Loneliest Road

by ExecutiveShrimp

2x1 (past 2xH), 10 years post-war: Duo and Heero have to travel across America and Duo tries to turn the laden journey into a fun road trip. Their past brought them together. Their future might break them apart.

9. Chapter 9

MILHARU: I agree that it is hard to imagine a happy ending to this story. I've had much the same thoughts on the ending as you've had. I hope the 'ending' I've landed on will be to your liking. I use quotation marks because I'm cheating and giving this story two endings. This chapter will be the ending for now, but I'll be writing a sequel that will hopefully wrap everything up to the reader's liking. Thank you very much for reading and enjoying this story. I hope to hear from you regarding this chapter :)

Elle. Writes: It's seems in many a mind the most pure and lighthearted of thoughts eventually do get tainted by the drama we strangely all crave in our fiction :P Drama is, I think, one of the biggest 'guilty pleasures'. I don't seem to be able to steer clear from it :P I am curious to read your thoughts on this chapter and I want to thank you again for your kind and thoughtful reviews :)

Frayedsoul17: I'm sorry to have made you shed tears, but at the same time it is supposed to be the point of the story. I hope the drama brings you at least some enjoyment, I myself am really a sucker for drama and tragedy (if that wasn't already abundantly apparent :P). Thank you very much for your review and your continued interest in the story :)

Miss-Murdered: Thank you very much, that is such an amazing compliment. This chapter is a temporary end but I fear not much of a resolution. I figured the reader would like everything to be more neatly wrapped up than this chapter leaves it, so I will be writing a sequel that will hopefully make everything fit together to your liking :) Thank you again for your kind review :)

Celestinasong: I hope you might give this story a go regardless of the darkness. It might be worth it in the end? :P I hope to hear from you again, if not in response to this story, then maybe one of my other stories. I suppose "Thousand Words" is my 'least dark' story :)

Hikaru Itsuko: Thanks! I hope you will enjoy this chapter :)

Shingamia: I understand that you expected the story to include the conflicts once they arrived in DC, because clearly the journey towards the city, towards the birth, is only the start. However, right from the start I made the decision to fit the story within the theme, which is a lonely, dark journey that includes a spectrum ranging from quite literal to metaphorical. I wanted to focus on that journey (the journey to DC and Heero's journey in his flashbacks). By reaching DC and the flashbacks catching up to the present, the 'journey' has come to an end and I thought it would be interesting to have the story end at that point as well. Which is also probably why you had a hard time seeing why Heero even loved Duo, because it's something I've purposefully neglected. This chapter touches briefly on some of the lighter moments in Duo's and Heero's relationship, but only for the purpose of making the drama stand out more :P I hope you will like this chapter and I hope you will read the sequel as well once it goes online. In any case, that you very much for your detailed and insightful review :)

Pikeebo: It appears my mind doesn't 'do comedy'. Everything ends up twisted and warped :P I really hope you will enjoy this chapter :)

Shounen Bat: Thank you very much for giving this story a try, even when you had your doubts. I smiled when I read the line from your review: "I have mixed emotions about Heero in this story. It has always been hard to me to imagine Heero being so... dependant on somebody". If I recall correctly, you are the first one to comment on this and I felt like I was caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I won't say too much, but I will say: you are right, Heero is unnaturally dependent in this story. Purposefully so. You will see when you read the chapter. I hope everything will be explained to your satisfaction :P Although, I also must admit that I do like an emotional Heero, in the sense that it doesn't have to be a bad thing and I think, generally speaking, I always make him more sensitive than he conceivably (given the series) would be. But in this story it's actually a plot point, so… good catch :P I hope you'll also read the sequel that I have planned, I get the sense this ending might not be to your liking, but hopefully the sequel will provide you with what you were hoping for :) Thank you for your amazing review :)

CaseyCuervo: Wow, I am so flattered, although I can honestly not imagine how anyone could read my stories that often (befoore completion no less!). I, personally, always have the hardest time trying to motivate myself to read through the completed chapter just once to make sure there is continuity in character and story. It's such a chore -.- . Buut thank you very much, I hope this chapter will be worthy of a couple of rereads as well :)

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Author's note:

I feel so guilty. You cannot imagine how bad I feel about taking this long especially since I announced nearly two weeks ago that I would have it completed within a matter of days!Because I didn't want to make you wait any longer, I've decided to post this chapter before it has been beta'd by Zethsaire. You have been warned. I just figured that even with whatever spelling and grammar errors that I failed to notice, some of you might still appreciate getting this unbeta'd version today, as opposed to waiting a couple of days for the beta'd version. As soon as Zethsaire is done with chapter, I'll post the proper, error-free version of the chapter, so if you want you can wait for that.

I predict that some of you might be disappointed by the ending that this chapter has in store for you. That is exactly why I will be writing a sequel, which will provide, I think, a more satisfactory ending to the overall story.

On a completely different note, I have to confess my absolute infatuation with Tom Hiddleston. I know this crush has nothing to do with Gundam Wing, let alone this story, but I had to put out there. Watching him in interviews, along with Chris Hemsworth, actually gave me another story idea for the DuoxHeero fandom; I wonder if I'll be able to keep it light and cute when it comes to working out that idea or if everything will turn dark, like what happened with "Loneliest Road". So, anyway, I have yet another story idea, but first I'll get to work on my current WIP's. As soon as I know which story I will focus my energy on next, I'll post it on my Profile.

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Unbeta'd.

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Loneliest Road

Chapter 9

- When you are lost, retrace your steps and figure out where you took the wrong turn. The challenge is then to take the right turn. -

AC 206

Duo was asleep beside me. His dreams were troubled, I could tell. His eyes shifted behind his eyelids. Sometimes, the lashes fluttered. Occasionally a frown would appear and his mouth would become a tight-pressed line of discontent. I kept a vigilant eye. If it were to become apparent he was suffering from a particularly bad nightmare, I would wake him to spare him. Until then, I decided he needed his rest. I myself was too restless to sleep, the night felt too much like the quiet before the storm. Even when you have boarded up the windows, secured all the valuables and taken shelter in the basement, you still get nervous when the storm is about the hit and you wonder what else you could have done to ensure you and everything you loved, would be able to weather it.

It seemed especially wry to me that everything has appeared to be so perfect – and perfectly safe – before, until all of a sudden… it wasn't anymore. One moment you are enjoying a life you never even dared to dream of, the next moment the clouds roll over, you're battening down the hatches and hiding in the basement and while you forget what the warmth of the sun on your skin felt like, you wish someone could wake you from the nightmare to spare you.

I could only bitterly wish that our troubles were confined to realm of bad dreams.

We got more than we ever dreamed of; we got more than our best dreams; we got more than our worst dreams.

In the absence of sleep I focused my mind on the journey that took us to the switching point.

When we landed in San Francisco in AC 198 there was an appropriate measure of apprehension evident on both our faces. We had both abandoned the places we had called home without any plan of how to start anew. Leaving behind our pasts made our future no more clear. Immediately we were confronted with the issue that I didn't know what I wanted, and that Duo was reluctant to take the lead, afraid of forcing me into something, it left us very indecisive.

Duo had some money that he had saved up, but in the interest of being frugal, seeing as we had no idea how long his savings might have to last us while we looked for employment, he rented us a small studio apartment in the basement of a run-down complex. In the entire apartment we had only a single window, three feet wide, one foot tall, right up against the ceiling. All day we saw feet walk by.

The situation plummeted me into the experience of a new emotion: guilt. I felt guilty for leading Duo away from his comfortable lifestyle up on L2; with job security and a decent view. For a long time I was convinced he would have been better off if I had never shown up, even when he assured me that life with Hilde had never made him happy; that he had never stopped missing me; that the day I showed up and confessed my love to him was the best day of his life.

I also felt incredibly guilty about how things had transpired for Hilde. It gnawed at me and I recognized it was eating at Duo as well. He may never have been happy with her, but she had been happy with him. Duo told me their relationship – although technically still defined as romantic as they went out on dates and shared a bed – had regressed back into purely platonic territory, lacking all physical intimacy, but Hilde had believed this to be nothing but a phase, something they could work through. She recognized that he had been distancing himself from her, but she had not been willing to let go and she rejected his every attempt to explain to her that things weren't right between them anymore. He stayed with her, as long as he did, only because he foresaw how heartbroken she would be when the relationship would inevitably come to an end. He had tried to postpone that end, because he didn't want to hurt his friend and he didn't want to lose his friend. But that end had come. Because of me. And in the aftermath of it Hilde was heartbroken and so was Duo, for inflicting that on her.

With the weight of that – and everything else – on our shoulders, a romantic relationship between the two of us didn't come naturally, nor effortlessly, in spite of the amazing kiss at the L2 spaceport. We shared a bed in that cramped apartment and sometimes Duo would kiss me on the cheek, on the head, or drape his arm around my shoulders but we weren't physical with each other beyond that. This was life, not a fairytale. We didn't have our happy ending yet, if we were ever even going to. We weren't expecting a fairytale, we accepted the fact that we were flawed as individuals and certainly as a couple for a long time to come as well. Wordlessly we had come to the conclusion that that was okay. We had to shift gears, match our speeds and work our way into the same lane. If we rushed it, accidents were bound to happen.

So we did things one step at a time and the first step to making a life together, was to make a living.

Duo got a job as a mechanic at a small, local garage. He was overjoyed with the position. For years he had been tasked with destruction, first as a Gundam Pilot and then at the scrapyard. He was thrilled to be a fixer, to restore things to their former glory – or a close to it as possible. He described it as therapeutic, which was, I thought in hindsight, his way of trying to convince me to apply for a similar job. But for some reason the idea did not appeal to me in the least. Honestly everything felt like too much of a burden - too much of a responsibility – to me. Still, I was determined to make some sort of contribution to the household so I resorted to being a waiter once more. It felt so easy and so reassuringly mundane and unimportant. I wasn't sure what Duo thought of it, but regardless he was supportive, without being meddlesome, even when our hours started to conflict and he worked mostly during the day and I got stuck doing the evening shifts. The diner was close to the garage, so he had his lunch and dinner – on the way back home – at the diner. We never talked much when he sat in the booth. In fact, I didn't think I conversed with him significantly more than I did with the other patrons – very little – but his presence was an unspoken comfort for the both of us.

Slowly the quietly sharing of space at home and at the diner, started to evolve. More and more we became a couple. It started with him kissing me goodbye as he left the diner after his meal and headed back to work or home. Soon we were engaged in deep, passionate kissing in the doorway where he welcomed me each night when I returned home. And every movie night ended with us dry-humping on the sofa bed.

