Author's Notes: Okay, so I admit, the first part of this is nothing more than an excuse to indulge in some yummy 1x2 stuff, but give me a break... that's why I'm writing fanfics in the first place. ;; At least this time I'm doing it with an excuse. If anyone's interested, I was listening to Bush's "Warm Machine," Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry" and 3 Doors Down's "When I'm Gone" a lot while I wrote the lemon bit--seems to fit alright.

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War Crimes

Part One: Red Eye

by Akaitsuru RedCrane

I remember how it was, though it seems so long ago now.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

That bunk on Howard's barge was so uncomfortable, I was less than half asleep when the new pilot opened the door to my room and slipped inside.

"Eh? 'Zat you, Evel Knievel?"

The quiet movement ceased for a moment, freezing; he didn't answer, just hesitated for a second and then slowly paced over to the edge of my bed and looked down. I squinted at him in the glow of the light crowning my nightstand and got scared for a moment: the expression on his face was set in such an intense frown, I thought for sure he'd come to get even for what had happened the day before yesterday.

"Hey, man, if this is about that whole shooting thing, I already said I was sorry--"

"It isn't. Quit worrying."

"Oh." I sat up on my rock-hard mattress and blearily glanced at the burning red numbers of my digital clock. "Well, Jesus, it's 1AM, what are you doing still up?"

"I fixed my mobile suit."

"Ah, that's great..." I started to snuggle back under the covers, feeling slightly annoyed when it dawned on me: "Wait a sec, where the hell did you get the parts from? It's not like Gundanium grows on trees."

"I took some from your suit."

"WHAT?"

"Shh. Look, I've got a mission to complete and you don't, so it's necessary. But... still... I wanted..."

His frown changed in the dimness, strained, like part of him was trying to force the words out while some other part frantically scrambled to hold them back. The internal battle was evident on his face, and it was so weird watching it that I forgot to be mad and just stared at him, wondering what this anti-social lunatic I'd plucked from the waves was going to do next.

"I wanted... to show that... I appreciate what you've done for me."

The last part came out in a rush, like a rusty bolt on a piece of deep-sea salvage popping off and letting in the cascade of water it had sealed off for so long. He sat down on the verge of my bunk suddenly, as though the effort of talking had exhausted him, and when he leaned back a little I noticed for the first time that he was barefoot on the cold metal floor. It made him seem strangely vulnerable, being without those big yellow sneakers he always clomped around in, and I puzzled over the change so deeply that in my sleep-deprived state it didn't register that he was taking off his clothes until his shorts were already halfway to his knees.

"What are you...!"

"I'm thanking you. Now move over."

I continued to blink at him stupidly when he glanced back at me, my gaze following the outline of his shoulders as he sat silhouetted by the lamp.

"You mean... you want to... um..."

I was mortally embarrassed to feel my face heating up in a blush, as though I were a child listening to Solo tell tales of his romantic conquests again. His eyes didn't leave mine as I groped for a coherent sentence, and I felt like I was drowning in those bright blue pools even though his expression had shifted to one of impassive calm. Finally he nodded slightly, as though urging me to hurry up with whatever I was thinking, and the movement broke the spell holding my tongue--I blurted out the first thing that came into my badly shaken mind, as usual not even stopping to think about it:

"B-But what makes you think I even swing that way!"

He blinked.

"I've observed things. You always seem to be nearby even when no one else is. You're always touching me or looking at me when you think I don't notice. You were at the hospital for a long time before you actually rescued me, sitting in the security station watching while I was strapped down in the observation

deck... if that's what you want, you can tie me down now, it's alright."

He said it so simply and emotionlessly that the words sounded more like a statistic he was reciting than an invitation, but all the same I found myself blushing even brighter in the dimness. It might have helped if what he'd said before hadn't been true, but it was; Heero fascinated me even though we'd just met, and I suppose it showed even though I couldn't have said why until just now. It wasn't as though I was new to the idea of men having sex with other men--there were people in Howard's crew who shared their hammocks with members of the same gender, actually--but I'd never really suspected myself of having such impulses... and to be perfectly honest the overall idea kind of repulsed me.

But when I look at this boy... it's different. I feel differently. I'm actually glad that he noticed me, but... do I really want this? Sex? Right here, right now?

