Note to Readers: This chapter has NEVER before been seen by any eyes… not even my own! A somewhat short chapter, but what all can I put in?



Duo's Child

Chapter 26

It was about one thirty in the morning when Duo came home from work. They didn't get to close on time due to a tragic accident only a few miles away and desperate citizens who needed some sort of transportation by the early hours of the morning—only two hours away. Duo was the first one to rush the mechanics back to work before they all left and immediately set to work on the totaled vehicles all while getting the new cars for the customers. Hell, if not for Duo, Citywide Specialists would have shut down months ago; he's kept it running clean better than the damn boss had!

By the time he reached the stairs he felt as if he had another thousand feet left to walk. The hallway was pitch black, the stairs looked as if it were ascending into another level of Hell, and above all, he wasn't sure if he could make it fully up there without tripping over himself. When he finally managed to tumbled through his bedroom door, the glow of the Grim Reaper Halloween figure lighting a reddish-yellow and orange hue across his room from his bed side table, he causally shut the door, dropped his things on the floor, and dragged his feet several steps before letting go of his strength and allowing himself to fall face first onto his bed, his room light never even touched.

As soon as he fell against his black satin sheets, he was quickly drowned to sleep.

Uno and Theresa were laughing to a CD Ricky had made them for the drive home from their college entrance exams. He created his own Techno with the help from Quatre's Recording Studio, added in a few jokes from old late night show skits, and even a few secretly recorded tapes from the school itself. They were currently laughing their asses off to a skit he recorded from Johnson losing a battle against one of his many girlfriends.

"Ricky is so… hah hah!" Theresa was too busy laughing her ass off to finish. Uno wiped a few tears away from her eyes before shifting back down to fourth gear from her cruising speed.

"That's why he put them in; he knows what people want." Uno was smiling and stopped for a red light. Theresa sniffled back a few happy tears and looked out the window at their surroundings.

"Hey, you know… Citywide Specialists has a new offer on brand new sport bikes; I heard Ray's getting one." She smiled over at her best friend. Uno nodded her head.

"That's where Quatre got my car," she stopped to glance around their sides before driving on. "After your mom dropped me off—before my party when I turned seventeen—there was this awesome black Dodge Stealth sitting on the driveway and when I asked him about it, he just handed me the key's as if I should have expected it!"

"Wow," Theresa slowly shook her head, her mouth parted in awe. "I wish my parents were that cool for me. All I got for my eighteenth gift was a trip to go to Hawaii by myself with Ray."

"But you had fun… right?" Uno smiled over at Theresa before grinning. "You had lots of fun."

"Hey!" Theresa snapped her head at Uno with a growl. "Don't you bring that up; it hurt… losing my virginity in the shower. It was fun and it felt great… but it hurt." Theresa sighed and frowned a bit. "Besides, what about you and Ricky?" She faced Uno, who in turn stayed quiet. "Aren't you two going steady after graduation?"

"Yeah… Quatre's letting him move in because his dad's got a transfer over to some new company over in California Territory. Johnson's moving into the penthouse that his girlfriends live and work in—he's got it made with all the free sex he wants and his new job." Theresa busted out laughing and Uno giggled. "Who knew that crack addict became a porn star."

"Man Uno… your dad kicks total ass!" Uno was grinning.

"Yep," She nodded. "He's never been so proud in all his life, he told me."

"I wish he had adopted me from my family… my parents are cool too but not that cool." Theresa looked out the window as they drove down the beach side with enormous palm trees that towered over them. She turned back to face Uno with a question. "Does he know about you and Ricky?"

Uno blinked for a moment and shifted into fifth gear. "You mean at the party?"

"Any of it?" Theresa cocked her head to the side. "Does he know at all?"

"No… Ricky and I keep that subject entirely hush-hush. He gets the pill for me from Johnson's girls and technically… we haven't done it in one month."

"One month!!" Theresa's eyes were huge. "Uno! That's a record for you!"

"Oh hush…" Uno glared her best friend before the two of them laughed again.

Uno entered the freeway and sped up past a hundred. She dodged each car that was in her way and Theresa leaned back in her seat. She used to be scared of the way Uno drove but she got use to it when Uno proved herself that she could dodge attacks—and done so at least a dozen times. Uno had excellent maneuvering capabilities.

"So," Theresa turned to her friend again, her brown hair with golden tips toppled over onto one side of her face and styled in a sexy position. Uno's, on the other hand, was streaked with white and semi-curled, cut just barely above her shoulders, and—according to Ricky—better than any girl he's ever seen with and without makeup on their face.

