Alright, the first two chapters so far have taken us through a time period of approximately two days, just in case anyone was wondering.

This chapter is where it really starts to get interesting, so I'd like to congradulate you if you've made it this far without giving up on me as a writer!!! ;)

I'm pretty sure as to what I want to do for some of Chapter 4, but I'd like to get some reviews first, so please R&R! :)

Also, FYI: The story began (and still is) taking place in the year A.C. 186.

Thanks a bunch,

Emmy J.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. However, everything else is by my own design.

LIZZIE'S STORY

CHAPTER 3 - Duo

Upon my rescuer's leaving, I decided to take a look around the small dwelling in which he had left me. It was modestly but beautifully furnished, with two lovely, hand-made paintings on the walls both to the left and directly in front of me, a quaint china cabinet in the corner, and an old but unfaded sofa next to a door leading upstairs. A very large window next to the front door let in a lot of light, giving the room a distinctly cheery appearance.



When I explored the kitchen, a short ways to the right of the front door, I found the same type of furnishings as in the first room. There was a small, round table in the rightmost corner of the room with two matching chairs, and another large window behind them. In a row along the left wall there was a sink with a roll-out countertop, a small oven, and an equally small refrigerator. Finally, there were several large cupboards across the length of the back wall of the room.



As I at last found my way upstairs, I discovered only three rooms more: a bedroom (presumably; the door was closed), a bathroom, and a single guest room. The guest room had an old but comfortable bed with white sheets and a green and yellow plaid blanket, a small chest-of-drawers, and a tiny closet with three hangars.

All of this exploring was completed within a time period of approximately five minutes, after which I was too exhausted both mentally and physically to do anything but crash down onto the bed and immediately fall into a deep sleep.

~The Next Morning~

I awoke several hours later to voices whispering urgently downstairs. At first I had no idea where I was, and was terrified, but soon remembered everything and headed toward the stairs, preparing myself for the worst.

At the top step I stopped and listened for a minute, however, the fact that they were whispering made it extremely difficult to catch more than a few snatches of the conversation.

"...not safe here..."

"...whatever is she to do..."

"...leave immediately..."

"...take her?..."

"...Colony in the L2 area."

Without realizing it, in my attempt to listen more closely I had stepped onto the top stair, which immediately gave a lout CREAK! With the conversation thus terminated, I felt it safe to enter the kitchen.

Sitting at the table were the man who had rescued me on the previous night, as well as a lovely young lady who introduced herself as Marianne.

"I'm quite sorry for being so rude," the man laughed, "but with all this commotion I haven't had the chance to introduce myself. You may call me Rashid." He paused a moment before continuing with, "I hope you don't think me always to be as terribly rude as I must have seemed

these past few hours, but I really don't have much time to explain. You must come with me at once."

"Now, just hold up a minute," Marianne interjected. "Give the poor girl a bit of time, won't you? Honestly, she's only just woken up after what has to have been the greatest shock of her life, and you up and announce that she's leaving for who-knows-where as soon as possible!" She flashed me a compassionate smile, which I returned gratefully.

"There's no time, Marianne." Rashid objected.

"You worry too much. There's always time." Marianne countererd. "Besides, the poor girl hasn't even gotten anything to eat yet." Turning to me, she remarked, "You must be starving. Would you like some breakfast?"

By this time Rashid was getting quite impatient. "Alright, how about this? You fix a quick breakfast and we'll eat on the way." he suggested.

Marianne, seeing that he was not going to back down any further, readily agreed.

Two hours later I was on a shuttle leaving for outer space, sitting next to Rashid. My head swam with the knowledge of all that had gone on during the past 24 hours, making me feel rather sick to my stomach. It didn't help that I had never been on a shuttle before, or on a plane, or a boat, or a vehicle of any kind except for a car.

As we landed in the space port, I didn't know why, but I felt distraught over leaving Rashid. Over the last 12 hours or so he had been my only protector, and in this new place I knew I was going to feel utterly alone.

Rashid dropped me off at a place called the St. Peter's Orphanage before driving back to the space port to catch the return flight. Before Rashid left he stopped an said to me, "Listen, I know that all of this has been very hard for you, but you're going to have to trust the people here to take care of whatever else you may need."