Unbidden, a memory of what I'd seen through the hospital monitors--him, unconscious and restrained but still beautiful under the searing fluorescent lights--sprang into my mind and stuck there. I felt myself quit blushing as all the blood in my face started to rush somewhere else, and in a momentary panic I did my best to shrink away from the perfect naked body perched on the frame of my bed. He took advantage of the shift to slip himself underneath my blankets before I could protest, and when I reflexively tried to push him away he just caught my hands and held them, tightly, until I finally quit struggling and lay still with my back pressed against the wall. I could feel the incredible strength and control in his arms when he restrained me, ruthlessly efficient power that didn't even seem affected by the fact that I'd shot him no more than 48 hours ago.

"Relax," he breathed, sliding his hands down to hold my wrists. "I owe you for releasing me, and for dismantling your Gundam. Let me pay the debt, if you're attracted to me..."

"So what if I'm attracted to you!" I hissed furiously, not willing to fully admit it yet. "I haven't even known you for a week, and the fact you pilot a Gundam doesn't automatically mean I trust you! Fuck, I don't even know your name. Maybe OZ just sent you here to play Mata Hari with me and then stick a dagger where the sun don't shine at the first opportunity."

"You don't think I could have killed you before if I'd needed to?" His iron grip flexed slightly around my flesh, illustrating his words with pain. "...I don't think death is what you're afraid of here."

His warm breath washed over me when he drew close. I forced myself to be still as he placed a soft kiss on my neck, lips brushing over the spot where my pulse beat close to the surface--A wolf, I thought, He's a wolf looking for a sign of submission...

"Stop," I whispered, and ground my teeth to keep from melting under his touch. "Listen, I can't do this if you're just paying off a debt... you don't owe me anything, okay?"

"If you don't want me, then just say so."

"Maybe I don't know what I want."

"Does it feel good to you when I do this?" His tongue lapped over my throat again, and I quivered with the effort of doing no more than nodding. "Okay, then, what's the matter? Soldiers have little enough to feel good about without worrying over social morals, if that's what's holding you back."

"I'm holding back because I want this to mean something," I choked out, and my fingers curled into fists where he had them trapped between us. "Maybe sex is as big a deal to you as broken bones are, Mr. Perfect, but believe it or not I wasn't planning on losing my virginity to a one night stand--nevermind the fact that you're a guy, which I also didn't have factored into the equation." I closed my eyes as shame made me wince at the thought. "...Do you even like me at all?"

He released his grip on me suddenly, raising his face from my neck. Darkness chased itself through his expression, and again I sensed pitched battle going on somewhere far inside his head. I used the respite to try and massage some feeling back into my hands, knowing that tomorrow there would be bruises where he'd held on. I could already see my skin turning purple in places, edged faintly with the raw outlines of his fingers.

"No one has ever asked me that before." I glanced up when he spoke, but he wasn't even looking at me now. "No one's ever asked me how I felt about anything for as long as I can remember... but I do like you, I think. If only because you asked."

He flipped back the blankets and kicked them aside. His warmth started to draw away from me, and with a disturbingly wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach I realized I didn't want him to leave--though that was obviously what he was planning to do.

"Hey! Wait, where are you going?"

"Away. Back upstairs."

"Don't... please... I..."

Revulsion and fear fought loneliness and desire ferociously under my ribcage.

"Yes?"

"I want you to stay. I think--maybe--I just plain want you, too, but I'm not quite sure about that part just yet..."

"...Alright."

He settled back down under the covers once more, but very carefully didn't touch me until I reached out myself and laid my palm on his chest. His arms crept around my waist and pulled until we wound up wedged together, both slightly out of breath, my head underneath his chin and my cheek against his collarbone. I gulped to feel the heat radiating from somewhere below his waist, but his patiently soothing hand sliding over my spine said without words that there was no reason in his mind to hurry.

"Okay?"

"Yeah... this is okay."

"You're still frightened, though."

"Give me a break, man... more than half of me can't even believe I'm doing this at all."

"Does it really bother you that much?"

"I was raised by a priest and a nun, you know..."

"Hn."

He stroked my braid contemplatively where it hung down my back, pulling at it with a light touch while he mulled over that bit of information. It was too great a sensation to resist; I unwound like a knot coming loose in his embrace, and sighed.

"Oh..."

"Good?"

"Y-Yeah... nice big weakness I've got there, eh? People keep telling me to cut it off, especially when I use up all the hot water on board to wash it, but it's too important to me... Last thing I have left to remind me of where I came from, and what I have to do now, you know?"

"Surprised you let me touch it at all, then."

"Well, you're special--and I know for a fact you're not hiding any scissors up your sleeves, considering what you're wearing. Or not wearing, I guess."

