Santa Clarita: Going Home 2/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing

Instinct caught his breath before the darkness swallowed him. For the tiniest moment, the only frame of reference the universe had was Duo's hand holding his, but it wasn't this new god like Duo, it was his Duo, on their last morning in Brazil. Pressed closed together on the mat they called a bed, Duo's hand had held to his. In that moment, he remembered feeling uncomfortable, as if Duo's vulnerability was too much, his raw emotion was unfair to share, but in that moment of blackness between worlds, Heero reached into that memory and held Duo's hand tighter. In his mind, he said what he hadn't been able to say that morning. "We'll be alright. I'll always be with you." The memory changed then.

Duo held a little looser, but more connected. "You're alright, Heero Yuy."

But he knew how that day came out. That was the day he lost his Duo.

Bright light hit him in the face, warm and yellow and the air smelled like barbecue and dog. Then the paws hit him on the chest and only Duo holding his hand prevented the instinctive punch. "No! That's Bailey. Mox! Get yer fuckin dog!"

Then the dog was on Duo and Duo went over onto the ground under a mountain of summer hay colored fluff as the thing licked Duo in the face and Duo tried to push him back. "Mox!"

Mox clapped and golden sparkles made a cloud around her hand. The great big dog sat down on Duo, a little ball of golden glitter appearing over its head and then in a male British accent it said, "DUO DUO DUO!"

"Yes, I understand," the woman said, and was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Heero had ever seen, with perfect curves, chocolate skin, a halo of hair and long golden earrings, everything about her presentation moved and shimmered together, creating an aura of beauty, even as she shook her finger scoldingly at the big dog. "Yes, I understand that you missed him, however, you're making a bother and you made Mr. Yuy uncomfortable. Apologize."

This moutain of a dog, some kind of cross between a dust mop and a large sized Saint Bernard, got up, turned around slowly like the Snuffleupagus, and said, though now Heero realized it was the golden ball above its head making the sound. "Sorry, sorry, Mr. Yuy. Sorry. Bad Bailey."

Heero felt like there were little tiny black holes in his jaw, trying real hard to drop his mouth open. "It's okay. I understand," he said and then held out his hand to shake, which Bailey accepted, though the paw was nearly bigger than Heero's hand.

"See!" Bailey said, looking at his dog mom, "Bailey good?"

"That's a good Bailey. Now come sit down here with me." At some point she'd moved close enough to also offer her hand. "Hello! We're all so pleased to meet you. I'm Mox."

There should be a word for dread mixed with awe and feeling infinitely small. He held out his hand and they shook. Her hand felt as real as any hand he'd ever touched, but more so in some way, like the touch of her skin to his, which was just arm and firm, but more, in that it somehow communicated how happy she was that he was there and how much she cared for Duo and how excited she was for the future. The dread flowered completely as he looked at her eyes. One was the dark brown one would expect in a person of her complexion, but the other was a swirl of color like a galaxy.

His god like Duo, who could literally walk on water, wasn't god like here, but just clutzy normal old Duo. The dust mop of a dog might be more able to navigate this world than he was. Just as Duo was being awkward about being embraced by a pair of female clones, movement to his left caught his eye and there were two Wufei's. Both of them maybe ten years old, identical, holding hands, heads tilting slowly as they looked at him, in unison.

Heero's hair stood on end. The cops had taken his pistols. What good are pistols against gods anyway though.

Then the Wufei's started laughing and high-fiving each other.

Heero's jaw shifted to the side and he was a hair away from wanting to punch them. They weren't fucking children. There were not fucking human children in this fucking place.

The Wufei on the right pointed to him, made a face and snickered, "I can't wait to show you the look on your face! Oh my god, that was precious!"

"Are you Chang Wufei," Heero asked.

"Well," the right one said, only to have the left one continue, "we have a core basis of Chang Wufei, but in the advent we decided to add some of Duo and a little bit of Mox, and a little bit of Martha, but we still want the name Wufei, as it is most fitting."

"I heard that, you little shits," one of the females fawning over Duo said.

Heero heard her and understood whatever the society here, she was at the top of it.

"So, Heero," Duo said, bringing them closer. He was a little bit taller than they were, but not by much. They had dirty blonde hair, cut asymmetrically so it was longer on the outside as they stood next to Duo. While Mox had been startingly beautiful, these two were plain. Not homely, just more common than would be statistically possible, as if it would be impossible to memorize their faces, or pick them up with facial recognition software, for that matter. "These are two of my moms. This is Martha. Always do what she says. She's always got a reason. This is M2. Sometimes she's actually also Martha, so always do what she says too. Mary is around here somewhere, right?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

"Mary has not advented yet, but the event is not completely closed."

