I do not own Gundam Wing or any characters in it. Gundam Wing belongs to Sotsu, Sunrise, ANB, and other rich people. I do not own I Don't Know You Anymore, it's by Savage Garden. Mozart's K.626 Requiem belongs to Mozart. I am not making any money off of this, and I have no money so don't sue me. On the other hand, I do own whatever random side characters I come up with.
Warnings: Rated R for content. Contains lime, male/male pairings, violence, death, and some language. If any of this content offends you, your parents don't want you reading this, or you are not old enough to read this, please don't. If you choose to read on anyway, if you have been warned and I do not care to receive any content based complaints after said warning. Thank you.
Author's Notes: Words inside // indicate song lyrics. Pairings: Heero/Duo, Quatre/Trowa, Relena/OC
Music played softly on the stereo, a lilting soprano arched high above the basses on a Dies Irae. I smiled. It was kind of fitting really since I'd �died� a year ago to the day. I'd cut all ties to my so-called friends and gone as far away from them as I could without leaving Earth.
/I would like to visit you for a while
Get away and out of this city
Maybe I shouldn't have called but someone had to be the first to break/
I turned on the TV, hoping to catch the 6:00 news. Contrasting sharply with the soprano, a crisp British accent filled the room, as a pretty blonde woman flickered to life on the screen. �Today marks the four year anniversary of the end of the Eve wars, and the one year anniversary of the disappearance of Gundam Pilot and Preventer Duo Maxwell.� I winced as an old picture flashed on the screen. I looked at the manic grin and wild eyes and felt my attention being dragged back to the newscaster's voice.
�After disappearing on a mission and a year of silence Preventer Maxwell is presumed dead. The other Gundam Pilots have refused to comment on either the disappearance or the presumption of their friend's death.� I snorted in derision. Of course they wouldn't comment on it. �A memorial service will be held on Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock.�
I only half watched the rest of the news. Preventers aided a peace conference. Rumor had it that Quatre Winner was engaged. My mind wasn't on the present, or even the future. It drifted instead into my past.
I stood in the hallway quietly listening, through the partially open doorway I could see all four pilots gathered around and talking. �The baka is a nuisance, he will at least get himself killed, if not all of us,� Heero snarled. No one disagreed with him. We'd been fighting together for four months. I was still alive, they were still alive, and I saved all of them a few times each. Yes, they'd done the same for me but we'd been equal in skill. I trusted them with my life. I'd thought they'd trusted me with theirs. They had just proven me wrong.
I crept away from the door, vowing to never let them know what I'd heard. I buried it in the depths of my heart, hiding the fact that I knew I couldn't trust them to guard me. I still guarded them, hoping they would guard me, and I always kept my smile on my face and let my manic laughter hide my true feelings.
Then I was captured and Heero came to kill me so that I wouldn't tell OZ anything. I fully expected him to shoot me. And then he didn't. He held that gun to my forehead and I told him to kill me� He didn't. He carried me out of that prison instead. He patched me up; he acted like he cared for me, and I tried to believe it. I mostly put his words out of my mind. I thought he'd finally learned to trust me. We seemed like such good friends. Heck, I thought we were friends and I could cheerfully have gone for more.
Then the Eve wars ended. I was thrilled to stop fighting but I didn't know what I was going to do with myself.
�Heero?�
�Hn?� he grunted.
�The war's over. We've finally achieved peace. What the heck am I gonna do with myself now?� I asked him.
�Do whatever you did before the war, Baka,� he said coldly. I whirled around and stared at him. His face was an icy mask, but then I realized it wasn't a mask. He didn't care. Even so I couldn't believe he'd said that. I couldn't believe he'd tell me to go back where I came from.
Visions of the streets of L2 flashed through my mind. Dark nights, little food, and hot and sweaty sex as I turned trick after trick in the red light district. No, I wouldn't *ever* go back to that.
He didn't notice my reaction. He just sat there, his back to me, and typed. It brought back his words of eight months before. I left the room, plastering a smile onto my face as I practically ran into Quatre and Trowa in the hall. They were standing close together looking almost intimate.
I wanted to snarl at them. Instead I just smiled and chirped a hello as I bounced past on my way down the hall. Once out of their sight I fled the house and went to Deathscythe. Deathscythe never judged me, unlike the rest of them. He listened to me without telling me to shut up, and he always let me work through my thoughts and problems. I know some people would say that's silly, Deathscythe is just a machine, but I know better.
The phone buzzed loudly, bringing me out of my thoughts and back to the weather report. It was supposed to rain. The Dies Irae was finished and the choir had moved on through the Sanctus and into the Agnus Dei. I turned down the TV and the music. I stood up, going over to the phone. I flicked on the screen and stared at it in shock.
Standing on the other end of the vid-link, large as life, was Heero. He wasn't supposed to find me. I was supposed to be free of him and the pain he, no they, had put me through.
�Duo?� he asked hesitantly. I just stared at him in shock. �Duo, are you all right?�
�Hello, Heero.� I forced my vocal chords to work. �I'm fine, and you?� My tone sounded stiff and formal. It shocked him. I'd never been stiff and formal around them. I know they thought I could never be either of those things.
I could, generally when I'd been given a few too many shocks, and seeing him after swimming through my memories, after trying so hard to be dead�and for the greater world succeeding�well I reacted as best as I could. Besides, I had changed a lot over the years, I just hadn't let them see the changes. I had to protect myself, especially from them. In my year of freedom, in the year I had been dead, I was able to let the changes show. I was able to be myself. I did not want to put my Joker's face back on.
�I'm good,� he said. �I was wondering if I could come and see you?� He sounded unsure of himself, of me, maybe even in the basic precepts of his reality.
I thought for a moment. He'd found me. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't give up. The Perfect Soldier never gave up when he was on a mission. I could see in his eyes that he was on one now. I sighed quietly.
�If you want,� I replied. �You have the address?�
�Yes,� he told me. �When can I come?�
Again, I knew him too well. He wanted to come tonight. He didn't want me to run again. I finally had roots though. I had no desire to leave my home, but I also had no strong desire to see him immediately. I needed to prepare myself. �Tomorrow afternoon,� I said.
�You won't leave?� he sounded anxious, although his face was expressionless. It surprised me none the less. Heero had never let anyone, least of all me, hear any real emotion before.
�I won't leave,� I promised. �Good night, Heero.� I clicked off the phone and flopped back down on the couch. I turned the TV off and the music back up. The player was starting a new mass, Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua. I sang along with the tenors and fell back down into my memories.
Copyright 2005