Once the physicality of our relationship took off, I realized very quickly that I wanted to have sex with him. Everything felt so right. But it was up to me to take the initiative and I didn't know how. I was embarrassed to ask him for it, afraid of what he might think. I had told him of my relationship with Hendrik by then and I was worried he would judge me for not needing more time.

My worries were unfounded. When it finally happened, it was amazing. Duo was not judgmental, he said he felt blessed that I trusted him and he assured me he would have patiently waited as long as I might have needed him to, but also that he was thrilled the wait was over. I was overwhelmed by the intimacy. It didn't resemble my experiences with Hendrik in the least. When Duo was within me, he was truly within me, in a way that transcended the physical. It was the start of something that changed me.

Waves crashed onto a shore riddled with wreckage and pulled the debris back into the water, lapping me clean of all dirt and jagged edges of wrangled metal, leaving the shore clean and absolved from its past.

Like the movement of an ocean, our life had a predictable, comfortably monotonous rhythm to it that suited us both. We were very focused on each other, in a quiet, understated way. Sometimes, when I came home from work, we wouldn't say anything all night, not even "hello". I would join him on the couch and later we would wordlessly agree that it was time to go to bed. We'd pull the sofa open, lay down in bed, turn off the lights and start making love. It was a healing time for me. I wouldn't have known what to say, or how to act normally, or how to slip into a regular life as well as a regular relationship. I was given time. It was like not putting weight on an injured limb for a period of time, allowing it rest, allowing it to strengthen. And Duo was always there, to support me, in every way I communicated I needed him to and in every way he deemed he could and should.

All the dark and the ugly was washed out of me with every refreshing surge of the ocean that was Duo. What replaced the shadows was a light lit for him. My love for him, shining. And across the waters I could see the beacon of his love for me, like a lighthouse reassuring me that he would always be there for me.

I loved him fully and unashamedly, even when it was, at times, jarring for my colleagues or patrons at the diner to observe. Not because they were principally against our relationship but because it was so unexpected for them to see me behave like that around him, when, at any other time, I was mostly as indifferent and impersonal as I had ever been.

Well, maybe not exactly, but I certainly melted whenever Duo came in for lunch and dinner.

One day Duo texted me that he would not be coming to the diner for lunch, one of the rookies had messed up the reassembly of the engine block of a car that they had promised to be done with midafternoon. To avoid upsetting an already particularly difficult client, Duo had to work through lunch.

That day someone else caught my attention at noon.

A new customer - a man in his late twenties, dressed in a disheveled business suit – came in and took a seat at the very end bar, in my section. He appeared distraught and distracted but I paid him no particular heed. I put a coffee cup in front of him and held the coffee jug over it as an unspoken question.

"Yeah. Sure. Thanks." He pulled his laptop out of his bag and when he opened it he made a face and looked around himself, like he was embarrassed. But from where he was sitting, no one could see his screen.

I poured him his coffee and nodded at the menu card.

"No thanks. I've… lost my appetite."

I shrugged and walked off. As I was cleaning coffee cups and observing the few customers that had distributed themselves throughout the diner for lunch, a colleague approached me.

"What's up with Flinchy in the corner?"

"Flinchy?"

He nodded at the man at the end of the bar, who was sweating, his fingers beating down on the keyboard, apparently without effect and he looked around suspiciously at every sound.

"If he's tripping you gotta ask him to leave."

"Tripping?"

He laughed at me and then rounded the bar to service customers in his section.

With my curiosity piqued I headed back to the man in the business suit. I idled for a little while, straightening things in the cabinet under the bar, keeping a watchful eye.

"Nononononononononononononono…" The man kept repeating. He gave up on working the keyboard and buried his fingers in his hair.

"Sir, if you are "tripping" I apparently have to ask you to leave," I stated, looking at him calmly.

"Tripping? I'm not on drugs!" He retorted defensively and turned red at the attention he was drawing to himself.

"I didn't say that." Wait. Did I?

He frowned at me. "Look, I'm sorry I'm a little anxious over here, but I am about to lose my job. My laptop is just… freaking out!"

"As of yet computers are incapable of emotion."

His frown deepened. He looked at me like I was crazy, while he was the one sweating and mumbling and talking about his laptop like it was a sentient being. "Look, I don't need a refill or anything, so unless you are some kind of computer genius, I don't need you hovering right now." He made a gesture for me to leave him alone.

"But I am some kind of computer genius," I remarked matter-of-factly.

He gave me a disdainful look, his eyes trailing down my neck to my purple bowtie and striped button-up shirt, an admittedly unsightly uniform. "Really?"

"Yes."

He stared at me for a while, then cast his hopeless gaze down at the screen at his laptop. "Well… I guess I might as well let you have a go at it. It can't possibly turn out worse than it is." He started turning the laptop to face me, but paused. "Just, uh… It's not really family-friendly material, so you might want to keep it turned away from the customers."

I looked down at the laptop as it was presented to me and was momentarily taken aback at the flashing images of distasteful pornography. Momentarily a memory flooded me of pictures featuring myself in compromising positions. I shook my head and focused on the task at hand. The machine appeared to be opening one pornographic site after another and downloading the man's personal and billing information onto every one of them, signing him up, at varying costs.

At my pause the man scrambled to explain: "I'm not some sort of horrible perv. I have an important presentation this afternoon, I was stressed. I opened this email from an unknown sender with a… uh… a suggestive subject, but the email said that I had registered for some hardcore porn site and that I had to confirm my billing information or cancel if I wanted to cancel the registration and get my money back. Then all these sites started opening and my information was being copied automatically. I- I can't stop it! My presentation is on there, as well as other really important information, but the thing's so busy opening sites that no other program is functioning. My office is just around the corner, I figured I head down here before someone would catch a glimpse of my screen."

"Hn." I positioned my fingers over the keyboard and observed the activity a moment longer, strategizing my defense against the cyber attack.

"You really think you can help?"

"It's a simple enough problem." Recovering a grace and speed that I worried I might have forgotten, my fingers started working.

"Simple?"

"It's an unprofessional hack. Just some above-average computer-savvy kid that got bored."

"How can you tell?"

"The programming is inelegant. And a seasoned hacker would have tried to steal your money for himself. Obviously the point of this is merely to embarrasses you by having you sign up for all these sites. The registration fee is a mere by-product of someone having a laugh at you."

"Oh."

"I've stopped the attack."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'll go back now and cancel your registrations and subscriptions to sex-toy folders."

"You're going to go back to each site? The damn thing has been jumping from site to site for like half an hour, it must have visited hundreds."

"I'm writing a program that will do the work for me. It will erase your information from all those sites."

"You can write a program like that in a matter of minutes?"

"Yes." This program was especially easy because I've used a version of it various times in the past, most recently to erase every image of myself that Hendrik uploaded onto the world wide web.

"That's incredible." With the stress visibly leaving his body, he joked lightheartedly: "You must have been one of those bored kids."

I briefly looked up at him. A bemused smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. "No, I wasn't bored. I had plenty to do. I'm not merely "above-average computer-savvy" either."

He smiled. "Right, you're "some kind of computer genius"."

"The program is running now. It'll be finished in a matter of minutes. Don't worry, it's very thorough." I turned the computer back to him. It was functioning normally again. My program was running quietly in the background.

He looked perplexed. "I'm speechless. This is amazing."

"You are speaking, so, by definition, you are not speechless," I pointed out.

He laughed, probably just giddy with relief. "I don't know how to thank you."

"You don't have to."

"I think I should. I'll find a way. You just saved my job – my whole department actually, and probably my relationship as well. I'll find a way to properly to thank you, but for now-" He extended out his hand and I took it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I didn't see him again for three weeks, during which time I completely forgot about him. Duo distracted me, tainted my memory. He continued to introduce me to the most amazing sex, laughter that made my stomach ache and all kinds of intimacy.

When the twenty-something business man returned, he made a point to formally introduce himself and reminded me that he owed me a debt, which he intended to repay by offering me a job. His company was expanding its computer programming department and he had arranged an interview for me.

I was reluctant to accept his offer. My life had been so easy, so comfortable. I was afraid of complicating things. I was afraid of what would happen if I took a step back towards my old self, even if it was only a minor step. The Heero Yuy that fought in the war was part programmer. I had been working hard to move beyond that person. I feared it would be like a reformed alcoholic taking a sip and finding himself incapable of leaving it at that one sip and instead was tempted to finish the glass.

Duo remained maddeningly neutral on the matter. He didn't want to sway me in any direction, he thought it was important for me to make the decision for myself. However, although his opinion remained unspoken, I had the sense that he preferred me to give it a shot. I thought he worried about what it meant that I was working far below my potential. I thought he worried that I wasn't really settling in. I wasn't making any commitments, I wasn't taking on any responsibilities. He might have seen it as the metaphorical packed duffel bag under the bed, the way we used to live when we were soldiers in the war. No place was ever home, we could never get attached to anything or anyone, we were always ready to leave.

I didn't want that life anymore and I certainly didn't want him to think that we were still living that life. And maybe, I figured, it would be better for me to apply my one non-violent skill in a constructive manner, the way Duo said being a mechanic was therapeutic for him.

Duo was still in contact with the other former Gundam Pilots, he had WuFei – who was working for the Preventers – create a brand new, legal, untraceable identity for me.

I stepped into the lobby of the corporate building and for the first time I could genuinely introduce myself as Heero Yuy, it had been made official. In spite of my underdeveloped social skills I was hired on the spot. It was an entry-level programming job, but I was bound to excel and climb the ladder. The work brought me stability as well as a sense of achievement. It was no more complicated for me than serving coffee at a diner, but I went home feeling accomplished. More importantly, I worked regular, nine-to-five hours, so Duo and I could spend more time together. We had so much sex that we got looks at the drugstore as we stocked up on condoms and lube. It raised a discussion that eventually had us risk being potentially confronted by our pasts when we decided to get tested for the full spectrum of sexually transmitted diseases. We had been pricked and prodded so many times by those crazy scientists, it wouldn't have surprised either of us if some of those needles had turned out to be tainted. But apparently we were valuable enough as soldiers to be worthy of clean needles. Only lube on the grocery list next time.

Late AC 199 Duo had been promoted as head mechanic and manager of the garage, I had started a freelance business that grew to be very successful, very quickly, as I became known as the best. Our life had outgrown the basement studio apartment but we stayed there longer than we needed to. It seemed watching foot traffic go by had grown on us. Eventually we moved into a bigger, proper apartment, in a better part of town. Our view: the ocean. Duo dreamed bigger still. He dreamed of a house. A particular house in fact. Our relocation meant that he had to commute through some fancy neighborhoods to get to the downtown garage. One of the houses had caught his attention. He said it looked exactly like the house he had always dreamed of, when he was just a little kid, sleeping on a mattress of cardboard under covers of newspaper, in the shadow of a dumpster. It was a house that we would never be able to afford, but we did start saving up to own an actual house eventually.

