30-Sep-2002
Title: Magic Happens Part 17
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.
Author's note: This took an odd turn...
It took six hours of me ranting and raving like a lunatic and then another four hours of me giving Heero the silent treatment before he finally caved. I had been sitting in the car for the last two of those hours with all our gear and weapons already packed, blasting music from the tiny stereo, and trying to keep my head from exploding with the amount of anger that I was experiencing, when he slid in the passenger seat and buckled it.
"How long were you planning on giving me the silent treatment and sitting in the car?"
"Until you came to your freakin' senses and decided to join me on this little jaunt back to L1." I hissed back as I started the car and gunned it. The tires squealed, as I had meant them to do, and I pulled the wheel hard to turn us in the gravel road. It must have sprayed ten feet behind us as I took off down the mostly dirt road back out to the highway.
"I've already alerted Wufei, Duo. He left shortly after I spoke with him and has made arrangements to look after Relena until we get there. She's not going to make her move without knowing for sure where we are. We still have the code."
He was so very calm about all of it. "Until we find her and kill her, Relena isn't safe. You know it and I know it. Christ, even Wufei knows it!"
"She's not going to harm her. Relena is after all, a very powerful bargaining chip."
Now I remembered why we always let Heero negotiate hostage situations. He was always so damn cold about it. It was all weights and measures, black and white. Simple action/reaction mentality. He took the emotion out of the equation and just dealt with how to diffuse the situation like he would any other bomb. Too bad that the bomb would occasionally go off despite his skills. I myself always got hung up on the human life factor. "Do you even care for her at all?" He gave me an odd look like he didn't quite understand the question. I ignored it.
"Of course I do. But we need to be logical about how we approach this. That's why I don't want to go in there with guns blazing."
"Would you if it were me?"
I finally provoked a bit of a reaction from him as he glared hard at me from where he sat. I let off the gas and eased us into about ninety as I raced back towards the interstate. It would be another fifteen hours before we got to a city that had a spaceport. I had called and made arrangements for a colony class space frigate to take us to the city of Hiigara on L1, which was the closest we could get to Relena's L1 estate, while I was stewing in the car waiting for Heero to decide to join me. I had a really bad feeling that we were walking into a trap, but I also knew there was no other way. We needed to get to Relena before the StarQuest spy got to her, and then used her to get to Heero. It was all going to be about timing. Especially if said spy already knew that Heero had the code.
It was possible that our little spy hadn't figured out that it was Heero who it from the beginning. But then again, me showing up on L1 "on Preventers official business" did kind of blow that whole thing. I let out a deep sigh and slowed the car even more.
"What's wrong now?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
Now that got me. I need not mention why. I organized my thoughts and picked the decided to tell him what I had been thinking. "It's just... this whole thing would've never happened if I hadn't come to L1 in the first place. I blew your cover."
"Details." He shrugged with an odd little smile that faded into something darker a moment later. "I think you more than paid for it, don't you?" He added quietly.
I shuttered. Didn't want to go there.
Needless to say the next fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes passed quickly enough and without much more banter between us. Six hours into our trek, I pulled into a rest stop and let Heero drive for awhile. I fell asleep; without the help of him slipping something into my soda and woke to find us pulling into the parking garage at the spaceport with time enough for the two of us to grab some take out before heading for our frigate.
What I didn't expect was to see was Trowa waiting for us when we jogged up the ramp with our duffels slung over our shoulders. It didn't seem to faze Heero, but I for one, was surprised.
"Why in hell are you here instead of with Quatre?" I blurted out before I had a chance to even think of anything else to say.
"Good to see you too Duo."
"I'm serious, Trowa. What the hell are you doing here?"
He nodded once to Heero in greeting before he answered my question. "Quatre was worried about you. He doesn't think you've fully recovered from the grave incident. So I said I would come. It eases his mind. Besides, Wufei is already on L1."
