Yuy." She winked kindly at him to convince him her words were in jest, and he glowered his infamous scowl at her.
"I can just imagine," Nancy sighed romantically, ignoring for the time being her outfit as she clasped her hands under her chin dreamily, purposefully fading her grey-threaded eyes into a drooping fog consumed by sappy emotion. "Long days spent convincin' him I don't need a firearm…evenings cozily eaten by thorough searches of ev'ry newspaper article for anythin' threatening…being woken up at four in the mornin' not for love nor for passion, but because he needs to pick my brain for ideas…" She paused, then, focusing her eyes thoughtfully on him as he tampered the urge to squirm unhappily, unfolded her hands so she could tap a finger in mock realization against the dimpled peach of her chin. "Oh, wait! That already happens! My God, all we need is an officiating priest, two witnesses, and rings, and I can deal with it every day!"
"She sounds defensive," the office worker noted, having stayed beside Noin, watching with undivided interest as they bantered, and Heero switched his deadly glare from Nancy, who had developed an immunity to it over the first two months of their acquaintance, to the nosy worker. "I'd look out for her, Ms. Lucrezia," he continued, grinning at the redhead as she laughed silently at Heero's displeased air, "her sweatshirt said 'voting is against my religion; try again later.'"
Noin considered this. "Wonder if Yuy's brought another Commie into our midst," she pitched loudly, waiting expectantly for a muffled shout from the back.
"Hey! I resent that!" a man called in the back, and the office worker saluted the trio cheerfully, his bad mood evaporating as he shoved his delivery cart along the aisle, turning at a corner.
"We need to speak to Une," Heero spoke abruptly, coldly, his voice forcefully detached. "Now. Not later, now. If she's in a meeting, we're interrupting, and we need to speak to her. It's about the Cortez case."
Nancy wondered at how fast the woman paled, and the writer grabbed his arm before he could take off without her, pressing her fingers into the soft white of his shirt and over the obscured darkness of his lower arm. Lean muscles, indeed.
--~--
*
--~--
Author's Notes: Frag it all, Duo and Ami were hardly in this chapter at all. They won't be in the next chapter at all, as it's a flashback involving Quatre and Rei (because I need some angst/fluff detour, people, since the romance drive is moving very slowly), but to compensate, I plan for chapters ten and eleven to be completely Duo and/or Ami centralized, with plot development gazoodle with the other characters. Because, somehow, I've obtained both a plot and several characters already.
I sincerely hope someone's caught the musical theme running through 'Requiem' by now, and because 'soubrette' is obviously a not-well-known term...a soubrette is a soprano (female) role, a leading role I believe, in comedic plays. And while this story is by no means a comedy, this is one of the lightest chapters thus far, and I figure it's comedy like Dante would have it: bitter and crushing, but easier to swallow at the end. The chapter, not the story (though I'm willing to bet that, too, will happen).
Do not worry! This story is still a Duo/Ami and it will /stay/ a Duo/Ami; at this moment, I'm trying to flesh out the supporting characters while develop the plot's beginning somewhat. And I'm serious about ten and eleven being oriented on them, because they need it, I need it, and some of the scenes have been threatening to explode in my skull for the past two weeks...for two of the scenes, I've had 'em since I started the story. But, while I'm talking about couples, is anyone else liking Quatre/Rei? (I know Girl-chama does...I think.) I printed out 'Prelude' through 'Overture' for my best friend, Becky, and mailed 'em to her, and other than her desperate demands for me to write the rest of the frickin' story, and whether or not Duo was still going to end up with Ami, she complimented the 4xMars coupling. I believe her words were "great chemistry." Personally, I'm inclined to agree. It really would work pretty well and I can't for the life of me figure out why I've never done that coupling before...
Chapter dedicated to Kaiya-chan, who probably doesn't believe me when I swear I'm not on fancy Mexican drugs, 'cause she's beta-read all of these chapters and dealt with my inane blabbering. And she's given me the name of a Zoicite/Ami writer, and for that I am eternally grateful! I did the changes, ma'am, even though I didn't want to do one. (I'm semi-colon happy, sorry to say...;;;! *snickers and falls off computer chair*)
And, yes, 'Monk' will be a classic cop show. It's my fave TV show and has been since it debuted. I can't wait for the second season! *weeps*
Yeah, that stupid standard disclaimer still applies, and, yeah, I still don't like it. I'm distributing to www.FanFiction.net, 'Danzibo's Loop-o-Stuff,' and currently entangled in a minor spam war with 'Charon X-Treme.'
I demand feedback! GIVE TO MEEEE! ...Please? Click that review thing-y, and, while you're at it, put me on your favorites' list (*laughs and waves dismissively* naw, not really), or e-mail me at alien_wolf@sailorjupiter.com. And then I'll love you forever...*insert creepy music, only to be interrupted by 'Futurama' coming on* Bender!