"Do you think you passed the entrance exams?"

"Definitely. You?" Uno looked over before cutting someone off the road at a hundred and ten miles an hour. Theresa looked down. "Theresa… I helped tutor you! Me and Mr. Merquise! You couldn't have done that horrible…" Her brows furrowed.

"I didn't… I just barely passed but that test was hard. I mean, it was like they knew I hung out with you."

Uno shrugged. "Maybe they did?"

"But… now that my parents know I've passed, they both agreed to pay for my first few months of my apartment. I don't really want to… but… they're deciding to move after all these years. They've built that house and it's all I know… and now they're selling it." Theresa frowned and looked down.

"You know my house…" Uno pouted over as she slowed the speed of the car down some.

"Yeah but…"

"Move in with us." Uno cut people off the road as she directed the car towards the off-ramp. Theresa looked up at her friend. "You're going to the same University as me and Ricky; I'm sure Ray is still there. You and I will dorm together when the time comes and until then, Quatre's got over a thousand free rooms in the entire place. I doubt he'll have a problem sparing some."

"Are you serious?" Theresa's eyes enlargened.

Uno nodded. "Entirely. Ricky already practically moved in anyways." Uno giggled.

"Man Uno…" Theresa sat back in her chair once again as the blur of more palm trees raced by her window. "I so wish Quatre would have adopted me as well… but my parents had to hide during those stupid wars."

Uno shrugged. "At least you have parents. I've lived in the orphanage until I was seven. Quatre then adopted me and enrolled me into the Winner Academy several weeks later—after I got used to him and that big house—and made myself a room." Uno looked at Theresa. "Then I met you and Ricky in Mr. Merquise's history class and we all three hit it off there."

"Yeah I remember that… damn that's so long ago. I met Ray through a track meet; I was the fastest girl and he was the fastest guy but we both scored a tie."

"And then you both scored entirely not long after…" Uno grinned.

"Shuddap!" Theresa looked away. "At least I lost mine ahead of time!"

Uno laughed loudly as she pulled up to a stop sign. She covered her mouth with her unused driving hand and looked over at Theresa.

"And you think I wanted too after Brittany came to school, paled as a ghost because she got AID's from one of the football people? Hah! That little slut deserved it all… fucking four guys at once." Uno cleared her throat and wiped away a few laughing tears. "Please, Ricky and I decided to get tests before we did anything and Johnson helped us out with that."

"What happened to Brittany?" Theresa turned to face Uno, the laughter dead in the air and a bit of seriousness sparking their faces. Uno turned around the block of a shopping center. "She committed suicide before her parents found out. The rest of the cheerleading team told her parents and then it just died. I found out because Quatre was part of the P.T.O. for the school funding."
Theresa scoffed then. "I can't believe he agreed to have us all in uniforms."

Uno shrugged. "I'm used to it… the orphanage—we always had uniforms. When Quatre took me in and let me buy what I want I didn't know what to do."

Uno pulled off the shopping district block and headed down one of the main paths toward the mansion. Over the past few course of the years Quatre's helped funded the entire city to help bring it out of the slums and into one of the richest neighborhoods in all of the Earth Sphere. Where they were driving now used to be nothing but a marsh only five years before.

"So what do you want to do?" Theresa looked over.

Uno blinked for a moment. "I want to go into something dealing with computers—hacking and piracy—but Quatre doesn't appreciate it. I mean, I'm great with computers and I ace every test thrown at me… I learned DOS in only a matter of days, the hardware and software performances of all the systems in only a matter of weeks… and the BIOS only took about a few hours with the right tools. I'm trying to learn Binary right now but that's tricky; Mr. Merquise is helping me some."

Theresa rolled her eyes. "Next time in English, Uno. I think you forget I'm not as computer literate as you are."

"…Oops…" Uno smirked and shrugged. "I forget… Anywho, when Quatre had that meeting two nights ago with Mr. Merquise, well… I think they knew each other before."

"Really?" Uno nodded. "Damn Uno… you know the entire world, don't you?"

"Well… Quatre said he and Zechs—Mr. Merquise's real name—both fought in the wars; originally as enemies, then some what became allies… then ended as opponents again."

"Ah… I see." The trees came into view and Theresa saw the Winner mansion up ahead. "So… you going into computers?"

"I'd like to, as much as I know, but no. I'm going to try and become a singer."

"Wow… I'm impressed, really." Theresa released her safety belt. "I mean, for real, Uno. You've got the most beautiful voice I've ever heard and with Ricky's help, you're going to become the best ever."

