Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Puppet ❯ Repression Techniques ( Prologue )

Prologue - Repression Techniques

" I said that I was pretty reasonable. I never said that I was rational. "

//...// denotes thought.

***

[Duo POV for the prologue only? Maybe.]

[L2 colony, sector 3, Schreibecker Salvage and Electronics, AC 200, December 23, 7:48 pm]

I'm a pretty nice, laid-back, and reasonable guy; pretty damn nice, laid-back, and reasonable considering half the shit that I've gone through. Maybe that's why Hilde likes to keep me around. Then again, maybe the only reason that she puts up with my shit is because I'm a genius when it comes to electronics, and about a third of the profits that her store and salvage yard nets is because of my little inventions. I'm also pretty damn funny, and I don't mean look-in-the-mirror funny. I'm drop dead gorgeous if I do say so myself, and modest too.

Anyway, it was exactly eleven minutes and fifty-eight seconds until closing time two days before Christmas, and I was quite content to be tinkering with a magnesium alloy filament and deciding what color I should paint the glass of the star-shaped bulb that would be going over it, when a couple of grade A average Joe's walked into the store. I heard the bell on the door ring, but ignored it at first, thinking that Hilde would probably get it. Sweet girl, a good friend, probably been hanging around me too much for her own good though.

Anyway, she apparently wasn't up front, because the service bell rang, and the owner of one of the two pairs of footsteps that had been walking across the cold, hard concrete floor with all the subtlety of a heard of stampeding elephants, called, "Hey, is anyone back there?" His voice was a nice, rich baritone, but in my own little subconscious way, that couldn't make me forgive him for all the noise he was making-unnecessarily, might I add-in the nice, crisp quiet that had before been neatly punctuated by the rare, but steady clink of metal out back in the yard, and my own tiny tools chinking together as I worked. How could people stand to make so much noise just by moving?

So what if I got a bit paranoid every now and then? Don't get me wrong, I usually hate silence, but silence comes in many forms. When I'm concentrating on something, like my little projects, that's not silence. When there's someone else in the room, and no one is talking, and I'm not doing anything, even if the other person is carving a bear out of wood with a chainsaw-or typing incessantly on a laptop-that's silence. When it's late at night and the only things I hear are my own heartbeat and breathing-well, that's not exactly silence either. That would be like calling the ocean a puddle. …Or maybe that's a bad analogy. God, the ocean is beautiful. Silence is not. Maybe that's why I always talk so much about nothing when I'm bored.

I said that I was pretty reasonable. I never said that I was rational.

So, anyway, I carefully set down the delicate parts that I was working with-I sure like my micro technology-and headed up front to answer the call, absently wiping my hands on my oily work pants along the way, and only managing to get my clean hands dirty again. I should have probably worked a little harder on kicking that particular habit.

"Yeah, ya need somethin'?" I asked as I came in view of the counter, my L2 street accent attempting to pick back up again while I was distracted: another habit I'd never been able to completely break away from.

I must have surprised the kids, 'cuz by the way the blonde one jumped, I could dell that they hadn't heard me coming. The good-natured grin on my face became a bit more lop-sided as I thought about that; it was one deeply ingrained habit that I was glad that four years of peace hadn't been able to rid me of: the hard-won stealthiness borne in me on the streets, and refined to an easy, subconscious perfection by that bastard Doctor G. My skills had cost a lot. I wouldn't have been complacent staying at Hilde's if they were just going to rust away.

This wasn't the time to be thinking about that, though, so I clamped down on my half-dealt-with memories from the war and before. I took in the scene before me even as I seemed to relax against the service counter, keeping an easy balance and remaining well aware of all the tiny sounds and minor flickers of light around the shop. The kids-well, they weren't really kids, they were probably physically about five to seven years older than me. Still, their lazy, unbalanced postures and their dim, half-focused eyes made them seem dull, unaware, and decades younger than me mentally. …Anyway, there were two, just like I had guessed before, and one was a brunette, while the other had short blonde hair that kinda reminded me of a hairstyle I'd seen Quatre try out a few years ago. 'Course I hadn't actually seen the old Q-ball, but he was L4's favorite son and he'd recently funded a lot of social programs in the colonies, including setting up a few public colleges and helping out the decrepit, crippled L2 colony when the old, under-budget life support systems started getting dangerously temperamental. I saw him at the dedication. He didn't see me.

Not a lot of people do.

…-The Hell? What was I doing, letting my thoughts wander like that? Maybe I am getting soft. No time, Maxwell, you've got customers, there are too few of those these days to be bothering with self-indulgent shit. Clamp down on wherever those thoughts were going, and stuff it in with the rest of the shit you're gonna hafta' deal with some day.

And stop talking to yourself too, it's creepy.

So anyway, the kids-…guys-seemed regular enough. Well, maybe not for L2 or a scrap yard. They were dressed pretty tastefully. The blonde wore some pretty bright, light pastel colors and was about a head taller than me, but then again I'm not exactly pro-basketball material. I bet Heero would be sad to hear that. …Actually, I don't think Mr. Perfect can even do sad, not that I've even heard about him in four years. Maybe he's still stalking Relena for all I care-…

There I go again. Geeze, my brain works overtime when I don't want it to.

The brunette was even taller than the blonde was, but his dark clothes made him seem smaller and less conspicuous at first glance. He took a quick look at my nametag and I smiled disarmingly in his general direction.

"Um, yes, we came here to ask about some of the custom electronic pieces that we've seen around. We were told that they came from here. You are Duo Maxwell?"

"The one and only." I replied with humor. "What'cha lookin' for?"

The guy with the mousy brown hair had a little nervous spasm in one of his eyes. It looked tense and a little painful. Stress, probably. I'd developed a little twitch for a while once when I'd worked non-stop for a few days without sleep to finish a series of major orders. It wasn't something that I wanted to repeat, and it left me with a certain amount of sympathy for the tall, hulking brunette.

"We came to take a look and see if anything interests us." The blonde replied. The two had a pretty noticeable L4 accent, spoke properly and all that, and it was kinda freaky the way their voices had the same tones and inflections, and the way they spoke for each other. I figured that they probably knew each other pretty well or something, maybe they were best friends or whatever.