The strong beat of his heart throbbed close to my ear, caresses coming to rest on the back of my neck. I lifted my head to see what was wrong and as soon as I did he kissed me, delicately, a spark of genuine warmth glowing from beneath his habitually neutral expression. That half-hidden fondness in his eyes, as close to a laugh as my jokes had brought him all evening, was what convinced me not to struggle again when his tentatively probing tongue found a way past my guard and in, between my lips.

God. This feels too good. The thought resonated drunkenly through my head. I shouldn't be wanting this so bad, but I do... even though it scares the hell out of me, I do...

Uncertainly at first, and then resolving to be brave, I shifted my arms so I could reach up and hold him the way he was holding me. Without stopping the kiss or his calming massage on the nape of my neck he responded by tugging suggestively at the edge of my boxers and raising one eyebrow--I'd completely forgotten I was wearing them, but suddenly getting rid of the last barrier between us seemed an awful lot like giving him permission to do whatever he wanted. I hesitated, and he felt it, hastening to reassure me with the gentle stroke of his tongue inside my mouth.

"You're treating me like a nervous horse," I murmured when our kiss momentarily broke. "All this persuasion's kind of flattering."

"Well, I am an expert rider."

"Oh, I just bet you are. Bet you say that to all the boys whose beds you sneak into, too."

Without waiting for his rejoinder I rolled onto my back and commenced pulling my shorts off. He moved over to help me and cupped his palms around my thighs, drawing the silk all the way down my legs and then over my feet in one smooth motion; the soft spikes of his wild brown hair tickled when they brushed over me, accentuating how vulnerable I felt without the fabric's symbolic protection. I could barely seem him where he was hunched on all fours beneath the gloomy shroud of my blankets, but his long caresses from my hips to my ankles seemed to loosen every resistance in my mind as well as every tension in my body. I stretched out to touch his shoulders, tentatively, and then dug my fingernails into his skin as his mouth suddenly closed around that part of me he had been quietly searching for down in the dark. The last lingering reservations I had been clinging to were abruptly ripped away by a wave of pure physical bliss; bittersweet feeling rose up from where his tongue pressed like blood welling from a wound, thick and fluid and covering. My spine arched and I threw back my head as far as I could, whimpering, sobbing for breath with my eyes closed so tightly it hurt.

I lost myself to him so completely I still can't say whether it was minutes or hours we stayed locked together like that. I couldn't even move, I was so afraid of breaking the moment. Finally he pulled himself away by agonizing degrees and shifted to look down at me, his weight held balanced on his elbows so I could breathe as he studied my face.

"What is it?" I moaned plaintively, writhing underneath him. "Why did you stop? Talk about cruel and unusual punishment..."

"I..." He was panting softly. "...I want to be inside you..."

"Oh, God, anything, but don't leave me like this! I've thrown too much of myself into this now for you to just stop..."

"It's just..." He pinned me to the bed when I tried to move, glaring.

"Listen. I'm afraid I might... hurt you. It hurt me, a lot, my first time.

I'll be as careful as I can, but you have to relax. Relax and trust me..."

I rubbed myself against him in answer, hardly listening. I couldn't help it, couldn't even speak I felt so desperate. Some animal part of me had decided that anything that felt as good as he did couldn't possibly be wrong to want, and it was silencing any cautionary voices that might have been trying to be heard. I let his hands guide me to where they wanted, twisting me through soft blackness until his chest lightly brushed over my shoulder blades and my knees dug into the mattress. My braid slid down to hang against my cheek and he nuzzled it, tenderly, the gesture completely at odds with the threat in his voice when he whispered:

"This time... I won't stop."

That first rough thrust was pure agony, despite the fact I was trying my best to be prepared for it. I started to cry out but he stopped me with a touch, trapping me and riding me deliberately until I got used to the feeling of being entered. He pushed in slowly and then patiently slid back out until finally rocking back against his hips began to feel less like a stab and more like a caress to me. When one of his hands loosened its iron hold and crept teasingly down between my legs, I groaned and almost collapsed underneath him; the mixture of hurt and pleasure was so strong I felt as though the conflicting sensations were on the verge of tearing me apart.

"So warm..." I heard him murmur. His voice was so low I thought he was speaking to himself for a moment. "I'm always so cold, but you're warm... please, let me go deeper... I can't stand being so cold..."

