Author: Sparkle Itamashii
Title: Inheritance
Warnings: Respect the rating. Please see my profile.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing A/C and its plot, characters, and settings are NOT MINE.
Chapter Nineteen
I had never so solemnly packed a bag as I did after Heero had shut that door. I knew that I wasn't going to be packing more than one. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, there was not going to be room for more than one bag and it had to be a small bag, at that. Nothing worth running from ever allowed for more than that. A change of clothes for all of us, a small thermal blanket, a couple of toothbrushes, hair ties, and a few other things I thought we might need.
Only a few minutes later I found myself sitting desolately on the edge of our bed with my face in my hands. I didn't want to believe this was happening. When the war ended we were supposed to be safe. There shouldn't be good people getting killed or secrets being kept anymore. There shouldn't be this sinking feeling in my gut at the thought of having to face another battle.
Blanching at the thought of fighting, I dropped my hands away from my face, blinking a few times to clear my vision. If I was going to be fighting then I was going to have to follow Heero's example; I was going to need a gun. My mind drifted to the jet black handgun in my top drawer. It was the .9mm I'd carried through most of the first war and it had gotten me through a lot of rough spots.
With a sigh I got to my feet and padded silently to the drawer. It opened with a soft protest and for a second the contents just seemed so… normal. Boxers. Socks. Rumpled nightshirt- can't remember the last time I wore one. A part of me imagined that if I moved that shirt I would find the bottom of the drawer. There would be a plain wooden bottom that smelled faintly of pine or oak or whatever the dresser was made of and that would be all. But when I pushed aside the garment I was greeted with a flash of shiny black metal wrapped in leather so faded it had begun to look grey.
I pulled the gun and the holster from the drawer and shut it with my eyes closed. The weight was familiar, if heavy. It had been so long… Heero cleaned the guns he had kept nearly every week after he had taken them to the range for practice. I'd gone with him a few times, just to keep him company, but it always made me a little heartsick to hear all the gunshots, to feel the kick of a weapon in my hands again.
I hated that feeling so god damned much.
With an unbearably heavy heart, I strapped on the shoulder holster for my most trusted gun; I'd never thought I would have to wear it for this sort of thing again. I hadn't thought there would even be the potential to hurt someone ever again. Yet there I was, crouching in front of the ammunition chest in the back of our closet and pulling out rounds for the gun I'd seen Heero donning and the one resting uncomfortably against my side. My stomach turned at the thought of using it against a human.
I hadn't used to feel so sick when I thought of these things. I remember the times when I could kill a hundred people in a mobile suit fight, slicing them cleanly in half with the green arc of my gundam's scythe. I could shoot down anyone that got in my way while I was trying to escape and I wouldn't think twice about it. I wouldn't think about having to do it again because I knew that I would have to do it again. There was always that lingering 'you're not done yet' feeling hanging over my head, choking up whatever conscience I might have had.
But now? When the war ended, the nightmares began. The guilt set in with so much force that I'd lose myself if I thought about it for too long. I could see faces of people I'd killed. I could hear the voices of people over the communication lines, screaming or pleading when they saw Deathscythe appear. My gundam usually meant death to anyone who laid eyes upon it. I'm told that even Deathscythe cried when I killed people and I'm more than willing to believe that.
I'd had enough of killing.
I'd had enough death.
I just wanted to live peacefully for once. I wanted a normal life. I wanted a life where I could go to work and come home and make dinner and go to sleep and no one died. I wanted to be able to call my friends without worrying if they were in trouble. I wanted to be kept in the light about anything that was going on in my life.
But just because I wanted all of those things didn't mean I deserved them.
The past few years had been spent in amiable silence. They had been so quiet, so perfectly easy to live and try to forget the past. If I could have lived like that for just a little longer, just a few more years, perhaps I could have forgotten the war. Perhaps I could have forgotten all of the horrible things I'd seen and done.
But not now. Not today.
Today I was going to put on my gun in its old black holster and finish packing bullets into a duffel bag. Today I was going to go into the kitchen and add food and bottled water to that same duffel bag. Today I was going to call the neighbor to watch the dog for a week because today I was going to trust my completely insane lover-turned-assassin to take me and his child somewhere safer because today all of our lives were apparently in danger.
And to think; yesterday I'd considered my life to be relatively normal.
Roughly grabbing the duffel bag as soon as I'd finished stuffing the bullet cases inside, I slung it over my shoulder and headed for the kitchen to make good on my plans. Heero would be back in another fifteen or twenty minutes and I knew he would want to leave as soon as he set foot inside the door. Mara was still asleep on the couch when I grabbed the phone from the couch arm on my way past.
What was Heero thinking, I mused in irritation as I set the bag on the table and turned to the refrigerator. What on earth were we going to do with a child on a mission? Children weren't useful. They weren't something we could protect. We'd never protected a child in our lives, what made him think we could start now? What on earth would we do with her if it came to a gunfight? She couldn't run on her own and as cold as it sounds, we probably wouldn't be able to run with her; she would slow us down too much. We would get caught.
It's not like we could just leave her, either. Someone had killed her mother and that put her at too much risk to be leaving her with anyone unsuspecting. She was just a little kid but if anyone knew how tough life could be for kids, I think it was me and Heero. We'd been to Hell and back a few times as children and right then I just hoped that we could find a way to save Mara the trip.
I shoved the apples Heero had brought home into the duffel bag along with a stick of summer sausage, a tin of nuts, and two packages of beef jerky I found in the cupboard. We didn't have a whole lot of food that could be taken with us that either didn't need to be cold or wouldn't get broken in travel. I did find some fruit snacks that Heero must have bought the last time he was at the grocery store and added those to the stash before I got out the jar of peanut butter and the bag of bread.
