Hey guys, so I'm really excited for this chapter. Some of the 'mystery' will be cleared up - to an extent.
Happy reading!
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Red Flag
As he stood before the blinking neon sign of 'Locke's All Purpose Tech Shop,' Duo had the most irritating sense of déjà vu.
He huffed loudly, while reaching up to pound on the dense, steel door, but it ripped open before he had a chance, nearly knocking him over.
"You're late," the old man declared in his steely voice.
Duo started up at him, thoroughly pissed off. "Are you kidding me? This is the same time-"
"Shut up and get inside," he said, cutting him off mid-protest. Locke, or Curtis, turned and disappeared inside, not even pausing to see if his orders were carried out.
Duo caught the door before it slammed close and stared darkly at the bead curtain where the tacky orange Hawaiian shirt had vanished. He was seething. He was the one being lead on the wild-goose-chase from hell, and this grandpa had the nerve to be a self-righteous, bastard of a mechanic.
After a few moments of internal debate of how much a royal waste of time this would turn out to be, Duo reluctantly drifted into the same back room he had sat in the very day before.
Curtis was nowhere in sight.
A muffled voice called out to him, "something wrong with your legs, boy?"
Duo gritted his teeth and hoped his patience would last.
He followed the sound of the voice and found, practically hidden behind an ancient, rusting fridge, an entry way that opened to a flight of stairs, both of which he knew had not been there yesterday.
He hesitated a moment at the top of the dark staircase, staring down at the inky blackness it would deposit him in. With a huff of irritation, he reluctantly trudged down into what he expected to be a dirty, dank, and chaotically messy basement.
"You're not planning on killing me and stashing my body down here, are ya, gramps?" he called down, blindly.
A voice replied, much closer than he had expected, "You've been watching too many horror flicks, kid."
Suddenly, with a soft click, the lights all flickered on, causing Duo to be temporarily blinded by the shock of the ridiculously bright fluorescent lights.
After blinking furiously for some moments, Duo's eyes cleared enough for him to realize he had reached the bottom of the stairs and his surroundings were anything but a dirty, dank, messy basement.
He sucked in a breath.
"Just who the hell are you?" he asked, furiously, but with eyes glued in shock to his surroundings.
The basement looked more like some military base he had frequented in a past life than the drippy, rusty chaos he had expected.
Three hallways opened up before him, their walls and floors solid metal. He could make out the slight indentation of electronic doors at their far ends before the hallways turned sharply out of sight.
He was beginning to feel a faint twist of nausea in his stomach. His hands and legs twitched with a rush of adrenaline. The entire façade brought on an unwelcome sense of déjà vu. He felt as if he were trapped in the heart of some Alliance or OZ military base.
He wanted out.
"None of your business. Now try to keep up." The old man took off down the right hallway.
His mind and body reeling, awakening instincts and reflexes he hadn't needed in over two years, Duo followed mechanically after Curtis. As he was led through a complex of identical corridors, his mind unwillingly began mapping out the underground complex, highlighting all possible escape routes. He paused instinctively at every turn of the hallways, muscles tense for a possible threat hidden around the corner.
If the old man noticed, he didn't say a word.
Only when Curtis came to a stop before one particularly undistinguished, commonplace door was Duo finally able to gain a greater control over his body's reactions.
He needed to calm down.
Now.
He had left that life far behind him, and he didn't need some ridiculous relapse to get in the way of everything he had worked for anytime within the next century. More importantly, this certainly wasn't the place for him to go all ex-gundam-pilot-solider-spy now.
He eyed the back of old man's orange Hawaiian shirt warily. Exactly what kind of civilian has a military complex packaged neatly under his back alley, tacky, microscopic repair shop? Just who the hell was he really dealing with?
After a swipe of a card Duo hadn't noticed the old man holding, the door slid open with a soft hiss. Inside, the lights flickered erratically, barely allowing Duo to make out a huge structure centered in the middle of the room covered by a ridiculously large tarp.