I picked a thick, heavy book up from underneath the counter and opened the cover, laying bare some laminated illustrations with descriptions and price tags. "All my stuff is in here." I told them, and prayed to God that they wouldn't ask for my credentials to back up the shop's warranty. It was a strange request, but I'd been getting a lot of folks in here asking about that, and driving away business. I'm a smart guy, a real genius, actually, and I've got about as much talent in my little finger about electronics and mechanics as Mozart did about symphonies. Unfortunately, the only education I've had except the three or four years at Maxwell Church, I got with Doctor G or learned on the fly. I've never even graduated grade school, let alone gone through college. Still, I had done a pretty good job of disappearing after the war, and only a select few people even know that scrap seller Duo Maxwell had once been the infamous Pilot 02. More people could connect the reclusive Trowa Barton to his Gundam than believed that the psychotic, wraith-like, stealthy Shinigami from the war could possibly have been anything but a real Angel of Death. Despite being captured by OZ and having a rather poor photo of me plastered all over the colonies (I looked like a freakin' woman in it, despite the whole priest garb, and how could anyone recognize my face through all the bruises and my swollen black eye?), I was by far the least visible pilot. Before my capture, I had been amused to find that in some online communities, my Gundam had been thought to be merely a stealthier mode of Wufei's Gundam, because of the availability of variable geometry technology, and perhaps a liberal dose of black spray paint. Even after I was tortured, OZ hadn't even gained a name to slap on my face, the bastards. It takes-took-more than some nasty pistol whipping, a few experimental torture and inhibition inhibitor drugs to make Duo Maxwell talk. I don't crack under pressure, I thrive under it. That's half the reason I lived past age five on the streets of L2. The other half-…well, that's a topic for another day, just another one of those things stored down with the rest of the Shit-I-Have-to-Deal-With-Someday.

Yeah, like maybe when business picks up and I get some room to breathe, then I can afford to let a few things slip out from under the mask, and start really dealing. At least that's what I told myself as Blondie flipped through a few pages and took a look at some low voltage EMP bullets that I had developed during the war for more deadly purposes than long-range disablement of computerized machinery. Sure, the much-higher-voltage ones that I had put together and, yes, used back then could be used that way, but the stringy, conductive liquid inside could also be used to fry a large group of people and leave their smoking corpses littering the ground-…

Some day, I'll deal with that. I'll deal with all the ghosts that haunt me, and the horrible things that I've done. I'll deal with the things that give me such violent nightmares that I won't let Hilde sleep in the same room with me (despite the fact that we could really use the money from renting the extra room out) because I'd knife her in my sleep. …Or the fact that-even though that it's horribly, terrifyingly, disgustingly wrong-a part of me, too big a part of me, squeals with glee at the thought of the act and aftermath of killing and of death, and craves it like no sane man should…

I'll deal. Some day, when I can afford it, I'll hire a shrink and I'll deal. For now, I'll handle every day as I always have, by throttling unpleasant thoughts and feelings before they have a chance to grow, hiding behind my perfect jester's mask and a range of others, defusing and avoiding potentially difficult situations, and trying to forge ahead with my life. I'll psychoanalyze myself later; I have a business to run.

"Were you in Specials?" Blondie asked distractedly, still reading the description on my bullets. I don't remember why I put them in there. They're expensive as Hell, but they sell good, and they used to net me a lot of cash back when the local fuzz decided to stock up. 'Guess they never found much use for them. I know for a fact that no one, including them, could have stolen the technology. Compromising the outer casing of any of my inventions causes a complete breakdown of the inner workings, as noted very clearly in my warning label, and it would take someone as smart or smarter than me to put it back together, or even just figure out what goes where. There aren't many people around who are smarter than me. Then again, I'm the one floundering in a scrap yard on L2 instead of seated at a board table in some massive company on Earth. Common sense wise, I'll admit that I could probably use a few more schoolings.

"Nah, couldn't 'a been." I replied easily. "I was 'bout 12 when they were formed, 15 when they turned inta' OZ." Thank God for my street accent. There was no way in Hell I sounded military enough to have had anything to do with the war. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about right then with stupid, painful memories sending chills up and down my spine. Why the Hell were they bothering me so much tonight? My demons usually didn't come out to play for a few hours yet, and I usually liberally drowned them out by working on inventions, or, if they became too bothersome to hold a tweezers still, I would fuckin' exhaust them working out back, moving scrap. Yay for repression techniques.

Then again, with my old accent poking out again without my conscious control, that alone told me just how shaken up I was in danger of becoming that night. Two fuckin' days before Christmas even… So much for holiday cheer.

"I guess not." Blondie replied, but he didn't really seem to care about talking to me. It was pretty obvious by the way he surveyed the pages of the book (made semi-opaque with a range of customer fingerprints) with an upturned nose and careful fingers that he considered this little shop and all within it to be merely dirt beneath his shoes. I had a sudden doubt that this guy had been military himself. First of all, the look in his eyes practically screamed "big, dumb, pampered cow," even if he looked like he owned his own personal trainer and tanning salon, and second of all, there was no way in Hell that an OZ officer would have let a recruit go through training without smashing that attitude of his.

Then again, OZ officers were pretty cushy compared with Doctor G., and he hadn't quite managed to destroy my personality. Then, yet again, the streets were a much harsher trainer, and that's where my attitude and nuances of character had been forged in the first place…

Jolly jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, what the Hell!? Was this supposed to be "remember your roots" day? I groaned mentally, deep behind my mask, knowing that I was probably in for some pretty tenacious demons tonight. Where's a damn exorcist when you need one?

I almost sighed in relief when Blondie turned the page and looked at another little invention. Brown Eyes, the big brunette, was just standing dumbly behind him and to his right. Sometimes he would look over Blondie's shoulder and seem vaguely interested in what was on the page, and other times, he would just stand stiffly, and the skin around his unfocused eyes would twitch.

Blondie kept looking for a while, and (unwilling to leave anyone unsupervised in my shop) I waited patiently at the counter for closing time, and tried some of the meditation techniques that came with G's martial arts training to blank out any further thoughts. It was hard, harder than it should have been, and it almost felt like a few steel chords were trying to force entry into my mind and pluck out feelings of sadness and uneasiness, and the harsh memories that came with those feelings, but I just shut down and did something that I haven't done in a really, really long time.

I went into Mission Mode. Mission: diplomatic persuasion of customers. Priorities: infiltration of scrap yard management, suppression of personal vendettas, initiation of conversation with contacts, and optimally, an exchange of goods and funds.

Strangely, about as soon as I did that, Brown Eyes glared at Blondie with the nastiest death glare I've ever seen on a civilian, and growled, "John…" Well, at least now I had a name to call him. Somehow, I didn't quite think he would have appreciated "Blondie".

"Is there something wrong?" I asked, hoping that whatever was going on between them wouldn't drive them out of the shop. "It's a hot one today, those boys up in weather management sure like their hot summer days. Would'ja like a drink?"

Brown eyes twitched and his head jerked. I hoped that I hadn't said anything wrong.

"Hey, man, you might wanna relax a bit. Those muscles aren't going to stop spasming if you don't, and you really won't have fun tonight then." Brown Eyes looked tense, really tense, and I could only wonder why.

