23-Jan-2006
Title: Who In Heaven?
Author: Lasha Lee
Pairings: 1x2, 2XH
Series: All the Way to There Arc
Warnings: Some bad words
Notes: *blows dusts off of keyboard*
The other day it hit me that it was nearly 5 years ago when I started this series. Without going into major details, I have been derailed by some health problems. Serious in other parties, non-life-threatening in mine (but enough to put a limit on how much time I can spend a day writing).
This is a short-side fic to the ATWTT Arc, set about a year after Here There Be Dragons. It's just kind of silly, but sometimes it's the silliest things that bother us the most.
Even though he'd never lost the ability to control his heart-rate, it was still beating loud enough in his ears to deafen him as he approached the small house. He could smell the heat radiating off of the houses and the street, and from his own skin. He was both excited and terrified.
Duo. Duo was here, somewhere. After all the years of loneliness even among his new friends, all the soul-searching, all the questioning, it was finally time to resolve this one way or another. He had to know.
If Duo was happy in his life, truly happy, then Heero would be happy for him. He'd accept having his former partner back as a friend if friendship was all Duo had available to offer. But if there was a chance for more, even a small chance, then he intended to take it.
10 steps left toward the house, 9 steps, 8 steps. And it was all familiar to him. There was skinny little Jazz, his amazing son-to-be, pounding nails into the roof, there was the faint noise of the radio from the back of the house, he could feel the sun on his head... he started to run toward the house, toward the promise of the new life Duo and Jazz would offer him.
But as he approached, the front door opened, and out came other children, younger children. A boy of about six, with a long ponytail of black hair, followed by a brown-haired, braided little girl of about four. As he stared in bewilderment, a woman came out the door behind the children, a toddler in her arms, and a definite bulge under her white tee-shirt.
"Heero?" She called out happily. "Is that you? Helen, go get your daddy! Quick!" She was walking toward Heero laughing. Shifting the baby to her left arm, she extended her right toward him. "Where have you been? We've missed you."
He backed up as the woman came closer. What was she doing here? She wasn't supposed to be here! It wasn't supposed to be like this!
Heero bolted upright in his bed, gasping for breath, his fingers tight around the edges of the thin blanket. God, not again...
"You're not going to tell me what that one was about either, are you?" Asked a quiet voice next to him. "How long is this going to go on, Heero?"
"It's... "
"Nothing, I know. Nothing that's been eating you alive for the last three days. That kind of nothing." Duo flipped on the bedside light. "God, Heero. After every thing we've been though, what in the name of the worlds could possibly be so bad you can't talk to me about it?"
"I... "
"Can't. Yeah. Can't, won't, whatever." Duo slid out of bed and shook his hair back from his eyes. "Well, I intend to get some sleep tonight. When you're ready to man enough to face whatever it is, you know where to find me."
Great. Heero watched as Duo snatched up a pillow and stormed out of their bedroom. Just fucking great.
How exactly do you tell someone "I just had the most horrible dream that your wife didn't die tragically?"
And now Duo was pissed at him for not talking about it. Lord only knew what his fertile imagination was telling him the problem was. And the source of the entire mess was sleeping peacefully down the hall without a clue the chaos he'd stirred up in Heero with a simple question several days earlier.
Heero and Luke had been out at the lake floating toy boats, and Luke was in that kind of pensive state five-year-olds often got in. They weren't babies any more at that age, and they were trying to grapple with a world that they suddenly had to face. Heero had been answering Luke's questions on life in general most of the morning.
"Do you believe in heaven?" Luke had then asked, cocking his head at his father.
"I don't know." Heero replied honestly. "I know your Daddy does." He pushed the boat back toward the middle of the lake. "I like to think that there is one. It makes the world a little less lonely knowing that when you have to lose someone you love, they're somewhere waiting for you."
Luke considered that for a while, stirring the lake with his fingertips, and then wiping them on the front of his jeans. "Do you think my Mom is there?"
"If there is a heaven, I'm sure she's there, Luke."