His probing fingers were making me shake so badly I could only manage to moan in response, but he took that as consent and pushed so deep I completely lost track of where his body ended and mine began. Something hot splashed on the back of my hand and through the haze of pain and violent need clouding my mind I realized I was crying--something I hadn't done since my foster home at the orphanage was destroyed almost seven years ago.

"God... dear God..." I found myself gasping, not knowing whether my prayer was for the contact to stop or that it would never be over. "Onegai... kami-sama--ahhh--!"

All the unbearable tension screaming through my muscles and my heart suddenly, forcefully released. I felt him come inside me a moment later and then I really started to cry, huge wracking sobs that shook me right down to where we were still joined under the sheets. He immediately pulled out and turned me around to face him, hugged me close and listened as I howled like I was two years old again and back in Solo's arms.

"You bastard, you goddamned bastard, why did you have to do that to me?" I wailed, paradoxically clinging to him. "You know this can't ever mean anything, can't ever work, so why'd you go and do it? I was doing fine on my own, but now I don't know how I'll ever go back... could fucking well compromise everything by making me care about something other than L2... damn you..."

Stolid silence was the only thing that answered my half-coherent ranting, but his embrace held me tight until I calmed down enough to stop shivering with emotion. The nightlight outlined his impassive face like a painting when I looked up at him; I thought I caught a hint of sympathy hidden in his blue eyes, but that wasn't enough to console the emptiness growing inside me by then."I've been used," I said quietly, meeting his gaze with furious despair. "You used me, you fucking icicle. And I let you do it, I can't believe this! Get the hell out of my bed--you'd better hope to heaven we don't ever meet again after tonight because if we do, I'm kicking your ass!"

He lifted one eyebrow in mute derision, mask of indifference firmly back in place, but he did what I asked. I tried not to show how badly hurt in flesh and spirit I was while he gathered up his clothes... but as soon as the door clicked shut behind him I curled up in a ball and proceeded to wish I had never been born.

It took every last bit of my acting talent and most of a bottle of Advil the next morning to fake surprise at his departure in front of everybody else.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Duo Maxwell."

Huh?

"Duo Maxwell."

Wha...? Is that you, God? Nah, must be my boss the Prince of Darkness...

"Maxwell!"

"That's my name, don't wear it out." My head felt as though it were full of cotton balls, and when I forced my eyelids open all I could see was bright blankness. "Whoa... am I dead? I knew heaven was white and all, but I was expecting some angels or clouds or something."

"A side effect of the drug we injected you with is defocusing of the eyes. It will pass."

"Angels do narcotics? Well, that's one in the eye for the Pope..."

"You aren't dead, fool!"

I was already rapidly moving towards that conclusion myself. The cotton balls between my ears were rapidly starting to be replaced with shards of jagged glass, and when I tried to move every bone in my frame protested with a resounding creak. It felt as though I'd been laid out in the same position for days, lying on my back somewhere damp and cold with my hands folded over my chest--and as I began to think things over I started to get a sickening suspicion that maybe I had been.

"Holy shit... you wanted us alive, didn't you, but thanks to Treize's speeches about ending the Gundam era forever we all had to look dead for the cameras."

"Correct--partially. You are the only one we administered the sedative to. The other rebels received the normal dose of sodium pentothal and potassium chloride to stop their hearts. They died in the name of peace, just as they had always planned to."

Devastation reached out and smashed the fragile hope I had been frantically nursing, but I counted to ten and told myself maybe it wasn't true. What reason had I to believe these people?

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Why am I still alive, in that case? Did my prison guards start a petition or something?"

"No. You were given a temporary stay of execution partially thanks to the insistence of the Cinque Kingdom's princess, and partially due to some military intelligence we received shortly after your capture. Before dying of his injuries, the man you know as 'Doctor J' revealed that his protégé didn't perish in Humanity's Last Battle, as previously thought."

I felt as though a familiar fist had just given me a friendly punch in the stomach.

"Heero's... still alive...?"

"Affirmative."

"Great. Wonderful. Outstanding, in fact." I could feel tears of gratitude gathering in my eyes. What was it with that guy and making me cry? "That's probably the best news I've ever heard from a faceless, disembodied computer generated voice. But, um, if that's the military intelligence, what the hell's it got to do with me still clinging to this mortal coil?"

"His continued freedom is more of a threat to OZ and pacifism than the existence of you other four pilots combined. Since we learned of his survival we've had our best agents looking for him, but they've either turned up clueless or dead. Princess Relena feels you are the only person with the skills to locate 01's former pilot, and His Excellency Treize has consented to give her plan a try."

