Wings of Destruction
Chapter 26
Unforgiven Events

Uno didn't come out of the room until the following morning—actually, she didn't really even get out of bed, knowing full well that to return to the battlefield she needed all of her rest. It was six in the morning and when Heero and Duo stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room to see her sitting on the couch, bent over using a laptop on the coffee table, they were both somewhat stunned to see her up and about.

"How do you feel?" Duo forced a smile and took a seat besides her on the couch. He frowned when he noticed the familiar command lines Heero used to type of all the time in the past when he fought. Heero took a seat on the couch across from her once more.

"Normal," she murmured. Uno's face was serious and unpleasant; Duo glanced down and chewed on his lower lip.

"Do you ache?"

"I've already changed the bandages and the pains I'm used too," she told him. "Other than that, I feel greatly refreshed and I thank you for helping me."

Duo shut his eyes and rubbed his arms. Heero frowned and noticed the way Duo was acting then returned to face Uno and commented on it.

"Why are you being cold to everyone?" He asked with his nonchalant voice.

"I'm cold?" She replied sarcastically before sending a new line of commands out into the data log of the program she was running.

"You're cold to Duo and you always used to worship him," Heero's eyes narrowed. "What happened to you?"

Duo raised his head and glanced over at Heero before turning to Uno. Uno paused and frowned, sighed, then shook her head and continued typing.

"I have no time to explain," she spat out. Right after she finished her statement Quatre stepped into the living room and carefully took a seat besides everyone on the same arm chair from the day before.

"What is there to explain?" Heero returned. "I spent years in a closet to rid myself of humanity and you've only spent several months. I have a reason to the way I am."

Uno narrowed her eyes and raised her head but she didn't get another word out as the front door opened and Trowa stepped inside with bags of groceries. She continued to stare at Heero—as he stared right back—both with cold attitudes and ice-piercing eyes. Finally, she tore her gaze away and returned to the screen before her.

"I saw this in the magazine section and thought you might like to read it," Trowa said and handed her a book. Uno frowned up at it and took it from his grasp.

"Thanks," she slurred out. When she noticed the cover she genuinely smiled. "Basic Survival," she read out loud. "Thank you."

Trowa nodded and headed into the kitchen with his few grocery bags. Uno frowned and read the back a bit before putting it away in a black backpack besides her. Duo noticed the bag.

"Where did you get that?"

"It was three in the morning and I needed some items," she explained coldly. "So I went to the corner store."

"But the corner store is closed until five," Duo frowned. "Uno… did you steal that?"

"Eh," she shrugged her shoulders. "They were all dusty so I gave them a hand and took it off their worries."

"You could have been caught!" Duo snapped. Uno paused and scanned the next few lines of her screen before scoffing Duo's remark.

"Unlike you, Duo, I know how to make certain of my surroundings before I attack," that stabbed him in the heart. She continued to type. "I twisted the wires, picked the locks, gathered what I needed, and then left just the same after fixing everything back up. When they notice the inventory they'll check the video feed and see the camera was showing nothing, the locks were still untouched, and somehow these things just disappeared."

Heero felt a tension growing around Uno and stood up for the nerve she had caused to throb in Duo's head. "If you're certain of your surroundings then you wouldn't have been captured."

A finger of Uno's slipped the next key stroke and she snapped her gaze in Heero's direction to send him a current of fatal glares, more deadly than he had ever sent out. Duo gulped back his fear and watched as the two exchanged each other's versions of death glares. Quatre remained quiet and glanced at Duo then over at Trowa who stepped into the living room with a box of cookies.

"Relax Uno," Trowa commented. "Even Heero's been captured several times."

Heero lowered his gaze to the floor and Uno smirked. "Fancy that," she mocked. Frowning, Heero returned to stare at her. "He's prepared for war all his life and been captured more than I have and I've only had his life-long intense training for several months and I prove to be much better."

"You are also a combination of every Gundam Pilot from the past and everyone else," Trowa shot back. "Don't forget who raised you, Uno. If we hadn't agreed with Duo to prepare you for the future for fear if war does break out then you wouldn't be fighting."

"Eh," Uno shrugged just then and withdrew something palm-sized from the back. "I'd be dead then and Theresa and Ricky would have been alive and well and hiding away in some unknown territory for God knows how long."

Duo gasped when he saw Uno slip a cigarette between her lips, light it, then put away the box and lighter and begin puffing. "Uno… you're smoking!"

"Yeah?" She frowned and glanced down at the cancer stick in her finger. "So that's what it's called?"

She shrugged her shoulders after her sarcastic remark was made, stuck the stick back into her mouth, and continued typing.

