Memento Mori

Disclaimer: As always, I do not own the Gundam Wing characters as they belong to Sotsu Sunrise Agency.

MWZ: I'm loving the feedback from you readers, I just gotta toss that one out there. Your words really feed the starving author. I appreciate you guys hanging in there with me; Terra, Meirkai, Mikinyet, & Camillian (Big hugs & kisses to you all lol)

It's really weird writing a serious story again with the boys, and along the way, learning more about them. I really want to address some of your inquiries here and now, but I feel as though I shall have them answered at a later time, feeling rather that as I get the characters to grow, perhaps it'll be more clear, plus I don't want to give any juicy info away hee hee! Again thanks for reading, reviewing and hope to see ya guys on another chapter!

Heero: Yeah better milk em while you can before you screw up and piss em all off.

MWZ: Shush you!

Duo: Yeah man, don't piss of the person with a pen! The pen is mightier then the sword.

Heero: Maybe so, but Zero's foot is stronger then all of that.

Duo: Ohh, that's like playing Paper Rock Scissors with Bulldozer included.

Heero: Bulldozer?

MWZ & Duo: Bulldozer beats everything!

Heero: --; Someone save me.

Chapter 4: Mad World

His head rested on the table sideways. It's cool surface seemed quite relieving to what had just happened in his mind. It was truly the battle he couldn't win. He had been defeated. He stared at his opponent, debating wether he could in fact deliver the final blow. The calculations in his head said no. His gut instinct said no. At last he had to give into the fact, that he had lost.

There was no way Heero Yuy was going to finish the last biscuit covered in gravy.

"You gonna eat that?"

Heero turned his eyes upwards to see Duo Maxwell, in all his food defeating glory, hover his fork over his biscuit.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"I'll take that as a no." And with that, Duo stabbed the biscuit and began working it into manageable bites. He did feel triumphant. He'd beaten Heero at something, and something simple no less.

"How do you manage to eat all of that?"

"High metabolism." Sure, you can say that, but it still doesn't account for just where the food goes.

"Oh I like this song!" Heero straightened his head and looked past Duo to see two young women were flipping through the Jukebox's music sheet. Heero heard the familiar sounds of change being dropped into it and then heard the diner's music change.

"Oh hey! What are they playing?" Duo thought out loud.

All around me are familiar faces

"I wouldn't know, I don't listen to music." Heero stated flatly. Duo turned to face him.

"It's Mad World. This one sounds like it's the Gary Jules one though."

"I like the Tears for Fears one better. I don't like it when people re-sing another person's song. It' bothers me." Duo raised an eyebrow. Heero's mind was like one huge puzzle. Of all the things that could bother him; like cell phones going off, a crying baby in a movie theater, getting a computer virus...artists remixing another artist's song is what pushed the line? A sudden memory pushed itself to Duo's mind. He closed his eyes and smiled.

"He hated that stuff too." Heero looked like he was remembering something too, his eyes didn't look completely focused like they normally did. Duo heard an odd sound and turned around to see if he could spot what was making it. It sounded like humming, but it was perfectly tuned with the song and didn't sound human.

"Hey Heero you hear that weird so-" Duo caught himself, and noticed just what was making the sound. Heero was humming. Duo stared in odd fascination. Any other person would've been completely normal humming.

'Quatre, Trowa, hell even the Pope humming would be more normal then this!' Duo thought to himself. 'Didn't he say he didn't listen to music? I mean, he did say it was originally Tears for Fears, and he also knows this version by heart, he hasn't missed a beat. Oh God am I getting paranoid? I'm thinking to myself, no conversing with myself! But still, if he said that, that would mean he has some musical history knowledge somewhere in that computer brain of his.'

"Duo!" The voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Duo focused back on Heero and noticed the Prussian eyed boy was staring at him.

"Oh what's up?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"You were in such deep thought over there, like you were in another world."

"Oh, well I'm just being weird." Duo shifted a bit in his seat. He was starting to feel uncomfortable about this. But why now? It didn't make sense. Was Quatre's words really starting to get to him? Heero raised an eyebrow at his acknowledgment of the physical symptoms of being uncomfortable.

