26-Feb-2003
Title: Street Of Dreams 10/?? Author: Lasha Lee Email: anakerie@cinci.rr.com Disclaimer: Not mine. Pairings: 1x2, various Warnings: Angst
"He managed to call the paramedics. They found him in his bedroom." Gage stared at the wall, his voice robotic. "They said they thought he was dead at first. There was much blood... " Under Shan's arm he shook. "They won't let me see him yet."
"Gage... " Duo began.
"Don't. Don't tell me it's going to be okay! It's not! We know it's not." He buried his face in his hands.
"What's happening?" He heard someone ask, and he groaned. "No. Who called her? He didn't want her to know."
"I was with her when Duo called me." He heard Wufei say, and Lucrezia's "Know what? What aren't you telling me?" She grabbed his arm. "Wufei said he collapsed!"
Gage raised his hand, and she drew back at the blank, dead look in his eyes. "He's dying."
"That is not funny!" She hissed.
"Do I look like I'm laughing?" He sounded defeated, not angry. "He's got something called Harington's disease. It's genetic. It lays dormant for years and then... "
She sat down, dizzy. "How long has he known?"
"About five years. Since before... before everything blew up. I wasn't the only thing he didn't tell you about."
"How long have you known?"
"Three years." The boy reached over and took her hand. "That's why he stayed. He wanted... " his voice broke. "He wanted to make it up to me, all the lost time. He said he wanted to give me what he had left." He began to sob, and Shan's arms locked around him, pulling his head against his neck.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" She looked at her old friends, devastated, pleading, especially at Wufei.
"I told him he needed to." The man said quietly. "He said that he wanted you to curse his gravestone, not cry over it. That's why he didn't fight your divorce. He thought it would be easier for you to take if you'd already moved on with your life."
"What about his daughters? He told his son. Why didn't he tell his daughters?"
"You'd have to ask him that." Wufei sighed. "He kept to himself mostly."
"Stop it!" Gage raised his head. "Stop talking like he's already gone! He's not! Not yet."
"If this disease is genetic, then the girls might have it! Or you."
"They're carriers, he said. It only shows up in males. I don't have it. Sorry to disappoint you." He added caustically.
"I have to call Meg and Amy. I have to let them know what's going on."
Gage nodded. "Call my mother too."
She looked startled. "Your mother?"
"Yes, my mother! His sister! She knows he's got it. Please let her know she better hurry if she wants to tell him goodbye."
"I'm sorry, I... of course I'll call Relena."
"You thought I meant Laura Landagren, didn't you?" He laughed bitterly. "Trust me, she wants as little to do with me as I want to do with her. She's not my mother."
Lucrezia left to make the calls, dealing with Amy and Meg's tearful questions, and Relena's quiet despair. All three promised to be on the next shuttle to Dera, but it would still take days for them to get here. She warned them, the best she knew how, that days might be days too long.
When she returned, it was to find Gage deep in conversation with a doctor.
"He's stabilized right now. For how long we don't know. We've given him medication to try and slow down the deterioration."
"What is this Harington's anyway?" She interrupted.
"Well, we don't very much about it. It's extremely rare. It affects males of Irnao Eastern European descent. A child can inherit it from either parent, however. Up to a certain point, it can only be determined by a genetic analysis. About five to six years before onset, it begins leaving a marker in the victim's blood stream, making it easier to identify. Once the disease enters it's next stage, it begins weakening the walls of the arteries and blood vessels in all the major organs, causing them to give way."
"Can't you... can't you make them thicker or something?" Lucrezia asked. "There's nothing you can do?"
"We've given him an experimental drug. It should keep him stabilized for a while, maybe a few weeks. We're not giving up, Mrs. Peacecraft. But at this point there isn't much else we can do but hope for a miracle."
"I want to see him." Gage interjected. "Please."
"Of course."
"I want to go to." Lucrezia insisted. The doctor gave Gage a questioning look, and he nodded. She started to get angry, and the realized that where Milliardo was concerned, she no longer had any legal rights, not even the right to see him if Milliardo's son forbid it. But for now, the young man took her hand again, and they followed the doctor down the hall.
Gage's knees buckled as they entered the hospital room and they saw his father for the first time.
His arms and his face were almost totally covered in bruises, and they had an oxygen tube up his nose. He looked like he'd been in a car accident, topped by the fact that his hair was still brightly dyed like Gage's.
His eyes flicked open and he forced a smile at the sight of his son. "It's not as bad as it looks." He whispered.
