A Lone Bullet (formerly
A GW Ficcie)
-----part 1-----
It had been almost ten years since they'd seen each other, and as he
waited for Duo at the airport, Trowa wondered what the other pilot
would look like. He'd tried to convince himself, and the others, that
he wasn't gay. That he wasn't interested in men.
He'd tried to convince himself he wasn't in love with Duo.
He'd staggered through a dismal failure of a marriage that had finally
broken up six months earlier. Then, he'd gone on a drinking binge,
thinking that he'd lost everything because he hadn't allowed himself
to see the truth.
That binge had stopped when he'd learned that Duo Maxwell was still
available. Not only still available, but, Kami-sama bless his sweet
heart, actually still saving himself for Trowa. He'd almost been raped
a couple of times, and had even been tried for manslaughter charges
when one of his attackers had died as a result of Duo fighting back.
The charges had been dropped, of course, and the family, which had
left their home hating Duo, had been so moved by his beauty and
purity, that they had been unable to go on hating him as soon as they
saw him.
"Everyone falls in love with him at first sight." Trowa asked himself.
"He could have anyone he wanted, and he chose me. Why?"
"Because we complete each other."
Trowa looked up and saw Duo standing there, smiling down at him. His
hair, longer than before, flowed down his back, free of its usual
braid. It not only reached the floor, but continued on about three
feet behind him, reminding Trowa of the train on a Western-style
bridal gown.
"Kami-sama..." Trowa whispered, "your hair..."
"I didn't have time to braid it this morning." Duo apologized, blushing
a little, and looking even more like a bride.
"You're even more beautiful than I remember." Trowa told him.
-----part 2-----
"I can't believe you waited for me." Trowa told Duo as they walked
into the pub Trowa had been frequenting since the breakup of his
marriage.
"I knew you'd realize the truth sooner or later." Duo replied with a
warm smile that was so beautiful it could've melted the hearts of
OZ's entire complement of Aries pilots. He reached for the door, but
Trowa stopped him.
"What's wrong?"
"They've got a strict dress code in their, my love." Trowa said as he
ran his fingers through Duo's hair. "All handsome young men named Duo
Maxwell must wear their hair in a braid."
"If I must, then I must." Duo shrugged and smiled, then reached back.
"May I?" Trowa asked, in a voice that said that being able to braid
Duo's hair would be the greatest honor anyone could offer him.
"Yes." Duo replied.
It took a long time, but when the braid was done, Trowa stepped back
to admire Duo once again.
*****
As they sat and sipped their drinks, they spoke of the time they'd
spend apart.
"If you didn't love her, then why did you marry her?"
"I guess I was running from what I already knew was true."
"What about now?" Duo asked.
"I've stopped running." Trowa replied.
"I'm glad." Duo blushed, again.
Trowa noticed that Duo had been blushing a lot and the implication
struck him. "Duo," he whispered, "are you sure?"
"I don't want to wait anymore." Duo whispered. "I want to give myself
to you. Tonight."
"Then, that settles it." Trowa nodded. "After we finish our drinks,
we'll stop off at this place I know where there's a man who performs
same-sex weddings and then..."
"Weddings...?" Duo asked.
"You can't expect me to defile *you* without us being married first."
Trowa said, firmly. Ten years of counseling, five spent skirting the
real issue, the other five spent dealing with the horror he'd dealt
with in his youth had not entirely cured him of his anxieties around
sex, but he felt that they were now at least manageable. Instead of
making excuses and avoiding it, he was sure that now, with Duo, he'd
be able to make love and just feel a nagging sense of discomfort
about it. There might be nightmares afterward, but Duo would be there
to comfort him and cheer him up. And if anyone was good at cheering
people up, it was Duo.
"Trowa," Duo whispered. "my answer is 'yes'."
They hadn't been paying attention to the fight at the next table, so
neither former Gundam pilot was prepared for what happened next
One of the tables occupants jumped up, drew a gun and fired at another
man at the table.
That man ducked, and the bullet sped over to the table where Trowa and
Duo were sitting.
The bullet struck Duo in the head, obliterating the right side of his
face and throwing him backward a couple feet from the force of the
impact.
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Trowa screamed. "Oh Kami-sama! DUO!!!!!"
He ran to Duo's side, lifting him from the floor. Then he saw the
shattered remains of Duo's face and broke down completely.
-----part 3-----
Quatre was in meditation when Rashid brought his phone to him.
"Sir." Rashid told the young man who was now head of the Winner
Corporation and a silent partner with two other companies. 'You have a
phone call from a Mr. Trowa Barton. He seems rather distressed."