I snatched the phone from where I'd set it down a few minutes ago and dialed the number for the lady next door. Mrs. Wels was about eighty (million) years old and she was sharp as the broad side of a barn, but she dearly loved our dog. Ever since she'd moved in with her assistant, Allison, they'd been the only ones we could call to dogsit- Artemis hated most strangers but she tolerated the two of them. I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I began to make sandwiches and waited.
"Mrs. Wels?" I asked as soon as she answered the phone. "This is Duo; from next door?"
"Ah, Duo," she said kindly after a moment. "How are you?"
"I'm good Mrs. Wels," I responded, relieved that she remembered who I was. She was a little senile on her better days; she would sometimes forget you were talking to her if you didn't say her name every time you addressed her. "How are you?"
I winced as soon as I asked the question because she immediately launched into an explanation of her day. Mrs. Wels probably got lonely a lot and I think she'd come to really love the sound of her own voice. "Did you know Allison went out with her friends today? What a sweet girl she is. She set me up on this couch when she left and said I could watch television all day – she never lets me watch television all day – and she made my favorite sandwiches. That maple turkey, that's some really great turkey, you know. It's-"
"Actually, Mrs. Wels," I interrupted, "I have a favor to ask you and Allison. Heero and I are going out of town for a week or so and we need someone to watch Artemis. I can leave her stuff where we always do so you'd just have to make sure she had food and water and was let outside a few times a day."
"Oh, Artemis," she said as though she'd had a revelation. "That's one sweet dog you have there, you know. She's so very calm and I've never seen anything so white-"
"Yes, I know Mrs. Wels. Can you and Allison watch Artemis for a week?" I asked tiredly, smushing together the pieces of bread when I'd finished peanut-buttering them. I glanced worriedly at the clock; Heero was going to be back soon.
"Oh yes, she's quite beautiful," she replied as if she thought I'd asked. "Any time you need someone to watch her you just let me know sweetie. She's my favorite, you know."
"Yes, I know Mrs. Wels. I need someone to watch her this week," I said patiently, stuffing the sandwiches into their own little plastic baggies and placing them into the duffel bag with the rest of the food. She would latch onto the idea if I repeated it enough.
"I can do that for you, Duo. She is my favorite, after all," she informed me very seriously, as though she hadn't just done so a few seconds earlier.
"I know, Mrs. Wels." I zipped the bag and laid a hand on top, using the other to switch the phone to my other ear. "Do you still have a key or do you want me to bring Artemis over there for you?"
"Oh, Artemis," she said again and I could practically hear her smiling. "What a nice dog. You just leave her to me for a bit and I'll take good care of her."
"Do you have a key to my house?" I repeated, hoping this conversation would end mercifully soon.
"I have one of those, I do. You gave it to me a while ago and asked me to-" she paused and I could hear a voice in the background asking who was on the phone and how she'd gotten hold of it. "I have to go, sweetie. Allison is here right now and I think she wants the phone. Goodbye!"
The line went dead and I groaned, rolling my eyes back into my head. I was just about to call her back when the phone rang, vibrating my hand and startling me into nearly dropping it. I clicked the button as soon as I fumbled the phone upright and Allison's bright, if exasperated voice answered me.
"Mr. Maxwell? Did you want us to watch Artemis?" she asked sweetly.
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble to watch both of them," I said gratefully, smiling in response to her tone as I moved into the front room. "We're going to be gone for about a week; I really am sorry to leave on such short notice."
"Not a problem. Artemis is a sweetie and Mrs. Wels really loves her." She paused thoughtfully and then added: "Can you just leave a key under the mat?"
"Sure thing. Thank you so much. I've gotta let you go because we're getting ready to head out the door." We said our polite goodbyes and I hung up the phone, still smiling for no reason as I heard the car pulling into the driveway.
In the next instant all comfort in the world slipped away as Artemis sprang to her feet, fur bristling and lips curling back from her teeth as she moved silently toward the door.
A cold lump of fear settled in my gut; I knew that stance. Whoever had pulled up… wasn't Heero. They couldn't be. She never did that to Heero. Never. He'd hand picked her from a litter at four weeks old and had bottle fed her himself- she adored him over every other living being on the entire planet. She definitely didn't recognize whoever was here. Either Heero was late or… something had gone wrong.
"Shit," I breathed, hand moving easily to my gun. It practically fell into my hand and I found my back placed defensively to the wall in the blink of an eye.
What was I going to do about Mara?
I was torn for an instant between staying where I was and moving into the kitchen- the wall that edged the front hall would provide much better cover. However I hesitated for only an instant before falling back and dipping around the corner. I would be no use to Mara if I got myself killed and I had no idea what she would do if I woke her up now. If she made a noise we could both be dead before we'd realized it.
I took a deep breath when I heard the car door slam, closing my eyes and laying my head back against the wall. I couldn't see the door but I would know when it opened; the handle was still loose from when I'd changed the lock on Heero not too long ago.
The wait was agonizing. The clock on the wall ticked a million times slower than my racing heart and I could hear Artemis still standing stiffly in the front hall, claws clicking against the hardwood in front of the door. I was holding my breath but I couldn't seem to let it out- like breathing would give me away before they'd gotten into the house. The rattle of the door handle was deafening in the silence and as I heard the handle turn, I opened my eyes. My hands tightened reflexively on the grip of my gun.
This was it.
/End Chapter Nineteen, Inheritance/
