The Past we Wish We Didn’t Have: Part Six

 

            Wufei was laid gently on one of Quatre’s curtained, four-poster beds as Michael bent down to help Duo stand. Heero turned back to the two angels, and watched Duo reorient himself. “I told you not to stress yourself, Duo.” Michael said, “I told you, you have just begun to re-familiarize yourself with your powers and that it wouldn’t be wise to over do it. Didn’t I--”

            Duo looked at him gravely, “She had him in a time-room.”

            “By Our Father!” Michael turned to looked at Wufei, shock and pity on his face. They didn’t speak in Adman’s Tongue for the benefit of the other ex-Gundam pilots.

            “What’s a time-room?” asked Quatre, clinging on to Trowa’s arm, and staring at Wufei.

            “It a room where time passes more slowly or quickly than normally. For Wufei, it might have been years that he was in there, even if for us it was only a little over a week. For him, he might have been dealing with Lorelei’s darkest wishes for decades.”

            Quatre shook his head in disbelief. Trowa pulled him closer and they held each other. Heero stared at Duo. “Explain. Everything,” he said curtly.

            Duo nodded and regretfully lead the way away from Wufei, down the hallway decorated with pictures of Quatre’s sisters, and into another room, a sitting room where his father and Lorrie were. He had begun calling her Lorrie, just as the other angels had, to prevent the mix-up in an already confusing situation. Michael allowed Heero to follow right behind Duo and then watched as Trowa and Quatre dragged each other from the room. He slowly closed the door behind him, trying his best not to look at Wufei. When Michael finally entered the sitting room and closed the door behind him, Duo turned to his friends, now seated on the same couch and said, “I’m angel. Actually each of us four are angels,” He gestured towards Michael, his father and Lorrie, “Well, actually Lorrie is kindda half an angel, but still--”

            “Too confusing, start from the beginning.” Heero interrupted.

            Duo sighed, “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth,” he had meant it as a joke, but no one in the room was laughing and he realized that this was, after all a nice place to start, so he continued. “And He created a world parallel to Earth, a world with all the same basic rules. In this world He put His warriors, His angels and unto them He bestowed great and wonderful gifts.” Duo knew he was being verbose, but at this point he really didn’t care, and he was shouting each word without shouting, crying, how dare you let this happen, Father, “The gift to fly, to travel through His worlds, to live forever, to manipulate shape, to heal, to hear human thoughts and the to bend a few of His laws, required certain rituals are executed.” With this statement he glanced at Lorrie, she lowered her head shamefully. “But you see, we don’t have the benefits you do. We don’t have immortal souls, we have immortal bodies. These bodies can only be destroyed by the Will of Our Creator, Himself! We also can’t procreate like you can.” We was whispering now, bending close to his mortal friends, “I mean, sure we can fuck, we can fuck all we want, but no babies pop out like with you humans, I mean in same-sex relationships.” He smiled at Trowa and Quatre, “Babies only come about every 10 thousand years.” He quickly straightened his body and walked sharply back to the sitting angels, “Isn’t that right, Dad?” He asked maliciously. His father nodded and added, “Expect for you.”

            “That’s right, expect for me and this pretty thing over here.” He stepped behind the chair Lorrie was sitting, she looked miserable with guilt. “We were born right about an hour apart, isn’t that right Lorrie? And thanks to that our lust was ten times stronger than any creature ever created by Our Lord, including Lucifer, but Hell, I’ve never met Lucifer.”

            “I have,” Michael said, hating the memory of his fallen brother.

            Duo glanced at him then his crazed and angry indigo eyes turned back to the wretched looking angel sitting in the chair below him. “Our lust destroyed many a human life. And we reined together, in our own way, feasting on the blood of mortals. And then we repented before the alter of God and with Lorrie’s mother’s blood our sins were washed away.” Lorrie was outright crying by now, “You see we don’t get a Christ to save our dammed lives. That’s were you humans get the good Gift.” He bent down and kissed Lorrie’s salty-wet check. “And you also get names. We don’t. We have to earn our names. No matter how much Trowa would like to think he doesn’t have a real name, his sister told him the truth. Has for us angels, we either have to do something so wonderful, humans take notice, like Michael over there, or he have to come to Earth, like Lorrie and I did. But Lorrie couldn’t handle her lust while I was away, could you dear?” She was sobbing, he guilt eating her alive, it almost seemed. Duo had to raise his voice to be heard. “She couldn’t take not having my body as a release of her Burning Desire.” He was mocking her on purpose, “So she performed one of those old and scared rituals, without proper supervision and without practice, trying to rid herself of that lust. But the plan backfired and when she came to there she was looking at a face, just like hers. She hadn’t just rid herself of her lust, she had given it another body and so we have two Lorelei’s running around, one so kind she can’t even bear to hear Pure Language and one so evil, she’ll ruin anything and anyone to get her way. So in reality our friend being broken and abused is really her fault isn’t it?!” He said angrily.

