Title: Within You, Without You
Chapter: 1/3
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairing: 1=2, hints of 3=4
Stuff: Duo language, fluff, sap, post-EW, pseudo-death, Duo POV
Disclaimer: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is copyright Bandai, Sotsu and Sunrise Agency. I've only written this to show love of my favourite characters and for Bura's very Halloweeny birthday - she's the slickest nighttime ninja I know!
Notes: Happy birthday to the ninjas of the night, and thanks to Natea for helping me flesh out the ideas - this story is just as much for you as it is Bura!

Thanks to Fancy Figures for the beta-test.

Props to anyone who can guess who Duo's dressed as!

+++

“Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”

-- The Beatles

+++

Bzzt!

The doorbell startled me, almost causing me to spill the steamy mug of apple cider I was cradling. “Shit!” I swore, quickly setting the mug on the coaster lying on the coffee table, which was strewn with enough comfort food to last an army for a week. Luckily, I had managed to avoid getting any cider on my clothes. That would've been a disaster and a half.

Quickly, I got up and headed for the door, grabbing the large bowl of candy by the telephone on my way. Balancing it on one arm and being careful not to trip over the flowing black cloth of my costume, I reached out and pulled open the front door.

Standing on my doorstep was a lion, a knight and a little boy dressed as Superman, but also with a Spiderman mask painted upon his round face. Thrusting a trio of pails at me, I was assailed with a chorus of, “Trick or Treat!”

A grin brightened my features as I swept into character, crouching low and offering the bowl around to the three children like it was a bubbling cauldron. “Trick or Treat? Want a sweet? Go on - take something good to eat!” I rhymed for the awestruck group of boys, who seemed too stunned by seeing a 'grown-up' in costume to go immediately for the candy.

After a short pause, the lion timidly reached out and stuck one paw into the bowl, grabbing a handful of Twix bars and lollipops, which he then dumped into his own candy pail. The knight, upon seeing his friend's loot, was quick to do the same, but I snapped my fingers at him, saying in a no-nonsense tone, “Hey, hey, Greedy! Two pieces of candy each!” The boys reluctantly relinquished their extra pieces, clearly unable to understand that more than one or two other children might come knocking on my door in search of sweets.

However, the confused superhero standing with them still seemed a little hesitant to take his share. Wide eyes danced from the candy bowl to my face and my attire. With the curiosity only a child could possess, he cocked his head and asked, “Mister, why's your skin green?”

Though Heero might have found it amusing to point-blank the kid that he'd painted himself that way with theatre makeup, I wasn't about to half-ass my character - it was worth it to pretend to be someone else, even if it was just for a little while. Keeping the devilish grin on my face, I answered the boy's question. “I was born this way, you see,” I said, leaning in to speak to him in a low, conspiratorial voice. “Before she had me, my mother was doing things she wasn't supposed to be doing, while drinking a magical potion that made my skin the same colour.” I felt proud of myself that I'd managed to keep the explanation PG - there were details to that particular story that I'm sure no normal parent would want their second-grader to hear. Though Heero would have probably found that amusing, too.

“Then how come you gotta be green 'cause of stuff your mommy did?” the boy wanted to know, sounding very outraged.

I chuckled, reaching out to pat the boy on top of his head. Often, I wondered why the rest of the world couldn't be as simple as a child like this; it would have solved a lot of problems back then - when we were fighting the war with OZ - and even some of the ones that had come subsequently. “Sometimes, kid, we end up becoming what our parents make us out to be, whether we want it or not.” I dropped the act long enough to wink and flick his nose affectionately; “Not all of us can always be superheroes, right?”

He looked like he was about to ask something else, his mouth half-opened to form another question, when his companions started making a fuss, clearly not as interested in others as their young friend was. “Come on, Pete!” the knight whined, shaking the Super-Spiderman by the arm. “We got lots more houses to go and only an hour 'afore mom said we gotta go home for bed.”

I sent a sharp, stern glare at the knight, and he quickly dropped Pete's arm, though it was obvious he was none too happy about having to wait a bit more. “You were saying?” I said to Pete, shutting the other two out. I was good at ignoring things I didn't like.