Quatre, Trowa and WuFei started visiting us regularly. We became friends. It was revealed to us that Quatre and Trowa had been in a committed relationship since the end of the war. WuFei grumbled about being 'the only damn straight one', but he seemed alright with it.

Duo had also become close friends with the elderly owner of the garage, still, it had been a major shock for him to discover, upon the death of his friend, that he had been left the garage. Apprehensively he took over, but the old man had made the right decision leaving the garage to Duo. It became more successful and got a reputation for being the best shop on the West Coast for restoring vintage cars – Duo's passion. He enjoyed starting out with nothing but a dented chassis and rusty wheel caps and turn it into something that brought people joy.

With my permission he reached out to Hilde in AC 200. He was looking for parts for an old colony car model and he remembered Hilde had a lot of connections on L2 through the scrapyard business she inherited. The parts were just an excuse though, to make things right. He had always been determined to make apologies and I had always agreed. What we did to Hilde weighed heavily on us both. I had stolen her boyfriend away from her. And Duo was the boyfriend who let himself be stolen, overnight.

Hilde didn't seem to have held on much of a grudge, she forgave Duo pretty quickly, although she was reluctant to accept me as part of his life. I kept my distance. I had learned a lot about human emotions, I recognized them in myself and in others and I understood that the last thing she would want would be for me to force myself on her, however good my intentions may be. In her story, I was the villain, I made a drama of what could have been a romantic comedy.

Duo worried that I would be jealous of his contact with Hilde, but I wasn't. I trusted him. Besides, they didn't see each other in person except for that one time when Duo flew out to L2 personally to collect those parts. Other than that they shared an occasional phone call, nothing more. Duo initiated most of them, Hilde appeared to be purposefully keeping a distance. I supposed because getting closer to Duo meant getting closer to me and Duo openly disclosed to me that she wasn't my biggest fan. I didn't mind that, I deserved that. If hating me helped her deal with her love being taken away from her – seeing me as a thief, rather than acknowledging that she and Duo had grown apart long before I showed up -, than I was happy to fulfill that role for her, it was the least I could do. Duo may have left her on his own accord, but I was the catalyst and I would always have to bear that guilt.

At the very least Duo seemed more at peace since he had had the chance to properly apologize to his former lover and friend. Absolved of his guilt he finally slept better, before he had, on occasion, been wrecked by feelings of unease and worry. He doubted himself, doubted that he had become the good man he had always promised himself he would be, once he wasn't forced to serve as a soldier anymore. Knowing that Hilde had landed on her feet, that he hadn't ruined his friend, brought him great relief.

"She seems happy," He told me after his visit to L2.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

With concern I noticed a waver in his voice. "Are you alright?"

"I'm just… relieved." He sat down on the couch next to me. "I didn't even notice the weight I had been carrying around until it was lifted off my shoulders, you know? It doesn't hit you that things are off until all of a sudden they aren't."

I put away the book I had been reading.

"I was really worried about her," He observed softly. "I worried that I had cost her her happiness. Forever. Not by leaving, but by pretending things were alright between us for as long as I did. That only made the break-up worse for her. But I didn't want to lose her, you know?"

I nodded gently.

"She was my best friend, she was all I had. I was afraid that if I told her that things weren't working between us as a couple, she wouldn't be able to be my friend anymore. That was incredibly shellfish. I put my own happiness ahead of her own."

"Well, by staying with her you did give her what she wanted. You made her happy for a long time."

"But it was all pretense. I tricked her. I tricked her because I was afraid to be alone."

"She would have been heart-broken either way. You protected your friendship as long as you could. You both benefited from that, for as long as it lasted. Sometimes keeping someone in the dark is a kindness."

He smiled sadly. He knew I was referring to the fact that I sometimes wished I had never told him about Hendrik, because as soon as I told him, it was a burden he too would have to bear, much like me. "I think it's better to be honest. No secrets. No pretenses." He leaned in close and pressed his forehead against mine. "No darkness."

In AC 201 I was called out to a suburban neighborhood close to our beachfront apartment for a "catastrophic computer meltdown fiasco". I drove out as the sun started to set, grumbling about the late call. I had texted Duo to let him know I wouldn't be home for dinner. I followed the directions and ended up in a quiet street, the houses dispersed, with large yards. I stopped looking at my GPS when I saw a specific tall, braided American standing in front one of the Mexican styled homes. I parked the car at the sidewalk and got out apprehensively.

"A catastrophic computer meltdown fiasco, huh?"

Duo shrugged sheepishly and produced his cellphone from the back pocket of his black jeans. "My phone froze just as I was about to beat my Tetris high score."

"I did warn you about loading old games onto your cell."

He smiled. "Yes. You did."

I looked over his shoulder at the house he was standing in front of. It matched descriptions I had heard many times in passing manner during dinners or sharing a cup of coffee on the terrace. A two-story, sand-colored house with terracotta roof tiles, at the center of the understated façade a front door of dark wood with detailed carvings. "I'm guessing I'm not here for a Tetris high score salvage."

"Not exactly. Though… if you find the time…" He extended out his hand.

I reached out for him and let him guide me to the front door. On our way I noticed the "SOLD!"-sign in the front yard. "Duo, why are we here? I know you wanted this house, but it's already sold. And we clearly can't afford it anyway."

"Let's just take a look around, see if you like it."

"It doesn't matter. Duo!" I called out as I watched him open the unlocked front door. I let him drag me into the hallway, to the living room, to the dining room, to the kitchen and even upstairs to the bedrooms and bathrooms. It was a beautiful house, it was no mystery to me why Duo was so taken with it, but I didn't understand the purpose of him dragging me there and showing it to me. We were, as we would say 'well off', but clearly we didn't have the funds to purchase a house like that. Moreover, it was already sold.

"Do you like it?" He asked excitedly upon completion of the tour.

"I love it, Duo. I'm sure we'll be able to find something just like it. Only… smaller and cheaper."

"If you love it, if you want it, it's ours."

I frowned. "But… Wait, the sold-sign…"

He grinned.

"Duo, what did you do?"

"Don't worry, I didn't take out any back-breaking loans. It was a gift."

I sighed, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "You talked Quatre into buying us a house?"

"I didn't! He offered! As a gift to celebrate the occasion."

"What occasion?"

He flashed me another grin and reached for my hand again. "Follow me. I'll show you."

As I trailed after him, back downstairs, to the double doors to the back yard, I joked nervously: "Don't tell me you're pregnant."

Duo let out a hearty laugh, throwing a mirthful look over his shoulder.

His dry humor had, by then, successfully rubbed off on me.

He stopped and let go of my hands to pull both doors wide open.

I was shocked and confused by the sight before me and it took the gently pressure of Duo's hand low on my back to get me to step outside.

The stone courtyard embraced by the U-shaped house and the entire back yard of greenery beyond it, was decorated with white Christmas lights and strings of paper lanterns. A romantic table had been set in the middle of the lawn. Although Duo was intimate and loving in both word and deed he had never made such an overtly, frivolously romantic display and neither had I. I had never really understood the romanticism I observed through multi-media and frankly I always imagined I'd feel self-conscious and embarrassed if I were ever to be on the receiving end of such attention, but as awkward and confused as I was I felt unexpectedly… special. Clearly Duo had gone out of his way to arrange this, for whatever reason, and I easily imagined him painstakingly draping the Christmas lights in the branches of the trees and stringing the lanterns across the courtyard and it made me feel cherished; the way I felt when Duo would hold me close to him after making love, or when he would bring my feet into his lap and start rubbing them when we spent an evening on the couch, or when he would read me passages of whatever book he was reading that week while I lay curled up against him in bed.

"You think it's corny," He fretted. "You hate it."

I smiled at him and said: "I love you."

This seemed to reassure him that he hadn't made a fool of himself. He guided me further into the yard, so we were in the sea of lights. "I didn't know what else to do. I'm new at these big, romantic gestures," He explained sheepishly.

"It's beautiful."

He breathed a sigh of relief, he could tell I was being sincere. "I always dreamed of once living in a house like this," He started, "I didn't imagine the arches, or the third bathroom, or the tiles in the kitchen per se, but I dreamed of having an amazing house, somewhere I could feel grounded, at peace; somewhere I belonged. I was just a kid, just a kid on the streets, indulging in big dreams was the only way to keep the nightmares at bay," He smiled sadly. "I didn't realize that it takes a person, not a house, for someone to feel safe and at home. Everywhere I am with you is home. You give me that sense of belonging. You give me peace. You keep me grounded, because there is nowhere I'd rather be than by your side." He stood in front of me and took both my hands into his as he stared deeply, intimately, into my eyes. His smile was beaming. "I was more than happy in that basement studio and I am so happy in our current place. But when I first drove by this house I saw us standing in the doorway, welcoming friends into our home and I could," He shrugged, "I could hear the pitter patter of little feet. It made me realize that even though I have found my home with you, our love still deserves a proper house; something permanent, not a month-by-month lease, because we are permanent and I wanted you to know that. I wanted to show you my ever-lasting devotion in every way possible. I was looking to buy us something – uh – more modest, but when I told Quatre of my plans, he insisted on buying us this house. You know how he gets. I didn't think I deserved a gift like that, but I do think that you do. You deserve the very best and when the very best is beyond my price-range I'm not above accepting charity to provide you with the best."

"Why are you saying all this? Why are your palms so sweaty?"

He took a deep shaky breath. "God, right, I'm rambling. I swear it went way better when I practiced this." He shook his head nervously and then returned his focus to me with a quivering smile. "I guess the short of it is: I love you. And now that we are just a couple of super normal guys," He said proudly, as it had been a long road for us both to achieve that sense of normalcy, "I figured the best way to show you how much I love you is by doing what normal people do when they love each other."

I stared at him quizzically. My heart was beating at an oddly rapid pace as I waited for him to continue.

"I was going to get you the house as an engagement present, instead of a ring. But since Quatre insisted on getting us this house, I guess it's his engagement present to us now, so…" He let go of my right hand and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, producing a velvet box. "I got you this." He popped open the box with his thumb presenting the fittingly simple ring to me. "I figured you wouldn't appreciate something flashy and sparkly," He said with a chuckle, observing my shocked face. "I also figured you'd prefer me to not go down on one knee, but if you do want me to-"

"Oh God, no."

We shared a brief laugh.

"I feel like I've already rambled on for way to long. All that is left for me to do is ask you: Will you marry me?" Duo looked at me expectantly.

"I don't know what to say."

His face blanched.

"I don't know what to say," I repeated, smiling at him to reassure him. "I don't want to sound like those women in those awful romantic comedies that you make me watch."

