Author: Zazu
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Language, citrus, war, and death of a main protagonist.
Pairings: 1x2, mention of 3+4
Archive: Debs-Dragon - GW Diaries
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?
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.
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
A Life's Time Part 1
He nodded with a smile to his coworkers as he walked towards his office. He paused, his hand on the doorknob, reading the sign on his door.
Duo Maxwell, Manager.
As he sat down at his desk, he rolled his sleeves up with a sigh, dropping a folder onto his desk and opening it to the first page.
Six and a half years ago, December AC196, he was Duo Maxwell, Gundam Pilot 02. Now, June AC202, he was the manager of a junkyard on L2 at the age of 22. His thoughts drifted away from the contract he had just signed to the very end of the Barton Corp. The Gundams had been destroyed and there had not been a need for the five pilots anymore. He had taken up Hilde's offer to return to L2 and work in the junkyard she had connections with, and as far as he knew, Quatre had returned to his family business, Trowa to the circus and Wufei had joined Preventers, an elite intelligence bureau led by Sally Po and Lady Une. Relena Peacecraft had maintained her political position as the Vice Foreign Minister, and her brother, Milliardo Peacecraft, had married Lucrezia Noin two years later. They now had a little boy, three years old, named Jacob Peacecraft. Three years ago, Trowa had returned to Quatre's side, working as his bodyguard and head of security in order to stay close by the blonde's side.
Duo rolled his eyes; it had taken the two of them three years to finally get together; when they had been fifteen years old they hadn't given a second thought to piloting the best war machines available. He faltered as he picked up his pen. He had these thoughts once in a while and after thinking about where everyone had gone, his thoughts would ultimately turn to Heero. They hadn't spoken since he had visited Heero in the hospital where the Japanese teen had spent just under three weeks to recuperate. According to Quatre, Heero had then taken some time by Relena's side, but disappeared soon after. While he had acted nochalant about his disappearance, he had secretly conducted his own search as to Heero's whereabouts. Needless to say his efforts had been unheeded; when Heero wanted to disappear, he really did disappear.
/Why do I even think about him? He obviously doesn't think of us or he would've stayed in contact./
Duo forced his attention to return to the contract on his desk, knowing that if he allowed those thoughts to go on he'd never concentrate on his task. After another five minutes, he dropped his pen with a sigh, realizing he was unable to stop the thoughts in his head.
It was no secret that he was an orphan, a street urchin before his short time at the Maxwell orphanage. After that, he had taken on the task of being one of the Gundam Pilots. When Hilde had hooked him up with the job at the junkyard he had wanted nothing more than a stable life with steady income he didn't have to pilfer, along with routine in his life.
He looked at his watch with another sigh, then leaned back. He'd stuck by a stable routine for six and a half years and he had become numb to it after the first few months. In fact, he had the most routine life out of all the people he knew; Wufei was constantly on call as a Preventer while Relena, as a politician, had a different type of stability through firm schedules set months in advance for her. Quatre's business allowed him flexibility, but then again he worked overtime every other day. Trowa...he didn't want to be mean, but Trowa didn't care about routine as long as he was with Quatre. Wufei had asked him to join Preventers, but Duo felt he wanted to stay away from the life of action. Perhaps people often thought of him as the joker, the most active one out of the five pilots, but with the unstable childhood that he had experienced, he personally felt he wanted routine simply because it would make him feel safe.
Now, he was so safe he was bored.
/Who would have thought.../ He turned to the window to look up the curve of the colony. /That time is ultimately what determines my life?/ He frowned. As a child, he had used the colony lights as his time reference to know when was a good time to sleep safely, and when was a good time to go out and steal his food. As a soldier, the entirety of his missions had been based on deadlines; when to start, when to end, when to get out before detonation, when to execute the proper parts of each mission. Even when he had felt the most free in space in his Gundam, he had been constrained by time to ensure that his Gundam shut down on him.
/I'm no God of Death anymore./ He mused. /If anything I follow the God of Time./
He closed the folder. "I've always been deviant," he said aloud. "I'll be damned if anyone commands me by time anymore!"
There was a knock on the door, and Hilde peeked in. "Duo, lunch time!"
/Damn it./ As he plastered a smile on his face and nodded, Duo inwardly cursed Time.
It took a few minutes to reach the deli that he frequented with Hilde every Tuesday. Half an hour later, he sat with Hilde, knowing that in precisely five minutes, or thirty five minutes into their lunch break, Hilde would excuse herself to go to the bathroom. Then they would pay and leave the shop at forty minutes to walk the few minutes back to the office in time to end their forty five minute lunch break. Duo silently wished for something different, and sighed to himself when Hilde excused herself at exactly thirty-five minutes. He looked out the window, watching the people walk in the streets. His eyes settled on a figure across the intersection and he glanced away before returning his eyes to the mop of messy hair and sat up to attention. He stood and dug into his pockets for some bills, throwing them on the table as he hurried to the door.
"Paula, tell Hilde I have to run."