"You should join in…" Uno pulled up to a spot underneath the over hang by the front door. She looked down the road and felt a proud sense of fame when she looked at the trees she remembered talking Quatre into planting along the path and around the lands to give a more dramatic entrance.

"I can't… cartooning is entirely different." Theresa shut the door and stepped around the nose of the vehicle.

"So… Ricky's going into music and Disc Jockeying and I'm going into signing—still with a major in computers. You don't think all this hacking and specialty in piracy is going to go to waste, do you?" Uno grinned. She and Theresa stepped up to the front door.

"You should send in an application to the Preventers… I hear they're pretty good with their computers and you can help stop wars from happening." Uno scoffed and opened up the door.

"Sorry, but I am not a people person." Theresa giggled before shutting the door behind herself.

"So what happened to the rest of the people that we asked Quatre about?" Theresa spoke up as she followed Uno up the stairs to the far back room on the second floor. Quatre gave her this room when she turned sixteen because of the beautiful view out the window and the enormous balcony overlooking her forest—the forest Uno begged for him to plant when she was younger.

"Well… after you, Ricky, and Ray left that night I asked him why it was a touchy subject for him to breach." Uno stepped into her room where the classy colors of cream, white, and yellow rushed towards her. She had Relena's help on decorating her room when she learned the big difference between man and woman. Relena had become almost a best friend to her and if not for Relena, Uno would have still been too tomboyish to even care that she bled every month as a normal cycle. Quatre was an excellent father and friend figure, but he was no woman; he introduced her to Relena when he needed to touch up on the more feminine sides and since then, the three of them have lived happily.

Uno sat down on her elegant, lavender canopy draped, bed and watched as Theresa sat down on the cushiony cream and gold ottoman near the foot of the bed. Both of them were sitting with their legs in the Indian-styled position, the way girls usually hang out.

"He was still a bit weak on the subject but he had enough energy in him to talk about it. He said the entire topic—since Mr. Merquise had us talking about the wars and even he was a bit shaky about it all—was just hard. They fought in the wars and lost a great deal of lives and friends; not to mention family. Quatre said his father had died for him—along with one of his sisters. He said that Zechs lost a lot of his friends and life long members of his memory—which was probably why he too was shaky on the topic matter, making us read it on our own without talking about it in class.

"But any who… Quatre's best friends were killed during and sometime after the war. He said his friend Heero," Uno paused and raised her hand towards Theresa, "the guy they named the machine in class because of how perfect he was all the time, he said he was named after some Pacifist way back in the day—before they were born, named Heero Yuy, which Quatre also said his dad talked to some enemy fighter years before that and that guy talked to Heero Yuy, the leader, who tried to stop all wars and got killed and raised the fighters we came from… damn, a lot," Uno smirked and Theresa chuckled as well.

"Well, any who… he said Heero wound up dying by the end of the first year of freedom after the Mareimaia War ended because of late reaction to battle fatigue and all other illnesses of the body. He said Heero always wanted to die and finally got what he asked for, along with hurting a lot of his friends—who were considered his only family."

Uno took in a breath before releasing it in a weak and shaky manner. "Then he said there was Duo."

"Wow… if only they were all still alive… I bet they would have been cool people to know." Theresa smiled weakly after hearing about all the losses that have hurt Quatre and Zechs.

"Duo, or as Quatre loves to refer to, the braided baka, he missed just about the most out of all. He was the most cheerful person he said he'd ever known who always hid his true feelings with a smile, no matter the problems. Said he's found Duo sitting alone at times, crying, but left him be so Duo would feel like he was still in secret and hiding his emotions. Oh yeah, Heero used to act on his emotions; the two of them—Heero and Duo—rarely got along but Quatre said it was because they were entirely opposites of each other...and that Ricky resembles Heero so much he's wondering if they're from the same blood line.

"Anywho, Duo tried to live on and Quatre said he was getting married to Hildie—some girl that had left about two years after the war ended—and he said Duo was the happiest he's ever seen him. But, when Quatre got home, he went to his office to do some more work for the Winner Foundation, and the hospital called saying Duo was in a car wreck—killed on the spot. Quatre was very shaky when he told me what had happened, but apparently Duo's car was literally crushed from front to back, rear ended and squashed into an eighteen wheeler. Quatre said that when he rushed to the hospital, despite that Duo was already dead, Duo's body was literally crushed into a compact position and he told me that they said they had to literally cut open his Corvette in order to pry him out of there. The truck driver is who called the police and such and he's the one who sued the SUV driver who pushed Duo into the truck. But directly after the funeral, Quatre said that Hildie just packed up and fled; said it was too hard on her to stay around where she would always remember him."