He was left standing in the doorway, as Curtis headed off to the row of computers lining the walls. With a few clicks, the blank screens blinked to life, and the room's lights calmed down and stopped their strobe-light flickering.
Duo watched as the old man started towards the focus of the room, but, then paused to turn back and face him.
"I believe this might be the answer you're looking for," he stated solemnly. The vague sadness and pity that softened his features alarmed Duo more than the entire eerie subterranean complex.
"Brace yourself."
Curtis stepped forward and tugged at the black tarp. The sheet fell away heavily, revealing the object underneath slowly.
Duo couldn't identify it at first.
He found himself staring at a large chunk of twisted metal. Whatever it had once been in a past life had seriously gotten its ass whooped. Black scorch marks covered its surface, making it difficult to even identify the object as metal. Other areas, heavily disfigured, showed evidence of exposure to what must have been unimaginable levels of heat, their surfaces melted and twisted grotesquely.
As he studied it closer, he discovered that the center of the object looked as if it had been carved out. The clean cut, rectangular opening of the cavity, which was mostly hidden in shadows, showed evidence of the use of a heavy duty blow torch.
He stepped forward to examine it further and just barely reacted in time to catch the object thrown his way. He opened his mouth to yell out a complaint to the old man, but his breath caught in his throat as he caught sight of the man's expression. The steely, stoic man looked unbelievably…pained, as he stared at the twisted metal.
He must have sensed Duo's eyes on him for he turned his back to the object and the teen and headed towards the computers without sparing either another glance.
Confused out of his mind, Duo turned his attention to the projectile. A flashlight. The old man had given him a flashlight. A sense of overwhelming dread settled in the pit of his stomach.
He couldn't remember willing his legs to move, but he suddenly found himself standing just before the twisted metal and the clean cut opening.
Mechanically, he clicked the light on and pointed it inside.
The inside didn't look any better than the rest of the metal mess. Scorch marks and melted metal were everywhere, but beneath the black ash he was able to just barely make out cracked glass lining the upper walls and hundreds of wires melted together in large lumps hanging all around.
But, it was the object in the center of the tiny area that puzzled him the most. He ran his flashlight over it again and again. The entire right side of the structure had been thoroughly melted and must have collapsed under its own weight. However, the right side appeared to be in better condition. He reached in to touch it. Rubbing away some of the black soot, he discovered what might have been some sort of joystick in a previous life.
He followed the arm up to the back of the structure. Another blow torch had been used to cut at the metal that must have reached around and…done what exactly? He pushed himself in farther to get a better look, gripping onto the edges of the metal. He paused abruptly, fingers coming into contact with something odd. With a shift of the flashlight, he found his fingers gripping a burned strip of coarse fabric.
Fabric?
His mind started into overdrive, trying desperately to connect all the pieces together. He knew he was missing something big, something absurdly obvious. Suddenly ridiculously frustrated, he shifted to call over his shoulder to the old man.
He froze.
He recognized the perspective all too well.
Suddenly everything crashed into place.
With a loud thud, he threw himself out the opening, snagging his pant leg on an indistinct piece of metal and ripping a hole in his jeans, carelessness he knew he would regret as soon as he recovered from his near mental breakdown.
It wasn't an opening.
It was a cockpit.
And that wasn't just some chunk of metal.
That was the core of a mobile suit.
"So, you finally figured it out, then?" the old man voiced, staring down at his crumpled frame intently.
Duo lifted to his head to glare heatedly at him.
"Don't give me that look, Duo. You wanted answers, and you're getting them. No one promised it was going to be easy and painless," he told him, voice steely and hard. Duo was so preoccupied with hating him that he didn't even notice that the man had actually called him by name.
"I found it five days after the battle to end all battles: the final confrontation between White Fang, the Alliance, OZ, and the Gundams." He didn't look at Duo as he spoke; instead, he stared intently at the mobile suit core, as if it held all the answers.
