"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 6

"One week," Lily muttered as she scanned the contents of her laptop. "What to do first?" She began to scribble a list. "Number one. Figure out the AI. Number one A. How to perfect the AI. Number one B. How to work the AI at a distance. Number one B, i. How much of a distance? Number one B, ii. How many at a time? Number one C. Who and how to work the AI?"

Duo watched, fascinated, as the girl began to scribble out a list. Just under number one was a growing list showing how methodical the girl was, and thorough at that. He caught sight of number two; arranging fighters, and number two A; finding a fight and flight plan, then he glanced at Wufei who was deep in conversation with Lady Une. He turned his gaze to Heero.

"Heero?" Duo touched his shoulder. They may as well start on number two. "How many people should we be sending out? How big is the faction? How experienced? You're the only one who knows." Duo frowned. "I don't recall being informed of this faction's name."

Heero nodded. "They like to call themselves the New Intelligence. Would have made sense I guess. After all, if they were the only ones with the AI, they would be the only intelligence around once they manage to take over. But now we can counter that."

"Old Intelligence," Lily muttered. "We're gonna be newer, right?"

"Hopefully." Heero glanced at her growing list. "Take a look at number four, Duo."

Duo glanced at the list. "Number four. Re-train Duo Maxwell. Hey! What does that mean?"

Lily looked up and pointed the back of her pen at him. "When was the last time you fired a gun? Picked a lock? Piloted a fighter?"

"I-" Duo blinked at her. "Fine. Point taken."

"It won't take long. Maybe a couple hours at first, then probably a bit each day leading up to the attack, just to keep you at top-notch. I take it those aren't things you ever forget?" Lily added.

Wufei clapped his hands to get their attention. "Lady Une will brief us now."

The woman waited until everyone was seated before she began to speak. "We have one week. There has been some coordination with getting front-line military agents to move in closer in lieu of this impending attack. We now know it is coming in one week, twenty miles from shore. That's not enough information, not by far. Lily, I want you to keep working on the AI. Ignore everything else. Try to figure out how to work it at a long distance first. Worry about accuracy later. The point is, if you can get it to work at even half accuracy but at a distance, hopefully you'll be able to tell us how many fighters and what kind."

"Right." Lily nodded.

"Duo, you're good with the strategic planning. Other than the retraining, I want you to help Wufei devise a plan of attack. We don't know how many, so we'll need tactics. Your war expertise is helpful in that area. At this moment, avoiding casualties is our top priority. This is their opening attack and I have a feeling they will simply be playing with us."

"We should avoid sending Wufei or Duo out to battle, Lady Une." Lily said thoughtfully.

"Why's that?" Une raised an eyebrow.

"We can assume that they haven't seen us fight. It's been a long while since Preventers had to send out fighters like this other than for recon purposes. Thus, we can assume that the AI will be used to predict our fighters moves. Everything has to be new. Really new. The larger portion of our agents are familiar with certain strategies. Try not to get those exposed yet. You guessed that they will be playing with us, so give them something new to play with."

Lady Une nodded. "I know there's logic in that. But why should we not send Wufei or Duo out?"

"Because," Lily thought for a moment. "Actually, send Wufei out. They will expect you to, I guess. But not Duo. Then they'll assume Duo needs more time to retrain and that you won't let him rush headlong into battle. We want to avoid letting them be read by the AI, right?"

Wufei nodded. "And I would most certainly go into battle. To avenge Yuy, whom they don't know is alive."

"There are too many gaps here," Duo muttered. "We don't know enough."

"We'll have to make do," Heero murmured. "First, I'll fill you all in with what I know of the personnel the faction has. Then, we'll split up. Lily and I will work on the AI, you guys work on the strategic and tactical planning."

"Let's get to it." Wufei picked up Heero's laptop and handed it to him. With a nod, and Lily's help, Heero hooked up his laptop to the projector and began to fill everyone in on the personnel numbers and expertise of the faction.

"So let me summarize," Duo said after Heero had droned on for half an hour. "The faction base where you stayed consisted of three scientists and two doctors working on the AI, and about three dozen men aside from the faction leader. But outside of these men training for the eventual confrontation, there are several other bases training more men, be it on the other colonies, or even on Earth."

Wufei took over. "The faction grew after the doctors and scientists were sure that they could get the AI working eventually, and that's when most of the training began."

Heero nodded. "And I helped to train the people in endurance, stamina. Guesswork. Infiltration, stealth."