My eyes filled with tears as I said, "Please don't leave, Mr. Rashid. I need you, and besides, you still haven't told me what happened to my dad and brother."

He wiped away my tears and said, "Someday we'll meet again, and by then I should have a lot more answers. Until that time, you need to stay here. You just watch, everything will turn out alright." And with that, he left.

~ ~ ~



"I don't wan' 'o hear anudda word from ye, now git out o' hea ya li'l brat!" spat Mr. Sibbs, the caretaker at St. Peter's Orphanage.

I stumbled and fell down onto the concrete, scraping both my knees and hitting them hard. I turned back to look at the caretaker, giving a mixed look of confusion, astonishment, and indignation.

"We don' wan' the likes o' ye at dis hea place! Now go on, git!"

While staring at the sheer fury on his face, I quickly noticed the mischievous looks of amusement and concealed laughter of the children gathering unnoticed behind him. Seeing that this was in no way a joke (It wasn't to Mr. Sibbs, anyway.), I quickly picked up my things and

ran out into the city suburbs.

As I finally collapsed next to an old, run-down building, I went over the series of events that had led to my 'expellment.' Apparently, the other children at St. Peter's had not had a decent laugh in a while, so they decided that it would be good fun to play a little joke on the new

girl! (I had only been there about two weeks.)

The previous night, they sneaked down into the basement and shut off the water to the entire building. Then they opened a few select valves, carefully manipulating the water flow to a pipe just on the other side of the bedroom wall belonging to Mrs. Copenhagen, the old, cranky lady who owned the place. By the time morning came, her entire bedroom was completely flooded, and poor Mrs. Copenhagen woke up to see her slippers floating right next to her bed! She was still bailing the water out of her bedroom when I left! Needless to say, she was NOT amused.

Of course, I had nothing to do with the whole affair. I didn't even know how to get to the basement, much less know where the controls were to the water, MUCH LESS have ANY idea how to reroute the water flow!!! But my fate was sealed when Mrs. Copenhagen found a miscellaneous shoe next to the water heater that was determined to be mine. (They had apparently taken it from beside my bed when I was asleep.)

'Of all the things I expected to happen this was certainly not one of them.' I thought miserably, fingering the small bag that held my only belongings.

~ ~ ~

By that evening I was so exhausted from fatigue and hunger that I could hardly stand straight, so I decided that I had better find a place to stay for the night. I came upon an old building with a faded sign reading "Matilda's Home for Children" and, reasoning that it was better than the ground outside, entered.

I wrinkled my nose as I took in the putrid scents of the filthy former apartment building. "Whacha want, kid?" came a voice from over a counter next to the door.

"I'd like a place to stay, if you don't mind, sir." I requested, somewhat timidly.

"We got that here. How much you have?"

I stopped, confused for a moment. "How much what?"

"Money! What'd ya think?" he snapped, becoming irritated at my question.

"Oh." I answered, quickly digging out some of the money Rashid had given me before leaving and placing it hastily on the gringy countertop.

"Yeah, that'll do. You can sleep over there." He pointed to a small, unoccupied cot in the corner of the large room.

Sleeping on the cot was not an easy task, as it was riddled with holes, but soon I was so tired that I fell asleep anyway, dreaming troubled dreams.



The next morning I was awakened by a rough shake on the shoulder.

"Hurry up, Sleeping Beauty! Breakfast ain't gonna be served forever, ya know!" I jumped up with a start and ran over to where the last few children were getting their portion of watery oatmeal.

As soon as I had finished, they put me to work cleaning up everything. Somehow, I was the only one who had been left to work on the cleanup, and I felt several pangs of unfairness, but was too nervous to say anything.

Thus went the entire day. It was rather monotonous, so by the time cleanup came for lunch I was just grateful for something to do. As soon as I was served supper, however, I got a hard shove toward the door.

"Sorry, that's all you get. Now beat it!" said the man from behind the counter.

"What?!" I asked in astonishment.

"That's all you paid for, so that's all you get, now get out of here before I get really mad!" He then opened the door, shoved me out, and closed it with a BANG!

'Is this what EVERYONE on this colony is like?!' I thought. 'I don't think I'll ever get used to this.'