"I went out in a shuttle, hoping to find valuable parts in all the destruction and debris floating around space left over from the fight. That's when I found this, here. It wasn't the largest thing out there, but according to the computer, it was by far the densest. I pulled it in and didn't wait to come back to run diagnostics. It was a good thing I did too. Not only did I find that it was hollow, but that there was a faint heat source inside, a human, and a barely alive one at that. Unaware of what kind of alloy I was dealing with, it took me hours to crack open the blasted thing. It's a damn miracle she was still alive when I did, bloodied, burned, and unconscious, but alive."
Duo rushed to deny it all. Nothing could have survived inside that melted and scorched cockpit. Absolutely nothing. Especially not her. His lungs refused to breathe life to the words, and he was left opening and closing his mouth uselessly.
"I put out a missing persons report. It wasn't incredibly detailed, simply a description of the girl. You don't exactly advertise the fact that you found some girl nearly dead in the cockpit of a Gundam, especially, then, when such a fragile peace had finally been established between Earth and the colonies." He shook his head. "No, it wasn't an option. Besides, I didn't know which side of the fight she had been on. As far as I was aware all five Gundam pilots made it out in one piece," he added, giving Duo a hard look, with a vague trace of curiosity.
The look just served to enrage Duo further. His chest felt ready to burst. Awe, surprise, despair, anger, shame, guilt, remorse, all these emotions inside him seemed to meld together at one moment and then brutally repel each other the next, leaving him an absolute mess and feeling distinctly like a wet noodle.
Curtis ignored the ever changing expressions flashing across Duo's face and continued on.
"She stayed in a coma for over a month, and when she woke up, she didn't remember a thing, not even her own name. The hospital wasn't willing to release her in her 'fragile condition,' but after the third escape attempt, it became clear that they could no longer hold her," he spoke with a hint of a smirk pulling at his mouth. "She had backbone and a will to survive like I hadn't seen in a long time. So, I took her in," he finished with a light shrug.
"It helped that I knew her frustration." He gave his own metal leg a long, hard look. "Her left arm was damaged beyond help of surgery and was removed immediately when I brought her in. But she didn't seem to understand her own limitations, a fact that drove those nurses up the wall. She didn't want to be handicapped, so she wasn't. Maybe that was why I decided to try to fashion an arm version of my own leg. She deserved it. More than I ever had."
"I'd like to say it was a good deed, but it wasn't. That girl had a gift that was obvious from her very first conscious week at the hospital. She repaired her own vitals and heart monitor in less than fifteen minutes when the repairman stepped out of the room for some coffee. A vending machine broke down, and she got hold of a screw driver and had it up and running in five minutes flat. All with just one hand. As time went on, her spontaneous repairs became increasingly regular. She didn't understand how she did it; just that she could and did. So, I admit I didn't take her in out of the goodness of my old heart. My motives were entirely selfish. I was curious. Just exactly what was the extent of her capabilities and knowledge? I had to know." He paused. "And I found out."
He turned to give Duo a hard look. "So, did you get your answers, kid?"
Duo stared back at him speechless. He began shaking his head, ready to protest that it couldn't be true. He didn't care that he was contradicting himself now. There was simply no way she could have survived that was no way that the Gundam core could have survived the blast. End of story.
None of this could be true.
He turned to stare at the core itself in disbelief. There was no way it could have made it through the explosion. He had poured over the blue prints of the Gundam hundreds of time. It didn't have the strength to withstand the combined explosions. Hell, none of their Gundams had the strength to survive the combined explosions.
If he had even thought—even for one moment—that there was the slightest possibility of her being alive, he would have searched dammit. He would have spent the last two years searching if that's what it took. But, they never—he never—even bothered to try to search. Parts of the Gundam had even been recovered, though in millions of pieces. It had been just so, so obvious that she couldn't have survived. That nothing could have survived. If only he had bothered to look, bothered to just hope for a moment, then maybe—
He let out a cry of frustration and anger.
