Part 5

Duo came around slowly, he was lain across the couch and Heero was leaning over him, when he saw that he was awake he muttered, "baka," quite clearly.

"Don't be harsh on him," a woman said, "it's always a shock the first time if you don't know better." She leaned over him, "welcome back to the land of the living." She said with a smile, although the woman was beautiful there was something strangely hard about her smile, though it was genuine,

"Don't crowd him." A deep male voice, specifically said. "He's just had a shock and the last thing he needs is everyone leaning over him." He was suddenly lifted and a pillow placed under his back to bring him to an almost seated position. It was coming back to him, he had been called to meet the Lady Minako and her husband, and her name was Shinigami. They had been talking and she had asked him about Avili, and then said that Avili, was, he thought for a moment he was going to faint again. He'd had a conversation with a dead girl. Then again, his brain happily supplied, Minako could be lying, she said she didn't, but Duo didn't know that was true. It could be that she was setting him up, and that Avili hadn't vanished, she just was really good at stealth. "Are you feeling better?"

"Get away," Duo said pulling himself up into a seated position, using the pillow to support him when he wavered, almost fainting from the lack of blood at his head. "I'm fine now, ha ha, very funny, you made me faint."

The dark man offered him a cup of brandy which he sipped gratefully. "Mina can't lie." He said, "she is the Lady of Meirin, she can talk to the dead."

"Then prove it." Heero said crossing his arms across his chest, "tell me something only my dead would know."

Minako smiled and sat down on the facing couch before she crossed her arms, "fine, just remember that you asked for it. Your mother didn't want you to be called Heero, she says that the name had too many connotations, but he insisted. She really loves you." Heero looked unimpressed, anyone could have guessed that. "Afterall Heero Yuy was a hero to the colonies, but Odin was persuasive. He told you to follow your heart, to listen to your emotions but Dr," she paused, "J?" she guessed, "it sounds like J, he tried to train it out of you, but your mother used to lean over your bed when you slept and sing to you, sometimes you thought you saw her, but convinced yourself it was just a dream."

Heero was silent, if Dathyl was real she could not have known that, but if this was an elaborate Oz ruse any of this information could be researched. "She died when you were born, she was very ill, she loves you very much, and she's proud of you. She wants you to know that."

"None of this is remarkable." He answered.

She smiled again, "Mamoru was the same. He didn't believe in it at first. Your mother was very beautiful, I can see her in you, and your father though he's as quiet, you never knew them. Odin took you away when she died." There was no sadness in her voice, it was like she was recounting a favoured memory, "he used to make pies for you, the way she did for him." She smiled to herself, "sweet apple and rhubarb pies, and there would be leaves on the pastry, and they were always burnt around the edges." Heero gaped, there was no way she could know that, none.

"And you, Duo, Sister Helen is proud that you don't lie, but she's sorry that you can't hear her, and she says your hair is very pretty, and she's glad you use it to remember her." A single tear welled in Duo's eye as he clutched his braid. "And your mother, she was as effervescent as you, and laughed and laughed when you glued Wu Fey," she guessed again at the name, "to the seat of his," she paused, "I don't know the word, it sounds like gumdam."

"Gundam." Heero corrected stiffly.

"Why can't I?" Duo began, "why don't they appear to me?"

"You can't see your own dead, Duo." She answered quietly. "It's not our duty to give comfort to ourselves, but to the dead. I will teach you, just as I can't see Avili then you can't see your mother, though you must be the image of your father, apart from your eyes and your build no one would ever think you were related, and Father Maxwell whose proud that you learnt to read so well." She lowered her head. "They are always with us, the dead, in one way or another, soon Halcyon will seem over crowded, it is such an old place and so many things happened here. Or you might have cause to travel to Danev where the dead far outnumber the living. I will ask his imperial majesty in Dramathen if I can be excused to take you to Meirin."

"Why me?" Duo asked.

"You are Shinigami." She answered. "You were born to it. There are other factors, everyone you love dies, except the Senshisha, who will be your shield, it's hard to get close to anyone knowing that if they die you won't be able to know them." She sounded resigned and tired as she spoke. "There has always been a Lady of Meirin," she said, "we are descended from the Shinigami himself, and we carry his sorcery in our veins, and his burden"

"I'm not part of this." Duo shouted getting to his feet with his hands buried in his hair, "either I'm a demon conjured by Adam's mad experiments, or…" with no words left he left the room at a near sprint.

"Go after him, Heero." Minako said, "you are his Senshisha, only you can understand him."

"Senshi sha," he said as he went to leave, "means the dead soldier in my language."

"In ours," Mamoru said, "it means the guardian of death. Now go."

He found Duo sat with his legs over the crenellations of one of the outer walls facing out to sea, his legs hanging over the abyss below without a care in the world it seemed, but Heero knew better. Sometimes when they were on Earth Duo would stare at the sea like that and remember whatever dark memories he had and hope whatever dreams he called his own. "Bum deal, eh, Heero." He said, Heero knew he hadn't made a sound but Duo always heard him. "I mean what's the point of being able to talk to the dead if you can't see your own."

"You believe them?" Heero said sitting down next to him, Duo was shivering in the winter cold and Heero's body heat would warm him slightly, Duo was his partner and it would not do for him to be unwell. Things could not go according to plan if Duo was unable to function, even if the plan was postponed for the moment.

"I don't know." Duo answered. "I thought witch craft was all beheading chickens and dancing naked."

"Sounds like one of Quatre's barbecues." Heero said.

Duo looked at him, "if my ears did not deceive me the almighty Heero Yuy just made a joke." He smiled, "and a funny one." He knew why Heero had done it of course, to change the subject. "God, Heero, I just don't know. I mean I talk to this girl this afternoon and she sneaks in and out without me hearing her, I just thought it was the tea, ya'know, and then this woman knows shit she shouldn't possibly know, and tells me the girl I was speaking with is dead, and I don't know whether to believe her."

"Ask." Heero answered, "ask someone else if the girl is dead and what she looked like." It was an eminently practical and very Heero suggestion. "Cross check what she told you. she said I was your Senshisha, that I would protect you and offer you shelter."

"Maybe because I can't see your dead." He said. "I just wanna tell them I love 'em, ya'know, just that I didn't forget them and I'm trying."

"You don't need necromancy to tell them that, baka, if what she says is true they can hear you, it's just that you can't hear them." Duo looked at Heero, it was strange to receive any kind of acknowledgement of weakness from him, but for him to offer comfort as well.

"Father Maxwell used to tell this story," Duo began, "about this man who prayed everyday and was very devout and god never spoke to him but every day he carried on praying and did all the good things. Then one day he swore, he blasphemed, I don't remember why, but he broke a commandment and took God's name in vain and God answered him, and the man was so shocked he dropped down dead of a heart attack." Heero could tell where this was going. "That's kind of how I feel. I mean I prayed and I prayed and now God's answering me, but he's not my God, he's theirs." He looked out over the sea, it was icy cold now and his breath was making little clouds. "And, I don't know Heero, I just don't know."

"Come on." Heero said getting to his feet and offering Duo a hand to help him upright, "we can continue this inside before we both die of exposure, and we continue it over the roast goose that Rachel promised us and some wine, because we're old enough to drink here and we can talk and see if we can make sense of it all."

"For you are my staff and my shield." Duo muttered under his breath, and Heero pretended he hadn't heard him.