            “Duo, stop it!” yelled Quatre, standing, “If she’s so pure don’t you think she knows that?!”

            “And besides, Duo, you were the reason the Dragon Clan held the Spirit in the first place. If you hadn’t been so tempted by its Power, Wufei wouldn’t be bearing it now, and Lorelei would have no reason for him.” Michael added, angrily, “Lorrie knows what she has done and her pure soul pays for it!”

            The room was silent with accusations, and Duo let his breathing normalize itself again. Lorrie’s sobs died slowly. It was Trowa who surprisingly broke the silence, “The Spirit?” he asked.

            And another surprise was that Lorrie answered, “When Duo and I had been good again, after a while we…got bored and together found an old ritual that created a type of live sprit. This sprit would be like a cat or dog, alive, but not sentient. However it held enormous power to its controller. I saw Duo being tempted by this Power. So I sent the sprit away into a young Chinese warrior, who passed it along to his baby through conception. It’s traveled from body to body and made its way to Wufei. It’s what kept him alive. But the time for conception has passed. It’s spent far more time in Wufei’s body then it did in any of his ancestors, and I think it has infused itself into him, it’s now apart of him. It has no conscience of its own, but it is there, happy to merely be alive.” 

            “And when he dies?” asked Heero.

            “We don’t know if the Spirit will allow him to die, he could live forever, or the Spirit could very well die with him.”

            “You damned creatures, do you think you can just play with human lives?” asked Heero.

            “Yes, Heero, we do think we can play with human lives, the glory of it is that most of us do not. And as for damned, you may have a redeemable soul, but we never die, and therefore life in magnificence forever.” Michael said, with an unemotional tone, “And please, when the Fallen Son of the Morning tried to control humans as mindless automatons and take the Father’s glory, I was there. I fought for your freedom, please, from one freedom fighter to another; give me the respect I deserve for that. And don’t judge the actions of a few as my entire race. The angel known as Duo now, we’ll seek his own repentance, I suggest you seek your as well. But the more pressing matter is Wufei. Quatre I want you, and only you to go in there, clean him up and give him a decent pair of clothes.”

            “Why me? I mean, surly one of you--” Quatre asked glancing to each angel.

            “It is important that a human do this and seeing that he is not speaking to any one and probably will not speak for a long time I would prefer if that human was more sensitive to how he is feeling. And you, sweet Quatre, I know you could hear his screams.”

 

            Quatre hummed a quiet lullaby as he slowly whipped the blood off of Wufei’s body. This job was not one he would have wanted, but Michael had been right, he was perfect for it. The bowl he had brought filled with water was now a pink color and the white rag matched as well. “Trowa could you get me some more water?” Quatre asked, Trowa was standing quietly at the door and Quatre winced at Wufei’s panic when he came closer to take the bowl. Quatre started humming again, like Michael had told him and Wufei’s breathing slowed down and his mind quieted. Quatre had learned the song when he was little from his sister, but he never remembered the words, he wasn’t sure there was any. He took the fluffy towel and dried the water off of Wufei’s chest, many of the wounds were healing very quickly, Quatre was amazed. Duo explained it must be the sprit inside of him. Wufei’s body was pretty much cleaned, only his hair remained sweaty and bloody. Quatre had so many questions to ask, if it had been years for Wufei, why wasn’t he older? Why didn’t they protect him better, if the Sprit was so strong? Why hadn’t Duo told them who he really was? What had really happened to Wufei? That last question he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Trowa came back with the new water, then quickly returned to his post at the door. Quatre wondered for a moment how he has going to wash Wufei’s hair, and decided to prop his Chinese friend up a little so the water bowl could be under his head. Wufei moved easily and stayed in the position Quatre put him in, just has he had throughout this entire process. Quickly Quatre scrubbed Wufei’s hair clean and sat the Chinese man up, towel dried the hair and pulled it back into a pony-tail. Then he asked Trowa to put up the bedding and he went around to place his arm around Wufei’s body. Trying his best to ignore Wufei’s mental assault, whispering to himself it would be better for Wufei to be clothed and washed, then laying on the bed naked and dirty. Wufei’s body was dead weight, but thankfully he somewhat dragged his feet. “Wufei, I need you to stand up Wufei, could you please do that?” he asked. Quatre let go of Wufei and thankfully Wufei stood on his own. Quatre quickly clothed him, a little embarrassed and trying his best to not look at him there. If the circumstances had been different he would have felt odd having Trowa in the same room while he dressed another man, but Wufei just needed their help right now. Quatre had Wufei in a white T-shrift and gray sweatpants, along with happy faced boxers he was sure the Chinese man would never wear on his own, and Trowa was done changing the sheets of the bed. Quatre quietly laid Wufei back down, knowing he was grateful to be clean and clothed, but even more happy just to know they were going to leave him alone.