He took a series of deep, body shaking breaths in attempt to force himself to calm down.
But if it was true, and this was the cockpit of that Gundam, then why did the core only survive? What would have caused it to be singled out? It would have to have had been-
He froze, paralyzed.
His blood ran cold, and he felt breathless, as if he had been punched.
Why?
Why hadn't he remembered?
.:::.
"Hey, Nicole, wait up!"
Duo huffed as he raced to catch up with her. He had been lucky to catch sight of her 'hard-to-miss' hair in one of the Peacemillion's hundreds of hallways.
She paused and turned to him with a raised eyebrow.
"Where's the fire?"
He chose not to respond to the sarcastic jab.
"Where have you been?" he asked instead.
He winced. That had come out a little more accusatory than he had intended.
Both eyebrows darted into her hairline, and hands where placed strategically on her hips.
"Around. Not that it's any of your business."
Duo resisted the urge to bang his head against the nearest solid object. Why couldn't he ever seem to say anything right around her?
"I didn't mean it like that," he amended, waving his arms. "It's just yesterday I looked everywhere for you. See, Trowa and Wufei played chess against each other, right? Except, neither one of them would accept defeat, so-o it turned into this massive three hour, ridiculously geeky chess tournament! You should have seen it! Both of them are too quiet and proud to say much, but I swear I saw smoke coming from Wufei's ears every time Trowa beat his sorry ass. But, more importantly," he lowered his voice, conspiratorially, motioning for her to lean in, "Trowa's eye twitched."
Nicole let out a loud, disbelieving laugh.
"No way."
Duo nodded his head solemnly.
"Yes, way. Our very own statue is a little less stone-like than previously accepted."
"It really is a shame that I wasn't there, then," she acknowledged with poorly concealed mirth. "I suppose that the two strapping young men will just have to be lured into a re-match sometime in the near future." She tapped her chin thoughtfully.
Duo tucked his hands behind his head, and the two fell into a happy, contemplative silence.
Maybe they could even try to get Heero and Wufei to face off; that would sure as hell be interesting to watch. He could see Wu-man's face now, all screwed up and spurting nonsense about justice, as Heero beat him into the ground. To be honest, he couldn't even imagine a scenario where Heero would lose. It was something that simply wouldn't, or more like couldn't, happen anywhere in this reality.
He briefly considered a chess game between Heero and Trowa. Now, that would be worth selling tickets for. Though, he had to admit, pitting two overly serious and absurdly intense guys, like those two, against each other in a battle of wills would be akin to asking for biological warfare.
Duo left the idea alone.
"So, where were you, anyway?" he asked suddenly.
Nicole glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes before shrugging casually."Just working on some stuff."
Duo wanted to point out that that didn't even remotely begin to answer his question.
"What kind of stuff?" he asked, with excessive flippancy. If he appeared too nosy, she wouldn't tell him a thing.
"Just this project I've been working on," she replied just as dismissively.
"Oh?" he said with forced disinterest. "Anything having to do with our Gundams?"
"No, not really."
He strained his brain for another subtle approach. He was going to find out where she always disappeared off to. "So, something for Howard, then?"
"Nope."
Duo held in a groan. He could do this.
"So, it's like a hobby of yours, then?"
She paused for a moment. "Never thought about it that way, but sure, it could be considered a sort of hobby," she commented lightly.
"So, I can see it then?"
Well, damn.
She stopped abruptly and faced him with narrowed, searching eyes, while he put on a grin that he hoped seemed innocent enough.
"Please?"
If she didn't make up her mind soon, he swore his eyes were going to be stuck in permanent 'pathetic-puppy-dog' mode forever, which he couldn't see being particular useful to him in the near future.
With one last hard stare, she announced, "Okay."
Duo nearly fell over. "Wait, what?"
Just like that? That was suspiciously easy.
She gave him her typical 'you-are-so-stupid' look.
"That means yes," she explained, slowly.
