Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Crow: Shinigami ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Thanks to Tala, Coy, Night, and, of course, Liralee for their reviews. Keep `em coming!

No, Coy, your eyes did _not_ deceive you; I have written Chapter 5, but it needs a lot of fine-tuning.

Chapter 3

"I trusted you.

You betrayed me."

"I thought of you as a friend, and I thought you considered me a friend too, or an ally at least." The braided boy closed his eyes. "I suppose I overestimated you."

Heero reached for his gun.

Duo chuckled and opened his eyes.

"Looking for this?" He pointed the gun at Heero. "You never answered my question, Heero. Why? Why did you do it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" The hand holding the gun dropped to his side and he shook his head, a slightly hysterical laugh issuing forth. "You ran me down and blew a fucking hole through my chest, and you have the nerve to tell me that you don't know why!?! I want answers, Yuy! I deserve answers!"

Heero looked down, away from Duo, at his fists grasping the blankets on the bed.

"Did Dr. J order you to kill me? Was I a threat to your mission? Did you think I was a traitor? Did you…did you find…something…out about me that you…you couldn't deal with?"

Heero remained silent for a moment, then he responded, "No."

Duo sank down to the floor by the bed, bowing his head so that his brow rested on his knees. He was silent and still for a while, before he spoke again.

"Damn you." He growled, straightening somewhat, but not looking up. "If…if it'd been one of those things… I might have been able to forgive you."

Heero whispered something.

"What was that?"

He repeated himself, a bit more loudly; "I'm sorry."

Now Duo looked up, an expression somewhere between disbelief, sorrow, and rage on his face.

"I can't forgive you, Heero!" Duo said. "I can never forgive you!"

"I know."

"Then why the hell did you bother apologizing!?!" Duo got back to his feet "I know it can't be because you care, because you already made it obvious that you don't!!!"

Heero didn't reply, but lowered his head further, so that Duo couldn't see his face.

"I want to make one thing abundantly clear," Duo said, checking the safety and then tossing the gun onto the bed next to Heero. "After I walk out that door we never discuss this again; everything goes back to the way it was before. Everything. We can't win this war unless the five of us can trust one another; we do not turn on each other, no matter what. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good," Duo said. "There's one more thing." He crouched over Heero on the bed, pushing him back against the wall.

Duo pressed his lips to Heero's in a rough kiss, biting the Wing pilot's lips to draw blood, and then licking them clean. Duo's lips brushed Heero's cheek and jaw, before stopping a couple inches from his ear and whispering three words:

"Omae o korosu."

Duo straightened, and held out his closed fist, palm down, in front of Heero's face, and opened his hand, allowing his Crucifix to drop onto Heero's lap.

"Your life is mine, to do with as I please; consider this to be a reminder of that fact… a reminder of what you owe me."

"Lady Une, there's something I'd like you to see."

"Yes, sir?" Une said, shutting Treize's office door behind her as she came in.

"This was taken from the security files in one of our European bases three weeks ago; the one that the Gundam pilots attacked." He indicated the screen, where the images of Sandrock and Heavyarms' battle were playing back.

"It appears that we are winning," Une observed. "But we lost that battle, I don't understand what happened."

"I know what happened, but I still don't understand." Treize said.

Une's eyes widened when she saw Deathscythe appear, then she took a closer look at the image. "They must have found a new pilot."

"That's what I thought as well," Treize said, replacing the data disk with another. "But then I received this record from the attack on our weapons depot in France, four nights ago."

The image of the hanger area appeared on the screen; presently WuFei entered, followed by Duo. Treize froze the image and zoomed in on Duo's face.

"I thought that you said that pilot 02 had been eliminated, Lady."

"H-he was, this is impossible!"

"Perhaps your information was incorrect. Would you care to tell me exactly how the Deathscythe pilot was supposedly killed?"

"I still have the files, including footage from the security tapes, if you would like to see them."

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea."

Once Une had left, Treize let the tape play further, stopping it again as Duo attacked the OZ MS pilots; he zoomed in on the face again, looking, with interest, at Duo in Crow Aspect.

Heero and Duo had left on a mission that would occupy them for a week or so, and Trowa and Quatre were taking advantage of the current lull between their missions to spend time together, leaving WuFei to keep an eye on Relena.

Relena huffed in annoyance, as WuFei steadfastly ignored her attempts to start a conversation.

"Are you always this quiet?"

"Yes."

"Don't you want to talk?"

"No."

"When will Heero get back?"

"ONNA! WILL YOU SHUT UP!?!"

The brewing argument was fortunately forestalled by the timely arrival of Trowa and Quatre.

"WuFei, we stopped by the post office while we were in town," Quatre said, holding a manila envelope. "This came for you." WuFei muttered a thank you and snatched the envelope out of Quatre's hand. "Wait! Shouldn't you be more careful? What if it's booby-trapped or something?"

"I know who it's from." WuFei said, going immediately to his room and locking the door behind him.

WuFei sat down at his desk and booted up his laptop, opened the envelope while it was booting, and pulled a letter, a picture, and a disk out of it. He smiled faintly as he read the letter, inserting the disk once the computer was running, then he looked at the picture before placing it in his wallet. Finally, WuFei opened the video file contained in the disk and watched with a genuine, though wistful smile.

"Xian." He whispered.

Duo was restless.

Heero had gone to bed already, but Duo couldn't sleep; he didn't need to anymore, and the few times he'd managed to achieve something resembling sleep he'd had flashbacks of his death. He'd actually finished his homework, out of boredom.

`I haven't contacted Hilde yet,' Duo thought. `Well, that's something to do.' He went to the desk and booted up the computer. `I wonder what she's been up to?'

Duo was surprised when he found the information he was looking for.