"I think 'Her Majesty' may have neglected to take into account the fact I'm probably not going to help you. In fact it's about the last thing I'd ever do, and she ought to know that."

"Your resistance was anticipated. But consider this. To the rest of the world, you're dead. You have no allies, no hope and no purpose. You may not have noticed, but the only window on the outside world here is the computer terminal we mean you to use--and we can leave you alone in this cell for as long as it takes for you to decide to use it. We've studied the affects long term isolation has on people... and besides, we know you want to see him, Duo."

And then I realized who had to be hiding behind the computer's unidentifiable voice.

"More than you can ever even imagine, Lady Une. I doubt you've ever felt anything so intense in your entire pathetic little life."

"1,247 bottle of beer on the wall, 1,247 bottles of beer..."

I had managed to resist becoming a part of their plan for almost a month. Lady Une had seriously underestimated my ability to amuse myself when left unattended.

"Take one down, pass it around, 1,246 bottles of beer on the wall... ack, I lost count. One million bottles of beer on the wall, one million bottles of beer..."

Still, it had been a grueling battle and looked to get worse. The cell they had designed to hold me was a single circular room, surgical white from floor to ceiling, with a drain in the center where they periodically turned on a shower. A bed, a toilet and the computer terminal were the only other furnishings, and as far as I could tell there wasn't even a door to the place. Clean clothes and meals appeared like magic in a cupboard I assumed had a false back, though no matter how hard I tried I could never figure out where it hinged or how to dismantle the mechanism. There was so much soundproofing in the walls I could hear the pulsing of my blood through my own veins whenever I stopped talking to myself--which wasn't very often. I knew the whole place had to be bugged and video taped from every blessed angle under the sun, but I just couldn't help it.

I was desperate for some human contact.

"You slimy OZ bastards," I mumbled to myself, giving up on the song and hugging my legs against my chest. "You didn't even give me a freakin' way to die with dignity... what kind of sadist can design a blanket that's suffocation-proof and a toilet without water to drown in, eh? Social deprivation might've made someone like Trowa jump for joy, but it sure isn't doing much for me. I bet even Heero..."

...Heero...

I shuddered, dropping my head to my knees so I wouldn't look across the room at the computer. I already knew what I would see on the hypnotically glowing screen, anyway: a still of Wing Zero in action, beam saber bisecting the head of a flailing mobile doll. Every day or two the image changed to another shot of my lost lover or his machine, the catalogue of images hinting at the wealth of information hidden underneath the glass. I was fully aware that those pictures were a subtle form of torture, put there to try and goad me into Une's trap, but as much as I hated to admit it their call was growing stronger by the hour.

"Jesus, you'd think I was a drug addict sharing a room with a bottle of pills," I mumbled into my overgrown bangs. "What a situation... I guess it's just a question of whose patience gives out first."

I sat in stillness and listened to my heart pounding creepily through the confined space until restlessness made me get up again. I knew if I stayed quiet long enough I'd start remembering things I didn't want to--like the way Quatre's face looked when he died, for instance--and the threat of my own memories was more than enough motivation to start looking for something else to do. Eventually I stretched out and started doing push-ups, a favorite pastime of mine from when I was put under Brute and Jitter's care; after a month here and God only knew how long in the war criminal prison I had lost so much muscle mass that every one was a struggle, but it passed the time until a familiar clank from the wall told me dinner was served. Sitting on the floor and eating it I had to wonder what airline they robbed to get my meals--every one was identical, and every one was as tasteless and dry as space dust.

"It'd serve you guys right if I went on another hunger strike," I yelled to whoever was listening to my wiretaps at the moment. "The chow here's considerably less than four star, as I think I've mentioned before. How about a little wine and some chicken freakin' cordon bleu, garcon?"

Poking at my rubbery square of Jell-o kept me busy for what I guessed to be close to an hour and a half, that's how bored I was. When more singing, exercise and counting ceiling tiles failed to hold my attention I finally just sprawled out on the floor and lay there, nerves twanging.

Crap.

As I was learning to measure things, today was shaping up to be a very bad day indeed. Usually I could keep myself mindlessly occupied doing something, anything, but ever since I'd accidentally spoken Heero's name all I wanted to do was fiddle with the computer staring at me from the other side of the room. I'd jiggled the latch on the Pandora's Box in my head, and now my attention kept staggering in Heero's direction no matter how much I tried to steer it away from him. I wanted to look at him, see him for just for a moment, and the torment of knowing I'd damn us both if I did only seemed to make the temptation stronger.

