22-Jan-2002
See Part 1 for all disclaimers, warnings, and whatnot
"Has this ever happened before?"
"That's Duo's question to answer."
"Wufei--"
"Don't bother," I heard myself say. "Once he puts his mind to it, it's all honor this and justice that."
I blinked and became aware of a bright light shining into my left eye. I hate eye tests; I can always see the veins in my eyeball and it makes me feel nauseous. "Cut it out." I knocked away the hand holding the penlight and the spot of bright was replaced by Wufei's almond-shaped eye behind a small, oval glasses-lens.
He pocketed the light and took off his glasses, putting them on the table. "Maxwell," he said coolly.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"We were hoping you would tell us that."
I looked past Wufei to see Lady Une standing with her arms crossed next to Quatre.
I was instantly on my guard in the face of authority, especially one who had been my superior for the past year and a half and was now looking at me as though I were a criminal. "How about we trade then. You guys first."
"Duo."
"Wufei."
"Gentlemen," Une interjected, motioning for everyone to sit down. Then she nodded at Wufei, who was respectfully glaring at her.
"They would like to know if this is something that's happened before."
This was it, I realized. What Wufei had been talking about when he said I would most likely hate him pretty soon. I didn't hate him for asking, though, even though it was one of the most betraying experiences of my life; it was his job -- it was my job.
I thought about Heero and what he would have done. So I lifted my chin a little and looked calmly at Lady Une. "Yeah, it has."
Quatre blinked hard once, obviously surprised that I hadn't told him while I had told Wufei.
It was simple really, although I knew that Quatre would never understand.
Wufei and I just get each other. I don't know how else to say it, only that when Wufei joined up with Mariemeia almost three years before, I understood where everyone else shook their heads and felt betrayed. I could never explain it to anyone, and I didn't even have to explain it to Wufei. He saw it on my face when we met after it was all over and he held out his hand in the most un-Wufei gesture I've ever seen.
We've been best friends since.
But Quatre was a little shell-shocked. He didn't hold grudges, but I had a feeling this moment would be something that would stay between us for a while.
I shrugged uncomfortably, hopefully apologetically. His brow furrowed and he looked between Wufei and I and this was exactly the reason I didn't ever want this to become common knowledge.
"When was the last time it happened?" Une asked and Wufei snapped his head around.
"This isn't what we brought him in for."
"I know, but now it's come up and it's relevant."
My stomach twisted and I tried to clamp down on my fear. "Relevant to what, exactly?"
"Ballistics came back on the bullet they took out of Heero." Wufei paused at my flinch and when he continued his voice was gentler, even if only I noticed because I knew what he meant. "They found that the bullet matches your weapon."
I looked back and forth between the three of them. "But my gun hasn't been out of my possession since it was issued to me. Who could have... oh."
There was a second of silence in the room.
"Duo," Quatre began.
"You don't really think I did it, do you?" I laughed at the absurdity of everything: first Heero disappears literally from right in front of me, then shows up shot, then I get accused. If I had any doubts about my insanity they were certainly put to rest at the look on their faces. "Come on. Really. Really, why would you think that?"
"We're not saying you did it," Quatre tried again.
"Yeah, yet." I stood up and shook off Wufei's restraining arm. "He's Heero. He's my partner. And my friend. And I--" I stopped and waved my hands in front of me. "He's Heero," I said again, lamely.
"Duo," Une interjected with a look that told me I should sit. "There's more."
I sat numbly. Of course there would be more.
She nodded at Wufei to continue and even though this horrible anger was building up in me at him I had to admire him for insisting to be the one to tell me all of this, to possibly destroy his best friend. I knew that's what had happened, and I could only imagine the scene that took place when they tried to talk him out of it.
It didn't make me feel much better.
Wufei's hand was clenched again at his belt, the tips of his knuckles white. "There's an eyewitness that places you at the scene. He's identified you and that combined with the ballistics make for a pretty strong case."
My brain went on overload, refused to process what they were saying. I thought that I was probably expected to jump up and pound on the two-way mirror, demanding whoever it was behind it -- probably Trowa and whoever their "eyewitness" was -- to show themselves. They probably expected me to go crazy at any rate but I found I couldn't.
The only thing I could do was sit and stare at a spot over Wufei's shoulder. I was so angry and broken that I was calm again, my emotions running in one big circle.
