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"Askew"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: R Warnings: Yaoi, AU Pairings: 1x2x1 Summary: Duo wakes up to discover he's lost weeks of his life and acquired a surprising friend. A/N: A big thank you to Waterlily for her fine
editing, wry humor, and excellent suggestions. The prequel to this
story is called "Checkmate".
"Askew" Fresh air and sun greeted me first, then Trowa Barton, leading me inside the spotlessly clean home to see my good friend, Quatre Winner. Whitewashed walls with clean lines, dark wood furniture were all I remembered of the inside. It wasn't the grandeur, but the bigness of the place that stunned me, I guess. Windows opened to views of sky, further hills, and a village in dots and dashes of color. "What's that?" I couldn't figure out if the moving structure was a rotor blade or windmill. Quatre pushed open a side door. "Come and see the sculpture garden!" We walked out, one tile floor blending into the next. He brought us out into the bright sun and flickering shadows from the dozens of whirligigs standing in rows on the patio. Some were massive-thirty feet tall. Most sported smooth, carved wood paddles that caught the wind and turned. Round and round. Spinning tops stretched out thin with long arms. "They catch the breeze perfectly here," Barton said. "The rotations create electricity that powers much of the house." I found the sight mesmerizing and walked along the outer edge of the patio, following a wrought iron railing to- and that is where my memory becomes faulty; although, at the time I didn't feel that at all. I was driven to move ahead. There was a left turn and a narrow brick staircase, which I took. I don't know what drew me to do that. In my mind, I believed it to be the case that Barton and Quatre were right behind me, but I didn't actually see them. The stairs came to an end and... I was on a sidewalk in front of small shops and people, tourists crowding an open-air café to one side. When I looked up, I could see the house still, and a few of the windmills. I hadn't thought the village was so close, but accepted the truth of what I saw. I must have walked on, but I don't recall doing so. In front of me was a door-not the winding, brick staircase I'd just come down. My first thought was that it was a way back up, the way I'd come, but it was the door to a hair stylist, I think that was what it was. I continued up the walk, wondering where the staircase had gone, determined to get back to the house. I do remember feeling a bit miffed that the way back up was blocked by all these shops, but not confused by it. "It has to be right here," I said to what I imagined were my two friends (Trowa was a friend, too, I decided) standing out of sight. I entered the next doorway and knew immediately that it was a pizza restaurant. Maybe it was the smell inside? The building was formed along the curve of the same mountain upon which Quatre's house stood. I trooped up the narrow center aisle, looking for a door. There were people inside, a wooded plank floor, green tablecloths, dim lighting. It's very clear to me still. Maybe I'd eaten there before? I don't know. "We'll take the exit out and that will get us there," I remarked over my shoulder. But the door was barred, roped shut. I felt a surge of anger at that, and even though I could have broken it down, I didn't feel desperate enough to do it. I turned back to leave the restaurant and- then I smelled coffee and woke up. I was in bed and delicious smells were wafting in from beyond the door. "That brings me to here." I started at the fantastic image of Agent Heero Yuy in my kitchen cooking and wondered if this was part of the dream I'd just told him about. "It's very promising. We've done this before, once, having this talk, but this is the first time you remembered anything before you left L2." Yuy shook his head and smiled at me. "One or two?" "Eggs? One. I was on L2?" I sat at the table and tried to make sense of the here and now. The story I'd just related was the truth, but not as mindboggling as the situation I found myself in now. The house the search for the way back up to it all felt like it had just happened. The waking up to find Mr. Hotshot Agent Yuy preparing me breakfast seemed more the dream part. "When was that and what talk were we having?" Yuy was frying me an egg. There was a plate of bacon, the source of the first smell I awoke to, a mug of coffee at my fingertips, the other aromatic, a stack of pancakes, butter, and syrup. I hadn't seen him in nearly two years, so that alone was a shock. Him cooking was new; him cooking me breakfast was downright strange. He hadn't answered my question yet. It was his chance to explain his being there. "Your turn," I prompted him. He set the plates each with one egg on the table and sat. "Eat up." "Why are you here?" I wanted to know before meeting his demand. It hadn't gotten past me that he hadn't answered my other questions either. "If you'll eat, I'll talk." Yuy waited until I slathered my pancakes and crammed a bite into my mouth. "Two days ago I received a call from Agent Chang." He paused with that frown of concentration on his face. "His job at Preventers involves shifting through data looking for esoteric information. He came across something unexpected. You know, he kept parts from his Gundam, the communications system was one and