He let out a hearty laugh. "You could say "No", they hardly ever say that. But… I'd prefer if you just said "Yes"."

"Yes."

"Yes?" His face lit up, even though the answer could not have come as a surprise to him.

"Yes."

Duo leaned forward and pressed his mouth against mine, guiding my hands to his shoulders after which he wrapped his arms around my waist. We both completely forgot about the ring, passionately kissing and caressing each other.

Eventually I ended the kiss and mischievously inquired: "About the pitter-patter of little feet…"

"Dogs! Or cats!" He hurried to explain.

"Really? Seems like such a waste of those extra bedrooms."

Duo arched an eyebrow. Hopeful, he wondered: "Are you saying…?"

"No." I innocently shook my head. "But in a couple of years I might."

He grinned. With one arms around my waist and one hand grasping my buttocks he lifted me up and carried me to the table where he put me down. "I love you," He whispered huskily in my ear. "But the neighbors are going to hate us." To demonstrate his point he licked the shell of my ear and I moaned loudly. He wanted to unbutton my shirt and only then seemed to remember he was still holding the box with the ring. "Shit, I almost forgot. I swear I practiced this." He took my hand and ceremoniously slipped the ring onto the appropriate finger.

We had loud sex in the back yard and by the time we came back to the house with a moving truck a few days later, a red-faced neighbor with a casserole dish approached us, welcoming us to the neighborhood and reminding us that children played in the back yards. She was nice though, they all were, if a little more conventional than Duo and I had ever strived for.

We got married at city hall. I didn't like the idea of a big ceremony and I didn't want to wait. When we came home all our friends were waiting for us in the back yard, something Duo had arranged.

Life didn't really change much. That was a comfort. Everything was so effortless and natural. We had each other, we had our home, we had our friends and we had our jobs, it wasn't until AC 203 that we decided to try for more; the pitter patter.

We initially preferred adoption but with our sketchy pasts we were not considered top notch candidates. After having three attempts at adoption fall through in a relatively late stage of the process we were advised to try surrogacy to avoid further heart ache and walls of red tape. We sought the help of an agency that pairs prospective parents to willing surrogates. They introduced us to Nicky Bryer, a wonderful mother of two, married to an understanding an supportive husband. She had already been a surrogate for another couple. Duo thought the whole situation was a little "iffy", making him hesitant, but I had no concept of what "iffy" meant. Nicky and her husband, Mark, soon erased any trace of "iffy", being kind and welcoming to us. The fact that she would be carrying a child that would be parented by two males was absolutely no issue for her. When the four of us agreed to the surrogacy, we paid the agency, who, in turn, paid the Bryers and the wheels were set in motion.

Duo and I were both to donate sperm. One of our 'contributions' – as Duo affectionately pegged it – was to be chosen randomly and used to fertilize the eggs of an anonymous donor. However, before proceeding the agency's laboratory ran blood-tests on both of us and the results changed the procedure. It was discovered that Duo was a carrier for Tay-Sachs disease. Even though Nicky was not a carrier and there would be no health-risk to the child we were trying to conceive, there would be a considerable chance that the child would inherit the recessive gene from Duo and become a carrier themselves, which could potentially be quite a burden when the time came for the child to have offspring.

Duo made light of situation. "The decision is even more simple then. Heero will be the biological father."

I felt self-conscious and guilty about this. Odds were that with the ideal, randomized, procedure, we still would have been able to tell whose 'contribution' was used, but at least then it would have been fair. I worried Duo would feel left out, the child would be my child, the egg-donor's child and – in a way – Nicky's child. Three people – who weren't him – would have a physical, biological connection to the child, yet he was supposed to be one of the 'real' fathers.

Duo eased away my concerns. He assured me he would feel like a real father and be a real father to the child. To prove his point he reminded me of the fact that we were initially going to adopt and he asked me if I would feel any less like a parent because I lacked a genetic relation to it.

I didn't think that would be the case, so I accepted his logic and we went ahead with the procedure.

Duo assisted me with my 'contribution' – prompting all sorts of "baby-making" jokes for weeks to come – and succeeded in making the clinical process romantic and intimate.

By the time Nicky had been successfully implanted with the embryos, confirmed with a drug-store pregnancy test that she proudly showed us, it was August, AC 204.

Nicky was remarkably accommodating, welcoming us into her life like reacquainting with old friends, rather than getting to know strangers, while at the same time retaining a sense of professionalism regarding the child she was carrying for us. She let us into her life, to make us feel at ease and close to the child, while not forcing herself into ours, maintaining a distance that we were free to upkeep following the birth of the child. Her only request was for us to send her at least one picture a year, as the couple she had been a surrogate for before did. We were more than willing to give her a part in child's life and vice versa. She could be the "cool aunt" and when the child was old enough we would tell him or her how "cool aunt Nicky" helped bring him or her into the world. Nicky was thrilled. It solidified the friendship between "The Maxwells" and "The Bryers".

We accompanied her on every check-up, fussing over every little thing. I devoted myself to the pregnancy and the upcoming birth, becoming a little bit of a control freak, but Duo knew how to reel me in when he had to. It was such an amazing time, full of excitement and anticipation.

We allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security. We let our guards down. We stopped expecting the worst; let alone preparing for the worst. We let ourselves be overwhelmed with hope and joy and other things as fragile as glass. We just didn't realize they were fragile as glass, not until we cut ourselves on the shards as everything fell apart around us.

---

AC 206

Nearly seven years. Nearly seven years we had been happy. But it didn't feel like nearly seven years anymore, not to me. It felt like the first ten minutes of a horror movie. Everything is perfect, happiness rooted in blissful ignorance. Everything is perfect until the masked man with the hatchet comes.

A shock ran through my body when Duo suddenly shot upright beside me with a grunt. I could see the blue glow of the moon in the sheen of sweat on his bare back.

"Are you okay?" I slowly sat up.

His head hung forward. He buried his hands in his hair. "No," his voice cracked.

I knew how to calm him, I knew how to ease his mind. I knew how to hold him, I knew how to kiss him, I knew what to say. I've comforted him in the aftermath of many nightmares, as he did me, we knew each other better than we knew ourselves. But I didn't do anything as he panted and tried to regain his composure. I sat back against the carved wood headboard and fidgeted with the frilly edge of the floral bed sheets. I supposed I didn't comfort him because it was time we learned how to comfort ourselves. But I had to suppress every instinct not to reach out to him. We had become so dependent of each other, he of me and I of him, it wasn't healthy, I just didn't realize it before. I didn't realize how crippling it could be to always be leaning on somebody, once the time came that person couldn't always be at your side.

He scraped his throat. "What time is it?"

"Two thirty." I replied. There was no need for me to consult the clock on the bedside table, I had been checking the time constantly as the night dragged on.

"Have you slept at all?"

"No. Can't."

He nodded. "For some reason I never have trouble sleeping…" He says guiltily. "But it hasn't been very… restful lately, you know?"

My turn to nod.

"We'll stay up together. See if you can find the remote to that thing," He pointed his thumb at the small television on the dresser at the foot of the bed. Duo got out of bed, still naked from before, and blindly found his way to the bathroom, explaining he wanted to splash some water on his face.

On behalf of irrational modesty I retrieved a clean pair of underwear from the bag I brought with me and quickly found the remote in the top drawer of the nightstand on Duo's side of the bed. I turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels of nighttime television. Mostly home shopping programs, reruns of old series and soft core porn. When Duo and I first started living together we watched a lot of nighttime television. With memories of the war still troubling us, watching dull television was, at times, the only way we could eventually fall asleep.

"I'm going to take a quick shower," He called from the bathroom and then I heard water running.

Probably not a bad idea, I thought to myself. We both still smelled like sex from before.

I settled on an episode of some old comedy series. The jokes weren't exactly amusing to me, but the only point of it was to have a distraction and make the silence less awkward.

When a chirping sound pierced the room I didn't think anything of it, expecting it to be coming from the television. But when the characters didn't react to a ringing phone, it dawned on me that the sound was coming from the floor to my right. I snapped my head to look around me and noticed our clothes strewn across the carpeted floor. The sound came from the pile of denim that were Duo's dark jeans. His phone was ringing.

I stared.

His phone was ringing.

Apprehensively I crawled out of the bed and stalked towards the source of the sound. I rummaged through the seemingly shapeless pile of fabric, in search of the pocket. I grabbed the vibrating phone and pulled it free.

"Hilde," I whispered, as that was the name that appeared on the screen.

The water was still running in the bathroom. Duo must have not heard his phone. He must have purposefully changed the ringtone to a soft sound in case the situation was reverse, with me just out of earshot, since I had such a powerful, negative reaction whenever she called.

A devious thought popped up. I could ignore it. I could just let it ring and not answer it.

I sighed. That wasn't going to change anything, except make me a dick, if I wasn't already for just thinking stuff like that.

I couldn't answer myself. I got up from the floor and hurried through the doorway to the bathroom.

"Duo, your phone."

"What?" He wiped the glass door of the shower stall clean to peer at me with quizzical eyes.

I turned the screen for him to see. "It's Hilde," I said, as if that wasn't already abundantly clear from her name in all capitals on the screen. The phone was still chirping and buzzing, she wasn't hanging up. That, combined with the late hour, made me fearful.

"Shit." For a moment he just stared as the glass gradually fogged up again.

"You have to answer," I urged.

He shook his head. "Right!" He practically ripped the door open, leaving the water running – he was so distracted. With wet, slick hands he accepted the phone from me, nearly dropping it in the process. He started shaking as he answered the call and brought the phone to his ear. I'm pretty sure he wasn't cold though, it was hot and humid in the small, poorly ventilated space.

"Hello?" His voice didn't even sound like his.

I couldn't hear Hilde's voice, but what she said I could read on his face. It took me back to that time she called, mere weeks after Duo confessed to me he had slept with her, and I answered and brought the phone to Duo, who was working in the garage.

I knew she was pregnant before he told me.

I knew she was in labor before he told me.

It was an eerie gap, a twilight zone, between the realization and the confirmation.

"She's in labor!" Duo exclaimed, shocked and scared.

I nodded dumbly.

"How is this even possible, you're not due for a couple more weeks?"

This time I heard her. She screamed. "Well, it's fucking premature you dumbass!"

"Right… Right…" Duo replied meekly. "No, we are nowhere near DC!" Duo said frantically. "We are just outside of Louisville! I'm going to get a flight, I'll be there. I'll be there." He promptly hung up the phone and shot back into the bedroom, stepping into his underwear and pants and trying to simultaneously put on his shirt and pack his bag.

I sighed and leaned into the shower stall to turn off the water. "No, Duo…" I took the bag from him and pulled a clean sweater out of it. "I ripped the buttons on that," I reminded him matter-of-factly.

