Once in a lifetime

Chapter Ten: Heero POV

I was finally about to get some answers from that baka but something had happened. I was then no longer in the room of the safe house. The surroundings I found myself in were unfamiliar but still, there was something that was nagging at my brain.

(Flashback)

"Welcome to your past life, Heero," some one called behind me. I whirled around and reached for my gun that was no longer there. She laughed at me then. No one laughs at me. I give her my best Death Glare and wait for her to finish. I am just too weak around women. I should kill all the annoying ones on sight. "I honestly don't know how Duo has put up with you so long. You have a single-mindedness that I never thought existed. You are probably trying to figure out where you are and if this place is a potential threat."

This woman knows too much about me. She is a threat. She is a liability that should be dealt with but not before she tells me all she knows about Duo and me. "How do you know about me? Who sent you?"

She had the audacity to laugh at me again before answering me. "We have been watching you and Duo for a long time-"

"We?" I don't like unknown factors.

"Yes, my husband and I. What is holding you back in this lifetime, Heero? You and Duo have been finding each other lifetime after lifetime and just as I start to think things will be all right, something tragic happens."

"We die. It's a part of life." I still don't think I believe her. Maybe she's a figment of my imagination. Maybe Duo has really done something to me to make me hallucinate. I must have a fever if this is what my supposed unconscious is churning up.

"It's a part of the normal cycle, yes, but you and Duo don't have that luxury any more. We've seen you meet and fall in love time after time but you are both running out of time. I can't tell you any specifics (Yuy Death Glare™ inserted here) but I can tell you this: If you both don't get things right, there will be no more 'next time.' The clock is ticking and you don't have much time left. Once you leave this plane, Heero, you will cease to exist. Do I make myself clear?"

(End flashback)

I turn over to look at my partner's face. He's peacefully sleeping, but I can't help this tightening in the pit of my stomach and this constricting around my heart. He believes there is another chance to win me over after we die here. He thinks that there's a chance he'll get to love the person he's loved for so long after we reincarnate and find each other again. He doesn't know that our time is running out. I don't know what to do. For the first time, my training has no place in my life. If this is a form of madness, I'm not sure I want to break free of it. Duo has gotten under my skin so much that if this is a delusion, my subconscious wants him to be more than a partner.

I look at his sleeping form and gently reach out to him. I run my fingers along his lips gently before pulling them back to me. He kissed me before the dream began. He told me he loves me and I've never had that before. He told me that he's been looking for me for so long, and I'm starting to not care whether this whole situation is real or not. It's as if he's lowered the floodgates and I don't want to go back to how I was. But there's still a problem, I know that my mind is beginning to process the situation slowly, but I don't know if I can deal with this all in real life.

It's as if I'm going through all the motions on automatic, but my mind is working a mile a minute. It's going to take some time to open up to Duo the way he wants me to, but... it feels right. Maybe there is something more to this relationship. Why don't I feel as adverse to the idea of being Duo's lover as I was before? Is this what I want?

I sigh and get myself settled for bed. I feel my traitorous arm sneak over Duo's body and pull him closer to me. It feels right. Why am I acting like this? Sleep deprivation. That's the reason for all of this madness. I haven't slept more than a few minutes in the past three days. I pull Duo's body closer to mine and breathe in his unique scent. I'll sleep and think about this tomorrow. Maybe this will all have turned out to be one bizarre dream.

Yet as I lay there my mind once again runs over things that it hadn't been looking toward before. This couldn't be the time that we were supposed to find happiness. Just as it had been for Duo once, so it was now for me. Anyone who truly admitted to loving me died. My parents were an unknown factor and Odin Lowe had been the only man close enough to me to be remotely family-like. Both share one very common factor, which is that they are dead. Their loving me killed them.

I stare at Duo's peaceful form; my arm tightens involuntarily around his waist, eliciting a soft sigh from his slightly parted lips. Duo has never been able to hide when he really was asleep. I realized more and more that I always awoke with him in my arms when we were sharing a bed and I also realized that I was the one who made certain he never knew about my nightly jaunts. I hadn't wanted Duo to know there was some part of me that reached for him even though most of me refused to acknowledge what it already knew. I had already begun to care.

I don't know how much of me is wrapped up in this braided baka but I do acknowledge I've been there since the day we first met. Back then; he had shot me, trying to protect Relena. To this day, Duo doesn't truly regret saving her, even though he likes to make people believe he does. He confided in me that he believed Relena could do something great for this world, if only she would drop her obsession with me. That was another area entirely that I refused to look at. Relena bothered me. There was just something about her that made me believe she was a little crazy underneath all those brains she had.

I sighed, catching the forlorn sound to it and I simply freeze. The crack in my perfect façade had become larger after that woman's words. I found myself reluctant to have to part with my control of my emotions and yet at the same time I wanted a chance to study in myself everything that Duo went though. The emotions he displayed every day were unique to me, mostly because I've never felt them myself. I want to know what it is about feelings that are such a mix of pleasure and pain that Duo readily takes every risk. I've seen him happy, angry, sad, hurt, and most of all playful. Tonight I had also gotten a chance to see him serious, nervous, worried, and loving. There had been so much love in his eyes as he had watched my past self with his own. It was a look I never really expected to see, let alone meant for me.

I sigh and shake my head slightly. "I really am going crazy," I muttered under my breath. I relaxed against Duo and let my mind finally falter, my body too tired to remain contemplative. Finally my mind slows its racing path and allows me to slip into the oblivion of sleep, giving me a break until I awoke the next morning.