July 27, 2000
The first thing Duo heard was the sound of water running, rushing past rusty pipes and then the soft sounds of a door being opened and shut. "Heero?" he croaked, cupping a hand over his eyes. "That you?"
"Go back to sleep, Duo," Heero said softly, running a hand over his forehead in a maternal gesture. "I'll call later."
"Why? Where you going?" he asked, eyes wide. "Has something happened?"
Heero looked away, something akin to guilt or anger visible in his eyes. He tried a wan smile, and sighed. "Duo...I love you. Got to go now, though. Go back to sleep, love."
Duo lay in bed with his eyes closed. He could hear Heero open the door softly, trying not to disturb the boy he thought had returned to sleeping. As soon as the door closed Duo sat up. After staring at the door for a few minutes, as if expecting Heero to come back through and say "Gotchya!", he sighed and flopped back onto the pillows. "Now what was that all about?" he wondered aloud.
He stared at the alarm clock for a few moments, willing the little green digital numbers to flip forward into morning. When nothing happened, Duo huffed in annoyance. Dammit, it was *his* alarm clock and he should be able to make the numbers move faster. The clock, unperturbed by his anger, continued to tick along at a nauseatingly slow pace.
At last, convinced he would get no more sleep tonight, Duo swung his legs over the side of the bed, unaware that across the nation, paper presses were busy churning out headlines telling of the Queen of the Sanc Kingdom's hospitalization and death. He didn't know that at that very moment, a platinum blonde man sat beside a cold, dead body, touching its hand and weeping. He didn't know. Duo got up and made himself a cup of coffee.
As he let the Mr. Coffee Quatre had bought him for his birthday last year make him his coffee, Duo set about the task of untangling the bird's nest his hair had become from the previous night's sleep. He padded to his room to get the brush and turned his CD player on. Humming the tune he unbraided his hair and started working out the tangles. He still couldn't stop thinking about how Heero had left earlier, so upbrubtly, and what had that expression been for? Duo shook the thoughts out of his hair as he finished working out the tangles. Putting the brush back in it's spot on hsi dresser he reached for his hair and parted it into three sections and braided it quickly and efficiently. "Well hey, if nothing else, I can ALWAYS braid hair! It's not like I haven't had enough practice," he muttered under his breath as he padded back to the kitchen for his coffee. Passing the T.V on the kitchen counter, he turned it on and poured himself some coffee. As he sat down to watch the news he nearly choked when he saw the main story. The stern faced woman behind the desk was telling about how earlier, Relena Peacecraft had assasinated. "Nani?! Relena's ...dead?"
If he hadn't already been sitting down, he would have collapsed. As it was, he could feel a strange tightening in his chest. Of sorrow, of sadness. Relena had represented so much of his idealism and youth; his childhood had been stolen away by a war she had attempted to stop. For that, he would always be grateful.
Well. That explained Heero's sudden disappearance, and the tenderness. Relena, though she had never been able to steal his heart, had earned a place there. For a short period after the war, they had been together in the public eye. The Sanc Kingdom was familiar with his face, gorgeous as it was. Duo felt his heart rise in his throat, but was unable to make the tears come. The tears would have helped, he thought dully. They would have helped.
With a shaking hand, he raised the remote and flicked to a different channel. What he saw there shook him to his very core.
There before his eyes he saw the picture of the suspect in Relena's assasination. "Quatre?!" It couldn't be anyone else. Those blonde hair and innocent looking blue eyes could only belong to one person. "Oh god, Quatre, did you really do it? Did you kill her?" Duo pleaded with the screen, but the picture changed back to the anchorman who was giving the details of the assasination. Apparently the suspect had slipped into Relena's mansion undetected and entered her room, where he shot a deadly blow with his gun. At the sound of the gunshot, Relena's personal guards rushed into the room, to find the suspect still standing with the gun to her head. When the guards tried to capture him, he fled out the window and has not been seen since. Duo couldn't believe what he was hearing. Quatre? Assasinating Relena? This had to be a dream, no, a nightmare, but he knew it wasn't. The screen changed again, showing a phone number you could call if you had any information about the suspect. As the news cut to a commercial, Duo just sat there, stunned.