“Uhm,” he hesitated for a moment, glancing over at the other two, but quickly regaining his confidence when he realized I wasn't going to let his companions stop him again. He pointed up to the top of my head and demanded to know, “Why's your hat pointy?”

I followed the line of his finger, straining my eyes upward, but all I could see past my shaggy bangs was the wide, black brim of my hat. “It's because I'm a witch, kid,” I said, returning my gaze to the small boy. “Haven't you ever seen a witch before?”

“But witches are all ladies,” he said, clearly confused.

I tried hard to keep my cool as I retorted a bit icily, “Okay, so work with me a little here, alright?” I paused for a moment to take a deep breath and calm down. Heero would have been laughing his ass off at me if he could have seen me getting so riled by a grade-schooler. Shaking my head, I told myself to stop linking Heero to everything I did, and instead reached into the candy bowl, dumping a handful of about six or seven pieces into Pete's bucket much to his jealous friends' surprise. “Look, kid, I -“

Pete's friends didn't look like they were about to put up with this apparent display of favouritism much longer, each grabbing Pete by one arm and attempting to drag him off my stoop.

“And why've you got such long hair, Mister?” Pete was asking as they tugged, succeeding in getting him past the grinning Jack-O-Lanterns glowing on the bottom step of my porch. I stood up, but made no move to stop the boys; I'd gone and made myself all tense and riled for no reason again. Thinking about Heero. What a waste. He was gone, now, anyway. And he wasn't coming back. Ever.

I stood on the doorstep, watching the three kids scamper away from my dinky front yard to my neighbour's, with a half-grin that felt like latex on my face - one that quickly deteriorated to a frustrated grimace as I closed the door shut with a hearty push. I discarded the candy bowl on the table by the phone and whipped off my pointy cap, which I moodily tossed onto the sofa as I reassumed my former seat in front of the coffee table. Kicking my feet up next to my now-cold mug of cider, I folded my arms across my chest and closed my eyes, where I could see Heero as if he was still alive.

Bzzzt!

The doorbell was ringing again, but this time, I could have cared less. I was too busy remembering Heero: how he looked; how he smelled; the way he used to talk. I thought about his long, bony hands, his slim fingers around a pen, cleaning his gun… touching me. Sometimes, I wondered what it might have been like to kiss him….

BZZZZT!!!

I grit my teeth, cursing those goddamned, miserable whelps standing on my doorstep as many times as I could. Here they all were, with the nerve to be so fucking happy, while I could barely even pretend like Halloween was a day worth getting up for. But when the brat outside decided to just lean on the fucking bell, holding down the button so my ears were assaulted with one, continuous torrent of noise, my eyes snapped open and I let out a bark of rage. I got to my feet and stomped to the front hall, spilling a bunch of candy as I snatched up the bowl and wrenched open the door. “What?” I snapped, making it no secret that I didn't want to be bothered and only vaguely wondering where my cheerful mood of a few moments ago had vanished off to.

“Uhm, Trick or Treat?” asked the fairy princess on my stoop, nervously holding up a pink sack half full of sweets.

I didn't offer her the bowl; I didn't even stoop down to meet her at eye-level. “You know he died today, don't you?” I said angrily, not even thinking to control myself in front of a ten year-old girl. “He died and he shouldn't have! He was supposed to cheat Death - it was impossible for him to die!” I shouted the last part rhetorically at the musty, city light-dyed night sky overhead, completely oblivious to the way the little girl had started to tremble. It wasn't even until a few moments later that I realized she was still standing there; I looked down my nose at her, glowering. “Take your stupid candy - two pieces only!” I said unkindly, slamming the bowl down onto the brick stoop and spinning around on my heel to fling the door closed behind me.

Safely shut in the house, away from everything that reminded me of Halloween, I leaned against the door, breathing heavily. “It's been three years, and you're still not home. Why aren't you ever coming home, Heero?” I whispered to the shadows clinging against the walls. I felt the warm dampness of tears welling up in my eyes, but denied them even as they started tumbling down my face. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. Nothing was ever fucking fair!

I sighed, closing my eyes and pretending like I wasn't a goddamned waterworks, even though my face makeup was now a streaky green and black mess. I was afraid of the ghoulish figure I glimpsed in the hall mirror when I looked up!

