I forgot to say this in the last chapter, but PLEASE REVIEW!!!!


Chapter Sixteen: Slight Obsession

A few weeks after our outing, Jericho and I decided to get together and work on our science fair project. I went over to her house one Saturday afternoon in mid November. I was a little early, but I had been bored at home so I decided not to wait.

When I rang the doorbell, David --Jericho's father-- answered. He smiled at me and welcomed me in. I noticed as I went inside that all the furniture and the floors were covered in plastic.

"We're in the middle of repainting the down stairs," David explained.

As it turned out, Jericho had just gotten into the shower. I offered to wait for her in the kitchen (she didn't like people in her atrium when she wasn't in there with them) but David shook his head. Apparently, Megan was in the middle of a cooking marathon, making cookies for their church's bake sale.

"Why don't you go wait up in Jericho's room?" David suggested.

I gave him a questioning look. I had never been up to Jericho's room.

David laughed. "Jericho has this crazy notion that boys aren't allowed upstairs, but Megan and I never told her that. It's totally fine if you wanna go up and wait. She has a computer up there; you could use it. Just take the stairs up a flight, and it's down the hall, first door on the left."

I nodded and went up to her room. It was a nice room, with a large picture window. She had a big bed that needed to be made, and a desk with a state-of-the-art computer on it. The walls were covered with posters of bands and movie stars. It was weird, because Jericho had never come across as the kind of girl who swooned over celebrities.

On the wall above her bookcase, there was a bulletin board covered in newspaper articles and Internet printouts. I walked over, expecting to find articles about Jericho winning prizes at competitions, or things she had been involved in. I was poorly mistaken.

Colonies Send Mobile Suits to EarthGundam Sighted at J.A.P. PointGundam Attack at Lake Victoria BaseAlliance Leaders Assassinated—Gundams to BlameGundam Self Destructed in SiberiaGundams Return to SpaceUnidentified Gundam Attacking Space Colonies….

Every single one of those articles had to do with the Gundams. Pictures and maps accompanied many of them. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I glanced at the bookshelf under the bulletin board. My eye caught the word "Gundam" on the front of a large scrapbook-looking book.

I picked the book up. Jericho had written "Gundam Articles, Information, and Pictures" on the front. I opened it, and found duplicates of the articles on the bulletin board, along with hundreds of new articles and clippings. Pictures of the Gundams taken by different people covered page after page. A note under each one said who had taken it: "Taken by maintenance officer at Lake Victoria Base. 04 pictured." "Taken by civilian at J.A.P. Point. 01, 02 pictured."

Everything was in perfect chronological order. I had always thought Jericho reminded me of Heero in how thorough she was with things. But this book rivaled even Heero's thoroughness.

I flipped through the book, a strange sense of dread growing within me. I didn't know why, but I felt as though any minute, I would turn the page and see a picture of Deathscythe being destroyed. I didn't think I could stand being reminded of that.

I turned a page and took a sharp inhalation. There was an article on the left page that read "Gundam Pilot Captured. Execution to be Scheduled." On the opposite page, there was a picture of the captured pilot being dragged between two OZ soldiers. The pilot in the picture was me. At the bottom of the page, a name had been scribbled in Jericho's handwriting: "DUO MAXWELL"

My stomach dropped about twenty feet. Jericho had figured it out that I was a Gundam pilot! I wondered when she had figured it out. I remembered that day in History, almost two months before, when we had debated over the Gundams.

"I've been on Earth before," I had said. "Spent a fair amount of time down here during the war, actually."

"Really?" Jericho had responded, cocking her head to one side. "I thought transportation to and from the space colonies was severely limited before and during the war. I heard you needed government and military clearance to leave the colonies. How'd you manage to get off the colonies?"

I had gotten off the colonies because I was in a Gundam. If you thought about it, that was the only plausible explanation, since no colony citizens could have gotten the clearance needed.

And then there was what she had said to me after the class, the thing that first got me wondering if she knew I was a Gundam pilot.

"I was…I was just wondering if you believe the rumors about the Gundam pilots beings teenagers, like us?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Why, do you believe them?"