Relena knows me too well, if she really helped think up a plan this insidious, I thought, idly rolling back and forth across the floor. It's like having an itch out of reach on your back, and only a beam saber to scratch it with. Just because it'd be stupid to do it doesn't make you itch any less.

When you've got no way to tell time and nothing to do with yourself but brood, a minute can seem like an hour and an hour more than a lifetime. It was precisely this sensation I'd started to fear and had been staving off with my games, but as I lay there shivering it finally rushed over me with the speed of a passing Aries. I couldn't sense time moving at all, and the white room became not a prison that I might someday escape from, but a grave where I'd be buried for all eternity. An eternity unable to scratch that maddening itch in my brain...

"'We have put her living in the tomb,'" I heard myself quoting, and then whimpered suddenly at the thought of going crazy like Poe's Lady Usher did. I imagined myself clawing out my nails on the blank, padded walls around me and immediately curled into a ball, the possibility so real and terrifying I felt too scared to breathe. I got the sense that if I twitched so much as an eyelid the horrible fate would descend and devour me, so I just lay there in choked silence afraid to move--pinned to the ground by my own insensate terror.

...living in the tomb...

I lay there, gasping mechanically, until the lights finally went out almost three hours later.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I admit it, that first encounter and its immediate aftermath made me

furious in ways I couldn't even begin to comprehend at the time. If I'd managed

to catch up with Heero Yuy before circumstances forced us to cooperate at New Edwards Base, I'd probably have killed him on sight--our brief meeting just before then only made me angrier, because I felt sure I'd missed my last chance to put a beam scythe between his eyes. Only the fact that he managed to remember my name at a crucial point, and my optimism about being able to take out all the OZ leaders at once, put me in anything resembling a cooperative mood when we had to team up and storm the Alliance's LA meeting.

I suppose it was the suicidal courage he displayed that night at New Edwards that re-ignited my reluctant attraction to him. When he emerged from the base, smelling slightly of plastique from the bombs he had just disarmed, surprised admiration had begun to mitigate my previous feelings of outrage. That and exhaustion from the long day must have been what prompted me to say "yes" when he asked me to follow him back to St. Elena's Academy, his current center of operations and the location of his cover identity.

"Damn it's quiet in here," I whispered as we traversed the darkened hallways and deserted corridors that lead back to his dorm. "Don't the students here ever, you know, party? I sure would if I had a room away from parents and authority like they do..."

"You may get the chance," Heero said, walking slightly ahead of me and not bothering to look back. "Since I've been on Earth, I've been using boarding schools for camouflage--you could register as a student and use this one while you're in the area, if you want."

"Well, I dunno what kind of cash your sponsor set you up with, but I haven't got enough to even make a down-payment on the tuition here. Thanks all the same."

"I could set it up for you." He turned a corner and stopped in front of a door, reaching into his pocket to pull out a ring of keys. "This mainframe is easy to hack into, and even the financial records are relatively unsecured. A little rearranging and you could have free room and board for as long as needed."

"Tempting..." I trailed off as the door swung open and revealed an empty room--with only one small bed shoved into a corner. "Um..."

Nervousness slicked my palms with sweat. I glanced at where he stood in the entryway and saw a flash of the conflicted look I remembered slide across his features, the one from the last time we'd been alone together. Alarm sirens went off in my head, and I took a pace backwards, but instead of reaching out to grab me like I expected he simply stood there with unmistakable sadness filtering into his gaze.

"Please... come in. I promise I won't... do anything..."

Automatic skepticism made me raise one eyebrow, but then I realized I was too tired to seriously consider rejecting his offer of shelter--at least for what was left of the night. I stepped into the small space and let him shut the door behind me, kicking off my boots and sitting down on the floor as there weren't any chairs. Drowsy, I watched him rummage through his closet and make up a futon with the blankets he found there, crawling under the quilted covers without even bothering to take off the rest of my clothes.

"Oyasumi nasai, Heero-kun," I mumbled wryly, weariness practically oozing out every pore as I closed my eyes. "Well... at least I know your name now..."