Heero came and stood behind me as I tried to come up with a response to that. They seemed to share some unspoken communication as I gathered up the duffel that I had let fall to the tarmac. Quatre being worried for me was nothing new, but Trowa actually coming out of hiding to help Heero and I; was unexpected. And this was the second time in a very short amount of time. I think it even surprised Heero too. Neither of us had expected to see him leaning casually against the metal hull of our frigate when we arrived there. It made that creepy feeling that was crawling up my spine grow worse.
"Zechs is recovering on earth. StarQuest is more mercenary than I had originally anticipated and we ran into some trouble getting earthside."
He went on to explain in his own terse fashion how he and Zech had stolen a light corvette; a jumper class space craft meant for short runs between colony structures, and managed to limp it all the way back to earth. He was able to get a hold of Wufei once they were in satellite range of the planet to brief him on what had happened during his infiltration of StarQuest.
"So where is Quatre now?"
I was glad that Heero had taken over the conversation for a while. The anger I had been knawing on during our long car ride to the spaceport, combined with the lack of adrenaline and caffeine in my system, finally caught up to me. I was fall down tired. I listened to them half-heartedly for a few more minutes before deciding it was nothing I needed to concentrate any energy on and let them hash over the details of the what we were going to do once we reached L1, while I took a cat nap in the back of the shuttle. I was asleep before Heero took off.
Someone is crying. I can hear them sniffling in my ear...
I blinked sleepy eyes open to see Solo's bright eyes gleaming in the low light of our current hidey-hole. Despite how brave he was trying to be for my sake, he was shivering and his eyes glistened with what looked suspiciously like tears. "S'ok Solo, I'm not gunna leave ya. Cross my heart n' hope ta die."
He nodded, then winced. "You okay kid?"
He whispered harshly and wiped at his face, only serving to smear the dirt and blood more. "Sure Solo... I'm good see... only a scratch." God they beat him bad. I had hoped he would have run and just left me behind. But he didn't. He led them away from me instead. I had stolen a watch from a military police sergeant and got caught. He boasted about how he was going to make an example out of me for all the other little rats to see when Solo came out of no-where and kicked him in the shin. We dashed out of the alley only to take a bad turn a block away. Our only chance was to cut through the cemetery and run like blazes back to our hideout. But Solo had other ideas. He would lead them away from me. He'd make sure I was kept safe.
"You need to hide for a bit kid."
Run Duo. "N-no, Solo they w-w-won't come back." All my instincts said run, but he insisted that I stay put and hide until the coast was clear.
"I know you're afraid kid, but they always come back. Do you remember where to hide?"
Run kid. "It's t-too dark there... p-please I dun wanna b-be in the dark b-by myself... s'ok if you come with m-me... " I knew where he wanted me to go. It was always a last resort when things went really bad and we didn't have any other option but to hide there. After all, it was the last place they would ever think to find a couple of little thieves.
"I'll catch up to ya, kid. Now go. I can hear them coming."
I hid in the dark with the rats and the spiders and I waited... and waited... in the dark... trying not to make any sound as I breathed... dark...
All around me was the stale smell of death mingled with freshly cut pine. The ground on L2 was sometimes too hard to bury the bodies, and sometimes there were just too many to get in the ground one at a time. So often the groundskeepers of the cemetery would keep them all in a mausoleum where it was relatively cool, and wait for the artificial rain to come and soften the ground enough for them to finally bury the dead.
It proved to be a very good place to hide from the colony cops and military police. But it also was a frightening place for an eight-year-old boy. I hid in the casket for hours, my ears straining to catch the whistle that was our signal for the all clear as the spiders scampered across my skin and the smell of rot and pine filled my nose. I would occasionally hear one of the gravediggers speaking or singing softly in German to himself as he scraped his shovel along the stone floor as he made his rounds before locking up for the night.
When Solo finally had come for me, I had fallen asleep and missed the soft sound to let me know it was safe to come out. He had to reach into the pine box to wake me instead. I was so startled by the hand that reached into the coffin to shake me awake, that I had wet myself, to afraid to even scream. Solo just cleaned me up and took me back to our hideout and didn't breathe a word about all the trouble I had caused that night.
End Part 17
(:./ebony/magic17)
