Duo's Child

Chapter 16

Uno yawned one morning as she walked down the hallway. She was tired but not sleepy, she wanted to rest from school and homework, and she needed a break from the fans at her school. True, she has been in school for a little over a month now and yes people were still picking on her, but each time was less than before because she would put them in their place. Now, they have reached what is called a teacher work day; Uno didn't care, she wanted to rest from it all.

She turned the corner and stopped when she saw that no body was in the living room; not even Duo. She blinked, knowing they had to work but didn't know when they left to do so; she was usually gone by now. She shrugged and continued to walk. As the wall let out more of the scenery, she found that Heero was sitting at the end of the couch, on his laptop.

Uno rubbed her eyes. "Hi."

Heero paused to look at her and they both stared at one another for several seconds. Heero studied her, Uno stared at him, and finally he broke the silence. Uno stretched.

"I thought you had school."

"It's a Teacher Work Day…whatever that means," shrugged Uno. "What are you doing?"

"Work."

Uno sweatdropped. "Why don't I ever see you doing it?"

"You do; you just never asked until now."

Uno sweatdropped again. "Right…I'm going to get something to eat."

Uno turned and slowly crept around the corner of the couch. Heero paused to watch her, knowing that she was fully Duo's kid. When she left the living room he returned to his laptop and jotted down a few of his thought-up notes, knowing he had to make a known remembrance of this girl.

Uno opened the fridge and instantly found a note hanging from the top shelf. She blinked slowly at it and ripped it out. It read:

About time ya' got up. I left around seven…I have a feeling you got up at eleven. I'll be home around four today; work is rough. Don't bother Heero much…he's been hiding something from us all lately. I don't want to come home and find there's no Uno. Quatre should be home around one; Trowa went out to practice at the circus again. Hell knows where Wufei went off to.

Be home shortly, ciao.

Duo

Uno blinked and looked over at the kitchen clock. Duo knew her too well, only he was a half hour early. She left the note hanging and shut the door, no longer feeling hungry. Uno rubbed her eyes and left the kitchen. She stood in the doorway and watched Heero type away on his little machine.

"What?" He asked without even looking up.

"What are you doing?"

"Working."

She was about to open her mouth when she remember Duo's warning. 'When Heero works, he works alone.' It's what Duo told her a very long time ago.

She turned to travel down the other hallway. She's trained in Heero's style for weeks. She trained with Trowa for weeks. She's done homework non-stop—darn Mr. Merky thinking she's the best, challenging her—so she figured she'd go read a book. Her teacher knew how much better she was than the rest of the class. He even told her on a day she wasn't ready to leave yet when the bell rang. He told her that he was challenging her to help her out, make her study more and more, get her to think more. She didn't care because it was beginning to make her head hurt. But something told her that he was also testing her…like he was going to do something very rough one day and wanted to prepare her for it.

Uno opened the door to the library and stepped inside. Cool air slammed against her body as the door shut itself behind her. Near the other door of the other hallway sat boxes upon boxes and some books were removed off shelves. Quatre must be reloading his shelves and selling the old books.

Uno stepped up to a box. Since she's lived with Duo, she's watched Quatre go through two times of cleaning out the library and stacking up new books. He sometimes stacked them so tightly she needed Trowa's help to get something down. Now that most the books were gone from the shelves, especially the isle shelves, she could see just how tiny the room was. It was the same size of her and Duo's bedroom, no smaller and no bigger.

Uno picked up the book she first read off the floor and placed it on the round table in the corner of the two doors. No telling if Quatre was going to get rid of it either. She wanted to keep some things that she's done in her life, like reading books. Uno stepped up to an empty shelf and peered up at the dust. She sneezed. Quatre needs to clean more often.

A book with a pink binding caught her eye from up above on a shelf higher than she is. The title read 'A Dream That Fades.' It was on its back, probably a book that Quatre was going to get rid of. She reached for it and barely managed to get it. Her fingers touched the side of the book and wound up pushing it back. Uno growled; she wanted that darn book!

She reached up again and stood on her toes. Her fingers couldn't grasp the shelf enough to hoist herself up so she reached in the shelf below it to the bottom of the other, wedged her fingers up through the wood and lifted the book up; all she had to do now was get the book down to her. She frowned, she hated being small and short.