-blood-pain-fire-bullets-falling timbers-everything falling-Father, why are you just standing there?-Please, it's just a church, please get out before... before it falls...-What about me?-Sister Helen, don't... don't die...-I'll be all alone again...-Mobile suits? Mobile suits did this?-Did I do this?-Did I do this to someone else, somewhere down on Earth?-

Halfway awake but with the nightmare still stuck in my head, I tried to sit up and nearly knocked myself senseless on the wooden frame of Heero's bed. During the night I'd rolled almost underneath it without noticing, and now the bolted slats were only a few inches above my face. I fell back onto my pillows and moaned, half from the anguish of the dream and half from the pain splitting my skull, awkwardly pushing myself and my blankets back into a less hazardous position with a few exasperated kicks.

"Encouraging start to the day," I grumbled to myself, glancing at my watch in the dim light coming in through Heero's window. "Four-thirty. God... that dream..."

I shivered, and simultaneously heard the boy in the bed next to me shift underneath his covers.

"You alright?" He sounded genuinely concerned, and fully awake.

"Ouch... not really," I had to admit as a trickle of blood slid into my eye. I reached up and realized I'd cut my forehead on one of the bed's screws. "Got a Band-Aid?"

"Let me get it."

He stepped over me and pulled open a drawer, returning a second later with the requested bandage and a bottle of disinfectant. When he crouched next to me I tried to take them, but he gently pushed my hands away and dabbed the red from my face himself--the antibiotic-soaked cloth was pleasantly cool against my skin and my head was throbbing, so I let him do it even though being so close again made me feel strange.

"Pretty good with this doctor stuff, aren't you?" I said to get my mind off it, thinking of how he'd set his broken leg on Howard's barge. "Don't you go to a hospital for anything?"

"No. They ask too many questions."

"I see." Obediently I took the pill he offered, after checking to make sure it had 'Asprin' stamped on the side. "Hey... thanks."

He stuck the Band-Aid on and smoothed it down with his thumb, studying me. His fingers slid over my cheek in a cautious caress and I blinked, looking up into his arresting blue eyes without knowing how to feel.

"I don't like being used," I finally said, not moving away from him but not encouraging him either. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't start hammering your guts to the wall right now."

"I'm stronger than you." He replied simply, and his slide underneath my blankets was as natural and smooth as it had been all those months before. "Besides... I promised I wouldn't do anything, and I won't. I'll only hold you. Mostly because I think that's what you want."

I gulped, but then convinced myself it could only have been the dream that made me so transparent--and so in need of comforting.

"...yeah..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I had woken the same way for more than six months now: fighting it, hating it, struggling my hardest to elude consciousness until it finally found me and dragged me back into that hideous, pitiless white cell. Today was no exception, and the first emotion into my brain as I lay there under my single scratchy sheet was a nocturnal animal's hatred of light--thanks to spending so much time in space's darkness, I literally could not sleep any more if my room was too bright. Lady Une, naturally, only kept the fluorescent illumination bright enough to leave me with a suntan; sometimes I wondered if she didn't aim to give me skin cancer on top of everything else she was inflicting on my psyche.

"Ah, what a beautiful day," I yawned cheerfully, sitting up and stretching like they do in those sappy old television shows. "Looks like it's gonna be nothing but sunny skies from 7am until--"

The words suffocated themselves in my throat as I happened to look over at the computer--the picture had changed, which was hardly unusual, but the image being displayed now made me wish I'd somehow found a way to die in my sleep. Heero was there, blurred with motion but still recognizable... and he was bleeding so profusely his torso was little more than a wash of crimson.

Without thinking I ran over to the terminal. I'd avoided touching the cursed thing since I'd come, but now I actually put my hands on it and stared aghast at the gore running down my lover's body. I felt weak. The picture had been taken from such a weird, hasty angle I couldn't see very well, but the one thing that was plain was how much blood was staining Heero's stomach and the front of his jeans. Too much blood for a mere flesh wound. And even though he was aiming a pistol over his shoulder he wasn't clenching his teeth in concentration. He was in serious pain.

"You fucks," I snarled at the ceiling, banging my fists on the curving walls of my private hell. "Goddamn you all, what the hell did you do to him? Answer me! ANSWER ME!"

"One of our agents found him and foolishly tried to subdue him alone. He paid for his arrogance with his life, but it appears 01's pilot did not escape unscathed himself."

I was so stunned by both the unexpected response and the sound of the voice itself that I actually had to sit down on the floor.

"S-So what are you saying? Heero's dead?"

"Unlikely. The bullet wound appears to be to his stomach--a critical injury, but not immediately fatal unless untreated within 72 hours or so."

"But Heero'd..." I shut my mouth just in time, only letting the words go on inside my head. But Heero'd never go to a hospital like that... 'they ask too many questions.'