`She's on Earth?' Duo read further. `Let's see, she's living in America with a guy named Nathan Williams…' He made a query on Hilde's roommate. `He's a med student. No connections to OZ, no questionable connections, no police record. Completely clean; seems like a nice guy.' Duo considered whether or not to send a message to Hilde, then decided against it. `I think I'll just pay her a visit once this mission is completed. It'll be a nice surprise.'

Heero woke up, to find Duo already dressed and ready; for a moment he panicked, thinking he must have overslept.

"Surprised that I'm actually awake before you?" Duo asked, with a shit-eating grin. "Get used to it, this is a permanent arrangement."

Heero watched Duo throughout the day, and, though Duo's behavior was mostly normal, there were some things that were just downright odd.

Duo hadn't eaten breakfast with Heero, and hadn't shown up for lunch either; then again he might have just been avoiding the Wing pilot, which, given the circumstances, was perfectly understandable. The braided boy had also finished his homework; which he'd always avoided with the excuse that they'd be leaving anyway, so why bother? Considering the fact that Duo had been up later than Heero; much later, since he hadn't done his homework while Heero was around, and had gotten up before him as well, he couldn't have gotten more than three hours of sleep, and therefore should have been a zombie throughout the day.

Heero was even more disturbed, the next day, to discover, after faking sleep all night to see when Duo got to bed, that Duo didn't go to bed at all, but instead stayed awake, restlessly doing one menial thing after another, even making paperclip chains and then taking them apart again, anything to keep busy. Obviously insomnia.

After three days, knowing that Duo probably didn't sleep, and still unable to confirm whether or not he ate, Heero confronted him.

"You haven't been sleeping, have you?" Heero asked. "And I haven't seen you eat."

"Why do you care?" Duo shot back, sitting up on his bed.

"You need sleep."

"I can't sleep," Duo said. "Nightmares." He didn't have to elaborate. "And as for eating," He continued. "My appetite's changed over the last year."

"Hn." Heero nodded slightly and went into the bathroom, getting a bottle of pills out of the medicine cabinet. Returning to the bedroom he tossed the bottle to Duo.

"What's this?" Duo asked, reading the label. "Sedatives?" That particular drug caused the user to sleep without dreaming.

"Aa."

"You take them?"

"Hn."

Duo read the dosage, then shook out two pills and handed them to Heero, before taking two as well and heading to the bathroom, where he dropped the pills back into the bottle before putting it away in the cabinet.

Heero was already in bed when Duo came back and climbed into bed himself. Duo faked sleep until he was certain Heero was asleep, then rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

`Heero takes those sedatives…he has nightmares too. Why?

`He killed me, so why should he care if I'm sleeping or eating?

`Why did he kill me to begin with?' He smirked. `If I still needed sleep I wouldn't be able to sleep.' He got up and walked over to the other bed, staring down at the Wing pilot in contemplative silence for several minutes.

Duo turned his head when he heard the tapping at the window; he went and opened it and his Spirit Guide flew in and perched on the back of the desk chair.

"Hi there," Duo whispered. "Where have you been?"

The crow cocked her head and then hopped over to Heero's duffel bag on the desk, pecking at the zipper.

"What is it?" Duo murmured, opening the bag, then moving aside so that the crow could have access. She poked her head in and reached into an inner pocket, pulling something out.

It was Duo's crucifix.

The crow dropped it into Duo's palm. He examined it more closely, and realized that the chain had been repaired.

"Why would he-?" Suddenly Duo's eyes flew open wide, staring back to another time and place.

~~~~~~~~~_^_~~~~~~~~~

||

He stepped back, the crucifix in his hand, and leveled the gun at Duo's heart.

"Oh God." Duo whispered, his face paling more, making the blood running down his left cheek stand out garishly. Duo's violet eyes closed, and when they opened they conveyed fear, betrayal, and the acceptance of someone who knew he was about to die and there was no way to prevent it. "Why?"

His breath caught in his throat.

His lips parted slightly, as he tried to force oxygen into his inexplicably frozen lungs.

Suddenly his resolve firmed; he knew what he had to do.

He pulled the trigger.

Duo was flung back against the window, which gave way as he hit it and he fell into the night air.

For an endless moment time was frozen and he couldn't feel his body.

The sound of shattering glass seemed go on and on, driving icy-hot spikes into his mind.

Duo's body seemed to hang in the air, with the glass reflecting the moonlight around him; an ethereal vision of a fallen angel, blood streaked hand reaching to the heavens for a savior who never came. Duo fell, plunging beneath the dark waves below.

He stared blankly down the cliff face to the waves; then the call of the crow broke the spell, and the hand that gripped the cross, so tightly that blood dripped from his fist, relaxed, letting the cross clatter against the floor, before his body became too weak to stand and he fell to his knees, his hands, one still holding Duo's gun, landing in the still warm pool of blood, where Duo had lain scant moments before; his own blood mixing with that of the braided pilot he had just murdered.

The rush of wings went unnoticed.

~~~~~~~~~_^_~~~~~~~~~

||

Duo nearly dropped the crucifix.

"What was _that_?" He asked, shuddering from the force of the foreign memory.

Once he'd gathered himself again and his shivers had ceased, he replaced the cross in the bag; then he noticed that the crow was gone.

Duo went back to his bed, with his thoughts chasing each other chaotically, and stared at the ceiling for the rest of the night.

Treize went over Une's files, then closed his eyes and sat back with a sigh. He'd ended up with more questions then he'd started out with.

There was little chance that the Deathscythe pilot could have survived the blood loss, the fall, and the bullet through his chest. By all rights, pilot 02 should be dead.

And then there was the matter of Une's methods. He read through one of the files again, frowning.

"I am beginning to lose hope that you will ever learn grace, Lady."

A/N: Review onegai shimasu!