BZZT! BZZZZT!

Did horrors never cease? Squinting my eyes tighter, I said in a clipped tone, “The bowl's on the fucking step! Just take it and beat it!” It didn't occur to me that I was probably swearing at a pair of virgin ears; I didn't think the brat could hear me outside anyway. I expected the kid to either figure out that I'd left the candy on the stoop or just get frustrated and move on. I didn't much care, either way; I just wanted to be alone.

I decided it was time to be done with Halloween. Done with costumes, done with candy, done with Trick-or-Treaters. All the green makeup in the world wasn't going to hide my sadness; putting on a witch's hat and amusing little kids wasn't going to make me any less aware of the things that were missing in my life - the person missing in my life. Fuck it all. I just wanted it to go the hell away.

Figuring that I'd clean up the disaster zone of a mess I'd left by the sofa, I dragged myself up the stairs and towards the bathroom with the intention of cleaning myself up first. But first, I headed to my bedroom, slowly shedding pieces of my witch's garb as I went. I discarded my hat and cloak on the foot of the partially made bed, trying hard to ignore the half of it that looked completely unslept in while wondering what it would have been like to share it with Heero. Or for him to share it with me, rather - I mean, technically, this was his room, and that was his bed, but I'd stopped sleeping in mine ever since… well, since that day…. I kicked off my buckled shoes, peeled off my tall, striped socks and then padded across the hall to the bathroom.

Scrubbing my face clean of all that runny makeup didn't do much for my appearance: I still looked like a crying, ragged banshee. My hair was a matted catastrophe, and my eyes were red-rimmed and underlined with dark, purple circles. I'd seen B-grade horror flicks with more attractive monsters.

Not in the mood to get my hair wet and then go through the heinous process of washing and drying it, I skipped out on the shower and found my way back to the bedroom, plopping down nostalgically in the desk's wooden chair. There were things sitting there that hadn't been moved - or even been touched - since that awful day when Heero's last mission had gone to hell. The last computer he'd owned still sat in the middle of the desk, quietly waiting for its master to come home and turn it back on any day now. I used it from time to time, but more often than not, I just ended up really nostalgic whenever I did. Some framed photographs lined the top of the space: a picture of me and Heero and the guys at our induction ceremony for the Preventers' organization; a black and white shot of Heero in swim trunks and a tee shirt, laughing and surrounded by a maelstrom of bubbles; a shot of the two of us hugging Quatre's pet collie; another one of me sleeping on a train to Paris - I revoked Heero's camera rights after I'd found out about that one. Though I thought I looked particularly unattractive in the picture, Heero had claimed I looked peaceful.

A planner from three years ago still lay flopped open to October, a few of Heero's last notes penciled into the month's grid of days.

Oct. 9: Security detail - Peacecraft Gala (7PM)
Oct. 13: Departmental conference (noon); dinner at Wufei's (6PM)
Oct. 20 - Nov. 3: Recon Mission w/ Agent Coquin - Avignon

He had my November birthday circled on the small calendar at the end of the October dates with the note 'Find suitable gift' written neatly underneath it. It's too bad he'd never have a chance to. He never came back from Avignon.

+++

According to my files, the mission was supposed to be one of those easy in and out jobs - the sort that could be done blindfolded and tied up to boot. Heero and Agent Coquin - a newbie who was under Heero's jurisdiction - were on assignment to check out some suspicious activity in an old OZ weapons warehouse in the suburbs of Avignon. I hated it when I wasn't permitted to go with Heero - he'd been my fucking partner, thanks, much! - and even more so when he was in the field with someone who wasn't Trowa, Quatre or Wufei, who were just about the only other people on the face of the planet I even remotely trusted. Une had put me in charge of this operation, and as commanding officer, I was bound to the boring end of the com unit back at HQ.

Alright, so I understood the logic of the whole newbie-in-the-field training program, and I supposed it made sense for the more seasoned agents to take the inexperienced ones on various missions to break 'em in, but like I said, that didn't mean I had to like it.

Or maybe that's just me harboring a bit of slight resentment to that fucking, Gundam-hating dickwad, Coquin, who'd gone and double-crossed Heero.

