Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death Becomes Him ❯ Epilogue: Stepping Into Darkness ( Chapter 31 )

Gundam Wing is not mine. Fortunately, this story is! But I dun' wanna infringe on copyrights or nothing, so let's just say that you own Duo, and I own Duo, and pretend this conversation never happened...what kind of a disclaimer is this anyway?! Bah!

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 23/2001:

Shi-chan: It's been a little over a month since I finished this series, and I promised I'd have a sequel...this is almost a sequel, almost a stand-alone epilogue...and... *trumpets can be heard* I wrote this in honour of being my 100th story on fanfiction.net! I think I need better ways to spend my time, don't you?
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Death Becomes Him: Stepping Into Darkness (Part 30a)

HAPPY 100 TO ME! WHOO-HOO! *coughs* And I only started writing in December...(well, it was the 1st of December, sooo...but hey, that's 55 days of fanfic goodness! Perhaps I need a social life.) Yep, 1/3 of my posted stories may be parts of Death Becomes Him...but it's 100 nonetheless, and I had to do something to celebrate! This seems to be my most popular piece--and with good reason, it's the one I enjoyed writing most--so I hope you all enjoy it!

~By Shimegami-chan

Music: "I'm Your Friend," from Gundam Wing

Everything that was in those other chapters, is probably here. Well, most of it anyway. >.<
Enjoy, minna-san!




AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place about 25 years after the events in "Death Becomes Him."


Deux watched the pale form in the hospital bed worriedly, running a hand along his brow. "Otousan?"

Heero opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at her. "Deux...I think this is it for me..."

"No!" Deux cried, burying her face in his shirt. "Otousan, please! Don't go!"

"You're a big girl, hon... be strong for me, okay?" He looked so pale and gaunt, he barely resembled the man who had raised her from age five. Stroking her chestnut braid with slim fingers, Heero Maxwell-Yuy looked lovingly into his daughter's violet eyes. "Duo..."

Deux blinked away tears and ran to a chair on the other side of the bed. "Papa! Papa, wake up!"

Amethyst eyes shot open and Duo sat straight up. "Deux? What's wrong?"

The young woman nodded at Heero. "Otousan..."

Duo jumped to his feet and hurried to Heero's side. "Hee-chan? Daijobu-ka?"

Heero's looked up at his partner and smiled sadly. "I had to wake you up...to say goodbye."

"No, Heero," Duo whispered. "It's not goodbye, never goodbye...I can't stay here, when you're gone..."

Heero struggled into a sitting position and touched his lips to Duo's. "I'll wait for you, however long it takes, my love. You don't need to come now, it's not your time."

"Ah, koi." Duo deepened the kiss and pulled away long enough to look into Heero's colbalt eyes. "My time came twenty years ago, it's up to me to decide whether to follow Fate now."

Heero leaned over to give Deux a fierce hug. "Take care of yourself."

"I will, Otousan," she promised, wiping away tears.

He touched her face gently and lay back on the pillow, colbalt eyes finding violet once again. "I love you, Duo. Sayonara."

"I love you too. Ja ne, for now..." Duo choked back the thick emotion in his voice and willed himself to hold the prussian gaze until Heero finally smiled sadly and closed his eyes. To his left, the heart monitor let out a whine, and doctors rushed into the room in hopes of reviving the fallen ex-pilot. Duo led his daughter out of the room and to a waiting room full of hard-backed chairs, quite empty at this time of night. Deux hugged Duo tightly. "Papa...are you really going with him?"

Duo looked thoughtful. "It's a hard decision. I never would have thought I'd have to decide like this again." Deux knew all about her father's brush with Death in his youth, how he had come back to life to be with Heero. How could she not, when Duo didn't look a day over twenty-five years old, and his soul mate had just died at the still-young age of forty? They had been forced to explain the situation to Deux as soon as she had been old enough to understand it, farfetched as the story was. She believed them, of course, the evidence was right before her eyes: Duo had the ability to walk through walls and could sprout devilish-looking leather wings from his back at will, not to mention his slowed aging. When Deux was younger Duo had been petrified that his daughter was going to be the same age as he was if he didn't hurry up. Heero had joked that if Deux had come into their lives any earlier, she might even be the same age as her father! Both Deux and Heero's jokes had long ago stopped bothering Duo, and Heero's amazing physical shape had kept his own age well, so soon the point became moot. Even if at twenty-one years of age people still thought she was dating her eternally young parent.

