Once a Lifetime
Chapter Thirteen: Heero POV
8:00 am.
I don't know what is going on any more. The ideas Duo is putting in my head are driving me insane, but at least I have a place to put my thoughts. If it wasn't for my personal daily logs, I think I might have become a liability long ago.
I'm so confused now and that isn't something I like to admit, even to myself- especially to myself. I know that to be the perfect soldier that I was raised to be I have to be devoid of my emotions. I have to be the vessel that carries out the mission and I never had a problem with that... until Maxwell. He has gotten under my skin, and I don't know that that's a bad thing any more. I think that Duo is more than he seems to be but it's not just that. I feel like... I don't know. I feel like I can be someone else when I'm with him. The only thing stopping me now is my training. I cannot be lured into revealing my emotions, even if it is Duo.
Right now he's still in bed. I woke up again with him in my arms. I don't even know why I'm driven to do that every night. It's almost as if my body knows something my mind does not. I wish I knew what it was. I don't like uncertain factors.
Then there was that woman. She seemed to know a lot about both Duo and me. I'm not even sure who she is or what she wants, but it's just too strange for my liking. She said that Duo and I have been meeting lifetime after lifetime, but this is to be our last one. Even IF I did buy into the situation, into the delusion, I have to wonder: why THIS lifetime? If I was such a loving partner in my lifetimes before, why couldn't I have been born the same in this one? In this lifetime, I have the added pressures and stresses of war and being the soldier I have to be. My emotions are locked between my mind and this screen. They have no place in this time. Why now?
It seems that Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei have come to see how Duo is faring---
---Presence acknowledged. They know I like to keep to my laptop and won't bother me. I can hear them talk to Duo... and the strangest thing about all of
this is that I feel a connection between all of them. I don't know why I feel that way; I've never been one to relate to other humans, but there's something between all of us that just makes me feel... just feel.
I can ignore my fellow pilots for now... at the moment, I have more pressing things to worry about. For example: Who were those two who knew Duo and I so well? There's more to them than meets the eye, and for some reason, I felt like I had met them before, but that's impossible! I am not the kind of person to forget a face (even if I am delusional) and even if I did somehow forget their faces, there's no way in hell I could forget someone with two-tone eyes. Especially if that person had such disturbing eyes as that man (I believe Hisui called him Kokuyo) had.
This is all just too surreal.
I hear Duo say goodbye to the other pilots then asks me to wake him when lunch is ready. I nod and close down my journal. All this thinking probably isn't good for me. I get up and begin pacing around the room while the images of our supposed past lives running through my head.
How can it be possible for two people to meet and fall in love with each other for as many times as these people claim Duo and I have? No one can know about our past lives and still be alive themselves. If it were only Duo talking about such nonsense, I'd chalk it up to insanity, one that is infectious and has contaminated me as well. But then there's those two... Who are they and how could they possibly have the power to show us these past lifetimes. There's just no logical explanation for what I saw last night.
That leaves me to question not who are they, but what are they? From what I saw, the events took place in primitive times where recorded devices probably didn't exist. So how could that image be shown to us from two different perspectives?
They said they had been watching us meet, love, and die for all those lifetimes, but then that would mean that they were either lying to us (which is very possible) or they are the oldest people in the world (which is highly unlikely).
But what they said felt so... right
I look over at Duo, his body curled around a pillow for as much as his injuries allow, and I somehow feel something pulling me to him. He looks... ethereal. I don't think I've ever seen him in this light before. I reach over and brush my hand across his smooth ivory cheek and can't help but smile a little as his face seems to lean into the soft touch.
Things just feel right when I'm with him, even if he gets on my last nerve with very little effort. Now that I think about it, I don't know what I would do without the baka. I try and fool myself into thinking that I don't need him, but I don't want to be without him. I guess he's become a liability after all... and even though I don't know how to reciprocate love, I know that his being with me makes me feel what I can only assume is happiness.