That seemed to interest Blondie-I mean John. He turned and some expression passed between them. Then, with a grin that was probably supposed to be charming but just came off boyish, snobbish, and creepy, John said to me, "You don't have any credentials on display. I'm sorry, but I can't be buying such potentially dangerous, unpatented, and untested machinery from someone who hasn't even gone through the training and classes necessary to understand such fine mechanics-…"

I swear, if I hadn't already placed myself past the point where nothing short of the Apocalypse would get me truly riled, I think I would have decked the man right there. I'm used to people underestimating me, mostly used to it anyway. I'm short, I look young, and I have perfected the art of disarming people with my friendly, foolish grin. Still, almost as much as I hate Ozzies and hypocrites (surprise, surprise, same damn thing), I hate morons, especially morons who automatically think that they're better than everyone else (strike three, stupid Ozzies. Me, hold a grudge? Nah).

It must have shown in my face or something because Blondie stopped talking in that condescending tone about my lack of credentials quite abruptly. "We'll be leaving now." He turned around quickly, grabbed Brown Eyes by the wrist (who looked just about ready to deck Blondie himself, and Hell, I would have cheered him on), and dragged both their asses right out of my shop without a backwards glance, leaving me to wonder what, in the name of all that is holy, that was about.

Hilde chose that moment to come clomping up front, and dropped a greasy wrench on the counter, where it clattered to rest. She was just in time to catch me blinking dumbly after the two big fish that I had let get away. "Let me guess," she began as she wiped oil off her face with a rag, but only ended up smearing more on, "that was about credentials again?"

"…Hell, Hilde." I said at length, "I've got the talent, the results are right the fuck in front of them, and there ain't no one in this Hell hole of a crippled rust bucket colony that can complain about my products, 'cept that tampering with 'em makes 'em break down. Why is a stupid college degree so damn important? Bubba over in sector 4 sells worse shit than I do, and there ain't no one shit'n 'bout his papers…"

"Calm down, Duo. You're upset, I can always tell when you start up with that accent of yours." Hilde said softly. She knew better than to put a hand on my shoulder or anything. Yeah, I was upset, and quickly discovering just how much as the ice of my mission mode began to slowly melt away. I usually had a lot harder time controlling my hair-trigger reflexes when I was upset, and I'd actually hurt Hilde a few times already when she just couldn't help being kind, caring, and way too touchy-feely for her own good.

I clenched and unclenched my fists and took in a deep, hissing breath through my flaring nostrils as the anger that I'd been denying washed over me in a boiling haze. I was MAD. Those guys had no right treating me like trash. They had no right thinking me a naive, incapable idiot. They had no fucking right assuming that I didn't have the knowledge, training, common sense, and background necessary to be selling my little inventions, no fucking right at all…

"It'll be fine, Duo. Just calm down. I'll close the shop for the night, and you can talk about it with me if you want to. Talk to me later, all right? Just talk, Duo. It always makes you feel better."

I had to hand it to Hilde, she was such a sweet girl. She always knew just what to say to shove the demons far back enough for me to restore at least the semblance of calm to my face, to remind me that I wasn't holding out just for me, that we were In this business together, both of us trying to earn enough to build a decent retirement with. I couldn't take time off to exorcise those demons yet, I still needed to make sure that there would be something for Hilde to live with while I was away, and something for me to come back to.

Not "come home to". This place, with all its "rustic charm", all its falling-apart-at-the-seams, all its memories of memories, and even the smell of so many people packed tightly together still wafting over the oil, grease, and metal back in the yard, wasn't home. Where was home, then? What was a home to begin with? I had yet to find out.

I forced the muscles in my face to relax, uncurled my fingers slowly, and let out the breath I had been holding, just as I'd been holding back the flood of Shit-I-Have-to-Deal-With-Someday, and all the negative emotions that provided the deadly debris, and the fact that, sane, a Gundam Pilot was still probably the most dangerous weapon on Earth. More than anything, more that wanting to live in a free world, eat, drink, sleep, and breathe, more than wanting to walk in the sunlight (or at least the sunlamps and colony mirrors), I didn't want to find out how dangerous a less-than-sane Gundam Pilot with little to nothing to lose, could be.

And if I had my way, no one in the world would have to find out either. I had this business, I had my projects, I had Hilde and all of my merely platonic love for the sweet girl, I had the peace between Earth and the colonies, and I had a new life, where no one but my closest friends could connect Duo Maxwell, salvage and electronics specialist, with Pilot 02 of the Gundam Deathscythe, and the legend of Shinigami. As long as I had those things, I knew that, eventually, I'd find time to finally deal and I'd be okay afterward, because I'd have a place to come back to, and a friend to welcome me in. Maybe, I'd even find a home.

Hilde closed shop quickly, then stood nervously behind me and off to one side, where she knew I could see her in my peripheral vision, but could still have a chance to get away if I snapped. I had never snapped, but I'd warned her already to keep two or three feet of distance between us at all times just in case all the same.

I smoothed a blank look over my features, readied my face like a primed canvas over which I could paint any emotion, regardless of whatever thoughts and feelings were swirling around in my head deep behind it. I looked over to Hilde and saw the tension in her posture. Clearly, she was nervous. She was one of the only people to ever catch me so uncomposed. This wasn't about credentials, or the fact that my major half of the business was failing because of my lack of them, this was about everything we had gone through, separately and together. This was about the fact that I was a war orphan, street trash, thief, survivor of multiple massacres and tragedies, Gundam Pilot, terrorist, murderer, hero, winner, loser, friend, betrayer, genius, fool, idealist, realist, ruthless son of a bitch with the body of a 15-year-old, the mind of an ancient, hair of the most beautiful chestnut hue, gorgeous violet eyes, a lean, lanky frame…. And that, by day, I was cheerful, hard-working, slightly annoying, charming Duo Maxwell, and by night, I was just a scared little kid who was supposed to be a man, fighting whole-heartedly against demons that I shouldn't even know existed, much less have to face, fighting to stay Duo Maxwell, the grinning idiot, and not become Shinigami, permanently. This was about stupid me, who had been too blind to realize that Hilde's feelings for me were more than platonic. It was about sweet, almost innocent Hilde who could have and deserved someone far better than me, something far brighter than the future I could offer her, and a life far better than that I could give to her.

Most of all, it was about both of us, and the fact that we were each others' closest, and arguably only real friends, and I was on the verge of a breakdown, and Hilde was there for me like she always was, like I selfishly hoped she always would be.

I abandoned my blank mask, allowing the well of anger, frustration, anxiety, guilt, sorrow, regret, and overwhelming hurt to rise to the surface and slowly, carefully overflow and spill forth. I reached out with gentle hands and drew Hilde into the first embrace I had shared with another human being since Sister Helen had taught me to love, and OZ had taught her that to love Shinigami was to die. Hilde wrapped her arms around me and held me as silent, wet sobs shook my thin frame. "You being here, Hilde, it means so much to me." I told her, shameful tears drenching my face and words. I was crying, I was actually crying selfish, stupid tears that would not only prove once and for all how weak Deathscythe's pilot had become, but would send Hilde all the wrong messages. In my tidal wave of carefully released, long-repressed emotions, however, I either wouldn't or couldn't listen to my own logic. The words were out of my mouth before ever checking in with my brain. "How could I ever tell you how much you mean to me? Don't ever leave, Hilde, don't ever leave me alone. I need you. Just stay here; you're what I'm holding on to."

