"Duo?" It took a second and an amused quirk of one of Heero's eyebrows to make Relena remember that Heero was talking to her. She snapped out of her fantasy world, berating herself for the childishness she thought she had buried during the wars. She managed to make a non committal noise before Heero had to repeat himself.
She quickly gathered her thoughts, fishing for some way to start, some way to avoid his eyes until she'd finished, otherwise she'd come undone again. She was saved perhaps a bit of stress as a knock at the door disturbed the uncomfortable scene.
Relena recognized Tom as he bustled back into the room as the male nurse that caught Duo earlier. She tried to make herself unobtrusive, slightly surprised when her body obeyed automatically, gliding gracefully into the shadows from long habit.
The nurse cheerfully ignored Heero's best death glare and checked his temperature and fussed over him for a little while, before taking out a syringe.
"And you think that will be enough?" Heero asked, sardonically, eyeing the small syringe, the challenge visible.
"Dr. Chang-Po informed us about your tolerance levels, so everything has been adjusted appropriately. This is just something to put you to sleep for a while," Tom hastily added, when he noticed Heero's eyes harden and his body tense up.
The nurse grimaced. "It should put an elephant in a coma. Seriously, just lay back and relax. You'll be out soon. It'll make it easier on you while the docs are poking and prodding." Tom turned and strode back out the door, but not before Relena's now acutely sensitive ears picked up "Not to mention, no one will look at you without it after you nearly broke the last white coat's wrist..."
Tom stopped halfway out the door. "Oh! Maxwell-san, I hardly saw you there."
Relena grimaced and stepped out reluctantly, as hanging back would be simply silly now.
"Feeling better? The blood tests are coming up negative so far. No more episodes?"
"Erm... no." Relena shot a panicked glance back at Heero, who was now perfecting a whole new level of death glare. /What am I going to say now? Episodes? I makes me sound like it's something mental... now what am I going to say? Heero, I'm not really Duo, I'm Relena, I'm possessing his body. What was I thinking? What am I going to do? This wont work. How do I leave? Why can't I think around him?/
Tom had exited again, unnoticed sometime during Relena's confusion, the natural, adrenaline-enhanced chaos Duo's body exuded did nothing to clear her thoughts, but instead jumbled them hopelessly. Still, she could focus on Heero, it would be okay.
"You still aren't feeling good are you?" Relena stiffened, feeling herself back into a corner. "Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"
Numbly, Relena nodded, as a clear and easy path opened itself up. With releif she noticed Heero relax. He must have truely been worried.
She'll let him think that now, it really wasn't a lie, and when she'd settled down and had time to think of how to tell him... but for now, no use worrying him more right?
"I'm not contagious now, not that you'd worry about that." He smirked, beckoning her forward. She followed his command, doubts again racing through her mind, battling with guilt and heartfelt longing. Not to mention... the uncomfortable, foreign and over all pleasurable feeling of Duo's body reacting to her rampant, conflicting emotions.
"I... Heero..." Relena began hesitantly, but Heero shook his head.
"Duo, you talk to much." Heero smirked and covered Duo's lips with one finger, silencing Relena. The fingers of his free hand cupped her chin and draw her in, Relena's eyes widened as Heero's lips brushed her, electricity passing between them. Relena jerked back.
Heero frowned just slightly. His eyes showing confusion colored with mild displeasure.
Relena frantically thought over the roaring heartbeat in her ears. She felt dizzy, happy, completed. She didn't want this to end so soon. She reigned in her willpower none the less.
"You need to rest." She said, leaning in and giving him a quick chaste peck on the cheek. Somewhere deep in side, as clashing against her contentment, a feeling of sourceless anger welled up, knotting her stomach.
Heero returned the gaze measuringly. "So do you, I think. You're acting oddly Duo."
"It's been a long day."
Heero nodded after consideration, accepting that, his eyes already beginning to drift shut slowly, but still somehow alert and unglazed.
"Go to sleep, Heero," she gently admonished him. The drugs were obviously running their course for he only managed a small glare before his eyes shut completely and his muscles relaxed just slightly.
