"A Life's Time"

Written By: Zazu

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. Any characters outside of those you recognize from Gundam Wing are my own, especially Lily. If you know of anyone or anything that looks like an existing character, event, or idea, it is purely a coincidence.

Archive: Gundam Wing Diaries

Rating: M (Mature) Rated for language and citrus.

Pairings: 1=2, mention of 3+4

Notes: Beta-read by ShenLong Deb...thank you! This was written for Under The Bridge's 2006, the Colour and the Shape, a 1=2 Contest. The ideas within are completely fictional. An unbeta-ed version was submitted for the contest, thus if you read this on the Under The Bridge website, the contents (namely grammar) will be different.

/blah/ denotes thoughts

Warnings: This story involves mature themes, war, and death of a main protagonist.

Summary: After a mysterious disappearance for six and a half years, Heero Yuy finds Duo Maxwell on L2, bringing the news that they are needed at Preventers to stop an impending uprising. At Preventers, Duo finds not only Wufei, but another person, a child named Lily, who must now work with them in attempt to stop the faction from taking over the peace they had fought for over six years ago. Must sacrifices be made for every battle and every war?

Completed: July 1, 2006

"A Life's Time "

Chapter 10

Duo exited the cockpit of the simulator, stretching his arms and legs. He had been training in the gym before hand, but he had just spent two hours in the sims. He paused mid-stretch when he saw a familiar small figure sitting against the wall just off the ramp leading to the simulator he had been using. Lily's face was buried in the cradle her cross arms formed above her knees and Duo made sure the girl could hear his boots against the metal walkway and not be startled. She lifted her head as he slid down against the wall next to her.

"Hi Duo," she yawned. "Finished?"

"For now, yes," Duo answered. "You look tired. How long have you been here? Where's Heero?"

"Heero went to talk to Lady Une and he told me to come find you. I've been here just over half an hour." She stretched one leg out, keeping the other bent, imitating Duo's pose. He chuckled.

"Did Lady Une want something?" Duo took a drink of water from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No." Lily shook her head. "Heero needed to talk to Lady Une and get access to some files for me."

"Files for you?" Duo asked, puzzled. "What files?"

"Old battle files," Lily answered.

"Battle files! What for?"

"For me to read." Lily blinked. "Didn't I just say they were for me?"

"Yes, but what for?" Duo frowned. "Why would you be reading battle files?"

"To learn battle tactics." Lily fisted Duo's shirt in her hand. Duo began to recognize that action; it showed Lily has vulnerable, scared, or imploring. "Heero's angry with me."

"What? Why?" As far as he knew, Heero secretly doted on the girl, just like Wufei and himself. There wasn't much, no, there wasn't anything not to like about Lily. She was cute, she was smart, she had a strange talent and she didn't misbehave. At least she hadn't during the time Duo had known her and that was saying a lot for a child her age.

"Well..." she paused. "I don't know where to start."

"How about from the beginning?"

Lily shook her head. "Duo, why do you think time controls us?"

"Doesn't it?" Duo was surprised at the change of topic. "You saw it yourself. After decoding the sheets, we found out we had exactly one week to prepare for the first battle. Just now, Lady Une has just put a firm schedule into place."

"So why can't humans defy time? Why can't they stop it?"

"I guess..." Duo thought for a moment. "Humans made the concept of time, or they wouldn't have given it a name, or measurements; like a watch. We can't defy time because it's been such a strong measurement that we don't know how to function without it."

"I guess we don't." Lily stood and leaned against the wall, staring across the hangar of sims. "Even our lives are measured by time. How old we are, isn't it just a measure of how many years we've lived?"

Duo frowned, then forced a grin to his face as he reached up and ruffled the girl's hair. She looked at him. "Don't be so glum, Lilykins. I'm sorry if I gave you the idea that time was a bad thing. You told me last time that there's a ton of good to come from knowing time. I guess I was bitter about it because I've lived a life of action and then, I went and chose a really routine life and it just sort of angered me because I didn't know how to deal with the boring routine. I mean, look at me, baby girl, do I look like I can dress in a suit and sit in an office without going crazy?"