'Why is he interrogating me?' Again, Duo's own thoughts felt foreign to his own mind. Was he really becoming paranoid? Quatre's words shouldn't bother him so. Heero isn't dead. After all, he just ate a huge breakfast! He can't be dead. Not at all. That's been proven. So why was this feeling of dread coming over him? Why couldn't any of these questions be answered?

"What's got you so uncomfortable all of the sudden?" Heero questioned, still not removing his gaze from Duo's face.

"Why are you being so inquisitive all of the sudden?! Aren't you supposed to be the silent one?" Duo snapped, his eyes widening catching himself again with what he said. He guiltily brought his eyes to meet Heero's, expecting to see hurt.

Heero's expression hadn't changed at all, but his eyes did. Heero always thought he could mask his emotions, but it was Trowa who was good at that. Heero's eyes always gave away his true feeling. Of course, that was assuming you weren't at the business end of his gun and that you were alive long enough to confirm just what is was his eyes were conveying.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." Duo quickly apologized. He internally yelled at himself for thinking that a band-aid of an apology would fix that.

"It's fine." Ok, maybe band-aids did work.

"No it's not just fine. Quatre's got me all freaked out but I don't know why. Why would he claim you're dead and believe it so. I mean you're not dead, you're here in front of me, getting your ass kicked by a gravy covered biscuit." Heero glared at the last sentence. Duo reclined in relaxation. Heero's glare was like being re-initiated into the circle of friendship. He closed his eyes smiling again. "I mean you're not dead are you?"

It was silent again. Duo took it as Heero being his normal silent self. Yet he hadn't been this quiet the whole lunch outing. Duo opened his eye to see just what Heero had pre-occupied himself with.

Heero was gone.

When people run in circles it's a very, very

"Hey what the-"

"Your check sir." The waitress had made perfect timing. Duo looked at her and again inwardly cursed. She placed the piece of paper on the table and walked away. Duo scanned the room, checking to see if Heero had gotten up somewhere, but just like the earlier morning, Heero was gone.

"Jerk." Duo grabbed the slip of paper and looked at it. The 2 ham & egg meals and the drinks came out to a total of $23.75. Duo glared at the check. "He could've at least left the cash for his stupid Orange Juice. He owes me."

Mad world...

WuFei sat as his desk, unable to focus on another report, and wondering just what was going on with the others. Noin had mentioned she was a bit surprised by WuFei's current plan which was that he would be the one to talk to Duo next. "If more then one of us goes at the same time, he'd take offense most likely. It would be the equivalent of an intervention."

"You care that much about Duo?" Noin had asked. To this WuFei had taken some offense. Was he not supposed to care about him just because the war was over? Of course he'd care about the other pilots, not because he had to, but because he had no one else to care about. He used to only think about defeating those that were in his way and gaining revenge for the loss of his clan & colony, and only looking towards the next stronger opponent and the next fight. But the war had to end, it had to, even to his own dismay. If it hadn't there would be more fights, more wars; more lost homes.

"He's my friend." WuFei stood up and grabbed his Preventor's jacket. He put it on and stared at the screen. "What is Barton going to do?"

"Well, I believe Trowa, Sally and I are going to go through some of the Preventor's video library and see if we can find anything." Noin looked at WuFei. "WuFei, are you sure that Heero is dead?"

Wufei looked at Noin. ""That's strange. Just a few minutes ago you were saying that you agreed with us that Heero was dead. Now you're questioning it."

"Well I mean. What if he is alive, and Duo happens to be the only one who has seen him so far?"

"We saw the explosion. So did you."

"Yes but I've also seen him stand on his Gundam as it self detonated and seen him alive and well a month later." Noin sat down in a nearby chair and crossed her legs.

"If Yuy had survived that explosion, he would not have not shown up during the Mariemia incident."

"But Duo did say that he was traveling with Heero when his shuttle infiltrated X-18999. I didn't see him, but Duo did make references to him being there."

