Title: My Tale part 2 of 2/? (second part of the second chapter)
Author: Pied Piper
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Warnings: bad words, references to prostitution, angst (it gets a little more depressing in this chapter folks)
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or Mickey Mouse ice cream cones.
Summary: A tale of the events that made Duo what he is today.
A/N: Yes yes, I know, I said this would be out by July and here it is, end of August, and I'm finally done. I truly am sorry. I've decided that I'm not going to make any more promises about when another chapter will be posted; it'll be posted when it's finished, and not a minute sooner. I can promise that I won't ever drop this story: it's one that I've been wanting to write for a long time, and it's one that I'm taking seriously. So no matter how long the wait is, there will be another chapter coming, I promise. Thank you for being patient.

I'd like to thank Amber (who's reviewed my story twice so far, making me very happy), Amaya Ume (I'm sorry you didn't like the Dickens references, they should end in this chapter), Roku (who made a lovely chapter suggestion that I was going to use until this one shoved itself in my face; don't know why I'm using it but it seemed to fit), Lillia Karasu (teehee, I just talked to you today). I want to give a special thanks to Ally127, who's reviewed every one of my chapters so far and given me such great encouragement. Thank you all!

Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death of a sparrow in the corner of a barn. -Tom Savage.

My Tale: Chapter 2, part 2
Nothingness and a Lone Dog

Lessons with Samson weren't anywhere's near as bad as Oliver feared and expected: the strong brunette didn't expect Oliver to do anything that day (or the next, for that matter) but to watch and ask and learn. "Remember," he said as they marched home under the fading artificial sunlight, Oliver gleefully munching on a Mickey Mouse ice cream cone that Samson had snatched for him as a reward for a hard day's work, "don't steal money from the buyers, 'cause most of them are poor like us and they need the money too. No, you wanna go right to the source and steal from the vendors; most of them get their stuff from the Alliance anyway, and the Alliance is the reason we're poor like we are. And if you get caught (which you probably will someday), you run like hell, and if they grab you, you drop the stuff you stole and say you're sorry, 'cause you are. No one likes to steal, but we gotta to survive, and most of the cops know that. If you're respectful, they'll normally let you go. Just don't lie, that pisses 'em off pretty quick. You got that, little buddy?"

Oliver nodded and took a bite out of Mickey Mouse's eye.

"Ready to go back?"

He nodded again, working on the other eye. It wasn't until after he finished his ice cream, and after he ate his portion of tomato soap later and was wandering around without much care, that Oliver noticed Solo's absence from his day: he had promised to join them later on, hadn't he? No, not really: he had said he would try, and Solo was probably a very busy man. He'd probably come tomorrow. With that thought in mind, Oliver finally settled down next to Rats, watching her spoon feed her rodent friends with a feeling of mixed curiosity and confusion.

But Solo didn't come the next day, or the day after that for that matter. Trudging back to his new found home with Samson, Oliver stopped suddenly and scanned the horizon, expecting against his will to see Solo's thin frame appear in the distance, but there was only nothingness, nothingness and a lone dog. Shaking his head, Oliver quickly follows his teacher, who was already through the front door and into the kitchen, which smelt pleasantly of food.

"What's cooking?" Samson asked a scrawny boy with glasses (named Four-Eyes, if Oliver could remember correctly), and then looked into a pot before an answer could be given. He let out a disgusted cry as he pulled a large, squirming rat out by the tail and dropped it on the floor, watching as it scurried out of the kitchen. "What the hell was that doing in there? Where's my sister?"

"Sick again," Four-Eyes replied, peering into the soup as though deciding whether it was worth saving or not, "She started throwing up shortly after you left."

Samson sighed. "Sick again? It's those damn rats of hers, always getting her sick."

"Hey, that might be true and all, but what would Rats be without her rats?"

"A normal kid, that's what." The longhaired man turned on his heel, and left.

Four-Eyes watched him go, then turned to Oliver. "You're the new kid right? Oliver ain't it?"

Oliver nodded.

" 'Thought so, Rats was talking 'bout you." He motioned to the soup. " 'Reckon it's still good?" he asked, "Her rats are normally pretty clean, for rats, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste."

Oliver strained to see over the edge of the pot, then settled on sniffing it instead: it smelt fine. 'Smelt good, actually. He nodded, and then blinked as Four-Eyes dropped a large stack of well-worn bowels into his hands. "You can help serve, 'kay? Just had people a bowel as they walk by." Oliver nodded again, and did as he was told.

It's really strange, Oliver thought as he passed out bowels, how just this morning when everyone was all spread out and moving around, he had thought that there must be fifty people living here, maybe even a hundred, but now, with everyone lined up all nice and pretty, there didn't seem to be that many. Oliver couldn't count high enough to figure out how many there were, but he knew it was above ten (ten being the highest number he could count to). He looked up suddenly as someone knocked on his head gently. It was Solo, and his blue eyes were wide and amused. "Do I get a bowel kid," he asked with a grin, "or do I have to starve?"

Oliver quickly handed him one of the two remaining bowels. "Where were you Solo?" he asked.

"Where was I when?" Solo took the other bowel from Oliver and dished out a serving for him before handing it back.

Oliver took the bowel without question. "Today, and yesterday too, you said we were gonna go look for my mom, but you never came."

A small smile passed over Solo's face as he shook his head slowly. "Sorry kid, I was really busy. We'll do that tomorrow, okay? I promise."

And as Oliver looked up and saw nothing but truth in Solo's eyes, he believed him and smiled back.