I look at the clock and frown. I've been sitting on the edge of the bed for far longer than I thought. Lunch is past due and the baka will probably wake up soon and complain about not being fed. I get up and go to the kitchenette to look for something nourishing enough to sustain us until our next meal. Looking through the cupboards, I find the rations I had stashed here and set about preparing something that will at least give some semblance of food for Duo. I'm used to eating rations but Duo seems to think they taste like cardboard so I try my best to make it look like something he would approve of.
Why do I even care? Why am I even trying to appease him? We are soldiers, Yuy! You have gone soft. You need to be re-trained and re-hardened.
But I don't want to be cold any more. I suppose seeing what I could have had in another life has interfered with my logic. I... I think I am actually having a rebellious teenage moment. I don't want to be a soldier any more. I don't want to kill. I want to live my life without having to live from mission to mission. I don't want to have to go through with a self-destruct mission again. I want... I just want for me.
I take the bowl of what is supposed to be soup to the boy lying in bed and place it on the nightstand while I wake him up.
"Duo."
"Mmm.... Sleeping"
"Duo get up."
"Mmph.. Dun wanna..."
"Duo food."
An amethyst eye blinks open and he's sitting bolt upright in mere seconds, despite the injuries and the medicine head.
"Food? Where? Jeez, I'm starving, Hee-chan, why didn't you say so?"
"Hn." I hand him his bowl and watch him slurp everything up, drinking it as if the bowl were an oversized mug. We don't have spoons in this house, but it seems like we don't need them anyway.
He puts his bowl down when he's apparently finished with it and stares at me for a while. "Are you okay, Heero? You look... I dunno... stressed? And why do you look at me like that? Okay, so you know I love you, that I've loved you for a long time, but you don't have to worry about anything Heero. I like being your partner if that's all you'll let me be. I'll find you again next time."
"How can you be so sure?" I ask. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell him what Hisui told me...but I want to. For once, I don't know what to do... I don't want to hurt him by telling him this is the last time we'll be together and because of my own shortcomings, we won't be happy ever again. I don't know how to love in this lifetime. I am very well aware of my handicap and I only wish that if I did love Duo once, this situation could have happened when I was able to love him back.
"Don't be silly Heero. I've found you so many times... how could I not find you again?"
"When will this cycle end, Duo? If this is truly real, won't the end of it come sometime? How many more chances do we really have to find each other? And have you ever thought that maybe we're supposed to be accomplishing something? There has to be a reason for all of this to be happening... it can't just be random if you actually remember other lives we've shared."
He stares at me for a moment, it seems as though several things are flashing through his memory, but it's gone before I can look into it. "You've really been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?"
"Yes. Also... I have a question to ask."
"I'm an open book, Hee-chan," he grins.
"How many times in all the lifetimes we've been through together have you told me the truth about you and your memories?"
"Including this one? Once. I think it's against the rules for me to tell you about my memories unless you specifically ask. I'm not sure how exactly I know that... but that's the impression I've gotten since the beginning."
"Do you have any idea why this happens to you? The memories, I mean?"
He chuckles a little bit and leans back on his pillow, looking at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment before closing his eyes, "I really don't know, Hee-chan... maybe I did something bad in another life..." He yawns hugely and rubs his eyes a little. "Heero... I'm still sleepy from the meds Tro-man gave me... mind if I nap?"
"Go to sleep."
"Thanks, man..."
I get up to wash his bowl and clean up the kitchenette area, pretty soon though, I hear his light snoring coming from the bed. I can't help going back to the bed and laying next to him. Duo is the biggest enigma I've ever come across... and I'm drawn to it completely. Again, my traitorous arm finds its way around his waist and I too close my eyes, trying to banish all thought from my head and finally get a dreamless sleep.
Jess' Rant .
Hi everyone! On behalf of Nuri and I, I just want to say that I hope y'all are enjoying this fic as much as we enjoy thinking of ways of toying with the victi- I mean bishies . ;
09/27 is my b-day and the best present I can get is a review... so umm... happy birthday to me?