Alright, here it goes. I apologize to all who waited in anticipation for this chapter to come, this story to finish. I cannot say it is because the plot became overwhelming, or that something tragic happened in my life. All I can say is that one day, sitting at my computer, something didn't feel right to me anymore. So I moved on and away from it. All that changed tonight however, for reasons I'm not sure of at the moment.

So what has happened since my last post over a year ago? My life has happened. My once coveted permit has become a full-fledged license; the boy with the mohawk is no longer a part of my life, having been replaced by other boys who left with similar let downs.

In a so far lonesome summer, I came across this chapter, finished in full yet never posted. Hopefully this is the kickstart I need to push me to finish this story. Yet this story has changed so much in my mind during that time, it's like reading someone else's work. I have no idea where this plot is headed, but the endpoint in my mind is clear. Thank you again to all who have read this story at one point or another. Especially to

Chain-Shinigami, whose multiple reviews made me smile tonight and pushed me into posting this.

Befound's popularity grew, most likely because Duo fit in like a missing jigsaw piece. They played shows every weekend, one night at the Firehouse, the next at the Graceland. Life seemed good and going better than it ever had before.

Coast to coast, been avoiding all your phone calls, trying to figure out how I fucked it up this time

Trouble began when they started touring in late August. The first morning, Duo awoke with a strange feeling that something was wrong. He entered into the small sitting area of their hotel room and saw a scene like one he had seen everyday for at least a month now. Daven was standing drinking a cup of coffee, Mike had his headphones on and was drumming absent mindedly with his sticks and Josh was strumming lightly on his guitar while singing under his breath. Suddenly Duo felt out of place. He didn't belong here; he belonged back with people who understood the shit he had been through. Duo blew up; he began yelling and cursing at them. Suddenly he was angry at the fact that they weren't gundam pilots. He was angry that they had no idea what he had been through, but most importantly, he was mad at himself for never telling them anything.

They just stared at him and listened as he yelled out everything about his past, everything he had been through, yelled out his frustration about Heero, and yelled about how he had been a coward to leave his old life behind. After he was done, great heaving breaths wracked his body as he stood glaring at them. Daven set down his coffee and the paper he had been reading and slowly approached him.

"Duo, we never knew," he shook his head a little before continuing, "but now that we do, we'll try to help you through this. You're not a coward; you were trying to find out where you fit in besides being a gundam pilot. If you had never done that, we'd be stuck somewhere in Seattle looking for a bass player rather than starting a cross-country tour."

Duo calmed down. He wasn't mad at them, he was mad about leaving his life behind. He had treated the time he had spent as a gundam pilot like a math test you throw out at the end of the quarter. But now, he realized that he couldn't pick that paper back out of the wastebasket and try to smooth out the wrinkles; he could never go back to how it used to be. All he could do now was live the life he was living and let things fall into place as they may. He smiled weakly at Daven and the others,

"Sorry. I wasn't mad at you guys; I think I just needed to get that out. You all have been so open about everything to me; I suppose I felt guilty that even though you knew nothing about my past you still accepted me anyway."

Without a penny in my pocket, there's nothing I can say, there's nothing I can do

The tour went better than expected. They played to sold out clubs in towns where there had been no way their name had spread to previously. It was never spoken aloud by anyone in the band, but each and every one of them attributed the success to the fact that Duo felt that he belonged entirely after his rant the first morning of the tour. He was able to confide in each of them about his problems. They listened and tried the best they could to help him out when he was feeling down, which was enough for Duo.

/

In mid-September they returned to Seattle and with the proceeds were able to cut their first record. They produced it themselves in a small studio in the University district they had rented out. Daven's girlfriend Lisia did the cover artwork and Mike's girlfriend Dee took photos of the band. For their first endeavor, they put out a surprisingly high-quality job. Befound had their first record.

Bright eyes, I'm holding you close but you seem so far

On the day Lisia was doing lettering styles for the band's handle, Duo asked a question he had never thought of until that moment,

"What does Befound mean anyway?" Daven looked at him. He and Duo had gone over to Lisia's studio in Georgetown to hang out and check out her artwork. He thought for a moment and then answered,

"Well it's kind of a take off of profound. It's something you never realized was there until suddenly you just did. It's a discovery you make with out looking for one, it's one you just kind of 'found'." Duo smiled a little before replying,

"Nice."