Reviewers! To them doth I say: thank-you! Individual thanks next chapter, I promise...
(I hope to God I manage to shake the mild author's block that's threatening to descend. I have a Trigun fic in a different account, a One Piece-x-Sailor Moon [Roronoa Zoro-x-Ami, baby!] rough draft I need a beta-reader for, and this to work on, and I need to sit down and write on each of them. Here's to hoping the weekend comes soon...)
A fond farewell to 'Young Justice,' the comic that brought me back into the DCU fandom. I've been with it since issue twenty-four and, thirty issues later, still feel it wasn't long enough time. To the characters that made it rich, from Secret - whose one great wish finally came true, to Slobo - who deserved his budding relationship with Anita (and then, of course, he died), to Wondergirl and Superboy - who /finally/ got it on, geez loo-eeze. I love them all. :]
"How is it so impossible?" he urged, his lean body, cloaked in loose black jeans and a green button-up, moving back, then forward again, as if he was struggling with something. "Nobody ever managed to solve Catalonia's disappearance. And I might be jumping to conclusions, but I'm pretty damn sure Aimee wouldn't write something like that unless it happened to be true." He dipped his head forward, the brush of his braid sweeping his abdomen, tickling skin beneath the cotton shirt wrinkling as he bent his body in a hunched position. No love had been lost between him and the vicious woman, but he had respected her and been concerned when she disappeared years back in AC 199.
"It's just," she sighed, setting the paper firmly on the grooved mat inlaid in the wood of her desk before her, covering her face with her strong hands and breathing. "It's so bizarre," she finally continued, moving her hands down her face, cupping her mouth and chin, her eyebrows pushing together. "Word's been that the Cortez mess was the tip of an iceberg, but…"
He shoved off the desk, fingers clutching angrily at his braid and pushing through the weave, entangling in the tightly bound tendrils. Tugging down, he growled softly, staring moodily out the window, over the buildings in the colony, at the wetness pouring down from the piping system above. "I know I've only been at this job since Monday," he said quietly, "but I'm already sick of being left out of the loop. I don't need you to break the rules and tell me; just…report this to someone, okay?"
She sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose and chewing on her lip. "You'll need to borrow an umbrella from downstairs," she told him in a subdued voice, carefully controlled. "They didn't advertise this rain as well as usual."
He shrugged, rapping his knuckles against the desk as he stalked across the floor toward the door, an inexplicable irritation on his face. "Yeah," he exhaled deeply, casting one last look through the wide window, streaked with dead diamonds, the metal wreath of the colony weeping steady tears of darkest silver.
--
Requiem: Soubrette
--
She glared formidably at the computer screen, fingers hovering indecisively over the delicate keys and eyes squinting as she tried to choose from the words in her mental thesaurus. As a writer, she found it to be her greatest challenge, the opposition of seeking to use an adjective in a unique way, and so she found herself on the ninth page of a romantic short story, staring blankly at the screen. The one man she had ever had a seriously romantic relationship with had, as might have been morbidly expected, died when she was still a teenager, and her soon-to-be-ex-husband-praise-God-in-heaven had been anything but romantic, and, with a sense of inner doom, she swiveled around in her slightly broken computer chair. And immediately, her face contorted into a mask of skepticism, comical horror, and exasperated affection as she watched Heero systematically rearrange the contents of her spice cabinet, something she knew now was a sign of boredom. Go outside more, she ordered herself, rolling her eyes.
"Before you manage to destroy my filing system," she said cheerfully, the seven o'clock morning light and the tea sipped earlier fueling her into a brighter mood than before, and he glanced at her, "I wanna ask ya somethin'." Taking a breath, she looked at him for the go ahead and was granted a view of him crossing his arms over his white dress shirt, his immovable scowl a bit friendlier. "Now, y'don't hafta answer," she continued as if to placate him, holding her hands up peacefully and tilting her chin up, "but I'd be glad if you do." Inhaling, Nancy questioned, schooling her features into an award-winning expression of severity and keeping her tone teasingly serious, "You bein' a man and all, what d'you think is a good description for 'breast?'"
Heero stared at her for several long seconds as she bit down on her cheeks to keep from snickering, her smoke blue eyes glittering dangerously, and he, stiffly, returned to his chore of organizing her spices, albeit more slowly. An odd sound escaped her lips, like a quiet squeak of helium, and she clamped her hands over her mouth as she swerved in her chair, back to the computer screen, shoulders vibrating from the suppressed laughter. He switched his blackened blue eyes to her back, subconsciously reading again the letters of the political statement on the back of her sweatshirt - 'Voting is against my religion; try again later' - and placing the rest of the collection of herbs in, doing his best to keep them in some sort of order. Snorting under his breath, he closed the cabinet silently and stalked across the floor, grabbing one of the chairs from the small double-seat table and flipping it around to face the computer desk-and-chair she had set up in the corner. He seated himself quickly, leaning forward to stare at the modem and making a rude noise in his throat.