It looked bad for me, I know. But what reaction could I have at the news that they suspected me of trying to kill the man I'd been in love with for what seems like half my life?
"We need you to give us permission to search your apartment. It's the fastest way of clearing this up."
My answer was instinctive, drilled into me from years of running from the Feds and having every right taken away from me because I was born who I was, where I was. It was what led me to distrust everyone who didn't come from the streets like me, it painted a big red bullseye on anyone wearing a uniform. I had thought that working with the Preventers would cure me of it, but the coiling of the muscles in my thighs and the rush of clean, white noise in my head told me it was probably something that would never leave, welded onto me good, like Deathscythe's trusty armor.
"No."
Wufei's eyes went comically wide. "What?"
"No. No searches." I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair, feeling that I would have enjoyed the frustration on their faces if the situation weren't so horrible.
"Duo, we need your service weapon and anything that might catalogue a plot to hurt Heero."
"To disprove it," Wufei stressed, glaring at Quatre who glared right back. I couldn't say I felt very sorry for them, but I knew what a strain it must have been.
My whole body went cold when I thought about "anything that might catalogue a plot": my journals, full of disjointed thoughts and sketchy details of the cycle of depression and mania; the only catalogue was one that detailed every moment between Heero and I that may or may not have meant everything.
In the same panel of flooring as my journals: my sketchbooks with depictions of demons and war and Heero. Mostly of Heero, dead, alive, sleeping, thinking, working, possibly dreaming.
The only thing those would prove would be my insanity.
I was smiling without meaning to. "The easy way or the hard way, huh?" I held out my wrists, pressed together and ready for cuffs. "Hard way every time."
Une left the room silently.
Quatre was staring at me in horror; Wufei was thin-lipped and trembling slightly when he stood slowly. "Duo," Wufei said, "You know what this means, don't you?"
"I'm sorry. I won't let you search the place if I have any choice in the matter. There are things that are... private."
"But Duo, whatever these things are, no one will judge you."
I laughed harshly. "Haven't you guys already, though? Well, maybe you should. Maybe I am crazy."
There were two sharp raps on the door and it swung open to find Trowa on the other side. "Une's filing for arrest and search warrants right now." He focused on me. "She should have them within the hour."
Oh, God, Heero, what's happening? I found I couldn't smile when I tried, and all that came out of my mouth was a strangled rush of air.
Quatre sat next to me in the spot Wufei had vacated, again taking my cold hands in his. "Please, Duo. Please don't let it happen like this. We can help you--"
"I didn't do it, Quat, I didn't."
He stroked the tops of my hands with his thumbs. "I know. So help us prove it. Agree to the search before the warrants come through."
"I can't," I whispered.
"How can you help Heero from jail?" His voice was a little harder, his face more determined.
"I can't help him at all--"
"You can!" he said fiercely. "You can. You can start by agreeing to this."
I hesitated for only one more second, thinking about Heero lying in that hospital bed and if it were me there. Would he do this for me?
The answer was obvious, really.
"Yeah," I said, feeling like it was being ripped out of me. "Do it. Take anything you need."
He smiled gently and nodded to Wufei. And then the two of them left to let Une know to stop the procedure for the warrants.
Left Trowa and I alone in the room.
Under the best of circumstances, my relationship with Trowa was always a little off. I never knew why, just that we weren't as close as we were to the others. Sort of like the odd gap that seemed to exist between Quatre and Wufei. It made no sense, but there it was.
Right then, friend, acquaintance, rival for Heero's affections -- where did that come from? -- I just wanted to be alone.
"Look, I'm sorry I've been a pain, okay. Just take your witness or whoever he is and please leave me alone." I pillowed my face into my crossed arms on the beat up metal table.
A chair scraped against the floor, dragged into place across from mine. I could still hear the buzz in the air that accompanied another person's presence in the room.
"Geez, Trowa, just go away, please. Nothing personal."
"But it is."
I sat back heavily, wearily. "What does that mean?" There was a pang in my heart where I thought it couldn't possibly hurt anymore. Please don't say you and Heero have been sleeping together, I thought. I couldn't stand that right now.
He studied me in silence, almost dispassionately, then transferred his gaze to the table. "Heero is very important to me--"
"Like he isn't important to me?" I burst out, but Trowa raised his eyes to meet mine in a stare that was forceful, and something in that almost Heero-like gesture stopped my words.
