1 Title: Time and Time Again
2 Author: Anna
Co-Author: Chase
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Chase and the original Gundam Wing characters are not mine.
Alias list: Anna Maxwell aka Gabi Russell. Chase Yuy aka Elise Thate & Jenn Estes.
Author's notes: This is an AU set after the Rain series written by Chase and myself. I just had an idea and decided to try to run with it a little. If you aren't familiar with what happens in the Rain series, I suggest you read that first. If you don't, none of this will make very much sense at all. Spoiler for Rain: In the Rain series, both Heero and Duo die in battle, and Chase and Anna are sent home. In Chase's story line, the girls are brought back to the beginning of the war where everyone was alive and start over. This story is written as if they were sent back, but never returned to the Gundam Wing world. The year is 2013. Chase and Anna are sharing an apartment in Chicago, just out of college. They have returned to their original names, Jenny and Gabi. But peace never lasts for long.
Chapter One: Bad Sense of Déjà vu
Gabi bustled around the small apartment that she shared with Jenny. It was a Thursday night, and as all Thursday nights with them, it was quiet. It was even more quiet than usual because the smaller girl was out of town at a magna convention.
Jenny was due back Saturday and the older girl wanted all the laundry and cleaning done before she came home. She always had a ton of dirty clothes when she came back from conventions. Gabi didn't know what she was going to do with that old Otaku shirt. It certainly had been around the block a few times.
As she sorted laundry by the washer, she made sure to stick her hands in all the pockets to check for abandoned items. They were both terrible about leaving jewelry and lipsticks in them, and the lipsticks were havoc to get out of clothing once sent through the washer. She should know; she'd done it three times that year already.
She stuck her hand into her blue jeans pocket and frowned when her nails hit something hard. She could have sworn she hadn't left anything in them the day she wore them. Slowly she pulled out a tarnished silver chain, with a small star charm on it. Her mind immediately flashed back to a different necklace. It wasn't the same as this, but it was dang close. Her frown deepened when she realized that neither herself nor her roommate owned a necklace like it. She set it on the counter and headed upstairs for the towels she forgot.
Deep in thought, she was completely zoned out as she grabbed the hand towel on the rack, and stuck her hand in the shower for the bath towel. Her actions froze to a stand still as flesh met her wrist, and fingers encircled it. Her throat constricted until she worked out a strangled yelp. She jerked back, wrenching her hand away from the thing in the shower. Visions of the movie Psycho came to her mind. Thankfully, she wasn't the one in the shower.
"Who the blazes are you?" she hissed, backing quickly towards the door.
The figure in her shower clucked its tongue distastefully. "I don't remember you being so jumpy, Anna."
If she had been shocked before, that was the dozy. No one had called her that in almost ten years. Not since…
"How the heck…" she breathed, "How can… He, He, Heero Yuy…"
"So glad you remember." He remarked, pulling the shower curtain aside.
She gasped, taking in his well-known face. He was the same, except older. He still had those looks, his face not marred by scars. However, there was a scar running from the tip of his thumb that snaked its way almost to the crook of his elbow that unmistakably defined that last battle. Carefully, she reached out and clamped a hand over his shoulder. It made solid contact. She wasn't hallucinating.
"My stars. You're real. You're in the real world." She said softly. "But you died…"
A smirk crossed his tired features. "As a friend of ours once said, how can you kill death?"
She paled and leaned against the sink. "My God, Duo. Duo's alive?"
Heero nodded. "We all are. We always were."
A weak laugh escaped her. "I'm not a widow anymore."
"Technically yes, you are. You weren't married in this world. Only in ours." He replied.
She looked bewildered. "So, you were always alive. How can that be? We buried you. Cried at your funeral. They sent us back and I lost… How?"
Heero sighed. "Do you have any coffee? This could take a while to explain."
She nodded. "Come downstairs, I'll get us a cup. I think this is the one time in my life I wish I drank. I could use something stiff."
He arched an eyebrow.
She thought about past events and shook her head. "Never mind."
The young woman led Heero downstairs through the kitchen and into the living room.
"Have a seat. I'll get us the coffee."
"Thanks, Anna."