"Do you have any shame?" he questioned vaguely, and she twisted in her chair, looking at him strangely.
"Don't do that!" she whined, startling him, and she winced at the noise of her own voice, scratching distractively - for him, in the least, though he hid it skillfully - at her collarbone. "Sorry," muttered Nancy, quickly pressing the yellowed ivory keys needed to save what she had written, and she minimized the file before clipping the screen off. "Anywho, ya wanted me to spiel, right?" Heero's legs crossed at his shins, sprawled out fully, and he, as per normal, hooked his arms over his front, the thin tail of his left eyebrow quirking the tiniest fraction upwards. He was, in his own suitably non-vocal way, telling her she might as well spare them both the aggravation of senseless banter and she grinned approvingly, casting her own legs out and sticking her heels on the in-steps of his feet lightly. His response was an affectionate glare, and she picked at a loose string in the ribbed cuff of her sweatshirt. "Well, the obvious step would be to do that genetic stuff everyone hypes: blood, skin, whatchamacallit, and so on." Taking one look at his indecipherable face, she blew air out noisily, her lower lip closing temporarily over her upper lip. "And I'm guessin' ya already tried that. So," she trailed the word out, tucking frizzy carrot hair behind her seashell ear, "then you do the next obvious thing and advertise it everywhere, t.v., newspapers, movie screens, and soda machines, askin' for help or testimony or people overridden with guilt, blah-blah." She cut off and stared at him, her mouth still hanging open slightly from talking, and she gave him a concerned look. Either she was a genius or he was about to kiss her, the two not necessarily being connected, and she found it unnerving, as neither was going to happen anytime soon.
"Obvious," he murmured, eyes flattening in the curious way they had when he was thinking furiously. "Of course, the best route is always the one overlooked," and he grabbed her hand, springing to his feet and yanking her out of her chair, sending the worn device spinning unevenly. She yelped and, instinctively, pulled back, which only served to trip her up, her sweatpants being a size too large for her legs. "Get your shoes on," he grunted at her, jerking to a stop at her front door, and she dusted at her hair, glaring weakly at him. "I need you," he continued in a manner that was most assuredly not a passionate one, cementing her opinion that he thought she was a genius.
Blinking, parts of her mind still pushing at gears to catch what precisely had just happened, Nancy stabbed her feet into her worn sneakers, the backs crumpling easily under the mild weight of her body. "Wow, since you're being so dashingly romantic about it," she managed breathlessly, snagging her keys as he yanked her impatiently out the door, his hand like a band of molten steel on her wrist. The cloth of her shirt was wrinkled up at her lower arms as she tugged the door shut, flipping through her key ring and slipping the keys into their allotted spots, twisting firmly. "Ow!" she squealed, nearly falling down the steps leading to the thin sidewalk. "Not so hard! Are we taking your car or mine?"
He angled her around the front of a smooth blue car she would never have noticed in a crowded lot, popping the door open and helping her in. Bemused, she obeyed without a word, fingers clawing at the seatbelt and pulling it over her chest, clipping it into place. "Hey, this is the driver's side!" she protested as he leaned in the opposite side, and then she mouthed soundlessly as she saw the steering wheel constructed plainly on the right half of the vehicle. "Stupid Japanese cars," Nancy grouched, rotating her shoulders to loosen the uncomfortable tightness of her collar from the sudden seating.
The road whipped up, the motor revving and the car jerking into the street, and she cried out, her hands flying to prop along the dashboard to keep her back against the chair. With a wary glance at the snow-sleek roads, at the sky still fairy dark, she asked in a tight voice, "Don't drive so fast, okay?"
"Life is cheap," he said and she caught the hints of a mocking smile on his lips, as if he was speaking a private joke.
"Not when I'm in the car it isn't!" she snapped, and she was both angered and cheered when she heard a low, majestic laugh tumble from his lips, coloring the air something new with the sound she had not before known.