"Shit, right."

As Duo exchanged the ruined shirt for the sweater I quickly got dressed myself. I kept all my feelings safely tucked away because it was clear to me I needed to be calm since Duo was completely lost and clearly couldn't think straight.

"You think we'll be able to get a last-minute flight?"

He made a face. "I don't know," He said breathlessly.

I hurried to leave a note and money for the owner of the bed and breakfast as we left the romantic room behind us in a flurry.

Duo had his phone pinched between his ear and shoulder, needing both hands to steer the mint green convertible out of the tiny parking lot.

"I could call."

"No, I don't want… this isn't your problem. It isn't your responsibility," He snapped. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- Yes, hello? Is this the USA Travel desk at the Louisville airport? I need two tickets to Washington DC."

Preparing for a long night I rubbed my tired eyes and took a swig from the bottle of water I had packed yesterday.

The car rumbled with effort as Duo floored the gas pedal in an attempt to make good time. Even just getting to the Louisville airport would take us over two hours.

"No, we need to be on a plane to Washington DC tonight! Yes, tonight!"

I shrunk in my seat at Duo's dangerous tone. In the past ten minutes he had spoken to several airlines based in Louisville and of the few flights heading out for DC tonight, none had available seats.

"She put me on hold," He ground through his teeth. "Bitch put me on hold."

I didn't respond. He was stressed and furious, nothing I could say could alleviate that.

"Please, you are my last option! Look… No. No. That's not good enough. I can't take that risk. We can't just wait there and hope two people don't show up for their flight. I need to be in DC, like… ten minutes ago!"

Realizing this wasn't going anywhere I reached out and snatched the phone out of his hand and hung up on the desk clerk.

"What are you doing?"

"I have an idea." I started to dial a number and the phone recognized it and suggested: "Call Quatre?" I pressed OK and brought the phone to my ear.

"Why are you calling Quatre?"

"Didn't you always say that having a billionaire as a friend would come in handy one day?"

"I think I used the word "gazillionaire". Besides… He's not really my friend anymore," He spoke forlorn.

"He is," I assured him while the phone continued to ring. "He just hides it very well."

Duo didn't seem to believe me.

My call was answered but nothing was said. "Quatre?" I asked.

"Heero," said Trowa with a groggy yet distinctly confused voice. "Why are you calling at this hour? And on Duo's phone?"

"I left mine at home. We need Quatre's help. Could you please give him the phone?"

"Okay. Hold on a second."

I heard him say with a muffled voice: "Quatre, it's for you. It's not Duo, it's Heero."

"Heero?" Quatre sounded equally tired upon accepting the call.

"Quatre. You told me I should call you if I needed anything. "Anything", you said." I looked over at Duo meaningfully.

"Yes, of course," Replied the blonde.

When we arrived at the Louisville airport there was a private jet waiting for us. Quatre's private jet that was always on standby for him for visits to Earth was out of range, but the blonde businessman made a few calls and discovered that one of his business associates from Europe was in Kentucky for the week, with his jet parked at a private airfield in Lexington. Nobody ever said 'no' to Quatre, so when the young owner and CEO of a multi-billion dollar enterprise called the Earth bound businessmen to ask for his jet, the man was more than happy to comply and arranged for the jet to rush to the Louisville airport to meet us.

Duo kept nervously cradling his phone. Despite his brain being scrambled from the stress, he found the coherency to tell me that Hilde had actually been in labor for several hours before she finally called. Having had several episodes of false contractions and the due date still a couple weeks away, she had convinced herself it was another false alarm. It wasn't until her water broke – which she initially wrote off, embarrassed, as having wet her bed – she realized the baby had decided to mess with her schedule and come early, even before the date that had been set for her to be induced. She had warned him to hurry, the contractions were already very close together and upon her arrival at the hospital the doctor concluded she was well on her way to being fully dilated. At which point she gathered her wits enough to pick up the phone and call us.

I felt sorry for her. She must have been scared and stressed and she had wanted Duo to be there for support and now he threatened to miss the birth. I had been selfish, thinking only of me and my need to have Duo in my life. I should have hurried the trip along. I felt guilty because Duo might miss the birth of his child because he wasted time on me.

We followed a man in a reflective yellow vest across the tarmac of the airfield as rain beat down on our shoulders. The pilot met us at the door of the jet.

"Guten Morgen," He greeted, tipping his hat to us.

Duo just pushed past him, hurrying to take a seat.

"Guten Morgen," I replied and took a seat across the aisle from Duo, being enveloped by the soft leather and thick cushions of the seat.

In German the pilot explained to us that the stewardess could not make it to the Lexington airstrip in time, but we were welcome to help ourselves to drinks and snacks. There was a small, practical kitchen in the back.

Duo's German, unlike his French, was quite good, but he couldn't focus and just kept glaring at the man, silently urging him to skip the pleasantries and hurry up.

The pilot got the message soon enough and disappeared into the cockpit. I got a brief glimpse of the co-pilot as the door opened.

"It's probably a good thing, that she isn't calling, right?"

I offered him a smile and dumbly nodded. Or it means she is delivering your child right this very moment, I thought to myself.

As the jet took off into the sky, I remembered the last time I was on a plane. We were headed for nomansville Texas, to meet a young, pregnant woman who was putting her child up for adoption and wanted to meet all the prospective parents, so she could make a well-informed decision. She picked us. The four months following that amazing news, we exchanged weekly emails. She included pictures of her growing belly and the 3D scans of the baby, growing within her. The representative of the adoption agency called us to inform us she had given birth. Although we were mostly elated, we were a little peeved that we hadn't been contacted sooner, the arrangement was that we could be at the hospital during the delivery, so we could see the child – a girl – immediately. The representatives tone turned morose.

"You don't understand," She had said. "I'm calling to tell you that she has decided to keep the baby."

Apparently the mother had been getting doubts. Her emails had been getting curt, but she never gave us any warning. She told the agency that she wanted to retract permission for us to be called as soon as she went into labor. She predicted that, after the birth, she would change her mind. She did.

Duo was very angry. It had happened a few times before, by then, the adoption falling through at the last moment. He threw the phone into the wall and he grabbed the wooden dresser in our bedroom and, barefoot, he kicked it until I managed to stop him. By then the two bottom drawers were splintered and he had broken his foot.

When his foot had healed we started looking into surrogacy.

At that point I was already tired of it. I had doubts whether we should make another attempt. All we did, or so it seemed to me, was make ourselves vulnerable to more heart ache. But Duo told me I had to keep faith. We would be good parents, so we deserved to be parents. If we persevered, it would happen. I didn't believe the universe worked like that, but I trusted him, as I always had. I held onto the dream. We both did.

Now he would have a child. And I would not. According to his logic, that meant that he deserved to be a parent and I didn't. It had crossed my mind many times. Why did I ever let myself think I deserved to be allowed to nurture a new life? All I ever did was end lives. And when I stopped doing that, what did I become? 'The James Bond of computers'? That's how Duo put it. That wasn't my identity, that was my job. I wasn't a killer anymore, that was true, but what was I? All I was was a man who loved Duo.

Duo cleansed me of all the bad and all the dark that was within me. But neither of us ever thought to add something new. All I ever did was fill myself with more love for Duo. More love for that life we were building. And more love for each child that we missed out on. I was nothing but love for others. While not bad, that wasn't enough. I became unhealthily dependent on Duo. If I didn't feel loved back, like when he confessed to me he had cheated on me with Hilde, I didn't feel validated as a person; I felt useless, aimless, worthless.

It felt… it felt like without him I wouldn't be a real person anymore. I would either revert back into the machine that I had been for a long time, or – perhaps even worse – I could become nothing; nothing at all. I didn't exactly know what that meant but I started to get a clearer understanding of what that would feel like and it was gut-wrenching.

A person like that shouldn't be allowed to be a parent. If the universe – or a God – had any say in the matter, I could argue that it – He? – was right not to grant me a child. And perhaps it would be best for me to remove myself from this new life that Duo had now created, to save it from my influences as a jealous, dependent, faceless person.

I felt sick suddenly. Clutching my stomach I hurried to the small bathroom at the front, beside the cockpit's door.

Duo called my name with a concerned, questioning tone.

Through clenched teeth I told him I was fine and then locked myself into the tiny restroom. I hunched over the toilet bowl but I didn't throw up. I wished I could, I had hope it would make me feel better, but it wasn't happening. I was stuck with that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This isn't what I wanted to become, I thought to myself. I had wanted to become my own person. A full person. A strong person. I thought I had been on the brink of that when I finally found the strength to free myself from Hendrik and chase my heart's desire: Duo. But in my bliss I must have lost focus at some early stage of the process, because I never became that person. Living with Duo, loving Duo, I falsely believed I had achieved that strength, but I was just as dependent of him as I had been of J and of Hendrik. I hadn't even realized it, because it felt so good being with him and loving him. It felt so right. I never needed to be strong, because he was strong, so it never occurred to me that I wasn't, not until Duo's strength wavered and I collapsed to the ground along with him.

Now I stood to lose everything. It felt like drifting away into outer space, being swallowed by the nothingness between here and the stars.

There was a soft knock on the foldable door. "Heero?"

"Just leave me alone," I cried.

He stood by the door for a long time. Maybe confused. Maybe shocked. Maybe hurt. Then I heard his footsteps leave, in compliance with my request.

I flushed the toilet out of habit and then turned in the small space to wash my hands and splash water in my face.

I looked at myself in the narrow mirror above the tiny sink.

I had set myself up for failure, by becoming far too clingy. Duo was the one who took a swing at me, when he cheated. But I was the one who never brought his hands up to defend himself. If I had, maybe I wouldn't be hurting so bad right now, maybe, then, I wouldn't have felt like the battle was over and that I had been knocked out. Maybe I could have stood my ground for the rounds to come and have the strength to stand beside Duo as he became a father.

Right now, I feared that I only managed to hold on because I was so goddamn afraid of letting go and drifting away into empty space.

Less sick, but utterly exhausted and defeated, I exited the restroom.

Duo watched me intently. I gave him a look that warned him not to comment and sat back down.

The sun had risen. The orange glow that warmed the earth was magnificent. Looking at it eased my mind. With the frightening blackness of the night gone, my thoughts calmed and became less disorganized.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Duo was silently crying. He tried to hide it, but constantly wiping his eyes and tilting his head down was actually what gave him away.

I sighed. I didn't want to make him feel like that. Despite the circumstances, he was about to become a father, he was allowed to be happy about that.

Out of the blue, I told him so.

Duo stared at me, shocked at just hearing me speak. "I love you," He reiterated. It was important for him that I knew that.

"I know. I love you too." How much of a reassurance that was to him, I did not know. He too must have come to the realization that our love might not be enough.