Yeah, that's right: double-crossed! Stabbed in the back - or more specifically, in Heero's case, shot in the head, execution style. Worse still, the little bastard got away with it. I mean, everyone and their mother knows he did it, but fuck if anyone knows where he went and buried his ass. And I can just bet you know how I feel about that shit.

Lady Une said she was sorry for my loss - she knew Heero and I were close, blah, blah, blah - but she was tight-staffed as it was and couldn't sacrifice precious agents to hunt down just one man for revenge. I never could tell if the old biddy really cared or if she was just looking for an excuse to get me out of her hair. She put me off active duty for no fucking reason after that whole incident, too. Said I was too emotional to be out in the field. And yes, I'm still bitter.

I clenched my fist, my lower jaw quivering as I stared at the photograph of Heero, me and the collie. That had been the last picture to make it into Heero's little collection of precious moments. The smiling faces behind the glass looked alien, though, like they belonged to completely different people; neither Heero nor I smiled like that anymore; we'd both lost the ability to.

My fingers slid across the edge of the slim laptop's blue casing, my thumb pulling back the latch as it passed over it. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was lifting the computer's lid. I guess I was feeling that masochistic pang of wistfulness, because I found myself absently turning the machine on, suddenly feeling the urge to hear Heero's voice again - there were a number of mission communications stashed on the machine's hard drive, and I regularly listened to them all whenever I was feeling particularly depressed. All of them save one: the last one that had ever been uploaded; one I'd been forced to keep on file, despite my guilty wish to never hear it again; the record of Heero's fateful mission to the warehouse.

The computer hummed at me as the start up screen suddenly lighted the blank screen. After wading through the security protocol, I found myself staring at the screen dumbly, like I expected it to do something on its own. It still had Heero's settings on it, right down to the Yin Yang wallpaper that decorated the desktop; I couldn't bring myself to change a bit of it, like it would alter the memory or something.

I don't know how long I let my eyes fixate on the glowing screen, but my finger started drifting across the mouse track pad before long. The little, pixilated arrow floated across the screen, down towards the Start menu and then was going through the motions of opening up the computer's media player and clicking on a random file from Heero's records. My recorded voice started streaming over the speakers as the file began to play: “This is Mission Log 001031, commanding officer: Agent Duo Maxwell, ID #98624DH. Field agents, acknowledge, please.”

He responded almost immediately. “Mission Log 001031: Agent Heero Yuy, ID #32565YM. 1600 hours: no problems.”

Coquin's protocol check-in followed Heero's; I couldn't help the enraged expression that pained my features when I heard his loathsome voice over the speakers.

Static-filled silence ensued, which was periodically interrupted by Heero's rougher breaths and the hollow sound of his boots against the concrete floor. I could almost envision the gray building, afternoon sunlight shining through the yellowed windowpanes in square-shaped patches. I could see Coquin's butt-ugly face next to Heero as they moved through the warehouse with his stupid freckles and retarded-looking horse teeth.

“This is Agent Yuy checking in again. 1615 hours: still clear.”

I'd always had a thing for Heero's husky voice. Call me a sucker for a gravelly whisper and a pair of midnight blue eyes, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, that's pretty much what I was - a sucker in every sense of the word! I'm not quite sure at what point I realized I'd fallen for Heero Yuy, but when I had, I knew I'd fallen too hard and too fast to even hope to save myself. Do you know how hard it is to be in love with your oblivious best friend? It's the most sadistic twist of ironic fate there is - let me assure you of that right here and now.

But because Heero was my oblivious best friend - and I was the biggest piece of chickenshit ever - I took pains to make sure it stayed that way. I told myself that I didn't want to ruin our friendship, that we'd gone through too much shit together to toss it to the wind on a gamble. But if I'd known he'd be snatched out of my life so abruptly, I bet I might have rethought some of my 'better-safe-than-sorry' precautions. I'd been so afraid to lose him, and I ended up losing him anyway; all the pussyfooting in the world couldn't have saved him from that. I should have just told him that I was in love with him. I should have told him every day.