--~--
*
--~--
Mina hummed softly, hauling her purse to the clean counter of the receptionist's desk, flicking on the lamp perched at the head of the computer. A single bright beam of light tore through the dimness of the area, punctuating the air with a shine the hallway's glow could not produce, and she undid the clasps on her purse, slender fingers picking at the stacks of magazines and other not-so-essential essentials. Guiltily checking she was truly alone in the waiting room, her blue eyes picking out the shadows in each corner, along each wall, she carefully dug out the latest Nancy Trishmore novel, a thick book with a noticeably red cover, 'The Duchess of Fire' scripted elegantly at its top. A gratuitously enflamed plaque was engraved directly below the writing, an image of a rather grand-looking man clutching possessively at a young woman who seemed neither fully horrified nor exactly attracted, and she mashed aside the urge to giggle like a teenager on her first delectable date. Placing it in a spot of honor by the computer's slick hard drive, she tugged out a twin set of thin books and held them like she would a vial of plague, sticking her tongue out briefly in a show of her lack of appreciation for the subject matter, a hefty box of pre-sharpened colored pencils following. "Chemistry coloring books," she muttered with a telling roll of her eyes, dropping gently the cardboard box of pencils on the gaudily bright books and collecting the entire package in her arms, precariously punching in the password.
The door sighed and jerked open, huffing its compressed air out exhaustedly, and she hurried across the tiled floor, her thick blonde hair catching the lamp's shafting light in the elaborate coifs of her braided bun. Idling into the hall, she tapped the release button carefully with her hip, pausing for the door to slide shut once more before stepping briskly in her attention-grabbing orange clogs down the narrow length of the patient hall. B-902 was easily attained and she shifted her burden so it was pinned between the curve of her hip and the lean press of her arm, adjusting it slightly to ensure it was balanced and picking the master key out of her flaring skirt's pocket, pushing it into place and thumbing it in the appropriate direction.
Mina was careful to move the inner light switch up, pushing the door open gently and stepping inside with a soft, "Aimee? It's me, Mina." The lights were marginally duller inside, from frequent usage where it had rarely been used in the past, and she figured, quickly, they would last a bit longer. The girl was, as she expected, sitting up straight in her makeshift bed, skin uncovered but for the swathing bandages and the grey-black quilt serving as a comforter. Dark blue eyes adjusted to the light and thin fingers scratched hesitantly at one bandaged leg, and Aimee studied her silently, curiosity on her face in place of fear or simple awareness.
"Hi," the blonde woman smiled, edging the door shut and mentally noting to ask Doctor Anders why a guard was not secured for the witching hours. Waving the books and pencils from their position at her side into a giving form in her hands, she stepped gingerly forward, moving in subdued, slow movements and keeping a kindly smile on her lips. "I've noticed you don't have much to do and you aren't much of a sleeper," she explained, her voice nearly ducking into a whisper out of respect for the quiet pacifism on the younger girl's face. "So I brought you something to do." Aimee scrambled back, folding her legs up and her arms betwixt her legs, tilting her head down to better view the coloring books as Mina shifted the two onto the lower quilt, flipping the cover of the top one open to expose the rough first page, an easy drawing of a curved laboratory bottle.
No, Mina realized, not simple awareness, for her dark eyes, those eyes reminiscent of death begetting life begetting death in the exotic swirls of deep whirlpools, sparkled from inside, crackles of intelligence and the desire to know, to understand, shading everything. Breathing out, she found she was staring at the girl, and she blinked, shaking her head to clear her mind and touching the open coloring book with her hand, holding it still as she drew the second one from beneath it. She stood the box of pencils carefully, working the top open and drawing out a random color, flipping the second book open to reveal a simplified diagram of a tree, the sort a child learned in kindergarten - roots, trunk, leaves, branches, bark. "See, you use the pencils to color the picture," she explained in a gentle voice, rubbing the pencil, a pitch brown, over the bark, leaving textured trails. "And, well, you can color any way you want to." Satisfied with her example, she slid the pencil back into place and tapped the container in Aimee's direction. "Here. They're for you."
Aimee hesitated, looking warily up at her and reaching slowly for the golden box, and she pressed her lips together as if in thought, grasping the pointed tip of the same pencil and pulling it, as well as two lighter shades of brown, from the innards of the gift. Studying Mina for a few pounding seconds, she finally returned to the page, sweeping her fingers over it and softly moving it over, grabbing a few more pages with it. Her eyes flickered over the pictures briefly, selecting nothing and discarding everything, until she discovered, relatively soon, a rendition of a female doctor with straight hair hanging to her shoulders talking to a small child of unknown gender. A smooth ebony pencil was taken out to join the browns and she wielded it tenderly in her hands, under Mina's elfin eyes, and pushed the tip at the drawn woman's far armpit, sketching wispy, but firm, lines that straightened her bust into a blurry flatness.
"Wha'cha doing?" Mina asked innocently, unthinkingly, realizing she should expect no answer but still harboring a small disappointment when she received none. Lines continued whispering, lengthening the shoulders and widening the breadth of the hands with bolder darkness.