Befound, that's what his love for Heero had been. He hadn't been looking for it, it just happened one day. He still loved Heero, and it didn't hurt so much that Heero didn't love him back, what hurt was that Heero was incapable of loving anyone. Duo knew it wasn't Heero's fault, and in a way, that made it hurt even worse.

Heero always seemed stoic; inside and out. The only thing that gave Duo any hope at all were those cerulean orbs. They held no emotion on the surface, but Duo could see a brightness about them that suggested a depth to Heero's soul. Back then, he tried to divulge the secrets of those depths. He would chatter on endlessly in order to gain Heero's attention. This wasn't how Duo had wanted it to be like, but he had no idea how to approach Heero. Whenever he opened his mouth to say something of intelligence, a spew of silly chatter would suddenly replace the comment almost off his tongue.

/

Befound was Daven's brainchild. He brought together the four original members and had be the driving force behind recruiting Duo. Daven wrote all of Befound's songs and the lyrics. Simply put, Befound was Daven's. Lisia told Duo once about how Daven had been the lead singer back when the band first started out. Josh had taken over the vocal lead when Befound had changed sounds.

After their summer tour, Daven began to push Duo more and more into involvement with the band. The double D's, as the their friends and following began to call them, wrote songs that took on a different twist once again. Befound slowly transitioned from their Emo sound comparable to Weezer, to a darker, deep sound much like that of Injected or Fall Out Boy. This may have been due to the fact that Duo was heavily into the use of language and music both bands and used.

The band on a whole had been waiting for the change. They wanted something deeper than they weren't getting from the upbeat they had been playing before. Josh willingly resigned his position of lead singer and went back to being the lead guitarist happily. This change over was the reason Duo Maxwell became the lead singer.

It all happened one night when Duo was working with some lyrics on his balcony. He sang to himself as he finished each line and after a short period lost track of time and forgot the fact that he had invited the band over that evening. When the guys had walked into his apartment, they saw him through the open glass door and more than that, they heard him through the aperture. By the time of their next show, Befound was an entirely new band.

Duo's voice was deep and sensual. He conveyed darkness and the unknown. The words slurred off his tongue like smoke. A new crowd began to follow Befound. Gothic girls with dark clothes and pale faces came to watch Duo. Duo found an outlet in the music. He could be as angry as he wanted up on that stage. He could yell out lyrics and be angry at the world and then be as happy as could be after the show. When he sang slower more sensual songs, he imagined Heero in the audience. Heero, watching only Duo, he would finally understand what Duo had meant that summer day almost a year ago. Duo knew, however, that he might never see Heero again.

/

Now, after not thinking of Heero for over six months, Duo suddenly found himself caught up once more with the other pilot. How could Heero have found him now? Duo had done a supreme hacking job to cover his tracks and change his history while still maintaining his name. Duo wondered if Heero had known where he was the entire time and suddenly out of the blue decided to blow into his life like an unexpected cold front. Whatever the case may be, the Heero Yuy that came up to him tonight was not the Heero Yuy he had talked to that day in June.

More than trying to figure out what had changed about Heero, it seemed easier to try to figure out what hadn't. His physical features were the same, yet they were more mature and his general expression had relaxed. His voice was the same pitch, but it had lost most of its monotone. Long gone were the traditional green tanktop and spandex shorts; they were replaced by an Injected t-shirt and baggy jeans. There were only two things Duo had found had stayed the same: Heero's hair and his eyes. Mussy bangs accompanied by that deep brown had not changed at all and still partially concealed deep blue eyes that still had that same stare.

Duo ran one hand through his bangs as he steered through the dark streets of Seattle. He had told Heero he would call him. How was he supposed to talk to someone he had given up his life to get away from? He desperately wanted to be able to talk to Heero earlier that night, but with the sudden shock of it all, he readily ran over to help out his band mates.

Why should I try? I know it'll never get that far, I know it'll never get that…

Duo was frazzled the rest of his drive home. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, messed with the radio, mussed up his bangs, and muttered to himself. Absently he checked his watch and found that it was almost midnight.