"That will kill you," Heero commented. "Perhaps that is why you're perfect self was captured. The nicotine toxins have gotten into your lungs and affected you."

Uno shrugged and blew off the comment. "Then so be it. It's not like I nearly died four other times."

"What happened to make you fly out of the window from the fiftieth floor?" Quatre spoke suddenly. Uno paused typing.

"Ricky flew me out," she murmured.

"Ricky?" Duo muttered. "He's…"

She glanced over at him with both brows raised. "Dead?" Uno closed her eyes for a brief moment before returning to the screen and continuing to type. "I thought that too until he had Mandy captured and shot me with a tranquilizer gun. When I woke up I was in some confrontation room and he stepped in. He explained that Synodd had created him to kill me and everything from our past he remembered but he was cold and against me. He beat me up, tortured me, seduced me, came close to raping me—but Justin broke into the room just in time. They argued and Ricky agreed to let me go—but he flung me out the window."

"Oh my God," Duo muttered. "Uno."

"Forget it, Duo," she spat out. "What's done is done. I don't know if he's still alive or if Justin's killed him—or vice versa."

"What would you do if he killed Justin?" Heero asked. Uno paused and frowned up at him.

"One less person in my way."

"So in return for saving your life you let him die?" Heero growled. "You're just as cold as Synodd is."

"Don't you dare," she growled then and took one more puff of her cigarette. "Don't you dare put me against my enemy like that again!"

Heero shrugged his shoulders and blew it off the way she blew off everyone else. "What's done is done, Uno. Let it stay in the past."

Her eyes narrowed but she only growled, "Exactly. Drop it and end it."

The lot of them were interrupted by a sudden beeping noise coming from Uno's—actually it was Heero's—laptop. Uno frowned down at it—as did everyone else—and read the report.

"You're not expecting to…" Duo trailed off before returning to Uno. "You're still not healed enough to engage in another battle!"

She narrowed her eyes and accepted the mission. "I've accepted." Uno closed down the laptop, shut it, and then took one final puff before getting to her feet. Once she was standing she stretched and brought the backpack onto her shoulders.

"You can't go!" Duo growled fiercely. "It's too soon and you're still injured!"

"That's nice," she murmured before stepping out of the living room and into the hallway. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"Uno!" Duo chased after her and was soon followed by everyone else. "I didn't bring you home just to return you to the battlefield so unfit for another fight," he growled out. "You're to stay here until you're capable of moving without injury!"

Uno turned to him. "Uh huh," she frowned then turned back around to the front door. Duo reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist, his fingers holding it tightly.

"No!" He growled. "You can't go, Uno! You're not yet ready!"

Duo continued to force Uno backwards when she suddenly spun around with her other hand curled into a fist, and punched him squarely on the face. The impact stung him as much as it had when Heero hit him in the past for the Mareimaia Wars.

"Don't!" She snarled out. Duo released her and fell to the ground instantly. He immediately bolted into an upright position and Heero went to his side quickly. Tears burned behind Duo's eyes and he raised a hand to rub where the burning left behind from the punch.

"Don't you dare insist upon giving me orders!" She snarled out. "You left me to nearly die back there and if I didn't know how to defend myself—if I wasn't suddenly angry for seeing a Synodd soldier the moment I opened my door when it was right after I recalled everything Ricky had told me about Synodd breeding him to kill me—I wouldn't have survived!"

"Uno," Duo whispered out. Heero looked quiet stunned as well and only stared up at her in silence. "Why?"

"And then you have the autocracy to tell me what I can and cannot do? You left me alone with barely any knowledge of how to survive in life—let alone a war—and I had to run to the scientists to learn all of that! I have never killed before and it was a frightening experience to have broken a man's neck with a simple kick, to shoot a man for self defense—to fight for my own survival!"

"It wasn't his fault," Trowa slipped in. "Heero and I pried him away from the stairs in which he was desperate to climb. He was in tears when we sped off away from the mansion."

"Than why didn't you try and contact me for those several months where I was forced to resign to a closet?" She shouted. "Why make me believe that you were all dead because of me for all these years?"

"We couldn't interfere into your fight, Uno!" Trowa snapped back. "We would have but we knew we would have been easy targets for Synodd to use against you!"

Uno took a deep breath and glared down at Duo's sobbing figure, being supported and comforted by Heero's gracious arms. "Don't bother finding me," she fumed. "The Uno Maxwell you know is dead—I'm Uno Cleaver."

And with that she slammed the door shut behind herself, leaving Duo to sob in the arms of his old comrades, his heart shattered into a billion pieces, and the love for his daughter smothered away by bloodshed.

Oh man... that ending actually made ME want to cry and I wrote this!