I meant it, oh hell, I meant every word of it. If I didn't have Hilde to hold out for, I don't think I would have lasted this long. There's just something a lot more solid about holding out for a person, rather than for an idea or thing.

"It's ok, Duo. I'm here. It's ok, I'll always be here for you. I love you, Duo, you know that. I'd do anything to make you happy, truly happy. Talk to me, Duo. Tell me what's wrong, what can I do?" Hilde murmured soothingly into the hollow of my neck, and damn it all, it just made me sob harder.

I didn't love her, not in the same way she meant for me, and it made me feel small, ungrateful, unworthy, and like I was abusing her affections for my own selfish emotional needs. As much as I cared for her, as good of friends as we were, as much as I wanted to build a life for her, I couldn't love her like she loved me. Platonic love, love for the mind and the soul, that's what I felt for Hilde. I knew that she knew that, I'd already told her after all, but I don't think she understood it. She kept dropping hints, trying to get closer, and trying to build the solid, if marred base that we had into something more. I think she's living in denial. I think that I just about broke her heart when I told her that all we could ever be is friends, and she just denied it so it didn't shatter her, so she could be the strong one for me and cling to her vain hope that some day I'll look at her the same way she looks at me.

I don't want to hurt her again, but I don't want her to waste away her life like this, waiting for me. I'm not worth that, but I do need her to be strong for both of us right now, because I can hardly be strong for myself.

She wanted me to talk to her about everything that bothers me, everything that makes me have to wear a mask because sometimes that's all that holds me together, but I don't have time to deal right now. The best I can do is work as hard as I possibly can, building a life for the both of us so that eventually I will have time, and so I'm kept too busy in the mean time for the silence to set in, and for all of my ghosts to circle around and haunt me….

I'm such a selfish, hypocritical, foolish, moronic bastard in denial. Who was I kidding? It's entirely my own fault that I don't have time, it's entirely my own fault that I'm hurting Hilde by not dealing, it's entirely my own fault that I have anything to deal with in the first place. It's entirely my own fault that I have to worry about the inky, pitch black abyss that is Shinigami, lapping always at the edge of my consciousness, daring me, enticing me to step forward and let it claim me, and stop being so violently torn into pieces about everything, and start dishing out some of my own violence….

But I know that's wrong. God, Father Maxwell, Sister Helen, Solo, I know it's wrong, and I've always fought so hard against it, but every day and every night, it's there. Since the war ended, since I stopped giving in even once in a while, the call has been stronger, but only a little easier to resist. Solo, what would you do if you had a big problem, and the power to make it all go away was at your fingertips, and using it might hurt a lot of people, but someone close to you, and you were getting hurt by not using it? What if you didn't know if you could stop using this power once you started, or if it would be possible to continue to resist it by not using it, even if you chose not to?

What if you knew, because you've used it many times before, that it's impossible to be rid of it, and even if you don't use it, it will eventually change you, already has a little, won't stop until you give in or die…. What if you knew, that if you gave in completely, immortality would be at your fingertips?

…You'd tell me that I shouldn't smoke, wouldn't you, Solo? Heh, yeah, you would. I know you would; I remember when I was little, when this overwhelming pit of darkness wasn't all that hard to flit into and out of, when you used to prize me as the second best thief in the gang next to you, and I asked you about it, and you got so mad because you thought I'd gotten a hold of some drugs. You told me to stop using it, because it would only hurt in the long run. I listened to you for quite a while, then you got sick and died. I should have used it one more time, and then maybe you would have lived, and you wouldn't have left me to take care of all the other kids. I had to be Shinigami almost every moment of every day to keep them alive. You would have hardly recognized me, the way it changed me, the things I did just so they could live to see a few more birthdays. It started to scare me, the way I changed, how powerful and enticing that black power became, the way my lucid moments away from it were fewer and fewer and further and further in between… When food got real scarce and we were captured by OZ soldiers, I was going to kill them, Solo, you know? Your little, eight-year-old buddy had gone deep enough into that power that you had told me never to use again, that I wanted to kill them because they were in my way, and they had food.

The scary part was, I could have easily done it.

That shocked me out of it. I thought of you, and what you would think if I did that, if I let the gang see me at my worst to date. I was still holding out for you, in a way. You were still part of the gang; you were still part of me.

I failed the gang, Solo. We got sent to Maxwell Church, and got split up. Everyone else got adopted, everyone else went to a good home because, thanks to you and me, they never had to steal, or fight for their next meal, or whore out their bodies when things weren't going so good. I wouldn't have had to either, if I could have saved you, but I failed you, so I guess that was a suitable punishment, even if I still thought, and still think I deserved far worse.

No one adopted me, no one could. They nicknamed me "Maxwell's Demon" for a reason. That dark power, the one you thought that I was hallucinating, it was so hard to get away from that I almost couldn't do it. Sometimes, I couldn't stay away from it either. I didn't understand, for the longest time, that I didn't have to steal to survive anymore. For the longest time too, after Father Maxwell taught me the Ten Commandments, I believed that I deserved the Hell that he spoke of. At nights, sometimes, when that dark power was the most difficult to resist, the families that tried to adopt me, and even Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, thought that I was possessed. Maybe I am. That doesn't explain why they couldn't "call the demon out" like they were supposed to be able to, and none of the holy items had any effect, not until Father Maxwell gave me his cross, anyway. When I couldn't go to Sister Helen and get a hug from her when things got really bad, I would hold onto that cross and pray, just like Father Maxwell taught me to, and I would hold onto the thought of him and Sister in my mind, and the fact that they wanted me to be good so that I could stay with them, and maybe have a home one day, and that would make it easier.