She stood at the counter staring off into space as she waited for the coffee to drip into the pot. It was agonizingly slow, as she was desperate to get in there and talk to her best friend's husband. Where have they been for ten years? What were they doing? Did they remarry? What is he doing here now? She was sucked back into reality as a scalding heat met the flesh on her hand that rested on the coffee maker. She pulled it away with a sharp intake of breath and reached to the cabinet for her ceramic mugs. She took them down one at a time, one blue and one purple.
"Do you like it with sugar, cream, or just straight?" she called.
"Straight, thanks." He answered.
"Kay." She poured with a sense of wonder. It was almost natural for her to be asking how he liked his coffee. Someone she'd known well for four years, shared a best friend with, and eaten three meals a day with. She'd seen him die on that battlefield along with her husband. And here she was some ten years later, pouring him coffee. She dumped sugar into hers, and took the mugs into the living room.
He stood as she entered and took the mug from her hand. They sat down across from each other on opposite yet matching couches. The couches were white and she considered it a miracle that she and Chase even owned them. Chase had wanted mostly dark covered furniture, but she had insisted on some light.
The two old friends watched each other intently. He looked the slim figure in front of him over, from the purple fuzzy sweater to the flared jeans, back up to the medium length hair twisted back in a periwinkle clip, to the silver rim glasses resting on her nose.
"You've changed, Anna." He said quietly.
She looked at him, from the black mock neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up to the khaki slacks, to the scar on his arm, to the piercing blue eyes.
"So have you, Heero." She replied softly.
"So what do the two of you do now?" he asked.
"Well, I have a medical degree, but I haven't started a practice yet. Jen-Chase is a journalist, but she mostly draws and sells mangas. She's really very good at it; we go to Japan every summer now. She's a huge hit at the conventions." She said smiling. They'd done a lot since high school.
Heero nodded. "I knew she'd be good at anything. If you don't practice, what do you do?"
"Oh, I'm actually in the process of publishing my first novel, and I teach composition at a high school downtown." She smirked. "Don't worry. I contribute."
He chuckled. "I'm sure you both do. Where is Chase?"
"She's out of town, she should be back in a day or two. Won't she be surprised to see you here." She mused. Her look turned serious. "What happened Heero? How and why are you here? What happened to the others? Why now?" she asked.
He set his half-empty cup down on the coaster on the table and sighed. "It's a long story. Don't think your tears were wasted all those years ago, we were dead. It started when they took us to the hospital for autopsy. Dr. J. couldn't let it be and diverted the 'car' to his lab. There he used an experimental drug on us. It started my heart immediately. It took them forever to stabilize me, and they thought I would be a vegetable once they accomplished it. I was in a coma for four months. They had a harder time of it with Duo. They administered dose after dose after dose before it took effect on him. Slowly and surely we recovered." He paused and forced a small smile. "We were too late. Almost eight months had passed since the day we died and the day we set foot on Quatre's estate again. I'll be honest with you, it was the third most emotional experience of my life that reunion was. Quatre told us the next day that you'd gone, you wouldn't remember, and Trowa had destroyed both yours and Chase's laptops. Duo and I both knew right then you were the one's not coming back, and there was no way to get to you. Even if we could, you wouldn't remember." As he said the last sentence he stared closely at the ex-Star pilot. "But you remember. How?" he asked.
She had been sitting with her hands around her mug, her jaw open several inches, having trouble digesting all this information at once. If they had stayed, if they had waited… "I-uh, that is we," she sighed, "It didn't work. It's true. We were supposed to be sent back with no memory of what happened to us in the Gundam world. We'd blink, and we'd be back on my street four years earlier. Didn't work that way. We blinked all right, but it sure as heck wasn't Kansas we landed back in. We did land back four years like we were supposed too, but it was two days before the day we'd been taken the first time. Go figure. It took me a minute to realize where I was, and I called her. We both remembered much to our misery. We never figured out why." She said. "What did you guys do?" she asked.