Relena leaned forward and brushed a messy lock from Heero's face fondly. "Hee-chan," she said with a faint smile, testing it out. Perhaps he wasn't hers (her mind still churned bitterly at that idea)... but it was so nice to pretend.
"Millardo," Wufei acknowledged, looking up from a small leather-bound book he'd been reading as a tall, blond man swept into the room.
The man lowered his head slightly, shaking it, "Just Zechs please."
Wufei raised and eyebrow, but refrained again from comment, watching silently as Zechs brushed past him and walked immediately to his sisters bedside. Zechs stared down at Relena's pale face, now freckled with small cuts and purpling bruises. The Chinese man took the silence and the distraction as an opportunity to study the other man.
Wufei frowned. He would never admit it, but he was not able to read the taller man with his customary ease with people. As far as he could estimate, Zechs was a man of many and fierce passions and it seemed he transformed as they took him. Sometimes dramatically, sometimes in a hundred tiny little way. Wufei was not comfortable with that assumption though, in his estimation no man transforms utterly, but he still could not grasp the core of his makeup.
For now, Zechs' posture was obviously not at ease, which was to be expected. But was it because of his sister, or because of Wufei's presence?
It was true, Wufei mused, they were no friends. It was something that Wufei regretted deeply, a reminder of when he himself was ruled by his passions. Another circumstance though... There was too much bad blood between them now. But it was not something Wufei desired.
"Quatre called earlier, they will take the 3 o'clock shift until noon, so you wont have to stay the night if you don't wish." Wufei said, putting aside his book after quickly marking the page.
"And if I wish?"
"It is your choice." Wufei replied. "I'm sure they would not protest the company." Wufei paused, fumbling with the book in his hands. "This is getting us nowhere." He sighed.
"Are we supposed to be going anywhere?" Zechs asked, an eyebrow raised. He gave off an air of practiced calm, but one of his hands were clenched tight around the rail around Relena's bed.
"Yes," Wufei paused, choosing his words with care. "We are both... prideful. Yes, that is the correct word. Perhaps we are too prideful." Zechs' brow furrowed and he pulled himself up, as if to defend himself from Wufei's admittance. Wufei shook his head. "No, this is not to insult you. I would not do that here, nor especially now."
"Then what is the point of this."
"To apologize." Wufei said, clasping his hands behind his back and bowing slightly to the taller man. Zechs was taken aback. All he could think to say was "Why?"
Wufei straightened, wondering again if this was the right time or place for this, but feeling as if it had to be said. This had kept him up too many nights to ignore. After a moment he began, his voice low and even, "I didn't respect Treize at first. Like the rest of my world, I saw only the black and white of the matter."
Zechs frowned deeply at the name of his longtime friend. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell the Chinese man that he'd heard enough. He'd no use for unpleasant memories to be unearthed, but Wufei shook his head.
"Please. Hear me out. I need to do this. My pride will allow no less." Zechs nodded, understanding that at least, if nothing else about the fifth pilot. Wufei closed his eyes. "It took his death, before I realized his humanity. To see him as more than an enemy, or an obstacle to conquer. Since then, I've tried to atone. Every man that I've killed, I have memorized their name. All of them, as that the resources I have, can find.
"In this way I can honor them, to make them human again in my heart."
Zechs smiled slightly, but honestly, nodding towards Wufei. "I'm afraid I've underestimated you. You have a greater sense of honor than I had given you credit for."
Wufei shook his head. "No, I have only a fraction of what Treize possessed. So, I apologize, it doesn't make anything better but perhaps someday pride wont be such a barrier."
"Perhaps someday." Zechs agreed.
"I will take my leave then." Zechs nodded absently, turning back to the bedside as the Asian man gathered his things together and headed out for the hallway.
The man reached down a swept a stray hair from his sister's forehead. His own face troubled.
"Imoto-chan." He signed, allowing the exasperation, worry and relief flood through him at once now that he was finally alone. No one was around to see the walls fall. "When you wake up, we are going to have a serious talk about security."
She didn't want to do this. There was no stopping it, the urge was too strong... nature couldn't be denied. Still, it almost seemed like an inexcusable breech of privacy, far too intimate... but honestly what was she going to do? Relena took a deep breath, and walked forward.
