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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 2Written By: ELLE Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Gundam
Wing (unfortunately) and they were used without permission, but all
the words are my own. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: occurs post-EW, language, angst, sex,
hopefully acceptable OOC, 1st person POV (*shudder* sorry, no way
around it!), plus a ton of minor and a few major OCs (since it's 1st
person, you get to avoid dealing with them too much.) Pairings: 1x2x1 plus others TBD Summary: Jack Kaufmann has no recollection of the braided man who claims they were once more than friends, but his quest to recover his memories leads him to discover a plot much larger than himself that is a threat to the peace he'd once fought to protect... The lovely Miss-Murdered beta'd this for me and frankly this story wouldn't exist without her encouragement.
"A Former Life Reprised" 2.3 The Recovery
The next two weeks were weird, to say the least. Every time things became too comfortable one of us would push away and it would get awkward again and we'd spend a whole evening not talking to one another. I slept on the couch and Duo slept in the bed. He cooked for me and helped me get in the vicinity of the shower but I refused to fall so low as to make him help me with it. In fact, I started a rather aggressive training program as soon as possible. I had Duo pick me up free weights, despite his protests, and between those and lapping the apartment in a quick hobble I was starting to feel a bit better about my overall condition. Duo harassed me about nearly everything - but then, he was about as good at being stuck in a house as I was about being babied - and I managed to let it all go. I didn't know what I was going to do when he left me and went home to Sanc. It was becoming increasingly apparent that he wasn't about to fall down in my arms and forgive me any time soon and I didn't even have the slightest clue what to do to usher in any reprisal of our relationship. I wanted to make some grand gesture of my affection but with a knee brace and a healing body it didn't seem prudent to take him out for a night on the town. And although I did once or twice have the idea I might try to kiss him and hope that would fix something - after all, our relationship started that way - any time I got close enough to try he would back away as if I were going to attack him. For a short while I even worried he knew about my conflict with ZERO and the night I almost killed him, although I quickly realized he was just protecting his emotions. After a particularly grueling day in which I took off the full brace and started with a short, flexible one and therefore pushed myself to a degree that was likely foolish, Duo made us steak and potatoes and steamed vegetables. I remembered the day he learned how to cook steak. Hilde was visiting for the week and he was teasing her relentlessly about making him a steak - some inside joke between the two. She bet him that she could drink more beers than him without passing out - the wager being she would make him a steak or he would learn how to cook one so he'd never have to ask again. To this day I'm not really sure how she managed the feat - Duo can drink a lot of beer. But she did, or at least she convinced him she did, although as an unhappy observer I'd say they passed out within moments of each other. Despite the inconvenience and the pissy attitude Duo had the next day, I would give anything to go back to that moment and wake up to his arms wrapped around me, pressing against me for comfort against his headache. We ate in silence for a while. I knew Duo was a bit upset with me for pushing myself so hard, but I also suspected he was unhappy because it also meant he would be leaving soon. That might have been wishful thinking on my part, I'll confess. People need hope, I once said with a certain level of disdain. But now, I realized, I needed hope. There were many questions I'd avoided asking. I hadn't gotten the wherewithal to ask about Jack or his research yet. Although I was curious, I wanted Duo more than I wanted to know, and if not asking kept Duo here one more day, then I wouldn't ever ask. I didn't ask about his life in Sanc or what he did after I left either. In fact, we were both acting as if the past few years hadn't happened in a way. After the statement about Lyon, he didn't say a single thing about our life together or ask what made me leave. I guess at some point I realized that had to have hurt him more than anything else. I had simply abandoned him with no explanation. And I couldn't apologize because we were dancing around the truth and while normally I'd just say what needs to be said I was locking down from the stress and my fear of losing him. In times of duress, the solider persona is a difficult one for me to escape. And the more distant we grew each day the more difficult it was for me to fight. So it was with a certain amount of reservation that I asked him that night what he did that allowed him to take so much time off to deal with me. He snorted and shook his head. "Well, I don't work for Preventer any more if that's what you're getting at." I sighed. "I know you were never truly happy there." Neither of us was looking at the other but I noted the way his fork stopped. I think he was maybe surprised that I knew how he felt about the job I so enjoyed. "I had a freight contract with Nexxus for a coupla months delivering to L6," he explained as a way of changing the subject. "Nexxus?" I asked, finally looking up to study him. "Jack's company?" It was a question I knew the answer to, but I saw a way to bring Jack up in conversation now to get it over with. "Yeah, but it had nothing to do with him," Duo stated, still not looking at me. "It was just a contract, whatever, I'm a freelancer and it was good pay." We lapsed into silence for a few minutes as I struggled to figure out why he was upset. Was it that I brought up Jack? Was it that he thinks I'm judging him about being a freelancer? Luckily he took pity on me and despite his anger and our awkwardness, told me what was bothering him. "Actually Jack kinda