Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Reuniting The Past ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

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Reuniting the past- Chapter 2

By: realityfades

A.N. I know I didn't say it before, but, Rate and review.

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Chapter 2 terms

1. Naze? - Why?

2. Wakari-masen...- I don't understand.

3. Baka-desu - (since it is said at a person) You are an idiot.

4. -chan - more of a term of endearment than anything. Like in English “little” then their name “little Joey”

5. Tomete - Stop (stoppu means the same thing)

6. baka - idiot, stupid (he's an idiot… as if you couldn't think about than one)

A.C. 186, July 24

L2 Colony Cluster, Graveyard

A flow of tears had fallen from his eyes the day before, but now none would come. His worst nightmare had become a reality.

Solo was dead.

He died during the night. When Little Brother woke up that morning, he just looked like he was sleeping. Like if he shook him, he'd wake up.

He knew better. He knew better than to get attached.

Kiva left.

He yelled at her for her not going sooner, for anything he could think of to take the blame off his shoulders. And she was gone. Turned and left, like it was nothing to just walk away.

In secret, he wished that he could just do that, break a promise and walk away. Now, he had responsibility. Things and people that he had to take care of. He couldn't be Little Brother anymore. Who would call him that after Solo was gone? He didn't want to just be any old 'No-name.'

He renamed himself. Something that would remind him of where he came from.

"Duo..." he said quietly.

There was two people inside of him. That was true enough. The side that was bright and happy, the one that Solo had made of him. Then, there was the darker, depressed, wishing only death on other's happy little lives, side of him. The real him. The him without the mask.

Solo was a part of him if he wanted it or not. It just so happened that he did.

His grave hadn't been anything much. He was just buried, they couldn't think of anything else to give to him. There was a small stone cross. Masen was the one that gave that idea. He said that Solo was the closest of any of us to getting into heaven, so they'd might as well. Duo thought that it was Brenden that had carved Solo's name into it but he said that he didn't. It really didn't matter who did. The whole make-shift funeral passed in a haze.

He hated to admit it, but he missed Kiva. He wanted her around to help him cope. She didn't like being blamed for something that she couldn't help. But he had done that purposely. He wouldn't be surprised if he never saw her again.

She just seemed mysterious like that. To disappear and never be seen again.

Yet again, he found himself envying her. She could just disappear.

He finally set the flowers down on his friend's grave and looked up. Plain as day she stood there.

Her hair covered her eyes. Her hands were stuck in either pocket of her pants. The t-shirt she was in revealed the scars from the cuts that had been on her arms that had healed unusually fast. She continued staring at the grave.

"K-Kiva?" He said quietly.

She shot a sideways glance at him but said nothing.

"Kiva, I'm sorry, okay? I don't know what to say."

She shook her head.

He continued to stare at her. His hair had managed to sweep it's self over his eyes. "Doozo... Naze?(1) Wakari-masen...(2)"

"I don't know. There is no logic behind the madness that we call life," she spoke quietly, as if she had the wisdom of an elder. "This is war. It's either kill or be killed. It's the way that the world's always been." She moved her eyes from the grave over to him. They locked eyes for a second.

"Why? People know that in war people die. Yet, they never stop fighting. People never stop crying. Is blood the only company of tears?" He felt his eyes almost water and looked away.

"Humans are the only company of blood. As long as there have been ways to kill, we've killed. We are a death driven people. We start wars against ourselves, so, we, naturally, show no mercy to those unfortunate enough to be different." She lowered herself to the ground as she was speaking. She ran her fingertips through the upturned soil. “Unfortunately …that is exactly what we are. A little out of ordinary…”

There was a silence. They understood the unsaid words between them. He felt like she liked his company as much as he liked her's. No matter what she said there is no reason that he could find why she would want to be alone. There was no reason to.

He inched himself closer to her. "D'ya hear my new name?"

She shook her head.

"It's ...um...Duo."

She nodded. "Oh."

They were quiet again.

"You- you're not leaving anytime soon, are ya, Kiv?"

"No. Not if I can help it."

