Chp 2

(2 months later)

Duo opened his eyes, everything around his was blurry and his eyes hurt bad. He was having a hard time breathing as there was a tube down his throat. At that thought he started gagging , the tube was pulled out roughly buy a shadowed blurry figure. But before Duo could close his mouth or start talking, an object was placed into his mouth to keep it open.

Duo tried to look around, but everything remained blurry and he could only make out dark shadows as figures. He tried to move but he was strapped down on some kind of butt-less table, which made Duo feel exposed, since he knew, from the breeze the he felt, that he was wearing some kind on hospital gown or very minimal clothing.

Everything hurt. His head hurt the worst, his ears ached and he could barely hear anything, everything that he could hear was muffled, he guessed that there was bandages around his head. His eyes stung, and his nose felt like it was stuffed with tissue or something, and his mouth hurt, or to put it better, his teeth and tongue hurt. His fingers and toes both felt like they were on fire, and his lower back hurt a lot too. Actually he lower back felt like the time he had broken his tail bone and he started wondering if that wasn't the case now.

"I see you're awake." Duo froze and he violently tried to pull away, feeling the straps on his ankles and wrists digging into his skin. He knew that voice, how could you forget such a voice, even though is was muffled to his ears, probably the bandages around his head, he knew that damn voice.

"Oh Duo, are you not happy to see me?" G asked. Duo tried to speak, but with his mouth open wide, and in painful condition, it proved impossible, but he did manage a grunt of despair.

"Well that one is an easy question. We escaped before it blew up." G smiled, "Why don't I just answer all the questions I know you have. After all you won't remember a damn thing by the time we are done with you. Because you belong to me and I will do what I want with you, my little pet. Me and the others have been working on a project, maybe we will be able to start another war, this time though our weapons will surpass those Gundam's. You are our new test subject. With your trained and lethal body, and our new improvements, you'll be unstoppable." Duo tried to get out again, but a hand rested on his chest, forcing him to hold still.

"They've been looking for you for two months now. I thought that they would give up after a while. But I planted you're death, so they have finally stopped. A funeral has been set to take place in two days, maybe I'll wake you up, so we can watch it together…then again you'll be is so much pain, maybe not." G said, Duo could see his figure making a hand sign for someone. Tears leaking out of his eyes as he felt the needle slipping into his skin. Duo jerked madly, trying to break free, he had already been out for two months, and he hadn't remembered any of it. Duo felt the drug working quickly before he was out of it again. His last thought was of Heero, and hoping that the boy wouldn't give up on him.

-----

"NO!" Heero screamed, trying to pull out of Trowa and Wufei's grasp as the police pulled the thin body out of the water. "NO!" There were tears streaming down his cheeks for the first time in his life. He felt helpless and lost.

"NOOO!" Heero punched Trowa in the face and threw Wufei to the ground, lurching forward to reach out for the body, but Noin and Une got to him first. Une worked quickly and got Heero to the ground, with his arms tightly behind his back. Noin was sitting on his waist as the boy was violently jerking around, trying to throw Une off him. Trowa and Wufei both jumped on him pinning down his legs.

"Heero calm down." Une ordered. Heero was struggling with everything he had, the four of them having a hard time keeping the boy down. "Bring a sedative." Une ordered. Heero didn't stop looking at the body.

"No, no, no, no, no…" Heero kept saying over and over and he watched them put the body in the black bag. The last thing he saw was the brown braid. He watched as the pulled the braid into the back and zipped it up. "It's not him." He started jerking more violently. "It can't be him…He's not dead….NO!!!!!"

He jerked around even more violently, freeing his leg from Wufei and kicking him in the face, sending him back quite a few feet. Trowa was forced to back away or suffer another blow to the face. With Trowa and Wufei off his legs, he found a way to bring them under him, and knocked Noin off him. He flipped himself over and landed on top of Une, knocking her out cold when her head slammed on the ground.

Heero ran towards the body bag on the stretcher again, this time Wufei came out of know where and delivered a sweeping kick to Heero's legs, Heero barely managed to avoid them, but ended up falling as Trowa tackled him to the ground. This time Trowa was ready and hand the needle shoved into Heero's arm before the man could do anything to push Trowa away.

"He's not dead." Heero whispered as the drugs took affect over his body. Trowa rubbed the place where Heero had punched him, his eyes avoiding the black bag only a few feet away. A tear rolled down his cheek. Wufei bowed his head, hiding the fact that he was also crying. He couldn't believe that they had been looking for two months for there friend, only to find him floating down the channel. Duo had survived the war, and the church, and the disease, but some gang punks got him. Wufei lashed out, throwing his fist into the side of his own car, causing it to dent considerable, and the men around his to back away quickly.

-----

Heero sat in his house by himself. Looking at the picture of Duo that he had favored over time. The lights were off around him as he sat in the den, the sky outside darkening into night. The tears had finally stopped but his heart still felt cold. His friend, his best friend was dead. The man who he had, as teen girls would call it a 'major crush' on was dead. And it was all his fault. Because he couldn't find him in time. Because he wasn't there to protect him. Because he wasn't…His cell phone was vibrating in his pocket. He ignored it. Then his pager went off…and his house phone. Growling he grabbed the phone, almost crushing it in his hand.

"What?" His voice was dead, barely holding anything that had grown there after the war.

::It's not Duo.:: Une's voice said over the receiver. Heero nearly dropped the phone.

"What?" This time his voice sounded hopeful.

"It's not even a human, well I mean all the parts are human, but it's a man made thing. The DNA in the hair was well odd to say the least. And the finger prints are Duo's, even the blood inside the body is Duo's but the thing is that the bone marrow doesn't hold the same DNA, in fact it hold several different people. This one is just a ploy." Une said.

"A ploy?" Heero asked, making sure he had heard her right.

"Yes, Heero can you come down to PHQ right away, I've already called Trowa and Wufei, but we need to figure something out quickly." She said. Heero nodded, then remembered the Une couldn't see him for he had the vid screen off.

"Yes." He said then hung up the phone. He took a few deep breaths, realizing that Duo was still alive. There would be no other reason for them to send a ploy unless he was. He took one more deep breath then left his house, locking it behind him and getting into his car.

-----

"Okay so someone is hiding him from us, that is clear. And their doing a good job." Noin said, going over the notes they had quickly.

"We have a funeral, pretend like we are giving up on the case." Wufei said.

"It'll allow the person to drop their guard…at least a little." Trowa said.

"But that will be enough…we can higher our standards of crime, I mean start checking into everything. Weapons, medical equipment, odd deliveries, things along those lines. We can check un-used factories and buildings." Heero said.

"We can't just do that for no damn reason. If we are going to fake Duo's funeral then we are going to have to keep the records between us five. No one else is to know. Not even Quatre and Heildi, or Howard, or Relena…NO ONE." They all nodded. "This will make the funeral seem more real, and it'll also help with keeping our search on the down low."

-----

'Duo' was buried in a cemetery on earth, close to his friends and family. The ceremony was huge and long, making it seem as real as possible. Of course only five people knew it was fake and they weren't speaking. Wufei held Sally in his arms, her tears flowing freely down her checks. Trowa held Quatre, but Quatre was just starring blankly at the casket as if he couldn't believe this was happening. Relena held Heero, who was doing an incredible act of showing he was sad even going so far as to cry when they lowered the casket into the ground and started covering it with dirt.