Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Locker ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: What's mine is mine, what's theirs is theirs. I don't own these characters and would very much not like to be sued.




Chapter Three:




Silence rushed in.

For an eternity I floated in my strange, quiet darkness, every sense numb beyond feeling.

_"Duo…what's wrong…"_

Reality slammed into me with a terrific jolt.

_Lights overhead, rows of lockers, peeling walls, scuffed floorboards-_ -everything hit me at once, and I felt myself falling backward into a pair of arms that were all too real.

_"Duo!_ Duo, are you _okay_?

It was Quatre's voice, I recognized it now, but he was yelling, not whispering, and it wasn't his arms holding me up and literally keeping me from collapsing onto the floor.

"Are you all right?" Heero demanded. His face was about two inches away from my own, and I could see Quatre right behind him, peering anxiously around his shoulder.

"I…" My eyes grew wide as I looked at him. "What happened?"

"I thought you were going to faint!" Quatre's voice rose several octaves. "You looked so strange, and I saw Heero coming out of class, and I yelled for him to help!"

"I'd be insulted," Heero said in a stage whisper, "if someone told me _I_ looked strange."

I gazed into his eyes and slowly put one hand to my forehead. Things were starting to focus now, crystal clear-_too_ clear-so sharp and distinct that I wanted to block out each larger-than-life detail. I could see the little threads unraveling from one of Quatre's shoelaces, and the tiny mole hidden behind his right ear; I could see the crooked finger on Heero's left hand that might have been broken once, and the faded scar on his wrist beneath the cuff of his shirt.

"Should we get him to the nurse?" Quatre looked at Heero, but I put my hand on his arm.

"No, I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"No," Heero said, squinting at me. "I think he's going to cry."

"I'm not going to cry," I insisted, even though I'd never felt more like crying. "Just give me a minute."

"Can you stand up?" Quatre leaned over me, but when I didn't answer right away, he cupped his hands around his mouth. "I said, can you-"

"Hey, Quatre, why don't you talk a little louder so everyone in the building will come out here to see what's wrong?" Heero's look was mildly reproachful, but Quatre didn't seem to notice.

"Really," I said shakily, "I'm fine."

"Lets get him outside," Heero said. "In the fresh air."

The next thing I knew, they were both guiding me out the door, and I was shaking so bad that I stumbled and fell right against Heero's chest.

"Here you go, sit here," Heero said. He lowered me carefully onto one of the concrete steps, and then he stood back and began to whistle softly, as if this sort of thing happened all the time and music always made it better.

"I'm so embarrassed," I mumbled. _No-it didn't really happen!_ "I can't believe I did this." _No-I won't let it happen!_ And I put my hands to my temples and pressed hard-harder-_no, no, it's not suppose to happen, I promised myself it would never happen again-_

"Duo?" Quatre sat down beside me, and I felt his arm slip gently around my shoulders. And then suddenly things began to settle again…normally…everything looked in its right place and proper perspective. I looked up at Heero, and he stopped whistling.

"It's okay," Quatre reassured me, giving me a hug, and his voice was quivering and his hands felt cold. "It's hard being the new kid in a new school, everyone staring at you, not knowing what to expect. It's really okay. Isn't it Heero?"

"It might be okay," Heero said agreeably, "If you'd shut up for ten whole seconds."

He met Quatre's frown with a look of wide-eyed innocence, but there was this little twinkle way back behind his stare. I couldn't tell if he was amused at my stupid predicament or at Quatre's overreaction-Quatre seemed almost as upset as I was. My hands were still trembling, and I clasped them together so Heero and Quatre wouldn't notice. _It wasn't suppose to come back-wasn't supposed to happen-how could it-how could it-_

"I told you to be careful," Heero reminded me, a slow smile easing across his lips. "I bet you didn't even eat breakfast this morning, did you?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with eating." I didn't mean to sound so defensive, but I was scared and queasy and still trying to shut down all the confusion in my brain. "It was the smell in that locker."

Heero looked at Quatre and Quatre looked at me, and I looked back at the door as if the smell might come pouring out on top of me at any second.

"I've never smelled anything like that before. What do you think it was?"

Even now the horrible odor still lingered in my mind. Pressing one hand to my throat, I fought off a wave of nausea and suddenly realized that Heero and Quatre were staring at me, not saying a word. I felt my cheeks grow hot, and I fanned myself with one hand and tried to laugh.

"Well. I guess whoever had that locker before me forgot to fumigate it."

_What's wrong with them-why aren't they smiling?_

_It was a joke! Why aren't they saying anything-why are they staring at me like that_

"What smell?" Quatre finally asked in a small voice.

This time it was my turn to stare. "You're not serious, are you? You couldn't have been standing that close to me and not smelled it. It practically knocked me over!"

Quatre's brows knitted together and he chewed his lip.

"I…" He glanced quickly at Heero. "Maybe I just didn't notice-"

"You couldn't have _not_ noticed." I looked at him full in the face, dumbfounded by his answer. "You must have-you _had_ to-"

I broke off as Heero took my elbows and hauled me to my feet. He held the door open for Quatre and me, and then he sauntered back down the hallway. Pausing in front of the open locker, he leaned slowly forward till his head was inside. Then he turned around and faced us with a look of mock horror.

"The gym socks that wouldn't die!"