Heh, bet he'd have kicked my ass for having such a big regret, huh? I sure as hell would have deserved it… letting both of us dabble around with brief, bullshit relationships, when he was all I really wanted.

There was a scuffling noise on the speakers, followed by a heavy grunt from Heero, like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. About then, I realized I should have cut off this recording right off the bat, because now I'd locked myself into listening to the last minutes of Heero's life, both morbid and masochistic.

“Coquin, I need backup!” came Heero's desperate voice. “Yuy to base: requesting standby agents to the site, over!”

I felt physically ill hearing Heero sound so frantic, especially knowing what was coming next. “God, Heero, don't trust that bastard! He's got a fucking gun and he's going to unload it into the back of your skull, you moron!”

There was a gasp over the speakers, and a shout from Heero that I don't remember hearing in the original transmission. Then again, it had been three years since I'd listened to it….

And then came two gunshots, one right after the other. I blinked strangely at the computer, knowing for sure, this time, that something was out of joint. The way I remembered it, Coquin had led Heero into a trap, shooting him in the leg and then calling upon the aid of three cronies to tie him up before he put his gun to the back of Heero's head and pulled the trigger. Could it be that I had mixed up the files? But Coquin was there, and this was his first and only field mission before he ran the fuck away. Had someone, perhaps, tampered with it?

And yet, the long, stomach-churning monologue Coquin had given Heero about why he deserved to die was missing. I remembered making my hand bleed as I beat my fist into a nearby wall when hearing it for the first time, and I think that particular patch of drywall in my office still has yet to be repaired. No, this time, it had rather sounded more like a skirmish - like they'd pulled their weapons and fired at the same moment.

Now feeling a bit weirded out, I quickly slammed the laptop closed, breathing heavily as I stared blankly at the flyer-covered bulletin board hanging in front of me. “Cool it, Maxwell. It's just the insomnia fucking with you. There's got to be a far more logical, rational explanation for those glitches,” I told myself while reading over the details of a concert Heero had been planning to take me to back in the day. My name had been written big in Heero's elegant lettering beneath the band's name, and the date had been underlined in red.

“Time to hit the sack,” I decided, quickly getting up and freeing myself of the little Heero time capsule. I quickly shed the rest of my costume and tossed it carelessly to the floor, heading over to the bureau and pulling out a pair of boxers and a tee shirt to wear to sleep. Then I crawled onto the bed and cuddled up in the rumpled blankets and hugged one of the pillows to my chest as I settled my cheek against the other, all the while imagining that the sheets still smelled like Heero.

++++

Tiredly, I rubbed my face, realizing that I wasn't dreaming that incessant beeping noise that was filling my head. I desperately just wanted to smack the alarm clock down and roll back over into the world of sleep, but duty beckoned.

Forcing myself to my feet, I dragged myself through my morning rituals, schlepping myself to the bathroom for a shower and all that jazz, and then to my real bedroom to pull my Preventers uniform out of the closet. I brought it back to Heero's room and proceeded to get dressed there. Standing in front of the mirror hanging over the bureau, I straightened my navy blue tie and flattened down the collar of my shirt. Then I smoothed my hair down and plucked up Heero's uniform jacket from its place on the back of the desk chair and folded it over one arm while I double-checked that I had my dog tags.

It was amazing how dull life could be when you weren't in the field. I'd been keeping myself off active duty ever since Une had suspended me so long ago. I just didn't have the heart to do it anymore. I was more a liability than anything, especially when even the simple word 'mission' immediately made me think of Heero. Still, chaining myself to the desk was better than putting someone else on the line because I couldn't hack it without freaking the hell out. I already felt guilty enough for one lifetime, you know?

No one bothered me for most of the morning, which was good, because I was rather on the distracted side - kept thinking about last night's escapade with Heero's last transmission. I kept wandering through the agency's archives and databases, convinced that someone had messed around with the file. I was so intent on my purpose, I hardly even noticed Trowa when he knocked on the door of my office.

“Hey, Duo, are you interested in coming out to lunch?” he asked, startling me so badly, I nearly teetered out of my swivel chair. I hadn't realized he'd managed to creep in, either; he was perched on the edge of my desk, watching me with that cat-like stare of his.