I still do that sometimes, when I need to. In a way, I still believe that if I'm good and I manage my demons and I don't give in to Shinigami, I'll eventually have a home, and someone to be there with to point all the cool things to, and laugh with, and have fun with after all the dealing is done. Maybe I'm being unrealistic in that dream. I know there won't be a quick fix, and even after my demons are tamed, they'll still be there, and I don't even know how to begin to approach Shinigami, that endless dark pit at the center of my being, that unspeakable evil that is as much a part of me as my own soul…

Maybe Father Maxwell and Sister Helen could have been with me and created a home for all of us, but they died too. Sister Helen, who taught me that a hug is something other than when someone pins you down and clamps your mouth shut so you won't scream when they do you, she died when I tried to save her. Father Maxwell died defending his mission: to show kindness to L2 without taking anything in return, to defend the weak without raising a hand to strike. The rebels that came to our church demanding that we get them a mobile suit from OZ, indirectly, they killed him first. I, in my little priest garb, freshly-done braid, gleaming gold cross, and eyes halfway between beautiful cobalt blue and Shinigami red, I went and got them that suit, Shinigami-free every step of the way. It was me, Duo Maxwell who took a couple extra minutes to flex my thieving little fingers and try to give them the only thing that would keep my little pious family alive, and those couple extra minutes cost them their lives. If I would have used my power, become Shinigami that one time, I could have gotten there soon enough, before OZ retaliated and bombed the church indiscriminately. Or maybe if I would have stayed….

No, then some other poor fool would have been suckered into piloting Deathscythe and would have had to go through G's "training".

I broke the day that Maxwell Church was destroyed, I snapped, completely, totally, and utterly. I couldn't hold Shinigami and my demons back anymore, and for a while, the streets of L2 and the OZ soldiers there had something far worse than the rebels to worry about, they had a completely insane, mass-murdering, past-the-point-of-reason Shinigami hunting them from the shadows until there was no one left to kill. Not that they ever realized why there were suddenly no more soldiers alive on L2, or why so many pale, lifeless bodies with expressions of horror the only indication of their cause of death suddenly were rotting in the streets amidst the ruins of other, less-known tragedies. Oh sure, I made sure that OZ knew that the deaths of their soldiers were payment for the lives of those lost at Maxwell Church (each worth thousands of their men and more), and they must have known that Maxwell's Demon was the only survivor…. Well, physically anyway.

But then there were no more soldiers on L2 to kill. I had a few blurry lucid moments after that, and with those, I was able to sneak aboard Doctor G's ship, which was heading for the moon. I was only able to hold myself together because of the promise that I would soon have more OZ soldiers to kill. I couldn't dive fully into Shinigami without becoming dangerously homicidal toward everyone around me, and it was utterly impossible to break free, not only because of how strong Shinigami's pull was, but because of how weak I was becoming in comparison. I needed to feel that power, that cold, calculating assurance, that dark, insane humor to overcome the fact that too far away from it, I was a crying, babbling, incoherent mess.

I hovered on the edge, and was slowly changed, and drained away. I was a 12-year-old mass murderer. The very air around me seemed to condense and freeze with the number of dead that followed their blood, coating my hands….

G's security found me on the tail end of a babble-fest, while I was burrowing deeper into Shinigami. I didn't kill them in that moment, because alive, they meant that I had a ticket to go kill more OZ soldiers. G was notified, came down to see me, and gave me an offer that I could have hardly refused. He had a Gundam, a powerful machine, which he needed someone to use to go kill a lot of Ozzies. I was the infamous Maxwell's Demon, who's body count had at least three digits, if not four, all OZ soldiers. I was the right size and the right age to handle the harsh conditions of a Gundam cockpit, and I had the right dedication to the cause. I was a junior genius, and I also definitely had the skill. I was also definitely, definitely insane. He couldn't have that; he needed someone who would take orders, go on designated missions, act intelligently, and above all, not fly off the handle every time I would see an OZ soldier. He would give me Deathscythe, but in return, I had to go through training, three years of it.

I agreed. I don't know why I didn't kill him on the spot, but it was really a good thing that I didn't. Never mind the fact that over the course of the next three years, I tried to kill him more times than I care to count, but he trained me, and trained me well. Perhaps the things that I'm most thankful for are the meditation techniques that he taught me, the basic martial arts, and one of the most powerful mental tools in my arsenal: Mission Mode. When things went badly and I thought that I might do something that would compromise security, I would take a step back, distance myself from the emotions that were making me unstable, and just be objective. It was only a bit harsher version of what I regularly do when I get chatty, a lot more effective, and a lot more, well, objective.

Eventually, G was satisfied that I could handle being sent up against Ozzies again. There must have been an argument with the higher-ups about the objective of my mission, though, because G told me to steal Deathscythe and go down to Earth to fight OZ, instead of following the original plan and killing lots of civilians to distract OZ long enough for the idiots in the colonies to crash them into Earth. I had a bit of a problem with the original plan myself, and I was going to destroy Deathscythe and go down to Earth to kill Ozzies anyway. Must've been my lucky day that I got to keep the Gundam.

By the time I was settled in and doing missions, it was really a good thing that G had taught me all those meditation techniques. I was Shinigami almost 24/7 again, holding on to only bare threads of sanity. Those meditations kept me lucid long enough to do a lot of serious damage in my first two weeks on Earth. It was torture, those few weeks, but then something really strange and probably damn lucky happened.

It's recently been proven that certain energies exist which certain configurations of minds can manipulate. AKA, psychics exist, with varying talents and strengths. No shit, Sherlock. All I can say on the topic is, "it sure took you guys long enough!" I was on a standard sneak in, blow 'em up mission and an unlucky soldier only about barely old enough to be my dad had the great misfortune of looking up as I was crawling past him in the shadows on the ceiling. He shouldn't have been able to see me. He was a telepath by the name of William Brown Jr.; I know his name because he had a nametag on. I know he was a telepath because when I dropped down and split him from stem to stern in one fluid, horrifyingly gleeful motion, he tried to split my skull open with the biggest, nastiest headache I've ever had the misfortune of entertaining. I literally saw stars. When I came to not long after, it was because a bunch of Ozzies had surrounded me and poor, dead Willy-boy, and decided to poke me to see if I was dead too. To my great surprise, I wasn't. Also, to my great chagrin, I was more lucid than I'd ever been in years. The terrible dark power that had been slowly taking me over was torn from my grasp and locked far away. I should have jumped for joy, but my head felt like it would explode. Miracle of all miracles, the next time I could stand to look my reflection in the eyes, I found that my irises were my own funky blue-lavender again.

For the life of me, I can't remember how I got out of there, but I'm sure it was Hell on a pogo stick. The next few days were kinda blurry too. I remember doing a mission or two and blowing some shit up, but I think what happened was that all of the Shit-I-Have-to-Deal-With-Someday kinda hit me all at once, and I didn't get solid ground under me again until I shot my best friend in the arm. Well, I called him my best friend during the war, based on how many times we saved each others' asses, even if all he did was call me an idiot and ransack Deathscythe for parts.

I had held onto a promise of revenge to get me down to Earth. After that, I held onto Heero Yuy to keep me fighting without regressing too far into Shinigami again. You see, as I see it, all that nasty inky black gunk that was suffocating my head got peeled back like water with a windshield wiper and packed up in a nice, neat plastic-wrapped ball. It was out of my reach for a little while, but it didn't take long to come back into my reach, or to start trying to get me to use it again. Heero alone wasn't enough to hold onto. I didn't know him very well even as much as I tried to get under his skin, but he just wanted to chase Relena. He had absolutely gorgeous eyes, sparkling Prussian blue, and I used to annoy him just to get him to glare at me, so my smiles wouldn't be quite so idiotically false. There was only so much of his backside I could take being shown, you know, as great of a view as it was. Boy, was I a hopeless masochist back then.