"Sure-"
The closing of the door cut off any other words the deli owner had to say as Duo raced to the intersection. Now that he was just across the street, he studied the figure more closely to make sure he wasn't just seeing things. The light had just changed, and the man he was watching began to cross the street. Duo quickly glanced around him and crossed the parallel street, walking and watching as his target strode purposefully down the street. His eyes darted around the street looking for a break in the traffic.
Of course, the lights were timed for a break in the traffic; he knew there would be one soon. The figure paused to look up at a sign and Duo took a step, then another, then crossed the street quickly. He stopped a few meters away from hs target who was scanning the numbers of the street shops and their names. As if he felt eyes on him, the man turned.
Something flashed across his eyes.
"Duo."
"Heero." Duo released the breath he had been holding.
"I was looking for your workplace," Heero said after a moment. "Your phone's ringing."
"Hang on." Duo dug out his ringing cellphone, feeling like an idiot for not hearing it. "Hello? Hilde. Calm down, I paid the bill. Something came up. Tell boss I'm taking the afternoon off. The contract's on my desk. Just tell him! Bye." Duo obviously cut Hilde off and he turned off his cell phone and looked back at Heero, feeling at a loss for words. Heero pointed to the cafe they were conveniently standing in front of.
"Let's talk in there."
Duo nodded dumbly and walked in.
They chose a corner that was secluded for their privacy, but had enough customers around them to drown out their conversation and sat in silence after ordering their drinks. It wasn't until the coffee had arrived before Duo spoke.
"Where have you been?" he blurted out.
Heero met Duo's eyes. "Around."
"That's all you're going to give me?" Duo asked. "Around?"
Heero shook his head. "You look taller. Been working out?"
Duo nodded, then shook his head. "You've grown taller too. We're talking about you first. Everyone's been looking for you!"
Heero nodded again. "I know."
"Then why?" Duo asked quietly.
"Because," Heero said. "I went undercover." He lowered his voice. "I worked shortly with Relena, as you probably know, Duo. Then one day I got a message from someone, a leader of a faction. This faction wanted my help to overtake the colonies and unite them. They thought that since I was so interested in maintaining peace, I'd be interested in uniting the colonies through some twisted reasoning. Basically, once they gain control of the prominent colonies, they want to take down Preventers and thus the government and Relena's position as Vice Foreign Minister, and basically, take over the world." He picked up his coffee and stared into the dark liquid. "That, and they threatened to assassinate some important people."
Duo almost choked on his coffee and forced himself to swallow the hot liquid.
"So I went. I figured that I could also provide intel to the Preventers when the time came and they were clear as to what they wanted."
"Why didn't you just tell Wufei right away? Stopped the faction before it got too big? Isn't that the point of Preventers? To prevent it before it happens?" Duo asked.
"Because." Heero met his eye again. "These factions will only continue to arise. That's why Preventers exists. The best way to stop them is to see this one through and understand the mind of the uprisings. By doing that, we'd be able to target the mindframe, not just the faction."
Duo cocked his head. "You mean, use them as an example to others to convince them that rebellion is not the way." Heero nodded. "That's risky."
"I know. But added to the threats of assassinations that would surely be carried out before I could even notify Wufei, I knew I wanted to take that risk without anyone knowing."
"Even if it meant you were killed?" Duo whispered. "Damn it Heero, when will you figure out that you aren't expendable? You haven't changed since you pulled that self destruct stunt-"
"Duo," Heero said firmly. "There were, and are, people to protect, and sacrificing one life for many others seemed like good odds to me."
"So why are you back and telling me this now?" Duo asked bitterly.
"I was with them for five and a half years. I can't tell you details of what I know right now, but basically, I was found out to be a traitor."
"You've never been found out before!" Duo was shocked.
"I can explain that later," Heero said. "They almost killed me. I spent the last half a year recuperating, and the last week contacting Wufei-"
"And he didn't tell me that you were alive?! That son of a-"
"I asked him not to."
Duo stopped mid-sentence and stared at Heero.
"Quatre and Trowa also know. Even Relena. But I wanted to find you myself," Heero said.
Duo felt a shiver run through him.
"But first, the last half a year has been crucial. Critical. And we're missing intel because I was out of commission. I need to know, Duo, if you've seen anything like this." Heero dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, offering it to Duo. Duo took the sheet and studied it. There was a jumble of symbols, and none of it had meaning to him.
"No." He handed the sheet back. "I haven't."
Heero's face was grim. "There's no time," he said in a low voice. "Preventers needs you right now. Quatre and Trowa have to maintain their external positions because their joining Preventers would cause too much media attention. We have a crisis that the media can't know about."
Duo nodded slowly. "So, what do I have to do?" he asked.
"You need to quit your job. You can't have ties."
"What?" Duo gawked. "Quit it? Can't I like, take leave?"
"Not without jeopardizing them," Heero said quietly.
"Fine," Duo said. "I hope you're not giving me the sucker punch again, Heero," he sighed. "I better not be quitting in vain because it's been my only source of income the past six and a half years."
To his surprise, Heero's answer made him realize how critical the situation was. "When you realize how big this is, I think you'd wish that I'd just punched you instead."
TBC...
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