The German pilot informed us over the intercom that we had arrived at Washington DC, but flight control had instructed them to circle the airport at altitude until a runway became available.

Duo gripped the leather armrests tightly.

By the time we touched down the sun had fully risen and as time passed Duo became increasingly antsy. It took another while until the jet had taxied to an area of the tarmac where we were allowed to disembark. The pilot apologized, but as an unscheduled flight, airport control had trouble making time and room for us.

As bad luck would have it, we hadn't taken as much as three steps onto the tarmac, when Duo's phone rang. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"Hilde. It's Hilde," He said dumbly.

He is a father, I knew. I knew. But Duo seemed almost reluctant to accept it, despite the fact that we had spent years – and tears – trying to become parents. This isn't how he had wanted it, I knew that. In spite of everything, I could sympathize. "Answer it," I urged it once more.

He did and I looked away. I didn't want to see it on his face. I didn't have to either. Instead, I stared at the sun, until my eye caught the twinkle of a colony passing through the clear blue sky and I followed it.

"Oh my God," Was all Duo said for a long time. Then, after receiving the overwhelming information, he told Hilde we had just landed and we would be there shortly. He apologized for not making it in time, then he hung up.

I turned around and my heart ached when I saw him clearly torn between joy and misery. Mustering all my courage, I said: "Congratulations, dad."

He appeared too dazed for my words to register. Slowly, a small smile started to appear. With shy eyes he looked up at me. "It's a boy," he said.

I offered him a smile in return. I hadn't expected it – I thought I was too bitter for it – but I was happy for him. I always thought he would make a wonderful father, it was a big reason why I suggested for us to start on our journey towards parenthood in the first place, because I knew how much he wanted it, how much it would mean to him and what a lucky child that would be.

"It's a boy," He repeated. The smile disappeared. He started to sob. "It's a boy."

I rushed to him, instinctively, and held him tight to comfort him, knowing what he was thinking of, as I was thinking it too. I embraced him for selfish reasons too. I knew having him hug me back would console me as well. As much as possible.

---

AC 205

"Maybe I shouldn't go," Duo vocalized his doubts again as he stood in front of the mirror finishing up braiding his hair.

I chuckled breathily and stretched out on the tousled sheets of our bed, still eyebrow deep in post-orgasm bliss. "You look forward to this convention for weeks every year. You love it."

"I know I love it, but there are things I love more," He eyed me through the mirror mischievously.

"Well… It's also a good opportunity to meet potential new clients and get into contact with new suppliers. It's important for the garage."

"I know, but there are things that are more important."

I smiled at him. "It's just a routine scan. I'll make sure to get a disc for you."

He turned around and eyed me hungrily, even though he had just gotten dressed after a lengthy episode of love-making, I could tell he was contemplating ripping his clothes off and joining me in bed again. "I'm not just talking about Nicky's check-up. It's Valentine's Day. I should be with my husband on Valentine's Day." He knelt by the bed and kissed me.

"You've already given me a wonderful present," I pointed out. "I didn't think I could come again so soon."

He chuckled softly. "Seriously though…"

"I am being serious. There is nothing special or magical about this particular day. You know I don't think much of holidays anyway."

"Yeah," He got up with a sigh. "I do know. But there is nothing wrong with celebrating our relationship."

"We have our anniversary for that," I said dryly. I really didn't care about holidays or anniversaries, I felt special every day, but I did recognize that making a day for things was important to Duo.

"Still. I thought maybe we should celebrate Valentine's day anyway. Maybe we could celebrate it when I get back?" From the top drawer of the dresser he produced a gift wrapped in red paper and tied with a silver bow. He placed it on the nightstand at my side of the bed.

"You know I don't think much of presents either."

"Yes. But this one you'll like."

I glanced at it. "It's lube."

"How did you know that?" He demanded.

"Oh please! The size, the shape, the smug little face you made!" I laughed.

"I made no such face."

I cocked an eyebrow.

"Fine. Just don't open it anyway until I get back, okay? And maybe act a little surprised?"

"It's lube. What do you want from me? For me to give an elaborate acceptance speech?"

He sputtered: "It happens to be a special fucking lube, okay!" He laughed. "You've become way too good at the whole dry-sarcasm thing."

I winked at him.

He reached down to pick up his bag, securing the strap over his shoulder. "Are you sure?"

"Yes! Go!" I really wasn't all that eager for him to leave. Every year he went to a vintage car convention on the East coast for a weekend and each year I missed him. But the event always made him happy and that was most important to me.

He gave me an intense, passionate kiss goodbye and then stepped out of the bedroom. A few seconds later I heard the front door shut.

I went about my day as usual. I worked in my office, remotely taking control over clients computers to fix problems –mostly caused by downloading infected pornographic material. Later that afternoon I would meet up with Nicky and Mark at the hospital for a regular check-up. Nicky was already six months pregnant, it was hard to believe, but exciting to think that in a few months we would finally be putting the already decorated nursery to use. Duo went kind of crazy in the stuffed animal aisle in the toy store. The cashier gave us odd but endeared looks at the amount of unnaturally colored specimens of the animal kingdom we acquired.

I had my doubts about how good of a parent I would be, even after all the parenting books I had read, but whenever Duo brought home yet another stuffed animal, I felt reassured. I didn't really understand it, but I welcomed it.

He had decorated the nursery right by our bedroom beautifully, with yellow, green and orange colors, because we wanted to be prepared but didn't want to know the gender yet.

I was pretty sure it was a boy though. I had seen something on the 3D scans that made me pretty confident. Duo argued that it could be part of the umbilical cord, between the legs, but he was excited about the possibility nevertheless. Although I was certain he would have been equally as excited if we had come to suspect it to be a girl.

When the phone rang I automatically reached for my work cellphone, I had been answering calls all day. But it was the home phone that was ringing. I walked to the bedroom to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Heero," said Mark, a little out of breath. "I just got a call from Nicky. She's at the hospital."

I checked my wristwatch. "The appointment isn't until three thirty," I noted. "Did the appointment get moved up?"

"I don't know, she hung up. All she said was that she was at the hospital now and that I should call you and Duo," Mark explained. "I'm on my way now. If you guys can't make it, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll give you a call about how it went."

"Duo is away for the weekend," I checked my watch again, "But I can be at the hospital in twenty minutes, just have to reschedule a client first."

"Okay, great. I'll see you there."

"She didn't sound like there was anything wrong?" I thought to ask.

"No, not really. She sounded… tired I guess. But she has been on her feet all day, at the mall. Hey, I just pulled into the hospital parking lot, I'll see you in a couple of minutes okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Oh and Heero? I'm sure everything is fine, don't stress yourself out, 'kay?"

I smiled. Mark knew I was kind of overly worrisome. "Thanks. I'll see you soon."

I hung up and contacted the client whose computer I had been working on, telling him I'd be back in an hour or two and I'd continue debugging his system then. On my way out, car keys in hand, I called Duo to tell him the appointment had been moved up. Standing in the doorway I could hear the familiar ring of Duo's cellphone coming from upstairs. During his fretting about whether or not he should go, he forgot his phone. It's a bad habit of his that happened more often than I cared for. I didn't like it whenever he forgot his phone, it always gave me an irrational sense of dread that I couldn't shake.

Grumbling under my breath I got into the SUV – Duo had taken the sedan to the airport – and headed for the hospital. Waiting at a red light I sent him a curt email; "call me". I hurriedly pressed 'send' to keep up with the caravan of cars moving forward again at the green light.

I spotted Mark's car – an oddly colored seven-seater SUV – as I circled to find a parking place.

When I stepped into the hospital, I had no idea of the nightmare I was walking into.

I was on my way to the fourth floor, where Nicky's OBGYN was stationed, when a nurse stopped me.

"Can I help you find someone, sir?"

I figured I might as well get more precise directions. "I'm here for Nicky Bryer."

The keys of the keyboard rattled as she searched the database for the name. "Yes. I have a notation here that they are expecting a Heero Yuy."

"That's me."

"Misses Bryar is in the Emergency room, Private room three." The administrative nurse rose from her seat and leaned over the counter to point at a door. "The ER is right through those doors."

ER? I was alarmed but told myself to calm down.

I went through the doors and stopped dead in my tracks to avoid colliding with a doctor sprinting from one end of the room to the other. Scanning the room I located Private Room three quickly. I crossed through the bustling activity of the ER.

I opened the door and at first I was relieved to see Nicky sitting in the bed, centered in the room, Mark on a chair beside her, her bulging belly covered by a white blanket. It wasn't until the details of the image started registering that I wished I had never opened the door.

Their expressions were unmistakable; devastated. Mark was trying to put up a brave front, but his lower lip was quivering. Nicky had tears spilling from her red, puffy eyes and she made the most pathetic "Oh!" when she saw me standing in the doorway.

No, I decided. No.

She looked at her husband and begged him: "You have to tell him. I- I can't."

Mark looked at me, opened his mouth, but… nothing.

I shook my head.

Nicky sobbed and nodded her head.

Mark started telling the story, but I wasn't listening. He had to tell me again a few weeks later. Nicky had been at the mall. Just as she stepped onto the escalator, already being partly off balance due to the localized extra weight, two teenagers – being chased by a mall cop – pushed past her. She had lost her equilibrium and fell down almost the entire length of the stairs, wounding herself on the edges of the unforgiving metal steps. Her stomach took a number of hard, sharp blows causing severe placental abruption. The trauma caused both mother and child great distress. Because of the abruption the baby no longer received oxygenized blood. When the paramedics arrived they already couldn't find a heartbeat, but they didn't want to tell her. They rushed her to the hospital. There, the doctor confirmed that the baby had been deprived of oxygen, resulting in brain death and, following shortly after, heart failure.

They were scheduling an OR. The stillborn child would be delivered via C-section.

Mark was very clinical and detached in his explanation, but at the time I wasn't paying much attention to him. I just kept hearing Nicky say: "You don't deserve this. You don't deserve this. You don't deserve this."

But maybe I did, I thought to myself, still predominantly in shock. I used to be a bad person. I had taken so many lives. Now, the most precious life had been taken from me. It was my fault. I had no right to allow anyone to convince me otherwise.

I was frozen in the doorway, I couldn't step towards them, but I didn't have the sense to leave either.

I remembered Duo kicking his foot against the dresser until both were broken. I hated myself, knowing I was responsible for doing that to him again. Having to break the news to him caused me a sharp pain and a sick feeling in my stomach.

What happened then, was lost to me.

I think I might have screamed.

The next moment I remembered I was sitting on the floor in the hallway of a different part of the hospital, my back against the wall, my legs pulled up against my chest. Everything ached. I was vaguely aware that I had just witnessed the birth of my dead child from the gallery overlooking OR two. The sights wouldn't haunt me until they appeared to me in nightmares that following night and every night thereafter for many months.