it was on that that he had a call on an outmoded line in an archaic code from 02 to 01." "I haven't heard those code names in a while," I remarked. "It wasn't me." He shrugged that off. "The message was one of extreme personal danger." "Huh, well, not me," I insisted. I was hiding my shock as best I could. "Weird though. So what's Preventers take on this?" "Only he knows, for reasons he can tell you later. Wufei contacted me directly." "And you dropped everything and came to save my sorry ass. Thanks. And, ah, sorry to disappoint." I wasn't really. I had eaten half the food on the table in 30 seconds, I think. I was glad hunger and strange dreams were all the problems I had. "I didn't save any part of Deathscythe. I've forgotten all the old codes. And I can't remember where I left my phone, but I haven't used it in days." As I told him this I watched his face change, the lines soften, and a smile appear. "It's good to see you," he said when I stopped. "Yeah, you, too." I meant it. "You look good. Taller?" "An inch or two," he said, averting his eyes shyly. "You've grown as well." About four inches since the war. I knew I was having difficulty getting a handle on the day of the week as well as a few hundred thousand other details of the last few...days? But I knew years had passed since the war that had brought me together with... they were my most intimate friends now, weren't they? Yes. Not just dudes passing in the war, but friends now. Quatre certainly, but also Trowa, Heero, yeah, and now Wufei, as well were my closest support system and friends. I let that notion sink in while I ate a bite. "Imagine what a diet that includes all the food groups three times a day can do for a guy." "We are survivors." Heero stated this like an affirmation of great importance, which I would agree with, but, still, I thought it was an odd thing to say. "Yeah." We let the conversation die as we finished up eating. I had more coffee and contemplated me sitting at a table in my apartment with Heero Yuy. I stared at him over the rim of my cup and caught him looking back at me. There was kindness in those glances that warmed me as much as the food. "You know your way around my kitchen pretty good." "I do." He checked his watch, avoiding my eyes, and changed topics. "Chang... Wufei is coming over to talk." "This morning?" I asked. "He has something on his mind, something he's not told me." Our eyes met. His eyes are a very deep blue. My heart was racing and his image blurred. "There is a mystery here that's got him intrigued." His voiced sounded low and, of all things, sexy. It made the hair on my arms stand up. "Me too," I said, barely above a whisper. He leaned close so he didn't have to work to be heard. "I'll stay until I wear out my welcome." Oh, yeah. He'd been staying in my apartment for a couple days, while I... what? Slept? Lived in a limbo I had no memory of? For him to have been here like that I must have trusted him enough to let him in. I felt a wave of warmth and comfort settle over me, and knew that Heero Yuy was a good friend. "Will I remember this?" I said aloud. "I believe so," he assured me. "This time." "Oh..." I was distracted a moment by a flash of recall, something banked up, waiting to be recollected. "Huh. I just remembered another place. Woodsy place." "It was in a forest?" Heero proposed. "No, well maybe it was, but that's not what I meant. The inside was lined with wood and had exposed beams and huge windows beside a gigantic stone fireplace." "Sounds nice." "Yeah, I liked it. I was showing some folks around like it was my new place, going room to room." "Was that all?" Heero asked. "No, I remember going outside, sorta, and there was a pool table in a room and then the former owner, this old gaffer..." "Howard." Heero looked amused. "He was the previous owner." "How-? Yeah. Him. Now that you mention it. He was in sweats leading a bunch of guys through a gym-that was on the property and some distance away. There was a shower room. And then a rickety jungle gym-." "-With thick peeling paint in primary colors." "Yeah. Okay, so the place must be real. You aren't a dream reader, right?" I asked jokingly. "When you lived on L2, you worked at a junkyard." Heero paused and let me think over that information. "Okay." I was remembering the hard work. I had a white scar on my knuckles from when a hunk of pipe slipped. "I visited you there once when you worked a wrecker truck the size of this apartment complex." "It was yellow! I called it Mellow Fellow." I had loved ripping things apart and crushing things flat in that contraption. I remembered it all clearly, like turning the page of a book and seeing an illustration that clarifies all the previous pages of poorly written narrative. "The playground equipment was old rusty stuff we took apart. How weird that I put that in a dream, huh?" "Our brains work unpredictably," he said. "What about the house with the huge fireplace?" I asked. Heero was helping trigger links back in my mind, like fitting together a puzzle. A big, endless puzzle. "That's complicated," he said, "but it is a real place." For the first time Heero seemed to avoid my direct glance. He stood and announced, "That's Wufei now-at the door." "This is getting... frustrating," I bit out. "I know. It must be awful, but I promise everything will come back and make sense soon." And the way Heero looked at me melted away all my