When I met the other pilots, I held out for them too, and it was ok, despite the fact that most of them were quiet or obsessed with one thing or another. Then again, G had diagnosed me as a hopeless homicidal maniac, so I shouldn't be complaining. I would have liked to get to know Wufei more; he seemed all right, and I guess I was just somewhat jealous of Trowa for getting to spend so much time with Heero. I found out early on that Quatre was empathetic. I guess you could classify me as a pretty powerful empath myself, even though I used most of it to keep Shinigami in check. When I was really, really young, I even had enough empathy left over to read other people sometimes, which was part of what made me so valuable to you, Solo…

Quatre was powerful, but polite. He didn't try to pry often, but I could always tell when he was reading me, and I'd clamp down so hard that I think I gave him a few headaches. I guess he couldn't believe that my smiling façade was all there was to me. I wouldn't have minded being shallow for a change. Too bad he was right. He tried to talk with me about Heero a few times after the ol' boy accidentally killed some peace delegates from the colonies. I guess he was worried about Mr.-stick-up-the-stony-ass-so-tight-I'll-make-sawdust-Yuy. I didn't contribute much.

I was devastated when Heero self-destructed. I guess I didn't notice how close we had gotten; I actually felt the knife-edge of his pain, though nothing nearly as bad as Quatre felt. I couldn't believe it; I refused to believe it, I wanted him to live so badly. It's still hard for me to believe that he survived that. For all intents and purposes, he looked, and… felt, dead. I even mourned the sonofabitch.

'Course, I didn't let Quatre see that. We kinda moved in together at his place with the Maguanacs after that for a few months, laid low. I went through some intense introspection over that time, but I was careful to keep a mask over both my face and emotions. Resignation, I broadcasted; anger, resentment, injustice, revenge, but resignation over all of it, not the deep sadness that I felt. Quatre didn't call me on how wrong it was for someone to pretend to accept something like that so quickly, so I think he knew, or he was too distracted with his own mourning and leading the Maguanacs and all that. I didn't mind, they left me alone most of the time in the dark room that I can claimed for my own, except to announce meals and necessary stuff like that. I think most of them were scared of me. After all, it was by then a well-known fact that Maxwell's Demon, the child with the blood of thousands on his hands, was also known as Shinigami, the pilot of Gundam 02. It showed that they had a healthy survival instinct 'cuz everyone but Rashid, Quatre, and sometimes the young errand runners left me alone.

It was hard getting through those months in the desert, and not just because of the heat and lack of water. Water was a luxury on L2, and the guys in Weather Control have always loved their hot summer days down in the less well-kept districts (which was almost the whole place). No, it had looked to me that the Gundams and their pilots, the symbols and people that I had been holding out for, had been utterly defeated. I found that I actually wanted to fight for the colonies, not just for revenge, in those weeks that I'd had free from my dark alter ego, and they basically told us that we could shrivel up and die for all they cared. Trowa and Wufei basically packed up and disappeared, Howard didn't even send a card from Aruba, I thought for a while that G had died under some log or up someone's ass somewhere, and Quatre… was ignoring me. He was a strong boy, strong on his own, strong enough for himself and he didn't need anyone holding out for him, least of all a screwed up, homicidal maniac like me, who needed every scrap of his own brain power just to keep from flying off the handle. It brought me a sort of… peace to realize that I was no longer needed, and I spent long days and nights in such total apathy that the smallest shift in light through the curtains in the dust of my room just fascinated me for hours. I often wondered if it would be better for society, for the people who I would potentially kill in the future, if I would just join all of those who I had dared get close to, in the afterlife. It sounded good for a while, getting to see them again, but I really didn't want to die, so I just sat in my dark room and started tinkering with electronics, like I had sometimes tinkered with scraps while I was on the street, just so that I wouldn't be a complete drag on Quatre's people.

After a while, I was stable enough again to hold meaningful conversations with Quatre, so I shifted around a few emotions in my mask, and he came around after a while. We talked about the other pilots some (he seemed to be rather interested on the fate of one, Trowa Barton), but mostly about our Gundams, current events, strategy, and what the hell we were going to do now that we were pretty much free agents with kickass giant robots.

We ended up going back to space, but we got separated, and I was on my own again. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, following a half-baked plan like the one we used to get into space, like that. "Yeah, let's go to space!" "All right, we're in space, now what?" Duh. Exactly. I had very little power, very little fuel, no water or food, a limited air supply, and most of Deathscythe's systems were running at 50% or less… What he hell was I thinking? After I met up with an OZ patrol, I didn't exactly expect to make it anywhere alive; I expected to self-detonate and take a bunch of those Ozzies with me to Hell.

Two evils destroyed in one fell swoop. Forget to mention that one of those evils was me.

You know, I honestly think that Heero took some integral part of my self-detonation system when he ransacked my Gundam, and replaced it with… I dunno, cheese or something. That's a nice thought, him actually wanting me to live. More likely, he used it to replace a part gone bad in his own system, and blew himself up with it. What a comforting thought.

Anyway, whatever happened, I didn't quite die, and OZ had a nice, pretty, Gundam-wrapped Shinigami delivered to their front doorstep. As merciless as they were with their torture sessions, I thought, maybe some of them actually held a grudge against me for killing so many of their fellows? Nah.

A few beatings, experimental chemicals, inhibition inhibitors, hormone shots, scaldings, some "fun" for certain undersexed soldiers, and liberal pistol whippings later, they hadn't gotten any more out of me than they already knew. "I am Shinigami, and you will all die," sprinkled with examples of such methods of expiration supplied by my colorful imagination, proclamations of revenge for their various infractions and injustices against the people, and entering mission mode when I could, all decorated the dialogue of my stay. It sure wasn't a five-star hotel that I was rooming in, but at least they didn't even get my name out of me, even if I couldn't have kept Deathscythe from them.

Then they sentenced me to death. I didn't really want to die, but I didn't really have the strength left to do anything about it without truly becoming Shinigami anyway. I planned to dive in just a little one last time, and take a whole bunch of Ozzies with me before I finally went down, but lucky for them (or maybe unlucky), I never got the chance to enact my plan, and throw everything away.