"You taught them practically everything," Duo huffed.

"I had to be real," Heero replied. "But that also means I'm well aware of how that particular batch of men thought. Those who graduated went off to train others and that means I also indirectly affected more men than I had contact with. But I didn't tell them everything. I tried to get some teamwork going on. At first, I thought that crippling sections of each team during combat would be most effective. Most of them didn't like teamwork though. They all want to be heroes. I left them like that."

"Ah." Wufei nodded. "So you left them bull-headed," he said bluntly.

"Exactly." Heero nodded. "We should call Quatre and Trowa. Quatre is an excellent strategist, and Trowa is not weak either. Conference them in."

"Question," Duo spoke. "They want to battle twenty miles off shore. That means they will commence combat in two ways; on sea, or in the air. If they had people training here on Earth, it means they will have access to those modes of transport and weapons. Most likely the faction parties off Earth will be traveling in. Can't we apprehend them there?"

"We don't know where they are now." Heero shook his head. "They could all be on Earth right at this very moment."

"The quicker we get the AI completed, the greater our advantage," Lady Une said. "Lily, can you start now?"

"Yes." Lily nodded. "I'll work at the other end of the table."

"I'll come with you and see how far you are." Heero volunteered. Lily nodded again and they moved away.

"How can you expect that much of her?" Duo asked Wufei and Lady Une. "She should be going to school, playing with friends, having sleepovers, worrying about whether or not she gets dessert. Not trying to take down terrorists! We were teenagers in the war. She's just a kid!"

"She's our only hope," Wufei said softly. "Maxwell, don't you think we want to leave her out of this? In the beginning we only wanted her here so she wouldn't get sent to some orphanage or mental hospital for her talents. She learned to do the decoding because it was the most effective area for her to use her abilities. We never expected having to do this. We don't want her to either, but she's our only chance."

Lady Une studied Duo as well. "Just like you five were the only chance for bringing peace. Now she's our chance."

Duo looked down the table where Lily was talking to Heero who was nodding as he listened. "Fine, I get it," he snapped. "But I don't have to like it."

"So how did they scan you back at the faction base?" Lily asked as she sat down and flipped open her laptop. Heero sat down on her left.

"I haven't actually seen what the physical AI looks like," Heero admitted. "No one but the head of the faction and the doctors and scientists have. I stole the information off computers through hacking. I know that the head of the faction hates to have hard copies of anything lying around, so I was sure that I got everything. That's why I never even saw the scientists and doctors, let alone the actual AI. And I never accessed what I hacked because I kept it all on the flash drive."

"There were blueprints," Lily pointed out. "Blueprints of the AI. It's a machine, a computer. In a room. It speaks it's knowledge, like a robot. Like Rika." Lily thought for a moment. "But I need to know how they scanned you."

"They hooked me up to a brain waves scanner type of machine."

"Right." Lily pulled up a document and scanned it. "So it read your brain waves and literally read your mind. It's very capable," she said softly. "I can't work here. I need to go to the Dark Room. I can't work fast enough out here." She look at Heero. Heero looked down the table where the others were working.

"Why don't you go and take a nap Lily," Heero said softly. "We'll work on the strategy now. Come join us for dinner and after dinner, Wufei and I will work with you in the Dark Room."

Lily nodded. "Okay." With that, she picked up her laptop and slipped out of the conference room. Heero moved back across the table to sit next to Duo.

"Where'd Lily go?" Duo asked.

"To take a nap," Heero answered. He glanced at Wufei who nodded slightly to indicate he understood why the girl had been sent away.

"So let's get back to the formation planning." Wufei said and they dove once again back into conversation of maps, fighters, and fighting talents.

*****

"Lily?" Wufei called out as he entered a room with Heero close behind.

"Over here." The girl was at a computer, typing into it and setting it up with her laptop. "Rika, drag and drop the files."

"Yes, Lily," the machine responded. Lily turned to the two men that had just entered the room as she stood and stretched.

"Dinner was yummy," she said in reference to the shepherd's pie she had eaten.

"Why do you want the Dark Room?" Wufei asked. That was what Lily called the room, a private one that was once an archive room that she had changed into a working room. Heero had once asked her why she called it that; the room was brightly lit since it had once been the archive room. She had replied that when she worked in it, the room was always dark to her.