I blinked stupidly at him, clutching my chest like I'd just suffered heart trauma, and breathing hard.

“Wow, sorry, Duo! Didn't mean to disturb!” he apologized quickly, his curious expression now replaced with one of immediate concern.

“Nah, no big deal, Tro-meister,” I said, waving it off a bit too quickly to be considered normal. “I probably wouldn't have noticed you if you stood there knocking all day.”

“If you're busy, we can wait for you…” he started to say, cocking his head slightly and furrowing one auburn eyebrow. “What were you working on, anyway?”

“Eh, nothing big,” I replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Just pursuing something that's been bothering me lately, s'all.”

“Sure doesn't look like nothing,” Trowa commented, staring at me intently. “Did you have a late night or something?”

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose,” I said. “It's not like I was up particularly late or anything, but....” I trailed off, leaning back and twisting back and forth in my swivel chair while holding a pencil on the bridge of my nose with a pair of fingers. Suddenly, I snapped up, flinging the pencil carelessly aside: “Say, Tro, you wouldn't happen to know if anyone besides Une, Noin, her team, and us guys has access to the archives, do you?”

“Uh, I don't think so,” he said carefully, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at me. He slid off the edge of my desk, assuming a more alert position on his feet. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I said, knowing I needed to start playing my cards closer to my chest. Tro was no slouch, and he was one of the few people who could actually call my shit.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed.

My mouth tightened into a wide grimace of defeat as I rolled my eyes. “Fine, fine, you win,” I relented, slouching my shoulders. I motioned for him to come closer, and he leaned across the desk so I could whisper to him. “Well, being as last night was, well… you know… and I was missing him real bad….”

Trowa's face was carefully schooled as he pulled away, not even waiting for me to finish. He arranged himself on the edge of my desk again, taking his time with getting comfortable. Hands folded on top of one thigh, he said in that level tone of his, “Look, Duo, I know it's rough not having Heero around anymore - he was a good friend to all of us - ”

“He was my best friend, Tro,” I interjected with an icy glare. “I won't ever have anyone like him ever again and I totally blew it. There was only ever one Heero Yuy.”

A heavy sigh escaped Trowa's lips, but that was his only falter. “I know, Duo; I know. I'm just saying that you have to stop dwelling in the past and move on. It's been long overdue.”

Much as I liked Trowa and considered him one of my closest friends, there was a line, and he just crossed it. Practically knocking over my chair, I leapt to my feet and slammed both of my hands onto the desktop. “No! You ain't got the right to tell me that!” I snarled, glaring at him with a potency that might have rivaled one of Heero's best. “I'm not about to up and forget the most important person in my life.”

“Duo, sit down,” Trowa commanded in the stiff tone he usually reserved for his cadets. Grudgingly, I complied, but I still kept my zillion-degree stare trained solely on him as he continued. “I said move on, not forget - and yes, there is a difference!”

I snapped my jaws together, swallowing the silenced comment.

“Duo, none of us are ever going to forget Heero. Just because he's dead doesn't mean he never existed,” Trowa said, talking to me as if I was his small son or something like that. “But come on - wearing his dog tags? His jacket? Duo, the damn thing still has old bloodstains around the bullet hole! Don't you think that's just a little much? Just a little morbid?”

Under normal circumstances, I might have engaged him in an argument, but he had said something confusing right then. I blinked dumbly at him again, and a long, tense pause filled the space between us before I plucked up the sense to query: “Bullet hole?”

Now it was Trowa's turn to look at me strangely. “Yeah, in the back. From the bullet that went through his chest.”

I was already scrambling to claw off the Preventers jacket, holding it up in front of me as I stared at the garment in disbelief. It was just as Trowa said. I dropped it into my lap, gaping at my green-eyed friend like a dying fish. Heero's jacket had never had that hole or the stains. Coquin had put his bullet through Heero's skull, not his torso! “How did - what is…?” I struggled for words.

Now Trowa was looking at me in that way people look at funny farm psychos. “You don't… remember?”

“I try to forget the gory details, yes,” I snapped coldly. “Just humour me and jog my memory a little.”