"Well, I didn't until about twenty minutes ago. But after debating you, I think my opinions on a lot of stuff are changing."

I sat down on Jericho's bed and stared at the book. I flipped through it, and suddenly noticed there were a lot of notes that had been written recently about me, tying me to different attacks and things. Jericho probably knew more facts about my time as a Gundam pilot than I did. What was I going to do? Think Duo. You have to think, I told myself. No one's supposed to know. What would Heero do in this situation? I realized that if Heero were in this situation, he would probably shoot Jericho and then change schools using my name as an alias. On second thought, what would WuFei do? That wasn't any good either; WuFei would simply call Jericho a stupid woman and insult her. I didn't feel like making Jericho mad. Trowa? He wouldn't say anything, but he would also have the possibility to 'pull a Heero' and try to kill her. God, I need to get friends who deal with their problems civilly, I told myself. What would Quatre do? Quatre was a negotiator. He would try to convince her that she was mistaken, using his prestigious family name to convince her that he had no need to pilot a Gundam. But I didn't have a family name or money to back me up.

Finally, I decided there was only one way to handle the situation. I would have to talk to Jericho. I would have to make sure she understood she couldn't tell anyone. I would have to make sure no one else found out, even if it meant striking a deal with her.

I heard the bathroom door open out in the hall, and then Jericho's voice calling to her dad, asking if I had arrived yet. I couldn't clearly hear her father's answer, but I assumed he told her I was in her room because when she came in, she didn't look surprised to see me.

"Hey Duo, I didn't know you were here. What's up?" she asked with a smile. She hung up her towel on the back of her door and tossed her pajamas onto her bed.

"We need to talk," I replied, sounding a lot sterner than I had meant to.

"What about?" she asked, turning to me.

I held up the Gundam scrapbook. It was open to the page with the picture of me. When she saw it, Jericho's face fell. "Oh, that," she mumbled. "I guess you're gonna tell me I'm mistaken, huh? I've probably got the wrong guy. I mean, after all, you can't really see the pilot's face in that picture. It could just be a coincidence that you and he dress exactly alike and your have the exact same hair down to your bangs and the way you braid it." She sounded sincere, but after hanging out with her for almost two months straight, I knew she was being slightly sarcastic.

"How long have you known?" I asked, my voice still stern.

She looked down at the ground. "I sort of guessed the first day we met. I mean, you looked an awful lot like the picture. But I wasn't sure. After that day in history, though, when we had the debate about the gundams, I knew for certain. You seemed to know a whole lot more about the gundams than an average person would."

I sighed. "I have a couple of friends who would kill you if they were in this situation." Jericho looked up at me, fear spread across her face. She was scared I might kill her! "Don't worry!" I said, laughing. "I'm not one of those friends. But here's the thing: no one is supposed to know I'm a Gundam pilot. If people find out, I'm gonna be in trouble. And If I get into trouble, I'll get you into trouble. So you can't tell anyone." My voice had gone back to being stern. "Got it?"

Jericho nodded. "I won't tell anyone. I mean, I don't really have anyone to tell anyway." She reached over and took the book from me. "No one was supposed to see this thing anyway. I usually keep it under lock and key." She opened her closet and placed the book into an opened trunk. She closed and locked the trunk with a snap.

I looked over at the bulletin board that was covered in Gundam-related news articles. "What's with your fascination with us pilots and our Gundams anyway?"

She laughed. "You could call it a slight obsession. When I first heard about the Gundams, I was enthralled with the idea of such interesting machines. Originally I collected information so that I could compare the Gundams with other mobile suits. I guess, I dunno, eventually it evolved into some sort of a connection with them. I thought the Gundams were sort of like me, you know? You guys were just fighting to protect your way of life. I was just fighting to protect mine. You didn't stand a chance. Neither did I."

"You were an underdog, just like us huh?" I asked.

She nodded, and then turned to me. "Duo, I promise I'll keep your secret safe. I won't tell anyone that you're a Gundam pilot."

I smiled at her. "I know. I trust you, Jericho. Now, let's go work on that motor."