Fingers crouching, Uno flung the book off her hand and to the floor near her feet. She tugged her fingers free and knelt down to pick up the book. When she stood back up, she noticed the window was wide open. She blinked and placed the book on the table on top of the other and lightly stepped over to the window. Slowly, she pulled herself up to the frame and sat on her knees, despite the pain it gave her down her legs. She looked outside the window and saw, for the first time since she was here, the scenery and things that she didn't notice before, especially the long extension of the mansion wall to her left. She knew the gymnasium and training room doors were down this same hallway, but by the look of the walls the mansion was much larger than she thought. Uno slipped off the window frame and rubbed the swelling on her knees. She reached for the opened panes of glass and pulled them together, locked the latch, and stood another second before turning around.

"What were you doing?"

Uno's heart slammed against her body and she nearly stumbled to the floor when she saw Heero behind her.

"You…scawed…me." She gapped in long breaths.

"…" Heero stared at her another moment.

"I shut the window."

"Hn." He stepped up to a shelf besides the door he emerged from and grabbed a book. Once he took what he wanted, he left the library.

Uno's heart jumped into her throat and remained there for a long time as it pounded away. She swallowed a heavy load that was stuck with her breath and forced her body to relax a little. Heero could have been some robber ready to kill her and she panicked; what would Duo say if he saw?

Uno shut her eyes and rested. She was a normal child who fled in terror at the sightings of a freak-show and what Duo wanted her to become only played her mind. She was going to get tougher on herself, especially when the look Heero gave her was an ice-cold stare of death. She stood.

She went to the table and took both her books then looked at the shelf Heero came for. It was a shelf that was packed, a shelf Quatre might not clean out for facts of Heero. All the books led to the image of war. Uno read some titles: 'WAR,' 'Bloodshed and Bullets,' 'Wings of Destruction,' 'History of Mankind." She shook her head.

"Typical Heewo." She whispered. Now Uno wasn't happy; Heero startled her and now her slurs returned. She's going to tell Duo the second she has the chance.

Through the door where boxes were piled up, she left the library towards the rooms.

Duo came home when Uno was in the bedroom taking a nap. He entered and smiled, looking at her adorable tiny figure curled up in a ball on his bed. She still slept in a cot besides his bed but he often found her at times curled up besides him. He didn't mind a bit.

Duo crept slowly through the room to the bathroom, letting the door shut before turning on the lights. He's had a rough day. Several people came in with vehicles that were broken down, cars that just wouldn't work no matter how determined the owners were on fixing it up, and people who thought they knew it all about automobiles but didn't know jack, like the guy who came in and starting talking to customers saying that corvettes had a turbo installed in it already.

Duo flushed the toilet when he was done draining his fluids and washed his hands. He needed a relaxing shower but first he needed some food. When he shut out the light of the bathroom and opened the door, he still heard the light breaths of the tiny clone on his bed. Duo stepped up to her and bent over to kiss her forehead. She was so young and so vulnerable; she didn't have a clue at what her future could turn out to.

Lucky girl. Duo thought to himself as he exited the room.

Stepping into the living room, he stretched and let out a loud groan. Muscles flexed and bones crackled, Quatre looked over at him from his comfy spot on the couch besides Trowa. His face distorted.

"Duo, please."

"Eh?" Duo leant over and popped his back again, resting his arms as they hung. "Uno's so cute when she's sleeping."

"She's reading a new book. I was going to get rid of that one because it's so old, but she insisted upon reading it so I figured," Quatre shrugged, "I figured I'd let her keep that one along with her first."

"Okay." Duo walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Heero looked up from his meal of chicken and swallowed his bite then took another.

"Heero…what happened to my left-overs of chicken?" Duo faced him then when still.

"I don't know." Heero swallowed another bite and faced back down at the plate.

Duo growled, "bastard."

"So shoot and kill me." Heero stood and carried his plate to the sink, soaked it, then left through the garage doors. Duo blinked.

"Well, he seems to be in a pissy mood today."

Quatre laughed at a scene of his movie as an unhappy Duo stomped besides him to the love seat in the corner. Duo sat with a TV dinner on his lap and began picking at the Chinese rice and beans. His face was agitated and twistful, angry, and revengeful.

"Duo?"

