Disclaimer: I don't own a thing (as sad as that realization is), except for the words I've written.

Warnings: Rated for adult language (Duo's got quite a surly mouth and mind), some violence, and mild adult themes.

A/N: Here we go, onto Chapter 12. Reviews, predictions, sentiments, follows, love it's/hate it's, what-have-you are, as always, greatly appreciated!

Maxwell

Chapter 12: Let All My Memories Be Gone

Japanese Cigarette Case - Spoon

Duo sat on the edge of the king size bed with his head in his hands. Could it be fucking Shinigami? He'd had contact with Richardson, though extremely minimal, and he'd died just as suddenly? But then again, he'd never even seen Matthew Rook and he'd been murdered in just the same way.

"Duo?"

He wasn't sure how long Heero had been standing before him or how many times he'd attempted to get his attention or to provide any sort of comfort, but finally the cotton from his ears seemed to lessen and he was able to actually feel the warm hand atop his shoulder now.

Duo looked up into dark blue eyes that held a glimmer of concern. Heero was kneeling before him, his hand on the man's shoulder, the contact obviously his best form of support. For a moment the braided man actually felt slightly embarrassed for forcing this clearly uncomfortable position of consoler onto him.

Fuck, Heero had seen that dead body, smelled the metallic blood, read the goddamned cryptic note just as Duo had, but yet he was still trying to comfort his companion, albeit very stiffly. But why should he be so entitled to such emotional trivialities? Hell, he had lived through the war as a fucking Gundam pilot, he could handle this shit. He couldn't even begin to count all the dead bodies that had piled up around him. He hadn't even known the man for heaven's sake.

Duo brushed Heero's hand off his shoulder, but caught it seconds later not wanting the man to think he was rejecting his touch. No, he was just rejecting the idea that he needed to be consoled.

Heero stared at him, concern morphing into confusion as Duo seemed to finally come back to reality. "Are you okay?"

The words still seemed foreign and ill-fitting in Duo's mind, but he nodded anyways to at least attempt to appease the brunette still kneeling before him.

Heero sighed and Duo wondered vaguely if it was just from the distress of their current situation or if he didn't believe that his braided companion was in fact 'okay.'

"Preventer's working on getting an ID on the bullet," Heero said.

Duo laughed out bitterly. "Yeah, good fucking luck. Whoever shot him point blank wasn't stupid enough to leave a trail behind 'em."

Heero knew this to be true, but was trying, against all odds and the tightness in his gut, to be somewhat optimistic. It was a bizarre attempt for the man. "I contacted Wufei as well as Quatre. Still waiting on a response from the former."

Duo shook his head and stared at the hotel room carpet beneath his feet. He said nothing, thinking there wasn't anything beneficial for him to say at this point anyways. He watched as Heero slowly rose from his kneeling position and moved to sit beside him on the king size bed.

"Talk to me." Heero's voice was soft and low as it trickled in through his ear. Fuckin' making it difficult to refuse the request as goosebumps appeared up and down the flesh of Duo's arms.

"Nothing to say." It was simple and defiant and Duo knew it would annoy Heero the most.

"Hn." Heero's muscles tightened as the words worked just as Duo had predicted. "You can't blame yourself, Duo-"

Duo flicked his vision towards the man next to him, his eyes flashing bright violet. "I'm not blaming myself."

Heero set his lips in a firm line, staring for a moment before replying. "I know what you're thinking," he began, shaking his head slowly. "But, Duo, you're not Shinigami anymore."

Duo bit out another harsh laugh. "It doesn't just go away, 'Ro."

"You have to stop thinking in that way. These things happen."

"Yeah? What about you getting fucking dropped out of a helicopter?" Duo spit out, brushing off Heero's attempt to argue with a wave of his hand. "I know, I know it wasn't you. But, shit, 'Ro, what if it had been you? Then what?"

Heero's eyes narrowed. "We can talk about all of the 'what if's' in the world, Duo, but that doesn't mean they're going to happen."

Duo hated that Heero's words were dripping with logic and common sense. All he wanted to do was sulk and think about death and how shitty life could be and Heero couldn't just let him fucking do that, could he?

He was about to respond with another biting comeback, but almost as if he was anticipating the fight that seemed to be brewing, Heero drew closer and placed his lips atop Duo's in an almost soothing manner.

Duo wanted desperately to resist, to ignore the kiss and keep right on discussing those stupid 'what if's' and fucking Shinigami, but he couldn't. He never could resist Heero after all, and even now, after all this time it was as if nothing had changed.

