The Saga Continues!!!! Thanks for all the fan mail and postings for the first half of this. This will not make much sense unless you read Dangerous Liaisons first. Hope that this makes up for leaving you all on the edge about what happened to Duo. It's finally jelling into something more then a bunch of random scenes. C & C welcome.
Disclaimers :
I'll get the legal stuff out of the way. Gundam Wing property of Bandai, Sunrise and a host of other people I probably don't know about. Used for entertainment purposes and because the voices in my head tell me to write this stuff. Scary thought, eh? Not for profit. Characters acting OCC, but in an Alternative Universe you should expect that.
The town was a small one. It was nestled among the hills and kept to themselves. Their small town values, their community, their traditional way of life. They knew that the war was over and celebrated accordingly, even though it never touched their lives in a major way. Occasionally one of the youngsters would go off to the big city, not interested in their small world anymore. The townsfolk were so busy celebrating and admiring the shooting stars that were falling, they didn't notice that one of them had fallen into their lake. Or the small figure that painfully made his way to shore, wet and stumbling. He made his way to a quiet cabin, a small affair with a few rooms and a loft with a feather bed and silk sheets.
After letting himself in, the figure collapsed in the middle of the floor, barely staying awake long enough to peel himself out of his wet clothes. Not bothering to dry either his hair or his body off, he curled up in a sleeping bag that had been left there, to sleep. To heal. To wait.
Duo slept the next three days through, not bothering to move. He didn't care that the Earth and the Colonies celebrated wildly. He didn't care that Wufei and Heero were frantically looked for him and Trowa was taking care of Quatre who had finally collapsed from the injuries that Dorothy had given him in their duel. Relena quietly asked that the other pilots didn't look for him, leading to a huge fight between them.
"Heero. If he wanted to be found, he would have stayed. I think he just wants to be alone now. Treize and he loved each other a lot." Relena tried to explain as Heero frantically tried to trace the location of Shinigami.
"Relena, do not meddle in our business. Duo needs to be found." Heero growled at her, annoyed that she was still bothering them. Didn't she have a life now that the war was over? He was staring at the screen of his laptop, not even bothering to look at her.
"Why? So Wufei can ask forgiveness? So that he would feel better? Duo wants to be alone. Do not ask me why. It's not like any of you were close to him." Relena snapped back at him. He's so fragile now. If he wanted your help he would have stayed. But he didn't, let him be.
"Woman!" Wufei snarled. What aren't you telling us. What other secrets are you hiding perfidious woman?
"What?!" she screamed back, annoyed at his lack of understanding. "He got me out of the Libra. He saved me. I owe him. and I'm going to pay him back by telling you people to leave him alone. Let him mourn. We all need it. I know that he's not that only person to lose someone, I lost my brother, not that I really knew him. Une lost a lot with Treize's death too. Just leave Duo alone. He'll come back when he can."
Duo was awoken to the sound of screaming laughter. He peered out the window, noticing that a group of teenagers were on the beach, swimming. Duo watched silently for a moment, envying them their ignorance and their innocence. He went back the room that he was sleeping in. He was too tired still to clean himself up and take care of himself. Everything still hurt. He shifted to find a more comfortable spot, whimpering when abused flesh protested the pressure of his body. There wasn't any such thing as a comfortable spot.
But even though the pain he fell back into sleep, hoping that the next time that he woke up he would feel better. He couldn't stay awake any longer, he was so tired. That was the pattern for him for the next few weeks. Sleep, wander around the cabin and drink something, fall back to sleep. He bandaged his wounds and marveled at the fact that they didn't get that infected. After a while he would drink some broth, but stayed away from food. He still hurt, but didn't want to go back to civilization. He didn't want anyone to know what happened to him. Not Sally, not Une or Relena or the rest of the pilots. No one.
He still hoped that T-chan would show up. That he had cheated the Maxwell curse. That Wufei had failed. Each time he woke up, it was harder to hope. Soon he was taking pills to sleep more, to pass hours and days in dreamless slumber. No dreams, no memories, nothing to haunt him. Sleep was wonderful and heavenly and he hated being awake.
Awake was bad, he'd remember. Remember Zechs burning and cutting him. Remember the taste and smell of those men. Remember that T-chan was dead. That they wouldn't cuddle again, they wouldn't curl up together, whispering things to each other under the cover of music so that their audience wouldn' t hear the soft words that they had for each other. T-chan was gone and it had been so close. It hurt so much to be left behind again.
Duo finally realized what he was doing when he couldn't remember the last time that he ate. Sometime before he was captured by Zechs. He been drinking a lot of water and worked his way through some of the canned broth that had been left there, a miracle that it was still good, but couldn't remember when he had eaten something solid. This made him nervous and he sat down and coldly debated the question of whether he wanted to survive without T-chan.
So, Duo want to self destruct? he asked himself. You got a knife. Same one that Zechs used on you. You got a gun too. No one would know. They'd just find you out here. If they found you out here. No name, no ID, nothing.
That's the coward's way out! he argued back with himself. You could have pulled that anytime during the last two years. No problem. Killed on a mission, no one would have know the difference or cared.
Quatre would have. May be Trowa and Wufei. Heero only if it inconvenienced the mission. And T-chan.
T-chan, It does come down to him, doesn't it. You told Zechs that you didn' t care, so long as he survived. Were you lying?
He didn't survive. And I barely did. Zechs was right. I am a rotten kid. Good kids die young, eaten up by the system or life. Rotten kids like me survive everything. Gang Rapes. Torture. Killing innocent civies and soldiers alike, just because I was told to. I've whored, stolen and tortured people. I didn't deserve T-chan.
He wasn't much better, was he? The dirty dealings, the sneak attacks and you can't forget the destruction of the Federation Doves, he did maneuver Heero into that one neatly. You were made for each other.
We were, weren't we? Two cynics thrown together because of what they had been, and what they had become. Falling in love just snuck up on the both of us. I didn't expect it. I was pathetically grateful that he was willing to have me. He was too busy trying to figure out the real reason I was there. Then we just clicked. Was it Boston, when we could relax together? Or later when he became my lifeline in the ocean of blood I was slowly drowning in? And I was the only person that he could trust to think straight around him? No lies, no plots-just two scared people that were pretending to be sane and normal.
You can continue the way you were going, just take some more pills and don' t bother to wake up. They'll slowly forget and you won't be left behind again. You'll be the one leaving for once. And then you can find T-chan and try the happy ever after in the Afterlife. That is if you get him, he does have Zechs. He might not want you again. You are a pathetic thing that couldn't die in battle, but had to cheat with pills or a gun or a knife.
He loved you Duo. T-chan loved you. And as much as he would rather see you again, he'd rather it be after you've learned who you are. That you learned to think beyond the next day or two weeks. That you learn that a long term plan meant years in the future, not dinner the next day. He'd want you to experience life, not death. He'd want to see you when you could look him in the eyes because you've grown. That you can sleep though the night without drugs or nightmares. T-chan wanted you to live. So live. You can always kill yourself later.
Duo listened to the arguments in his head and cried. A lot all the tears that he couldn't shed earlier just came out now. Crying himself to sleep, he decided that he would try and survive, at least for now. He'd wash up and dress himself, the next time that he woke up. Fix his hair and head into town for supplies. It wasn't far. He could move without too much hurting. He had money, he always stashed some with him. He just had to activate a bank account here when he needed more. One of the ones that no one knew about. And he'd wait. And find out who he was supposed to be. T-chan would have liked that.
End Part 1
Christine
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