She smiled at the thought. "So what did you do? You did that for over six years."

"You want to know my secret huh?"

Her smile grew wider at that thought. "If you'll share."

Duo thought it was cute of Lily that she was curious but didn't push. She was too polite. He realized that every new attribute to Lily could be classified as 'cute' or 'adorable' in his mind. He gestured for her to come closer and she bent slightly.

"Well, for one, I hacked into Wufei's private computer and left little messages."

"No!" she gasped. "That was you? Wufei thought it was me because I had been using his network for something and he opened a file and saw the smiley faces all over it! He had to delete them manually!" She stood back and pouted, planting her hands on her hips. "He didn't let me have dessert for two days! It's your fault!"

Duo laughed at her indignant expression as he stood. "Well, if it makes you feel better you can have double dessert tonight and tomorrow, just to make up for it."

Lily looked horrified. "No, I'll get fat!"

His jaw dropped. "You're worried about fat?!" He stared incredulously at her. "What's wrong with you? You're not even ten! You're a skinny little girl!"

"Just like you were a skinny kid piloting a Gundam!"

"Oh, you did not just say that. I'll have you know that I have muscles of steel." Duo pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt and flexed his arm. "See that?"

She squinted. "See what? I don't see anything." She was teasing him.

"Why you little-" He grabbed for her and with a shriek she dodged and made a run for it. He let her get away a little before he lengthened his stride and grabbed her, swinging her around before setting her down and tickling her. "Who's got muscle huh?"

"Heero!" she gasped.

"Wrong answer." He lifted her up and held her above his head. She gripped his wrists, her cheeks rosy from running and laughing. "One more chance."

"Wufei?" she hazarded the guess in midst of giggles. The giggles turned into a shriek as he dropped her, catching her at the last moment after letting her plummet from over his head. "Duo! I surrender!"

He chuckled and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. "What to do with little girls who tease their elders?"

"You just called yourself old, I don’t believe it!" she giggled. Duo rolled his eyes at the comment and gave her a poke. She squirmed.

"Hey, be careful!" He stopped walking, trying to control the wriggling mass. Briefly, he wondered if he had been that active when he was a child. Chances were, he probably was, if not worse.

"Duo, you smell from your training!" she complained. He relented and set her down. She smiled at him, trying to catch her breath. "Okay, you only smell a little and you aren't old and I know you have more muscles than I do." She hugged him quickly, then stepped back. "Thanks for that Duo, it was fun."

Duo caught sight of Heero down the ramp, carrying a case of discs. "No problem baby girl," he answered. Seeing Duo look behind her, Lily turned.

"Hi Heero." Lily eyed the box of discs. "You got the files for me?"

"Yes." Heero stopped a few steps away.

"He does smell a bit, doesn't he?" Lily asked as she stepped closer to Heero.

"Just a bit." Heero's eyes held a bit of mirth. Duo played along and threw his arms up, rolling his eyes.

"Fine, I'll go take a shower." Duo stomped a couple of steps and winked at Heero as he passed the man. Turning quickly, he ducked around to give Lily a last tickle and kiss her cheek. She giggled, and Duo made his way to the door at the end of the ramp. "Where do I find you later?" he called in afterthought.

"Archive rooms," Lily answered. "You'll spot one that's named Dark Room. I'll tell Rika to give you access."

"Dark Room," Duo repeated and waved.

"Hang on Duo!" Heero jogged after him.

"You want a closer whiff of me?" Duo asked as Heero stepped closer. Heero offered a half smile.

"Not that. The Dark Room is where Lily works." Heero lowered his voice as another agent walked by. "I was surprised to say the least when I walked in there the first time with Wufei."

"What about it?" Duo frowned, picking up a strange tone in Heero's voice.

"It's where Lily does all of her quick readings. Just don't be surprised because she'll be hooked up to a status monitor and all of that, as a safety precaution under Sally's orders."

"Okay," Duo frowned, not really understanding.

