Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Wayward ❯ Wayward - Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Authors Notes: Um… it's weird, yeah



Authors Notes: Um… it's weird, yeah. I know. Thank Trenchcoat Man, thank Marika Webster, thank Rashaka-chan, "dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!" Oh, whoops, sorries, I got a little carried away there . . .

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and the GBoys don't belong to me. Except Duo. HE'S MINE! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!!!!


Wayward - Chapter Three



She felt like using her nails to rip him open as he rolled away from her. He never stayed close to her afterwards, a silent statement on his true feelings. Feelings? She thought violently, There are no feelings left under that human skin. He looked so unchanged on the surface, yet beneath that thin layer of human flesh there lurked something so vastly removed from human she wanted to scream every time he touched her. Still . . . the excitement of what he'd promised and the beginning burden of her own mortal emotions made it difficult for her to even think of leaving. How could you even wonder if . . . she left the thought unfinished, as she had for the past few weeks.
Weeks. Six to be exact. Six weeks since Death had come knocking on her door and Dorothy Catalonia had flung it open wide to offer an invitation. She still wasn't exactly sure why, but she suspected that it hadn't been entirely her own doing. And since then a whirlwind of things had happened: dinner parties, his silent plans, business meetings, his sometimes violent behavior, and nights with just the two of them alone. But always, at the end of those nights, he moved away from her. Each time he did that he left her more empty than the last time, and she knew what danger that could mean for her.
"Duo?"
"What?" his answer was an exasperated half-sigh.
"Why . . ." she swallowed, and felt the first tinges of nervousness ever in her life. Could she really ask him this? Why bother? She knew the answer without asking . . . "Why do you always leave? Don't . . . don't you love me?" Damn, I sound so weak. I sound like every other damned girl on the planet.
He paused, and she could tell by the expression on his sometimes calm, sometimes torrent face that he was considering whether to answer or to ignore her or perhaps return her question with brutality. She hoped not the last.
"Dorothy," he said at last and the words dripped like honey from his lips, "don't ask me something so silly." He leaned just close enough to her to place a hand, deceptively gentle, on her cheek. His eyes tried to profess false feeling, but they were too dead to manage the feat. "I need you."
Before she could begin to formulate a response, the bedside vidphone rang loudly, garnering his attention away from her with every ring. He pushed her down into the soft folds of the mattress.
"Be still and be quiet." The tone of his voice left no room for disobedience. He turned completely over towards the table and, with his body shielding any view of her from the screen, he finally tapped the answer button. "Hiiro. A person just can't get away from you, can he?" He sounded annoyed, but Dorothy knew that he hadn't truly been trying to cover up his whereabouts. If he had, not even Hiiro could have found him.
"Duo . . ."
The other boy sounded pensive, almost afraid. Dorothy wondered if it could be a different Hiiro. The former Gundam pilot was supposed to be trained as the Perfect Soldier and as emotionless as one can be. This did not sound like an apathetic warrior.
"What is it, Hiiro? Time is wasting and I really am very busy, as I told you before."
"I found something while investigating Relena's death and I need to ask you about it."
Relena's . . . death? Dorothy couldn't help the gasp that issued from her lips at that news. It couldn't be! Relena couldn't be dead! Because if she was then Dorothy was to blame . . .
"Ask away."
"There were skin cells underneath her fingernails, where she scratched her assailant. I ran a DNA test on them." Dorothy's eyes fell to the thin, healing claw marks on Duo's neck. "You're the match, Duo."
"Me?" That velvet smooth voice, a chuckle, so dark, "Hiiro, you know me better than that, don't you? Or at least I thought you did. But that wasn't a question. Ask your question so I can get this over with and return to my work."
"Did you kill Relena?"
"Did I kill Relena?" Dorothy shuddered at the mocking tone, the spines of poison that radiated from every word and the intent she saw behind his eyes every time he looked at her or even when he didn't. "I don't know, Hiiro. That's a very personal question. I don't know if I should answer that."
"Duo, what's wrong with you? You've been acting odd since I called the other day and now this. I'll testify for you in court if you answer me, but if you don't then there's nothing I can do." Hiiro sounded almost desperate at that last, pleading with his friend to give him some sort of way to help him. "You know that the people of Earth, even Sanch, will call for the murderer to be executed." He didn't say "your execution." Dorothy wondered if all perfect soldiers suffered from denial or if Hiiro was simply going soft after a year without battle.
"I know that, Hiiro," Duo said, heaving a great sigh, "but it doesn't concern me. I am, after all, Shinigami. They can't execute me." He just practically told Hiiro he's guilty! But she knew that what he said was true. They couldn't execute him. He couldn't die.
There was the obvious sound of a vidphone being clicked off, and only when he turned back to look at her did Dorothy realize that she'd been crying.
"Why?" she whispered so softly she wondered if even his ears had heard her.
"Why what?" Innocence was something he could still feign if he really wanted to, and he did it now as he stroked her wet cheek.
"Why did you kill her? You didn't tell me you were going to kill her!" Guilt overrode any sense of shame she had at sobbing so openly. "You told me you were just going to talk to her!" Through her blurred vision she saw the grin again, the one that had seemed only mischievous in the picture on his file, but had a darker quality to it now that he was . . . different.
"If I had told you what I planned, you wouldn't have agreed, now would you?" He spoke as one would to a child, the condescending tone grating at her spine even as she convinced herself that he didn't mean it to sound that way. "I needed to get into Sanch Palace without being seen, and you were the only person I knew who could do that."
"You tricked me."
"I never actually told you I was only going to talk to her." He grinned again, dropping a soft but so enticing kiss on her lips.
"You let me believe it." Her voice was weak, losing strength as he trailed his lips down her chin and throat. Despite herself Dorothy felt her body shiver and the well of desire rise from the deep place in her heart that fortressed her reluctant yet burgeoning feeling for this man who could be so cruel. Somehow it didn't matter when he touched her. Somehow everything that he was and everything that he'd done just fell away into those moments when she could forget and pretend that she was a normal woman with a normal life, whose partner was a completely normal man worthy of her favor and her love.