The day before I was scheduled to be put down like a dog, my demons hit me just about as hard as they ever have, almost as hard as the night Heero self-destructed, almost as hard as the day Father Maxwell and Sister Helen died. I had resigned myself to die, to see through with my own death and the deaths of all those aboard Space Fortress Barge. All too well, I knew that, more than I wanted to destroy myself and OZ in order to protect the innocent lives that we, would potentially, probably, inevitably take, the dark power within me wanted to live. It wouldn't let me go down willingly. It rose the night of the Maxwell Tragedy to turn my violent inclinations outward rather than inward, it rose the night I thought Heero died to keep me from following him, and it nannied me while I was with Quatre to follow that up. It tore away at my mind when I tried to self detonate in space, and in that OZ bay, the day before my execution, it told me that I could survive if I wanted, if I gave myself over to it and dove in completely….

I was writhing in agony for hours, battling my insanity. I endured a few more pistol whippings when my guards decided that they didn't like all of the noise that I was making, but I hardly felt them. I only came out again when I promised that dark part of me that, if at all possible, I would find some way to survive the destruction of the space station. Then I noticed all of my new bruises, and the fact that my guards had more bruises too. They were muttering about how it was no surprise that I'd gone crazy with all the punishment I'd been through during the torture.

Yeah, right. They shouldn't have given themselves so much credit. I'd crossed the line of insanity long ago, all on my own, thankyouverymuch. I was a big-boy nut case; I could go crazy all by myself.

Yet, miracle of all miracles, a little while later while I was still semi-lucid from my last temporary truce with Shinigami, no one other than Heero Yuy busted into my cell, intent on shooting me to keep me from talking. He was a little late for the torture session, but I didn't tell him that. Let the boy keep his illusion of supremacy. You see, I was a bit distracted. You'd think that the fact that my supposedly dead best friend (and I'll admit, I was just a little attracted to him, despite the fact that he was about as warm as a block of ice toward me) just walked in and threatened to shoot me, would keep my attention rapt, but no. This complication created a bit of a problem. I wasn't supposed to be rescued, I was supposed to go down in a blazing fireball of glory in the night sky, cripple OZ in perhaps the largest blow I'd dealt them to date, and-yes, Shinigami-try to get out of it alive using any means necessary. Heero wasn't supposed to be here, he wasn't supposed to be on this side of the veil of death, wasn't supposed to be around for me to hold out for.

He also wasn't supposed to try to kill me. I couldn't help it, my dark desires for death, blood, and my own life were screaming at me, my vision was blurring as my demons assaulted me again. My already labored breathing was quickening as I fought between letting Heero kill me because I couldn't possibly bring myself to do anything to hurt him, and killing him because I couldn't possibly do anything to stop myself. I had to check, had to make sure of his intentions, so I blurted out, "Hey, you're really going to shoot me!"

Turns out, he was only doing it because he thought that I wanted him to. A part of me, the part that was still Duo Maxwell, wanted him to because he was probably the only person in the world who could do it without ending up very, very dead trying. A far stronger part of me, the part that wouldn't sit still and let that happen, well, wouldn't just sit still and let that happen. As much as I wanted him to do it in that moment, I was very, very relieved when he put the gun away and helped me escape instead. He can be such a nice guy sometimes; he even stuck me in a hospital on one of the neighboring colonies. I still don't think the man understands "subtlety," though. Before the medical records in that medical center, Duo Maxwell didn't exist on any file anywhere, except maybe in G's personal mission files.

The rest of the war, despite the added challenges, went a hell of a lot smoother. Even when Heero, Wufei, and I were holed up in another OZ prison cell, I never lost control as badly as before, when I thought Heero was dead and that I would soon follow. Wufei was a good guy. We had a lot of one-sided conversations, kinda like when I tried to talk to Heero, only Wufei sometimes contributed something meaningful. There wasn't only cold intelligence in his eyes, but kindness, and a patient, righteous fury too. No matter how much talking I did, he always made me feel that my entire philosophy was childish, selfish, and unfounded, with only a few words, even though we never talked about anything deep. I felt weak and evil next to him. Then again, I am weak and evil, so maybe it was just the fact that he was so focused on what was right that comparing myself to him made me feel that every fiber of my being was unnatural and wrong. Under other circumstances, I would have liked to get to know him better. He was intelligent, focused, and hard working, and he could have probably given me a lot more leverage against my darker half.

Too bad I think that I thoroughly disgusted him by freaking out when OZ turned off our oxygen. It was all I could do to curl into a ball and roll around, complaining, to keep from lashing out or being pulled further into Shinigami. The very air froze, not because any of the temperature controls had been messed with, but because of the dark power permeating it, only barely in check. It got cold because Shinigami was too strong for my feeble, unfounded convictions to handle. I kept reminding myself that I was holding out for Heero and Wufei and the mislead Colonies, and my new Deathscythe and so that I could kick Trowa's ass once he remembered why his ass needed kicking….

It was all I could do to keep from whimpering like a little girl and slipping back into insanity in front of the very people whom I had tried so hard to convince that I was stable, and sane. When we finally got out of there and I got my new, upgraded Gundam, lots of Ozzies paid for that.

I pretty much disappeared after that stupid display. I stayed with Hilde and recovered a lot, only having to face reminders of who-and what-I was every once in a while. I left when that started to become a problem for Hilde, but before she could see me for the maniac that I was. Things were ok for a while. I ended up being pitted against some new mobile dolls programmed with Heero and Trowa's fighting data. It both excited and unnerved me that I defeated them so easily.

Some crazy scientist made me test the ZERO system in Wing too next time OZ got their bloody hands on me. That's something that I never want to repeat. I was hanging onto only a few threads of sanity beforehand; I don't think that system was built to handle someone like me. I freaked out big time after a few of the targets on screen were neutralized. The system's primary function was to search out and analyze my greatest, most dangerous enemy, the one that could cause me the most harm. It shouldn't have come as a big surprise that I was by far more dangerous to myself, more immediately than anything shooting plasma cannons at me. I've always sorta known it. ZERO just couldn't seem to decide how to effectively neutralize this threat without neutralizing me in the process, and Shinigami perceived that as a threat to my life and went wild, and I was tuck in the middle with both of them poisoning my mind until the combined strength of ZERO's neural link feeding information directly into my brain and Shinigami's demons keeping me locked somewhere between the past and the present, made me hallucinate up something awful. The crazy scientist ended the test, saying that I wasn't fit to use ZERO for some crazy reason, like the fact that I was crazy myself. Crazy, huh? He got into the cockpit, thinking he could do better. I got the hell out of there. He got killed. I destroyed his records. ZERO's readouts of my mental structure could have told anyone more than I really wanted them to know about how my mind worked and approximately where I had gone over the edge, past the point where ZERO could do anything with me without making me an emotionless, nearly lifeless puppet. I burned those records good.

I held out for the rest of the war. For some reason, I expected Heero or Wufei or Quatre or even Trowa to come with me after the final battle where we risked our lives and kicked ass and everything, but no. Quatre and Trowa went back to their lives, Wufei went to honor Trieze's memory or some mystical shit, and Heero chased after Relena.