"I don't think you would have hurt him," he went on, just as quietly as he had started. "But I want you to know that if you had any part in this, there is nowhere in the universe you could go where I wouldn't find you."
"Break my kneecaps sort of thing, huh? Revenge for your family wronged and all of that?" Colonist though I was, I was so stereotypically American it usually made people laugh.
In the same vein, Trowa was so stereotypically German it usually made people a little uneasy. And that thin, mirthless smile that found its way to his face sure as hell made me more than a little uneasy. "Something like that," he said.
"Just for the record--"
"I know," he said simply, and I found it made me feel like when Heero said it. He really did know.
"Do you know why I couldn't have done it, though?" I persisted. "Do you understand just how important he is to me?"
He was silent, but I took it as an indication to continue. I found that once I started, I couldn't have stopped anyway.
"Do you know I love him? Do you know that there's not one second that doesn't go by where I'm not thinking about him? Do you know how it started, years ago and far away when he put his arm around my shoulders and leaned on me and bled all over me and for one second trusted me with everything and it somehow... broke through everything that was me and he got in there and then when I walled everything back up I forgot to take him out first.
"And now he's fucking stuck in there and I love him so much it makes everything better and worse even though I don't understand how it could work like that. And I would give anything, anything, to keep him safe and see him happy. The thought that he's dying -- because he is and we all know that he's fucking dying -- makes me feel like maybe I should just kill myself because I wasn't there to protect him.
"You're all asking me whether or not I shot him, if I knew what was happening, wondering if maybe I am as crazy as everyone always thought I was, and God, I know he was with me yesterday. I can still smell him in the apartment, on my clothes, can still feel his hand on my arm when we argued over the goddamn fucking Chinese food..."
And there it was. Trowa knew everything, and I was wrong: It could, and did, hurt more.
"I knew I wasn't good enough," I said miserably. "But I kept thinking maybe, maybe..."
When Trowa spoke, it was with a quiet sort of emotion that I couldn't place, but seemed somewhere just on this side of anger. "Don't ever say that again."
I couldn't understand why Trowa would get so upset. It only made sense as it conformed to my suspicions, and as we sat there they grew and grew.
"Heero is not like other people," Trowa said, still with that edge of almost-anger.
"I know that."
"Do you?"
"Do you?" I snapped back and smiled nastily. "Of course you do, right?"
He looked mildly confused, and I barreled on, being a complete asshole only because I could.
"Denken Sie dass ich dumm bin? Ich weiss was weitergeht." He did think I was an idiot. Maybe they all did, but I knew what was what.
His mouth tightened slightly around the edges. He leaned back in his chair and put one elbow on the table, cradling his chin in one hand and crossing his long legs at the ankle. He looked like he was about to say something and then changed his mind.
"What?" I snapped.
His eyes shifted again, subtly, and I wondered what he was thinking of. "When Heero wakes up, I think you need to talk to him."
I grated out a laugh. "And if he doesn't wake up?"
"He will." Trowa stood and straightened his already impeccable tie. He was at the door before he turned. He looked at me silently for almost a minute before speaking. "Haben Sie Glauben an ihn, Duo."
And then he was gone, leaving me alone in the interrogation room.
Faith, he said. I did have faith in Heero. It was me I was worried about.
I paced the room more times than I could count, having the cold feeling that someone was watching me from behind the mirror. I stayed on the opposite side of the room, as if that would help.
I conjured up fantastic scenarios of what would happen when they found my journals, when they found all the crazy pictures and babblings and there was so much on Heero that it looked bad even to me. And I knew it was just simple obsession. I chuckled to myself. Nothing was ever simple with me, was it?
It was the possibilities where they shook their heads in disappointment that were the worst. The ones where they told me they expected it to happen but had hoped for the best.
No, I reconsidered. The ones that were the worst were the ones where they came to take me away because I did do it and didn't even know it. The ones where they put me in a little room like this with no windows and no people for the rest of my life.
The ones where Heero died and it was my fault.
Oh, God.
It was my litany, but apparently not religious enough to save me because I was still there two hours later when they came back.
Quatre was smiling, so I knew it wasn't bad news. Wufei looked grumpy, probably because he had told Quatre not to just beam the way he was, and when I smiled because I just couldn't help it, he looked even more sour.