He nodded, "Good. I'd hate to see you leave."

A.C. 187, July02

L2 colony cluster, Streets of L2

"Baka-desu!(3)" Kiva hissed through her teeth. "You want to get us killed, don't you?!"

"If I said yes, you'd hit me, wouldn't you?" Duo said taking a step back placing his hands over his face, "Just not the face. Just not the face."

"I swear, you're not even worth the effort. You know one of these times, you're going to break into one of the bases, make a fool of yourself, and the guards are going to shoot you. And I will laugh."

"But you'll be standing right next to me and they'll shoot you too, Ki-chan(4)." He said mockingly.

She raised an eyebrow and said, "Not if I run."

"Damn it... You have a point. Okay, it'll work out better this next time. I swear to all things that might be holy."

"I'll kill you next time. Just so I give you fair warning." Her voice went back to being completely monotone as they walked back through the streets of L2. She now went back to being quiet.

He placed his hand over his heart. "I love you, too, Kiva." he said in a semi-sarcastic manner.

He cared about her, yes. Maybe even loved her, a little, as a friend, but Solo had taught him never get attached to anything that could die. They'd just leave you alone again. They'd just make it worse. Because without friends, there was no grief in watching that one person die. There was no attachment. No need.

“Kiva…?”

“Mmm?”

He hesitated forgetting, for an instant, what he was going to sat, remembering and not wanting to say that out loud as long as he lived, “Never mind.”

She looked at him suspiciously, “What?”

“Nothing.” His eyes dodged away from hers.

“You're not a good liar. You shouldn't attempt to anymore.”

He shrugged, hoping to forget the incident, hoping that she would, too.

“You were going to say something.” She was almost persistent, but her voice didn't seem as if she cared too much to know.

“Kiva. I don't want to be your friend…” he almost couldn't believe that he had let the words fall from his lips, but he knew nothing that he could now say would be able to take it back. “I don't want us to talk anymore. I don't want us to be anything other than… than nothing. I don't want there to be anything.”

She was quiet for a few seconds, and then said, “That's good… because… we're not friends, Duo. I don't have friends. I have people I want to kill a little less than others. I don't think I ever considered you, or any of the others, `friends.'”

His heart sunk. Sure, he was the one that said that he didn't want them to be friends but… but it hurt to know that she didn't care. At all. It hurt to think that one of the people he cared about didn't feel the same about him. He didn't separate himself from her because he didn't like her. He separated himself because he didn't want anything bad to happen to her. He didn't want to have to watch her die.

There were no words exchanged until they reached the door of the place that they managed to call home.

“Kiva… I didn't mean it to sound like that…” he said, his voice had hardly came out as a whisper.

“Tomete(5). Just don't talk anymore. It's not going to make a difference.” She was short with him, more-so than she had ever been before.

It caused it to hurt a little more. She walked into the house, leaving him.

`How much did that one little lie hurt me to say? How much did it hurt her to receive?' he thought remaining outside the door. `I don't want to have to lie anymore. Duo, Duo, Duo. You're going insane. How would I live if I wasn't able to lie? I'd actually have to tell people stuff. That would suck.'

“But…but, Ki-chan, we don't want ya leave. Duo's a butt. We all know this. Doozo, don't take anything he says seriously! He's a baka(6)!” Masen said holding onto her leg as she looked down at him.

“Yeah, Kiv. Duo's kinda, you know, not too smart. He doesn't really think before he lets himself talk.” Brenden said looking at her.

“He doesn't have one of those brain-mouth connections like most people do.” The long-haired, little, blond boy, Jesse, said looking at her and nearly pouting.

“Why is it that when anything is wrong, anything at all, it gets blamed on me?! What did I do this time?!” Duo yelled shaking his head.

“No body else here argues with Ki-chan! So when ever she wants to leave, it's your fault.” Riza complained loudly.

“That's so un… un… unfair.” He complained crossing his arms over his chest.

“That's life the way we've been dealt it, buddy boy.” Brenden said again.