She pointed now to the second screen, one which a set of glasses were attached to. "I want to review the way the AI works. I know it, but I need to run through it again. Fei, I need you to monitor my status while I do this. And think of something to ask Heero later, something that I can predict his answer to and offer a next step," she said softly. She put on a pair of dark glasses, then made herself comfortable in her seat. "Heero, when I'm done I'm going to try and scan you. Hook yourself up to that brain waves scanner; I borrowed it from Doctor Po by the way. I'll be done soon and then I need your read outs."

"Surem" Heero began to attach the electrodes to his head.

"Rika, commence reading."

"Affirmative, Lily." The computer screen Lily was facing went dark, and everything fell silent.

Heero watched the girl silently. The glasses she now wore displayed the information at high speeds for her eyes and she read everything over quickly, quick enough to process it and remember it without having to flip page to page by herself. The girl had programmed the computer herself and the glasses had been tinkered with; they used to be the ones that displayed readings via a microchip and those had been useful for infiltration without having to use hand held devices. Still, Heero had learned that too much information sent the girl's heart beating erratically as she tried to digest the information too quickly; something akin to a high adrenaline rush. He had no doubts that she had spent the past week in this room working on the six years worth of AI information he had produced for them. That would explain the evident weight loss from the girl; it was clear to him. He looked at Wufei, who looked back at him.

"Spent a long time here the past week?" he asked more to make conversation than anything else; he already knew the answer.

"Every single day," Wufei answered quietly. "Wish it wasn't like this."

Heero nodded his agreement.

"Rika." Lily's soft voice cut through their thoughts. "Heero's scans please."

"Feeding them in now." The screen in front of Lily flickered on as she pulled off the glasses and put them on top of her head. She opened her laptop then read the brain scans quickly, typing notes that neither Wufei nor Heero could see.

"Ask him something Wufei," she spoke after a minute.

"What do you plan to do right after Lily finishes up here?"

"One second," Lily interrupted, typing a response. "Okay Heero, what do you plan to do?"

"Take a shower," Heero answered.

"Got it." Lily turned and gave Heero a grin. "And it's more than that, Heero," she said.

"What do you mean?" Wufei asked.

Lily wriggled onto her knees and looked at Heero. "Heero's going to do some thinking about Duo in the shower too." Her giggles sounded in the room as Heero felt the heat rush to his cheeks and Wufei smacked his forehead.

*****

The next morning after a quick breakfast, Duo made his way to the indoor training arena where he worked out for a short while before taking his place behind the counter for some shooting practice. A part of him disliked how the gun felt so familiar in his hand, but another part of him gave in to the thrill of holding the weapon. Raising the weapon with one hand, he aimed and fired. The monitor displayed where his shots had landed; he was off the bullseye. He tried several more times, but only got one direct hit.

/I wonder where Lily is this early in the morning,/ he thought as he added new bullets to his empty magazine. Someone's footsteps alerted him to a presence and he turned to see Lily. "Good morning." He frowned to see the hint of dark circles under the girl's eyes.

"Morning." She smiled.

"Think of the devil." He winked. She blinked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Ever heard the expression 'speak of the devil'? It means the person or people you were talking about has appeared."

She thought for a moment. "You mean you were thinking of, or about me," she deduced.

"Right on." He nodded. "You look tired."

"Didn't sleep well," she answered. "Kept thinking about how I would make things work if I were the scientists or doctors."

Duo turned back to take aim, knowing he couldn't just tell the girl to take it easy. He fired the shot, then looked quickly at Lily, afraid that he had startled or scared her. She seemed unfazed by the shooting.

"You're off the bullseye," she observed.

"I know." He nodded. "Not quite sure why."

"Here." She planted her feet and lifted her hands as if she was taking aim. "Wufei showed me once. The tilt of the gun is very important because the distance, along with the power of the gun, is critical in hitting the bullseye," she recited. "So at this distance, you'll need to aim a little higher. Judge that your naked eye can't see at twenty-twenty vision at this distance and adjust accordingly. The higher aim allows for the drop of the bullet as it travels." She drew a line that ended with a slight drop. "It's a very subtle arc. But you're taller than I am, so you have to find where your 'little bit higher' really is."

Duo nodded. It made sense. He took aim, and fired. A bit closer to the bullseye. He aimed again, and fired. Bullseye.

"You're a walking book of knowledge," he told the grinning girl. "But a bit too young to know about firing guns properly. A little scary. I'm glad you're on my side."

Lily dug her toe on the ground, peering at the display screen. "Wufei doesn't let me practice too much. I do have my own gun though. He locked it up in the weapons safe in my room, and we programmed Rika to unlock it if there is an emergency."

