. Chapter Four . Warmth

So he dreamed again. Not the usual, milky, harmless plots of normal nights, but war dreams—things that hadn't taunted him for years.

They arrived casually, like an old friend stopping by since he 'was in the neighborhood.' But they remained viciously, and that friend grinned wickedly and quickly went to tearing down all his stability from within. It did not really matter what he dreamt—what body slowly bled and fertilized the dirt before him, how many innocents he saw fall at the bite of a bullet, or even how long he could hear himself scream in his sleep. The fact these devils had discovered where he had once slept with no remorse worried him more. They knew where he laid down for the night, tender, quiet, and hopeless.

He was never going to get enough rest at this rate, he thought, as the hall light snapped into dutiful service and Hilde shoved the door open. No words could sooth him, could cool his white-hot scars, so no words came. She simply breathed deeply, coating his name in love as she breathed out, "Oh, Duo," and let him jam his face into her shoulder and clutch.

But, as he slipped into a worn, but harmless insomnia, with a good a friend as anyone could deserve snoring beside him, he couldn't help but let the image of his dream rise again to the top of his mind, the way a new photograph rises through chemicals.

---

"Are you lost?"

Duo tilts his head and grimaces at the little kid. Obnoxious punk he is, simply stumbling in on a productive round of sunbathing and jutting his head out, cutting off a perfectly righteous ray of light. He curls his lip unhappily. This kid will know he's ruined his nap. "Do I look lost to ya?" he growls. "And who asked you, by the way?"

"No one." The kid's face is blurred, but Duo doesn't need such an image. An irritated imagination eagerly fills the blanks. A cute, button-like nose. A mouth that a mother can't help but kiss, a mouth that is rimmed with freckles, tattoos of youth. Eyes still enlarged, rolling around in a skull that has yet to expand and fill in proportionately.

Eyes that are green now, but, as the tiny, subversive grin on his face seems to suggest, may, at any point, change their tune.

He still hasn't left. That means Duo is still in the dark, wishing for the sun to return—and for his annoying, newly acquired sunspot to scram.

"Don't you have parents to return to, kid?" Duo drawls finally, not opening his eyes, which he's sealed shut to maintain his growing disdain.

Heero Yuy answers for him. He is him. Duo will never see him truly as he looked at a tender but deadly age of six, but a pained imagination fills in the blanks with great detail, painting a face coated with adorable baby fat and a tiny, button nose, all teased by wild locks of earth brown. And eyes too large and too agonizingly blue for his face.

"No."

Duo hears the word 'no' until it drives him, screaming, to the filmy surface where war dreams and reality meet and then quickly part, mistrustful of each other.

---

Duo found it was incredibly easy, bordering on inevitable, to avoid the blue-eyed child that was now creeping into his nightmares and even generating a few enthusiastic day-mares. There was simply too much to be done. Teenagers to police, classes to supply, to-do lists to slavishly attend to, and even gardens to be weeded. He probably should have considered hiring a few more employees to help out—but he'd already hired so many, and to add another to the payroll would be exceeding the budget. And that would mean Quatre trying to gently force more money upon him in the sweetest, most hawkish way imaginable.

It was surprising how little he took 'no' for an answer, all while still smiling. 'Poor Trowa,' he thought to himself as he carried a box of books from his office towards the stairwell, intending to store them in the basement and free up more room. Michelle had suggested that they renovate his office a little—make it more 'visit friendly,' as she had described it with a playful smile.

He'd jumped at the opportunity, if only to tear his thoughts away from his newest charge, sitting somewhere in the building with genetic code he should have never had.

He didn't belong here. He belonged with—

"Shit," Duo muttered. His cell phone buzzed obnoxiously in his pocket, making his leg vibrate and groan strangely as he walked. "Hate this thing," he mumbled, readjusting the heavy box under one arm, stopping halfway down the stairwell, and tugging it out. The screen glowed and trilled as he opened it. "Yeah, yeah, bring-a-ling…"

Without a Suit

"Hm, 'Lena?" He said to himself, eagerly thumbing the green button.

'How about dinner this Thursday at our favorite spot? I'm shuttling in to L-2 for a congress. Hope to see you there.'

Duo grinned lopsidedly in the pale, blue-tinged light of the display, musing just how strange it was to receive a text message from the former Queen of the World. It was just as strange as striking the Create New button and confirming a lunch date with said queen with another text message.

'You bet.'

And, after sliding his phone back into his pocket and readjusting his grip on the cardboard box, he hurried down to the storage room and tossed it high on the pile, the prospect of dinner with a good friend lifting his spirit. It'd been unusually heavy for a few days now, and Duo welcomed the change, dashing back up the stairs with his old spunk.

The week passed much more quickly with a goal in mind, and—with a few more amusing exchanges of text messages and a phone call—Duo stood outside a familiar, red-bricked restaurant in his favorite, scuffed jeans, peering out at the street behind his favorite shades. He waited on the corner, scanning both intersecting avenues for his lunch date. Especially for the occasion, he'd braided his hair that morning—a now extremely tedious task with the sheer length that was usually forgone for a messy bun or low ponytail. She'd always been fascinated by it, she'd told him once a few years back. Not that she had ever mentioned it at the time—she'd been far too enamored to ever talk to him in the beginning.