Kiva didn't look at him once but kept her eyes on Masen. “Look, kid, I just want to leave. He didn't do anything. I just need to leave.” She said kneeling down to him.

“So, you're not mad us? So, you're just are leaving so that you can make us sad, right?”

“That's not it. I don't fit in here.” She said really quietly.

“But none of us fit in here. We don't belong here neither. You don't have a family, so you belong here just as much as we do. We're like pieces of different puzzles, none of us really fit.”

A soft smile crossed her face. It was sad though, it hurt to look at because you could see the pain that flashed into her eyes, even if it was just for a small iota. “Can't take you with me though.”

“Please. I won't be a nuisance, I swear. I won't even talk if you don't want me to. Please. Please. Ki-chan…” the little boy cried into the pants leg of the now seven-year-old.

At the instant, Duo knew how much Kiva meant to that little boy. He never stopped talking, so for him to swear to not, meant that he cared for her a lot.

“I'm sorry… I'm sorry…” She whispered in his ear causing him to only cry louder. She looked up, “Bren, come get him.”

He shook his head in defiance, “No. I don't want you to leave neither.”

She eventually, however unwillingly on the youngest boy's part, parted him from her leg.

“But, Ki-Kiva you're the closest thing I ever had to a mommy. I don't want you to leave.” He sobbed, rubbing the last tears from his eyes.

“I'm not going to be gone forever. Mata yo.”

This snapped Duo a little more back into reality. Solo had uttered those exact words before he died. `We'll meet again…... How can they be so sure? Nothing in this life is ever written in stone. Today, this minute, could be the last time that I see any of them… And… I would never get the chance to say goodbye… How do they know that we'll ever meet again?' He brought his face up from the spot on the floor where his eyes had been transfixed and stared at her. She couldn't be human…No human would sit there, as a five year old was sobbing hysterically into their legs, and show no emotion. The way she looked at the boy with almost no recognition, no concern, she couldn't have been human. `I'm right… she's not a human… She's a soldier. She's as far from human as humanly possible.'

“P-promise?” he stuttered softly.

“Swear it.” She said back.

“Still don't want you to leave, but okay… as long as you promise.” He took a step back. His brown eyes were inflamed because of those tears.

`O, bittersweet irony…' He would have never thought that the coldest, and most uncaring of them all would be the one that they would end up caring about the most. This was the way that life had always worked for him though. In utterly ironic ways.

Yet again, she smiled that quiet smile that made him shudder. That smile that made him hate being the person that he was. The one that made him want to be something that he wasn't. Dead.

She turned and left, saying not a word to him. Not giving him a glance. And, yet again, he found himself wishing that he had not said anything. Now was not the time for self pity, or self loathing, or anything else that he wanted to do. Now was the time to simply forget. Not to forgive, to forget. Forget that this girl had ever existed.

This proved to be a more difficult task than thought.

Every day, the sandy blond Masen sat in the window, face pressed against the panes, wishing under his breath for the raven-haired girl to come back. Every day, she didn't. Every day the boy continued to sit there, a little more down trodden than the last. He would sit like this for an hour in the morning, then one at night. Other than that, Masen was none different than from before she left.

Although Duo smiled more, he was happy less. It was almost like losing his best friend all over again. Sure, she had called him stupid and hit him a lot, but that was because he was, purposely, very annoying. Not exactly just to her, but to her and anyone in her general direction. He found it funny the way that she would, or wouldn't, react to one of his random comments. At times the look that crossed her face made her look like she was going to hit him again or say something rude, either way she would have gotten back another random comment. He almost missed that.

A.C. 187, July 22

L2 Colony Cluster, Orphan's House

“That went well, huh, Duo-kun?” Jesse said crossing his legs at the ankles and smiling.

“Well Yeah! And tomorrow we'll sneak into the Military Warehouse.” Duo said shrugging his shoulders in that nonchalant way that he was so famous for.

“WHAT?! Isn't that kinda… you know…” the blond trailed off almost not wanting to think of what could happen.

“If they catch us, we're TOAST!” Masen piped in from besides Jesse.