Heero sighed again. It seemed to be the going theme of the evening. "We all eventually went our separate ways. Wufei went back and helped the government rebuild the L5 colony. Quatre continued to run his father's business with his sister's aid. Trowa disappeared with the circus one day. Duo took it hard. I mean, we remembered too, what happened the day we died. Then, to be put through all that just to find that you were both gone… Neither of us took it well. He disappeared one day with a promise of 'I'll be back'. Yeah, right. He showed up six months later, sick as a dog. When he got better I went with him to L2 to rebuild the church he grew up in. After that was done, I left him there and went back to Earth. I joined the Preventers and made my way to second in command under Lady Une. Life was peaceful." He finished and shrugged.
"What happened to the Gundams?" she questioned.
His gaze hit the floor. "They were all destroyed but two."
Her eyes became wider than saucers. "They what?!?"
He gave her a withering look. "Anna, the gundams weren't needed anymore. They were just instruments of war. You know that."
"Which ones?" she sighed.
"Wufei took the Star and the Altron and detonated them somewhere in China. Trowa took the Galaxy and the Heavyarms and detonated them in France. Quatre took the Deathscythe and blew it up somewhere." He answered.
"That leaves Zero and Sandrock. Why the heck Zero and Sandrock? That's the weirdest combination I've ever heard of." She exclaimed.
"Defense and offense, I guess. They went in a museum memorial along with Talgeese." Heero said with disgust.
"A museum. That's…quite a dusty finish for our old friends." She said, repressing a growl.
He smiled and nodded. Heero picked up his mug and took a sip.
She followed his actions, and then set her cup back down. "Heero, I'm thrilled beyond words to see you again, and to know that Duo's alive, but I've got to ask. Why are you here now? And how did you get here?"
Silence filled the town house as he avoided the question as long as possible. "I don't know how to answer that." He said softly.
"Heero, even after ten years, I know when you're messing with me. Why are you here now?" she asked again gently.
"You never were one to be fooled, were you?" he mused dryly.
"Iie, Heero-chan, iie."
"Everything was going great in the world up to two months ago. It's different than it was the last times we had uprisings. Before it was an always-disgruntled soldier still looking to pick a fight. This time, it's a younger generation. They're being trained for months to a year to be professional assassins. Their practice targets include some of the minor diplomats of the world. They call themselves OWN, Our World Now. And they're getting better all the time." He told her.
During his explanation she'd risen from her spot and came to stand by the window. She'd figured out what he was here for when he got to 'up to'. There was no way. She and Chase had lived in the real world for too long now. There was no way on earth they could go back now and fight another war. They were too old for that kind of thing. She groaned inwardly as it started to rain torrentially outside. She turned and gave him and even stare.
"Do you have any idea the amount of emotional stress you've created in half an hour? Do you have any idea what this is going to do to Chase just knowing you're alive? Knowing we probably made a rash choice in going back so soon? Knowing that for ten years, we carried a secret that revolutionized our lives here forever? You know, if we had stayed, I'd have a nine-year-old son right now? Duo's and mine. And why are you looking at me like that?"
Heero stood next to her and glared down at her. "I know perfectly well what this could to Chase. She was my wife for heaven's sake. That's why we never wanted a child of our own. It would be the most unstable thing the world had ever seen. Don't you think that for ten years all of us carried that burden of making rash choices? Quatre felt the guiltiest for sending you back. It was hell on earth for a lot of people, Anna. I'm sorry you and Chase had to face it alone, but it wasn't one big counseling session for us either." Heero snapped.
She glared right back up at him, for the first time realizing how much taller he was than her. "At least you had a reason you could talk about! If people asked us questions like why are you so depressed all the time, we couldn't tell them we were technically fifteen-year-old widows! So all they could assume was that we were socially aggressive because we were dropped on our heads as kids or whatever. We both were, but that's besides the point." She sighed. "I'm sorry Heero. I honestly never expected to see you or even be reminded of everything like this again."
"Yeah, me neither. Gomen." He relented.
"There's no way we can go back and fight another war, Heero. There's just no possible way." She said firmly.
"I'm not asking you to go back and fight another war. The war came here to you." He replied.
"Nani?" she exclaimed.
"I can't say how, but OWN came to your world the same way I did. Now they're planning to take over the world in the past to control the world of the future. I need you and Chase to help us stop them."
"That's the only reason you came back? To employ our help because we used to pilot gundams?" she whispered.