"Waiting long?"

Duo startled slightly at the sound of Relena's voice beside him, but a grin quickly split his mouth as he nudged his sunglasses back onto his nose—then he flushed and pulled them off altogether. "Nope," he answered brightly. "You're never late, anyway, you know."

She smiled back. "Of course not. Don't you know, Duo, that I was once Queen? Royalty's never supposed to be late."

"Really?" he teased with a laugh. "Do tell."

Duo had always felt obnoxiously short in his youth, barely able to match even Quatre in height, plagued by an almost disturbingly thin frame that only served to worsen his tiny appearance. He felt a flash of satisfaction now to see her lift her chin to meet his eyes and even a vague, ungraspable surge of affection at the gentle powder blue of her eyes. She considered him for a moment before tilting her head, one corner of her mouth curling uncharacteristically to the side as she smiled. "You braided your hair today," she observed, her grin growing to show teeth. "That wasn't just for me was it?"

He chuckled, and started leading her inside. "No, I'm meeting my other girlfriend after you, and I want to look good."

She laughed and he felt much better than he had before.

After placing an order for an offensively large steak and fries, punctuated by a stiff round of drinks (which made Relena smile half-knowingly at him), he handed off his menu, and observed the Vice Foreign Minister for a moment. She wore a tight, pink and white-striped sweatshirt that made the honey-wheat of her hair glow bright, a pair of jeans that yawned open at her knees, and little black flats. She'd pulled her hair back today, displaying the shapely face she grown into, shedding her baby fat years ago. Duo thought it was unbearably endearing, crumpling her brow as she spoke, unable to decide between the raspberry or strawberry lemonade when she made daily decisions on how to best run the world, how to best protect peace.

And that was no small thing in the least, Duo knew.

When she'd finally settled on the raspberry and the waitress walked off, she turned to him and let out a relaxed sigh. "So, Duo, how have things been going with the home?"

"Just peachy, actually. I'm in the works of getting a chapel built on the grounds right now."

She looked a little taken aback. "You're going to let your kids get married there?"

He laughed. "No, Lena," he said gently, reaching for a sip of his drink. He couldn't resist the tug of a smirk. "You can pray in a chapel, too—you don't have to hitched to whomever you sit next to."

She puckered her lip. "You know what I meant," she clarified, still slightly grinning. "I don't know all these things like you do, and everyone else." And by everyone else, Duo knew, with that swell of warmth he'd felt at her arrival, meant the pilots. "You're all much more clever than I am, you know that."

"But we don't have your vocabulary."

"Or my girlish figure—not anymore, at least," she shot back.

Duo smirked. He had to hand that one to her. Testosterone had jumped in to combat the stress of war and late blooming and finally given them all the bodies they'd been meant to grow into, and they'd all come to grow taller than her. Being literally crammed into a cockpit and eating travel rations and dehydrated foods during wartime hadn't helped either. Even Quatre had shot up like a weed and now rivaled his boyfriend for sheer height. As he laughed, he could see the little spark of confidence, even smugness he'd seen in her before.

She folded her hands together and rested her chin there, considering him again closely for a moment. "You're really doing alright, Duo? You're not in any financial trouble at all, or overworked?"

"Well, you're never underworked with kids, but you know. And yeah, I'm still set—what with you and Quatre both constantly mothering me about my bank account, I never slip far enough to ever lose any of it," he answered, already signaling towards the waitress that he needed another beer. He'd be walking home today, and that was perfectly fine with him. "Why do you ask? Do I look like I need some more mothering? Quatre has been lagging a little, what with his engagement plans…"

Relena smiled. "You—always trying to change the subject."

Duo did his best to appear perfectly innocent to any subversive tactics. "Whaddiya mean, 'Lena?"

"It's just," she said, her face softening to match the gentle color of her eyes, "you look worn down lately. Are you feeling sick?"

"No," he lied. "Fit as a fiddle. Why—got dark circles under my eyes? Should I be worried about my looks?"

She responded with a dance of laughter and even jealousy in her eyes. "No," she said emphatically. "You definitely shouldn't."

Duo arches his brow. "Oh, was that what I thought it was, Miss Queen?"

"Yes, Duo?"

"Were you hitting on me?" he asks, grinning slyly and leaning in, putting his best baritone roll and best batting-of-the-eyes forward. There was something about her—he just knew she would see instantly through his usual flimsy displays that so often placated Hilde. Perhaps it was just a political skill she'd come to hone. But—for this time, at least—she seemed to fall for it, smiling and falling away from the dangerous topic.

Slipping into her finest mimicry, she bent forward in the same manner, looking so delicately young and powerful at the same time, her hair pulled back, but her neck jangling with over-sized teenage jewelry, that Duo couldn't help breaking his mask for a smirk. She fixated him with a look that could curl a senator's blood in reverence. "Yes," she answered. "Don't you like it?"