"If we knew where he was, what city to start looking in, perhaps we could help him." Lady Une's tones were silky and convincing, and she dangled the bait in front of my nose like an expert. "I'm sure 01 would appreciate a little help right now, and even if he doesn't know what's good for him, it's doubtful he's in any condition to fight back anyway..."

"Stop it."

"Have you any idea how agonizing abdominal wounds like that are?"

"I'm not listening--'I'm Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eighth I am, I am...'"

"Acid starts leaking into the edges of the wound, eating away at flesh, flaking off skin..."

"'I got married to the widow next door, she's been married seven times before--'"

"For God's sake. All we're asking you to do is save his life, Duo."

"Why the fuck do you want me to do that? I thought the idea was killing him off! That was the whole purpose of sticking me in here, wasn't it? So I'd track him down and then you could jab a needle in his arm?"

"We want him in our custody. While an injury like that is virtually guaranteed fatal, there's always a slim chance that the unexpected might intervene. More importantly, some rebel groups and Alliance remnants have started holding him up as a martyr, and we must remedy the situation before it begins to threaten the peace we all fought so desperately for."

Rebel groups? "What the hell do you mean?"

"Certain misguided people are beginning to look up to him as some kind of revolutionary hero--if we were to expose his crimes to the public those factions would lose their credibility and our new world of harmony would be safe again. His trial must be broadcast to the colonies, so we can't have him dying before then."

"Heero a hero..." In my mounting panic it sounded funnier to me than it was, and I sat there laughing for almost a minute straight before I could speak again. "...heh...but you've forgotten... hehe... ha, forgotten one thing. I won't help you. I've been rotting here for ages and I haven't given in, what makes you think I'll turn around and do what you want now?"

"You love him. I think your own imagination will probably provide sufficient reason to begin searching, but we'll leave the picture up as well just to help you decide. After all, in the end it does come down to your choice. You can kill him or save him as you wish."

The intercom clicked off, and as suddenly as that I was alone again. Even though Treize's right-hand woman was the last person I wanted to be talking with anyway, a part of me still wailed at being cut off from humanity again--I curled up on myself and groaned. My resolve not to become a pawn in this pathetic scheme was beginning to crumble more quickly than I could build it back up. I'd felt my willpower beginning to crack long before under the monotonous strain of living here, but that tiny taste of another person's speech and the knowledge Heero was in danger was beginning to break me wide open. I was sure Une knew it too, and bitterness rose in the back of my throat.

I can't let Heero die like this, I started to tell myself, but then I almost had another laughing fit at how willfully stupid I was being. Not only could I, I probably should. Undoubtedly that was what Heero himself would have told me to do if he'd been there, judging by the number of times he'd tried to self-destruct in the name of confidentiality. His life was not a big priority for him, so why should it be for me?

Fine then. I'll just let him go. I won't do anything, I'll just sit here quietly and imagine him bleeding to death... alone... probably cold and wet and miserable somewhere... I'll just let the only person in the whole Earth Sphere I really care about die in horrible agony without lifting a finger...

Okay. Obviously that was out too.

Could I trick them somehow? Give them false information, or maybe use this terminal to tell someone else where Heero is? Someone friendly, like Lucrezia Noin?

For a moment it seemed like the solution. I shoved the computer's chair away from it and sat down, fingers poised over the touchpad off to my right.

But...

The well of hysterical cackles inside me bubbled up again, hollow echoes of mirth that sounded like something out of a slasher movie even to my ears. How dumb did I think Une was, seriously? If she'd allowed me even the slimmest chance of communicating from here this entire elaborate setup would've been useless. The computer had to be bugged as well as the room was to make sure I wasn't doing anything except what I was told; If I tried to call for help, OZ would know it. Everything I found out with this computer, they'd know instantly. It'd be like they were inside my head...

My hand trembled over the activation switch, but I couldn't pull it away. The bright red power button was the shiny faceplate of a mobile doll, incapable of thought but full of malice thanks to the will of its creators. It was a red eye, a thing from Hell staring and waiting for me to damn myself. All I could do was stare back, stare back and shiver for a very long time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: How ironic that now the war's actually over, Duo's still suffering in the name of peace just as much as he was when it started... even more ironic that he's suffering because the ideal of total pacifism was achieved. And my hatred of Relena shows here--even though she would doubtless see keeping Duo alive as a benediction to him and in keeping with her pacifist morals, I'm not sure he'd feel the same way.