Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Trouble ❯ Bad Girl ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Trouble: Bad Girl

Author: mao

Disclaimer: GundamW characters, likenesses, and plotlines are property of T.V. Asahi, Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and the Cartoon Network. The story is mine and you may have it if you ask nicely.

Author's Notes: I haven't written GundamW fanfiction in almost a year, but this came to me today as I archived and did stuff for my site. So, here we go. Tell me if I've lost it.

Warnings: Abuse, language

He could tell the moment he laid eyes on her. They were young yet, both less than ten years old, but he could see just looking at her. She was a Bad Girl. She was the kind of little girl his mother would have warned him about, had he had one. As it was, he found himself fascinated by her, by the vibe she gave off. There was an aura of trouble around her.

At first glance, she was perfectly normal. Her hair was long, angelically pale, perfectly combed. She wore a headband, like a good girl. She wore a white dress with pale pink and lavendar flowers, white patent-leather shoes. She was neat, clean, smelled decent. And yet, when he looked deeper, he could see where she was already coming apart. The nice white shoes had pale scuffmarks on them that were clumsily covered with white-out, not polish. Even his little-boy eyes knew the difference. She had bruises not on her knees and elbows like some girls, but on the backs of her white thighs, on the insides of her pale arms. Her dress was neat, but the style was too old for her and the dress itself too small. And her eyes had a strange look to them, the skin around them already tight and old. Her eyes were dead, empty as if she was no longer alive. They were beautiful in their shape and coloring, but there was no sparkle to them. They might have been the eyes of a fish. She looked like not a girl but a doll, left in the gutter by an unrepentant child.

She took communion from Father Maxwell and sat down, giving him the strangest look as she passed him. She walked by him the aisle, her hand held tightly in her grandfather's, and glared at him as she walked by. Then, as he met her eyes, she smiled, a faded grin that looked practiced and like it wasn't used nearly enough.

And then she was gone.

"What can you tell me about her?" He asked Sister Helen later. He'd never seen her before, but he needed to know about the Bad Girl. Strangely enough though, Sister Helen had no idea who he was talking about.

"What do you mean?" She sounded weary.

"The Bad Girl. I want to know about her!" Sister Helen was trying to tuck him into bed, but he refused to lie down, sitting instead with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed, swinging back and forth, knocking his heels loudly into the wood with thumping noises that would surely wake the other children. Sister Helen brushed a wispy strand of blonde hair from her eyes, gave him an annoyed look, and finally sat down next to him.

"Who is the Bad Girl, Duo?" She asked, forcing patience through her voice. She picked up the brush from his bedside table and pulled the tie from his hair, allowing the chestnut waves to fall over his shoulders and back. He allowed her this preening as he told her what the Bad Girl had looked like, what clothing she'd worn, straight down to the headband and the white scuffed shoes.

"Ah, you mean Dorothy." Sister Helen said softly, knowingly. "She just moved here with her father and grandfather. She'll be starting school with you tomorrow morning, actually."

Duo listened to all this quietly, passively. "Why did she move here, Sister Helen?" He finally asked. The nun was silent for what seemed like a long time. The only sound in the room was the whish of the brush on his hair.

Finally, she spoke. "Her mother died, Duo. Of cancer. Back on Earth."

He nodded slowly.

"You probably shouldn't bring it up to her," Sister Helen continued, combing his hair gently, then pulling it back into a braid so he could sleep without fussing with it. "I don't think I should have told you about it, but I want you to understand if she isn't very responsive, if she seems a little quieter than the other children." She grasped him gently by the shoulders and turned the boy so he faced her. "Do you understand, Duo?"

"Of course I do, Sister Helen." He gave her what she had fondly nicknamed the CherubFace, but she was not to be easily swayed tonight.

"Are you sure Duo? This is clear?" She looked carefully into his face, searching for any sign of mischeif in his violet eyes, surprised to find nothing of that sort there. In fact, his face held something akin to...compassion?

"Crystal, Sister." He smiled then and gave her a thumbs up. She finally cracked and smiled back at him.

"Say your prayers," she told him, and he knelt on the floor. They prayed together.

He saw the Bad Girl again the next day, at the little school the parish ran. It was the only decent school for miles, in their entire sector. She wore a new uniform, the dark greens and blues of it making her seem even paler, her eyes more haunted. She sat across the classroom from him, in a little wooden desk, her red notebook out and ready for work, her pen on the side of her desk.

"Class," Sister Clare said, standing. "I want you to say hello to a new student. This is Dorothy Catalonia. She just moved here from the S.P.A. area, Earth. Why don't you all go around and introduce yourselves?"