His hand had moved to the back of Heero's neck to pull him in closer when the sound of a phone ringing cut through their abrupt intimacy.

"Dammit-" Heero muttered as their lips begrudgingly pulled apart. Duo wondered if maybe he had been wrong about their relationship, that maybe Heero wanted this sort of overt affection. But, hell, that scared him even more than the thought of just fucking for no plausible reason.

Duo watched as Heero rummaged through the pockets of his bomber jacket until he was successful in finding the still ringing phone, but the braided man realized quickly it was not just a cell phone, but a small compact communicator. Heero answered curtly as a figure flashed onto the screen. "Chang?"

The muscles in Duo's stomach tensed as if on cue. He hated how the feelings of uncertainty about Wufei and the all too obvious photograph still made him so uneasy. So instead of dwelling on that he listened as closely as he could to the conversation taking place without actually allowing himself to be seen by the man on the other end of the screen.

"Mizzerahi Ryland has been missing for over a week, though no one at Winner Corp seems to know much about him, oddly enough." Wufei skipped straight past any form of greeting, moving onwards, fucking business as usual.

Duo could see from his position on the bed, slightly behind Heero but not close enough to the communicator to be seen, that Wufei was walking briskly out of a building that he assumed was the offices of Winner Corp.

Heero grunted, annoyed by the news. "Have you spoken with Quatre or Trowa?"

Wufei nodded once. "Rook and Richardson are dead so I've heard." His voice was hard and deep as the words rolled off his tongue with a bitterness around them. Duo swallowed, the feelings from earlier traveling back into his tense muscles.

There was a moment where neither spoke and Duo began to feel restless and guilty that he was listening in on the conversation without revealing his presence to his friend and comrade. Obviously Wufei must have known he was there, but still they had parted with such an awkwardness still between them that he really didn't feel like speaking to the man. Hell, it wasn't really necessary anyways.

"I'm coming back to Earth-" Duo heard Wufei say, but an odd clicking sound as the man was apparently opening the driver side door to his rental car caught his attention and his indigo eyes flicked back towards the communicator just in time to see, and hear, the sickening sight of an explosion ripping through the air.

"Fuck," he jumped up next to Heero and his hands began to shake.

"Chang?!" Heero yelled into the communicator, helpless to do anything but stare at the pavement now filtering in through the screen. The device had been dropped post explosion.

Duo yelled, but the fear running through his entire body caused his ears to become once again filled with silence. He was screaming Wufei's name, Heero saying something to him in attempt to calm him, but he could hear none of it.

All he could think of was the sound of Wufei's voice before the explosion, so calm, so casual. Damn Shinigami.

Heero, who was supposed to be dead, decided it would be best if he was not the one to contact Preventer about the sudden dropped communicator call and apparent attack on Wufei Chang.

So, after much coaxing and a couple of shots from the hotel's mini bar, Duo had calmed his emotions enough to make the dreaded call.

In the end, it didn't really make much of a difference as Preventer seemed to already be on top of it as they'd been contacted by Winner Corp on L4. According to Une, who was extremely begrudging with sharing information with Duo for some fucking infuriating reason, finally admitted to him that Wufei was, in fact, alive and on his way to Earth by shuttle at his own request.

It was several hours later that Heero and Duo found themselves waiting in a sparse, hospital waiting room, both consumed with their own thoughts. Duo was wrapped up in memories he desperately wanted to forget. Memories that involved himself and Wufei and then just as suddenly there was Heero attacking his subconscious.

He thought if he kept his mind on other things, like reading through the waiting room's stack of outdated and uninteresting periodicals he might be able to rid himself of the graphic images replaying in his head. It wasn't fucking working.

Stress seemed to be eating away at both men, Heero having been completely silent since their arrival, and by the time a nurse came out to inform them that Preventer had finally given them clearance to visit their comrade, they didn't realize how long they'd been sitting there waiting.

At this point, Heero didn't even seem to care if someone from Preventer found him to be alive. After all, he was quite in tact and their case seemed to be edging on that of someone else's attempted murder anyhow. It didn't make much fucking difference if the initial reason for investigation was gone, there were many more new reasons to attend to now.

The nurse guided them towards Wufei's hospital room, but upon reaching it they noticed another figure through the tempered glass window outside the small, white room.

Sally Po was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at a seemingly coherent Wufei with some sort of emotion that Duo couldn't quite read. Suddenly his stomach contracted uncomfortably. Though she had been a doctor during the war and was a member of the Preventers now, she appeared to be here strictly on a casual basis. She wore civilian clothing and her lips were painted her characteristic glossy red.