"That's wrong," Duo said firmly. "Someone go get her."

"That's not how it works," a football linebacker sized guy said, holding his hand out to Heero. "Hi! I'm Alan."

Heero took his hand, feeling small as the big black hand closed around his with kindness and a sense noninvasive humanity.

"We don't force the advent, Duo. If she doesn't do it herself, she doesn't."

"The results are unacceptable," Martha said, answering Duo's question before it was even out of his mouth.

"But Mary," Duo said, face twitching as if he were going to start crying.

That's when Heero's world both gelled and broke apart. He, but not himself, some other him with longer hair and a bird feather woven in with a brown leather thong stepped up behind Duo and Duo melted into him as they were one person in a way that Heero know he'd never experienced with any Duo ever. The edges of their physical being, which had seemed so real when he'd touched the other people, between Heero and Duo blurred, with Heero's hand overlapping Duo's space just a little.

"I want my Duo. I want him now," Heero said, losing control of himself.

"And you shall have him," another man, who had come into being in the park where they stood.

Heero only now realized they were in an empty park with a blue sky, trees and grass, but it was just them. He turned slowly around and found a city, a city he didn't know, but typical tall buildings, outline things, the normal cityscape, but there was no sound to it, no cars, no planes, no underlying rumble of all the machinery of human life. "Where are we?"

The new man, blond curls with green eyes and the same kind of beauty that Mox had had, only masculine and much more sexual, threatening in some underspoken way. "This is Camelot. It's empty now, but it'll be better populated in time."

"You built a city, but don't have any people?" Heero turned back to look at these 'people' he was standing with. "Where are you going to get people? Are you going to take colonists from Earth?"

"No," Alan said, reaching out for the blond man's hand. They had that same overlapping space that Duo and the other Heero had. "We're a new species, Heero."

"So you'll make babies?"

"Lives choose to advent," Martha said, "We don't make them. We don't know how it works yet, but there will be people. The city will shift and change to accommodate them."

"I don't belong here," Heero said, backing away from them.

"You do belong," Alan said, "You have passed advent. You are us."

Heero's head went light. This wasn't like any battle he'd ever fought. He didn't know the rules.

"Heero! Fuckin chill," Duo said. "Look, you wanted to be here, or you wouldn't be here. It's okay. You can connect to younger me as soon as we figure out how to best help him."

"Where is he? Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Martha said, "At least for a traumatized 13 year old with chronic nutritional deficiencies."

"We were fifteen," Heero said firmly.

"That argument won't work," Duo said with a sigh. "Apparently, I was 13 when we were in Brazil."

Heero shrugged, decided that bit of information made other things make sense.

"What? You can't accept that like it makes sense," Duo whined. "I was fifteen."

The Wufei's snickered.

"Shaddup you!"

"He is in a holding pattern," Martha explained. "We must decide on a course of action. He is volatile and powerful."

"There is only one course of action," Heero said, challenging Martha's long held dominance. "I will go to him and explain. Then he and I will decide if we wish to remain here or if we want to go back to Earth."

"He can't go back to Earth," Duo said firmly. "He's dangerous and more powerful than you know."

"Well, make him human!"

"He is human, Heero! We could make him a body and let the two of you go. He's more dangerous than you understand. It would be wrong of him to unleash him on Earth. Aside from vengeance, there were other reasons those fuckers took me to be the core of their new AI. I couldn't manage the Zero system, but this was a different thing. Trust me, you don't want young me running around on Earth."

"What difference does it make to you, you won't be here! It seems to me that you were used on every level. Things would have been different if we had just continued on in Rio. I trust him with my life and with Earth."

"Fine," Martha held up her hand. "Fine! We do not coerce. I will put you in his thread. You do what you do. You have three days, thread time, to decide if you want to go with us, or stay on Earth. We will not force you, either way."

The rest of them accepted her word.

Heero gave a curt nod, and then he was laying in bed with Duo, Duo's hand reaching for his. "Tell me I'm okay, Heero? Please? I'm scared. I had a bad dream."

Heero snuggled closer, taking Duo's hand, kissing the back of his neck. "I'm here with you. I believe in you. We'll make everything okay."