Quatre took the phone. "Thank you, Rashid." he turned his attention to
the caller. "Trowa? What's wrong?" he listened in growing horror and
sadness as Trowa told him about the shooting. "Trowa, I'm so sorry. If
there's anything I can do. If you need help with the funeral
arrangements, I'll make sure Duo gets the best funeral anyone has ever
had. Yes, we can have it at my estate. Closed casket? My god, Trowa!
How bad was... oh my god. Excuse me." he turned away from the phone
and motioned to Rashid for a waste basket, which he threw up into.
Rashid took the basket away once Quatre was finished. "Sorry." he
said, returning his attention, again, to the phone. "Okay, just tell
me what you want and I'll see to it that it's taken care of. And,
Trowa, I am truly sorry. Duo was a good friend."
-----part 4-----
Heero and Wufei were watching a movie when Quatre walked into the
living room. "Where's Relena?" he asked.
"Your wife is upstairs, helping your daughter with her homework."
Wufei replied.
"Quatre?" Wufei asked, seeing Quatre's troubled expression. "What's
wrong?"
"Duo was killed." Quatre explained what Trowa had told him to the
other ex-pilots.
The others sat there, stunned, for a moment.
Finally Wufei spoke. "Quatre, we'll help out in any way that we can.
It's only right that Duo get the best funeral possible."
Heero nodded in agreement. He was finding it hard to reconcile his
mind with the idea of Duo being gone. They would never again hear the
braided baka's cheerful voice. Duo would never again phone him up or
ask how he and Wufei were doing. A part of their lives, one that had
brought them great joy at a time of great pain, was now gone forever.
"How's Trowa taking it?" he asked.
"Not good." Quatre replied. "He'd just proposed to Duo when it
happened. From what I could gather, Duo had said yes. I've been
thinking. I don't think Trowa should be alone right now. This has got
to be a very bad time for him and he needs his friends around."
"I agree." Relena put in. "Trowa needs us. He needs to know there are
people around who care. Who'll be there for him."
Wufei and Heero nodded in silent assent.
"Then it's settled. After the funeral, we'll invite him to stay with
us, then." Quatre concluded.
-----part 5-----
Quatre walked into dining room on the morning of Duo's funeral and
sat down next to breakfast. Ignoring the food, he looked up at the
clock.
"The funeral starts in one hour." he reminded Relena.
Their daughter looked up at him with questioning eyes. "What's a
funeral?" she asked.
Quatre was at a loss.
Relena set the child on her knee. "When someone nice goes to Heaven,
the people they leave behind get sad because that person can't be
with them anymore. So they have a funeral to say goodbye and so that
they can comfort each other."
"Oh." the child thought about this. "What about Duo. He's going to
Heaven all alone. Won't he be lonely?"
"Senken, remember when Kagero went away and we put her in the ground
in the back yard?"
The child nodded, tearfully remembering her little kitty. "Did Kagero
go to Heaven?"
"That's right. So Kagero will be there to make Duo happy when he gets
to Heaven." Relena explained.
"Can I talk to Duo before they put him in the ground? Like when I
talked to Kagero?" Senken asked. "I want to tell him to feed my
kitty when he's in Heaven."
"I'm afraid not, honey." Quatre explained. "When Duo was ..." he
tried to find the right words to explain it to her.
"Was he all yucky broken up like Kagero?" the child asked with a sad
face.
"Yeah, that's right." Quatre patted her shoulder. "But if you ask
Allah to remind Duo tonight in your prayers, Duo will get the
message."
"Okay." the little girl's smile came back as Rashid walked into the
room and lead her away to enjoy the innocent games of childhood while
her parents headed to the family chapel to bid their last goodbyes to
a beloved friend.
-----Epilogue-----
"Duo! Hurry up or you'll be late for school!" Senken Winner-Yuy
called up to her son.
Six year old Duo Maxwell Winner-Yuy took the stairs two at a time.
Although he bore a striking resemblance to his namesake, his braid,
which he insisted on wearing as soon as he had heard about the
original Duo (whom in his words was 'the coolest guy in the
universe'), still had a long way to go before it got to the original
Duo's length.
Heero's son, Odin Yuy, ruffled Duo's hair and handed the boy a lunch
box. "Be good." he told the child, drawing Senken close and smiling
as the boy headed outside to join the other children who were waiting
for the school bus.
From the porch, Trowa and Quatre, who'd gotten closer in the past two
years, since Relena's unexpected death from breast cancer, waved to
the child who waved back as he passed, then headed back inside, arms
around each others' shoulders.
Relena smiled down at them and turned to Solo. "It was nice of you to
talk them into reincarnating Duo like that."
"Well, with the way he kept yappin' it wasn't difficult." Solo
smiled.
-----Owari-----