Wufei sat next to me, while Quatre took the chair across from me and Trowa stood in the doorway.
"We ran a check on your weapon," Wufei said. "It hasn't been fired in over forty-eight hours, which would mean the bullet couldn't possibly have come from your gun."
"I told you I didn't do it," I said softly, my smile losing something.
"There was not a moment when I thought you did," Wufei replied, just as softly. "But this was necessary."
I nodded and looked quickly to Trowa before turning back to Wufei. "What about... other things?"
"We couldn't find anything else that would be useful."
"So what does that mean?" I asked quickly, not really understanding why they weren't saying anything about my journals but chalking it up to discretion.
"That means you're free to go."
Something was really not right. "Go. Back to work?"
"We think you should maybe take some time off." That was Quatre. Of course they gave him the lines about 'we think' and 'you should'. I caught myself at the end of that nasty thought and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt.
"Can I at least be involved in this case?"
Wufei again, delivering the bad news. When I was feeling more amiable toward him, I would have to talk to him about this habit he had of taking roles that would make him feel shitty. "You're much to close to this, Duo. You wouldn't be thinking clearly and if you were in danger--"
"You know I could handle myself!"
"I'm not saying this to make you feel like we don't trust you." Wufei looked tired. And then I felt like maybe I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had gone to bat for me and they wouldn't play. "It's policy, Duo. Take a few days off. Go visit Heero. And of course we'll keep you in the loop."
I nodded and stood up. "Then I want to go see Heero right now."
His face softened. "Of course."
As I passed Trowa following Wufei and Quatre out, he put one hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, pressing a key into my hand with the other.
"Wha--"
"No one even knew they were there. No one read them. Not even me."
I was speechless. He had every right to read them and turn them over to Une as evidence against me. But he trusted me. He had faith in me.
"I--"
"By the way," he cut in, his voice pitched low, and a sparkle in his eyes that I'd never seen directed at me. "Fuer einen Dieb finden Sie sehr kreative Plaetze nicht, Sachen zu verbergen."
"Scheiss," I laughed, startled by his humor. Okay, so maybe my hiding places weren't incredibly creative, but I think Trowa only found them because he was intuitive like that.
I caught Quatre's lifted eyebrows in our direction and I switched back to English, even though I was fully aware Quatre could speak German. "Just because you're freakishly psychic or something, doesn't make me any less of a thief."
He didn't say anything, just caught up with Quatre in two long strides, putting a hand to the small of his back. Quatre smiled brilliantly and winked at me over his shoulder.
I looked at the key in my hand. It was for the lockers in the Preventers gym on the lower level.
"Wufei, I gotta make a bathroom run. I'll catch up with you outside." Before he could respond, I made a sharp left, taking a short cut down a hallway that led to reception, and then to an emergency stairwell going straight to the gym.
Not that I didn't trust Trowa. But a thief had to keep some of his secrets.
Reception was almost empty as I passed through, so when a man passed by so closely that his shoulder collided painfully with mine I shoved back angrily, satisfied when I felt the other person stumble.
"Watch it," I muttered, slipping the key into my pocket and zippering it shut. Just another habit leftover from the street: anything not locked down is always up for grabs.
"Oh, excuse me, Agent."
My head snapped up. I whipped around and grabbed the guy's arm spinning him to face me.
"What did you call me?"
The man, lean and sharp-faced, smiled at me. "I called you 'agent'."
"I'm not wearing a uniform or ID."
His smile turned tender. "Oh, but I would recognize you anywhere."
I narrowed my eyes for a second, glancing around quickly to see if anyone was watching us. No one was. It must have looked like we were two old friends, and with me not in my uniform, braid shoved down the back of my jacket, I'm sure no one recognized me.
Except this guy.
The witness, I realized. He nodded as the information flashed on my face before I could tramp it down.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked curtly.
"I just wanted to get one last look at you, Agent Maxwell." He leaned closer to me, bracing a hand on the desk behind me, and dropped his voice. "You were the best I've ever had."
This time I couldn't mask the surprise on my face. I had no idea what this guy was talking about; My first thought was that he must have just been some hustler off the street who saw my face on television -- damn those PR guys -- and thought I'd make an easy mark. But with my second thought I changed my assessment slightly: he was some crazy guy off the street.