“Hmph. It's just a fluke that we've lasted this long anyway. We might as well go all the way!” He said taking a bite into his apple. “Might as well go out with a bang, right?”

“But if we get caught… where will we go? I mean… we don't have anywhere else.” Brenden put in a few seconds later.

“Stop thinking in `what ifs'. If we were meant to get caught don't ya think it would've happened by now?”

“Still…”

A.C. 187, July 23

L2 Colony Cluster, Alliance Military Warehouse

Empty gun shells lay on the ground. The gunshots were close enough to feel the heat on their cheeks, the whizzing in their ears.

“Firing without warning… are those guys nuts?!” Duo shouted over to Jesse who's hands were capping his ears.

“Soldiers don't care about women and kids! Coulda told you that.”

“Dammit! Stop it! What'd we ever do to you?!” Duo yelled at the blond man who had been one of the ones shooting at them.

“Don't give me that bullshit! I can't believe you idiots actually went after the Alliance's food stores!” he yelled.

“But… But this is our home! If you bust it up … there are we supposed to go?!”

The man stood there, his hands on his hips, attempting to look authoritative, but only managing to look a wee bit gay, “The Maxwell Church has offered to take you in. Be grateful!”

“A… Church?” he whispered.

Masen tugged on his sleeve, “But if we leave how is Kiva supposed to find us?”

“I don't know.” The younger boy's face fell, “But I'm sure she will. This is Kiva we're talking about here.” Masen managed to smile but not for long.

“I don't think that I'm gonna like this church Duo.”

“Ehn. Don't think I will either. Just gonna stay there `til I can get away.”

“Hope so…” Masen said as the older man told them to stand up.

“Bakas…” the man muttered.

Duo scratched his cheek with his middle finger.

A.C. 187 August23

L2 Colony Cluster, Maxwell Church

“I don't wanna go to school! You can't make me!” Duo yelled, pulling the blanket over his head. “I don't see you jumping up at five in the morning to go have a teacher yell at you.”

“I'd be glad to go back to school Duo but-“ Sister Helen attempted to explain things to him, only to get cut off by the obnoxious seven year old.

“Well then you go for me, cause I don't want to and you can't make me. Not my mom.”

“Duo…why must you speak this way? We only want you to get the best education that you can until you're placed into a foster home or adopted.” She sighed heavily, pulling the blanket off the little boy and sitting him up no matter how unwillingly.

“I doubt that that's gonna happen.” He muttered.

“You're such a negative little boy, Duo. You're so young… do you not see that your entire life lays ahead of you and you are making it seem as if it will very bland.” She sat him on her lap and began to re-braid his hair.

“B-but why have all the other kids got adopted and not me? Why do I have to be so different, Sister? I just want to be in a family. Why can't I have what I want for once? Just this once?”

“People don't like things that are different sometimes. And those people aren't worthy to be called your family. If all these people want to do is change who you are, Duo, then you don't need them. Father Maxwell and I will be all that you ever need. We'll never leave you.” She said softly.

His eyes grew wide. No one ever said anything like that to him before. “Really?”

“Really, Duo. You don't have to worry.”

He smiled. “I'm still not going to like this whole school thing…”

“You don't have to like it Duo. Just do what is expected of you.”

“Fine… I won't like it…” He tried to pout but couldn't he had to smile. For once in his life, he felt like he really belonged somewhere. The Maxwell Church was… his home. It sounded strange to hear that. “Home…” he said out loud. It sounded right.

“Okay. Duo, promise me.” Father Maxwell said.

“I'm not promising anything `cause I refuse to lie and say that I'm not going to do something that I most likely will do.”

“Duo, you can not fight those other children.” Sister said waving her finger at him.

“Bet you I can.”

“You will not fight those other children.”

“If they start with me first, I can't say that I won't. They're not going to call me a wimp for not fighting back.” He said defiantly.

“He's strong willed, Sister, I'll give that to him.” Father said repressing a smile.

Helen sighed, “Fine, Duo, fine. You win this time. But please do not start the problems.”