The black pencil was placed into the box and she carefully chose the dark brown from the three cylinders left. She touched it at the ends of the adjusted being's hair, curving the strands and adding careful wisps higher along it, then loosely drawing tightly plotted curves down the length of the back, picking in her other hand another of the artistic tools. Following her other hand, she filled in the thin, empty space with the two shades, layering one over the other, and she abandoned the first for the final pencil, quickly refining the color of the hair extension, changing and finishing with obvious care.
"Geez," Mina muttered, watching over her shoulder as she tucked away the trio, plucking out a dark purple one. The woman had been lined to be more masculine, flatter and broad-shouldered, and a braid had been improvised. "He really is something special, isn't he?" she murmured to herself, smiling lopsidedly whilst Aimee began coloring the dotted eyes.
--~--
*
--~--
He knew it was foolish and, in a sense, somewhat vain, but the fact remained that Duo had curved his body on the couch, hips and legs flat against the cushions with his upper body twisted into a position reminiscent of sitting up, with a bound book of ancient Greek myths clutched in his hands. They were fairy tales of a sort, ones filled with complexities and shameful things no self-respecting fairy godmother would ever condone. He had read the tale of Hades and Persephone habitually, tapping his thumb impatiently on the sides of the pages as he struggled to immerse his mind in the dead mythology. Inanely, he considered the oddity of the standard choice of a wife for the God of Death in the old religions, staring blindly at the image of a maiden dressed in a ruffled robe and flowers cascading about her form, wondering pointlessly why most cultures had him wed to a goddess of life. "Celtic beliefs," he heard himself speak in a sighing voice, "held Beli, the death deity, was the husband of Danu, the mother goddess of life, blah-blah, blah-blah." Flipping the page, he tried to force his consciousness to comply with his efforts to separate work from home, only to read the same line in Cupid and Psyche's romance several times. With a noisy curse, he slammed the book shut and tossed it to the floor, twisting his waist so his entire body was facing the ceiling.
"Why are you in my head?" he asked Aimee who was not there, Dorothy who did not exist, loved ones he had lost from his own foolishness and poor luck. Years of darkness had broken free, pounding undesirably in his skull, and he fought the memories for a moment, shoved at them and scrabbled to hide them in the corner, in the desert with the cages and the monsters of his own evils. And still the scent of blood rushed into his nostrils, thick and nauseating, reminding him a thousand-fold of the sheer apathy felt when in the heady clinch of battle, neither wishing to spread the heated liquid nor feeling any sense of responsibility to avoid bloodshed. It did not matter when no one was left to care, and then when he did have people to care for, he fought to protect them from the folds of death forever following him.
Selfish reasons tinted so many of his actions, be it mildly or wholly, and though he knew it was basic human nature to do so, it was a blow to his sense of humanity to understand the depths of his own self-motivation. It was fear and need and such primal behaviors that drove the fighting, the protecting, and even his career choice had been a way to help cope with the darkness. Freud's pessimism was alarmingly brilliant as he thought, and he wondered that perhaps nothing was truly ever done without one's self in prominence, all emotions tainted with negativity.
"I don't want to accept that," he said to the quiet, anger exploding in his chest, and he pressed his fist, hard, into the soft give of the couch. His fingers vanished into the depths, wrist still exposed with its jutting curves and flowing arm, and he found he needed to sigh, to breathe out, closing dark eyelashes to the contours of his cheeks. "I don't want to accept that!" he found he was nearly screaming, face suddenly streaked with shuddering wetness beneath his eyelashes, touching his skin in drying streams. The silent moans hit his shoulders then, convulsing muscles into tense agony, releasing in a second's worth of relief before tightening once more, and he reopened the minor cut in his tongue by biting down. "I'm not entirely selfish," his voice whispered, rasped, and he opened his eyes, imagining Sister Helen as he often did, sitting primly in the armchair facing the couch.
Folds of guarding black, a habit of purest white under her head wrapping, quiet eyes watching with love, and it helped him to pretend she was in the room with him, pretending she could hear his words. "I'm afraid I'm failing as a person, sometimes," Duo spoke in bare tones to the motionless air. "And am I crazy, to pretend you're here with me, listening? Because I need someone to listen to me so badly right now, and I can't bug the guys…not for a while, at least. I don't even know what I want to say.
"I've," and he hesitated, curling his fingers over his lips and frowning in a minuscule twitch of the corner of his mouth, closing his eyes to the woman he wanted once to be his mother. "I can't tell if I'm even thinking of her," her, dark blue hair, eyes that feared and watched with reluctant curiosity, small and waif-like and brilliant, "as an individual. Maybe I'm just turning her into a representation of everything I want to get rid of: evil things and people being turned into victims. But she isn't helping! And I know it's only been three days, but she…it seems like longer." An old soul, he thought, and he was not overwhelmingly surprised to learn his mind had exchanged Sister Helen for Aimee of the heady silences.
