Bittersweet Part 8
I kept a firm grip on Heero's tie as the elevator descended. "We started to have a talk- remember? I want to finish it."
Heero blinked. I frowned at him. "And don't try and get out of it. You owe me- and I want to know what the hell has been going on. I don't like the stuff that I got out of the other three. And you could've told me Une was on the 'phone!"
He hunched down a bit and I felt like I'd punched a puppy.
"I'm sorry Duo." He said in a soft voice. "Une said not to tell you- just to bring you to the 'phone."
Oh. Well, that just made me feel a little guiltier.
"I'll tell you whatever you want."
"Promise? No details left out? The honest truth?" I wasn't sure why I was pushing for this, I just had a feeling Heero might gloss over things for some reason...
He nodded.
"Say: 'yes Duo'."
"Yes Duo."
"Good." I took a deep breath and Heero cleared his throat.
"Do you want me to start now?"
"No," I shook my head. "Wait 'til we get back to the apartment. I have a feeling I'm going to yell." That got me a quick glance, before he hid again. Damn. Why was I feeling guilty? This was stupid! "But until then you can answer some other questions for me."
"What would you like me to tell you?"
The elevator doors slid open and I hauled Heero across the lobby, his tie still wrapped around my hand.
The limo was waiting by the curb. I opened the back door and released Heero. "Get in." He did.
I scooted in next to Heero, told the driver to take us home and then closed the privacy screen. Heero sat quietly waiting, face hidden by his bangs, hands twisted together on his knees.
What question to ask first?
"Heero-" I started. "Look at me, right in the eye." He lifted his head and met my gaze. I could see the tightness by his eyes and lips, I had to twist my own hands together not to reach out and try to smooth it away.
"Relena said you had an accident."
Heero's eyebrow arched up as if he was surprised that she had told me anything about it. "Yes."
"How did you get hurt in the kitchen?"
The eyebrow dropped. "Kitchen?" He frowned for a moment. "Oh. That accident."
It took me a second to understand what that answer implied.
"That accident? How many have you had?"
Heero was quiet for a moment, and I nearly snapped before I realized that he was thinking about it.
Oh hell.
"Not many." He said after a moment. I had been expecting a definite number.
I glared at him. "Not helpful."
"I haven't counted."
"You've had more than you can count?"
"No," he shook his head. "I don't know which ones to count."
Which ones to count? I remembered what Trowa said about Heero going out on missions by himself and got a sick feeling.
"You aren't being very reassuring." I told him. "Let's start with the one Relena told me about. What happened in the kitchen?"
"That wasn't an accident."
I took a deep breath.
"What was it then?"
"It was a month."
Huh? What did that mean? "Heero- explain."
"You'd been gone a month. Une said I could only use Preventers resources to look for you for that long. I was sure I'd be able to find you, and I didn't. I failed."
Mission failure. I knew what that meant to Heero.
"Idiot. I'm not a mission!"
"I know." This was bad.
"Did you have any other not-accidents that the others thought were accidents?"
"No." Heero shook his head. "Relena pointed out that you were the best at hiding. She said it would take longer to find you than it would to find any other pilot and so she made Une extend the time."
Clever girl.
The limo stopped and I opened the door. After thanking the driver, I grabbed Heero's elbow and pulled him up the stairs and into my apartment.
I pushed him down on my couch and stood in front of him. He was looking back down at the floor again.
"Speaking of Relena... did you think I was cheating on you?"
His head snapped up. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"You don't lie Duo. That would've been a type of lying."
"Then why would you tell Relena that you didn't understand why I didn't stay with her? That she understood me better?"
Heero didn't answer for a long moment. I was about to prod him again when he finally spoke.
"Think about it Duo. If you planned a prank, or an escape, or a coffee run or whatever- who went with you?"
I blinked. "'Lena did."
"Why didn't you ever ask me?"
"Because you wouldn't have gone." The answer came quickly to my lips. Heero's response was quicker still.
"How did you know that? You never asked."
I thought about it. Had I really never asked?
"Well... I guess because you were always focused on the job. I didn't think you'd do something against regs."
"And when you came back- what did you always say to me?"
I always said something? Really? I searched my memory but I couldn't think of anything. "I don't know."
"'Too bad you wouldn't go Heero. It was fun.' Or some variation of that." He looked up and met my eyes. "But you never asked me to go. I admit some of them I would've said no on- but not all of them... I wanted to go..."
He did?
"Why didn't you?"
"You never asked. I always found out after. It..." He closed his mouth and put his head down again.
"It what?" I pressed.
"It didn't seem like you really wanted me to go." He sighed. "I didn't understand it- not at first. Then that morning when you and Relena came back and I asked you where the hell you'd been- you told me to relax. You and Lena had gone out to have some fun, not that I would know what that meant, and everything was fine. I worried too much...'"
