26-Sep-2002
Title: Magic Happens Part 16
Author: Ebonydove
Archive: aenai.steelsong.com
Warnings: language, sap, slight angst, yaoi
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: still not making any money off anything here...
Story: Heero & Duo are on the run from a group after a code Heero has. Takes place after the wars.
Feedback is gladly welcomed.
There were a few things still bouncing around in my brain as I lay on the roof of the house and looked up at the endless sea of stars above me. Without any light pollution saturating the skyline, the stars looked brighter than I had ever seen them before. They almost formed a dome, and it was certainly the clearest I had ever seen the Milky Way from earth before.
I could hear Heero in the house below puttering around, uncovering all the furniture, and getting the woodstove going. He had put on some music that drifted through the house and seemed to go up into the darkening sky and on forever past the stars.[1] I closed my eyes for a few minutes just letting the music fill me, and allowed the night to hide me from all my fears and doubts. This was home. It was such an incredible thought. I had a home. And Heero had spared nothing when he chose this house for us.
The house was completely self-sufficient with its own generator and well for water, but was by no means archaic, mind you. Heero had rewired the whole place, installed a satellite upload, similar to a GPS, so we could have web and computer access, as well as email and the other online staples of life. He had a satellite phone as well as a cell, but we couldn't get a signal from the cell and really didn't want to alarm anyone with a satellite call so soon after we had left.
I think it spooked him when I high tailed it out of the room after his second attempt at trying to raise a dial tone on the cell when we had been in the kitchen together. I wasn't going to wait around for the satellite phone to recharge. Waves of panic had washed through me and I wanted to get out of the room before I started to shake in front of him. It felt like the walls were closing in on me as I listened to the soft beeping from the phone that he held in his hand. I needed the air, and was glad when he didn't follow me out onto the second story rooftop where I was now. I was even more glad for the soothing voices that were filling the air now and drowning out the echoes of the beeping I still had heard in my head long after I had fled the room.
We were going to have to make contact with Wufei soon though. Falling off the face of the earth was one way to avoid our pursuers, but I never did like running from a challenge. Even the smartest soldiers know when a practical retreat is in order though. I wasn't fool enough to think that I was a hundred percent yet. My bruises were faded enough not to cause people to stare at me anymore, but I was still stiff and sore. I drank a lot more water than normally, trying to keep my throat moist in order for it to heal completely.
I reopened my eyes and tried to pick out L2 in the mass of stars above. The singles from the roof were still warm despite the setting sun as I lay and thought about how we were going to fix this little mess we found ourselves in, and I wasn't thinking about my own personal mess with Heero and Relena. After we dealt with the bad guys we were going to have to go back to L1 and sit Relena down and try to make her understand that Heero and I wanted to stay together. It was going to be harder for me I think, than it was going to be for Heero. Only because I knew how it felt to be a second choice. She was going to be hurt. And there was no way to avoid it. That is, if we were ever able to go back to L1 and tell her. If the bad guys didn't find us and try to kill us again...
I let out an explosive sigh and threw my arm over my face. I needed sleep.
"What's the big sigh for?"
I sat up and turned so that I could answer him from where he was perched on the ledge of the windowsill. "I used to beat myself for being complacent, and now I was just thinking that this is anything but that." He made no attempt to come any further out onto the rooftop with me, probably sensing I needed the space. He was always tuned in to me that way. It used to bother me that I could rarely get anything by him, except it seemed my undying devotion. He had been terribly blind to that. I heaved another sigh.
"What else is wrong?"
I just shook my head and turned back to the night sky. I wasn't really in the mood to talk, or think, or even speculate.
"I got Wufei on the satellite phone after you stormed out of the kitchen."
"I didn't storm... I... "
"Backpedaled?"
Close enough. I had half a mind to undo my hair to distract him from the train of thought he was currently on. I didn't want to talk about it. I was shaken still about my ordeal underground. It was going to take some time to get over it, and I didn't think that the past few days would constitute adequate time to cope with that little horror. "Call it what you want." I shrugged not turned back to him.