"You'll see when you get there. I just wanted to give you a little bit of warning." Heero glanced around and pressed a quick kiss to Duo's lips. "I'm going to go work with her now. See you in a bit?"

"Yea, sure." Duo stared at Heero's retreating figure, not quite understanding. With a shrug, he turned to make his way to the showers, knowing that whatever he didn't understand would be made known to him in a short while.

Nothing prepared him for what he saw.

*****

"Rika, load file," Lily said as she slipped the first disc of ten into the slot of the computer. Lily watched as Heero hooked her up to the status machine and tapped her other hand on the keys of her laptop. "Give Duo Maxwell entry into this room."

"Accepted, Lily," Rika replied, turning a green status to Duo Maxwell's scan for the Dark Room.

"I'm ready to go," Lily said to Heero after taking a drink. "What are you going to do?"

"Try to find a weakness to Red that I didn't know before," Heero said, nodding towards his laptop. "And watching your statistics."

"Okay." Lily slipped the glasses over her eyes. "See you in a bit," she said to him. "Rika, commence reading."

"Affirmative, Lily."

When Lily had told Heero that the room was always dark when she worked, it was true. While the initial design of the glasses enabled the user to see out of it and also see the computer screen that the horizontal lense was designed to be, it had made it harder for Lily to read the lighter text. Thus, they had darkened it completely and each time she slid the glasses over her eyes, Lily felt a touch of disorientation as she slipped from a brightly lit room to a dark, black abyss. Then there would be a signal and the text, the endless text, would begin to scroll and she would begin to read. The very first time she had used this idea and donned the black glasses, she had been afraid that the text would be very close to her eyes and would make it hard to read. However, the lense acted as if it placed Lily in a dark room where she sat, no longer aware of anything else and the words she was meant to read would scroll up almost at a distance. In short, it left her unaware of where she was until the reading was stopped or completed.

Wufei had tried the glasses once and found it dizzying and disorienting. It gave him a headache and he could retain only the random words he managed to glimpse. He was surprised when Lily read the single page document he had prepared for her in under ten seconds and recited to him word for word what the page contained. It had been by chance that Sally was around watching with Lady Une when things had gone wrong. Her body had become rigid and Lily had been drenched in sweat as she read. They had been working on a mission that required a quick information scour for certain key words and it was because they hadn't had time due to an ultimatum that they had been forced to trust the girl and ask her to do the task. Page after page loaded in front of her as disc after disc was slid into the computer, and after two hours, the girl had gone into what Sally determined was a kind of overload, causing her pulse to become weak as she struggled to breathe. Since then, she made sure someone was always with her in the Dark Room, and it was to be used only when necessary and with a status machine as supervision, along with an adult. Said adult was usually Wufei.

Wufei, they all knew, didn't like the process any more than they did. He tried to keep the girl away from the Dark Room as much as possible and to limit her use of the room to an hour a time at the most, with breaks. Lately, Sally had sat in with them as Lily went over the AI material, carefully monitoring her statistics. While they kept the time limits in order, Lily became increasingly tired, plagued by headaches and suffered from a loss of appetite. If it weren't for the seriousness of the situation, Wufei threatened it would be over his dead body before the girl was subjected to the same treatment ever again.

Strangely enough, Lily was addicted to the glasses. The amount of knowledge that the time spent with those glasses filled her with, gave her a sense of pride. She never told this to anyone, not even Wufei and she didn't intend to.

But for some reason, Lily's mind did not focus well today. Fifteen minutes into the readings, Heero raised his head in alarm when the beeping indicating Lily's heart rate began to rise dramatically. He dropped his laptop onto the desk and checked the machine in case it was malfunctioning. Realizing that it wasn't, he turned his attention to the girl, who, other than a thin sheen of sweat across her forehead, looked relaxed. The next moment, however, her hands formed fists and a whimper escaped her lips.

This was when Duo walked in, treated to the sight of a sporadic heart monitor and hearing Lily whimper. Heero stood over her and Duo jumped into action.

"What the hell is going on?" he growled, kneeling on the other side of Lily's chair. "Lily? Lily, can you hear me?"

