MWZ: Ok yes, I know, I've taken my sweet time getting this out. Me sorry.
Heero: It's cause you're a slacker, nothing more.
MWZ: No idiot, it's cause I've been sick.
Heero: Sick in the head.
MWZ: OH SHUT UP!!! KILL YOU!!
Heero: Yeah, yeah.
Duo: Heh, even Heero gets bored with people threatening him.
MWZ: Not like he ever carries out his threats…
Heero: I can't kill her now! She's promoting peace!
MWZ & Duo: Excuses, excuses.
Heero: Oh go suck a lemon! (leaves)
Duo: mm Lemony goodness.
MWZ: That sounds so wrong.
Duo: Only cause you think that way.
MWZ: Oh yes, and to address my spacing issues. Trust me, I try to format these pages on FFN and when they're on my computer, they're just fine. It's just once they go on the file manager, they get all screwed up, and even though I edit them live on FFN, the changes don't stick. So I'll have to manually space the changes from character to character myself cause the whole document is evil
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. If I did I'd be filthy rich and would not have to worry about rising tuition fees at CSU.
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Chapter Five: Leaving on Red Hill
The streets had become relatively calm now, with everyone done with their lunch hour break, the traffic seemed to lessen. The air was still heavy with the smell of exhaust, and made it quite an unpleasant smell to the driver of the open windowed Mustang that was currently making its way back to the scrap yard.
"The technology to build a Gundam but still no alternative fuel for vehicles." Duo mumbled to himself, his eyes leveling with the slow moving semi in front of him. Duo looked at his glove box and then remembered he hadn't even looked at the clipboard of clients he had to look at.
Mobile suit scrap cluttered outer space, and the scrap yard had no shortage of it. However, all mobile suit metals were monitored; trash or not. Background checks had to be thorough to ensure that someone wasn't building or stashing away for their own personal army. Duo had found all sorts of parts in space, even scraps of Gundanium from their various battles. That was never re-sold however. One it was deemed against the law by the Preventors, and two, Duo couldn't stomach someone getting a piece of Deathscythe or any of the Gundams.
"They'd sell it on e-bay I just know it." Duo smirked at the thought, wondering just how much a piece would go for.
The black leather strapped green shard fell, and started to swing like a pendulum.
"What the-" Duo snapped out of his strange thought to the sound of a car horn honking behind him. The light was green and the diesel had already fully crossed the intersection. "Shit."
Duo quickly pressed the gas and shifted gears. He personally yelled at himself, which seemed to be happening a lot lately. "I really need to stop zoning out at intersections."
A few minutes later, Duo pulled into the parking lot for the scrap yard. He put the car in park and reached for the clipboard in the glove box. He pulled it out and got out of the car. Hilde was waiting by the door. Duo inwardly sighed, praying she wouldn't bring up the whole 'Dead Heero' debate.
"Hey Duo. You feeling better?"
Better? That was a trick question. He felt fine all along, how could he feel better if he already felt fine? "Uh, I guess." Duo answered, starting to squeeze sideways past her to get to the doorway.
"Well, did you manage to look over the clipboard or did you just enjoy lunch?" Hilde asked, shifting her weight to the other leg. Duo stopped mid-step.
"Actually…I completely forgot about that until 5 minutes ago." Duo rubbed the back of his head. He hated getting into this situation. Part of him wanted to go back to the Heero subject instead of being his own subject.
"Duo! How are we supposed to ship these out on time if you constantly forget to look at the clients?"
"You take things too seriously Hilde. I promise I'll look at them." Duo walked over to the couch and tossed the clipboard on one of the random pillows scattered about. He then flipped himself over the back of the couch and sprawled himself out on the couch. Hilde sighed loudly and Duo could tell by her footsteps she headed towards her room.
The comfort of the pillows and couch drew Duo into the halfway sleep state. He turned to face the television, looking at it but not really watching it. The faces and figures seemed almost silent before everything went blurry.
"Oh and Duo I'm.." Hilde walked back; she was brushing her hair with a black brush. She looked over to Duo who was asleep. Duo's rhythmic breathing was evidence to this fact. Hilde smiled and then turned away, hiding her sad smile.