"What about Jazz's Mom?" Luke seemed to be warming up to something.
"Sure. Jazz's Mom was a good person. She'd definitely be there."
"So who would Daddy be Pledged to when you all go to heaven?"
"I'm sorry?" Heero had no immediate answer to that one.
"Would he be Pledged to you or to Jazz's Mom?" Luke's brown eyes were completely serious.
"Luke... I don't know." Heero finally managed to get out. "Maybe it doesn't work the same there. Maybe he wouldn't be married to either of us."
"Okay." Luke turned back to his boat. "Otosan, how do airplanes stay up in the air?"
And Heero answered him, had an answer for that question, anyway, but the thoughts wouldn't stop focusing on the original query.
Which one of them would Duo spend eternity with?
He knew the thought was insane (he wasn't even sure there WAS an afterlife) but it just kept nagging at him anyway.
He was proud of the fact that he'd never been jealous of Duo's relationship with Hilde. He'd never had to be. She'd been gone long before he'd come back into Duo's life. He knew how much his mate had loved her, how he still grew quiet on her birthday and on the anniversary of her death, but she was Duo's past and Heero was his present and future.
For the moment, anyway.
It was that night he'd first had the dream, of going back to Duo's house that fateful day on L2 and seeing a living, breathing Hilde surrounded the pack of small Maxwells that should have been hers by right. How many children would they have had, if she'd lived? As many as they could afford, and more for good measure. Maybe Duo still would have moved back to Dera with him, maybe not, but it would have been with his brood in tow if he had. And he would have been completely happy in that life, every bit as happy as he'd been with Heero.
Heero laid back on the bed with a groan, covering his eyes with the back of his hand. This was ridiculous. He was letting a little boy's innocent question drive a wedge in between what he and Duo were building together now.
Finally he got up and walked down the hallway toward the living room, where Duo was camped out on the sofa, obviously expecting him.
"Took you long enough. Are you ready to talk to me now?"
"Yes. But I'm not sure how to say it."
"Are you upset with me about something? Something I did?"
"No! Not anything you did... not yet."
"Not yet?" Duo shifted on the sofa to face him. "What exactly am I planning on doing, then?"
"Something Luke asked me the other day. And I know it's crazy but it's bothering the hell out of me. Please don't get upset, and please don't laugh."
"Okay. I can do that." Duo leaned out and ghosted his hand against Heero's cheek.
"Duo, when we die, if we're allowed in heaven, do you think you'll be with Hilde, or with me?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You promised you wouldn't laugh."
"I'm not laughing... I'm... geez, Heero. What the hell... ?"
"I shouldn't have said anything." He started to get up.
"Oh no you don't." Duo jerked him back down onto the sofa. "You do not just ask someone something like that and take off! Heero, I thought you were okay with all of this. You've never shown any signs of being bothered by what I had with Hilde."
"I wasn't. I haven't been, but Luke started me thinking... "
"Look... " Duo sighed. "The truth is, I guess I always thought of heaven as something beyond it all. I don't think I'd have to choose. I think if it was really heaven, then we'd all be together and all be happy about it. That'd be my heaven, anyway. Yes, I'd want her back. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want you too. But can we please worry about that when the time comes? Or are you planning on having me die from sleep deprivation?"
"I'm sorry." Heero leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss, and then leaned his forehead against Duo's, feeling the tension ease out at last. "I guess it is a pretty silly thing to worry about."
"Actually it's kind of flattering to think about two angels getting into a cat-fight over me." Duo snickered, and then turned serious. "People go their entire lives wanting to be loved, Heero. It's not such a big thing to ask for, but most people are just lucky if they find that once. I'd gotten lucky twice. Now come back to bed, and start reminding me of that."
Heero got up and Duo took his hand, leading him back to the bedroom.
"Duo?"
"Yeah, love?" In the dark he missed Heero suddenly grin.
"Which one of us was better in bed?"
The End
(:./lasha/dragons36)