Knees tucked into breasts, fingers locked delicately around shins hidden by the stiff cotton of a hospital gown, her eyes did not meet his in his mind like Sister Helen's did, buried in the shifting colors of her outfit. How could he have locked her up in the back of his memories, amongst the demons he alone was meant to carry as a burden, on that Monday, leaving her? Dorothy was set free, as he could never help one who had died, abandoned the binds of flesh and mortality, and he felt the briefest twinge of regret for the loss of a strong foe, a formidable companion, but it passed as the darkness faded, receding against its will into the waiting twine of sanity.
"I want to know who you are," he said to the shimmering vision of Aimee, his voice a husky burden of tears and informality and a kindred, though different, spirit. He knew, as any might be able to see, they were vastly different, with her quiet solitude and his sheer gregarious spirit, but he could sense the pain that had drawn people together in the past, the pain so many felt but so few shared. "Do you have a favorite color? Why do you fear? What drives you, what makes you? Do you like classical music or Led Zeppelin? Your answers to the age-old questions: soda or pop? Chocolate or vanilla? Books or movies? Comedy or drama? Do you like Dante or Yeats or Stephen King; coffee, tea, or hot cocoa? Neither, either, or, whichever one you choose." He breathed, filled his lungs with air that pulsed and shifted, wanting so desperately to connect with this patient not with him, this the patient he knew he needed more than anything to save. It mattered little at that moment if she was the crux of some shadowy plan hatched by criminals or Preventers or alien, for all he damn well knew, and it echoed dully in his bones, he must save her.
"We're hardly alike at all," he continued, speaking rapidly to the motionless image of Aimee, her face still turned into her legs, "and if we met in a different way, I'd bet you wouldn't look at me twice. And God knows you need salvation other than me, 'cause I might not be the best help for you, especially with the stuff happening, but we're just the smallest bit similar. Like someone cut a piece of the cloth I'm sewed from and stitched it into you, plaid on blue, or whatever."
She did not speak, and that was expected, for she did not exist in the room of his apartment, hunched in perfect solitude amidst the puffing swells of the armchair. "I want to help you," he whispered, balling his hands at his stomach and leaning over them, holding his heart in as it sought to break in empathic sorrow. "I know, just a little, what you feel. You're hurting so bad inside you only see double-images, thinking everyone has a second motive hidden behind every smile or frown or tear. And I wonder," as she was cleansed from his mind, swept from his imagination and the room, "if you realize you have no secret motive yourself."
Her purity shone in his mind like a broken beacon, shattered by mirrors hurled in accusatory arcs through the lighthouse she must be, and he could tell, empathetically, against every rule of psychology demanding careful thought and precision, it was true. She felt no evil, not now, in her soul, as she tried, confusedly, to tear herself from the blinding fog of the darkest seas.
"When the hell did I become a poet?" he demanded of himself.
--~--
*
--~--
The first time she ever entered the Preventers headquarters, unable to still the excited thumping of her heartbeat in her ears the shade of soft pink cockleshells, her sneaker caught on the doorjamb, the lifted metal stabbing into the arch of the rubber bottom and firmly holding onto the swirled surface. A surprised squeak tore embarrassingly from her lips and she wobbled her arms futilely to still the inevitable plummet to the slick finish of the floor, already preparing a pained groan for the expectedly injuring fall, and instead of smashing horrifyingly into the fine dusting of dirt, she somehow landed squarely in Heero's arms.
Not that she was complaining or the like, as he had rather incredible arms to fall into, all strong muscles and supple skin under that classy uniform shirt of his. But considering she was still technically a married woman and he was her closest friend, and it was incredibly disturbing to even think of him - due to both reasons - as a romantic interest, she wondered it might have been more tolerable if her nose had been broken by the tiles in place of being saved by the pleasant crook of his elbow. Why did he have to go and save her dignity anyway? After all, she was wearing sweatpants and ancient, semi-Paleolithic sneakers on her unclothed feet, and she had finally managed to go and trip in a federal building whilst crossing its hearth on her first visit. "Who do you think y'are?" she grumbled sweetly, prying her foot from the doorjamb and hopping a few steps as he released her shoulders.
She followed him, as she was quickly becoming accustomed to, reasoning he was probably a little more used to the relatively bland hallways than she, seeing as he happened to be an employee of the organization. He turned sharply, down a short hallway, and then to a door on his left, and she trailed after him, twisting her heel in her sneaker absently to scratch a minor itch. Palming the pad beside the door, it swooshed into the wall and she swallowed a startled yelp, resulting in an odd, strangled noise filtering forth from her throat, and to his credit, he only looked back to check she was still breathing. Had it been any one of her other friends, wisecracks, insults, and obscene hand gestures would probably have been presented to her absolute lack of any tech-savvy fragments in her brain. And, though she blushed in mortification, she followed him through, praying the door would not close and spear her leg. As if she was supposed to know anything about automatic doors, she certainly hoped it was like an elevator, more or less.