fears. I believed and trusted him to my core, giving me the will power to go to the front door. "K." Agent Chang appeared to be dressed in Preventers corporate colors, but on closer observation, it was just his uniform jacket over an informal t-shirt and jeans. "Hello, Duo. How are you?" His look was serious but friendly, not stern or disapproving, which was how I pictured him most of the time. "Um, okay, I guess." I greeted him, ushering him inside, offering him a beverage of choice, a chair, and I felt a few more memory bits fall into place. I remembered that woodsy house! I'd bought it from Howard and shared it with Heero at one time. What had happened to it, I wondered? The entire gym-thing was still an unknown, but not important. I was looking forward to finding out what the important, high-ranking Preventers Agent Chang had to say. Agent Chang, who was also my friend, Wufei, I reminded myself. "I see you brought your tablet for show and tell," I pointed out. Surprisingly, it was what he had to show me and Heero that made the biggest impression. "In order to help jog your memory." He gave me his stare-of-judgment which could wring a confession from an innocent victim, believe me. "I want you to look at these." EEK! "Um, okay." These were recordings he had located and copied which showed me leaving L2 and reappearing on Earth at the Brasília shuttle station. "These were taken six weeks ago," he added with emphasis. "Six weeks!" I had no recollection of this trip. "Huh." I tried to fit a shuttle trip like that into what I knew about my latest travels, but it was all a furtive blur too confusing to get a grip on. Heero filled the dead time with a brief rundown of my dreams, emphasizing the sunny, windmill house with Quatre and Trowa. Wufei Chang listened intently, supplementing approving grunts with knowing nods. Was it bothering me that these two men knew more about these developments than I did? Hell, yeah! "You both seem to know these places like they're real in a way I oughta know them, too. But I don't!" "The house you described is real, but it's in Spain and on a rock base that ends in a roadway, not shops. Certainly not a pizzeria." Chang tented his hands in contemplation of houses, I guessed. "Well, great. A house in Spain. Quatre's?" I asked. "His and Barton's," he said, then paused to exchange silent communique with Heero. I guessed that Heero had kicked his foot or something, but I hadn't seen it happen. "Trowa and Quatre are more than just friends," Heero confided to me, again jump-starting my memories where my own brain failed so to do. "I did figure that out," I replied. In fact, I had just merged them into couple-hood. Odd but not alarming. "I'm sure you did," Heero said with the kindest smile I'd ever seen from him. When had he become so soothing? When had I start taking comfort in his just being at my side? What I said came out like this: "I can't believe how long it took me, though, to, ah, get them." "They were circumspect about their relationship," Wufei pointed out. "The signs... It all adds up when I think back." "Tell me what you remember," Wufei said. He had an intensity which could unnerve a guy into telling him all your secrets. I sure felt it along with the desire to please him as a friend, so it was all right. "Okay, this one time at Quatre's first flat. I was visiting and Trowa shows up. Trowa joined me at the other end of the balcony. He'd come outside to light a cigarette. I hadn't remembered when he'd picked up that annoying habit, but at least he did it downwind of me. We exchanged signals of recognition." Wufei snorted. "He and I did that often as well. For the longest time, he wasn't very sociable, and nor was I." "Yeah, well, we weren't particularly friendly either; we shared a friend in Quatre." "He was jealous of you," Heero said. "You and Quatre got along together so well." "Probably why he kept hanging around. I felt like he had me under surveillance half the time." "If Quatre was within the same quadrant of the universe, he probably did," Heero said, tagging on a quick smile-yes, that sweet, understanding smile again. I really wanted him to smile at me that way again. "So he came out to smoke. I moved about, putting a lounge chair and several potted plants between us-totally out of sight and it got dark. I was trying to locate satellites and colonies, fully intent on not being personable, when the door opened again. I didn't need to turn to know it was Quatre. His walk, you know?" "A tiny limp from the sword wound from that Catalonia woman," Wufei said not with holding any of the bitterness he apparently still felt. He was mistaken about this, though. Surely he knew how Quat had been injured in that duel. "Um, you aren't usually off beam, but... you got the wrong wound. She nearly gutted him. The leg thing came from a horse falling on it while training jumpers." I smiled at the remembrance of warm afternoons in the sun, learning to ride a horse through dry grassland. "He didn't give them up. Still has dozens of them for riding." "Your memory of the distant past seems accurate," Wufei noted out loud. I wasn't sure this was true, but I knew I didn't like that he was testing me either. "Well-" However, he didn't want to hear my argument and pressed me to return to the topic. "So Quatre came out to talk?" If that's how he wanted our talk to go, okay. I wasn't feeling up to a verbal jousting match with him. "Not to me. He went over to Trowa." I barked a laugh. "I couldn't see him, but I pictured him standing there with his arms crossed, frowning as he told Trowa to stop smoking. 