saved my life jumping... The freighter I was supposed to take exploded on its maiden voyage." Shit. How did I completely forget that conversation? Usually I was better than that, even considering my waning sedation at the time. And then I was up and moving around the apartment with a speed that clearly surprised Duo. Something was wrong. Really fucking wrong. Nexxus made an attempt on his life. They had promised me that if I signed their contract, they would leave him alone. Fuck, it was in that same contract that they would. But they broke that contract. Even before Jack jumped, they broke our contract. "Heero?" Duo followed me around as I dug out a duffle and started throwing clothes into it. "What are you doing? What's wrong?" I paused and turned, leaning heavily on my good leg and pinning him with a very intense stare. "What did Jack do?" "Huh?" Duo asked, perplexed. "What did he do? What did he do for Nexxus? You met him at a conference, right? What was he talking about? What was his lecture on?" I asked quickly, noting the way Duo's eyes shifted as he thought back to the day. "Something theoretical," he said, still thinking. "About mobile suits. And AI. Ah, yeah, I remember, it pissed me off! He was suggesting we could use AIs to help humans interface with machinery but that he'd have to use fucking kids to do it or some shit so as not to overwhelm the subject, completely disregarding -" "Fuck," I muttered, cutting him off, tuning him out, turning away from him and continuing my frantic packing as it all came together. "Fuck." "Heero, man, you gotta give me more to go on than that! Can't this wait a minute?" He grabbed my hands and forced me to stop. "No. We need to go. Now," I emphasized. "Where?" I paused and considered that. I didn't know where. I sighed, defeated, and sat down on the bed. Duo's eyes studied mine quickly. Concern, again. After a moment he joined me on the bed, gripping my hand and squeezing. "We've been sitting here for two weeks. Whatever you need to do can wait until the morning." But it made me nervous in a way I can't describe. I wanted to be moving, acting, doing something. "I have to get to L6," I finally decided. I looked at him, a bit hopefully. "Will you come with me?" Duo frowned. "On blind faith?" he asked carefully. I guess I shouldn't have expected him to jump with me, the way he would've before. "Do you remember how Nexxus recruited me?" I inquired and Duo nodded. "They recruited me too, just to get to you." "Right," I agreed. "Jack left me some information in that envelope that makes me believe they wanted me because I piloted the ZERO system." "Fuck," Duo parroted my earlier articulation, immediately putting two and two together. Not hard to understand that a guy giving a lecture on mobile suit AIs, no matter how theoretical, who was recruited due to his experience with ZERO was probably feeding Nexxus information of a more than questionable nature. "Yeah." We sat there contemplating the implications of that. Why else would they be recruiting me other than to redesign the system? And if they were redesigning ZERO, where else would they store it but on L6? L6 was a great big floating closet in space that only certain pre-approved people could get to. The perfect hiding place. "WEI is cosponsoring the L6 project, right?" I asked, unsure of how much had changed in the past few years. "Nah, can't go to Q," Duo replied reluctantly. "Talked to him while you were comatose. He's pissed. And busy. And he won't want to see you." He paused. "Fuck, do you think Quat knows?" I grunted and shook my head. "No. Quatre would never want to redesign ZERO. They're probably just using him for his money." Duo seemed to ease slightly although I felt like I was lying. I didn't want to believe that Quatre would do something like that, but what else could 'recruitment pending' mean? I had to push that thought out of my head for later as I reevaluated the situation. I couldn't just walk into L6 as either Heero Yuy or Jack Kaufmann without raising some serious red flags. Duo might be able to get through if his name wasn't removed from the authorized entry list, but it was too risky. If we stowed away on one of Quatre's shuttles without him knowing it... "Relena," Duo stated firmly, derailing my train of thought. I raised a questioning eyebrow. "She could lend us a shuttle. Or at least give us a good idea of one we could board." "There'd have been a time you'd groan about having to go to her," I pointed out and he shrugged. "We're kinda friends," he explained, looking down at the carpet. "Tortured over the same guy and all, ya know?" Okay, that was fair. "Duo?" He looked up at me and I could tell, the color of his eyes, the way they were just a bit too big. Sad. Really sad. Noted. "Thanks." He blinked. Surprise. "For taking care of me. For going to L6 with me." He shrugged and looked a bit uncomfortable, staring at his lap. "Glutton for punishment." I placed a gentle hand on his knee and felt him jerk instinctively away from me. That hurt, but he didn't remove my hand in the end so I took that as a good sign. "I know the last three and a half years have been difficult for you," I forced myself to continue, hoping that I might be able to offer a small olive branch. "But you need to -" Duo levied one of my own glares at me then, a clear indication that I was to shut up. That he wasn't ready to talk about it yet. That underneath his sadness he was still pissed. I removed my hand and stood, gathering up the clothes I had been throwing around and starting roll them for easy packing. Duo began to assemble the few outfits he had here to wash. "I'll contact 'Lena and see if she can spare some time tomorrow," he announced in a very business-like way as he walked out of the room. I listened as he put the clothes in the washer and then he walked into my office and shut the door before I fell into the bed in a moment of weak self-indulgence. It wasn't that I was uncomfortable on the couch. I wasn't. It was just that, if I lay there where Duo laid his head every night for the past two weeks, I could lie where he lay, smell the faint scent of him, and imagine for the briefest moment that I was still welcome in his bed.
~ * ~ tbc... |