"No. That's one of many reasons. We also came back because we're missing two important parts of which we are. It's one part Star, and one part Galaxy." He said.
She leaned her head against the window and watched the drops pelt the glass pane. "Aww, heck." She smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "For old time's sake, count me in."
He grinned briefly. "Good. I knew I'd see you two again. But for now, Chase can't know about this."
"What!?"
(An: very AU, I know, but it's fun! Let me know how you like it. Arigato!)
Jenny ducked between the people of the party. Several of the people that had held the convention were throwing a huge party. She growled as one more person knocked into her. "Too many drunks," she muttered as she stepped outside, breathing in the cool air thankfully.
She slumped down in a chair, gazing at the stars. She laid her head back and swirled the soda in her cup that remained around. "Never knew this would be so stressful."
"Aw, c'mon! You can handle a little stress!" a voice said from behind her.
Jenny recognized that voice, but it couldn't be… She turned and saw the tall American man with a long braid swung over his left shoulder. His violet eyes smiled, and he grinned his same old grin. He wore a dark black shirt and black slacks. Still the Shinagami. "Duo…"
"Hiya, Chase. It's been a while, ne?"
She adjusted the black glasses that rested on her nose and stood with her mouth hanging open. "Duo?" she repeated, not completely sure. She'd made the mistake once of seeing someone at one of these otaku get – togethers and mistook him momentarily for Trowa. "Is it really you?"
Duo continued grinning. "'Course it is! You kidding?" He looked her over. Her hair had grown and been lightened several shades so that it was more of a strawberry blonde. Duo noticed she now wore glasses that hid the expression of her eyes. He smirked. "What happened to those green eyes or yours, ne, Mrs. Yuy? They're brown now."
Chase smiled and ran to him, hugging him. She couldn't explain how he was here, but it was a miracle. She didn't care why he was here. "Anna's going to be so happy…"
His grin faded into a deep frown. "I can't tell Anna I'm here yet. Come on. Do you have a place we can talk?"
"Yeah. I'm staying in the hotel down the street."
"Good. This'll be one long story, Chasey."
A/N: Let us know if we should go on!
2 Author: Anna
Co-Author: Chase
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Chase and the original Gundam Wing characters are not mine.
Alias list: Anna Maxwell aka Gabi Russell. Chase Yuy aka Elise Thate & Jenn Estes.
Author's notes: This is an AU set after the Rain series written by Chase and myself. I just had an idea and decided to try to run with it a little. If you aren't familiar with what happens in the Rain series, I suggest you read that first. If you don't, none of this will make very much sense at all. Spoiler for Rain: In the Rain series, both Heero and Duo die in battle, and Chase and Anna are sent home. In Chase's story line, the girls are brought back to the beginning of the war where everyone was alive and start over. This story is written as if they were sent back, but never returned to the Gundam Wing world. The year is 2013. Chase and Anna are sharing an apartment in Chicago, just out of college. They have returned to their original names, Jenny and Gabi. But peace never lasts for long.
Chapter One: Bad Sense of Déjà vu
Gabi bustled around the small apartment that she shared with Jenny. It was a Thursday night, and as all Thursday nights with them, it was quiet. It was even more quiet than usual because the smaller girl was out of town at a magna convention.
Jenny was due back Saturday and the older girl wanted all the laundry and cleaning done before she came home. She always had a ton of dirty clothes when she came back from conventions. Gabi didn't know what she was going to do with that old Otaku shirt. It certainly had been around the block a few times.
As she sorted laundry by the washer, she made sure to stick her hands in all the pockets to check for abandoned items. They were both terrible about leaving jewelry and lipsticks in them, and the lipsticks were havoc to get out of clothing once sent through the washer. She should know; she'd done it three times that year already.
She stuck her hand into her blue jeans pocket and frowned when her nails hit something hard. She could have sworn she hadn't left anything in them the day she wore them. Slowly she pulled out a tarnished silver chain, with a small star charm on it. Her mind immediately flashed back to a different necklace. It wasn't the same as this, but it was dang close. Her frown deepened when she realized that neither herself nor her roommate owned a necklace like it. She set it on the counter and headed upstairs for the towels she forgot.
