A Life's Time Part 2
Duo placed the blanket and pillow on the armchair of his living room.
"I've a small place," he explained to Heero. "So I'll sleep on the couch and you can take my room."
"I can take the couch," Heero said.
Duo shook his head. "Entertain yourself with the tv or something, and there's my computer. If we're leaving for Earth tomorrow, I'll need to quit my job now."
"No, Duo." Heero shook his head. "No channel is secure. The faction has been working on L2. They have been keeping tabs on you."
"But you made contact with me." Duo frowned. It wasn't like Heero to make mistakes.
"They don't know that I'm alive," Heero said.
"You walked through the street like you didn't have a care in the world!"
"The safest place to hide is the most open place," Heero replied. "Why would they be looking for someone who's been dead for half a year? As far as I know, you've been so routine that they only check on you once in a while. That's why your quitting will have to be sudden. Leave a note or whatever, you won't have a chance to explain yourself until we avert this crisis. We're safe here because I know the last thing you'd do is let someone put visual bugs in your place, but the use of phone calls, e-mail, even watching the television or using the vidphone is tracked by the faction in this very apartment. Normally you'd be at work at this time, so nothing in your apartment should be sending off signals to them."
"As far as you know-" Duo recounted what Heero had just said. "Do you mean to say that you've been on L2 all this time?"
Heero nodded.
"Fuck," Duo whispered. "All this time, on the same colony."
They lapsed into silence for a while.
"So what else can you tell me now?" Duo asked.
"Are you and Hilde..." Heero left the question hanging.
"No." Duo didn't bother asking about Heero's love life, knowing the man's mission was his entire life. "But you know, some sign of your being alive would have been good," he whispered.
"I'm sorry," Heero said.
Duo nodded. "So..." He glanced at Heero. "What got you exposed? At the faction I mean."
"Artificial intelligence," Heero said. "The faction has created an AI machine. It analyzes brain waves and a person's entire past to figure out their way of thinking. Basically, they can analyze a person down to his sweat glands and figure out what he wants to order when he stands in line at some restaurant. Somehow."
Duo thought that over. "So basically, when the time comes to confront them, or if they confront us, they'll supposedly be able to predict our every move?"
Heero nodded.
"That's bad" Duo pointed out helpfully.
"There were glitches when they used it on me. But I guess the faction leader felt that even if the AI only had a fifty percent success rate, it was better to cast me out than to take a risk." Heero paused. "I don't completely understand it. All I did was pilfer any blueprint and any information the faction had on the AI, I couldn't understand it. The faction leader told me they were ready to strike and blackmailed me into letting them use the AI on me as a final test. I really thought that the faction was going to strike and my next move would have been to escape and bring the news to Preventers. The AI figured that out."
"How did they manage to get close enough to use it on you? And what do you mean, they blackmailed you?"
"The assassination threat," Heero said. "I figured with the AI only being right half the time, and the fact that the faction leader would still need me to pilot anything in the actual uprising, he wouldn't get rid of me too quickly. I was wrong."
"The perfect soldier, wrong?" Duo whispered. "Who-" The doorbell rang. "Hang on."
Heero stood with Duo and pointed down the hallway, indicating he was going to hide. Duo nodded, then opened the door after Heero had slipped into a room.
"Hey, Hilde."
"You okay?" Hilde asked.
"Yea." Duo nodded. "I thought I saw someone."
"Heero?"
Duo nodded slowly. "Not the first time I ran out of lunch like that."
"But this time you didn't come back. What happened?"
"Something with the running and the deli didn't sit right." Duo shrugged. "That and the fact I figured I wanted a day without routine. A break, in other words."
Hilde nodded. "Well, the mail came in for you." She handed two envelopes to him. "One says urgent so I thought I'd deliver it to you first." She gave him a lopsided smile. "Something from the deli didn't sit right with me either."
"So it's not just my stomach of iron," he teased. She nodded with a smile. "Well, get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow." Duo felt bad, lying through his teeth. Hilde nodded.