"You look like a rotten Sno-Cone." Gage touched an unbruised part of his cheek, and Milliardo laughed, and then his eyes fell on Lucrezia.
"Wufei told her, Dad. She knows." Gage explained gently.
He raised his hand, or tried to, motioning his ex-wife forward. "I didn't want you to see me like this."
"I don't care what you look like!" She couldn't stop the tears now. "You idiot! You should have told me!"
"You had enough to worry about." He shut his eyes again. "Too much. Didn't need this too."
"We're not giving up." She insisted. "We've still got a few weeks to think of something. We've been down before. How many times did we think we were done for, huh? We always came back, guns blazing. We'll do it again."
"That's my girl." He grinned. "Hold that thought. I'm not giving up either." He tried to gather his energy. "Meg and Amy... "
"They're on their way. I called them. And your sister."
"Terrific. We'll have a party." He muttered, and one eye opened, focusing on Gage. "Hold her down, dye her hair purple. Make it a family thing."
"Get some sleep, Dad. We'll be back in later. Don't give the nurses too much of a hard time." He kissed Milliardo's cheek, and he and Lucrezia walked back out into the hall.
"Thank you."
"For what?" Gage was puzzled.
"Letting me see him."
"Why wouldn't I? You already know he's sick. God, do you really think I'm a total monster?"
"No. But after the things I said earlier... "
He shook his head. "You were honest about how you felt. Believe me, I'd rather hear the truth than some pretty little lie. Right now it's not about either of us, it's about him. He loves both of us. And he needs both of us."
"We're really losing him, aren't we?"
"Yeah. We're losing him." He hesitated, and then put his arms around her, holding her against his chest and letting her weep.
"Heero, are you sure about this? We can wait until tomorrow." Rosemary offered.
"I'm sure." Heero settled back in the chair. "I may not have a tomorrow. I'm sure my mother is dead but if my father is still alive he might not have a tomorrow either. I have to know and know now."
Duo sat next to him, his helmet already in place, his arm around Heero's shoulders. They'd only returned from the hospital a few hours ago, when they were sure that Milliardo would at least make it through the night. Gage and Lucrezia had insisted they go home and rest, but no amount of pleading could make either one of them budge. Or Shan for that matter.
They'd known for years this was coming, but it still felt too sudden, too soon. Milliardo was such a part of their lives now that the thought of going on without their friend was overwhelming. Right now, Heero needed something else to focus on, something else to distract him.
"Okay, Heero. We're going to go back to when you were a little boy, living with Stargirl and Sunboy and your mother." Rosie began when the helmet was in place. "Here we go."
For a long while there wasn't anything, and Heero felt a familiar sense of despair. Then the dark began to fade and he sucked in his breath, feeling Duo's hand close around his own.
They were standing near a garden, with pink and yellow blossoms everywhere, under a span of bright blue sky. In the middle of the flowerbed knelt a beautiful Japanese woman, pulling up weeds. She wore a simple blue dress, high at the neck and low at the knee, and her hands were quick and deft at her task. Heero guessed her age at maybe twenty-five.
She stopped in her work and looked around, her hands on her hips, seeming exasperated. "Kato! Where are you?"
They could hear a child giggling.
"You'd better not... " She warned, but it was cut off by a small boy leaping out from behind some tall flowers and landing in her arms. Laughing, she fell over backwards, tickling him.
"Oh my god!" Duo was thrilled. "Look at you! You were adorable!"
The child was skinny, with long messy hair that fell over bright blue eyes, and his bare feet were muddy. "Got you, Mama!" He cheered. "Pow."
"Freeze it." Heero commanded, and the image halted. In a trance he moved forward, kneeling to look over the woman closely. They were only in observation mode, so he couldn't touch her. But his hands reached anyway on their own, first toward her, and then toward the child in her arms.
"She's so beautiful." Rosemary commented. "She looks so happy, too."
"Unfreeze." Heero commanded, a look of total wonder on his face.
They watched the woman play with her son for a little while, and then they heard another child calling "Moonboy!"
A little girl, blonde and tiny, ran up to them. Her dress had been yellow once but now it was as muddy as Kato's jeans. She crowed at the site of Kato and threw her arms around him. "I found you!"
Kato hugged her back.
"No, she is adorable." Heero remarked. "But she looks like she's going to squeeze me in half."
"Okay, Sungirl. Let him breathe." The woman laughed. "How did you get so messy? Where's your brother?"
The little girl pointed. "Over there."
"Come on. We'll go find him and then get some lunch."
"Girled cheese?" Sungirl asked.
"Grilled cheese. Not girled cheese." Kato corrected with a giggle.
