For: Language, Adult Content, Maybe violence?
Pairings: 1X2, 3X4
Warnings: Yaoi, cross-dressing, substance abuse, psychological disorders, and moderate government bashing, if you could call it that.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Stop asking. Stop the worthless lawsuits.
A/N: Last chapter, and then the epilogue. Thanks again for your patience, and to Sintari (who is awesome and is being shamelessly plugged as of now) for betaing. On with the show!
Chapter Fourteen- Try Not To BreatheLela's eyes slid open slowly but surely. Her head ached, a soft and somber ache as she raised up onto her elbows. A blanket slid off of her bare shoulders, and her chest was struck with the icy cold of the outside world. She sat up more fully then, drawing her knees forward. She was kneeling on her bed. When had she gotten to her bed? The light around her was not the harsh fluorescent of a hospital light. It was a gentle glowing sunlight, streaming between the purple curtains, lightly beaded, that hung on the window frame.
Duo's curtains.
That fucker.
She ran out of her bed, before accidentally sliding across the kitchen floor in her socks. Her headache caused her to fall over backwards and land hard on her rump. She swore, "God-fucking-dammit. Duo!"
"What?" he asked, looking over at her from the top of the kitchen table. "Why are you on the floor?"
"What the hell happened?"
"I… I don't know. That's why I asked."
"Not about the floor, you bastard. What happened last night? Why am I not at the hospital?"
"Well, you passed out. I brought you back here."
"When did I pass out?"
"Around… I think it was three this morning."
"Duo," she growled dangerously, struggling to her feet and trying to ignore the aching at both ends of her body. "You are going to tell me, in a good bit of detail, exactly what happened last night. You will tell me anything and everything that I want to know. Are we at an agreement?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"No. No you do not."
"That doesn't really seem fair."
"Depending on what happened last night, you may very well have lost your fairness privileges." Lela leaned against the wall then, keeping her balance and placing one hand against her head. "So, tell me."
"Well… we were at the hospital, then I took you over to Crazy Legs. You danced with some transies, had a lot to drink and passed out in a booth. Me and Amy, my dykey buddy, took you to a cab and you and I went home."
"Why on earth would I have done that?"
"Uh…" Duo shifted his weight between bare feet. He was getting nervous, that sick sinking feeling plaguing his stomach. He got that feeling that you get right before you throw up, like someone just stuck a stick of paste down your throat and smeared it around. There was a gacky feeling in him, right before he answered. "I might have nicked you."
He felt the death in her eyes, burning down his body as she hit him with a solid glare. "Nicked me?" Her voice was even with the high-pitched punctuating edge of absolute repressed rage. "What do you fucking mean 'nicked me?'"
"Well… I have this friend on Sanchu Avenue," Duo began. Lela's jaw dropped. Everyone who'd ever spent any time on the street knew exactly what Sanchu Avenue implied
"A drug strip? You went to a drug strip." She knew where this story was going before he even told it to her.
"Yeah, and I have this friend who gave me some of his best White Dragon at a discount. So, I put some in your tea and the evening basically evolved from there."
Lela's heart stopped beating, just for an instant. "Duo…" she whispered softly.
"I know; I know it was wrong, but I was really desperate. I was scared for you, Lela, I was scared for you. You just seemed so sad and small and alone. I just… I thought you should get out of the hospital."
"I didn't tell you why he's in, did I?"
"No…"
"He has a congenital heart defect. It almost killed him while he was at Trowa's. He's having surgery today."
Duo's heart dropped into his stomach, maybe even his intestines. "Oh…"
"Yeah. I need to go to the hospital. Now." She went back into her room and quickly dressed. Duo stared down at the speckled kitchen table. Lela emerged no less than two minutes later with a backpack slung over her shoulder, and ice radiating from her body. "Don't wait up for me. Definitely don't go looking for me."
As she left, Duo could hear her softly singing,
"God, it's been a lovely day
Everything's been going my way
I took out the trash today
Baby, I'm on fire."
Right before she slammed the door.
Lela walked in two hours after Julian's surgery had started. She hurried down the white halls, heading resolutely towards her ultimate goal, black backpack barely even weighing on her. When she got to Julian's window, she saw a woman standing there. Her hair was pulled back into a tight, high ponytail. Her body was a little disproportionate, with small breasts and a slightly protruding stomach trapped inside a navy blue suit, with official looking black flats and hose. Lela felt strikingly inferior in the clothes she'd thrown on, some of Duo's transvestite jeans and the only shirt she had, long-sleeved and black. The jeans had a hole in the knee and the shirt was too short for the way that they rode low on her hips. She stopped a foot away from her and stared forward.
"Hello," the woman said. Her voice was nasal, more then Heero's. Lela note that she had a crooked tooth, one of the front ones.
"Hello," Lela answered warily, extending one hand. The woman had a manicured hand, whereas Lela's was somewhat dry and her nails were painted in a vampiric burgundy. They shook and the other woman pulled away too quickly for Lela's taste. She stood up straight and glanced down at her clipboard.
"Are you Lela Donnelly?"
She winced slightly at her maiden name. The sting was rimmed with Victor. "Yes."
"My name is Melinda Starr; I'm from Child Harm and Abuse Preventive Services. I need to speak to you about your child, Julian."
