Fire Mated Part 11
Days passed quickly after that for everyone. Everything seemed to be caught up in a blur of actions. Sally was released from the hospital with no injuries other than a minor sore throat from being so close to the smoke. And after she heard that it was Quatre's uncle that had saved everyone she was very quick to insist he give up that hotel room and stay with them. Treize was more then happy to follow the old woman's orders. So he moved into the little-used office room in the back of the house.
The plugged fireplace incident was explained to Trowa and he would have been near a nervous breakdown, if it weren't for the fact that the news preceding hadn't been so happy. Mariemeia was released from the hospital, finally, and Duo hadn't been hurt so Trowa remained relatively calm when he received the news.
Since her house wasn't in the best shape Mariemeia took up temporary residence at Trowa's house, using the couch in the living room as her bed. She still had a good number of stitches but her burns had mostly healed over and with caution the doctors assured her she would return to her normal healthy self soon enough.
So everyone found themselves back at school in no time, and in between the lessons, noisy students and monotone teachers everything else seemed to fade into the background. Of course the memories were still very real, but it was amazing how one was able to forget themselves in school work just like a good fantasy book. While working on a math worksheet or studying for the next test, a near death experience just kind of seemed to fade.
Or at least it did for Duo. Just like with his dreams about the boy and the cabin he found school was also a great place to hide from his current stresses. Granted school raised up stress about tests and pop quizzes and getting homework done, but all that was stress he'd dealt with all his life and he knew how to handle it. He also found another sanctuary in his stories. Oddly enough, or perhaps not, he found his writing style took a more dramatic twist after the recent events and he was able to turn out more pages then usual and his muses seemed to be on over drive. It wasn't long before he carried a notebook with him at all times and was always jotting down ideas or character sketches.
In fact, that's how Sylvia found him nearly a week after all the hectic events had taken place. She found Duo sitting in the hallway, outside one of his classes as he waited for the previous class to finish up and filter out. As had become the norm he had his notebook out and was scribbling down ideas with a look of deep concentration, every once in a while pausing to chew on the end of his pencil in thought, the eraser had long ago bitten to dust.
"Umm, Duo... can I speak to you for a second?"
Duo glanced up from his work and smiled at her. Closing his notebook he stood up and grinned. "Sure, Syl, what's up?"
Her eyes roamed around the hallway nervously for a moment before she sighed softly. "You know those copies you gave me to pass on to everyone else? Well... they're gone."
Duo frowned. "Gone?"
She nodded. "Lost. I can't find them anywhere, I honestly don't know where they went. I mean they were on my desk in the back room of the library and I got up to help someone and when I came back they were gone. I swear I left them on the desk but they just aren't there any more. I didn't mean to lose them-"
Duo smiled softly and placed a hand on her shoulder, interrupting her. "Calm down. They're just photocopies. I can easily make more, it'll just take me a little while. Do you still have the list?"
She nodded and pulled a small piece of paper out of her pocket with titles and numbers written neatly across it. She handed him the paper with a slightly embarrassed look. "You know how I hate to lose things."
Duo took the paper, scanned it and grinned. "No biggie, honest. I'll get these to you as soon as I can, and hopefully with a new story for you to glance over."
Her entire face seemed to light up and she smiled. "Another one?! Already?"
"What can I say, Heero's muses are quite active lately."
Sylvia grinned brightly and nodded, then took off down the hall, racing to get to her own class. Meanwhile Duo placed the sheet of paper in his pocket and turned around to go into his own classroom. But instead of the door he found Quatre standing behind him with his arms crossed and a small smirk on his face. Duo nearly bumped into him.
"Heero's muses 'eh?" Quatre said quietly.
Duo laughed nervously and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I guess." Shrugging he grinned. "Hey! I have a perfectly valid excuse! If people knew I wrote those books do you know how many of them would be swarming at my door? You have no idea how popular Heero Yuy is in this town."
Quatre chuckled softly.
"Wait... how long have you known?"
"A while. Or at least I've suspected for a while. After all my asking around you were the one with the most information about him and I've caught you writing in your notebooks before, writing madly on something that wasn't homework. I had my hints."
Duo glanced down at the notebook in his hand and just shook his head. "Yeah, I guess I haven't made much of an effort to hide lately, have I?"
"Nope."
"So, um, what did you want to ask me a while ago? Or, I mean, ask Heero? What did you need to talk to him about?"
Quatre's smile wilted, but only slightly. He glanced down at his watch and frowned even more. "Do me a favor, meet me after your last class... this may take a little while to explain."
Duo raised an eyebrow. "Am I in trouble?"
"Not at all! It just... I'll tell you after class. Don't worry about it though, it's nothing huge, I promise."
With those words the two joined the moving crowd of students and headed to their classes. The rest of the day nothing was said on the subject, even when Quatre joined Duo, Trowa and Hilde and a few other students for another game of volleyball while Mariemeia cheered and taunted from the sidelines. So Duo was just left wondering what in the world Quatre wanted to ask him.