"Sally's his emergency contact."

Heero's words broke through Duo's thick thoughts and he contemplated asking how he knew such information, but realized that didn't really matter at the moment. Fuck, it was Heero after all, he seemed to always know every last detail about people.

Suddenly, staring at the scene before him, Duo began to wonder just how well he knew the Chinese man lying in the hospital bed behind that glass window. They'd been 'together,' in no uncertain terms, more times than one, but yet the word 'together' truly did the worst job at explaining their odd relationship. Certainly they had not been together in a romantic sense, so then why did Wufei seem so bothered by Duo and Heero's obvious attraction?

But, shit, here was Sally, someone Duo had always assumed was interested, but he'd never been sure about his companion's personal orientations. Maybe all this time he'd been wrong about him, he had been married after all...

In that moment, Sally's vision flicked to the window and the two sets of eyes watching them from the outside. It was almost as if she could hear Duo's internal monologue as she gave him a long stare, reading him as she had always tried to do during the war.

She stood and then Heero and Duo began to realize how bizarre it must have been for her to see them there, staring at the 'couple' through the window as if they were on display. She flicked her hand towards them in an inviting manner, but Duo hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.

Heero, on the other hand, grabbed at his elbow as if knowing that Duo might attempt to run away, and dragged him towards the door and into the hospital room. Duo felt slightly sick and he couldn't tell if it was from the sterile smell of his new surroundings or the uncomfortableness he felt as the four were now trapped together in such as small space.

"Sally." Heero nodded towards her in greeting.

She set both of them with a soft smile. "I'm glad you're here. Wufei would probably appreciate someone different to speak with. He's grown tired of my company."

Wufei, who in Duo's mind did not appear to have been 'blown up' like they'd assumed he was, gave the sandy-blonde woman a pointed look. "I can speak for myself, woman."

She laughed quietly and then patted Duo on the shoulder as she turned to leave. He hoped she couldn't feel how he tensed under her touch. "Take care of him, huh?"

Heero nodded and Duo kept his gaze down towards the white tiles beneath his feet. Why he felt so uncomfortable he wasn't quite sure, but as soon as Sally left the room, he let out the breath he had subconsciously been holding.

Wufei crossed his arms and stared at them, silence enveloping the three men save for the beeping of the monitors he was still hooked up to. Duo brought his eyes up to stare at the IV stuck into the Chinese man's hand, a thick bandage wrapped around his upper right arm, and a small tan colored bandage stuck to his forehead, apparently hiding one of his few injuries.

"You're looking...alive," Duo ventured, trying hard to swallow his feelings and act as normal as possible. Wufei grunted and shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

Heero rolled his eyes, but did not say anything as he seemed to agree with the braided man's sentiment. Hell, it was a true statement after all.

Wufei shrugged. "Preventer training helped. I was able to avoid anything worse than this by being quick on my feet. It's a good thing I opted for insurance on the car though. Of course, it's all on the Preventer tab anyways."

Duo smirked at this and decided to keep up the obvious lightness of their conversation. "You know, technically I'm working for Preventer now. Shouldn't I be getting compensated in some way?"

Duo noticed that Heero's eyes grew dark at this information and he realized he'd never had that conversation with the man. Wufei just let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, well when you almost get blown up we can start talking benefits."

Trying to make light of the situation in hopes of cheering their comrade up, Duo kept up the banter. "Takes a terrorist attack for me to get some real cash, eh? Well, if I look as good as you do afterwards, that might not be such a bad deal."

There was a hint of a smile in Wufei's eyes at this and Duo wondered if he'd missed their sharp conversations as much as he did. Maybe their heated conversation earlier was becoming just a distant altercation. But the sound of a throat clearing next to him brought Duo back to reality. Heero gave him a pointed look. "No one else is going to get blown up or hurt in any capacity if I have anything to say about it."

Wufei gave a grim nod that made Duo's brows furrow. "Heero's right. We might have to relieve ourselves of this case. It's become too extreme and too personal."

"Too extreme?" Duo asked with an incredulous look at both the men staring all too fucking seriously at him. "We used to pilot fucking mobile suits of death and this is 'too extreme?'"

Heero placed a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed once. It was meant as a reassuring gesture, but at the time it came off as irritated. Which Heero was irritated, but more with the situation itself, not Duo.

Wufei's teeth clenched. "I don't want to give it up, but I almost died. You can see why that would make me change my philosophy a bit, can't you, Maxwell?"