"I see."
"Are you aware of the current situation surrounding your son?"
"In what sense?"
"Recently, you were reported for raising a young child in a hazardous situation. Government reforms have cracked down on what's harmful and what isn't. Your situation with Julian falls into those categories. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes."
Melinda Starr continued to speak regarding forms and paperwork. The trial date had been set, but she recommended that Lela not talk, as anything she said could be used against her. Julian would be in protective custody following surgery. Lela felt her fists clenching into small tight balls, with her red fingernails slowly punching half-moons of blood.
"I have a question," she said to Melinda Starr. She nodded forward, and everything that Duo had ever told her about his past, his war stories came flooding back and prodding her with a white-hot iron at the base of her skull. She thought about the girl with the flies on her eyes, with Solo and the gang's plague death. She thought of the crowded Maxwell's orphanage and the fire that knocked them all out of the water. "Where was your organization when the war orphans needed a place to go?"
"Where were you when your son went into surgery?" the woman replied. She began to walk off, her lacking heels clacking along as she left. "I'll see you in court. You might want to dress a bit… nicer."
Lela just stared after her, with nothing else to say.
She got back on the train and rode down the way, past her own stop. She wasn't sure where she was going until she was standing in front of Tia Sarmita's Empanadas stand. It was owned by a small Chinese woman, who chain-smoked Benson and Hedges 100s.
"Lela!" she exclaimed, waving her yellow nicotine-stained fingers in the air, a cigarette between two of them. "You come back! Haven't seen you so long! Where you been?"
"At the hospital."
"Oooh…" The Chinese woman's eyes grew wide. She put her cigarette hand against Lela's stomach. "Baby, you sick? You need medicine?"
"No, I'm okay."
"No, no! Poor baby. Here," and she began rummaging through the top drawer in her cart. "I find medicine, you feel better."
"Lin Tao! I'm not sick."
"You not sick?"
"No," she replied and couldn't help but smile. Lin Tao tended to be a hypochondriac and something of a big mother hen.
"Then why go hospital?"
"Julian."
"Oh! What's wrong with the baby?"
"Congenital heart defect."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Listen you want usual? I give you discount."
"Thank you, Lin." Lin nodded and shuffled around in the thermal heat-controlled cabinets. She pulled out a paper bag and Lela handed the little Chinese woman her money. Then, she crossed the street, and went down four buildings. She went up the fire escape, six floors, and slid to the third window. She climbed in to find Kolya lying dead on his apartment floor.
The Preventers appeared quickly, and efficiently like hotel maids, Lela had gone outside and given her statement to the somewhat portly field officer; she leaned back and tried to get a last glimpse of Kolya. The whole room was totally clean, spike tape marking evidence and a chalk outline replacing his body. The door was marked off with caution tape and most of the team had cleaned up whatever mess was left and gone. The agent drove her back to Duo and Heero's apartment. Duo was laying on the couch with a bottle of vodka resting on his lap.
"Hello, lovely," he said softly turning his eyes away from the book he'd propped up against the bottle. "How was your day?"
"My day?" Lela asked. "You want to know how my fucking day went?"
"Yeah," he whispered. He was half-drunk, but very careful about his words after he realized how on-edge she was. "I do." One of his hands moved up and slid along the back of her leg. "Tell me all about it, kiddo."
At that moment, something in Lela snapped and that bad day became every bad days she'd ever had before in her life. Her hands clenched into fists, and Duo realized two seconds too late that he shouldn't have even started this conversation. His hand slid away from her leg a bit too late for her taste. Lela's arm shot out and grabbed the vodka bottle from his lap. He reached for it, but soon realized that she probably needed it more.
"Well, it started out okay, what with one of the two people I trusted most telling me he fucking nicked me." She took a long heavy swig because she didn't want Duo to think that the tears coming to her eyes were from anything other than the spicy burn of vodka sliding down her throat. "Then I went to the hospital where Melinda Stick-up-her-ass told me that she was repoing my fucking baby." Lela drank once against, this one lasting longer, and accompanied by more tears. "And this!" she exclaimed pointing one finger, the rest of the hand wrapped around the bottle's neck. "This is my favorite part. Ready steady, tiger?"
"Do I want to know?"
"Oh yeah. About as much as I did," she answered, taking a quick drink. "Kolya's dead."
"What?"
"Yeah. Some fucking asshole sniped him in his apartment. But don't worry, the Preventers are on it!" she cried out, sarcasm dripping out of her voice like tree sap." Fuckin a…" She slumped onto the floor, and wedged the bottle into her mouth. Then, she knocked it back until it was vertical and just kept drinking until there was nothing left. She let the bottle drop, and it knocked her leg before rolling under the couch. She just sat there, tears rolling down her cheeks over and over, with her head bowed down. She was posed like a puppet with no master, a toy that had lost its owner and didn't have any other reason to be in existence. Duo slid off the couch onto his hands and knees. She shook him off and rolled slowly, landing on her ass and sliding back towards the door. It took entirely too much work for her to stand up, but she managed it. "God, I hate you," she yelled, before finally falling out the door down the hall. Duo slumped over and sighed, bangs falling across his eyes.
It was the saddest song he'd ever sung.