Theresa's face was dead of emotion and filled with shock. Her eyes were enlarged and her mouth was hanging open. Uno kept her head down, her voice low of any tone.

"Quatre said that I remind him of Duo a lot of the times. I guess that's a good thing; but he said because I'm always cheery and bright, always hiding my feelings behind a smile and ignoring warnings." Uno giggled a bit.

"And to think I'm about to buy Ricky's Vet." Theresa looked away in thought. Uno blinked up at her.

"Ricky just bought that car not even four weeks ago… the paper work just finished getting settled."

Theresa nodded, "Yeah, and now he's buying some black Firebird and selling me the Vet. I immediately took the offer." Theresa was grinning at Uno.

Uno shook her head. "Anywho… I faintly remember Trowa. He died when I was eleven." Both girl lowered their heads.

"Yeah… that was sad how he died," Theresa kept her voice low. "And to think, I was in the front row when the cable broke."

"At least you had to go… Quatre wasn't able to take me to that show because he had a meeting to go to."

"Good thing you didn't go, though." Theresa looked up at Uno. "It was a horrible scene." Uno kept her head bowed.

"Ricky was speechless as well." Uno sighed. "I can't get the face out of my mind, of what Quatre looked like when he heard Trowa was killed in the act. The authorities questioned everyone but it still sounded like it was a setup despite how everyone had nothing positive to say about what happened." She looked up at Theresa and saw her best friend's concerning face.

"Tell me about Wufei… Quatre was iffy when we mentioned him.

Uno smirked and chuckled. "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. He said Duo and Wufei fought constantly because Wufei was a smart and honorable person while Duo just didn't care and lived the day as it came. Wufei lived by honor and pride; he believed that if you were too weak to fight than you shouldn't fight at all. Even though there were people he had to defend, he didn't feel like fighting his opponent when they weren't a worthy match."

"So how did he die?" Theresa asked while cocking her head to the side and picking up a pillow from the ground to hug.

Uno looked off to the side in thought. "Actually, Quatre didn't mind talking about that one. He said Wufei and Sally were a couple after the wars ended—didn't admit it but he said you could tell—and they were awarded a huge vacation from Une, the Preventers Leader. There was a storm that was hitting when they were flying across the Earth towards the Caribbean Islands and the plane was caught in the middle. Electrical fields; they got hit hard and landed in the ocean."

"And he doesn't mind talking about that one?" Theresa chuckled. "A bit weird, if you'd ask me."

Uno shrugged. "Well, it happens all the time. Earth weather is weird, unlike the colonies. It's unpredictable down here."

"How is the colony?" Theresa's eyes lit up with interest.

"Boring." Uno replied casually with a shrug.

Theresa busted out laughing hard. "That sounds like a typical response from you!"

"Heh," Uno looked off in thought. "Quatre asked me last night if I remembered my parents."

"Do you?" Theresa changed position and laid her stomach on the ottoman, flattening her already flattened tummy even more.

Uno rolled onto her stomach and kicked her feet up in the air backwards as she looked back down at Theresa. "Not really. I remember she had reddish brown hair—I think—and my dad was like… black haired. They fought a lot and I don't really remember seeing him around that much… but when he wasn't abusing her, she would give me toys to play with and leave me alone."

"Damn… that was rude."

"Yeah, the orphanage taught me how to speak and everything." Uno shrugged. "I think I didn't really have a dad… I think he just knocked her up and left."

"Or some other guy… I mean, look at you," Theresa smirked. "Do you think you look like your mom or that guy you remember?"

Uno shrugged. "Doesn't matter anyways; they're all dead. Hell, for all I know, Duo knocked up my mom considering Quatre stated Duo lived each moment of life to it's fullest."

"That would be freaky," Theresa dropped her head to the floor and her hair hung before her face.

"What?" Uno blinked.

"If you were the daughter of a Gundam Pilot. It'll explain why you kick so hard of ass in school and everything. I mean, you weren't taught as much as I was because when we met you didn't know nearly as much as I did… but the next thing I know you're understanding Binary and decoding hacking tools and I'm still learning Spanish as a second language." Both girls laughed out loud for a few extra minutes.

"So… what happened to Ricky's mother?" Theresa changed the topic as a question boggled her mind. She blinked up at her friend with adorable cute eyes.