"What?" Duo asked incredulously. "Wufei gave you a gun? But he's the last person-"

"He taught me because he said...if I ever landed in the hands of the wrong people I'd need to know how to protect myself," Lily answered. "But lately, we haven't had a lot of time. Can I borrow your gun and take a couple of shots? Please?"

Duo nodded after a moment. "You seem to know what you're doing." He moved aside then watched as the girl took her place, planting her feet firmly and reaching for the gun that he had set on the counter. She picked it up.

"Wait." He adjusted her grip. "Your hands are smaller and it's easier to support the weight of the gun if you let this back area rest in the crook of your hand," he told her. "But since you'll be shooting a bit more upwards and your arc is less subtle compared to mine, if you slide your grip a little lower and grip it tightly, it won't be so heavy." He stepped back. She released the safety and took aim. Her posture for stationary shooting was correct, but Duo knew that most of the time you rarely had the chance to simply plant your feet down and take aim.

Lily lined her shot up carefully. She pulled the trigger, then her two hands immediately lifted upwards, pointing the nozzle of the gun up as she felt the bullet rip through the metal contraption.

Bullseye.

"Why are you always perfect?" he asked her.

"I'm not," she replied. She lifted herself to sit on the counter. "What time is it? I have to meet Wufei soon, I think."

Duo glanced at his watch, then shook his head. "No idea."

She caught sight of the watch. "Why do you wear a watch that doesn't work?" she asked, curious. "That's an old model, isn't it? I thought I got you a new one."

"Habit," he answered.

"Habit not to tell time?" She furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding. He reached over and ruffled her bangs.

"Time is life, and life is time," he said. "All my life time has been in control. On the streets, during the war, it's always been about time. 'Four minutes to detonation, Duo. Twenty four hours before this shuttle or that battle arrives. You need at least five hours of sleep to stay on top of the game, Duo,'" he quoted. "Always about time."

"So wearing a watch that doesn't work defies time for you?" she asked.

"Something like that." He shrugged. "I'll wear the new one, I know time is important and the new watch has a few more functions than this one."

"Not that this one was much use, it doesn't work!" She examined it. "Nice," she breathed, then turned it over. "It's a bit loose for you," she observed. "Why didn't you remove one more extra clasp? It would still be a bit loose if you're afraid of having your circulation cut off."

He examined the watch. "You're right. I don't know, I just like it this way."

She pulled his wrist closer. "Oh. It's not yours," she said in surprise. "It says 01 on it."

"Yea." He pulled his wrist back and a slight hint of a flush rose to his face. "I stole this from Heero a few years ago, when he was in the hospital."

"Ah," she nodded. "So you like Heero." Her world was simple like that, just black and white. "And he gave it to you. Or you would have given it back."

"Something like that." He cleared his throat. "Didn't you say Wufei needed you?" He didn't really want to be discussing his newfound love life with a little girl, however smart she was. /Actually, if she were just a little girl, I wouldn't mind. She wouldn't understand. But this little girl does understand,/ he thought wryly.

"Yes." She slid off the counter and took a few steps away before she spoke again. "You know, Duo, time doesn't have to be a bad thing," she said. "Without time you wouldn't know when to eat dinner and then you'd miss out on Cook's best apple pie because she wouldn't know when to cook it just so it's fresh when we go to eat it. Without time you wouldn't know when school and classes would actually be over." She turned and smiled at him and he noticed again how adorable the little girl was, despite the uniform that reminded him of the circumstances under which they had met and were interacting. "Without time Duo, you wouldn't be able to express your love with reference to time-"

Duo felt the heat rise to his cheeks again. /How does she know about what Heero and I said to each other on the shuttle?!/

"And you wouldn't be able to say things like 'I miss you every second that we're apart'."

"Have you been watching too many movies? A little young to be worried about love, aren't you?" Duo tried to turn the teasing around, relieved that she was just making a random reference.

Lily's eyes took on a sad light. "Mama tells me that in my dreams, the rare times that I dream of her." She turned. "See you later, Duo."

"See you." Duo watched as the girl slipped through the door before he turned back for some more target practice.

/Lily, you don't realize that maybe things would hurt less if there wasn't a measure of time. Missing someone hurts enough as it is without having to keep remembering how long it's been. Then again, from what you just said about your Mama, I'm sure you know that better than anyone else./

~ * ~

Chapter 7

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