I heard him scoot off the sill and come to sit next to me on the roof. He looked up at the stars with me for several long moments before trying to coax it out of me again. "You're still upset about the kidnapping."
"I wasn't kidnapped." I huffed. "I was ambushed."
"Then kidnapped and bur... "
"I said I didn't want to talk about it Heero." With one scathing glare I managed to get him to drop it. Even the infamous Heero Yuy, savior of the earth and colonies didn't mess with an overtaxed, overtired, grumpy, Shinigami.
"So what do you think about the house?"
Good. A spontaneous change of topic. He was always good at those. "It's nice, 'Ro. Very quaint and real, ya know?"
"Real?"
"Yeah. Solid, stable. I don't feel like it's gonna get yanked out from underneath me anytime soon. I never... really had a home before. I mean, you know... I've lived lots of places, but it's not the same as having a place of your own." It was kinda sad that I considered the Temp. Housing that Wufei had arranged for me when I first got to earth as home before now. "This whole place is peaceful, and quiet, and kinda like... "
"Magic." We both said at the same time.
I laughed at that. If any word fit the place I now found myself in, it was that. Lucky was going to love it once we brought her here. Tons of room to wander and go mousing. Tall grass to hide in. no roads to get hit in. It was wide, and open, and simply that; magical. "I used to think that magic didn't happen to guys like me."
"Magic happens. It happens all the time. It's just that we are usually are too distracted to notice it when it does." He slipped his hand into mine and we interlaced our fingers together.
He couldn't be more right. Magic was happening to me right now and I wasn't going to get distracted from him by the people out to kill us, or thoughts about a broken hearted Relena, or anything else. I was about to let my hair down for an entirely different reason when the satellite phone buzzed from where Heero had left it on the sill. "Who the hell has got your number here?" I grumbled as he let go of my hand and went to retrieve the phone.
"Yuy, go."
I couldn't hear the other person, but the look on Heero's face went from serene to tense in less than two seconds. He was listening intently to who I could only assume was Wufei. I knew he would call as soon as we charged the phone despite Heero's warnings to both he and Quatre about us getting traced. But I also knew that the only thing that would make Wufei call is if something had happened back at HQ or with Trowa or worse, with Relena on L1.
"Roger that."
"What was that? Was it Wufei? What's going on?" I asked as I got up myself and made my way to where he was now sitting on the edge of the window.
"That was bad. And yes, it was Wufei. Trowa found Zechs. He's not our mole, and in fact StarQuest became suspicious of his involvement with the contract negotiations between Winner Industries and themselves over the resource satellites that they sent an assassin to take both he and Quatre out."
"What?! Where's Q now? Is he safe?" I was ready to levitate myself back to HQ if I had to. Quatre was the closest friend I had next to Wufei and Heero. If they did anything to him, I wouldn't have stopped until I had trashed every person who was even remotely affiliated with that power hungry bunch of autocrats from StarQuest.
"Quatre's fine. Trowa has brought Zechs back to HQ with him and is with Quatre now. Once he found out that Zechs wasn't our target, they both retreated back to a safer position."
"To Wufei's?" I hoped.
"Yes."
"So now what the hell do we do?" We both crept back through the window and made our way to the bedroom where I began systematically preparing our small arsenal of weapons. I really missed my bowie and left my .44 with Quatre back at HQ. All I had was some small explosives and my .38. I knew Heero had his glock somewhere and I began to dig through our meager possessions in the chest of drawers to find it. He always hid it under his underwear, the last place anyone would dare to look for it lest you have to deal with the wrath of Yuy.
"We sit tight Duo."
"I don't think so, 'Ro. I'm not gonna sit here, paradise as it is, while a bunch of bullies take shots at my brothers. Screw that. It's time to put some damage on."
"You're in no condition to go looking for fight against these people. We need to exterminate our rodent problem first."
"You know who it is."
He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest and frowned even deeper. "Yeah. And now that Zechs has returned to earth and HQ, she's going to make her move to eliminate her target."
"Holy shit... Relena... "
End Part 16
(:./ebony/magic16)