Nancy stared, gawking at the blinding rows of white cubicles, countless squares chalked together on either side of a wide aisle stretching from the door, down the entrance-way, and thickening fractionally once the entrance gave way to the massive work area. The loud, steady hum of a thousand some computers running, accented punctually by a rhythmic typing reminiscent of bees throbbing and droning, and she suddenly felt rather self-conscious of her AC 198 Holman-T4O hard drive, the slow modem, and a particularly aged keyboard from somewhere around the dawn of time, or her father's high school prom, whichever happened to have come first. Earnestly aware of her casual early morning wear, she shuffled in her shoes, rubbing anxiously at her arms and wishing her friend had given her time to put something more suitable on before literally dragging her out of her cozy home.
"Yuy!" a woman's voice, strong and crisp, carried over the soft sounds of talking intermingled with the computer work. "You aren't supposed to be here until Monday. Where's Relena?" A tall woman, elegantly trim and rounded perfectly, strolled quickly down the darkly carpeted aisle, her blue Preventers jacket open and flapping idly at her hips. Her hair was a slick ivory violet, bangs haphazardly combed to one side so they fell lopsidedly over her matching blue-violet eyes, a few strands wafted over the left as the majority obscured the Mediterranean tip of her right eye, and Nancy felt a small doom in her chest at the beauty and friendly recognition on the woman's face.
Not that she liked Heero that way, or anything, incredible arms, gorgeous eyes, and standoffish, yet cuddly, personality aside. Because none of it mattered in any case, and she was not attracted to him, nor had she been for the three years of their friendship, and she was not going to listen to her damn subconscious anymore, because that too did not matter. In the least. She shifted uncomfortably again, tucking one sneaker around the heel of its partner, ducking her head to avoid the woman's scrutiny and sensing his gaze on her, penetrating, solid, and warm.
"And who is this?" the woman asked, interest in her smooth voice, eyes flickering over her formless body, hidden under the folds of her sweat-suit. "I'm Lucrezia Noin, by the way," she added after a few seconds of thought, holding her long hand out in a kind gesture. Still feeling somewhat inadequate, Nancy took her hand with her freckled one and shook firmly, her grip a bit weak in comparison with the taller woman's military grasp. "I'm going to assume you're Ms. Trishmore, the woman Yuy's always consulting in e-mails and whatnot. He has told you you're officially filed as a consultant to the Preventers…?"
Memories of old cop shows watched with her father as a child filtered into her mind, the prominent one being that of the classic 'Monk' series, and she turned an amiable glare to Heero, who steadfastly refused to react in any form or manner. "Nope, can't say he has, Miz Noin," she informed her brightly, flashing her sweetest smile, and the woman laughed quietly. "And how do you know m'name anyway? Y'know, other than that little job I don't seem to be getting paid for…" A slightly more resentful glare was sent in his direction and he replied with a minute frown, resisting the temptation - weak though it was - to smile unashamedly.
"Oh, we have a policy of monitoring our employees' e-mails when they do so on campus, so to speak," Noin said off-handedly, accepting a manila envelope from a harried worker emerging from the door at their back. "And, yes, it is completely legal."
Nancy blanched visibly and even Heero looked mildly unsettled, an uneasy expression touching his usually stoic features. "Um, about the, uh, rough drafts I send for my romances," she began nervously, all but wringing her hands pitifully, "you don't--"
"No, I have no worries you've been having an illicit affair vicariously through your characters," she was answered breezily, and she giggled in spite of herself as Heero snorted rudely, "as you are involved in a divorce at the moment, and that always seems to ruin relationships of the loving sort. Besides, I can't imagine how any woman could survive with a man like Yuy." She winked kindly at him to convince him her words were in jest, and he glowered his infamous scowl at her.
"I can just imagine," Nancy sighed romantically, ignoring for the time being her outfit as she clasped her hands under her chin dreamily, purposefully fading her grey-threaded eyes into a drooping fog consumed by sappy emotion. "Long days spent convincin' him I don't need a firearm…evenings cozily eaten by thorough searches of ev'ry newspaper article for anythin' threatening…being woken up at four in the mornin' not for love nor for passion, but because he needs to pick my brain for ideas…" She paused, then, focusing her eyes thoughtfully on him as he tampered the urge to squirm unhappily, unfolded her hands so she could tap a finger in mock realization against the dimpled peach of her chin. "Oh, wait! That already happens! My God, all we need is an officiating priest, two witnesses, and rings, and I can deal with it every day!"
