20-May-2000
a melancholy story about Duo and Heero years later
The doctor looked at Heero and said, "Do you want me to tell him?"
Heero shook his head. "No, I will. It's better if I tell him." With that, he jumped off the examining table, took off the paper hospital gown and put his own clothes back on.
As he walked back into the waiting room, he saw Duo look up from reading some old beat up Sports Illustrated. A worried frown was on his face. "So, what did the doctor say?"
"It's nothing. I'm just becoming old."
Duo snorted. "Old, my ass! Don't talk about being in your forties as old. We still have another forty to face. We'll be old, oh, around seventy-five."
Heero smiled. They started to walk out of the hospital.
Then Duo became somber again. "Friday's Relena's funeral."
"Ah." He remembered getting the news over the videophone. She's contracted a virus infection during her tour as World President and had unexpectedly died after a few days in a coma. They were among the privileged few to actually attend the funeral instead of having to watch it from the television set.
"I've got everything in the car. Let's get to the airport early, huh?"
"Ah."
"Heero, aren't you going to say anything?"
Heero took Duo's hand in his and said, "Perhaps after the funeral... "
"I know that she was a good friend of yours. Even thought she and I didn't get along that well, I feel sad she's gone, too. Don't hold it in, OK." Heero raised Duo's hand to his mouth and kissed it very softly while looking into his eyes. "Ah."
It was a very quiet service with only one short speech and that by the acting President of the World Mohammed Haddad, her former Vice President. Relena's husband Augustus, a man who looked surprisingly like her late foster father, stood quietly and accepted the condolences of others politely if somewhat distantly. Nobody could blame him. It was a shock to everyone, even more so for him.
Heero Yuy walked up to him and said, "I'm sorry for your loss."
"You are?" said the man, trying to place him.
"I am Heero Yuy and this is Duo Maxwell."
Augustus looked at him strangely, then said, "Could I talk to you privately?"
"Of course."
"Is this something I can listen in on?" Duo said.
"If you like."
Augustus took Heero and Duo to a private room adjacent to the reception hall.
Augustus sat down on a folding chair and massaged his eyes from weariness. "Please sit down."
Heero and Duo also sat down on the metal folding chairs.
"I've got a simple question to ask you, Heero Yuy," he said.
"Go on."
"What were you to my wife?"
Heero blinked in surprise. "I don't understand the question."
A sad, bitter smile appeared on the man's face. "Relena and I were married for more than twenty years. I thought I had everything in the world when I married her until I found out that her first love had been a Gundam pilot. Sometimes I'd catch her look out the window, mouth a word and I knew she was thinking about you. I thought to myself, how could I compare with a guy who at the age of fifteen piloted one of the greatest war machines ever created, saved the world and did it all over again at age seventeen. Still, I kept my thoughts to myself because I thought, Even if she did think about you, you were simply a fantasy, that I was the victor. We were happy, lived a good life, accomplished a lot of things... But... "
"Yes... "
"When she was dying, she fell into a fever. It was like her blood was on fire. It was then that she began calling out for you. ‘Heero, Heero,' she said. Not once did she say my name. It was like all those years together were wiped out. I know it's selfish to think about it, but I just can't get it out of my mind." Tears fell down his face. "Why? Were you two lovers?"
Duo put his arm around Heero's shoulder. Heero simply looked at the man and said, "No, we weren't. I haven't seen her in years."
"Then why did she call out your name?"
"I do not know," said Heero. "Perhaps she was dreaming, dreaming of a time long past when calling out that name seemed to do some good. Relena and I were never lovers." Heero reached for Duo's hand. "I have somebody else that's been with me all the time that you were married to her. I think that what she said while feverish shouldn't count as much as the years you had together. If they were good, then do not let any baseless suspicions destroy the memories you had of her."
The man wept, his hands covering his face.
"Is there anyone you'd like to be with you right now?" said Heero.
The man shook his head.
"I'll be taking my leave then."
With that, the two quietly left the reception.
As Duo drove to the hotel they were staying, he said, "It must've been one helluva shock to hear that, huh, Heero?"
"I honestly don't know why she called for me."
"Maybe she still loved you," Duo said. "But I think that she cared about him, too. Fevers are strange things, you think about the weirdest things. Solo, when he caught the plague, he called for his mom and dad. He didn't recognize me. He was trying to call for the one who he thought could save him even though they weren't around any more. That's what Relena was doing. I'm sure of it, Heero."
"Hn."
There was a heavy quietness that hung between then until they got into their hotel room and started to take off the formal clothes they'd worn to the funeral. Heero sat down on the bed and looked at Duo loosening his tie. It's a terrible time to tell him, but I can't put it off, he thought. "Duo, I've got something to tell you."
"What?" Duo said, looking at the mirror and tossing the tie aside.
"I'm dying."
Duo turned to look at him sharply. "What did you say?"
"I'm dying."
"You're... " The very floor beneath his feet seemed to lurch sickeningly. A part of his mind simply refused to process what Heero was saying even though Heero had said those words clearly.
"It's because of all the treatments that Dr. J did to me. It boosted all the power in my body to the nth power, but it took decades off my life. I wasn't expected to live long anyway, so he didn't see that as much of a drawback."
"How long do you have?"
"It's going to be slow and gradual... It'll be years... "
"How many?"
"Five... maybe more... "
Duo looked at the radiant smile on Heero's face and said, "How can you say those words and smile? How can you?" The last sentence was an infuriated shriek.
"Duo... remember when we were very young? You and I wondered whether or not we were going to last the war. If Dr. J hadn't given me those treatments, I wouldn't have survived after I pushed the self-destruct button. I've lived much longer than I had any right to. I grew up, moved in with you, and had a wonderful daughter. I have a job that means something to me. I just want you to know that if I ever say anybody else's name while dying, I don't mean it. You're the one who's made life living. I have no regrets about my life. I am satisfied." His eyes were shining at Duo with all the love and the gratitude he felt for him.
Duo suddenly reached wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly as if he could somehow keep him from going away. "Heero, you can't just give up like that! You don't know what they'll come up with in that amount of time. Besides, I always thought... "
"Always thought what... "
"It sounds stupid, but I always had this vision of us chasing each other in our wheelchairs in some nursing home somewhere decades from now. I thought that's how long we were going to be together. Crazy, huh?" He tried to smile but it crumbled as quickly as it went on his face.
The two faced each other and held each other. They were both in their forties, no longer the beautiful bishonen they once were, but handsome older men who were starting to show the effects of time. More than a quarter century had passed since they'd met each other but time hadn't changed the intensity of their feelings towards each other.
"What are we going to tell Fuyuka?"
"Don't tell her."
"What?"
"At least not until the symptoms start to show."
"But... "
"If she gets angry, blame me for my stubbornness."
"Heero... "
"I really, really want to make love right now."
"So do I." With that they took off each other's clothes and called up on all their experience and all their years of intimacy to comfort each other in a way that words couldn't do.
And when Heero went to the hospital for the last time, he sank into a fever as his organs began to fail him one by one. And when he began calling out to someone, he called Duo's name, but he also called out for someone else.
Their daughter.
The End
(:./mk/heartbreak)