"She died giving birth to him." Uno said with as much caring as a frog sitting on a log.

Theresa frowned. "How sad…"

"Not really," Uno corrected. Theresa blinked and cocked her head to the side. "Daniel warned her—as did the rest of the colony—that laboring a child on the colony would kill her and she did so anyways. Ricky said that Johnson told him, that she didn't take the pill and, as he so bluntly puts it, 'fucked him anyways." Uno giggled and Theresa looked down in thought.

"He was born on a colony? How come I didn't know?"

Uno shrugged. "Colony 1; I've been there… there's nothing much to it."

Theresa looked up at Uno. "You've been to Colony L1!"

Uno nodded. "And two, and three, and four." She looked off to the side with disgust. "Frankly, I think Earth is just enough for me. I don't see the whole logic in moving out to space where you don't even get to see the sky." She returned to Theresa and found her friend's face was gaping at her in shock. Uno blinked. "What? Quatre took me to each one when I was younger."

"Wow…" There's voice calmed. "But, when did you find out about Ricky?"

"Well… let me think." Uno looked off to the side before facing Theresa once again. "About a year ago… maybe two. It was his sixteenth birthday when I realized he never talked about his mom and I asked him for information."

"He didn't mind talking about it with you?"

"No, he never knew her so why should he?" Uno grinned. "Daniel's cool though; he said that he got hired by Synodd, some medical branch of the new sector Relena's allowing to start. They're going to invent new cures and medicines so people can give birth on a colony—considering they're still suffering from that problem—and they're working alone on trying to create androids and other non-human things. Except they're keeping that from Relena."

"And you're not going to tell her?" Uno shook her head. "But I thought she was like, your other best friend—like your sister almost."

Uno shrugged. "Well, yeah, she is. But, when I know people are so into what they want to do, I won't stand in their way." Theresa blinked and Uno smirked. "What, think they're going to try and take over the world with some stupid, machine or creature that can walk on two legs and talk like us? Please." Uno rolled her eyes and Theresa only hung her head again.

"Well…" Theresa stated after a few minutes of total silence. Uno looked up and over at her. "Who's doing what?"

"Huh?" Uno blinked, totally confused.

"I mean," Theresa gazed off in thought. "Daniel isn't super duper smart and we both know Ricky isn't either."

"Oh!" Uno smiled. "They're hiring two elite scientists do work on it all. I think Professor Gregory and Doctor Jarvis; I'm not so sure but that's who Ricky said was going to be in charged on the new staff rolling… I think he said they were two of the few who built the Gundams in the far past… them and some other really old guys."

Theresa giggled as did Uno. "Can they still think? I mean, that's a very long time ago… how are they still alive?"

Uno shrugged. "Beats me. I really don't give a damn. War's are horrible; people die in them."

"Yeah," Theresa looked down. "But those photo's we saw of the fighters were really hot." Both girls grinned.

"Oh well… are you going to Ricky's party tonight?" Uno slid off the side of the bed and stretched. Theresa's head snapped up in her direction.

"Huh?"

"His party… remember? Because we're graduating next week, he's getting his party out of the way so he can go to the other parties that'll be started up." Uno headed towards the closet and walked inside the massive mall-looking area.

"Well… yeah. It's here isn't it?"

"Duh," came the dull response of a girl undressing in the closet.

"Sure," Theresa stood and stretched. "You sure Quatre doesn't mine us using the Music Wing for a club tonight?"

Uno stepped out of the closet in her bra and very low cut jeans. She tossed a shirt onto the back of the chair as she headed into the bathroom.

"He doesn't care; that's what it was used for, remember?"

"Man Uno… I envy you. You've got the most perfect body I've ever seen." Theresa followed Uno into the bathroom to chit-chat some more.

"Remember those papers we found stashed in the Military Wing a few months back?" Uno picked up her hair brush and began brushing out a few of the tangles as she plugged in the curler.

Theresa nodded. "Yeah, the really fucked up versions of humanoids. What about them?"

"I gave them to Ricky's father and he thought the papers only had a few things wrong with them."

"Cool… so they're working on those ideas?" Theresa folded her arms across her chest and leant on the doorframe.

"They're gonna try. Who knows," Uno wrapped her hair around a curler and turned to Theresa, "perhaps they'll find the cure for AIDs… they've already got something close to the cure for the common cold."

"They need a cure for perversion. I swear… Ricky and Ray have to be like, brothers or something." Theresa looked off in thought. "They're always so fucking horny!"