"Come on, Heero," Quatre mumbled, "can't you see he's serious?"

His smile faded. "Okay, sorry. There's no smell."

"It can't be gone-that's just impossible." Pushing past Heero, I stuck my own head inside the locker, but after a few seconds, I pulled out again, bewildered.

"But it _was_ here," I insisted. "I mean…it was so strong!"

Quatre took a cautious sniff, hesitated, then took a second one for good measure.

"I don't smell anything," he said weakly, and again I caught the quick look he shot at Heero.

"What exactly did it smell like?" Heero asked me.

I stared from one of them to the other. I knew my mouth was hanging open, so I closed it and swallowed hard and concentrated on looking halfway rational.

"It was so…"

I frowned. Only minutes ago every one of my senses had been brutally assaulted, but now I could barley remember what any of those feelings had been. _That's it…that's right…empty your mind…you can do it…just like you did last time…just like you did when it hurt so bad…_

I shook my head slowly, trying to clear it. "I don't know _what_ it smelled like, exactly. Horrible. Sickening. But I'm sure I'd know if I ever smelled it again."

"Biology lab is right over there." Heero gave a casual wave of his hand. "Probably some experiment going on. Something being dissected. You could have gotten a whiff of that."

"My friend Dorothy walked past the lab one time and keeled right over," Quatre said helpfully. "She was carrying a fishbowl to one of the other science rooms, and she fell on top of it and cut herself in eight places."

"Poor fish," Heero said, and the corners of his mouth twitched as Quatre turned on him.

"Well, you know, Heero, it really wasn't funny!" He sounded upset. "I know Dorothy is sort of…well…clumsy…but she didn't squash those fish on purpose!"

Heero was trying so hard to look sympathetic and failing so miserably that I finally had to smile.

"It must have been the lab then," I lied, because I knew no stench like that could possibly have been there one minute, then faded so completely the next. I didn't want to talk about it anymore-didn't even want to think about it. I just wanted to go to class and lose myself in some boring lecture and forget about what had happened.

"Right, then, let's go," Quatre said quickly. He seemed as relieved as I was to drop the subject, and as he leaned over to brush off my pants, Heero stood watching him with a tolerant smile.

"I don't know what to say," I told Heero. "Seems like all I'm doing today is apologizing to you."

His smile widened in a lazy sort of way. "Are you always this much trouble to have around?"

"Maybe they're working on gas line somewhere, and there's a leak," Quatre fretted. "That could really happen, couldn't it?"

Heero have a solemn nod. "Anything could happen, Quatre. I could get bitten by a werewolf tonight and spend the rest of my life running naked through the woods trying to find a good vet."

"Oh, please," Quatre said dryly, "the very image of you without your clothes is enough to give anyone severe nightmares."

He winced as Heero shoved him from behind and sauntered away down the hall. He paused at the corner and saluted us before he disappeared, and Quatre turned to me with a sigh.

"I'm only kidding, you understand."

"About what?" I asked.

"About Heero. Actually, he doesn't look half bad without his clothes. Actually"-he sighed again-"he looks pretty damn wonderful."

I glanced down at my watch. "Shouldn't we get to class?"

"He's very modest," Quatre went on, leaning in close to my ear. "Kind of shy, really. How was I supposed to know a bunch of guys were skinny-dipping when I drove out to his cabin that day? He could have told me not to come. Was that my fault?"

I was only half listening. Quatre was talking really fast, carrying on this one-sided conversation and walking out into the hall again, but my locker was still open, and I couldn't stop staring at it. Just a locker, I told myself sternly. One that looks like all the others around it. _Nothing unusual about an old empty locker…_

But I was still shaky. I made myself go over and close the door, and then I told myself I must have imagined the whole thing, and I wasn't going to think about it anymore.

"Thank you," I said, and Quatre broke off chattering to look at me in surprise.

"For what?" He smiled.

"For not laughing," I said. "For not thinking I'm crazy."

"Hey, come on-"

"For trying to come up with some excuse so it won't get around the whole school that I'm some kind of disaster."

He looked at me sympathetically. "You're not a disaster. Now, Heero…that's disaster." He waited for me to laugh, but when I didn't, he added cautiously, "What do you-_really_ -think happened when you opened your locker?"

I frowned, trying to recall exact details, yet I knew I'd already buried them in some forbidden memory zone.

"Something happened," I said simply. "Whatever I smelled was coming from"-I stopped myself and proceeded cautiously-"_seemed_ to be coming from that locker. Like whoever used it before me had something really disgusting stored in there and-"

"That's impossible." Quatre shook his head. "It hasn't been used for…" He hesitated and seemed to be searching for words. "For a long time," he finished at last. "Not since last fall, anyway."

"What do you mean? How do you know that?"

His face looked so serious now, it was making me nervous. I waited for him to answer, and he finally said, "Because I knew the boy who had it last."

For a long time he didn't say anything else. We both stood there in the hall, and I could hear muffled classroom noises up and down the passageway and the faint faraway slam of a door, and then Quatre put his hand on my arm.

"It was Wufei's locker," he murmured. "Wufei Chang."

Just the way he said the name made me feel weird.

When I didn't respond, Quatre glanced at me and then away again, as if he really didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Who's that?" I heard myself ask, even though every instinct was telling me not to.

"A boy who went to school here," Quatre said softy. "Before he disappeared."



-TBC-