"Girled cheese. I'm a girl and I like it." Sungirl insisted.
"Then I want boyed cheese." Kato decided.
"You're both about to get liver." The woman warned playfully, and the children made faces at her.
The spot Sungirl had pointed to was empty, and the woman groaned, looking up at a tree. "Starboy, get down here! You know you're not supposed to climb that when no grown-ups are around. Do you want to fall again?"
"I won't fall, Nana." A voice called from the branches. "I promise."
"1, 2... " She began.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming." The branches russled and a boy appeared, shinnying down the trunk, and turning to face them.
Heero's face turned milky. "Freeze." He managed to get out. He thought he was imagining things, but the look of shock on Duo's face told him that he wasn't. Even Rosemary looked stunned.
The child called Starboy was a carbon copy of how Gage had looked all those years ago at Jazz's wedding. His white hair was longer, and pony-tailed, but he could easily have passed at the same child. Even the grin on his face was just a smaller version of Gage's trademark smirk now.
Heero stared at Sungirl again, really looked this time.
"No wonder she kept chasing you around. And why you kept trying to protect her. You remembered." Duo finally managed to get out. "Somehow, you both remembered."
"My family." Heero shook his head. "I lived in Sanc. I played with Milliardo and Relena. Why didn't Milliardo recognize me? He was big enough to remember, even if Relena wasn't."
"Heero, he was taken from Sanc when he was six. That's about how old he looks now. You were only three. You looked totally different by the time he saw you again, you even had a different name. There was nothing to remind him."
"Sanc was attacked when Milliardo was six and Relena was about two ½. Their parents were killed. A decision was made to separate the children, in the hopes that if one of them was found and killed, maybe the other one could be spared, and someday the line could be restored. Milliardo has never forgiven them for that." Heero stopped. "He did say something once, years ago. He said that he and Relena weren't the only children living in Sanc at the time, and that he'd tried to find an old playmate but never had any luck. I didn't think much about it. I figured the other children must have died."
"So he does remember you, then. Or at least he remembers Moonboy." Rosie commented.
"Heero, we're watching this. But are you remembering it?" Duo asked. "I mean, can you remember this happening?"
"No. Nothing. I want to see more. Unfreeze."
Heero watched his mother pick up Relena and carry her toward the house, while he and Milliardo trailed behind her. Milliardo turned and began walking backwards, and Kato mimicked him. He tripped over Milliardo's feet and they both fell to the ground, giggling. Heero's mother shook her head in fake disgust and Relena made the same gesture and then squealed. "Daddy!"
"SUNGIRL!" The man was tall and fair-haired, resembling both of his children greatly. He took his daughter from her nanny's arms and nuzzled her, and then bent down to hug both boys.
"You're home! I missed you, Daddy." Milliardo informed him.
"I missed you too." Kato echoed.
"Not nearly as much as I missed you." He reached into his pocket, and pulled out three lollipops. "Here, let's spoil your lunch."
"I want the red one!" Milliardo demanded.
"I get the red one!" Relena argued.
"They're all red. So nothing to fight over."
"Heero." Rosie froze the program on her own. "I want to ask you something, and think carefully. I know he was married at the time, but do you think that maybe... "
"He's not my father." Heero said firmly.
"How do can you be sure about that?"
"Because when I look at her, I know she's my mother. She feels like my mother. I look at him and I feel warm. I know that I loved him. But I know he wasn't my father."
"Heero, given the situation they probably didn't tell you." Duo offered. "I mean, his wife was living there too. You think he would have wanted you calling him Daddy in front of her?"
"End program." Heero ordered, and the scene vanished.
"Heero." Duo put down the helmet. "I'm sorry, but you have to admit that it's possible. You're obviously part white, you have blue eyes, so does he. It would explain why you lived there with his kids."
"I lived there because my mother was their nanny." Heero stood up and stretched. "I need some time to think about everything. I'm not going to deny that I'm kind of shell-shocked right now. Tomorrow, if he feels up to it, I'll talk to Milliardo and see what he can tell me."
"I want you to get a blood test done too." Duo insisted. "Don't look at me like that! What if you are related to him? What if that... what if you have what he has?"
"I just had a physical the other day!"
"They didn't know what to look for then. Please, Heero. Just humor me."
"Okay." Heero relented. "I'll have any test you want done."
He had seen Milliardo for a second tonight, the bruised form on the hospital bed, and he swallowed. If Duo and Rosie were right, if by some chance, he and Milliardo were siblings, was that in his future as well?
End Part 10
(:./lasha/street10)