"She sounds defensive," the office worker noted, having stayed beside Noin, watching with undivided interest as they bantered, and Heero switched his deadly glare from Nancy, who had developed an immunity to it over the first two months of their acquaintance, to the nosy worker. "I'd look out for her, Ms. Lucrezia," he continued, grinning at the redhead as she laughed silently at Heero's displeased air, "her sweatshirt said 'voting is against my religion; try again later.'"
Noin considered this. "Wonder if Yuy's brought another Commie into our midst," she pitched loudly, waiting expectantly for a muffled shout from the back.
"Hey! I resent that!" a man called in the back, and the office worker saluted the trio cheerfully, his bad mood evaporating as he shoved his delivery cart along the aisle, turning at a corner.
"We need to speak to Une," Heero spoke abruptly, coldly, his voice forcefully detached. "Now. Not later, now. If she's in a meeting, we're interrupting, and we need to speak to her. It's about the Cortez case."
Nancy wondered at how fast the woman paled, and the writer grabbed his arm before he could take off without her, pressing her fingers into the soft white of his shirt and over the obscured darkness of his lower arm. Lean muscles, indeed.
--~--
*
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Author's Notes: Frag it all, Duo and Ami were hardly in this chapter at all. They won't be in the next chapter at all, as it's a flashback involving Quatre and Rei (because I need some angst/fluff detour, people, since the romance drive is moving very slowly), but to compensate, I plan for chapters ten and eleven to be completely Duo and/or Ami centralized, with plot development gazoodle with the other characters. Because, somehow, I've obtained both a plot and several characters already.
I sincerely hope someone's caught the musical theme running through 'Requiem' by now, and because 'soubrette' is obviously a not-well-known term...a soubrette is a soprano (female) role, a leading role I believe, in comedic plays. And while this story is by no means a comedy, this is one of the lightest chapters thus far, and I figure it's comedy like Dante would have it: bitter and crushing, but easier to swallow at the end. The chapter, not the story (though I'm willing to bet that, too, will happen).
Do not worry! This story is still a Duo/Ami and it will /stay/ a Duo/Ami; at this moment, I'm trying to flesh out the supporting characters while develop the plot's beginning somewhat. And I'm serious about ten and eleven being oriented on them, because they need it, I need it, and some of the scenes have been threatening to explode in my skull for the past two weeks...for two of the scenes, I've had 'em since I started the story. But, while I'm talking about couples, is anyone else liking Quatre/Rei? (I know Girl-chama does...I think.) I printed out 'Prelude' through 'Overture' for my best friend, Becky, and mailed 'em to her, and other than her desperate demands for me to write the rest of the frickin' story, and whether or not Duo was still going to end up with Ami, she complimented the 4xMars coupling. I believe her words were "great chemistry." Personally, I'm inclined to agree. It really would work pretty well and I can't for the life of me figure out why I've never done that coupling before...
Chapter dedicated to Kaiya-chan, who probably doesn't believe me when I swear I'm not on fancy Mexican drugs, 'cause she's beta-read all of these chapters and dealt with my inane blabbering. And she's given me the name of a Zoicite/Ami writer, and for that I am eternally grateful! I did the changes, ma'am, even though I didn't want to do one. (I'm semi-colon happy, sorry to say...;;;! *snickers and falls off computer chair*)
And, yes, 'Monk' will be a classic cop show. It's my fave TV show and has been since it debuted. I can't wait for the second season! *weeps*
Yeah, that stupid standard disclaimer still applies, and, yeah, I still don't like it. I'm distributing to www.FanFiction.net, 'Danzibo's Loop-o-Stuff,' and currently entangled in a minor spam war with 'Charon X-Treme.'
I demand feedback! GIVE TO MEEEE! ...Please? Click that review thing-y, and, while you're at it, put me on your favorites' list (*laughs and waves dismissively* naw, not really), or e-mail me at alien_wolf@sailorjupiter.com. And then I'll love you forever...*insert creepy music, only to be interrupted by 'Futurama' coming on* Bender!
Reviewers! To them doth I say: thank-you! Individual thanks next chapter, I promise...
(I hope to God I manage to shake the mild author's block that's threatening to descend. I have a Trigun fic in a different account, a One Piece-x-Sailor Moon [Roronoa Zoro-x-Ami, baby!] rough draft I need a beta-reader for, and this to work on, and I need to sit down and write on each of them. Here's to hoping the weekend comes soon...)
A fond farewell to 'Young Justice,' the comic that brought me back into the DCU fandom. I've been with it since issue twenty-four and, thirty issues later, still feel it wasn't long enough time. To the characters that made it rich, from Secret - whose one great wish finally came true, to Slobo - who deserved his budding relationship with Anita (and then, of course, he died), to Wondergirl and Superboy - who /finally/ got it on, geez loo-eeze. I love them all. :]