“Heero realized that Coquin was pulling his gun on him just in the nick of time,” Trowa informed me, still eyeing me strangely. “He turned around and fired on Coquin just the rat was pulling his trigger. Heero managed to hit the bastard, but he still got away.”

“Fuck that. We're talking about Heero,” I pressed, ignoring the way Trowa's odd stare doubled in intensity.

“Sally and her team tried hard to save him - you know they did! - but it was no use; he'd lost too much blood…” he said softly. If I hadn't known better, I might have said Trowa looked like he was about to cry, especially when he added: “Dammit, Duo, he was holding your hand during the surgery! It was you who felt the life slip away from his body! You go on about forgetting Heero, but you don't even remember that? Really, Duo!”

Like water trickling through a sieve, I slowly found myself recalling memories I never knew I had: Heero's pained face as he lay stretched out on the operating table; his hand lying weakly in my clenched fist; the scent of blood, antibacterial and Dr. Poe's flowery perfume. I didn't understand what was going on, but somehow, I doubted Trowa would have the answers for that.

“You need to get it together, Duo. You're gonna make a mess of yourself if you keep running yourself into the ground this way,” Trowa said with placid disgust. With that, he got to his feet and swept towards the door, tartly muttering something about lunch.

I stared down at my fisted hands, ignoring him as he left. But even that offered me no respite, as I soon realized that the thick, ugly scar that I had branded my knuckles with when I'd punched the wall was gone. It wasn't until the door swung closed behind him that I realized the angry dent my fist had left in the drywall wasn't there, either.

++++

The more I thought about it, the more things I seemed to 'remember' about Heero's death - things I didn't know had even happened. Yet at the same time, the story I'd lived with for the past three years was just as much fact to me as well, though whenever I asked anyone about it, I'd get an odd stare and a retelling of Trowa's version of events. I even went and raided Sally's medical records, and by that point, I wasn't even sure if I should have been surprised by the fact that they didn't match up with the exhaustive report I remember filling out about Heero's death.

What the hell was going on? I felt like the whole world was in on a very large-scale joke at my expense. I was half expecting Heero to step out from behind a wall and be like, “Got you, Maxwell!” Because that's completely something he would do.

The only other - and completely farfetched - explanation that I could come up with was that Heero had somehow heard me yelling that warning at him.

Somehow….

Even though a three-year-old recording couldn't have been able to allow me a direct communication with the past.

Could it?

++++

Now I was anxious to get home to test out my theory. Crazy as it sounded, it was the only thing that made even remote sense to me! How else could I be remembering things that didn't happen, or finding stories about what had happened that were completely different from what I was so sure had?

When I got back to the house, I was upstairs and sitting in front of Heero's computer as fast as lightning. If it was true… if I really had found a way to get in touch with Heero in the past… then maybe - just maybe! - I'd be able to save him. Maybe he wouldn't have to die, and I wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

I turned on the machine and opened up the file. Just as a test, I gave it a preliminary listen; even though my cautionary shout wasn't part of the recording, Heero's reaction to it was still there, as was the sound of both guns going off at the same time, just as it had been last night. I reset the file to the beginning, my heart pounding in my chest. I could do this; I could save Heero.

My thumb twitched against the spacebar and the recording started again with the preliminary communications. I hadn't felt this tense since the actual mission; I felt both hot and cold at the same time, and there was a cramp in the back of my right calf. I watched as the seconds ticked by, waiting for that perfect moment….

“Heero, look, you gotta listen to me!” I started desperately, not even giving Heero the chance to get to his second check-in. I was met with only the sounds of his breathing and footsteps; I supposed he was waiting for me to continue, so I did. “This whole mission is a set-up - a scam Coquin laid out to lure you off so he can slaughter you!”

More breathing and footsteps. Could it be that he hadn't heard me? Didn't it work?

In a fit of desperation, I slammed both hands down onto the desk, yelling, “Heero, it's a fucking trap! Don't make me spell it out for you, because you know I will!”

The magic of last night seemed to have vanished. Just like the first time I'd played it, Heero let out a gasp, followed by the clatter of guns and bullets being fired. It was the exact same. I covered my face with my hands, feeling truly hopeless as the rest of the clip played out to the end. It was pretty crazy, wasn't it? I thought it was high time for me to start investigating the Preventer health services seriously; both Sally and Lady Une have been bugging me to do it for years now. Both of them think I suck at coping. I guess they're right.