As the others spoke, the Bad Girl stood there, her eyelids heavy and dark, her skin paler every second under the bright lights of the classroom. A thousand names were said, it seemed, until Duo got to stand up and say, cheerfully, "Duo Maxwell," before sitting back down. She registered none of these names, none of the greetings they gave her. The Bad Girl stood there and took it all and finally sat back down to a chair that was cold after being empty in a room that was crowded with children who were only barely aware of the fact they didn't know her.

He watched her during lunch. She ate alone, at one corner of the schoolyard, her expensive lunchpail covered with pictures of the latest craze. She ate half a sandwich, a third of an apple, and a cookie. After lunch, they went back to the classroom, where their minds were assaulted once more with things neither of them learned. He watched her leave from his room, watched her walk slowly down the street, her head down, her books clutched tight to her chest with both arms, her lunchpail dangling from one limp wrist.

The week went on like this, every day. The next week continued in the same fashion, and then third. It was Wednesday, the fourth week she'd been there that Duo could take it no longer. He was a social person by nature and he hated to see anyone looking sad or depressed or remotely unhappy. As she sat there, ignoring ninety percent of her lunch, he stood, stuffed his books under one arm and grabbed his tray with the other hand, and walked over to her.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" He asked, motioning to the blank pavement beside her.

"What?" She squinted up at him, her eyes scrunched almost closed in the bright sunlight that formed a nimbus about his head. Her voice was delicately accented, foreign-sounding, just a little too high, even for a girl her age. She sounded like she spent a lot of time shrieking.

"Can I sit here?" He asked again, pointing at the empty concrete. She looked at him for a moment, looked at the concrete, and then back at him.

"I guess. If you want to." The Bad Girl said, stuffing the largely uneaten portion of her sandwich back into the baggie it had come from. Duo sat down next to her. For a long minute they watched the girls playing hopscotch. The bell rang, and they went back inside.

The next day, he sat down next to her at the beginning of the lunch period, not even asking. She rarely spoke to him, and when she did, it was often because she needed him to move over a little. They spent a week and a half in this fashion, simply sitting at lunch time in awkward silence, chewing occasionally, but neither ever making much headway with their respective lunches.

One Monday, he sat down next to her, and lunch began much as it had to this point.

"Sister Helen is wrong, I think." He finally said. His voice, tiny and high-pitched like her own, not only broke the silence, but shattered it and sent the pieces running for cover. The Bad Girl looked at him in confusion and mild annoyance. "She said I shouldn't mention your mother because it might hurt your feelings." The Bad Girl looked away quickly, and he noticed her blinking rather rapidly, as if trying to get something out her eyes, like dust or dander or tears. "But I thought you might feel better if you knew that while you maybe don't have a mommy, I don't have a mommy or a daddy."

She looked at him cautiously, the whites of her eyes pink from trying not to cry. "You don't even have a daddy?" She asked, quietly, her voice sounding too loud in both their ears.

He shook his head. "I have nobody but Sister Helen and Father Maxwell."

"Everyone I know has a mommy or a daddy," the Bad Girl mused, looking at the pavement like it might jump up and bite her. "Except me and you," she continued. "It's like a club." She sat up and looked him square in the eye. He saw a real person there this time, the blue eyes moving with a purpose, with a reason behind them. She stuck her hand out, and he took it in one of his own. "My name is Dorothy," she told him formally.

"I'm Duo," he said. "How old are you?"

"I'm nine," she said, sounding a little disappointed. "It was just my birthday a few months ago, but I can't wait to be ten."

"I can," the boy said. "I'm almost ten, but I don't want to be yet. There's too much else to do." He shook his head sagely. "I don't wanna get any older than I have to be. Not yet." They sat quietly for a moment, contemplating their individual lunches, noting what they held, when he spoke again. "Are you going to eat those carrot sticks?"

Another month passed, then two. Duo's birthday came and went, and the two grew closer. Often, Duo would follow Dorothy home from school and the two would sit in her kitchen, eating cookies. Sometimes they played in the garden, the likes of which Duo had never seen. L2 was primarily an industrial colony, used for factories and military training. The garden was huge, big enough for two small kids to hide and not find one another for hours. The trees were massive sprays of leaves coming from bulky layers of bark, and could become forts, castles, mobile dolls, whatever the two children wished. The grass was as green as Sister Helen's emerald earrings, and the flowers danced in the wind. Dorothy's father was in the military, and her grandfather as well, and so Dorothy often wanted to play war-games. Sometimes one or the other would win, but usually it was a stalemate.

She always made him leave when a sleek black car pulled in the long drive, sneaking him out the hedges in the back, sending him off with a soft, "See you tomorrow," in her tiny little-girl's voice. He didn't know why she never let him stay longer, or why some days she came to school with new bruises and cuts.