"Duo!" Relena spun around, her hand on the door, responding more to the familiarity to the voice than to the actual name.
"Maxwell," Wufei sighed, rubbing the bridge of nose. "What are you doing?"
Relena wrinkled her nose and pointed to the sign saying "Restrooms" above their head. She may not have known Wufei personally, but with her talks with Noin she would have guessed that he had more observational skills than that. "I'm going to the lavatory. I thank you for your concern."
"I realize that." Wufei said. "But that, Maxwell, is the ladies room."
Relena felt blood rush to "her" face. She'd was about to walk in out of sheer habit.
Wufei reached out and snatched the end of Duo's braid quickly. He dragged Relena into the men's room, ignoring her indignant protests, or even smiling a little because of them. "You are such a hentai you know that. I really should tell Heero one of these times."
"OW! Let go!" Relena snatched the braid back, massaging her scalp. "What did you do that for?"
Wufei snorted and turned to the urinals. Relena felt herself blanch, looking at the unfamiliar devices. /No way,/ she thought to herself. Thankfully, there were a line of stalls. She ducked into an empty one.
Her blush increased if anything. She had a vague idea of what was supposed to happen from her early childhood memories of walking in on her brother. Just aim and relax?
From somewhere inside she felt a wordless amusement well up, still weak but present. That second consciousness had been hovering at the corner of her mind since her talk with Heero, offering pangs of anger or humor. It increased her sense of urgency, if he was waking up, what would happen to her?
Her own irritation solidified her resolve again. Still she never thought such commonplace things would be such trouble.... or how hard it was to do her business while trying not to look down.
"I assume you need a ride home." Wufei said, his voice slightly muffled by the thin walls of the stall.
"What?" Relena asked, genuinely put off. She hadn't considered that. This could be a problem.
"You are going home. Staying the nights here for a week is not an option." Wufei said firmly.
"But I..."
"No buts, neither Heero nor the hospital staff need you of all people climbing the walls, and you probably wont be called in for guard duty while Heero's out. Besides, the staff will have enough stress just dealing with Heero, I'd imagine."
Relena, blushing hotly, finished up and walked out. Wufei, who'd been waiting outside, took a look at her red face and interpreted it as anger.
"Just do it as a favor for me then. With everything going on, we have no time for your stubbornness." Wufei took Relena by the arm firmly and escorted her out to the car. Relena let herself be lead along, not noticing the Chinese man's concerned and appraising looks at her silence or lack of jibes and sarcasm. He never expected to win so easily.
"I heard from a few interns what happened. The Preventers will take care of the bills for the tests. But they are right, you /do/ need some rest." Wufei commented at last, watching "Duo" fumble with the seatbelt of the small pick up truck he'd borrowed from Sally for the day.
Neither Heero or Duo currently had their own license, as Heero's method of driving was serviceable during the war, but in peacetime was a hazard to public safety, and no one trusted Duo far enough to let him try. They all knew how he flew a gundam. Wufei often played chauffeur for them when the situation demanded it.
Relena nodded miserably. Rest sounded really good at the time. Now safely out of Heero's befuddling presence, she could think a bit more. She hadn't lied, but the evasion she'd told him would only wound her more when she finally told him what had happened. And she still didn't know how she was going to manage that. Most people suspected Maxwell of several forms of insanity.... for him to start suddenly saying that he was the Queen of the World....
The car ride passed mostly in uncomfortable silence, both buried in their own thoughts. Wufei thinking about the past, Relena thinking about the future.
Relena thanked him, as the car pulled up in front of the door to a small apartment complex. She waved and quickly opened the outer door to the apartment. She slipped inside and rustled around Duo's deep pockets.
"Dear Lord, it's like Mary Poppin's carpet bag." Relena said to no one in particular, discarding all manner of odd things she'd fished out of the depths of the riding pants' pockets.
When she'd finally emerged, triumphant with the keys, various hard candies, a folded up page from a doujinshi (Relena was scared to look at its contents), a set of mini screwdrivers, a rock (she didn't know, she wasn't going to ask), a wallet (full), a wallet (empty, the picture and name weren't Duo's. Relena mentally made it a point to confront Duo about that later), three thin pieces of wire ("How odd, what would he do with something like that?") two spare hairties, a packet of jelly babies, a small bottle of lemon scented hand lotion, and a hair pick littered the ground.