"I don't know what-" Heero started, then turned to the computer the girl was hooked up to. "Rika, halt readings!"

"Secondary confirmation?" Rika replied.

"Halt readings!"

"Affirmative." The screen flickered to life, displaying the page it had been halted at. Heero pulled the glasses off and set them on top of the desk as Lily curled in her seat and hid from the sudden light of the room, clutching her head with a whimper.

"Lily-" Heero started.

"Back off Heero!" Duo snarled. Heero's head snapped up in surprise and he stepped back, seeing Duo's glare. Duo turned back to the girl, his tone softening. "Lily? It's Duo, can you hear me?"

"Duo?" The girl sounded disoriented, which Wufei had once told Heero to expect should her readings be halted suddenly. "Duo?"

"Yes, it's Duo." Duo brushed her hair in a soothing gesture. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know," she whimpered. "My head hurts a little."

"I'm going to take you back to dorms for a rest, all right?"

"No, I'm all right." Lily uncurled, brows furrowing as her eyes adjusted to the light.

"You went into overload, Lily," Heero said. "After fifteen minutes." Duo's glare at him did not go unnoticed over Lily's head.

"I think it was the details, maybe." Lily shivered. "There's a lot of battle details, it's scary-"

"You almost went into cardiac arrest and you're acting like nothing happened!" Duo said incredulously as he lurched to his feet. Lily looked up at Duo, then remembered the man had never witnessed what she did in the Dark Room. Duo turned to the machine, then snatched up the glasses, pulling it over his eyes. "Rika, start the reading."

"Affirmative," Rika said. A moment later, Duo tore the glasses off with a curse then looked back at the girl, understanding smacking him like a ton of bricks. "When you told me that you read quickly, I thought it meant you sat in a room with a ton of papers or binders, or with your laptop and read everything quickly there. I did not think it meant reading at headache-inducing speeds!"

"But I can understand it," Lily frowned.

"Bullshit!" Duo swore and Lily flinched. "Why did they plug you up to status monitors? This is bad for you, do you understand?" He pulled the girl to her feet and extracted her from the status monitor machine. "I'm taking you to the dorms for a rest. You are not doing anymore of this."

"Duo, wait-" Heero placed his hand on top of the one Duo had rested on Lily's shoulder. Duo pulled his hand away and shoved Heero back roughly. Planting his feet firmly, Heero straightened. "Duo, listen-"

"Fuck off, Yuy.[replace with a comma]" Duo snarled. His violet eyes had darkened to indicate his anger and Heero watched helplessly as Duo lifted Lily into his arms and stalked to the door. He turned suddenly. "On second thought, keep your ass where it is and I'll be back to sort this out with you." With that, he left the room with Lily.

Heero cursed as he dropped himself back into his chair.

*****

Lily wisely kept silent until they were standing in front of her dorm door.

"Rika, akete kudasai," Lily murmured.

"Hello, Lily." The dorm door slid open and Duo walked in, depositing the girl on her bed as the door swished shut. He pulled off her shoes as he spoke.

"I want you to lie down and get some rest. Don't get up until I come back for you."

"Duo." She threw her arms around his neck. "Please don't be mad."

"How can I not be mad, Lily?" Duo pulled her back. "They're using you. That can't be good for your health and if it wasn't dangerous they wouldn't put you on the status monitors."

"Wait, no-"

"Final word, they're using you." Duo cupped her cheek in one hand. "How could they?" he whispered. "I thought that Wufei would take care of you. How can you think the world of someone when he uses you?"

"It's not like that!" Lily pushed his hand away, her eyes shining with tears. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"What?" Duo's jaw dropped.

"You can't just judge by what you see, right then, right there!" Lily looked away. "Do you know what the Dark Room is to me? It's the place where I can be proud that I do something no one else can-"

"Even if it will cost you your life?" Duo snapped.

"No!" She stared him down. "It's where I can do something to help someone else!"

"Who said you had to save the world?"