I did remember saying something along those lines to Heero when we got back and he'd jumped on us... knowing what had happened when we were gone now made it seem really cruel- but I hadn't known!
"Heero-"
"You just brushed off my concern," he continued. "I had been worried all morning and you didn't care. I always worried when you were gone like that, but any time I said anything to you about it, you'd just tell me that I was fussing too much. It was like you didn't care that I was worried! Like my concern was a burden to you..."
It was getting hard to breathe all of a sudden. "Heero-"
"It was bad enough that you'd just take off without even giving me a chance to go with you- like you knew I'd ruin your fun..."
What? "Heero! I didn't think that!"
"That's what it seemed like to me. I know it was wrong of me, but I lost my temper- it just seemed like you never thought of me at all and it made me angry. I never should've said those things to you. I just... I wanted to hurt you- and when I started, I couldn't stop... I wanted to..." He looked back down at the floor. "I'm very sorry."
I sat down on the couch next to him. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I don't know. I didn't even know that it bothered me that much until that day..."
I put my head in my hands. I had deserved every word Heero said that day, and more... How had I missed this?
All of a sudden, Heero's arms went around my waist and pulled me tight to his side.
"Stop that," he growled. "I wasn't right. I shouldn't have said those things."
"But you were right...."
He shook me. "No, I wasn't. I took a few minor faults and blew them out of proportion. We all have faults, Duo. Yours are no worse than anyone else's."
"But... I don't think before I act..." I protested. Heero was letting me off too easy.
"Sometimes it's better to act without thinking." He countered. "You know perfectly well that if you hadn't run off to get that suit, you would've been in the church when it was destroyed- and suit or not, it would've been- you know that too."
"And," he continued, "it's not that you never think before you act. Just sometimes. Sometimes you think too much. That's my fault too. I thought too much about what happened- thought about it all day- and let my anger get out of hand. I'm so sorry Duo."
"It hurt," I told him and Heero's arms tightened.
"I know. I'm sorry."
We sat in silence for a bit. I listened to Heero's heartbeat under my ear, remembered that I hadn't gotten the whole story on some things yet.
"You didn't finish telling me about your not-accident."
He slid one arm away from me, and I saw he had loosened the cuff.
"There isn't much to tell." He said, and twisted his arm so that the sleeve gaped open and I could see the scar that bisected his skin. "Relena found me, called the ambulance. They called it a kitchen accident, and for a while after that they kept me under surveillance."
I ran my fingertips over the scar. "That's all?" That didn't seem like enough...
"Trowa was the surveillance."
Ah.
"What about the other accidents?"
"I was out on missions - I made mistakes and got hurt. Nothing major. No broken bones, no hospital stays."
"Une said you made a rookie cry."
"Two rookies actually." I smiled, diverted for a moment.
"You shouldn't be proud of it."
"You haven't met these rookies."
Our bantering fell flat after that, I couldn't think of a response. I let my fingers stroke his scar, wishing I could erase it. How had I... how had we screwed up so badly?
"I don't know what to do," I finally told him after the silence had stretched out a bit too long.
"Me either," Heero took a deep breath. "I do know that I still love you. I know that I want to at least try to be friends again. I know I can't make up for what I said, but I want to try and convince you that it was said out of anger."
"I love you too. I've missed you. I want to show you that I do care about your feelings..."
"I know that."
"Maybe I need to prove it to myself then."
Heero nodded. "So, what do we do? I don't think we can fix it quickly. The question is- do you want to fix it?"
"You mean, do we want to fix it?"
"I know I do- but this is up to you. I hurt you badly..."
"I hurt you first. I do want to fix it, but I think you're right. It's going to take some time." I sighed. "I can't just leave Nell in the lurch."
"And I can't just leave the Preventers." Heero added. "So we'll have to do this long distance for a while."
"Until Nell gets another person."
"Or until I find work here."
I lifted my head. "You don't want me to rejoin the Preventers?"
"Only if you want to- but you seem happy with your job. At peace. I don't want to take that from you."
He was right. I did like my job...
"I don't know."
"You don't need to decide now." He smiled. "We both want to fix things. I'm content with that much for now."
I realized I was too. I put my head back down on his shoulder and squeezed his wrist. "One of the things we have to talk about more is this- you are too fanatical about things..."
"You can't tell me you aren't worth some fanaticism," Heero countered. He slid his hand out from under mine. "And you can't tell me that I didn't scar you just as badly. It just doesn't show on the outside."
I opened my mouth to retort that I hadn't nearly died, rethought, and closed my mouth again for a moment. "This is not going to be easy."
"No." Heero agreed. "But it will be worth it. Don't you think?"
I tilted my head up and kissed him instead of answering. I think he understood. It wasn't going to be easy, but we both wanted this, and that was a start.
TBC...
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