As she turned to head back to her room, she passed Duo's along the way. She stopped to stare at it for a second. Contrary to what some people thought of Duo, his room was very tidy, aside from his computer desk. The monitor's base was hidden amongst various scraps of paper, each with various numbers and tidbits of information written on them. She had always been very curious about just what the numbers and letters meant to the braided boy, but decided it was best she didn't snoop around. She treasured her friendship with Duo, and would rather not destroy that trust by snooping around his stuff. Duo probably wouldn't care if she asked about them, but she was too shy for that.
One thing that caught her eye was some photos that were taped to Duo's computer tower. It was a picture of Heero and Duo dressed in basketball jerseys. Hilde always thought it was a humorous picture and if Heero was still alive, she knew he'd probably kill Duo for having it. In the picture Duo knew there was a camera present, but Heero was busy playing with the basketball actually having fun.
Duo didn't have many photos of the pilots since there wasn't much time during the war to take pictures. However of his stash, they were mostly of Heero. Hilde felt a tinge of jealousy come over her.
She had always hoped that maybe something would become of her friendship with Duo, but Duo hadn't felt the same way about her. Although it had taken awhile to get over, she decided that being friends with Duo was better then nothing. Although she was going out on a date tonight, she still wished it was Duo that was meeting her. Duo's lack of interest in her was understandable, after finally having some time to himself to sit back and relax; he just wasn't interested in getting girlfriend yet.
Hilde stared at the ground, now feeling guilty for being jealous of Heero for being friends with Duo. She shook her head and walked inside of her room, shutting the door with a click.
Trowa, Noin, Sally and Zechs had made themselves comfortable as they watched the last video recording they had on the Libra's destruction. They had watched it over and over for at least five times. They had become subliminal teams; Noin and Sally pointing out ways that perhaps Heero had lived, and Trowa and Zechs pointing out flaws in their thoughts.
"Well, you survived although you blew up one of Libra's power generators." Noin pointed out to Zechs.
"Yes but I wasn't fighting the gravitational pull of Earth and it's atmosphere."
"Couldn't Wing Zero make atmospheric re-entry?" Sally inquired.
"Yes, but it would've had to been in that flight mode." Trowa replied.
"Trowa's right. Wing Zero was designed with the ability to enter and exit the Earth's atmosphere. However, the Bird mode purposely covered the parts of the Gundam that needed extra resistance to the extreme temperatures. Without being in bird mode, Heero wouldn't have made it."
Noin watched the screen as Zero fired its cannon at the hunk of Libra and the explosion that followed. A memory surfaced in her mind.
"At the Presidential Residence, the estate itself was hidden underground. 8 Gates of power if I'm not mistaken." Noin recalled. Trowa looked at her with his emerald eyes lit up with curiosity.
"Yes. Why do you bring that up?"
'Well, the explosion according to the Barton Foundation members who held out within. Was accurate to 1/100th of a unit." Zechs caught onto where Noin was going with this.
"Noin, those explosions came from bombs set up in the gates, not an invisible Wing Zero."
"How could it have been bomb set up? We found no trace of bombs."
"If it was Wing Zero, I doubt Une would've survived getting into the estate." Trowa stopped to think about it. Just how did Lady Une get inside there anyways? She may have gotten into the residence, but how could another person have done that, without being seen? Much less leave no trace of their presence. Wait, was he starting to contemplate Heero's existence?
"Well we do know that Lady Une didn't set up those explosives." Sally finally put her thoughts into it.
"It couldn't have been explosions, those gates had circular dents in them that had no trace of explosive residue. Also how could someone set up bombs on 8 gates? There were 8 gates, each at least 5 feet thick with Titanium." Noin added in, her cell phone started ringing. Noin reached downwards and answered it. "Hello, Noin here."
Trowa stared at the phone, trying to decipher by Noin's tone just who was on the other line. Noin just nodded her head and replied, "Yes, okay then." Noin hung up.
"That was Relena's secretary." At this Zechs looked at Noin directly.
"What'd she say?"
"Relena is going to be coming here sometime soon."
"This will be amusing." Trowa said as he closed his eyes in thought.