He shrugged, giving a grimacing smile. "Sorry, girl—you're just not my type. Otherwise…" He let the sentence fall, and instead watched her face break character and beam with light and warmth.

And for a moment, before they were interrupted by food coming their way, he let his eyes fall closed and indulged himself a moment just drinking in the feeling of friendship. True feelings like this were so fleetingly pure; he couldn't just let it pass him by without a taste.

He felt sincerely happy to be alive at that moment, if only for a little while.

Damn, but this girl had a way of turning dark into light without even really trying. No wonder he was so crazed over her, Duo murmured in his thoughts, before snapping to attention as hot steak slid under his nose.

Once they had been pleasantly stuffed with food and wine tasted and rounds emptied and bodies buzzed with pleasure and alcohol, it was time to go their separate ways for the time being. Duo dreaded this part the most, more than arguing with a woman over the bill. Just because she was Queen of the entire World did not mean Duo couldn't be a gentleman and grab it himself.

"Rule breaker," he slung at her, his mischievous grin morphing into a wild, crooked laugh as they came to stop at the corner of the sidewalk. He'd been a little libertine with the booze tonight. "Never can do what's expected of you, can ya? Always gotta revolutionize somethin', don't ya?"

"I always expected more of myself than you might think, Duo. I'm just living up to some of those," she answered. She smiled up at him as she swung the striped tail of a scarf around her neck, and he could see her, highlighted white and powerful in the media spotlight, turning the hearts and guns of men with only her careful words. "And yes—you can never do without a little revolution, right?"

"If it means war, Sweet Pea, then I disagree," he drawled.

Her expression was soft and amused, loving, framed by the blurring smears of colors that were the city lights and fading sunset in Duo's vision. She glowed. What was her secret to being so sublimely happy? He had to wonder to himself, that tiny knife of jealousy suddenly shaking a stronger emotion to the front of his mind, one he thought he'd successfully drowned in alcohol and buried in the deep embrace of friendship. "Sweat Pea?" she asked. "Oh, Duo, you've really had too much, haven't you?"

"Can't have too much fun," he answered, and she drew him into a hug. It was no where as fierce as the one on a pile of junk where he'd once come so close to death he had memorized the folds of skin in its hand. But it was enough to make Duo's heart swell in pride and affection, which in turn made the wounds in it swell and tear as well, from the strain of love put upon them. When they pulled apart, she smiled at him, considering him for a moment, and began to bustle away, issuing the beginning farewell procedures he barely hears.

There was something about the color of her eyes, the determined shape about them, and the booze liberated his tongue to ask, "Hey 'Lena?"

She stopped moving backwards, toward her parked car, to look attentively at him. "Yes, Duo?" He could feel her listen to his every word with painful consciousness, as the words came so heavily from his mouth, like pulling long-grown, dead roots.

"Have you seen Heero lately?"

"No," was the answer that seems so light, so innocent and easy to utter. Duo felt suddenly like he was an aluminum can under a boot, but she seemed absolutely confident in her answer. "He's been out of touch for a few months now. I've been busy lately with L-5's population problem, so I haven't gotten around to calling him yet." She saw his body sag slightly. "Why?"

"Oh, just wondering," he lied perfectly. "I was thinking about looking him up. Been a while, you know."

Relena lingered there, and Duo felt her rip a few more roots loose when she tilted her head and took another step forward. "Honey, are you sure you're alright? You really do look worn down." When he didn't answer for a moment, inspecting the sidewalk grime with a hazy, distant look instead, she crossed the distance again and held the side of his face, despite the increased reach. "Duo, I mean it. Have you been sleeping well?"

He jolted slightly, but a weary, washed-out grin appeared from the bottom of his barrel of tricks in the hopes of fooling her. She was tiptoeing onto the truth much faster than Hilde—but that's Relena's purpose in life, he reminds himself, to drag the painful truth out and into its rightful place. Her fingers were warm and rosy, and even the frosty, Scandinavian blue of her eyes seemed warm and glowing. He hated that he had to lie to her, but this was a truth that needed to stay thoroughly buried.

"Honey?" he asked, and held her wrist. "It's you who's had too much, I think." Guiding the touch away, he had to resist the temptation to sway towards her, mourning its loss. There was something about her that seemed so comforting—but the power in her eyes reminds him that yes, she is still a shrewd politician, and, believing it would help him, she would turn that savvy towards him.

And bare everything he's worked so hard to ignore and hide.

She remained standing in front of him. The color that scares terrorists and inspires soldiers was burning low in her stare, and Duo felt that protectiveness as warmth, but he could not stand too close. He would burn himself on her, seeking to drive all the cold from him. So he grinned and cracked a joke he barely remembers, hoping it would be enough to fool her.

"You can call me, you know," she reminded him, looping her fingers with him. "I'll listen to whatever you need to say."

He fought a blush of embarrassment by making another, rhythmic, formulized wisecrack. She smiled only minimally. His words were dull and blunted to his own ears, and all he could hear were his thoughts, as they had grown terribly loud and vicious. And he bid her goodbye as politely as he could manage, leaving her on the corner to turn and walk home that night.