“'Kay. I can promise that.” He smiled softly, but his face soon after turned grim. Every kid, that had been smiling and talking happily just seconds earlier, went completely silent and stared at him as if he were contagious.

`I am going to hate school…' he thought.

“Okay class, I'm going to point to each of you and you tell me your name.” The teacher, Miss Turpin, said smiling. She seemed nice enough. It was the other kids that had him worried.

She pointed to a small brunette who said, “My name is Christina Jones.”

She pointed to the next.

“Nikolai Caplin.”

“Brandon Moton.”

When she finally got to Duo, he remained silent. Miss Turpin came up and put her hand on his desk, “Can you please tell us your name?”

“Um... Duo.” He said never letting his eyes move from the letters on the board.

“Duo what, dear?” she asked.

He looked up at her. “Duo nothing. It's just Duo. I'm just Duo.”

“Yeah, Miss Turpin. He doesn't have a last name because his Mommy didn't want him. He's an orphan.” A little boy said loudly.

“William! That is very inappropriate!” she screeched.

“But it's also very true. I mean look at him. Who would want thatas their kid? I'd lose him, too.” The boy Nikolai said.

Duo had managed to keep his temper. His eyes were locked to the desk, his fingers drumming against the desk rapidly.

“Aw, look at that, the little orphan is mad.” A girl said.

“Better stop or something might happen to our parents.” Nikolai taunted him again.

“Nikolai Caplin! William Blake! In this hallway right now!” she swung the door open.

“Leave it to the orphan to start trouble on the first day.” A boy said.

“I heard not having parents can do that. Orphans don't have brains, I guess.” Christina said shrugging (she's the Sakura of Gundam Wing! NOOOO!).

Duo pushed his body up from the seat, punching his hand through the desk. “Shut the hell up! What do you idiots know about anything but your little stuck up lives?! There's a war going on out there!” The splinters from the wood had caused deep cuts in his skin, but he didn't notice.

`Why are people so stupid?!' he thought as he ran out of the classroom door. `Don't they see anything but themselves?!'

“Duo? Duo, are you okay?! Oh my god you're bleeding. Duo, stop!” the teacher yelled after him.

“No! Leave me alone!” He left the school building and crossed the street. Minutes later he was at the Maxwell Church. He slammed through the door.

“Duo are you okay?!” Sister Helen shouted as he walked through the door.

“Why did you make me go to school? I told you that they wouldn't like me there. I'm too different.” He said quietly.

“Let me see your hand.” She said softly. He put his hand in her's. “What did you do? You didn't fight them, did you?”

“No… I didn't. I really tried to stay calm, Sister. I was doing a really good job at it.”

“I know, Duo. I know. I understand. Why did this all start?”

“I don't have a last name. Then they said my mom didn't want me and that I was ugly and that if they came around me something would happen to their parents and that because I didn't have parents I was stupid.”

“I am so sorry. Children can be inconsiderate of other's feelings. It is one of our flaws.”

“We start wars against ourselves, so, we will show no mercy to those unfortunate enough to be different. Unfortunately, we are a little out of the ordinary.” He muttered. He didn't know what had suddenly made him think of her. He was just now forgetting.

“What was that Duo?” Father Maxwell said quietly at the entrance of the Church.

“Something my friend said.”

“Who was this friend?”

“Kiva. She was with me when Solo died…” he was quiet.

“Do you miss this Kiva, Duo?”

“Yeah but she probably hates me now.” He winced a little as Sister Helen pulled the splinters from his hand. “I said some mean things to her.”

“Mm.” Father nodded. “Duo, I know that today it must have been bad for you. And since Sister Helen and I are your family, it is only appropriate that you take my last name.”

“Maxwell?” he asked.

“Yes. From now on you are Duo Maxwell.” The elder man smiled at the boy who smiled back.

`I have a name now I guess. This is nice.' He smiled to himself and looked at the ground. Duo Maxwell was no longer an orphan.

This was not how the other kids at school were going to see it.

End Chapter.

Thank every one for reading. Yay. I can't believe I'm totally rewriting this. This is the second chapter that was nine pages on Word.