~*~
The soft sounds of bubbling water accompanied by the sweet smell of strong coffee floated through the room around him. Smiling to himself and humming a light tune Treize filled a small mug with the dark liquid, took a long whiff of the smell, then set it on the table and glanced at the floor around him. Various notebooks lay open scattered among sheets of paper with pencil sketches and diagrams. A map of the town was in the corner with certain places marked while a good number of thick and well worn books were open to marked pages with corners that had been folded over many times.
Picking up the mug once again and just holding it in his hands he stepped back into the middle of his circle of papers and scanned them with careful eyes. Picking up one sheet of paper he frowned and smelled the coffee again, then set it back down.
He was in deep concentration, a fury of thoughts and ideas whirling through his head as he looked over the various sources before him. Setting down the coffee mug, still completely full, he picked up a pen and jotted down a few things.
A light knock sounded on the door.
"Come in," he murmured, not looking up from his notebook.
The door swung open and there was a soft chuckle. "Gee, it already looks like home."
Treize glanced up to find Quatre leaning against the doorframe with a grin on his face as he looked over the mess on the floor.
"You realize you will need to move all of that to find a place to sleep tonight?" The blond mocked.
Treize smirked. "Who said anything about sleep?" He waved his hand in a dismissing manner. "A waste of time, that's what it is."
Quatre just shook his head. "Well, in any case there's someone I want you to meet." Taking a step back he ushered Duo into the room in front of him. The braided boy looked around the room and met Treize's face with a confused expression that mirrored the man's. What in the world was Quatre thinking, they both thought, they'd already met once.
"Uncle Treize, meet Heero Yuy." Quatre said softly as he shut the door behind him and Duo.
The older man blinked for a moment then his eyes lit up. "It was a pen name then?"
Quatre nodded.
"Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating that you would choose the exact same name as your pen name!"
Duo glanced between the two, his expression becoming more and more confused. Finally a weak smile crossed his face. "Would you two mind letting me in on this little joke? Why are you so interested in my pen name?"
Treize smiled and gestured for the two to sit down on the padded chairs in one corner of the room, which the two did. Picking up his coffee mug and letting it merely warm his hands he took a seat on the coffee table before them, after brushing a few of the papers to the side. Setting down his mug he crossed his hands as a rest for his chin and watched Duo closely.
"First, I must ask, where did you get the pen name? Did you hear it some where? Is it the name of a person you met? An old friend? Anything?"
Duo frowned and leaned back in the chair thinking. "I think it was... no wait, I'm sure. It was my first story character. I never finished the story but I liked the name so much I had to keep it, wrote it around the time my parents were killed and I moved in with Trowa." Duo blushed slightly. "Of course it was a very old story and really bad."
"You just came up with the name? Just like that?"
Duo nodded. "It just kinda popped into my head. You know, it has a neat ring to it, like the perfect name for the hero of a story." Duo chuckled at the little joke. "I think it's Japanese or something."
Quatre nodded. "Yeah, it's Japanese, means something along the lines of 'one' or something like that."
Treize leaned back and rubbed his chin for a moment, in thought.
"Why are you two so interested?" Duo pressed again.
"Heero Yuy was a real person."
Duo blinked. "Say again?"
Quatre smiled softly. "Heero Yuy was an actual person who lived a while ago, near we can figure he was alive some time in the early 1800's. We don't know much about him,"
"I'm in the process of trying to obtain an old photograph of him," Treize interjected.
"But we do know he was a real person who lived in this area around that time. Somewhere in the vicinity of this town or the next one over."
Duo frowned and shrugged. "Ok, so maybe I ran across his name in a history class or something."
"Not likely." Treize took one of the sheets from the floor and looked at it quickly. "No, he wasn't important enough to be in any historical documents, least not any that would be mentioned in a high school class. No he was a..." He put down the paper and ruffled through a few others. "Ah! Here. He was on the lower end, money wise, least as far as I can figure. It appears he did do a good amount of wood carving and building though. He helped the local residents in the town build a good amount of the buildings, aside from the fact that he, himself, lived outside the main town."
"So?" Duo took the sheet of paper and glanced over what Treize had just said. The paper basically held exactly the information he'd just revealed, but in a much more detailed format, along with a list of the possible buildings this Heero may have helped build. "I still don't see what this has to do with me. Or you two for that matter, why are you so interested in someone who's been dead for a good long time?" Duo glanced around the room and smirked. "Is it possible to stalk someone who's dead? Because, if so, you look like you've got it down pretty good."
Quatre chuckled and Treize tried to look offended, he failed.
"We're not stalking him," Quatre said slowly. He knew this was his part to explain, every time Treize tried to explain it he ended up sounding like some raving lunatic who belonged in a padded cell, so instead the job fell to his nephew. "It's a little hard to explain."
Duo turned to face Quatre and waited patiently.
"Ok, how well do you know your Greek mythology?"
Duo shrugged. "About as well as any other high school student. Our English class last year spent a good amount of time on it."