Oliver awoke to nightmare induced screams that night, but they were not his own. He groaned and rolled over just in time to see a groggy, half awake Samson stumble out of the room and towards the sound. "Who's that?" he asked into the darkness.

"Probably just Rats," the darkness answered back, "Go back to sleep."

Oliver tried, really he did, but the thought of Rats suffering from a nightmare eventually drove him out of his blankets and down the hall after Samson. "Shut the damn door, will ya'?" someone called, and he did. There was a beat of heavy silence the minute he closed the door, and Oliver bite his lip as he looked this way and that. Which way was it? Left? As if she had merely taken a breath, Rats began to wail again. Definitely left, Oliver thought and ran in that direction, passed the door entirely, and stumbled back a few steps where he stood in the door way looking in, his courage gone completely. Without the walls to muffle them, Rats' cries took on words, words that made Oliver's blood run cold as he stood in the doorway silently, watching Rats as she struggled in Samson's arms, beating her small fists helplessly against his broad chest. "Where's my mommy?!" she screamed, her voice already hoarse from fever and yelling, "Where is she?! I want my mommy!"

"She's gone Rachel, remember," Samson whispered, his voice shaking, "She's . . . dead, she's in heaven, remember? She can't come back, God won't let her."

"God shouldn't have let her die in the first place! You shouldn't have let her die in the first place! You always told me you was strong, but you ain't! Why'd you let her die?!" Her rage now directed at someone, Rats began to furiously pound against Samson's chest even harder than before and Samson, his eyes showing defeat and a guilt long repressed, let her.

Oliver felt a hand on his shoulder and he spun around to look into Solo's weary blue eyes. "What happened to them?" Oliver whispered.

"It's not for me to tell," Solo whispered back.

Words seemed to spill out of Oliver's mouth before he even knew what he was saying. "Where's my mommy?" But didn't he already know? She was at the supermarket buying dinner, or at their apartment putting on her makeup, or at the park sitting on a swing; waiting for him. Wasn't she?

Solo sighed, and the sigh was a sigh that someone gives when the thing they have been avoiding for so long suddenly arrives, and there is no hiding anymore. "I think you already know the answer to that," he said with a soft voice.

A small part of Oliver's heart that had grown cold when Dodger first said the words 'she's gone' began to grow, to expand, until Oliver's entire body felt cold, very cold. "She's . . . she's gone." Somehow, he had always known, his mind had just refused to believe what his heart had already accepted. She was gone . . . and she was never coming back.

Solo gently took him in his arms and held him tightly. "I looked for her kid, I really did. I went back to the supermarket, I checked all the hospitals, but she just wasn't anywhere. And I know it's sad, but we've all lost someone, and we've all kept on going, you've just got to keep on going, and not think about it too much, that's all." His voice broke and he bowed his head, as if remembering his own past and his own losses, then he shook his head and looked back up, his voice taking on a much stricter tone. "Here's what I'm going to do kid, to help you move on. I'm going to let you stay here, with us, and I'm going to protect you, and nothing is going to happen to you again, got that? You're safe here. And I'm going to keep you busy, so that you won't think about her until you're ready. But before all that, I need you to do one thing for me."

Oliver slowing lifted up his head, his once bright eyes as dull as an un-shined jewel.

"If you're going to stay here as a street rat, you're going to have to be a street rat. You've got a good name kid, a respectable name, but it's no name for a street rat, and it's tying you to a past you can't never have again. So for tonight, you're name's still Oliver and you're still a sad little boy who's looking for his mom and his home, but when you wake up tomorrow, you're not going to be Oliver any more. You'll wake up, and you'll be one of my street rats through and through, and I'll teach you how to steal, and hide, and how to yield a knife like the best of them. And you won't even remember what your old name was, because that's not you anymore, you're someone else now, and you've got a name that you picked out for yourself: your own name. And until you pick that name; I'm just going to call you 'kid,' got that?"

Oliver nodded mutely, and then turned his head to look back into the room where Rats was still sobbing, sobbing silent sobs now, but they were heavy with pain and loneliness. And for a moment, he felt his heart sob with her; sobbing with just as much pain and loneliness as she was, but no tears came to his eyes. Boys don't cry, he reminded himself, and the tears didn't fall; wouldn't fall, for years to come.

His mother was gone . . . and she was never coming back.

I lost my mother when I was little, but it's okay; I barely knew her anyways. I lost Solo when I was a little older, but it's okay; he went to a better place. I lost Father Maxwell and Sister Helen when I was a little older, but it's okay; they were always preaching about heaven anyway. I lost a lot of other people too: street rats that died in the Plague or at the cruel hands of hunger, religious people that burnt or got crushed to death at the church, nameless people on the street that I'd pass and have no idea who they were or how they died, but it's okay; they would have died in the end anyway. I'm not upset about it anymore, and I can tell you all this with a smile on my face and a shrug of my shoulders, but if you look closely, you might see that the light in my eyes has faded; in fact, it's nearly gone out completely. Don't worry; it'll be back soon enough, once I've gotten a chance to convince myself that what I say is true; that it really is okay. But I'm about to tell you something that I've never told anyone else. And I'm only gonna say this once, because we've all got losses and we've all got to deal with it by ourselves, so listen closely: It's not okay, it's never been okay, and it's never going to be okay. None of them should have died, they all had a life ahead of them and they deserved so much more. I should have been the one to go, not them. And that's the last time I'm going to say that; now that I've gotten it out, maybe the guilt will go away, maybe I'll convince myself that it's okay, just like I've convinced everyone else.

My name is Duo Maxwell, and I've lost nearly everyone I've ever known in my life, but it's okay; it should have been me anyway.

tbc