Unable to deliver an appropriately clever response, he settled for ignoring the put-down and whooping.
"Sweet, so let's see it. Lead the way, babe!"
Duo's jaw dropped.
Nicole had led him to the very back of the main hanger to a closed off section he had always dismissed as storage.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
The room had been pitch black, but the dim light from the doorway had allowed him to make out the vague outline of some hulking shape in the center of the area. Meanwhile, Nicole had disappeared to a cluster of nearby computers, which had blinked to life at her touch.
In a moment, the lights had flickered on, revealing the very last thing he had expected.
To be honest, he had imagined a hobby of a different sort. A stamp collection or an odd obsession with taking apart computers, but nothing like this.
Why couldn't any of the friends he made be even the slightest bit normal, spending their time doing ordinary, average things?
Standing proudly before him was a sleek, shining red Gundam.
Well, his day just got a helluva lot more interesting.
The red Gundam was vastly different from the other five Gundams standing a few hundred meters behind him. Most obviously, this one was much smaller and way more compact than their comparatively bulky ones. It stood at a little more than half of their height, roughly ten meters tall, he guessed. However, its body and design seemed more square and archaic even. The Gundam itself was far slimmer and lacked any substantial weapons, as far as he could tell. If he had to guess, he would say it looked almost like a model, or some sort of archetype.
"Beautiful, right?"
Duo tore his eyes from the mobile suit and redirected them towards the girl standing next to him.
For a moment, Duo was struck by the similarity between the girl and her 'hobby'.
The shock of red on the Gundam and Nicole mirrored each other in a borderline creepy manner. But the likeness ran deeper than that. Their smallness and lankiness, their striking differences that made them seem so out of place: it was eerie how ill-equipped both of them were to face the world both had been forced into.
He let his gaze linger on her longer than necessary, as her entire attention was focused solely on the Gundam with a soft, proud smile he had seen before on the faces of parents. It was weird, but just that one smile seemed to light up her face in a way that Duo had yet to see before.
"Its name is PHOENIX, if you were wondering," she said with the same soft smile. "She was one of the prototypes of your five Gundams."
Duo couldn't stop himself from asking, "she?"
Nicole sent him a playful glare. "What? It's not like you five dorks don't talk to your Gundams either. And if you talk to something, it's only right you give it a gender," she defended, with a trace of embarrassment, made even more obvious by her darkening cheeks. "You refer to Deathsycthe as a 'he', don't you?" she added, a little accusatory.
"Well, actually-" He began with a large smirk, but she cut him off with a punch to the shoulder and a roll of her eyes.
"Oh, shut up," she told him, though he could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile twitching at her lips.
Duo grinned back cheekily.
"So tell me more about this girlfriend of yours."
Nicole sent him a sarcastic glance, but went on to answer his question with poorly suppressed enthusiasm.
"Well, she was built before the purpose of the Gundams had really been identified and established. At the time there was an idea for the gundams to be super stealth, high speed infiltrators, and, so, PHOENIX was born. Her body was built for pure, unprecedented speed with a deadly, though now archaic, cloaking device, an older version of the one your Gundam uses. However, because of this, PHOENIX has no weapons to speak of and little to no physical strength in comparison to even an average mobile suit, today. You can imagine the design wasn't exactly what the colonies needed for Operation Meteor, so the idea was scraped. I was unbelievably lucky to save this girl, here, from the same fate, begging and pleading myself and those around me senseless until I got my way," she admitted with a sheepish smile. "Back then, I was obstinate brat when I wanted to be."
"Was? I hate to break it to ya babe, but that hasn't changed."
He got another punch to the shoulder for his comment, while she continued as if he hadn't said a word.
"There was one other major problem with the model, though," she began with less enthusiasm than before. "The speeds intended for the gundam to reach and its thin body structure leaves little protection for the actual pilot. With a combination of both factors, the pilot would be unable to withstand the amount of g's they would be exposed to. Less than fifteen minutes in this baby would shatter bones."