"See ya." She turned and left. Duo closed the door and Heero entered the room again.
"I thought you never lied?" Heero said quietly.
"Not usually." Duo sighed. "You come back and I just told Hilde a couple of lies. Man, the things you do to me and my life." He sat down on the couch.
"Is it true..." Heero asked. "What she said, about your running out on lunch?"
Duo nodded. "Yea, well, I really wondered where you had disappeared to so...I guess sometimes when you think too much about someone you start to see things." He turned to his mail. One was a document of a revised contract with a client. No point opening that, he'd just mail it back to the company once he had the chance to. The second envelope was much smaller. Duo ripped it open and pulled out a sheet. "You just turned my routine upside down, Heero man." Duo held up the sheet of paper with symbols similar to the little sheet that Heero had shown him at the cafe. Heero studied it.
"It's different from mine."
"No one can decode it?"
"Not yet. I know someone who will be trying once we get back to Preventers though. Wufei got one of these coded sheets too, but the one sheet hasn't been useful to decode." Heero said. They lapsed into silence again before Duo spoke.
"Who did they threaten to assassinate?" he asked. "Relena?"
Heero nodded. "Relena and-"
"Figures," Duo snorted. "But I guess she receives more death threats than anyone else, Vice Foreign Minister and all. She's the most worthy to be killed. Don't know how she stands it."
"She's always on guard," Heero said. "And so are Preventers. You were the second threat."
It took a moment for the words to sink.
"Me? Why me?"
"Because you were the one pilot who basically slacked off," Heero said. "Hang on," he held up a hand as Duo gawked at him, ready to defend himself, "what I mean is, Wufei is with Preventers, and Quatre's so well known to the media that he has security precautions regardless of whether he wants them or not. Trowa, of course, now works as Quatre's security, and obviously, Quatre does the same for Trowa. Relena has Preventers. You on the other hand, have slipped into such a routine life that with the few years of peace it's not surprising that you would have been an easier target."
"Me! Easy target!"
"Don't get offended," Heero said quietly. "You didn't and don't have guards on you. Preventers isn't close enough. And killing you would have made a public statement about what the faction thought about one of the heroes who helped to bring peace to this world. You can't tell me you lived these six and a half years expecting to be assassinated out of nowhere."
"This is a lot to digest you know," Duo said. "But you were there. With the faction." Duo almost smacked himself for letting himself hope. Would Heero really save him and betray the faction, even at a premature time? "Then again, one life to save many others is the proper equation."
"No, Duo," Heero said. "You aren't expendable like that. Relena...wasn't the only reason that I went undercover."
Duo looked at Heero, feeling his chest constrict. "What are you saying?"
Heero stared at his hands. "Duo, I was always taught that some emotions weren't necessary. Human emotions are the downfall of the soldier. But somewhere along the line, something made me realize that wasn't true. Maybe it was when we realized our real mission against OZ, and when we stopped killing unless necessary, choosing to disarm the other mobile suits instead of just destroying them...it made me start caring. I'm afraid that one of my mistakes will kill someone. Like I killed the little girl and her puppy long ago."
"Heero, that was an accident." Duo knew about this incident.
"Still," Heero said. "I'm not good with words, I guess, but I did care. About you," he blurted. "We were all so distracted when the war and the Barton Coup ended so suddenly. Then, before I knew it, you had gone to L2. And...the faction intercepted me when I made the decision to leave Relena after she was stable to...find you."
Duo stared at his hands even though he felt Heero's eyes on him. "Listen, Heero." Duo stood. "I'm going to pack a few things, okay? I'll join you again in a couple of hours. I need a bit of time to digest these things. If you feel the computer and tv are insecure, there are some books you can read." He gestured blindly to the shelf before he turned and entered his room.
He leaned back against his door. His emotions bubbled up in his throat and he chuckled quietly. A few hours ago he had been lamenting about his routine life. Then suddenly, his life had no more routine and even his emotions were jumbled.