Deep in thought, she was completely zoned out as she grabbed the hand towel on the rack, and stuck her hand in the shower for the bath towel. Her actions froze to a stand still as flesh met her wrist, and fingers encircled it. Her throat constricted until she worked out a strangled yelp. She jerked back, wrenching her hand away from the thing in the shower. Visions of the movie Psycho came to her mind. Thankfully, she wasn't the one in the shower.
"Who the blazes are you?" she hissed, backing quickly towards the door.
The figure in her shower clucked its tongue distastefully. "I don't remember you being so jumpy, Anna."
If she had been shocked before, that was the dozy. No one had called her that in almost ten years. Not since…
"How the heck…" she breathed, "How can… He, He, Heero Yuy…"
"So glad you remember." He remarked, pulling the shower curtain aside.
She gasped, taking in his well-known face. He was the same, except older. He still had those looks, his face not marred by scars. However, there was a scar running from the tip of his thumb that snaked its way almost to the crook of his elbow that unmistakably defined that last battle. Carefully, she reached out and clamped a hand over his shoulder. It made solid contact. She wasn't hallucinating.
"My stars. You're real. You're in the real world." She said softly. "But you died…"
A smirk crossed his tired features. "As a friend of ours once said, how can you kill death?"
She paled and leaned against the sink. "My God, Duo. Duo's alive?"
Heero nodded. "We all are. We always were."
A weak laugh escaped her. "I'm not a widow anymore."
"Technically yes, you are. You weren't married in this world. Only in ours." He replied.
She looked bewildered. "So, you were always alive. How can that be? We buried you. Cried at your funeral. They sent us back and I lost… How?"
Heero sighed. "Do you have any coffee? This could take a while to explain."
She nodded. "Come downstairs, I'll get us a cup. I think this is the one time in my life I wish I drank. I could use something stiff."
He arched an eyebrow.
She thought about past events and shook her head. "Never mind."
The young woman led Heero downstairs through the kitchen and into the living room.
"Have a seat. I'll get us the coffee."
"Thanks, Anna."
She stood at the counter staring off into space as she waited for the coffee to drip into the pot. It was agonizingly slow, as she was desperate to get in there and talk to her best friend's husband. Where have they been for ten years? What were they doing? Did they remarry? What is he doing here now? She was sucked back into reality as a scalding heat met the flesh on her hand that rested on the coffee maker. She pulled it away with a sharp intake of breath and reached to the cabinet for her ceramic mugs. She took them down one at a time, one blue and one purple.
"Do you like it with sugar, cream, or just straight?" she called.
"Straight, thanks." He answered.
"Kay." She poured with a sense of wonder. It was almost natural for her to be asking how he liked his coffee. Someone she'd known well for four years, shared a best friend with, and eaten three meals a day with. She'd seen him die on that battlefield along with her husband. And here she was some ten years later, pouring him coffee. She dumped sugar into hers, and took the mugs into the living room.
He stood as she entered and took the mug from her hand. They sat down across from each other on opposite yet matching couches. The couches were white and she considered it a miracle that she and Chase even owned them. Chase had wanted mostly dark covered furniture, but she had insisted on some light.
The two old friends watched each other intently. He looked the slim figure in front of him over, from the purple fuzzy sweater to the flared jeans, back up to the medium length hair twisted back in a periwinkle clip, to the silver rim glasses resting on her nose.
"You've changed, Anna." He said quietly.
She looked at him, from the black mock neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up to the khaki slacks, to the scar on his arm, to the piercing blue eyes.
"So have you, Heero." She replied softly.
"So what do the two of you do now?" he asked.
"Well, I have a medical degree, but I haven't started a practice yet. Jen-Chase is a journalist, but she mostly draws and sells mangas. She's really very good at it; we go to Japan every summer now. She's a huge hit at the conventions." She said smiling. They'd done a lot since high school.
Heero nodded. "I knew she'd be good at anything. If you don't practice, what do you do?"
"Oh, I'm actually in the process of publishing my first novel, and I teach composition at a high school downtown." She smirked. "Don't worry. I contribute."
He chuckled. "I'm sure you both do. Where is Chase?"
