Note: This chapter includes subjects that may be difficult for some readers. Take care.

Chapter 35: Expectations

Time was passing irreparably slowly, and Duo was miserable. With seven more hours to go before arriving back on earth he was impatient and jittery. Usually the flight home was a peaceful way to decompress from his job, but this time he was struggling with too many thoughts that picked at him relentlessly. How could he put the shuttle on auto pilot and take a nap when his mind wouldn't rest?

Heero was an effective way to distract himself from the kids for a short while, but when he finally began to relax they'd sneak back into his head. Usually once a mission was completed he could separate himself from it emotionally and not look back. This mission wasn't going to leave him so easily.

He attempted to distance himself and closed his eyes, hoping to run down the clock. Instead he opened them after an eternity to find only ten minutes had passed. Time was always a bitch, slowing down when he needed it to speed up and blazing past when he wanted it to slow down. He deflated some, and reached for the control panel, switching systems back to manual in the hope that piloting might occupy him enough to keep his thoughts at bay. Unfortunately for him, it didn't.

Piloting in times of relative peace was not particularly demanding of his attention or skill. A dogfight in his Gundam would clear his head. He couldn't dwell on anything when life and death were on the line. Keeping a ship pointed towards Earth did not require nearly as much work. It was like driving down a highway with no scenery and no other vehicles in sight. With nothing to do, his mind kept slipping back to the same subjects he wanted desperately to avoid.

As an automated response he quickly brushed aside thoughts of his mission and focused instead on Heero. Nearly halfway through the flight he found the subject of his pathetic love life was still a better choice to think about than than those kids whose lives would forever be changed by the traumas they'd gone through. He felt sick when a voice in his head quickly asked how many of the children were sold to those monsters rather than kidnapped.

No part of him wanted to go down that line of questioning. He had to believe Preventers and Une would take care of the children. And while he didn't fully trust the institution of the Preventers to do right by the kids, he did trust Une. She would make sure they were returned to their families or placed somewhere safe. She'd make sure the families they tracked down were not ones who profited from human trafficking. She'd keep everything above board.

But it couldn't hurt to ask her some follow up questions.

Bringing his hands up to his temples Duo took in a deep breath. He was going down the wrong line of thought again. It would be easy to fall into an endless cycle of worry and anger.

Heero. If he could keep his mind on Heero he'd stop thinking about the kids. It was a much better distraction to think about something positive than get lost in horrors. Utilizing meditation again, he managed to clear his head enough to change his line of thought. Once he was free of the mission he could run with the topic of his ex-partner.

It didn't hurt that while Heero Yuy was always appealing to him, New Heero, a man matured through time and life experience, was downright sexy.

When they were younger any boundaries Duo laid out were always tested. He remembered one Christmas when he wanted to be near Heero as his usual depression hit but Heero was feeling, for lack of a better description, horny. He turned down advances multiple times during the day, getting increasingly annoyed. Though Heero always backed off, it was only for a couple of hours at a time. Then he would see if Duo's mood changed. The constant check-ins grated at him until he blew up and stormed out. It was the first time he tried to spend the holiday with anyone after the church. The experience left him hurt, and on subsequent holidays he found excuses to be on a mission. But the new version of Heero?

Duo did the math. New Heero backed away for over six weeks.

Not only did he back off when asked, but before Duo explicitly told him to stop he'd made passes at him while sitting in their friend's garden. Anyone could've looked out a window and seen them but Heero didn't think twice. His original version wouldn't be caught dead flirting anywhere that wasn't completely private. The few times Duo tried to show affection in public he was always met with anger. But more often than not he wouldn't realize he was being a little flirtatious until Heero looked like he wanted to commit murder, because what Heero considered flirting was often Duo just being himself.