Duo woke up, but hadn't opened his eyes yet. He was slowly shaking off the sleep weight on his body. Duo heard an odd noise and didn't recognize it. He opened his eyes slowly, and looked at the clock. It took a few seconds before his eyes adjusted and he could read the time. It was 6:15 PM. (1)
"Shit. Slept longer then I thought." Duo sat up. The clipboard was lying on the table now. Duo reached over to grab it, and noticed the table was shiny and clean. He noticed it had the strong scent of orange dust cleaner as well. Duo relaxed as he noticed the sound was the sound of dishes being watched. Duo looked around and noticed the floor had been vacuumed, the house dusted and cleaned.
"Hey, the place looks nice Hilde!" Duo said out loud. "You should've woken me up. I would've helped you know!"
"I don't need your help." A gruff, un-Hilde-like voice replied. Duo turned so fast that his head hurt, feeling like he got up too fast. Standing in the kitchen doorway was Heero. The darkness of the living room gave Heero an eerie appearance. The light from the kitchen lit up around Heero. Most of Heero's features were hidden in the darkness of the living room, except for his eyes and the gem around his neck.
"Whoa shit! What the hell are you doing here Heero?!" Duo exclaimed.
"Cleaning up. What does it look like?"
"Well, where's Hilde?"
"She went out." Duo's head was hurting bad again. Heero must've noticed because he walked closer to Duo.
"Lay back down. I didn't wake you up because you were asleep." Heero's tone was serious but also soft.
"Hey, where the hell did you go at lunch today?" Heero was silent. Duo figured he was busy cleaning again. "You owe me money for your orange juice, don't think I'll forget." Duo said jokingly.
Duo rested his head on the pillow and reached over to the clipboard. He grabbed it and looked at it. The first name was Bertha Carter. Just as Duo was about to get up, the doorbell rang. He looked to see if Heero was nearby to answer it. Duo mentally slapped himself.
"Sheesh he did just clean the place. I can answer the door." Duo got up and headed towards the door. He looked through the view hole first. Last thing he needed was a door-to-door salesman at the moment. Duo raised an eyebrow when he saw who it was. He quickly opened the door.
"WuFei, hey buddy! How's it goin'?" Duo warmly greeted the former Altron pilot. Duo looked up and blinked a few times before looking back at WuFei. "Ehh, just what are you doing here this late anyways?"
"I'm here to help." Duo smiled. He opened his door wide for WuFei to see.
"Well, you're welcome to help, but Heero's already cleaned house. Hey wait!" Duo glared. "What was my place so dirty that you all decided to come and help?"
WuFei looked inside the building and in fact it was clean. WuFei looked at Duo. "Well, may I still come in? It's rather cold." Duo nodded.
"Of course! Like I'd let you stay out there and freeze." Duo walked back inside, holding the door open for WuFei. Once WuFei stepped in he closed the door. "Hey Heero! WuFei is here!"
WuFei watched as Duo called out through the house, almost like he would shout and Heero would just appear around the hallway. WuFei watched for a few seconds, part of him hoping Heero would appear. Acting like nothing was wrong a second ago outside had bothered WuFei. But he didn't want to anger or confront Duo outside. That would just result in Duo shutting the door on his face.
"Hey Heero, hurry up will ya?!" Duo yelled again. WuFei inwardly sighed.
It was going to be a long night.
MWZ: I'm so, so, so, sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I was hoping to get further then this during my Spring Break. However I became very sick and once I felt better, I began to write this the Sunday before last. I got the first 2 pages done, and then my oldest dog Tasha died of old age. Needless to say I wasn't in the mood to write and that's why this chapter has taken so long. Also as I was trying to upload this chapter FFN, wasn't allowing me due to errors. Go figure.
Hopefully I didn't lose any of you during this long drought of a chapter, it won't be so long lacking next time. Again I'm sorry. And to all of those of you who review. I 3 ya!
(1) This is kind of poking fun at a freak thing that happens to me. Everyday I check the clock at the time, it's the same time every day, 6:15. Sometimes its 3:15, 4:15, etc., but 6:15 freaks me out the most because its similar to my birthdate 6/15. lol ahh randomness.