Relena. Why didn't I see it? Why didn't I realize how much he cared for her until I'd foolishly built up the hope that someone I'd dared to get close to would stay with me? Mr. Perfect went off to be Relena's undercover bodyguard, or stalker, or something, same diff'. Anyway, he became as much of a non-entity as me. He resurfaced during the Mariemaia incident, but it was all about Relena. By then, I'd resigned myself to the irony of it all, and helped him out because I didn't want another war. Also, as much as I hated his Perfect Bitch, she seemed to make him happy, and that was something that I doubted I could do, especially when I was still re-perfecting the lockdown of my own demons so that I could laugh for real again. He even smiled for her. I never made him smile.

Wufei put his life back together again after that and went to work for the Preventers after destroying his Gundam. Heero's was in so many pieces when it fell out of the sky (and nearly took me with it when I saw it), that it was a huge shocker that he survived long enough to collapse in Relena's arms.

Trowa went back to the simple circus life, and Quatre took his Maguanacs to L4 and took up the reigns of Winner Enterprises again. Me, I gave up on hope, and took the first step toward moving on. After the New Year's party with the other pilots to get our "Thanks for saving our asses, now we're throwing you out on yours'" awards, I did a little low-level hacking, and made Duo Maxwell officially a real person. A little while later (after finally, completely letting go of Deathscythe), I moved in with Hilde to help her run her salvage yard back on L2. I never did find out what happened to the rest of the old gang, Solo, but I do hope that their years were less eventful than mine.

Holding out for Hilde is what has kept me sane, and possibly on the road to recovery ever since. I've talked to her a little bit about some things that bother me when nights sometimes got too hard to handle, but she doesn't know about the reason why things are so bad. I'd like to think that it half of me wasn't so grossly, powerfully, irrevocably evil, that I could handle all of the Shit-I-Have-to-Deal-With-Someday a lot better, but the truth is, I probably couldn't. Because I am Shinigami, in some way that justifies how many lives I've taken, and the reasons for each one. Somehow that makes it a little more ok, because I wasn't completely in my right mind when I did those things, when I thought those things….

Ah, who am I trying to fool? "Thou shalt not kill." There are no exceptions, nothing makes it ok, nothing explains it to the cold, dead eyes of a soldier who probably had no idea why he was being ordered to do what he did, who was probably fighting more for the guy right next to him than for the selfish, greedy ideals of his superiors. Nothing makes it ok for his family and friends when Billy or Joey Jr. don't come home for another Christmas and their killers go free, or are even praised for their deeds….

That's why there have been attempts on the other pilots' lives, except maybe Heero's. They were all too high-profile during the war, so just about everyone knows their names, and could track them down if they really wanted, and maybe even succeed in taking their lives. Yeah, like if hundreds or thousands of OZ soldiers couldn't catch them off guard, some crazy, revenge-minded civilian could….

I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that. I don't think I could handle it on top of everything else, on top of all my stupid, stubborn demons, my deep-fried conscience, and Hilde…

Oh, Hilde. I was so consumed by memory that I didn't even notice when she led me to my bed and laid down with me, still in my arms. I was too busy soaking her shoulder and my sheets with lousy, stupid, selfish tears that I didn't even notice when she started stroking my hair. Why didn't I notice? My braid is as big a part of me as my cross, and even my crazy blue-violet eyes. Sister Helen was the last person to touch it in such a loving way, except me, and she….

"Hilde, oh sweet, gentle, innocent Hilde. Sister Helen was the last person to get this close to me, and she died. I bring death to anyone who dares care for me. I don't want you to die too…."

I didn't even realize that I had said that out loud until her arms tightened around my shoulders and she whispered back to me, "No, Duo, I won't die because I choose to care about you. There's no reason for you to be afraid to get close to anyone, there's no reason for you to be afraid to let me care about you, or for you to be afraid to care about me too."

"To love Shinigami is to die." I mumbled before I could prevent the compulsive words from escaping my lips, and immediately winced.

"Duo! Stop it with that Shinigami nonsense! This isn't the war, you stopped having to deal out death after you pilots took down Libra! You aren't Shinigami! You might have done some things that you aren't proud of, but that doesn't make you evil, now just stop it!" she yelled, holding me firmly.

I couldn't help it; I sobbed. God, how I wished that was true! She hadn't seen the evidence, never saw me filled to my eyeballs with the darkest part of my soul…. Sweet, innocent Hilde, how wrong she was.

"It's ok, I don't respect you any less for being able to cry. The fact that you still have trouble with everything that you've seen is a good sign; I'd be more worried if it couldn't bother you at all. You're all right, Duo. I'm not going to leave over a few tears and emotionally charged words. I'll still be here tomorrow, and every day after that, as long as you need me."

Sometimes, Hilde could be well meaning, but say something completely untrue because of her innocence, and other times she could say exactly the right thing regardless. It was true, my demons still affected me, and as long as I could still be bothered by them, I knew that I was all right. As long as I could care or feel remorse, I wouldn't be completely lost, I would still have hope, no matter if I counted on it or not. As long as Hilde was still here too, I'd have someone to hold out for, and to dedicate that hope to.

I held Hilde tightly, but gently, as if she was my firm, but fragile lifeline; and she had been, and would still be for a long time. For that night, I held her, heedless of the consequences, and we slept together in each other's arms. Some part of me knew it was selfish and risky to allow her to stay so close, but right then, I needed her there with me more than I needed my space.

Right then, I needed Hilde's love as much as she needed mine.

[End Prologue]

Beautiful, just beautiful! I'm just elated that I finally got this done! (No, Hilde and Duo are not doing anything. They're just sleeping, SLEEPING, I tell you!) I've been playing around with this story idea for a while as a means to thwart writer's block, but it evolved into a complex, compelling plot with plenty of angst, supernatural, and crazy sci-fi action all on its own. I'm posting the prologue just as a tentative introduction for you, the readers, to decide if you want to hear the rest of the story or not. Two reviews and it's a go, more and the update will be swift. I'm entering college right now, but that doesn't mean that I won't have time to write (considering writing, drawing, and one weekly role-play session is about all I do outside of work and school), especially since I'll be building my own computer, finishing probably late next week. No, this does NOT mean that I will be slacking off any on Taking Flight.

If we decide to go with this, the next chapter won't be nearly so angsty. I'm going to try and focus in on the positive, light-hearted aspects of Duo and Hilde's friendship, and how much they truly care about each other. No, this is not a 2xH fic or a 1xR, so 2x1- and 2x5-ers, you can put down the torches and pitchforks. Platonic love is a beautiful, intense thing that is not distracted by carnal interests, and uses as a medium of expression, helpful, truly caring acts. Will there be citrus? I don't know yet. Maybe. Review and find out. ;)