"Heero ate my chicken!" Duo snatched a bite off the fork and hastily swallowed the food despite the nasty taste it gave him. "He's in some pissy mood today and it's fucking me off real badly!"

"Duo! Please, don't cuss around here. I don't want Uno to get the habit of doing so and I'm sure you wouldn't want that either."

Duo grumbled as he forced himself to take another bite. "What's his deal anyways? All I did was ask what happened to my chicken and he acted as if it were just some machine part. I mean, he told me to go ahead and shoot him to death, as if he were expecting me to say something ultimately rude back to him."

"Heero's been real busy with work lately. He just found out something important about his job that he doesn't like." Trowa remarked.

"Oh yeah? Did he tell you that or did you just figure it out on your own?" Duo looked up at him.

"No, actually he told me. He didn't quite say what it was, but whatever it was it has to be something big otherwise it wouldn't affect a guy as powerful as him."

Duo glared the food in his hands. "I'm not eating this." He stood up and stormed back into the kitchen to throw away the remains of the TV dinner.

That night, as Duo entered his room, he found Uno sprawled out upon the bed, breathing away and dripping small amounts of drool from the sides of her mouth. Duo smirked as the sight of her cheered him up a little from his bad dinner. He went to the dresser and opened it, took out his black silky pajamas and clean boxers. He shut the door and returned to the bathroom to shower.

Duo reached over the bathtub and started the water. He let it run down for a while as the warm water heated up, looked into the mirror and held up his braid. Perhaps he should cut it; Duo pictured himself with short hair then shook his head awfully hard to get the picture out of his mind. Hell no will he destroy his ancestry braided hair.

He walked back over to the tub and turn on the shower switch. Water sprayed out over the walls and floor of the tub and he shut the curtains. Sighing deeply, Duo stripped out of his t-shirt and jeans. He peeled the sweaty socks off his feet, thanking himself for already having his boots taken off the second he reached home, and slipped off his boxers. He stepped into the tub and quickly felt the sting of hot water melt away the sweat of his flesh. Heated skin moistened into hot water and dirty filth drained off his body.

Duo stared up at the ceiling as the water dribbled down his face and over his eyes. Such a tough and rough day he had. His boss finally fired Richard—thank God—but it left Duo with more work to do. Now he has to learn sales talk at the same time work on engines. How the hell is he supposed to sell cars to people when he looks like he just came out of an oil bath?

He lowered his head and shut his eyes. The water of his flesh fell past his shoulders and traveled all the way down his body, dripping and leaving trails among his flesh until it hit the gigantic puddle at the base of his feet. He exhaled and reached for the shampoo through shut eyelids. The scent of strawberries and peach aroma shot out from the bottle as he twisted the cap off. He poured a little amount of shampoo into his hair and began lathering the top of his head. He picked up his soaked braid and began working the braids, untying the knots and releasing the hair from its hold.

He poured more shampoo into his hands and began lathering all of his hair together, tying it up into a humongous mop of hair on the top of his head, letting the bubbly soap sit for a while and still the bun on top. He grabbed the liquid body soap and the lather sponge off the side shelf and soaked up his body with white shades of color. He bathed his skin, washed it thoroughly, cleansed it as well as possible, then stood under the shower as the water washed away the filthy and dirty soap spuds. The sponge dropped out of his hands and he replaced the bottle to the shelf it belonged. Duo turned around and faced the back wall of the shower as the water splashed against his skin hard, giving him the massage he needed.

Duo looked up at the ceiling once more, no longer caring about the soaped up hair mop above his eyes and stared past the concrete. He stared out into space, remembering Sister Helen and his life he once had long ago; how he missed being young and being on his own. True, he was on his own now but it didn't feel like it anymore. He wanted to marry Hildie and have a family, a house with just the two of them and Uno; that's all that ever came to mind anymore.

After the shower, Duo wound up taking his time to exit the bathroom. By the time he was fully dressed and his hair was entirely towel-dried and brushed, he had already decided on paying off his debts and starting a savings account. Duo opened the door to the bedroom and found the room just about pitch black.

Uno must still be asleep; I'll let her stay there. Duo strode over to the clock and set the alarm earlier so that way he could wake up the morning-grouch, Uno. His lights were already off and all he had to do was get under the covers…the spot where Uno—the soundless sleeper—was lying.