To see how much a man could change in a few short years was wild. Heero's core personality was the same, but somehow he appeared to now be self assured enough to actually process and express his emotions. Duo long suspected Heero's possessive and demanding behaviors were a byproduct of insecurity, and it looked like he'd put in the effort to grow into himself while Duo was gone. It was kind of like a dream. For years he hoped to see this transformation. He wanted to see Pilot 01 become the warm man he knew he was.

Duo wasn't delusional. He didn't spend their years together thinking he could change Heero.

Somewhere between friends with benefits and a committed relationship Heero changed himself. Duo liked to think he had a positive influence, but it was Heero who did all the work, just like it was Heero who got stuck. While Duo was willing to put in the time to grow up with someone, he wasn't willing to stick around while he was neglected and made to feel unimportant. Though things fell apart later, they had a good run.

For all of his general aloofness in the early years, Heero regularly treated him with kindness. When he tested boundaries it was never with an intention to hurt Duo. Heero was learning how to behave with other people through trial and error. When his patience would run thin Duo reminded himself that socially speaking Heero was still navigating what other people learned in early childhood. It helped that this reminder never felt like an excuse for misbehavior because for Heero everything was a learning experience. He didn't just say he was sorry that Christmas when Duo stormed out, he never repeated the same behavior again.

The reason Duo continued to keep his distance over the holiday wasn't because he thought Heero would do the same thing twice. He kept his distance because he worried that Heero might find a new and unexpected means of accidentally hurting him. Christmas was a big trigger for him, and he couldn't articulate to another person what lines not to cross because he wasn't really certain himself. It was easier to just hide. Any blame for subsequent holidays was on him, not Heero.

Looking back was always bittersweet. From the start Heero was affectionate and usually supportive in private. At the time he was afraid to show that side of himself to others, which made Duo feel special. But after a few years he didn't want to be special anymore. He didn't want a relationship that functioned in private only, and the moment he brought it up Heero shut down. That was why he left the first time around.

This time things felt radically different, and his inner voice reassured him.

He changed, but after all that growth he still wants you. No one waits this long for an ex lover to feel comfortable with them again if they aren't both confident in themselves, and confident the ex will want them, too.

A tightness formed in his chest. While Heero might have gained the confidence he was lacking, Duo knew he lost some of his own. The worst part was how observant people picked up on his changes. One look at Sally or Wufei and it was obvious they'd seen through him. Frankly it was embarrassing. Years spent largely isolated from other people left him hesitant to socialize and afraid of making mistakes. He was nervous when thinking about taking bigger steps with Heero, and worried he'd panic and make things too awkward.

What if he forgot how to kiss someone? What if Heero was disappointed in him physically? What if he got too nervous and froze in place?

When they were last together Duo relied heavily on a brash, flirtatious, and carefree persona to advance their relationship. What people didn't seem to realize was that he never felt totally comfortable in that role. His charm was largely a "fake it till you make it" deal that became so muddled over time he wasn't sure where real charm ended and fake charm began.

Part of him knew it was ridiculous to be nervous about kissing Heero. It was not like it would be a first kiss. They had that years ago, before the end of Operation Meteor. Heero cornered him, propositioned him, and lead them through a fumbling first everything. The memory still made Duo blush. If you were pretty sure you were going to die and a friend you found attractive wanted to hook up, why not take that leap?

No, this time around it was not a first kiss. But it was a first in terms of their restart, and it did not escape him the significance of just how they were starting over.

The first time around was as unromantic as it gets with two very willing participants who hardly knew one another. They were barely even friends, and it would take Heero another war before he used the term. For the first several years their physical relationship was almost entirely transactional. If one of them needed a release, the other provided. It felt simple enough until a year into partnering at Preventers feelings built up between them and turned their arrangement into something more.

Duo still wasn't sure whose feelings changed things. It felt at the time like the metamorphosis of their relationship was entirely on his shoulders, but as months and years passed he saw hints that Heero felt something more much earlier and was just waiting for him to catch on.