"Man the night is still young… too bad the guys all had too get home to their girlfriends. As if Lisia and Dee weren't giving off enough estrogen, man now there's Viv in the mix. Well they are a pretty cool bunch of chicks so I don't mind it too much," Duo mumbled to himself as he pulled into his driveway. He still was pissed that Josh, his once favorite drinking buddy had Viv move in with him after meeting her at Lisia's first showing in one of the art galleries on the Eastside. No more were their late night after parties; even though Duo was still under age he managed to score some booze if he wanted, more often than not he didn't but he liked to watch Josh get smashed and hit on any girl within ten feet.

But it wasn't so much that he had lost a drinking partner, it was that he was the only single one left. Most of the time they all got together in a group situation and it wasn't as if suddenly Duo was excluded from the rest of group because he was single. In fact the atmosphere in the group never changed, it was Duo's perception that changed.

Maybe it was also the fact that Duo could never find anyone he was interested in. He wasn't sure if it was because he was still stuck on Heero so bad or if it was just that there was no one who was his type where he had been looking. But that was another problem, he really didn't know what "his type" was. Heero was his type, but Heero was an individual, not a set of parameters. This bit of information was divulged while Duo was having a conversation with Dee.

Dee stood over the counter in the apartment she and Mike shared and sighed when Duo came back from a club once more not finding anyone. She laid her cheek on the counter top and looked up at Duo,

"Man! You must be really picky!!" Duo just shrugged and drank a sip from his Fuze Lemon Ice Tea.

"Seriously! I mean what are your preferences even? Which way do you lean and what are you looking for??" She stretched her arm out and hit him lightly on the shoulder. It was then that Duo realized his problem,

"I don't think I have any preferences. I don't lean either way and I have no idea what I'm looking for. Basically I'm aimlessly looking for a replacement for a person that I lost a year ago," he swished the juice in it's glass bottle and looked over at her.

"Oh Duo," she sighed and moved over to the other side of the counter, "You need to find yourself before you can find anyone else. This Heero guy has robbed you of your abilities to be attracted to anyone, of either gender for that matter. Your still mixed up, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power to un-mix you and make you happy!" she threw her arms around Duo and gave him a huge hug.

Maybe all that would change now. Maybe he wouldn't be the lone wolf, hanging around without anyone to kiss under the mistletoe this year. But who knew really. Duo had finally really become happy with his situation. He realized he didn't need anyone to make him happy, he could do it just fine himself. But did that mean he didn't need Heero anymore? Duo wasn't sure, and he felt like he needed to find out fast.

Without even realizing it, Duo had picked up the phone and was dialing the operator. In a few seconds he was connected to the front desk at the Weston. After another few minutes, the line was connected to the room of one Heero Yuy. As the phone began to ring it finally sunk in what Duo was doing. But before he could hit the end button on his cordless, a gruff voice heavy with sleep answered,

"Hello?" now Duo felt like a real bastard, he woke him up for gawd sakes!

"Um, yeah, hiya Heero, how's it going bud?" he managed to babble out, still not quite sure why he had called.

"Duo? I wasn't expecting you to call tonight so I went to bed right after I got back from the show,"

"Yeah, well I wasn't really expecting to myself, but it just kind of ended up that way. Sorry for waking you up and all but I didn't get much of a chance to talk to ya earlier,"

"Well if you give me a few minutes, I could meet you down in the lobby and we could hang out here and catch up on things," Duo was wondering if this was what he had been anticipating and figured it was better than nothing,

"Sure, but it might be more like a half an hour or so since I need to get cleaned up a little. Man you wouldn't believe how much you sweat being up on stage!" 'smooth Maxwell, gross him out by telling him how smelly you are, jeeze…' Duo mentally punched himself, but to his surprise Heero laughed and replied,

"I can only imagine, but I'm sure you would have been even worse off if you had still been in your old black attire from back in the days. So I guess I'll meet you down in the main lobby in a half an hour or so,"

"Yeah, I'll be there! See ya in a few bud!" and Duo pressed the little green button marked 'END' as he ran into his bathroom to clean himself up.