"She's out of town, she should be back in a day or two. Won't she be surprised to see you here." She mused. Her look turned serious. "What happened Heero? How and why are you here? What happened to the others? Why now?" she asked.
He set his half-empty cup down on the coaster on the table and sighed. "It's a long story. Don't think your tears were wasted all those years ago, we were dead. It started when they took us to the hospital for autopsy. Dr. J. couldn't let it be and diverted the 'car' to his lab. There he used an experimental drug on us. It started my heart immediately. It took them forever to stabilize me, and they thought I would be a vegetable once they accomplished it. I was in a coma for four months. They had a harder time of it with Duo. They administered dose after dose after dose before it took effect on him. Slowly and surely we recovered." He paused and forced a small smile. "We were too late. Almost eight months had passed since the day we died and the day we set foot on Quatre's estate again. I'll be honest with you, it was the third most emotional experience of my life that reunion was. Quatre told us the next day that you'd gone, you wouldn't remember, and Trowa had destroyed both yours and Chase's laptops. Duo and I both knew right then you were the one's not coming back, and there was no way to get to you. Even if we could, you wouldn't remember." As he said the last sentence he stared closely at the ex-Star pilot. "But you remember. How?" he asked.
She had been sitting with her hands around her mug, her jaw open several inches, having trouble digesting all this information at once. If they had stayed, if they had waited… "I-uh, that is we," she sighed, "It didn't work. It's true. We were supposed to be sent back with no memory of what happened to us in the Gundam world. We'd blink, and we'd be back on my street four years earlier. Didn't work that way. We blinked all right, but it sure as heck wasn't Kansas we landed back in. We did land back four years like we were supposed too, but it was two days before the day we'd been taken the first time. Go figure. It took me a minute to realize where I was, and I called her. We both remembered much to our misery. We never figured out why." She said. "What did you guys do?" she asked.
Heero sighed again. It seemed to be the going theme of the evening. "We all eventually went our separate ways. Wufei went back and helped the government rebuild the L5 colony. Quatre continued to run his father's business with his sister's aid. Trowa disappeared with the circus one day. Duo took it hard. I mean, we remembered too, what happened the day we died. Then, to be put through all that just to find that you were both gone… Neither of us took it well. He disappeared one day with a promise of 'I'll be back'. Yeah, right. He showed up six months later, sick as a dog. When he got better I went with him to L2 to rebuild the church he grew up in. After that was done, I left him there and went back to Earth. I joined the Preventers and made my way to second in command under Lady Une. Life was peaceful." He finished and shrugged.
"What happened to the Gundams?" she questioned.
His gaze hit the floor. "They were all destroyed but two."
Her eyes became wider than saucers. "They what?!?"
He gave her a withering look. "Anna, the gundams weren't needed anymore. They were just instruments of war. You know that."
"Which ones?" she sighed.
"Wufei took the Star and the Altron and detonated them somewhere in China. Trowa took the Galaxy and the Heavyarms and detonated them in France. Quatre took the Deathscythe and blew it up somewhere." He answered.
"That leaves Zero and Sandrock. Why the heck Zero and Sandrock? That's the weirdest combination I've ever heard of." She exclaimed.
"Defense and offense, I guess. They went in a museum memorial along with Talgeese." Heero said with disgust.
"A museum. That's…quite a dusty finish for our old friends." She said, repressing a growl.
He smiled and nodded. Heero picked up his mug and took a sip.
She followed his actions, and then set her cup back down. "Heero, I'm thrilled beyond words to see you again, and to know that Duo's alive, but I've got to ask. Why are you here now? And how did you get here?"
Silence filled the town house as he avoided the question as long as possible. "I don't know how to answer that." He said softly.
"Heero, even after ten years, I know when you're messing with me. Why are you here now?" she asked again gently.
"You never were one to be fooled, were you?" he mused dryly.
"Iie, Heero-chan, iie."
"Everything was going great in the world up to two months ago. It's different than it was the last times we had uprisings. Before it was an always-disgruntled soldier still looking to pick a fight. This time, it's a younger generation. They're being trained for months to a year to be professional assassins. Their practice targets include some of the minor diplomats of the world. They call themselves OWN, Our World Now. And they're getting better all the time." He told her.