Only one thing was stuck in my mind: It's a boy.

Mark abandoned his vigil over his recovering wife several times to quickly come check on me. He would crouch down next to me and talk to me, but his words were nothing but incoherent echoes interfering with each other. He would be the one to eventually track down Duo and urge him to hurry home and come to the hospital. He hadn't told Duo the specifics, but Duo later told me that part of him knew before he arrived at the hospital, but the bigger part of him insisted on denial.

It took him several hours to get home. The light coming through the window at the end of the hallway was orange, but I didn't know if it was the sun setting on Valentine's day, or the sun rising on the fifteenth.

A broken voice called out my name.

With barely any strength left I raised my head and I saw the blurred outline of a man in black that I knew to be my husband.

He stopped and stared at me. My face and my broken body beat him over the head with what he didn't want to know. His face contorted with agony. He buried his hands in his hair, then covered his face, then made fists at his temples as he processed the unwanted information.

With big steps he came to stand by me and knelt down.

All I ever thought to tell him was: "It's a boy. It's a boy."

He sobbed, looking away first, like he was trying to be strong for the both of us, but he soon gave up and wrapped his arms around me, crying into my shoulder.

"It's a boy," I repeated. Tears started to sting my eyes anew. Only because it hurt so much to cry did I realize how much I had been crying until then.

The doctor later came and – at Duo's request – took us to see him. I didn't want to see him. I knew I would eventually remember how his tiny, bloodied body looked as they pulled him from the red gash in Nicky's once so beautiful, big belly. I didn't think I could handle more. I lingered in the doorway of the morgue, shivering in the cool air. Duo was guided to a table, where a sheet covered an impossibly small form.

Duo later told me the nurses had dressed him, like they would any newborn baby boy; wrapped in a soft, white blanket with bears frolicking along the hem and a baby blue hat that was too big for him.

At first, when the doctor pulled back the sheet to uncover the body, Duo collapsed back against the desk behind him, before he steadied himself and managed to step up to the table again, gently stroking the still infant over his head. I could have sworn I hears the dripping sounds of Duo's tears hitting the stainless steel table in the silence.

"Heero, you should come see him."

"No."

"Heero-"

"No, I don't want to!" I screamed hoarsely.

"Take as much time as you need," Said the doctor, then he left us in the cold, macabre space of the basement morgue, several floors down from the warm, colorful nursery where the story should have come to a happy ending.

He was buried four days later. Duo insisted we should name him. We had to put something on his headstone and we needed a name to call him by. He attended the counseling sessions diligently and informed me that the counselor said it would be helpful in the grieving process.

After a heated argument, where emotions ran high - I didn't want to think of what to call him, because I never wanted to speak of the tragedy again - I agreed with Duo's suggestion for a name.

We had his marble headstone inscribed: "Leander Maxwell-Yuy, Valentine's day AC 205".

Leander is a name from Greek mythology, of a young man who swam across an ocean strait every night to be with his beloved, who would light a candle in her window to guide him to her in the dark. One night a storm blew out the candle and forced the ocean into tall, powerful waves. Leander was lost in the dark, he couldn't find his way and he ended up drowning. His beloved would never see him again.

Based in tragedy, the name seemed befitting.

Duo framed the 3D scans from previous doctor visits and put them on the mantle. I couldn't look at them and didn't understand that he could. He said it was difficult for him too to see the small features clearly defined in the womb, but he didn't want to pretend that it never happened, that he was never real just because he never took a breath of his own nor opened his eyes to see the world. Duo thought it was important that we recognized he was part of our lives and always would be.

I preferred to forget. It was too painful. And honestly, I felt silly every time I was reminded of how foolish I had been to believe we could have this happiness, let alone deserve it.

Duo asked me what I wanted to do with the nursery. I didn't answer. I thought it over that night, my Valentine's day present from three weeks before still wrapped and untouched on my nightstand. I got up, stepped into the nursery for the first time and I started ripping everything apart. I tore the green and yellow patterned wallpaper from the walls, ripped the orange curtains, bringing the rod down with them, snapped the wood of the crib into unrecognizable pieces and pulled heads and limbs off the stuffed animals. Not until I was done, panting, did I realize Duo had been standing in the doorway the whole time.

He seemed frightened and distraught.

After that I shut myself off. I forced every thought of Leander from my mind and barricaded my heart, to the point where I had no emotional reaction to anything anymore. It was the only way I knew how to protect myself. I couldn't let Duo touch me either, I didn't even like making eye-contact with him anymore. The pain in his eyes and the yearning gentleness of his touch reminded me of all I wanted to forget. I was distant and curt, which only evoked more anger and sadness in Duo. Unwittingly I was tormenting him.

One night I noticed my Valentine's Day present was gone.

I didn't say anything.

Another night I noticed Duo decided to sleep in the guest bedroom.

I didn't say anything.

We slept apart for weeks and barely spoke to each other during that time. I'd be lying if I denied that it was easier for me that way. But eventually I supposed Duo decided that in spite of what I was putting him through, he wasn't going to give up on me, or us.

Our relationship became an uneasy alliance. At times we seemed to be normal again, to outsiders, but it never felt normal.

All that time I hated those in utero pictures of Leander above the fireplace. Especially when our friends insisted on coming over. It was the pink elephant in the room that no one dared to speak about. Eventually I took it upon myself to relocate the three picture frames to the garage. I barely spend any time there, Duo most of his time, to escape the tension in the house. If he wanted to look at them, he was free to, but I wasn't going to anymore.

We had a huge argument. Well, I didn't say much, Duo just mostly yelled at me and I actively ignored him.

He accused me that I wasn't dealing with the loss. He was angry at me for trying to pretend that Leander never even existed.

I just couldn't understand how he was okay with saying his name, let alone seeing his face.

When I saw Duo had defiantly put one of the pictures on his nightstand I spent the night vomiting and dry heaving over the toilet. Duo sat by me all night, caressing my back in an attempt to comfort me. I was too tired to fight him off, and my throat was too sore to tell him to leave me alone.

The picture disappeared and I never saw it again.

Things improved after that, albeit not for long. I felt like Duo finally understood and accepted what I needed; to put it behind me. He didn't push me anymore to face what had happened. We grew a little closer, a little more comfortable around each other. At times we even shared a laugh. It was bittersweet, but better than just plain bitter.

Not before long, everything went wrong again. Horribly wrong.

We had shared a quiet Christmas and were asleep in bed before the fireworks burst in the sky at midnight when AC 205 made way for AC 206. The New Year started with a bang regardless.

Perhaps it had been his New Year's resolution, to try again to get me to face what had happened, or maybe he had just been holding it in for a while for the sake of not completely ruining the holidays.

At breakfast, January first, he was playing with his croissant while he was already on his third cup of coffee.

I knew he was going to say something, but what exactly, I could not predict. I waited it out. I took my time reading the morning news on the touch screen built into the countertop. Duo sat across from me, on the other side of the cooking island, in his usual barstool, that creaked as he shifted indecisively.

"Some idiot blew off his own hand lighting firework," I said as I scanned the article. "He lives only a few blocks from here."

"I think we should talk about Valentine's Day," Duo announced promptly. He set his cup down on the counter top and folded his hands together, wringing his fingers.

I stilled momentarily, then took a deep breath and flicked my index finger across the screen to read the next article.

"Upcoming Valentine's Day," He clarified. "It would have been- Heero, would you please look at me?"

With a sigh I directed my attention to him.

"It's his birthday."

"It's not," I declared coldly.

He clenched his jaw. Not deterred by my icy demeanor, he continued: "I thought we could visit him. We could take a couple of balloons, some stuffed animals and flowers and decorate his grave."

I slammed my hand down on the granite surface of the counter. "It's not going to be a fucking birthday party, Duo!"

"I just think we should do something to commemorate the day!"

I rose from my seat, knocking the stool backwards. "I don't understand how this can be so easy for you!"

His eyes widened, hurt and shocked. "Easy? Easy?! You think this is easy for me?"

"It sure looks like it is! Putting up pictures of him, talking about him, now you want to throw him a fucking birthday party at the cemetery?! It doesn't even seem to faze you!"

"Fuck you! Fuck! You! This has been just as hard on me as it has been on you and you haven't been making things any easier for me!" He seethed. "What? You think I loved him less because I didn't turn myself into a machine?"

"No!"

"Good."

"No! I think you loved him less because he wasn't even your real son!"

Duo reeled back. His face turned white. He didn't say anything, that scared me, but it was easier to hold onto the anger than deal with any of the other emotions that threatened.

"I wish you would just stop talking about it!" I screamed. "You don't even understand! You weren't even there!"

"That was not my fault!" He pointed an angry finger at me. "You were the one who didn't even try to contact me other than one fucking email! I didn't have my phone, when and how was I supposed to check my email? You knew what hotel I was staying at. No, instead, Mark was the one who called the hotel. He had to search the internet for where the convention was and he called six different hotels asking for 'Duo Maxwell' before he managed to track me down! All you had to do was call Information and ask for my hotel's number." He chuckled darkly. "But now I get it. You didn't call me because you didn't think I needed to be included? Right? Because I wasn't the real father anyway. You would have just left me a fucking post-it on the refrigerator door or something! 'Hey, Duo, welcome home. By the way, your son is dead. But don't sweat is, he didn't have your DNA anyway'…" He made big, wild gestures.

"I was in shock!"

"I get that. But then don't blame me for not getting there until Mark finally took it upon himself to call me!"

"Sometimes I wish he hadn't! With you wanting to see him and insisting that we should name him. You made everything all the more difficult! You still make everything more difficult!"

"I'm trying to help. I want us to get better."

"You're making it worse!"

"Heero…"

"I want you to leave! I want you to leave me alone! Everything is ruined! It's all your fault!"

He came around the kitchen island, getting closer to me.

I stepped back, keeping a distance. I knew that if he would hug me, which he was about to, I would only feel more pain in my chest. "Don't touch me! I don't ever want you to touch me again! I don't love you anymore." I didn't mean that, but in the moment, I couldn't tell. The pain and sadness was so overpowering and all I knew was that it got worse whenever he tried to get close to me, to comfort me. I didn't deserve to be comforted and the last thing I needed was to feel his pain as well.

"Do you really want me to leave?" He asked quietly.

My stone cold answer was: "Yes."

He did. He left the house in his slippers, checkered pajama bottoms and black t-shirt.

For a brief moment I was relieved and I could breathe again, but then the guilt of all the horrible things I had said to him hit me and I only felt worse. I hurried to the front door, but the sedan was already gone.