"Well why didn't any of us see him?"

"Well just because we didn't see the Wing Zero there, doesn't mean he wasn't there."

"Next you'll say the three explosions on the mansion were caused by Heero."

"Maybe it was." Noin stated calmly. WuFei slammed his fists on the desk and Noin jumped up a bit in her seat. "WuFei?"

"Damn it woman! Don't you get it?! Yuy is dead. He is dead and gone. Don't you think I want him alive?! I would've loved nothing more then to fight him during that whole affair!" WuFei seemed out of breath, leaning over the desk as he was.

Noin extended her arm, wanting to comfort the angry young man, but could sene that comfort or sympathy was the last thing he wanted at the moment. She pulled her hand back and sat in the silence that was suddenly so thick it could choke the life out of you. Although no words were spoken, it was a silent conversation, and a silent understanding of just had transpired.

"I lost my way for a split second, thinking it was right. Yuy believed in what he was doing, and his strength in just being so driven towards that, it was contagious. I would have loved to fight him, as an enemy to see just what it was like." WuFei had calmed down and straightened himself. "I'm going to go find Duo now, let us hope he hasn't lost his way."

Noin watched him walk out of the office and sighed. She heard footsteps behind her and turned around when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Zechs."

"We should be heading to the video room. I've decided to accompany you as well." The platinum blonde stared with his piercing ice blue eyes at her. Zechs removed his hand and started out of the office as well, heading a different direction then WuFei had gone. Noin stood up and decided to follow.

Quatre had gone back to his office, feeling bad that he hadn't have left Rashid a note stating where he had gone. Quatre smiled at the thought that they were probably running amok around the colony looking for him. He laughed to himself. He sat in his seat and looked at the papers sitting on his desk. They demanded his attention but his mind was really in another place. He looked at the framed photo sitting on his desk again. He recalled the photos that were neatly folded up inside of his pocket. He leaned over to the left as his hand reached into his back right pocket to bring out his wallet. He opened the wallet and pulled out the 2 slips of paper.

Quatre stared at the little girl in the picture. It was a worn photo, and he could barely make out the words next to it. Quatre noticed some ink that wasn't from the newspaper on it and could only make out but a few of those letters. "..RA K. LY..D.S" was what the printed text read. "& MARY" had been written next to it.

Names. The printed text was the name of the little girl most likely. But why was "& MARY" written in?

"Master Quatre, there you are!" Quatre nearly jumped out of his skin by being startled by Rashid.

"Ah!!" Quatre yelped before bringing a hand to his chest as if catching his breath. "Rashid."

"I'm sorry Master Quatre, but we didn't know where you were."

"It's fine." Quatre smiled. "Please Rashid I need a big favor of you. I need you to get a hold of Howard."

"The man from the Peacemillion?"

"Yes. I need you to contact him so I may talk to him. It's very urgent."

"Why certainly Master Quatre!" Rashid turned around and left to begin his task. Quatre inwardly smiled to himself. This could lead to just solving this whole mystery, or at the least give some peace of mind of just how this girl and Heero were related. He could just ask someone who worked with the rebel group Heero belonged to on L1. The base he was raised in was probably still there since dismantling the base was a very hard project on colonies. However he wasn't sure what base, or just what group Heero was with.

"I'm sure some of the rebels must've made it through the war." Quatre said out loud as he turned in his chair. All of the Doctors were dead, so he couldn't turn to any of them to see who went where with what. If they could just find one guy who knew Heero maybe he could shed some light. He felt happy and calm quickly for a second, forgetting the terrible reality of the current situation. Something was reassuring him, not necessarily saying 'Everything's alright' but rather 'You're not alone.' Quatre smiled.

"Yes, we aren't alone."

MWZ: Ok I know this took a bit longer then usual, I'm sorry.

Heero: No she's not.

MWZ: Shut up you. I had to re-write some of the scenes like 10x cause I didn't like it finished lol

Heero: Picky picky picky.

MWZ: R &R! Have a nice day everybody!