I was rudely interrupted from my thoughts of self-pity by several coughs, hacks, and wheezes coming from a short distance away.

"Come on, buddy, you can make it. I'll find somebody who'll help you, even if it's the last thing I do!" I heard a voice say.

I debated whether to investigate or not, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to follow the voice and find out what was going on. The coughing and wheezing got louder as I ran closer to it, and finally after turning a corner I was able to make out two boys, one on the ground, and the other standing over him. They both looked about my age, although the boy on the ground was thinner than anyone I had ever seen in my lifetime. (He was the one doing the wheezing.) The other one had long, straight brown hair, and was looking over the first boy with a very concerned expression on his face.

"What do you want?" the second one demanded as soon as he saw me, looking me over warily.

"I - I was just wondering if there was someone over here." I stuttered.

"Well now you know, so leave us alone! The last thing we need is somebody staring at us!"

"Who's your friend?" I asked, ignoring his previous statement. "Does he need help?" My question was quite unnecessary, since it was obvious that he needed all the help he could get!

"He doesn't need any help from YOU, unless you've got a hot meal, warm blankets, and an awful lot of money for a hospital bill!" The boy snapped.

I stopped, thinking about the bowl of soup I'd hastily stuffed into my small bag. The more I thought about the soup, the more I wanted it, and it wouldn't make any difference to these two boys if I just walked away right now; they didn't even know that I had it.

I was just about to walk away when I took one last glance at the boy lying on the cold ground, coughing miserably, and I simply couldn't bring myself to do it.

I quickly walked over next to the two of them and handed my little bag to the boy standing over his friend. "Hold this." I instructed. He looked like he was ready to pommel me at any minute should I make even one wrong move, but I ignored him and knelt down next to the hapless

orphan. "I'm afraid this isn't much, but it'll have to do." I said softly, taking the thin shawl I had been given upon my arrival at St. Peter's and gently spreading it over the boy lying on the ground.

He moaned, as if it hurt him, and the brown-haired boy knelt down next to him saying, "Don't worry, Solo, it's going to be okay."

'So Solo's his name.' I thought to myself, but said nothing as I took my bag back and drew the soup out of it, careful not to spill any.

Both boys looked at me wide-eyed as I fed the soup to Solo. "Thank... *hack* ...you... *cough* Thank you... *cough* ...so very,... *wheeze* ...very much..." At this point, Solo couldn't go on due to the uncontrollable bout of coughs that shook his frail frame.

I was touched by his thankfulness, and thought to myself that he had probably never experienced such kindness before, except from his friend. "What's your name?" I asked the brown-haired boy sitting on the other side of Solo, watching him carefully.

"Who needs a name?" he muttered softly, then burst out, "Oh no, Solo!"

Solo had begun coughing harder, his breathing more labored, and I instinctively knew that he wasn't going to last much longer. "I'll leave you two alone." I murmured quietly, walking silently over to another side of the building. I could still hear them, but at least they had a bit more privacy.

The brown-haired, nameless boy thanked me with his eyes as I left. "Don't worry, Solo. You're going... to be... o..kay..." he said, more to convince himself than anything else.

"Hey,... *cough* ...you know what?... *wheeze, hack* ...I think... *hack* ...we made... *cough* ...a pretty good... *hack* ...duo,... *cough, cough* ...don't you?" Solo asked softly, his speech breaking frequently.

I couldn't see it, but the other boy's eyes filled with tears as he said, "Yeah, that's why your name was so ironic... because you were never alone... not with me here!"

"Yeah... *cough* ...never... *hack, wheeze* ...a..l.o.n.e... *cough, wheeze, hack, cough, cough* ...a... fine... duo... *cough* ...indeed......" Then he lay still, the silence that followed filling the air with a horrible emptiness.

I shuddered as the word "SOLOOO!!!" pierced the fast-approaching night.

After a few minutes I got up and walked back to them, stopping when I saw the brown-haired boy's tear-stained eyes staring thoughtfully at his deceased best friend.

He slowly turned around when he heard me come, and as I gazed into his violet eyes I knew that I had never seen more pain and suffering.



I stopped and listened closely when I saw that he was saying something, murmuring so quietly that he was barely audible.

"Duo.... my name is Duo."