Duo winced at the idea. "Well that sounds pleasant. So, why exactly did you want to keep this useless thing, then?"
Nicole rounded on him, grey eyes flashing.
Oh, damn.
"It is not useless!" she cried, heatedly.
Duo raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "Okay, okay, it's not useless, I'm sorry."
He waited uneasily, as she took deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down.
"No, no, its fine. It's just a…a soft subject for me." She frowned up at the Gundam, avoiding Duo's gaze. "I don't like it when people deem something worthless or, well, incapable."
He had the impression that that didn't apply just to the Gundam.
Continuing, she seemed to brighten a bit, though he noted her fists clenched tightly at her sides.
"So, I was going to prove them wrong. I was going to fix her."
Duo searched her face carefully in the silence, watching as emotions flashed across its surface.
He hesitated before asking, "Did you?"
It was as if his words had stuck a needle in her balloon, and she seemed to deflate before his very eyes. He immediately regretted the question.
"Not yet," she said, a little despondent. "But," she added, straightening her shoulders, "it's going to happen." Her brows furrowed and her face screwed up in concentration. "It's just frustrating, see? I'm always so-so close. Every time, I think I've finally figured it out, but then-ugh. I've been moving forward in baby steps for way too long."
Duo studied her profile. "If it makes you so frustrated, why do you still do it?"
Nicole turned to him for the first time with a confused expression. It was if the thought to give up had never even crossed her mind.
"I don't know."
Duo had to hold in a laugh at her sincerely puzzled appearance.
She turned back to the Gundam. "I guess-I guess I love it more than I hate it. At least I think…"
He gave up and let out a chuckle. "Whatever makes you happy."
She tried to look annoyed, but resigned herself to simply grinning back at him at her own expense.
.:::.
It was hours later when the two finally left the side hanger and made their way wearily towards the galley for some well deserved food.
The time had been wasted pouring over blueprints, diagrams, and computer models. Nicole had showed and familiarized him with the entire layout of Phoenix. Compared to Deathsycthe, the Gundam was ridiculously simple and straightforward; however, it was that very feature of its structure that created its problems. The addition of any equipment seemed to set the entire structure off balance and conflict with its main principle of high-speed.
He almost regretted offering his help. The entire thing left him with a pounding headache. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why Nicole would willingly waste her free time agonizing over that impossible machine.
Duo glanced over at her. She didn't seem the slightest bit affected by the pointless work, he acknowledged a little bitterly. He supposed she must really love doing what she does, because he knew if he had spent as long as she had on one machine and one problem, he would have committed suicide by now.
Dedication like that takes more commitment and intensity than he was willing to devote to just fixing a machine. Though, he admitted a little reluctantly, solving a major structural flaw like that was a bit over his expertise. It took a different kind of person-
"Nicole!" he shouted, impulsively, startling the girl.
She gave him a weird look.
"Duo!" she mocked.
Too proud of his idea to acknowledge her sarcasm, he grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her. "I know who can help you!"
She raised a disbelieving brow. "You do?" she asked slowly, skepticism evident.
"Heero!"
She sent him a dry look. "You want me to ask 'Mr.-I'm-too-good-to-socialize-or-speak-to-anyone" for help?"
Duo's grin grew. "Exactly."
She narrowed her eyes, still doubtful. "You're sure he could help?"
"Absolutely. Heero's like a genius with this sort of stuff. If he can't figure something out, I don't know who can."
She studied his beaming, confident face for a moment.
Suddenly, a smile broke out. "Okay, then," she announced, nodding determinedly, "I think I'll go track him down now."
Duo blinked. He didn't think he'd ever understand how girls change moods so fast. He swore the entire gender was bipolar.
Nicole broke out of Duo's grip and tore down the hall excitedly with a crazy grin, but, then abruptly, she skidded to a stop and turned back.
"You don't think he'd be asleep yet, do you?"