'It's damaging your health and ultimately endangering your life.' 'Everything I've done my entire life has been endangering my life.' 'Then it's about time you stopped and cherished the time you have left.' 'Does it matter?' 'Matter? You matter! You matter to me. I need you! Every minute of every day.' "His voice sorta trailed off at that last part. You can picture that look Quatre gives you when he's serious? The big blue eyes daring you to deny him what he wants?" I opened my eyes wide and sniffed at Heero, who laughed. Oh, yeah, he knew exactly what I meant. He'd been on the receiving end of those looks himself. Most likely. I couldn't exactly put my finger on any particulars. Try as I might, some me memories remained just out of reach. Wufei shook his head and hid a smile. "There was a time when I would have found it hard to believe, even denied the possibility that Trowa Barton would fall for that act." "He did though. I didn't actually see him drop it, but shortly after that speech, they went in together, and I spotted the still smoldering butt on the ground where it had fallen." "I don't think I've seen Trowa smoke," Heero alleged. "Not since then." I was sure of it. I'd paid attention. I remembered. "He'd been a stubborn teenager. I wouldn't have guessed a pair of lovey-dovey eyes could make him budge. That was a clue." "Evidence no one could miss," Wufei agreed. "Neither one is girly," I put forth. Heero cleared his throat then said, "Some are, but many gay men aren't obvious." At this point I had the both of them staring at me, watching me. I felt like monkey in a zoo. Were they gay, and I'd just come close to insulting them? More importantly, was I? I sure was attracted to Heero; thinking of doing decidedly gay things to him. "I have to make a call," Wufei said, excusing himself from the kitchen. I wanted to apologize, but he left too soon. At this point I noticed I was wearing a robe over sweatpants. "I should get dressed," I decided. "No hurry." Heero's voice sounded a tad husky. It made me tingle all over. That and Heero had leaned over so we were shoulder to shoulder and nearly bumping noses. "I'm home." I put voice to what I'd come to know was the truth. "So am I," Heero asserted. Oh. Oh, my! "'Ro?" As I attempted to wrap my head around that information, I heard Wufei stomping back into the room. "Dr. Po wants us to take action, bring him in." Wufei was met by Heero. "No. He's staying here, with me." Whether or not I wanted protection, I was getting Heero's full force, it seemed. And he and I lived here, together. Cool. "He'll be in need of medical help-" "He has gotten through it before with just me. Chang... Wufei, I'm telling him the truth and letting him decide how he wants to proceed, but the truth begins with you." I went back into the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee. I wondered at my composure, almost to the point of docility, considering the circumstances. My most recent memories were fractured, returning to me in drips and dribbles. That alone should have put me in a tizzy. Instead, I was okay with letting Heero reassure me and gently nudge the pieces into place. I just knew that normally I wouldn't be quite so complacent about everything. I could hear Heero and Wufei talking. They weren't trying not to be heard. "-He's not at all paranoid," Heero said sounding absolutely unbendable on the issue. Good for him! "All right. I'll give you that, but you agree that we're not getting any closer to understanding what happened out there. So far he doesn't remember anything of the mission." "Should he? The drug hasn't worn off yet." Ah... so that would explain my problems to some extent. The anger I should have felt on receiving this information did not, however, boil over. It remained on a low, controlled simmer on the backburner of my brain, which, I noticed, was heating up. I was actually feeling overheated, feverish even. Maybe I should stop drinking hot coffee and sit down in the front room where it was cooler? Heero watched me enter the room. I might not have looked right. I was feeling light-headed and unsteady so I leaned against the doorway. He made no effort to hide what they'd been saying. Just the opposite. "Would you like to hear how those dreams of yours fit into what we think has happened? It might spark more recollections," he asked me. Light-headed and a bit euphoric... "I know what you are thinking," I said with plenty of sarcasm in my presentation. "'Gee, I love the sound of this information swap. How does it work?' Well, friends and agents, I am glad you asked. This is the nitty-gritty-" "Everything is broken." That was my revelation. "Not everything," Wufei said sharply, "just you." Heero, bless his soul, jumped to my defense immediately. "Give him a chance to come through this!" Come through? Come through and out the other side-of what? Where would I be then? "Sidran. Dr. Po says she has orders to contact Sidran." "Who is Sid-?" I asked innocently. "Sidran." He cleared his throat and read from smartphone: "They help people understand, manage, and treat trauma and dissociation." After reading to me Wufei turned to Heero. "He is showing all the symptoms of acute stress disorder, abreaction-" "A-bree-what?" I asked. Again, reading from the site he'd found all his information: "-the discharge of emotion involved in recalling an event that has been repressed because it was consciously intolerable. The experience may be one of reliving the trauma as if it were happening in the present, complete with physical as well as emotional manifestations (also called revivification)." "Whoa, they got name for that? 