The keys themselves were a massive conglomeration of every type of keys possible. It looked like nothing so much as a demented metal kooshball. She looked at the keys doubtfully, then at the door.
She sighed, "This is going to take a while."
Half an hour later, she explored the apartment, vaguely surprised, but admitting that she didn't quite know what she expected in the first place. The medium sized apartment was generally Spartan, utilitarian, with a few touches of eccentricity were sprinkled here and there, but those seemed to be the last soldiers standing against a tide of meticulous neatness.
The bedroom was ..... different. A line had been drawn straight down the middle of the room in chalk. On one side, the room nearly sparkled, not a trace of dust touched the floor, the bed was made with military neatness and a laptop sat unattended, the only adornment on a bare desk.
The other side defied commonly accepted physics.
It seemed impossible to get that much stuff, piled that high, and still be able to identify that yes, possibly there IS a floor down there somewhere. To her mild surprise, few sheets of classical music (A random memory from the back of Duo's mind supplied Relena with their names, Mozart's Requiem Mass and Don Giovanni), sketch pads, even a few poetry books were scattered in amongst the items Relena would have predicted. Although several stacks towered ominously over it, not one item touched the chalk line.
Relena regarded it with a mental sweatdrop, wondering about the story behind this particular spectacle. Finally she shook her head, wandering over to what was clearly Heero's side of the room.
Giving in to the temptation, she curled up on his bed, telling herself there's nothing really that she can do, so she'd just enjoy this while it lasted. With all luck, she'd wake up, and this would just be one long, bizarre dream.
As sleep came, Relena was drawn inward, not into the lucid world of half-thoughts and dreams, but a black, flat emptiness. It was eerily warm there and weightless, like a pool or zero gravity, in contrast to Relena's spiritual cold. Still, she shuddered. This was Duo's mind? If so, where was Duo himself?
She scanned the "landscape," steeling her courage and willing herself not to give ground to her fears and multitude of doubts.
It was so vast. So desolate... so empty... so ... so ...
"Boo!"
Relena startled violently, whirling around to pinpoint the sudden voice and presence.
The figure to meet her stunned eyes was like a harlequin from some tarot card, all spindly limbs, gaudy colors and a fixed, exaggerated grin. None of this was so unnerving though as the fool's lack of eyes. There were simply two smooth, shallow indentations in the skin where two orbs should have been. The specter was blind, and was always meant to be.
"A fair lady should be stared at, young one." The figure said, his voice a clear, crisp tenor. "Not be the one staring."
"I'm sorry.... are you.... Duo?" she asked, feeling silly for not knowing.
"Yes and no, maybe and perhaps. You can call me Jester." The Jester gave a long and exaggerated bow. "But I am no more Duo, than He is I. Nor am I more Him, than he is."
Relena turned again to follow an impossibly long and slender finger, half expecting it to be a foolish prank.
The creature... it was too ambiguous to call a man... hovering behind her was completely faceless, the plains of it's face was nothing more than a smooth oval, with no opening for a nose or mouth, simply two bright pinpricks of glowing red light hovered around the middle of the face, unsettling out of the sheer abnormality of it's appearance.
Distracted by it's lack of features, it took her a moment to recognize the creatures clothes. Military pressed uniform, pure black, the old Federation issue, a small symbol on the shoulder designating the uniform unique to the L2 cluster.
It slid closer to her, not bothering with the pretense of walking. Within an outstretched hand, an impossible weapon materialized, that all at once it looked like an old rifle with a bloody bayonet affixed, a black bible, and a green-glowing scythe.
The uniformed man held the weapon to her throat, moving faster than Relena could register. The monster hesitated and shot a questioning glance at the blind Jester.
The Jester looked as impassive as anyone perpetually grinning could.
"It bothers me naught, Shinigami-chan. Strike her down or hold your blade, little difference."