"No one!" She stood and clutched his shirt by the collar. "Don't you get it Duo? I'm the only one who can do this! I'm the only one who can use that machine! I didn't even use it that often until lately, for the AI! It's where I feel most useful, it's where I feel Wufei didn't take me into Preventers as nothing but an unwanted kid!" she sobbed. "Duo, don't take it from me, I need to do this! Without this, without me, we'll never beat the AI!"

"Lily, it's your life! Aren't you afraid to die?" Duo asked harshly.

"What will happen to us if the faction takes over?" She wrapped her arms around his neck. "What will happen to the peace you fought for? What will happen to Mama?"

Duo was surprised to feel to sting of tears. He was so angry, so angry at Wufei, Heero, at anyone who let Lily use that machine. And now, he was angry at the horrible truth.

The truth that without the machine and Lily, there would be no more peace.

"Duo, please, you have to understand, I made that machine for special missions only and this is one of them." She pulled back, her hands moving to wipe his tears. "Don't cry Duo and don't be mad, please?" she pleaded. "One word from me, just one word and both Heero and Wufei would stop anybody trying to make me use that machine. You know them Duo, better than I do, can't you believe that?"

"Why?" Duo traced a thumb under her eye. "Why?" He looked away and screamed. "Why do we always have to involve children in the war?" He stood and made for the door.

"Duo!" Lily's cry was cut off by the closing of the door. Seeing that the girl was not going to follow, Duo angrily wiped his tears and made his way back to the Dark Room.

Heero was not surprised to see Duo storm in and he stood.

"Duo, just listen-"

"I've heard it all." Duo looked away, his fists clenched. "Heard it all from Lily." He turned his gaze to Heero. "What the hell is this Heero? This machine could have killed her!"

"That's what we're here for," Heero said softly. "You think I want her to do this any more than you do? You think Wufei does? Sally? Even Lady Une? They forbade her from using this Duo. Only recently, with this crisis at hand, they had to let her. They had to ask her. Ask Duo, they never ordered. Wufei would rather die than let her be forced. They limit the time she spends here. She's only had one overload so far and that's when Sally asked that she used the stats monitor. Today, today was the second time." Heero hesitantly reached for Duo's hand.

"Why, Heero? She's just a baby," Duo whispered. "She's smaller than we were, when we had to fight. And while we aren't putting her out in the front lines, we are putting her on a machine that could kill her."

"I don't know what happened, Duo," Heero answered honestly. "And like I said, that's why we're here with her. It's not usually like what you saw. Usually she gets comfortable, and for her, it's like watching a movie. She comes out all excited, so full of information. You just...walked in when she had a moment. I don't know what else to call it."

"Damn it!" Duo turned and threw his fist against the wall.

"Duo, don't!" Heero took the abused knuckles and examined the broken skin. "Now is not the time to be like this, Duo." He touched Duo's cheek, wiping away a tear. "How do you think she'll feel if she saw this?" Heero lifted Duo's hand up. "I was exactly like you were when I saw why they had her plugged up to that machine. But face it Duo, for this crisis, we'd be nothing without her. You know that."

Duo looked away, feeling ashamed. "I just..." he trailed off helplessly.

"Duo, I know," Heero whispered. "Believe me, I know. I want nothing more but to stop this. I don't want her to be a part of any of this. But... we just don't have a choice. We can only be here to tell her what her limits are."

"Do you know what Heero?" Duo whispered, pressing his eyes against the other man's neck. "What really gets me is that she knows. She knows she's the only one who can do this and she knows how big this is. What gets me is that... I swore that if I could help it, no other kid would have to bring world peace like we had to. What gets me even more is, now I know we have no choice."

"All we can do is be here for her." Heero wrapped his arms tightly around Duo's shoulder. "Be here to make her take her mind off things, to give her some extra dessert and also to keep her safe, as safe as we can."

"Extra dessert," Duo chuckled darkly. "Oh God, Heero." He wrapped his arms tightly around Heero's waist. "I wish it didn't have to come to this. God I wish I could stop this."

Heero pressed his lips against Duo's ear. "I wish that too, Duo."

~ * ~

Chapter 11

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