'Ro? Am I crazy, that's what he's saying?" "No!" Heero was quick to reply. "Here," Wufei read on, "brief reactive psychosis! It consists of a sudden and brief psychosis (loss of reality contact) lasting from a few hours to no more than one month. It is preceded by a major stressor -" "Duo," Heero said holding me in place with a firm grip on each of my shoulders. "This happens...it wears off in a few days. It always does." "I've been messed up like this before?" Dear God! Wufei stepped in again. "And with co-existing disorders. Take this one, 'delayed memory'. This term is used to describe the experience of an individual who recalls a memory for which he or she was previously amnestic. The recollection may occur spontaneously and may happen simply because important events, especially traumatic ones, are not forgotten but are repressed memories." "So something bad happened to me and I sorta remember bits and pieces in a surrealistic way?" "That falls under the term... 'derealization'." "That's a word?" "Yes. Here... a feeling of estrangement or detachment from one's environment. A sense that the external world is strange or unreal." "'Fei, I get that a lot, but then it all turns out to actually BE real." Wufei was reading from his phone and not listening. "... there's something called 'dissociation'-" "Stop it, Chang." Heero had had enough, I guess. "-And those are just the disorders beginning with the letter 'd'! Are you listening to me?" I was not paying attention to Wufei any longer. I was staring into Heero's eyes, getting lost in those watery depths. He moved closer so our noses touched, closed his eyes, cutting off my dive. "Duo, you don't look good." I didn't feel so good all of a sudden either. Heat flooded my face and over my arms and upper body, like a fever punched me in the face. "Whew! Is it really hot in here?" Ugh. I had just enough control to run to the bathroom in time to empty my stomach of its contents. The flush of heat rushed away with the rest of the mess. And breakfast had been so good the first time... Heero was there to lend support, get me to my feet, and force a glass of water down me. "Sit on the couch. Can you walk?" He would have carried me if I had said no, I'm pretty sure. "Yeah." I stumbled, but made it on my own just to the couch. Wufei brought me mint tea. Suddenly I was ice cold and the tea sounded like the best thing ever. "Thanks." I guzzled it down, nearly burning my mouth in the process, just as the chills set in and uncontrollable shaking caused me to drop the cup. Heero caught it midair. "Here." He wrapped me in a quilt he'd gathered from somewhere and that felt wonderful. My teeth still rattled, the chills didn't end, every muscle ached, but the enveloping warmth comforted like cocoon of safety. After that my mind sorta shut down. I could be grateful for that. When consciousness returned I was on my side in bed, Heero curled up around me from the back. I know it was him because his arm wrapped over me. I could recognize that arm anywhere, anytime. Still. It was a little odd, wasn't it? My friend cuddling me? I must have given away that I was awake. "How are you feeling?" were the first words out of his mouth. "Yucky. Better. Not burning up or freezing over or anything. I'm sore." I wanted up and to find out what the hell was going on now, and saying so seemed to release the tension out of him. He guided me up and back out to the couch. Next I knew he was offering me a plate with a cheese sandwich and a glass of water, both of which I made fast work of. "Better?" he asked, and it was almost with a timid tremor in his voice, I swear. "Yeah." "I know you must have lots of questions," Wufei said, stepping into view. "But I'd like to know first if you have any more ... incidents you can remember." Funny, I did. I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to him, though-to Preventers. "I don't know." "Duo. You can do this, pull out on your own." His eyes flashed open again with a look so concentrated on me that I could feel his strength flow into me, fill me with power. I swear it! "You are rich with internal motivation." "He doesn't believe you," Wufei cried out. "Can't you see? It's a trust issue. He doesn't know he can trust you with his life." But Heero didn't flinch. Not a blink. He smiled fractionally. Just the tiniest amount. I heard this hollow voice in my head, something out of the past. A kid named Solo who had the street smarts and warned me, "Smiling faces tell lies." Not this face, I thought back! Heero won't let me down. "If you say I can be all right, then it's true." "No matter how long it takes," Heero assured me. "I'll wait for you to come back to me." Wait for me to come back. To him. We were damn close friends. I knew that for sure now. I felt good about him. Heero said nothing, but he rubbed my back and shoulders, massaging out the cramps from the chills. "Or we can go back and lie down some more?" "As good as that sounds," I said, giving him a smile I hoped looked