This time around they knew each other well, having a long shared history. And Heero, whose issues drove them apart the last time, was strictly following Duo's lead. There was just one problem with this setup, and Duo could only think of it in terms of a mission: he had no parameters.

The seemingly endless possibilities of how to behave eroded his mind and threatened to swallow him whole. Because Duo had questions, and two particular ones wouldn't stop looping in his head. Those two questions held answers he desperately needed in order to set up relationship parameters to work within:

What was Heero expecting?

Would he really be okay with a public display?

Duo's attempt to focus on a plan about Heero and keep himself from despair worked until he accidentally found the emotional wind knocked out of him. It wasn't the kind of gut punch he was expecting.

"Not again. Not now!" he whispered with eyes closed tightly. He hoped this time it would pass quickly. He could feel himself sinking into familiar sadness. With a slow and deep breath he turned his head towards the copilot's seat and opened he eyes. After four years he still experienced waves of grief, and all he could do was ride them out. No one was there sitting next to him and yet it still brought him comfort to gaze in the direction of the seat Hilde once occupied. No matter the craft he piloted, that chair to his right was her seat in his mind.

He reminded himself of something Father Maxwell once said to him. Your grief is just love you never got to express.

Duo felt a similar but mellow wave of grief around Christmas and on the anniversary of the church massacre. His grief for Solo was different. It came in waves that were increasingly and worryingly infrequent. As time and distance began to blur his first real friend into stories, snippets, and feelings, his memories became hazy. Sometimes he wasn't sure what was a core memory and what wasn't. He'd told himself so many stories about his own past over the years in a bid to keep his memories fresh that it sometimes felt he was only able to recall things through the lens of those stories. He wondered, at times, if he really remembered Solo or if he was simply able to recite the memories he chose to preserve. Would he one day only know Solo like a forgotten memory discovered in a journal?

As years passed he found himself also mourning the idea that one day Solo would slip from his mind.

Was it even possible to have such vivid memories from his youth? He was so young and spent so little time in the gang, and even less at the church. Other people could barely recall their lives from the same age. Was he cursed and blessed with a brilliant memory, or had he tricked himself?

With Hilde there were no questions about the authenticity of his memories. Not only was her loss more recent, but they'd been friends for almost ten years. A friendship over a long span of time had countless ways to trigger grief, and for him it almost always hit hardest when when he wanted to talk to her about something. He really needed to talk to someone about how to deal with Heero. Maybe if he had more people in his life the grief wouldn't sneak up and attack him as often.

He didn't need someone to replace her because that wouldn't be possible. But he did need someone. He desperately needed someone.

Duo wasn't sure how long he let himself sink into grief. The emptiness he felt, trapped in sorrow, was like spending too long under a blanket. Part of him was uncomfortably warm and wanted out, but the other part enjoyed being wrapped up. He hated knowing she was gone, but he loved that he remembered her at all.

As he breathed slowly and eased back to the present his senses returned. He became aware of the air on his skin and the hum of the ship. A small voice in his head that he wished he could silence distantly reminded him that Hilde wasn't murdered in a random and senseless act of violence or negligence like so many of his loved ones. At least she probably wasn't.

He hoped she wasn't.

If he actually believed in any higher power he'd pray she wasn't.

The doubt in his mind about how she ended up gunned down was exactly enough for him to suspend disbelief and buy that she saw an opportunity to end her life and took it. While that hurt more than he could express, and just thinking along those lines disgusted him, it was better in his mind for her to finally get what she appeared to want than to be cut down against her will.

What a tragedy, he thought, if she died when she finally wanted to live.

The self-hate tied to this idea was never far behind. He didn't want her dead. He wanted her in his life, taking that copilot's chair from time to time, laughing over nothing and singing songs together. She was the only person in his life who sang with him like that. Sometimes when he was piloting and singing to himself he could feel her next to him, even though it was illogical.