"Well, one of the myths is kind of important. It's one of the older ones, basically the story behind the idea of soul mates. It goes something along the lines of 'a long time ago every one was born with four legs, two heads and four arms'."
Duo smirked. "Trippy."
"Then something happened and Zeus, or whomever, became angry and began tossing down lightning bolts. These bolts split everyone in half and also split up the land into the continents we know today. People were scattered, not to mention they were missing the other halves of themselves. Basically the idea is you spend your entire life searching for the other half of yourself, and you will both be reborn until you find each other again."
Duo nodded. "Ok, I understand that, but I still don't..."
Treize decided it was his turn to jump in. "All myths have a seed of truth in them. All stories do. Everything we humans think of spawns from something real, something tangible we can see, touch or feel. So, it is not too far of a stretch to think that the same is true with this myth. Basically, about five or so years ago, I picked a few random names and traced them to see how often they've been repeated. I skipped the really popular ones, like John Smith, Thomson, Anderson and others like them, and concentrated instead on more rare ones. Heero Yuy is the only name which has brought up any traceable results."
"There were others?" Duo asked, his mind still working to digest everything.
"A few, but for a wide variety of reasons we couldn't follow them. Most of the time it was because they weren't being used by any one in the current times."
"So... wait, let me get this straight. You're saying that I'm the reincarnation of some wood carving guy from the 1800's?" Duo frowned.
Quatre shook his head. "No, all we're saying is that the name has been repeated. We were lucky this time that my uncle seems to have a picture to go with the name, but we won't know until we get it."
Treize nodded. "Mr. Chang should be calling me back in a day or so to confirm. He's in the process of cleaning the photo up and getting rid of the dust and such. But it's quite old and worn."
Duo let out a laugh and just shook his head. "You're telling me that you two have spent the last -- what, six years? -- trying to track down a person who may not even really exist? Not to mention that you're assuming people keep the same looks when they are reborn and the same name? Beyond that you look like you know this guy's entire life history in more detail then the IRS knows the lady next door. How do you even know it isn't some random coincidence?"
Treize stood up to refill his coffee mug, but only after emptying the now cold coffee into a different waiting pot. After filling the mug and taking a deep breath of the aroma he smiled. "We are fairly sure it is the same person. I've managed to trace the name, with variations on spellings mind you, almost all the way back to Japan. He's been traveling through a good many lifetimes, the name is only repeated here in the Americas more then twice. It seems he found his destination to be this area, if I'm not mistaken."
Duo just shook his head. "You know what I think? I think this would make a great story line for some fantasy novel."
Quatre laughed at that. "You planning on writing it?"
Duo smirked. "I just might. But seriously I don't know what to think. So you traced the name, what do you want me to do? I just picked it as my pen name, nothing more."
Quatre nodded. "We know. I guess at this point we just get to wait for the photo to come here. But there's something else you should see too." Quatre pulled a folded paper out of his pocket and handed it to Duo. Duo immediately recognized it as the sketch from about a week back. It was the sketch of the garden in front of Lucrezia's house.
"Yeah, I remember you showing me this."
"Take a look at the signature," Quatre said softly, gesturing toward the bottom of the page.
Duo looked at the bottom and swallowed, tilting his head slightly. "Heero... Yuy? No way!" He handed the paper back to Quatre. "You're saying this was drawn by that guy you mentioned from the 1800's?"
"Yes," Treize agreed. "I find it very interesting that nearly the same garden was found not too far from here."
Duo smiled and leaned back in the chair. "I think you guys have been watching too much Scooby-doo or X-Files."
Treize smirked back. "Everyone needs a hobby to fill their time."
"Sure, some collect stamps, some draw comics but you two... you track down dead people who might be alive again. Yeah, just a hobby. Sure, uh-huh. Yeah... right."
Quatre just laughed.
~*~
"Duo?"
"In the bathroom!" Duo called back.
Trowa peeked his head around the corner to see Duo rummaging through the medicine cabinet. "Looking for something?"
Duo nodded. "Sleeping pills. I've been having trouble lately and I'm sick of lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling."
Trowa reached down and pulled open a different drawer, the one that usually held his mother's hair things. Pulling the drawer nearly all the way out he finally retrieved a bottle of pills from the very back.
"How'd you know they were there?" Duo asked, taking the bottle.
"I've used them once or twice." Trowa said with a shrug. "They're really strong, so I'd only suggest one, if not half of one."
Duo nodded and took out one of the pills, then placed the bottle back and headed for the kitchen to find something to cut the pill in half.
"You really just having troubles sleeping?" Trowa asked softly.
Duo turned around and smiled lightly. "Yeah, that's all it is, don't worry. Nothing huge. I'm just getting real sick of the nightmares lately and need to get rid of them. See you in the morning."
"Yeah... night."
Duo cut the pill in half and swallowed it with a drink of water then crawled into bed after saying 'good night' to Mari. Slipping into bed he pulled the covers up around him and sighed silently.
"I hope this works."
TBC...
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