Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters...however, I did pray last night that God would give me a boy friend that looks like Duo (No joke, I really did...pathetic, I know...)


Chapter Fourteen: Sleepless

Jericho and I had become fast friends, and over the weeks that followed we came to know everything about each other. She learned about my time living on the streets of the colonies and then my time living at the Maxwell Church. She hung on every word, listening intently and asking clarification when I told her something she didn't understand. Eventually, I even told her a little about Hilde, even though it still killed me to even think about her. I didn't tell Jericho too much about Hilde, but I did tell her about the junkyard we had co-owned.

In return, Jericho told me about herself. The Van Burens, it turned out, weren't her biological parents. Jericho's real last name was Rodgers, but her parents had died in a car accident when she was six. She didn't any relatives, so she had been placed in foster homes. She had been a "problem child", getting into fights and causing problems, so she was moved a lot and no one ever adopted her. When Jericho was eleven, she was sent to live with the Christophers, and she met the Van Burens through them. The Van Burens had adopted Jericho on her thirteenth birthday.

Most of our discussions took place outside of school. Jericho was often withdrawn around our classmates, and while she would talk in school, she saved all our important conversations for times when we were alone outside of school. She would talk just about anywhere else: in my room, in the Christopher's kitchen, in her kitchen, in her atrium, in a coffee shop that opened down the street from my house the first week of October.

I did most of my talking when we were walking or looking through junk shops and junkyards for materials for our science fair project. We had both thought it would be cool if we built the model so that the earth would turn and the colonies and the moon would orbit around it. Jericho wanted to build the motor from scratch, and while I knew I could do it if I had the right parts and enough time and patience to figure it out, I was still wary of the idea.

"Do you realize how complex motors are?" I asked her as we walked through a Radio Shack 1, looking for parts. "They require bolts and casings and turbines and a power source and lots of other itty-bitty parts that are a pain to find and an even bigger pain to put together! I mean, you'd almost need a professional engineer to build a motor!"

"Well, I figured that with all you know about fixing cars and machines, you'd be able to put together a motor no problem. I mean, you are the world's best mechanic, right?" she asked, a innocent-sweet smile spreading across her face.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," I replied, putting my arm around her shoulder and giving her a playful one-armed hug. "You're the world's best suck-up."

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said as she skillfully shrugged out of my arm, making my heart sink. I liked having my arm around her.

I smiled a little at her, and then pretended to examine some wire so that she wouldn't notice the dejected look in my eyes.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to completely adjust to living with the Christophers. After that first flash back, I hadn't been sleeping too well. While I didn't have anymore real flash backs, my dreams were still riddled with memories from my past. Some nights I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. Other nights, I would wake up in a cold sweat or with tears running down my face. I didn't tell Diana or Jon about the dreams, but they knew something was up.

One night, I woke up with Sister Helen's final words ringing in my ears. Duo, may you have God's blessing…

I sat up in bed, holding my head in my hands. Why couldn't the past just let me be, even if for just one night? Why was I chosen to go through this torture?

I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep for a while, so I got up, pulled on a t-shirt and went downstairs to the kitchen. The clock on the stove said it was two-thirty in the morning. I turned on the overhead light and looked at my surroundings. Diana worked hard at keeping everything in the house neat, and the kitchen was the room she succeeded at the most. Now, in the middle of the night, under the glaring overhead light, the room looked almost sterile. It barely looked live in except for a single glass that sat in the sink, waiting to be washed.

I got myself a glass of milk and sat down on a stool at the island. I slowly drank the milk and tried to keep my mind clear. It didn't make sense to me. I always had stuff whizzing through my head at a hundred miles an hour no matter how hard I tried to empty it. WuFei and Heero were really good at clearing their minds, so why couldn't these demons go bother them?

I groaned and leaned my head on my hand. Get a grip Duo, I told myself. If the others knew you were thinking like this, they'd be disappointed. Com'n Duo, follow your own advice: Lighten up.

I sighed, frustrated with myself. Why was this taking so long? Why were things that happened almost two years ago still bothering me? No one else I knew ever had problems like this. From what I could tell, Quatre slept well, as did Trowa. I assumed WuFei did too. I doubted if Heero slept at all. He was super human in every other way. Knowing him, he had probably trained his body to go without sleep for years. The other Gundam pilots had no trouble sleeping, so what was my problem?

"ARG!" I slammed my fist against the counter top as if it was causing all my problems.

"Duo? Are you down there?" Jon's voice called from the stairs.

"Yeah," I called. He came into the kitchen, tying the sash of his bathrobe around his waist.

"What are you doing up?" Jon asked.

"I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I thought I'd get up and get a drink," I explained. I drained my milk glass. "Now that I'm done with my milk, I'm gonna go back to bed."

Jon frowned as he watched me. "Are you okay? You haven't been sleeping so well the past couple of weeks. You look like you're going to drop dead."

"Hate to break it to you Jon," I replied. "But we're all going to drop dead." I forced myself to crack a smile. "Except me, of course. I'm a teenager and therefore I'm invincible 2."

Jon smiled. "Of course you are." He face turned serious. "Listen, Duo, if anything's bothering you, you can tell me or Diana about it. We'll listen and help, but we need to know what the problem is first."

"Thanks," I said. "I'll keep that in mind for when something's bothering me. But I'm gonna turn in. G'night."

"Sleep well Duo."

I snorted quietly at his last remark as I trudged up the stairs and flopped down on my bed. I couldn't even get up in the middle of the night and mentally berate myself around here. I felt as if I wasn't completely free to be myself. I hoped Miss Renée had been right when she had placed me here.

I didn't fall asleep again—not that I was really expecting to anyway. I stayed in bed until my alarm went off at 6:15, then I got up, took a shower, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to school.

I promptly fell asleep in first period Economics, and woke up to the teacher yelling at me about my snoring. I fell asleep again in History and Jericho woke me up. "You look awful, Duo," she said to me over the work sheet we were working on together. "Didn't you get any sleep last night?"

I shook my head and tried to focus my eyes on the paper, but they refused to do what I told them.

Jericho frowned. "You've seemed pretty stressed out and tired lately. You should take some time and relax. Get out of your house and do something fun."

I didn't answer her. Instead I closed my eyes and put my head down on my desk, defeated once again by exhaustion. I slept the rest of the period, and Jericho didn't stop me.


1) Okay, I know this is at least two hundred years in the future or whatever, but I have faith that Radio Shack will stand the test of time and will still be around when we have space colonies orbiting around us…

2) An inside joke I have with my friend Lana. We used to say "We shouldn't do this, BUT since we're teenagers and we're invincible…COWABUNGA!" or "BUT, since I am sixteen and I know everything…" Yeah…anyway…like I said, some of these footnotes are pretty random.


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