sincere and meant I really wanted to, "I think I'd better get this over with." I was shaking as the words began to pour out. "It might be the mission, but not really." "Just say whatever comes to mind," Wufei urged. "Go ahead." "These two kids were being chased." "Were you one of them?" Now that I thought about it... "I was both seeing it unfold and being the one out front, a girl, or they thought it was a girl from the hair." "Do you know who you were running from?" "At first it was just me running from two men, one in charge, bigger and older than the other. They nearly had me when a scruffy dog scooted around us barking up a storm." "I thought you said there was a boy-" "Then the dog's owner came whirling around the corner, taunting the men. It looked to me as if he let them catch him, letting me get away. I remember distinctly running for my life still and thinking about how he'd sacrificed himself so that I could get away." The memory of that saddened me deeply still. "And did you get away?" Heero's voice came softly from close at hand. "I wasn't out of the clear, and I knew it, plus I didn't want to leave the boy in the lurch so I circled back, at which point I saw the dog leaping and snapping at the men and the boy break free again. He was yelling 'run!'" "At you or the dog?" "I don't know. Is it important?" Wufei shook his head. "Did I tell you the boy and the men were all Chinese?" Wufei frowned at me, tamped down everything he probably wanted to say to me, and came up with a more respectful, "Continue." "Well, they were. The neighborhood was nicer, suburban even now. We were running together and being chased by another pair of younger men able to keep up with us. I turned into a driveway and into a backyard then along a fence to a storage area behind the garage. I was maybe thinking of hiding there, but the boy was shouting at me 'go up!'" I could see it clear as day now and could give more information down to the stacks of wood and pipes and boxes I used to climb up onto the garage roof, if I'd thought they cared. "So I climbed some trash to the roof and he did too. There we lay flat and listened." "Were you followed?" "Yeah. I heard a woman shouting at the men for trespassing. At some point I made myself know to her and told here we were being hunted and to call the police. I don't recall the details but police did show up and the boy and I were with them and the nice woman. She was a school teacher and the boy was from an orphanage not far away. The police had captured the older pair and had one other of the younger men by the arms. We identified them as the ones chasing us and I said there was one more. I noticed a tree in the hedge shaking and could tell he was hiding on the fence behind it. When I pointed him out, the police caught him too." "Did they tell you anything about the men?" Wufei asked. "I don't know how I knew, but I did seem to know they were part of a kidnapping ring. They took strays in and used them like slaves. I didn't know any other details." "I'd say you remembered a great number of things," Heero said. He smoothed a hand over my arm. "How are you feeling?" "Shaky, but less so. Clearer. Better." I did and he seemed to need that reassurance. "Oh!" "What is it?" "Something more. A different thing altogether. I was in a house somewhere and answered a knock at the door." "Here?" "I don't know, but I felt as if I was at home. I felt relaxed. So, I opened the door and this old dude was standing there." "How old?" "Not that old, about Howard's age... 50? At most? He wasn't in a suit but he was clean. Day-old beard had grey in it. He took off his hat and asked if I was Duo Maxwell." "He did? What did you tell him?" Wufei's excitement had ratcheted up a few levels. "Okay, the thing is I was absolutely, positively sure that I wasn't. I told him 'no' and he explained how he had been away from his home on L2, fighting in the war, when he got the news that the block where his home had stood had been bombed out or destroyed somehow and that in the process had killed his wife and son. Sorry as I was for his loss, there was nothing I could do about it, and I told him so." "As it turned out he'd never been given proof positive that his family had been killed so he started searching and even after nearly 20 years he was still hunting, until now." 'I found you,' he said, 'my son, Duo Maxwell.' 'Sorry, bud, but I am not this Duo dude. I'm Carl Houseman. And I already have a dad who lives in Sanc and looks a lot like me. So... Sorry.' "God, I actually remember the name, too! Anyway, despite my certainty to the opposite, the old dude said he had undeniable, DNA proof that I was within 90 percent surety his son, which he had determined from collecting and testing hair I'd had trimmed off at the barbershop the week before. I pulled out my braid to show him I didn't need no barber, but the ends were less ragged than usual, so maybe I had had a trim- that I had no recollection of. I pulled out my ID and showed him. 