He started to breathe harder, coming so close to me I could smell his aftershave. "You were so sweet, and, God, you were fucking beautiful as you bled."
"Wh-what?" I recoiled, and the backs of my knees hit the desk behind me.
He moaned low in his throat and advanced, rocking his hips forward so I felt a hard bulge in his jeans pressing against my thigh. "So good, Agent Maxwell. You bled so good."
"Jesus," I rasped, trying to flatten myself backwards. I didn't want to take my eyes off of him to look around again, afraid he would try something.
"I wanted to savor it more, the smell of it and the feel of it on my hands, but your partner--"
"You were the one," I whispered. "You shot him."
He frowned slightly. "I helped him, put him out of his misery. He was an animal--"
He never got to finish what he was going to say, because I was on him in a split second, slamming him into the ground. I didn't care who he was, or why he was doing this. In that second, I just wanted him dead. I backhanded him, heard his head crack against the floor, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth and spraying on the industrial grey carpet.
He was still breathing. It wasn't good enough.
There were small hands on my shoulders. "Agent Maxwell," one of the receptionists said loudly.
I didn't even think; she was getting in the way. My arm snapped back and I grabbed her wrist, twisting it sharply.
She gasped in shock and pain and I felt her stumble away.
I knelt on his forearms and heard him gasp in pain as the bones ground into each other. "How did you do it?" He bucked his hips and the feeling of his cock through his jeans was enough to make me snap. I elbowed him in the face, feeling his nose break and blood spatter on my hand. "You sick shit," I snarled, in a voice I hardly recognized.
"How did you do it?"
He gurgled through the blood that was pouring down his face. "Can't breathe," he gasped.
"Oh, you can't breathe? You can't breathe?" I put my hands around his throat, digging my thumbs into his trachea. "Let me help you. Like you helped Heero."
I squeezed as hard as I could, not seeing anything but Heero's slack face, eyes closed and sunken into his skull. "Is that better, you fuck? You son of a bitch, I'll kill you for what you did!"
"Duo!" The small hands on my shoulders this time were strong and insistent, but I couldn't feel anything, just Heero's cold skin against mine.
"You did this you did this..."
"Duo, stop! Stop! Trowa, help me!"
Just a little more, I was chanting to myself, just a little more and he'll be gone, just like Heero.
"Give him back!" I wailed as the man's eyes rolled up into his head. "Give him back!"
A hand wrapped around my braid and pulled. The pain, combined with the hands tugging at me, sent me sprawling back, my fingers scrabbling for my justice as they slipped off his throat.
Trowa hauled me upright and Quatre grabbed both of my shoulders, shaking me hard. "Duo, what are you--"
They were pulling the man up, too, and his eyes were fluttering open, strained sounds coming from his throat. I lunged for him again, thrashing against Quatre. "You fuck! Tell them what you told me!"
Wufei had the man under his armpits and was examining his throat. "He can't tell anyone anything, Duo. I think you bruised his larynx."
I tried to take deep breaths, but rage still burned hot in my blood. This was the guy, right in front of me, and if I could just--
I hooked a foot behind Quatre's ankle and sent him off balance, toppling into Wufei who had to let go of the man to pillow his fall. I managed to get one arm around the guy's middle and under his jacket, before Trowa caught my by the neck, pulling me back against him and into a sleeper hold.
"Stop," he said, next to my ear.
I struggled briefly, even as the adrenaline was sapped from my muscles.
He pulled his elbow in closer against my throat and the left side of my head felt tingly as I teetered on the edge of consciousness. "Stop it," he repeated.
I went still, and slowly his arms went lax.
"Can I trust you," he asked softly.
I looked at Wufei and Quatre, both holding the man up, then to the woman who originally tried to stop me, cradling her left wrist against her chest, then back to Trowa. I nodded.
Trowa let me go and turned to direct the security guards and medic that were arriving to help.
"Agent."
It was Une. Quatre came to stand next to me as she spoke.
"We need to talk," she said as gently as she probably knew how.
Quatre put his hand on my shoulder and nodded.
I figured I would probably be suspended. But that's okay, I thought, letting my hand stray to the small of my back and touch the outline of the man's wallet where it was tucked into the back of my jeans.
Trust me Heero. I'll get him for you. Just promise to come back, okay? Promise me you'll come back.
End Part 3
(:./sparcck/tracing3)