Deux herself thought it was much more flattering when people mistook her and Duo to be brother and sister, sometimes even twins. She had piercing indigo eyes and long chestnut hair that she had been braiding since she was six, so her hair was 'just like Papa's.' Duo's own braid hung to his knees where Deux's was just past her waist, but the resemblance was uncanny. It was the similarities to Duo that had first made Heero Maxwell-Yuy notice her, a street child in one of the bigger cities of L2. Though she had only been five years old at the time Deux still remembered that day well, when a blue-eyed kindly stranger had offered to buy her some food. She had been on the streets so long that she couldn't remember being anywhere but there. Heero had taken her to a restaurant and then was so intrigues by her that he brought her back to his apartment for the night. She had no name, and Heero creatively called her "Chibi-chan,"... and when Duo Maxwell came home that night, he found his lover watching TV in the living room with the five-year-old bundle of energy in his lap. Duo had fallen instantly in love with the little girl, and Deux herself got attached to the amethyst-eyed ex-pilot almost as quickly. The next day, neither boy could bring himself to take Deux back 'home,' or to the local orphanage. Not long after, Heero and Duo had tied the knot, and as soon as the official papers were in his hand Duo had marched out and put in a request to officially adopt Deux as his and Heero's child. Deux had been thrilled. She had called Heero 'Otousan,' and Duo 'Papa,' since she had moved in with them, but now it was going to be for real! Only a few months later she officially became "Deux Maxwell-Yuy," a name of her own choosing, after the adopted father that she so much resembled. Duo's violet eyes had shone with pride when she announced that they couldn't call her "Chibi-chan," any more.

Deux's childhood from then on was better than she would have ever dreamed. She attended school at Heero's request, and Duo glumly admitted that it would be for her own good. Her parents provided her with anything she wanted, but Deux was definitely a "go-getter," and worked hard for all her achievements. She wrote stories and played the violin, and her parents' friends came to visit sometimes for her concerts, as Duo constantly boasted to his close friend Quatre about his talented daughter. Quatre and his life partner Trowa visited often, as did Chang Wufei and his wife Sally, more friends of her parents. All four of them, along with Relena Peacecraft-Dorlian, were staying at the orphanage tonight, waiting for news on Heero's condition. Quatre and Trowa had generously offered to run the orphanage while Heero, Duo, and Deux were busy; the small shelter was Duo's lifelong dream and pride and joy. Quatre's finances kept the place going most of the time, and Relena helped out when they needed a little extra. The Peacecraft loved to visit the shelter that Duo and Heero had worked so hard to build, playing with the kids that lived there, occasionally taking on the job of cook that Deux had played since she was old enough to take part in the family legacy. Unfortunately Relena's kitchen skills weren't exactly shining, and Deux still wondered how the orphans had eaten until she started to help out--neither of her parents could cook to save their lives, and until Trowa had given her lessons she hadn't known either. Duo joked sometimes that culinary supremacy ran in the Maxwell blood, even though Deux wasn't his biological child--and Heero later commented that that was probably why Deux was so much more skilled in the kitchen than her father. Duo hadn't heard that comment, but Deux suspected that he knew anyway--her parents shared an inexplicable bond that she envied, despite how much they argued and joked anyone could see how much they truly loved each other. She had thought nothing could break the connection Heero and Duo Maxwell-Yuy shared, not even death. Now they were really putting it to the test--Heero lay dying or dead not twenty feet away, his life drained by a stupid disease that had no cure and that neither Deux nor Duo could accurately pronounce.

Duo looked at his adopted daughter, brushing tears from her cheeks. "My little Chibi-chan..."

"Papa!" she laughed despite her tears. "You said you wouldn't call me that! I'm twenty-one and twice as big as you!"