'See? Carl Houseman. You must be mistaken. Maybe the hair got mixed up with someone else's at the shop.'" "Was that it? Did the man claiming to be your father leave you alone after that?" Wufei asked. "Yeah. He apologized for the intrusion and thanked me for my time and left. That's it." Heero and Wufei stared at each other. "That's the beginning," Wufei declared. "You saying that really happened to me?" I asked, unconvinced that he wasn't pulling my leg to provide him with god-knows-why diabolical amusement. "Duo, you are an agent working for Preventers, like we are," Heero said in the most kindhearted way one could ever put that kind of information. I worked it over in my head and out loud, which was similar but made it a shared experience for us all. "An agent? Me?" The other nodded; let it all sink in and compost with the rest of the muddle in my head. "Okay. I'll buy that. I have to do something, right? Figures I'd fall in with the rest of you losers, heh, heh." Heero smiled. "How does that fit in with me being drugged?" "You heard that?" Heero sighed. "You are an undercover agent, the best. One of the protections-" Wufei started to explain. "-if you want to call it that," Heero growled. "It is," Wufei insisted. "You are given a drug to keep you from coming out of character, completely blocking your mind from remembering sensitive and personal information, in case you are caught." "I do this voluntarily?" I couldn't quite believe I would. "You have agreed to it," Heero said with a souring expression. "I have argued against it." He gestured at me from my head to my feet. "This... sickness is it working itself out of your system. It gets worse each time." Six weeks. "You were tracking me six weeks ago? Was that at the start or end of the mission?" "The end," Wufei said. Flying off the couch, I cried out, "I've lost weeks of my life?!" "I don't like it," Heero said. "I've never liked it." After I shouted a bit and they sat there and took it manfully, I sank back onto the couch next to Heero. He patted me on the shoulder, but not in a condescending way. "That's more like it. Good to have you back in form." "He means that the placid man you were a few hours ago, the one accepting the situation with composure, was not the real you and he's happy to have the loud-mouth version back." Wufei stopped my next outburst with a crimpy smile and the words, "I am too." After that we moved on to the story of my last couple months. Wufei explained the disturbing "I am your father" passage to begin. "After delivering the drug and before you leave on a mission, you are tested to ensure the drug's effectiveness." "So not falling for the false father thing proved the drug was working?" I asked, to be sure. "Yes." Wufei frowned. "Your placement team dropped you off as planned. I wasn't notified that anything was amiss until I received the confounding '02 to 01' message." Heero picked up the story from there. "The memory you had of Howard, that came from a period after you completed your mission. You are...programed to meet him immediately after-" "- Howard picking me up starts my detoxing?" I asked. "That's correct. He called to say you'd run away, though." "Quatre and Trowa found you on the street corner at their home in Spain, you went in, had dinner, then at the sight of the windmills, ran off," Wufei said. "Plans!" I burst out with a long submerged memory. "Winner Corp had a computer attack that stole the plans for building a Gundam. The persons responsible were identified by other agents, and I was sent in to recover and destroy the data and take out the guilty parties." "But something went wrong?" Heero guessed. Many somethings. "They were using kids for hackers. I couldn't kill kids." "Now we're getting somewhere," Wufei murmured. "How was that message sent, I keeping asking myself?" "Which one was that?" I asked. "A Gundam communications unit sent the encrypted data, using the original code we used amongst ourselves." Wufei tugged at his ponytail and stopped pacing to look at Heero. "The message sent, the SOS from '02 to 01'," Heero clarified for me. "Oh, that, yeah." Like flipping pages in a book, with each question they asked me, new memories just appeared. "It had been reconstructed from Quatre's plans the hackers stole," I said. "Why that message?" Heero asked. "He was in dire straits and that was so... ingrained that made it through the drug-induced conditioning," Wufei said, muttering something more in Chinese. "The running dream." It was about me escaping-with something. I had both Heero and Wufei confused now from the looks on their faces. "Yeah, the hackers constructed the com box as a test of the instructions, a simple thing to build." I knew exactly what I'd seen now. "They used a 3-D printer!" "And it worked?" Wufei didn't seem convinced. "I guess, I sent that message on it, didn't I? I don't know. I really don't remember doing that. I didn't know 02 and 01 were people. I mean, they sound like numbers, right? But maybe that came out of my subconscious or something deep like that? I had absconded with the hackers, the two Chinese kids from my dream, and lost my cell phone climbing on the roof, so I couldn't call for extraction, so I did what I could with the copy-com box." "But I- ," Wufei stuttered excitedly, "-I didn't call for an extraction." "Duo, could you have contacted Howard?" Heero said his voice calm and not at all the emotionless tone of his teenage years. "I alerted Howard?" I must have. "Okay, I might have done that in a pinch. I could have sent him an encoded message." "And he set the pickup team in place," Wufei concluded. "Duo, you didn't stay with him. You disappeared." "Where are the Chinese hackers?" I wondered. "Did he collect them too?" I watched as Heero and Wufei jumped to their feet and grabbed at their mobile phones. "Howard's