 

            “There,” Quatre said as he sat down in the couch again, Trowa sliding next to him. “I want some answers. Why hasn’t he aged?”

            Duo shock his head, “We are not sure, Lorelei must have used another ritual to stop that as well. As for protecting him, we didn’t think there was a reason to, everyone that was a threat to him was supposed to be in check. And as for why I didn’t tell you all about this, well I just found out myself and you’re right, do don’t want to know what happened to Wufei.” Duo sat back in one of the huge and comfortable chairs, his old smug smirk on him face.

            “If you’re going to read someone’s mind at least be graceful about it.” Quatre countered, feeling too many emotions to care about being pleasant himself. Trowa hugged him.

            “What happens now?” Trowa asked.

            “We try and heal Wufei.”

            “Can you do that?” Quatre asked.

            “Normally, no, not with this much emotional damage. I mean, a physical wound is no prob, but emotional have to do with souls and souls are hard to heal. But someone here just might be able to.” He turned his head to look at Lorrie, who was looking out one of the windows of the room, glancing at the colony outside. She turned at looked grimly at him.

 

            She stood tentatively at the door. Slowly she walked towards the bed. Wufei knew she was there and started breathing harshly. The she reached the bed and touched him, he recoiled that a wounded dog, Moving his body quickly till he fell of the bed, then he crawled to the far wall, he back pressed against the wall and he started screaming. The sound wasn’t human; it was like a scared animal, being slaughtered for food. Her eyes filled with tears and she quickly ran from the room.

            “I can’t heal him!” she cried, his screaming hadn’t stopped.

            “Yes you can, your just afraid!” Duo responded.

            “No, I can, Duo was the room a Dark Soul?”

            “It was lit.” he answered.

            “With what?” asked Michael.

            Duo started to open his mouth, but thought, “Shit,” he said under his breath.

            “Damn it.” Duo’s father shock his head. “It’s not your fault, Duo, you were only thinking of getting him out of there, and you did, that’s good enough.”

            “What’s a Dark Soul?” asked Quatre, wincing from Wufei’s screamed that hadn’t stopped.

            “It’s a room with a living soul in it. It’s so dark the only light that can penetrate it is  the light of a living thing, she literally tore the light out of his very so, meaning that Lorrie can’t heal him because not all of him is there. You see we use living light inside the being to heal them, it’s just like fixing a puzzle, however with some of his light in that room, or wherever she has it now, it’s like Lorrie is missing some pieces.”

            “What does that mean?” Trowa asked.

            “It means that we have to find Lorelei, and get the light back. I know her too well, it’s not in that room anymore.”

            “I’m coming with you,” said Heero.

            “You can’t.”

            “You carried Wufei here, you can carry me there.”

            “Heero,”

            “Duo.”

            They stared at each other a while, neither one giving up.

            “Oh God.” Lorrie stated, staring at both of them, her eyes wide and streaming with tears. Duo looked at her and realized what she had noticed.

            “Lorrie,” he began.

            “I…I can’t help you with this, Duo. I mean, I’m not a fighter anymore. I’ll be in our room when you need me again.” Before he could say anything she disappeared in a flash of light.

            “Fuck!” he yelled and stamped his foot.

            “Interesting choice of wording,” commented his father.

            He glared at the other angel then turned to Heero. “Fine. Trowa? Quatre? You wantta come too?” he asked pleasantly.

            “But what about Wufei?” asked Quatre, the wailing hadn’t stopped.

            “Michael, you do the honors?” Duo asked.

            Michael nodded and went into the room Wufei was in. Shortly after he entered the screaming stopped and after another moment he came out. Before they left Quatre stole a glance in the room, to see Wufei sleeping peacefully in the bed. Then he hugged the archangel closely and glanced at Trowa, who was in the arms of Duo’s father.

            “Ready gentlemen?” asked Duo, holding Heero tight. Together they disappeared in a flash of blinding white light.