"If you want to see it, you have to pay me a half-credit," she'd say brattily at recess, knowing he had no money to his name. Then, relenting, she'd left up the hem of her skirt or rip off her bandaids or roll up her sleeve and show him a bruise or cut anyway. The bruises were always huge, splaying things, with yellow centers that gradually filtered out to blue and green edges. The cuts were usually spectacularly deep, red-rimmed and crusted with blood and anti-bacterial solutions. Once she had a perfectly circular one, blistered and the size of a lipstick tube, on the inside of her lower arm.

She never showed him her cuts willingly, never brought them up, and when he asked, she could never give him a reason for them. He simply decided she was very clumsy, and every day kept an eye out for a new injury. Most days, he could find it, and after some wheedling, a glimpse of the CherubFace, and a piece of his dessert, she'd show him, sometimes offering a weak excuse for it, but most often simply leaving it to his active imagination.

For several more months it continued like this. December came and they both spent one day two and a half weeks before Christmas helping Sister Helen and Father Maxwell decorate the tree that would sit in the chapel. They carefully threaded strings through the cards bearing the names and gift-wishes of the orphans living at the chapel, then hung them with blue and red and gold balls on the boughs. She steadied the ladder as he climbed up and placed the star on the top of the tree. They drank egg-nog and sat in the pew with Sister Helen, the three of them admiring their handiwork as they relaxed. When it came time for Dorothy to go home, Duo offered (with Sister Helen's permission, of course) to walk Dorothy home.

As they began the long trek up her hedge-trimmed drive, the two were still behaving just like children, like a boy and a girl out for a lark, like best friends as they pushed each other back and forth, one into the hedge as the other laughed, and vice-versa. And then she spotted the black car.

She stopped dead in her tracks, instantly turning the color of the papers they'd strung up earlier, her hair darker than her skin. Her eyes went wide and her entire body changed. She went from a fun kid who enjoyed a laugh (even if she was girl) to a shrinking violet. She turned on Duo, pressed her hands to his skinny chest, and marched him backwards.

"Dorothy, what's wrong?" He tried to meet her eyes, get out of her way, something, but she was suddenly too strong.

"You have to go. Grandfather's home, and he doesn't like guests."

"But couldn't I at least-"

"Go Duo! Get out of here!" She yelled and stamped her foot, then ran up the drive and into the house. There was a long moment where he simply stood in the drive, and then he heard a loud noise from inside, a crash and a crunch and a thump all in one. It was a terrible noise, followed by a high, little girl's scream.

He ran.

It plagued him, that noise, though he wouldn't know the word for it for years to come. That awful, painful sound echoed through his head all that night, the high scream wavering between his ears, in the center of his head. He wanted to talk to Sister Helen about it, but every time he thought he could say something about it, he couldn't get the words past the lump in his throat. Finally she grew so tired of him saying her name and then having nothing else to say that she sent him to bed early.

He lay there in the dark, his little hands clutching his warm blankets and his breathing heavy. He stared into the blackness in front of him and slowly, a lot of things came together in his mind.

He'd never once seen Dorothy's dad, always Dorothy's grandfather.

She seemed very afraid of the black car.

She always had bruises and cuts, but never a good reason for thim.

Duo was young, but he wasn't stupid, and he figured a lot out in his mind that night, putting the puzzle pieces together in his mind. He lay there for a long time, looking into the blackness above him and wondering how it took him so long to figure out that there was something wrong, wondering if there was anything he could do, something anyone else could do, if he should or even if he could tell an adult - Father Maxwell and Sister Helen came to mind - about what he thought was going on.

Finally, in the early morning, as dawn crept into his tiny room and into his wide-awake eyes, he decided to talk to Dorothy first, and see if what he thought was happening really was.

"Dear God," he whispered, kneeling at his window and looking into the pale rosy and gold light of the morning. "It's me, Duo Maxwell. I want to ask you to take care of my friend, Dorothy. She really needs your help, big time. Thank you. Amen." He crossed himself and stood, going about his morning routine.

She wasn't at school that day. She didn't come back for school at all, and when they let out for Christmas and he still hadn't seen her, Duo really began to worry. One afternoon the week of Christmas, he waited until Father Maxwell was busy and Sister Helen was taking a nap, then left the orphanage, taking a bus with the few credits he'd gotten from Dorothy in bets, and arrived at her home in minutes. He walked around back and snuck in the hedges. She was sitting outside on the green grass, trussed up like a doll and with a sketchbook in her lap and a package of watercolors at her side. She was staring into space, looking blankly at the grass in front of her. He glanced around, assured himself that no one else was there, then darted across the yard to her, materializing in front of her.