Duo shrugged. Shit, he understood. It was obvious they were all being targeted and he didn't want to endanger their lives anymore than they already had been. But they were in so deep now, and it was going to be fucking hard to just let it all go and let Preventer handle it.

Heero turned to Wufei with a thoughtful expression. "Do you think Ryland is dead?"

Wufei shook his head grimly. "Actually, based on what I was able to glean from the situation, he may have been more of the target of attack than myself. If he'd been with me at the car most likely he would not have survived. Preventer informed me that the bomb was placed on the passenger side."

The air became thick between the three men as this information settled in. The sound of footsteps behind them, startled both Heero and Duo. Wufei glared past them as they turned around, Heero's hand impulsively going to the back of his slacks, searching for the handgun that was no longer there.

First through the small room's doorway was Sean Davis, looking much more tired than he had the day Duo and Quatre had 'greeted' him. Though his characteristic silver splint across his nose was still there, it seemed sightly less swollen now. Duo would have loved to fucking punch him again, splint or not, but he resisted the urge as Heero's hand came back to rest securely on his shoulder again.

What surprised all three men was who walked in the door next, following the Preventer rookie with a frown pulling at her full lips.

Une hadn't changed much over the last couple of years, her brown hair straight and flowing just past her shoulders, her eyes dark and sharp as ever. She wore the same jacket as Wufei, but her uniform was much more feminine with the addition of a knee length skirt and black, leather flats that clicked with every step against the white tiles beneath their feet.

Une stared at Heero and Duo point blank. "So which one of you broke Davis' nose?"

Duo wondered why she was just now getting around to asking, but instead of allowing it to be an easy answer, he gave her his best sly grin and said with a flick of his hand. "Does it matter?"

Une shook her head and he could tell she was trying her best to hold back a grin. It was hard, even for a seasoned Preventer, to resist his unusual charm. "No, not at this point. But it still shouldn't have happened."

Duo felt Heero's fingers tighten on his shoulder and he wondered if he was starting to feel guilty or else just didn't want to have to fucking deal with Une and her lectures on violence at the moment.

But then again, maybe it was the fact that here he was, in the living flesh. Heero Yuy: alive.

Duo hooked a thumb at him, the grin on his face not fading. "Heero's alive."

He heard Wufei sigh roughly behind them and even though he didn't turn to look, he was almost sure that the little vein in his forehead was protruding once more.

Une nodded again, giving Heero a once over. "Yes, I am fully aware of that." Her voice was so impossible to read that Duo was unsure just how long she had been aware of that.

Heero, finally releasing Duo's shoulder from his ever-powerful grip, stared at Une and then at Sean Davis almost as if sizing them up. "Why are you here?"

Une gazed past them towards Wufei. "One of my own has been injured. It is my duty to-"

Heero shook his head. "No. Why is he here?" He pointed a stiff finger at Sean Davis, and Duo thought that maybe his own paranoia towards the man was starting to rub off.

It seemed their feelings of un-trust towards Davis might have been more true than they thought as he strutted towards Heero with a vengeful look in his eyes. Apparently a broken nose hadn't been enough to teach him a lesson.

His right hand was bunched into the size of a softball as it sailed straight towards Heero's jaw, the other man's attention still seemingly on Une waiting for an answer. But the Preventer's form was poor and his impulses obviously overtaking any common sense he might have had. The fist hit Heero's palm a foot in front of his face, a lot of weight behind it making one hell of a smack in the suddenly silent room. His eyes were still glued to Une.

Duo watched as Heero portrayed the utmost example of superhuman self-control.

All three ex-pilots were inevitably imagining the next obvious move in their minds. Every instinct and training dictated a well-placed head butt to Davis' injured nose. But Heero held back, probably due to Une's presence and the embarrassment at her subordinate's actions he saw forming on her face.

"He is just as much a part of this case as Chang is," Une answered his earlier question cooly.

Davis pulled back with a growl and Duo turned to give Wufei a pointed look. The injured man tensed as he stared past Duo towards his superior. He had a harsh look of knowing realization that made Duo's teeth clench. "Why did you put me on this case, Une?" he asked slowly.

She met his gaze with a fierce one of her own. "All the Gundam pilots are now accounted for."

Duo screwed up his brows, turning to her, his voice gruff when he spoke. "If you wanted our help, why not just fucking ask?"

Une shook her head. "Because we don't need your 'help,'" she answered. Her tone was calm and even and made Duo's teeth clench even fucking harder. "We brought you here as bait."