"Theresa… they're men." Both girls giggled some before parting their ways to prepare for the night.

Sweat clogged his lungs and the air around his body froze in thickness. Duo's eyes snapped opened immediately and he sprang forward in a fearsome manner. The sheets were wrinkled underneath his body in some form of clumsiness, his tossing and turning on top of his bed a sign that his dream was not a pleasing sight.

His hair was plastered to the sides of his face while his saliva dribbled down the corners of his mouth. Perhaps a vision? What was to come? What would have happened? The dream he had just had was too perfect—too real—to be anything but an illusion of play. He dazed around his room but nothing was misplaced; the red hue of the tiny lamp besides him still glittered its fiery beams off the walls and objects in his room and the fan still spun wildly above him, though it felt as if none of the air was hitting him.

He needed some water; he needed some water, some meds, something to get his mind off what he just witnessed. Trickles of perspiration fell from his temples and formed little puddles at the base of his neck, spooling into his clothing and soaking the fabric; his shirt now plastered to his body as a second skin.

Duo forced himself off the bed with hardly any force. His legs were a bit shaky let alone his feet were weak as they were. He had to get out of the room—perhaps out of the mansion?—before the replay of his dream returned to him. He felt paler than a ghost on its fright fest of nights and as soon as he opened his door to spill out into the hallway, found the familiar sense of regret washing over him; he was standing just across from his daughters door, the same girl that he had seen grown up in his dream as a rich woman, a beaut in his eyes and a lustful creature in other men's.

Duo shut his door softly as he turned his head away, trying to ignore the fact that his little girl hadn't single clue about him in his dream. The stairs felt as if they took him into the outer levels of Hell itself. Grabbing hold of the banister, he pulled himself down the steps of his remorseful memory and into the realm of reality.

Uno was graduating high school. She was a grown woman. She wasn't as innocent as she seemed to be now. She was steady with Ricky and Theresa was steady with hers. The two of them were still together—good—but it also felt as if they weren't together anymore. Uno was different; her hair was shortened and highlighted. She was different; she wasn't Shinimegami; she wasn't like him!

When he entered the living room he saw the kitchen light was on. As he neared the room the glow of the light blinded him and blurred his vision into outlines and figurines. Who was awake? Was he still dreaming and he's sleep walking? Is he living in his dream and about to open his eyes to see his little girl fully grown, pregnant, and having a loving family? Is he about to open his eyes to see Professor G and Doctor J working with their current enemy? When he did open his eyes against the blinding of the light he saw Heero was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal, Trowa sitting besides him with a glass of milk, Quatre standing before the sink, his arms folded across his chest with a cup of coffee in his hand, and Wufei leaning against the wall with another cup of coffee in his. All of them had looked as if they had just woken up as well—only Heero looked fresher, probably the first to wake; they all were still wearing their pajamas.

"So you saw it too?" Came the sullen monotonic voice of the perfect creature sitting at the table eating a bowl of Cheerios. Duo looked over at him, his mouth still parted from when he woke up. The sweat of his body made a glowing sparkle hit the room when the lights shone down on him. Duo slowly nodded, confused as well as everyone else.

"I'm just amazed at what it showed." Trowa's voice was low as it had used to be in the past when they were all comrades in the war. Duo blinked over at him, his mouth still parted. Quatre held his head down and Wufei only looked at Duo with a questionable look in his eyes.

"Are you ill, Duo?" Wufei had asked, noticing Duo's bleak expression and his paled complexion.

Duo finally closed his mouth and swallowed hard against the dryness of his body. He winced when the pains of soreness washed away down his throat and blinked a little of the sleep out of his eyes. A squeak came out of his lips when he tried to speak and quickly he closed his mouth to try again.

"What… what was that supposed to mean?" Duo's voice was shaky and frightened. It rose in volume in some parts while in others it was lower. "How am I supposed to look at her again? After I saw what could have been should we all had died for everyone when Mareimaia fought us?"

Heero kept his head bowed and didn't know what to say or do as well as the rest of the group. Could that had been a vision to warn them all of what was really going to happen? To hint to them that just the opposite is going to become of them? That everything they saw was supposed to show them that they should have died? Quatre didn't say a thing or make a move; he never died in the visions and he wound up taking Uno in anyways.

But the only questioned that remained was: what would happen now when they all looked back at everyone else? Live on like it was just a dream though they all saw the same thing? Continue training Uno for a war that may never happen? Or prepare for something alarming that could take their lives away in only a matter of seconds?