That day I went up to the nursery for the first time in nearly a year. It was still in ruins, like the rest of my life. All I had left was Duo, but I was doing a stellar job at chasing him off. I picked a baby blue bunny up from the floor and ran my finger along the torn seam on the top of his head where his right ear used to be attached. I patted the dust off him and took him with me to the bedroom, laying down in bed with him.

For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to feel.

When Duo came back two days later we were both apologetic. I said that I was sorry for the things I said, that I didn't mean them. Then he said he was sorry too, he had made a mistake; he had slept with Hilde.

After driving around aimlessly for hours, he would later tell me, he got himself a room at a roadside motel. In the middle of the night, after being alone with his own thoughts for too long, he called Hilde. She used to be his best friend, he had hoped she could offer him words that would comfort him, words I had been denying him. That everything would be okay and that he was only trying to do the right thing.

Hilde had little to say over the phone, she mostly listened as he cried and told her he worried our relationship was over. He told her he didn't know what to do anymore, he felt he had tried everything, but that I was just pushing him away. She asked him where he was staying and he gave her the name of the motel. The conversation ended soon after that.

Midway through the next day, there was a knock on his door. He answered to find Hilde. She had moved to earth, to Washington DC, the year before that, she had been sick of the scrapyard, she needed a change. She had moved to earth and attended university. She studied something to do with geology and climate change.

They talked. She got out and got them take out dinner, bottles of strong liquor and a pair of sweatpants and clean shirts for him.

That night they slept together.

Duo offered no excuses, he wouldn't attempt to belittle his mistake. All he said was that it happened for all the wrong reasons and that he wished he had never let it happen.

Three months later the phone rang.

---

AC 206

I eased back from the embrace and offered Duo my bravest smile. "Let's go. Your son is waiting to meet you."

First we stopped by one of the airport's gift shops – we were already late, we couldn't show up empty handed as well – and Duo picked out a blue bunny that made my heart ache. He didn't know that when we had finally thrown away all the broken stuff in the nursery, I had hid the blue bunny as a single keepsake. He had probably forgotten he had ever gotten Leander a blue bunny too.

He held the stuffed animal tightly to his chest as we made our way through the crowd to find a taxi to take us to the hospital. When Duo yelled at a young couple as they got into a cab right in front of us, they probably thought he was crazy, which is why they offered us to take the taxi instead.

I had never been to Washington DC before, so I occupied myself with the sights as we crossed through the expansive city to the right one of fifteen hospitals.

The vehicle jolted to a stop at the bottom of the concrete steps leading up to the solemn building.

We had nothing with us but the blue bunny, having left the monstrous mint green car with all our luggage in a parking structure in Louisville. Luckily I had my wallet stuffed in the back pocket of my jeans. I overpaid the cabbie and we apprehensively got out of the car.

The steps were as wide as the front of the building and I counted them to the door that read "Visitor's entry".

I'm not visiting, I realized, I'm intruding. Still, I followed my husband as he climbed the stairs with slow, heavy steps. I was ready to follow him anywhere, as I always had been, even though I knew I wouldn't be welcome. Even though I knew it would cause me more pain. Where that would lead me, I did not know, but it started to dawn on me it was no place I should want to get to. A place where I would have to share Duo, whom I had grown overly dependent of, with two other people, who, arguably, had more claim to him than I did. I was unconvinced I would be able to handle that. I feared becoming jealous and more needy and unjust in my desire to have Duo all to myself and not have to share him with people that caused me pain.

I stopped on the fourth step, a little less than halfway up to the door. Duo didn't realize I had stopped following him until he was at the door and turned around.

"Heero?" He walked back down to me, his expression was one of fear and concern.

"You should go," I said decisively. "But I'm not coming with you."

He paused on the sixth step. "I want you with me."

I nodded. "I know. But I'm not coming. You have to do this alone."

Duo swallowed. He let it sink in for a moment and then he agreed. "Okay. I understand. I'm sure there is a cafeteria or something in there, I won't keep you waiting too long."

"No, Duo, you don't understand. You have to do this alone," I emphasized. "And there is something I have to do by myself as well."

Confused, he stepped down to the fifth step. "What do you mean?"

I took a deep breath. My knees were quivering but I knew I had to do this. "You are going to go in there and you are going to meet your son. You are going to hold him and you are going to love him and you are going to be a wonderful father to him. I can't watch that."

The corners of his mouth twitched downward. "Heero, I am nothing without you. I can't do anything without you."

"Me neither. And that's the problem. Sit down," I said, as I took heed of the fact he was nearly collapsing in on himself, weighed by exhaustion, stress and fright.

He did and I crouched before him.

"I had bad things in me. Within me there was an uncompromising soldier, a ruthless killer, a selfish survivalist. You took those bad things out of me. You cleansed me of my past. The thing is, I never put anything back inside other than my love for you. I never became my own person, only your partner…" I looked at him meaningfully and when I saw the worry on his face I assured him: "That's not your fault. That wasn't your job. It was my job to make myself a complete person, but I neglected that. I was just content being with you." I placed my hand on his knees. "Now, I've come to realize that I need you to complete me. That was fine when everything was perfect, when I had you all to myself, to make me feel whole. But things aren't perfect anymore." I chuckled bitterly. "Far from it, in fact. This baby is here, your baby, and I have to share you with him and with Hilde. That thought made me realize how much I need you and how lost I'd be without you. How incomplete."

He looked at me with big, saddened eyes. He knew where this was going.

"I've never been independent. I've always counted on others to shape my life and to complete me. After everything that happened, I don't think being that dependent of someone else is healthy, not even when I love that person as much as I love you… When the war ended I set out to find myself. Instead, I found you," I smiled sadly and looked away pensively. "I let myself be overwhelmed by my love for you because it was wonderful and once it started, it was easy. Maybe if I had taken my time to get stronger on my own, I would have been able to handle this situation better, but right now I feel that going in there with you," I nodded at the hospital, "Will only hurt me – and us – more. I fear that if I go in there crippled, with you as my crutch, as you have always been, I'll never find the strength to rebuild our relationship. And you don't need a dead weight around your shoulders as a new father."

I rested my forehead against his. "I owe so much to you. You've made me feel happy and loved. You gave me a clean slate. But all I ever wrote on it was "I love you". I need to be on my own for a while and write some more. I need to be more than merely a half of a whole. Do you understand?" I felt a tear run down my cheek. I had tried to keep my emotions in check, because I thought it would make it easier, but as I started to cry I realized it was alright, I had to experience this pain. The road to recovery should not include shutting out my feelings, that would mean going backwards, I didn't want to go backwards. I had to go forwards, with the tools and the fresh start Duo had given me.

Reluctantly he nodded. He genuinely understood, but he knew what agreeing with me would mean, that I would be leaving.

"I want to be strong. I want to just love you, not need you."

In his eyes I could see that he started to realize he was equally dependent of me and I hoped that with that realization came the same epiphany that I had had; that it wasn't a healthy way to live, nor to love. I hoped that would dawn on him, I thought it could give him peace. It gave me a sense of peace.

"So what happens now?" He asked between sobs.

I felt horrible about making him so distraught, especially on a day that was always supposed to be joyous, regardless of anything. "You are going to go in there and you are going to hold your son and tell him that you love him…and you will give Hilde a kiss on her forehead and tell her that you will always be there for her. Because that is what they need of you. And you can give them that, you are strong enough."

He chuckled bitterly. "I'm not so sure."

I smiled and leaned in for a soft kiss. It was gentle and brief. For the first time, in a long time, I felt close to him again. Strange, since I was saying goodbye.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know yet. Anywhere. Everywhere." I shrugged, I hadn't really thought this through too well, I was just suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that I had to do it. I had to go with that feeling. It was a feeling I knew from a long time ago. A similar feeling that urged me to leave Hendrik; a sudden awareness that there was more, that I could – and should – be more. But unlike with Hendrik I had every intention of coming back. "But I'm coming back."

He looked up at me, after staring lengthily at the concrete steps.

"I'm going to keep this," I held up my hand to show him my wedding ring. "And I hope you'll keep yours, but you don't have to. I don't expect you to wait for me."

"I'll wait for you," He stated definitively.

I didn't say anything. I kissed him instead. The struggle to hold back desperate sobs was difficult. But I had to be strong now, that was the whole point. It would be so easy to fall into his arms and let him envelop me, but it wouldn't be right. As a new father, Duo's arms would be far too busy to tend to me as much as I had grown to need him to. Moreover, Duo was an imperfect person, he had proven to be as much, while that was perfectly fine, I mustn't rely on him to be my everything, it was neither safe nor fair, to me as well as to him.

I placed my hands on his shoulders and looked him deep in his eyes. "Go," I said and I nodded towards the entry of the hospital. Knowing what was waiting for him, I shouldn't keep him any longer, besides, dragging out the goodbye was a terrible hardship.

He shook his head. "No. No. I am not going to be the one who walks away. I accept your decision, I see that you really feel you need to do this, that is why I am not stopping you, because I have no right to ask anything of you; to deny you what you need. But… I am not going to be the one who walks away."

"Okay," I nodded with understanding and straightened up. With a quivering lower lip I stared down at him. Worry gripped strongly at my heart at the sight of his brokenhearted expression and his hopeless, slumped figure. I felt like I was being selfish, like I was leaving him when he conceivably needed me most. But I couldn't stay, it would be the end of us. It was better for me to leave and leave us both brokenhearted, than for me to stay and let us both wither away until neither of us had the strength to let the other lean on him and we would resent each other. It would be better to miss each other than to resent each other. "Okay," I repeated, more to convince myself than anything else. "I'm going." I leaned down to kiss him goodbye but Duo turned his head away.

"No. No goodbyes. You said you would come back, right?"

"Yes," I assured him, although I had no assurances that our relationship would work out once I did. But at least there would be hope.

"Then kiss me when you get back. Kiss me hello."

"Okay," I agreed with breaking voice. Before I could change my mind I pivoted on my heels and started down the steps. I never looked back, I was adamant about that. The next time I would be seeing him, I would be walking towards him.

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As a writer I'd be tempted to leave it like this. I think at the heart of each character is the reader and in a poetic sense the reader is the one who should finish the story, the reader has to step into the shoes of the character and decide which path is the one to be followed. That being said, oddly, as a reader I hate endings such as this, where not everything has been resolved. As a reader I enjoy stories that end with a period, not a question mark (I'm being metaphorical here, bear with me). Because I can imagine you disliking this being the end of the story, I will follow-up with (what I think will be) a one chapter sequel that will tell you what happened. Until then I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter and the story overall.

If you feel the "happy flashback" was rushed, you are right :P The story is called "Loneliest Road", there wasn't really any room for happiness within the theme that is rather obvious given the title, but again, as a reader I would have liked to have glimpsed happier times so… well… there you have it.