He even wanted her depressed and sitting in silence with him, or avoiding his calls, or just generally angry with him. All he wanted was to have her in the world. Anything but for her to be gone.

Unfortunately reality meant he needed to find ways to move forward without her. Telling himself she must've found peace in her last moments when deciding to walk into that line of fire was the best he could do in order to keep his anger at her for leaving him in check. Hilde had no last words. When he turned to see her bleeding on the floor the light was already going out of her eyes. He held her close and talked to her until she was fully relaxed and slumped into his arms. It did not take long. He would not soon forget the sound of his own voice as he repeatedly told her how much he loved her. It rang hollow and desperate in his ears.

He didn't bother asking her not to leave him. Her wounds were clearly fatal.

Anger over her death was a luxury he didn't have, largely because he looked at it with what some people described as a cold and calculating demeanor but which he simply considered correct. If she stepped out on purpose and died hoping to find peace and to silence the demons within her, there was no reason for him to be angry. In place of any anger was a deep sadness that launched him into what Une called an unhealthy lifestyle. In spite of that overwhelming sadness, he held onto the idea that she found her peace in the last moments of her life because it was the least tragic of the only two options he saw.

If she ignored his order and put herself in danger for no reason at all the potential rage it would unleash in him could power a sun. No one would be safe from his anger if she died as randomly and as senselessly as those he loved before her. He might never recover.

So Duo refused to turn her death into a vessel for his own anger.

Because it wasn't about him. It was about her. He was simply collateral damage in her tragedy.

Duo slouched in his seat as much as his safety harness allowed. He loved Hilde fiercely and showed her how much he loved her every chance he got while she was alive. No matter what mistakes he made over the course of their friendship he always overtly loved her and readily supported her. But he knew even then that loving someone doesn't magically help them overcome their traumas. He couldn't will Hilde into better mental health.

Sometimes Heero would complain that Duo took too many trips to L2. He never told Heero a few of those trips were because she lost a fight with her PTSD. He only told him there was an emergency and she needed him. He never felt comfortably discussing anyone's mental health without consent. Keeping things vague with Sally was fine, but he didn't go into details with her. Maybe, with Hilde gone, he'd open up one day. He hoped he could open up to Heero about her, but having Sally or Wufei listen would ease his heart, too.

Maybe one he could talk about her without getting looks of pity.

He blew a puff of air through his long bangs. What would Hilde say if she could see him now? He wasn't sure, but he desperately wanted her advice. She always knew what to say.

And then, out of habit, he pulled his phone and scrolled to find her last text.

Don't be an idiot. You're not the center of the world.

The tension in his chest eased. Why did that text calm him so much? Maybe because it was timeless, like Hilde.

Don't be an idiot. He could manage that. All he needed to do was stop himself from over thinking the situation. He wanted to be with Heero and though his mind never appeared to let him live without doubts he was 99% sure Heero wanted to be with him, too. So he shouldn't be an idiot. He should just find Heero and tell him he wanted a romantic and physical relationship. That seemed simple enough.

You're not the center of the world. This time around her words were a little harder to fit in, but maybe recognizing there would never be a perfect time to confess to Heero was close enough. The world wasn't going to create some fairy tale moment for them. He needed to simply get the task done. If there was any magic to be had it would derive from their chemistry and not some perfect setup.

Duo whispered to no one "Thanks, Hilde" and checked the time. In six hours he'd land the shuttle, report in to Une, and tell Heero he wanted to try a full relationship again. It was long past time for him to take the leap towards happiness. He was ready, after so much grief and isolation, to let joy back into his life. Allowing his pain dictate how he lived was never a good long term option and now it wasn't an option at all. He would set things right and start reaching for what he wanted.

A smile that was more sweet than bitter crept onto his face. Hilde would've loudly cheered his decision before scolding him about how long it took to begin prioritizing himself. He still missed her, but instead of grief he was gifted with feeling her love again.

He'd hold onto that for however long it lasted.