"No way. You're shorter than me still, Little One." His face softened. "It's a little scary to think that I might not see you get any bigger than that."

Deux sucked in a breath. "If you...well...I probably won't get any taller anyway," she finished lamely.

Duo laughed. "I came back just for him, you know...when we were even younger then you. I'd follow him anywhere, my Hee-chan." His eyes clouded. "I'd follow him into death. I promised him that after I followed him into life."

"If you need to go, Papa, than that's what you have to do."

"That's my Deux. But now I have other things to live for, don't I? It's harder than it was twenty years ago." He wound his chestnut braid around his wrist.

"Papa, I want you to stay," she said firmly, her resolve starting to weaken, "But you need to go to Otousan. You promised. You never lie."

"You're right, Little One." He smiled sadly. "I...I guess it's time then, ne?"

She nodded, hot tears spilling from her eyes.

"Take care of the orphanage," he whispered, "and take care of yourself. Say good-bye to Quatre and Trowa and Wu-chan for me...no, wait, just tell them I'll see them around. I'll be watching out for all of you, you hear me?" Tears were leaking from his own amethyst eyes now, and spilling into Deux' chestnut hair. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied. "Good bye."

"See you around, Chibi, my Deux." he closet his violet eyes and sagged against her, his slight weight going limp in her arms. He looked more than ever like a lost child now, his head leaning against her shoulder, breath leaving his body for the last time.

The world seemed to close in around Deux. In Heero's room the heart monitor's whine had been silenced. Duo's own heart had stopped beating, the respirator that had once helped him breathe having been removed decades before. Deux reached for Duo's hand and squeezed it gently. "See you around."






//Here we are again, eh?//

<I guess so.>

//Are you ready? You're moving on?//

<So it seems. So, are you real now? Or are you just a figment of my imagination?>

//That's up for you to decide, Duo Maxwell. It's a matter of putting two and two together.//

<Doesn't that sound familiar.>

A pair of amethyst eyes materialized in the darkness, and suddenly Duo could see. He was standing in a room of purest black, the place called Death, and before him stood two people he knew very well. The first was himself, his younger self, not all the different from his physical form now but clad in a black ensemble and a white priest's collar. On his left stood Deux, tears running from her eyes. She reached out and grasped his hand, squeezing it, and hugged him fiercely. Duo smiled and returned the hug, before reaching up to his neck to unclasp the gold cross resting there. He fastened it around her neck. <Ja ne, Deux.>

"See you around." She was gone as suddenly as she appeared, and Duo and his younger shadow stood alone again.

//Are you ready?//

<What kind of a question is that?>

//Take my hand.//

Duo stretched out to touch his fingertips to his double's, and the other Duo closed his violet eyes serenely. Put two and two together... He smiled and vanished, leaving Duo standing alone again, only this time the world was white. Heero was a few feet away, sitting against one of the white walls, fast asleep. Duo left the darkness behind him and went to be beside his lover.

Duo knelt beside Heero and kissed his eyelids gently until the violet gaze met colbalt. "You came." Heero said softly.

"I promised." Duo put his hand over Heero's heart, and then on his own.

"I waited for you, love," Heero whispered finally.

"I know." Duo brought their lips together again. "And this time, it's forever."








~OWARI!


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Shi-chan: Hope you all liked. This story still has potential, although if I start to overkill it someone let me know. HAPPY 100 TO ME!!!!!! Yatta! *grabs Duo and twirls him around* Whoo-hoo!
Seki: And that's the end of a sad but true story. *bows her head*
Shi-chan: That's something my otousan used to say. *smiles*
Seki: Hai! *glomps Duo and Shi-chan and all the readers* Yaaaaay!


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Edit: November 23rd, 2003 -- Uh...I just noticed that despite this being a Featured fanfiction on MM, I never got around to uploading the chapters past 21...so here they are, all at once. :] (And reading all my old work makes me wince. @_@) I hope you enjoyed the stories; I'm not writing much Gundam these days but my writing has matured (thank God) and you can find those and my other stories on my website. Thanks for reading!