He cared deeply about Heero, he had long ago admitted that. But to know that Heero potentially cared...he had never considered that. He flopped onto his bed.
Okay. So he HAD considered that. When he thought about the others and the train of thought led to Heero, he would begin by thinking how Heero simply saw them as war comrades and nothing more. But over the years he began to worry more without the news of Heero's whereabouts or death. His runaway mind had devised absurd stories to fill the void of Heero not acknowledging him. He didn't want to think that Heero had died. He had considered maybe Heero had settled down and wanted to stop thinking about his days as the Gundam Pilot. That he had kids that he didn't want exposed to his old war friends. Or that he had lost his memories, or was sick. Of all the things he'd ever thought, he'd never allowed himself to hope that Heero had cared. He hadn't even thought that Heero would have gone undercover somewhere; he always thought Heero avoided them for his own reasons, or reasons that couldn't have been helped, like amnesia. Now, he'd learned that he had been one of the reasons that Heero had gone under cover.
/Does that mean that Heero cared? Or still cares?/ Duo clenched his fists. /I've always been a straightforward person,/ he gritted to himself. He stood before he lost his nerve and flung his door open, stomping out into the living room. Heero looked up from his book; he had only just selected a book and read the first page.
"Heero Yuy," Duo ground out. "Are you saying that to protect my life you chose to go undercover?"
"That and the idea that we had to destroy the uprising mindset and not just this one particular faction," Heero replied, his eyes averted to the page he had turned to.
"Why aren't you looking at me?" Duo asked. "What were you really coming to do before you were intercepted? If you wanted to talk, why didn't you just send me some kind of message? Tell me, Heero Yuy." Duo clenched his fists. "Look, smartass, perfect soldier." He took a deep breath. "Look at me right now, figure out what I'm really asking, and give me the answer to my biggest question."
Heero closed the book, looking at it as he put it down on the coffee table. With a deep breath, he stood and faced Duo. Duo glared at him. To his furious surprise, Heero's lips twitched slightly into a smile.
"You look about ready to dislocate my jaw with that fist." Heero said.
"Damn right." Duo ground out.
"Okay." Heero stood squarely. "Go for it."
Duo stepped closer and swung his fist, angry that Heero wasn't giving him any kind of answer. Heero's head turned at the impact, and he made the gesture to punch Duo back. Duo realized at that moment that Heero was replaying the sucker punch scene from six and a half years ago. He closed his eyes, but the punch didn't come. Instead, a hand gripped his shirt on the left side of his waist and Heero stepped close to whisper in his ear, taking Duo's clenched fist into his other hand.
"That was for disappearing for so long. I was stubborn and wanted to speak to you face to face and I didn't realize that I'd be undercover for so long. I'm sorry, for being away from you for so long." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry it took me so long to tell you that I...have feelings for you. Had realized I'd had them since the end of the war."
For a couple of moments Duo remained silent. He had dared to hope that Heero returned his feelings after he had entered his room and thought over the words without being in the same room as the man he'd loved for so many years. Here was his answer. His hope hadn't led to disappointment.
"I guess I can't fault you completely for the last one," he finally said, realizing Heero's body was tense. He relaxed his fist, entangling his fingers with Heero's. "I mean, I could have told you too, somehow, when you were still with Relena or something. So I'll offer you half an apology now. Okay?"
"Okay," Heero whispered.
"Just promise me that we'll take it slow," Duo said, pulling back to look Heero in the eyes. "We'll get through this crisis together first. I lost you for too long, Heero." Duo looked away for a moment. "Don't you dare come here now to tell me that you have feelings for me and have had them for as long as I've had feelings for you, only to leave me in this mission."
Heero's hand released Duo's shirt and turned Duo's face back towards his. "I don't intend to leave you again." He leaned closer.
"Good," Duo breathed, closing his eyes to meet Heero halfway. Their lips met in a simple, yet soul-searing kiss, and they both had the same thought.
/Finally./
TBC...
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