He didn't move for a long time, the image of golden hair against the darkness of the night imprinted in his mind permanently. At last, he shut off the television and went back into his room. Digging out his lighter from before he'd quit smoking, Duo fished around in the bottom drawer of their bureau where they kept their 'toys' and found a white candle. Taking a deep breath, he lit the wick and set it on the window. The tiny flame danced and writhed in the slight breeze. Duo's hand snaked down his chest and closed around his cross. Closing his eyes, he began to pray.
It had been a while since he had prayed, and he wasn't quite sure what to say. Duo knew that his faith was shaky at best, but he prayed anyway. He prayed for anything and anyone that came to mind. Quatre, Relena, Milliardo, Heero.....Heero. When he'd finished praying Duo wondered how Heero was taking this. He knew that there had been nothing romantic between Heero and Relena, but there had been something. Duo had never quite figured out what it was, but suspected it had to do with Relena's look of pure innocence that she had. Heero always felt compelled to protect her. Maybe Heero felt that he had failed? Failed to protect Relena? Duo squeezed his eyes shut as he thought of what Heero did when he failed at something. Memories flooded him of the time he had taught Heero to braid his hair. After the first few failed attempts Heero had completely went into self destruct mode. He was completely distraught at having failed, and had tried to get his gun to carry out the action that should be made when one failed at a mission. He had been so out of it he had even tried to cut Duo's hair! Duo clutched at his braid as he remembered that part. But in the end, he had managed to get Heero to calm down and keep trying. Eventually, Heero was as good at braiding his hair as he himself was. Duo sprawled out on his bed and wondered where Heero was, hoping that he was taking this ok.
Eventually, it began to grow light and the candle began to flicker out. Bending down, Duo cupped his hands behind the red flame and blew it out.
Heero stared listlessly out the window.
The bus was traveling so slowly, or at least, it seemed like it was taking every wrong turn, every stop available, all in a last ditch effort to get him to turn around and run back to Duo. At least, that was what he wanted to do in his heart of hearts. To hear the American's voice, feel his warmth and heat, to kiss his eyelids shut. The feeling was growing stronger within him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd already called Milliardo and Wufei; they were expecting him. A kind of promise.
And Heero Yuy didn't break promises.
To anyone. Even the dead.
Trowa bolted upright in bed, covered in sweat. Gasping for breath, he could still hear it, the voice. Why wouldn't that voice stop? It wouldn't leave him alone, just kept whispering in his ear. Trowa tried hard, but he couldn't remember what the voice had been saying. It was familiar though, a voice he had heard often, and knew every pitch, every rise and fall it could make. Trowa wrapped the sheet around his waist and stumbled over to the T.V. After turning it on he walked back to the bed, swearing as his bare foot met with the edge of the bedside table. He shook his head to clear that voice away, to give himself a few moments of sanity if nothing else. Sitting on the bed he turned the channel to the news. He was instantly ripped out of sleep as he saw a picture of Quatre come up on the screen. "What the hell?" was all he had time to mutter before the news announcer returned to the screen. As he listened to what the man said, he could hear the voice creeping back into his head. Trowa knew that Quatre had been gone for a few days, he had said he had a mission to attend to and would be back in a week or so. His thoughts started swimming around. Quatre, a murderer? Quatre had killed Relena Peacecraft? Surely Quatre wasn't capable of killing someone in cold blood like this, was he? The voice interrupted him. He coudlnt' make out what it was saying, but he suddenly recognized the voice. "Quatre!" That voice, it was Quatre? Trowa tried as hard as he could to decipher the voice. He concentrated on Quatre, HIS Quatre, the one who would never kill like that, and listened. Suddenly, the words floated to him, clear as day. "Help me Trowa, help me!"
A sudden pain raked through his chest, squeezing his heart spasmodically. He barely had time to gasp out a short curse before he fell into unconsciousness, the darkness pulling him down with strong fingers.
He was dreaming.
Fields of green and wheat, caressed by a wind that Trowa couldn't feel. He couldn't feel anything. He was numb from head to toe, his hands clenching and unclenching, cutting half moons into his palm. To no avail. Nothing.
That voice again...so sweet, raking past his defenses delicately, speaking directly into his mind. "Trowa!"
Ariana and Melissa Maxwell
Please send comments to: weirdsisters@hotmail.com