During his explanation she'd risen from her spot and came to stand by the window. She'd figured out what he was here for when he got to 'up to'. There was no way. She and Chase had lived in the real world for too long now. There was no way on earth they could go back now and fight another war. They were too old for that kind of thing. She groaned inwardly as it started to rain torrentially outside. She turned and gave him and even stare.
"Do you have any idea the amount of emotional stress you've created in half an hour? Do you have any idea what this is going to do to Chase just knowing you're alive? Knowing we probably made a rash choice in going back so soon? Knowing that for ten years, we carried a secret that revolutionized our lives here forever? You know, if we had stayed, I'd have a nine-year-old son right now? Duo's and mine. And why are you looking at me like that?"
Heero stood next to her and glared down at her. "I know perfectly well what this could to Chase. She was my wife for heaven's sake. That's why we never wanted a child of our own. It would be the most unstable thing the world had ever seen. Don't you think that for ten years all of us carried that burden of making rash choices? Quatre felt the guiltiest for sending you back. It was hell on earth for a lot of people, Anna. I'm sorry you and Chase had to face it alone, but it wasn't one big counseling session for us either." Heero snapped.
She glared right back up at him, for the first time realizing how much taller he was than her. "At least you had a reason you could talk about! If people asked us questions like why are you so depressed all the time, we couldn't tell them we were technically fifteen-year-old widows! So all they could assume was that we were socially aggressive because we were dropped on our heads as kids or whatever. We both were, but that's besides the point." She sighed. "I'm sorry Heero. I honestly never expected to see you or even be reminded of everything like this again."
"Yeah, me neither. Gomen." He relented.
"There's no way we can go back and fight another war, Heero. There's just no possible way." She said firmly.
"I'm not asking you to go back and fight another war. The war came here to you." He replied.
"Nani?" she exclaimed.
"I can't say how, but OWN came to your world the same way I did. Now they're planning to take over the world in the past to control the world of the future. I need you and Chase to help us stop them."
"That's the only reason you came back? To employ our help because we used to pilot gundams?" she whispered.
"No. That's one of many reasons. We also came back because we're missing two important parts of which we are. It's one part Star, and one part Galaxy." He said.
She leaned her head against the window and watched the drops pelt the glass pane. "Aww, heck." She smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "For old time's sake, count me in."
He grinned briefly. "Good. I knew I'd see you two again. But for now, Chase can't know about this."
"What!?"
(An: very AU, I know, but it's fun! Let me know how you like it. Arigato!)
Jenny ducked between the people of the party. Several of the people that had held the convention were throwing a huge party. She growled as one more person knocked into her. "Too many drunks," she muttered as she stepped outside, breathing in the cool air thankfully.
She slumped down in a chair, gazing at the stars. She laid her head back and swirled the soda in her cup that remained around. "Never knew this would be so stressful."
"Aw, c'mon! You can handle a little stress!" a voice said from behind her.
Jenny recognized that voice, but it couldn't be… She turned and saw the tall American man with a long braid swung over his left shoulder. His violet eyes smiled, and he grinned his same old grin. He wore a dark black shirt and black slacks. Still the Shinagami. "Duo…"
"Hiya, Chase. It's been a while, ne?"
She adjusted the black glasses that rested on her nose and stood with her mouth hanging open. "Duo?" she repeated, not completely sure. She'd made the mistake once of seeing someone at one of these otaku get – togethers and mistook him momentarily for Trowa. "Is it really you?"
Duo continued grinning. "'Course it is! You kidding?" He looked her over. Her hair had grown and been lightened several shades so that it was more of a strawberry blonde. Duo noticed she now wore glasses that hid the expression of her eyes. He smirked. "What happened to those green eyes or yours, ne, Mrs. Yuy? They're brown now."
Chase smiled and ran to him, hugging him. She couldn't explain how he was here, but it was a miracle. She didn't care why he was here. "Anna's going to be so happy…"
His grin faded into a deep frown. "I can't tell Anna I'm here yet. Come on. Do you have a place we can talk?"
"Yeah. I'm staying in the hotel down the street."
"Good. This'll be one long story, Chasey."
A/N: Let us know if we should go on!