"Duo!" She hissed, surprised. She glanced nervously around the yard and at the windows of the house, then turned back to him. "What are you doing here?" There was a look of terror in her eyes, something he'd never seen before, never imagined he might see from her.

She looked terrible. Her skin was whiter than ever from confinement, Her eyes sunken in and glassy like marbles. She looked like a very old little girl, like a little girl in an old woman's body, or perhaps the other way around. He could tell that there was something missing from her, something that had been there before. There were no bruises he could see, but if he looked, he could see a cut on her left temple healing, the red making an ugly stitched line against the white of her skin. He looked at her carefully, a bit confused and not sure why. There was something about her this time that shocked him.

"I was worrie - " He began trying to explain, but she cut him off quickly, impatient to get him to leave.

"You shouldn't be here!" He could see panic beginning to rise in her, and she grabbed his hand. She stood quickly, the sketchpad spilling from her lap in a ruffled sea of blank pages as she pulled him into the hedges at the edge of the yard. "You'll get me in trouble if he catches you here." She told him, speaking quickly and tossing a glance over one puffed-sleeve shoulder. Her fine, flaxen hair caught in the bushes but she made no move to pull herself free. "He, uh - " She stopped herself quickly. "I got in trouble last time he found out you were here. You should go."

"Dorothy, what's going on?" He asked as she took a breath.

"It's my gra - my dad." He noticed the excision but had no time to ask her about it as she rushed on in a hushed tone. "He's in a hospital on Earth. We're going to see him. We leave tomorrow. I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to tell you. I just found out about it the other day." She paused briefly, then continued on, all the while tossing glances at the house. Duo began getting some of her panic, catching her need to hurry. "I don't know when we'll be coming back. I'm sorry."

A door slammed loudly, and they heard a male voice, filled with disgust call out her name.

"Dorothy!"

There was the sound of feet squelching across the yard in the water that had been used to feed the grass.

"I'll never forget you, Duo." A whisper, barely loud enough for him to hear.

"Dorothy?"

"I'll miss you," he said, pulling her into a tight hug.

More squelching.

"Where are you girl?" The man sounded angry now.

"Wait until we go into the house to leave. I don't want him to see the bushes move."

"Dorothy!" Definitely anger now.

"I'll miss you too," she whispered, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He was stunned into silence, and she ducked out of the bushes and into the arms of the lion.

"Here I am, Grandfather," he heard her say respectfully. He sat still in the hedges, listening, every nerve in his body tensed tight, tuned to the sound of her voice.

"Dorothy, where the fuck have you been?" Duo hadn't heard that sort of language in the five years he'd been a ward of the parrish and even to his loose tongue it was shocking.

What was more shocking what the loud cracking noise that came after it, sound of the back of a hand meeting a soft, young cheek. He winced, safe in the bushes. "You stupid little bitch, we'll keep better track of you on Earth. Come on now," and Duo could hear him grab her, drag her off. The door to the house slammed again, and Duo fled.

He was troubled all evening, slept barely a wink. He was grouchy with the other children and scolded by Sister Helen, and sent to bed early again. There, the sound of that slap reverberated in his mind, the way she'd taken it without even squeaking, though as he thought about it later, he had heard her hit the ground, a soft thump as she squished into the wet grass.

He fell asleep in the early morning and had troubled dreams in which people he cared about were beaten and killed by faceless executioners, just beyond his reach. He awoke panting and covered with sweat to Sister Helen calling his name.

"Duo?" She said softly, sweetly, appearing in his vision like an angel. "This just arrived for you."

It was a box small enough to fit in his hand, clumsily wrapped with white paper that bore angels on it. One of the angels wore black, as he always did, and its hair had been colored brown. In clumsy writing beneath it, someone had written 'Duo'. He opened it slowly, and found a gold box. Inside the box was a piece of paper, which he opened. The same clumsy, childish hand had written him a note. It read:

Duo,

Tank you for beng my freind. I hope this cross wil make you fell safe and protekted. I lov you.

Lov,

Dorothy

"Isn't that nice?" Sister Helen said as Duo pulled out a small, if heavy, gold cross, its chain dangling like a skinny river behind it. "You should send her a nice card to say thank you," the nun said, bustling out of the room.

Duo fastened the chain around his neck, trying to grow accustomed to the new weight there. She was right - he already felt safer, more protected, like God was on his side. He re-read the short note and heard that slap again, then the thump and the scream.

"I'll pay you back, Dorothy," he murmered to himself and to God and to her if she could hear him somehow. "Someday, I'll make you feel safe and protected too. You're my Bad Girl, and I want to make it better."