I got a glimmer of hope, though, as a fleeting thought shot through my mind. Glancing at the clock, I found it was only 7:30PM - last night, it had been well on its way to 9! Maybe it had something to do with the time. Feeling reassured, I closed the laptop and wandered off to find a way to keep myself busy for the next hour or so.

However, disappointment and I seemed to be getting to know each other very intimately that night. About the same time I'd sat down in front of Heero's computer the night before, I opened it up and went through a similar routine, but nevertheless, it remained just as it had been. Not a single change, nor even a hint that Heero could possibly hear me.

I didn't want Trowa to be right: I didn't want his new version of events to be the truth, just as I didn't want to admit that maybe it was time to move on with my life… to leave Heero in the past. Reluctantly, I got up and went to find the list of therapists employed by the Preventers Agency, resolving to get in touch with one the next day.

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Heero's mission had been strictly Preventers' business, so there hadn't been much more in the papers than a few sentences acknowledging that Heero had been killed and that Coquin was now a wanted man. I'd still clipped them out, though; I had them pasted in a photo album that I kept many other memories of Heero in. On one of the pages towards the end of the album, next to a photo of Heero and I at a party celebrating our most recent promotions in rank, was the series of small articles, as well as the official Preventers write-up of the catastrophe and Sally's medical records concerning Heero's death.

ESUN: Poisoned by Those Who Love War

11/1/AC203 - Avignon, France: Yesterday, Preventers Agent Heero Yuy was gunned down during a shoot-out in the line of duty by his partner, who had plans to murder him during a routine inspection of an old weapons facility. Charles Coquin, a former OZ officer, had enlisted with Preventers and was under Agent Yuy's command. However, it appears that Coquin's intentions for joining the ESUN peace corp. were not pure, as he still harboured resentment towards Relena Peacecraft and her freedom fighters. Further investigation found that Coquin had plans to do away with the other four Gundam pilots, and perhaps even attempt an assassination on Miss Peacecraft, herself. Though Agent Yuy was able to successfully wound Coquin, the former war hero was not so lucky; Agent Yuy died of severe blood loss at Preventers HQ in Luxembourg, where he had been rushed almost immediately. Charles Coquin is now AWOL and wanted for murder. If anyone has any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact your local Preventers branch. Note that offering a wanted individual shelter is considered a crime and will be dealt with accordingly by the Preventers Agency.

I reread the article at least three times, just to double-check that I hadn't lost my mind completely. The article I remembered pasting down had said essentially the same things about Coquin, but Heero had never been rushed into surgery - he'd been too dead for a doctor to save him. And yet, when I closed my eyes, I was assaulted with images of the medical facility; I could clearly see Sally's face drawn in concentration, Heero's hand cupped around mine….

Following that, on the next page, was Sally's medical report, which was ironically glued next to a photo of Heero at my birthday party, gripping a shot glass and a bottle of vodka and looking more than a little tipsy. His rosy cheeks and sleepy eyes made me smile in spite of myself. I glanced over Sally's professional mumbo-jumbo, reading only enough to discern that it was a transcript of the surgery's failed proceedings, instead of the autopsy report that had originally been there.

At the bottom of the glued-down page, next to the official Preventers seal, there was a short note written in Sally's quick, cursive lettering: 'I tried hard to save him, Duo. I know how much he meant to you, and I'm sorry that I wasn't good enough to keep him here. I hope you were aware of just how much you, in turn, meant to him; though I think he would have wanted to stay with you, I think it meant the world to him that you were there until the end.' Sally's signature followed the note and was punctuated with a dried tear splotch.

I snapped the album closed, burying the heels of my hands into my eyes. It was a nice sentiment, but there was no way Sally could have even begun to fathom just how much Heero truly meant to me. And even though I knew Heero cared for me, there was no way he could have known how much I cared for him, either. I couldn't help it - it was all his fault I loved him completely in spite of myself. He was… everything I wished I could be.

I felt so lost without him.

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