Duo laughed internally at her sincerely concerned expression, dismissing it with a wave. "No, the guy's practically an insomniac. Don't worry; he'll be up."
Another smile lit up her face.
"Great! I owe you one Duo. See you later!"
Duo watched her disappear around the corner with a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He'd done good.
.:::.
Days later Duo walked in on one of the most hilarious sights he had ever been lucky enough to see.
The day had been beyond boring.
Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei were off somewhere blowing stuff up and causing general chaos, while, as if on purpose, Nicole had disappeared off again somewhere, leaving him with absolutely no one to mess with.
Well, not exactly no one…
That train of thought had led him to stand before the door to a computer-filled room he had dubbed 'Heero's lair'.
About to knock, he overheard an oddly familiar, high-pitched cry.
Nicole?
Forgetting about knocking, he hurriedly pressed a button, and the door opened with a soft hiss onto one of the most awkward scenes he'd ever witnessed.
Nicole and Heero were…hugging?!
All of his trains of thought skidded to a stop.
No, no that wasn't right.
Nicole was hugging Heero?!
Duo pinched himself.
"Ow."
He certainly felt that.
Just what sort of Twilight Zone had he been dumped into, then?
Nicole had her arms wrapped around Heero, who had gone awkwardly rigid, though she didn't seem to notice or, more likely, care.
"Heero, you are my hero!"
She let out a loud laugh at her own joke, and, had what she done next not been so shocking, Duo might have joined her.
Horrified, he watched as she leaned up and pecked Heero on the cheek before releasing him. She raced over to a mess of papers and diagrams scattered on the desks and gathered them together hurriedly, stuffing them messily into a nearby backpack. The laptop on the table followed soon after.
She talked on, animatedly, despite the fact that Heero had apparently turned into a living statue.
"I owe you one, Heero. Actually, more than one, really. Don't forget, if you ever need anything fixed or taken care of, you just come to me. And Wing's Zero's repairs? From now on, I'll make sure their treated as top priority, no matter what."
She slung the backpack over her shoulder and gave the motionless pilot one last bright smile.
"Really, Heero, thank you."
He inclined his head slightly, a motion that would have been imperceptible to anyone not watching closely.
"I'll see you around!" she called, already heading towards the door.
Her eyes widened in surprise at seeing Duo's paralyzed form in the doorway. "Oh, hey, Duo!" she said, without missing a beat.
Her bubbly smile was a shock. Since when did people leave Heero feeling bubbly?
"Bye, Duo!" And with that, she rushed out the door and took off at a sprint down the hallway.
Meanwhile, he redirected his attention back at the 'Mr.-Perfect-Soldier' and the pair of intense blue eyes glaring daggers at him.
Duo's mind raced to put forth some clever excuse, but then his eyes locked onto something far more interesting.
Was that a….a trace of pink on Heero's face?
He knew it was the worst possible thing he could do, but he couldn't help it.
He lost it.
Loud laughter burst forth from his lips.
Faster than he was able to process, a pair of hands shoved him roughly from the room and against the far wall of the hallway.
The door swished closed, and a loud beep signaled its locking.
Duo still couldn't stop laughing.
.:::.
Duo stared up at the piece of twisted metal, face screwed up in thought, painfully aware how much had changed since that time.
Less than a month later, they had faced White Fang in one last battle. Less than a month later, she had…
Duo frowned deeply.
Whatever change or idea Heero had recommended to her had obviously had some unknown side effects on the gundam, such as its new found ability to withstand complete destruction from an explosion that would have previously wiped its existence from the face of the Earth. Or space. Whatever.
He needed to talk to Heero.
Woah, so that chapter took a ridiculous amount of editing and revisions.
I know a lot of you probably a lot to say about this chapter, so feel free to review or shoot me message if you want to vent etc.
PS: I have the next chapter written up, but I'm not really happy with it (writing it out was like pulling teeth...), so I won't update until probably next Sunday.