got his base on L2!" Heero said, after checking his device for information he'd not had any other way. "I hadn't thought of that!" Wufei moaned and left the room while waiting on his call. "Do you think he picked you and the kids up and dropped you off at the shuttle port? From there you might have gone on to Brasília, where Trowa has a hut, and eventually to contact Quatre." I stared at Heero and nodded. "That is possible. It means the kids are on L2." "Which you remembered by incorporating the playground equipment into your dreams," Heero supplied. He looked very pleased with hi deductive work. "You would have trusted Howard with the kids." "Yeah, I would. Then... maybe he signaled you with the codes?" "He might have realized that you weren't...capable of coming out of conditioning and contacting Preventers on your own, and you had that mock-up data com." "He sent the SOS to you then?" Howard would have done a thing like that. He wasn't a member of Preventers; he hated Une in particular, but he helped me. "He might have done that." "Which means, we should let him know you are all right and let Wufei collect the kids and whatever other data you collected, if he has is." Heero rubbed my arms up and down. He had a hand on me most of the time and I found that I liked his protective streak. It felt familiar; we were intimate as a couple. "Are we-?" I could put words to my feelings. There was an awe factor to being around this Heero, that he could want to be this close to me, that we shared deep secrets and feelings. "Yes, we are," he whispered. We are. Yeah. We are everything I could imagine. "I have Howard on the line." Wufei was back in the room. "He has two Korean boys, not Chinese, Maxwell, you idiot. They are safe and happy learning about the-what did he call them? Indie bands of L2, or something like that. He also mentioned having in his possession several packets of interest, which he is willing to turn over to me on your approval. I assume these items are file downloads and other evidence you carried off L4 on your mission." There was a knock at our door. Heero signaled that he would answer that, while I took the phone from Wufei's hand. "Hey, Howie! I am a-okay for the most part. Yeah, Give our man the info and the kids. 'Fei's cool. Yeah, I know you know and 'preciate you're being proactive here. Oh, you are so right about the work. Yeah, I know. 'Ro's not cool with it either. I know. I promise I'll consider that. Life is too short. Yeah. Okay. '02' signing off. Heh, heh. Thanks man!" "02," Heero echoed and he pulled our faces together and kissed me. For a long time I just stood there, feeling the warm lips on mine. I may have jumped. I don't know, but he held on to me until I relaxed in his arms, opened my mouth to his entreaty and let him caress me inside and out. Maybe it was the code words Heero had drilled into me:" Wait for me to come back" to him. That's what he said; it was that broke through the mess in my head. I think it was the kiss, too. Let's not devalue that! I know it was that. I could feel everything falling into place, just like the way his hard body and mine fit when he crushed us together. And then I can't discount the value of a broad romantic gesture from Heero. He'd filled the bedroom with red balloons, heart-shaped, and on the dresser stood a gleaming vase of roses. The vase he'd decoupaged with gold, but he called the process something else. "Balloons!" They really made me happy. "As promised." "And more gold and roses!" I danced with glee. "You remembered!" "I've never forgotten." It was time for me to do something for him. Him and me, but him. Knowing what the drugs did for me, allowing me to resist any and all truth serums, never break character while undercover, meant that stopping them would end that career. So be it. What no one had told me was that going undercover would destroy me eventually. I think Une wanted that. She always wanted my death. Well, I wouldn't give it her so easily. She'd have to ring my neck personally. And since she was too proud to do that these days, too important now, then I had one choice to make. An easy one. I wasn't a kid anymore; I had to take control of my path. I had Heero to live for and I owed him something for sticking with me. It was my life to live. My one and only chance at it. And Heero deserved a lover who wasn't on the verge of becoming psychotic. "I am done with undercover work," I said without remorse. "I am positive it's the right thing to do. Give it up. Preventers can find me a new position, damn them. You deserve the best me I can give you." Did that win me a smile and a kiss? Oh, yeah. Lots of them, but we still had more to say, ground to cover before the full celebration was going to blast off in the bedroom. "Meanwhile, you can take a leave of absence," Heero said with a definitive tone. "Okay." I guess there wasn't all that much more talking for us, heh, heh. Now, I'm pretty excited about what's coming in the future and a lot of that has to do with the roadmap before me. Granted, six months from now I may tell you something totally different, but, for right now I'm in the pre-road trip euphoria of packing snacks and making playlists. Things look good. Long, but good. Interesting. Unpredictable. And Heero Yuy's right there by my side all the way. Every step. All in. We can't lose. The End.
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