Shinigami's eyes narrowed as it gathered a black light around it, tensing to strike. For the second time, Relena prepared herself to meet death.
"Wait!" All three stopped to state at the interloper. Walking up was a painfully thin child, swimming in ill-fitting cast off tatters and rags. He had long, unwashed black hair and bright, bright blue eyes.
"Seen nuf blood. Dun need more here've all places."
Shinigami's odd, shifting weapon dissolved slowly into thin "air." With a shrug and a half-bow to the Child, he followed the weapon to wherever it went.
The Jester mirrored the shrug, turning his grin on the bedraggled street rat. "Too true, too true, sweet Child. We'd never get it out of the upholstery if we had any. The ball is in your court now. Play! Play! Whistle if you need me. Put your lips together and blow if you don't." With a pop of displaced air, the Jester was gone as well.
"So you're the real Duo?" Relena hazarded, breaking the uncomfortable silence that followed the two's departure.
"Nope. Aint no more'n the others are. But prolly closer alla same. I's the heart." The Child stared up at Relena, with eyes both innocent, hard and wise. "Ya aint plannen on leaven. Are ya?"
"I...." Relena hesitated, torn with guilt.
"S'okay. Ya dun haveta lie." The Child kicked an imaginary pebble. "I unnerstand. Ya luve him too. I been watchen." There was no need for either to clarify who he was.
"Then you will let me stay?" Hope colored her voice.
The Child snorted. "I said I unnerstand. I din't say I liked it. Ya shouldn'ta been kissen him. He's ours."
Irrational anger rose up in her, radiating in cold waves. To have a taste of everything she ever wanted in her recent years of life, that sweet ambrosia of love requited after so long. To have it cruelly snatched away by some filthy child in a shattered dreamscape? It seemed pale and small against the lengths she had gone to without hesitation for Heero in the past.
"Sides," the Child continues. "He aint maken goo goo eyes an sweet talken at ya, ojoooooosan. 'S us he thinks ya are."
"Perhaps," Relena said, ignoring the pain the words raked across her heart. Her mind leapt to soothe the ache she felt. Accustomed to dealing with the most cunning of politicians and stubborn of generals, she fought the only way she knew how: with words. "Perhaps, it's true. He does look at the body with lust."
She let the sentence and all of its implications hang heavy in the air.
The Child's posture immediately went defensive. "'S luve," he insisted.
"Are you sure?"
The Child nodded, but there was a slight, tell-all moment of hesitation. The insecurity she needed. She swallowed her reservations, her hesitation and struck. She knew what she needed to know.
Relena's voice whispered through the mindscape, its touch freezing thoughts. A sly smile formed on her lips, freezing and bitterly triumphant. "He's never said it to you, has he Duo?"
The cold wrapped around Duo's child-self, vulnerable without the Jester and Shinigami's comforting presence. There was only the Child and Relena. "He's never said those words, has he?" Relena persisted.
"He dun need to!" The Child yelled back, his small voice defiant, but wavering just slightly, just enough.
"It shouldn't be so hard." Relena pressed in, noting the Child's instant withdrawal. She had him on the retreat. "How hard would it be for Heero to SAY he loved you, if he really did. If it was more than just something physical and flighty."
"Uso.... you lie," he whispered.
"Do I?"
"YoulieyoulieyoulieyouLIE!" The Child curled up, even as the cold retreated, leaving the Child alone in his mind, not seeing the prison for what it was, until the bars slammed shut.
The Jester "looked" on, helplessly, his sightless face following the conversation. For all his wisdom and power, the Child was still a child.
"The centre cannot hold" The Jester's sad voice was an unsettling contrast to his jovial grin.
"Everything
Falls
Apart."
He sighed as the body woke and the girl took over again. What could he do? There was so very little funny about ghosts.
TBC
Notes: That little quote the Jester says, is from the master, W.B. Yeats. On a similar note, about Relena being "cold" this is not meant to imply that she is evil. This is just our interpretation on spirits. If the roles were reversed, Duo would be cold and Relena would be warm. (Nixers: Boy wouldn't that mess up poor Hee-chan? ^_^)
Nixers
Please send comments to: Nixerchan@aol.com or: Kwycksylver