~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~


Wufei's dark eyes flickered over the screen like black butterflies, taking in every single person who moved anywhere near the hiding place Aurora had been stolen from. So far he hadn't seen anyone even remotely suspicious. All of the people matched the photos taken for their employee files, which Wufei had beside him on the table.
He remained at Sally's, though he'd awakened much earlier than she and had the surveillance tapes forwarded to her address. He couldn't sleep when there was work to be done a theft to solve. For a moment, however, he allowed his mind to wander back into the bedroom and the woman sleeping softly inside. Not so long ago he would have insisted immediately that they marry, and the thought fluttered through the back of his mind. But he knew better. In the year since he'd last had to battle, and in which he'd gotten to know Sally, he knew that she would refuse him if he insisted, even if she wanted it. She would want him to propose out of love and not honor.
He smiled a small smile. Perhaps he would propose to her yet.
A small hand snaked over his shoulder and towards the keyboard, pausing the image on the computer screen. Wufei stifled his smile and put on his best annoyed mask. "You're interrupting my work."
"Work, work, and more work," Sally taunted him, her hair falling lose around her face and shoulders, "You work too much." Her hands played over his bare shoulders and his eyes closed without his permission. Her touch was so tender, sweeter than he ever imagined it would be. For a moment he was lost in that touch and forgot to give a curt reply. Then he regained himself.
"I work more than some people." He turned the chair around and took her by the hips, pulling her towards him and downwards, forcing her to sit. She wasn't small, still slightly taller than his seventeen year old frame, but her weight was a feather's as she settled herself straddling his lap.
"You work enough for an army of Preventers." Her face leaned slowly down to his, the tips of her hair teasing his skin, tickling just enough to be enticing. He had a hard time remembering that there was important information on the computer waiting for him. All of his attention focused on this woman who demanded not to be ignored.
"It's too . . . too . . ." but the word he searched for left him as her fingers trailed down his neck and brushed lightly over his chest. His head lazed back, a groan sliding through his slightly parted lips. She shifted in his lap, that movement alone enough to send shudders along his body. Damn her and her inherent feminine appeal. There was something he had to do . . . something important that needed his attention . . .
He felt the end of her tongue slide over his throat and he pulled in a breath. His hands, still at her hips, moved upwards and slipped beneath the thin white undershirt she'd pulled on sometime during the night. Arms curving about her waist, he pulled her closer into him. He could feel the heat of her body through the insufficient covering the shirt provided, feel her breasts pressing against him. His feelings, he knew, were true if he could feel this same excitement again so soon. After the night before she was still the most beautiful creature in existence, and he still wanted to hold her forever.
"Isn't that Dorothy Catalonia?"
"Huh?" He blinked. It took him a moment to bring himself into a state of mind capable of comprehending what she'd said. "Dorothy . . ."
"Yeah, on the screen." Sally rose from his lap. The lack of her against him was a sudden plunge from pleasure into emptiness and he released a whimper. He didn't care about the tapes, he just wanted her back in his grasp. "Look, there." She pointed to a person on the edges of the scene, a woman with long platinum hair and distinctive eyebrows. Staring at the face, Wufei finally began the return to coherence.
"It is Dorothy." He tapped a few keys, bringing the face closer into view. "It's definitely her." Another key, and the scene resumed play, in which Dorothy proceeded to somehow sneak past the crowd of people milling about, into the locked and guarded room, and walk out with the container of Aurora. All without being spotted. "How did she do that? There were people all around her, and none of them saw her?!? That's unbelievable!"
"Some sort of cloaking device?" Sally's eyes narrowed. All mischievous notions she seemed to have pushed back in the wake of this discovery.
"It's possible I suppose. But that type of technology is still in the testing stages. The device necessary would be bulky and hardly portable, if at all. But she isn't carrying anything going in, and only the container going out."
"So, there's some sort of rich mad scientist out there who supplied the money and resources necessary to develop a portable cloak?" She snorted. "Sounds like a bad movie."
"I know. But cloaks are supposed to make a ship invisible to cameras as well as the human eye. They obviously can't see her, but she's visible on the tape." Wufei sat back in his chair with a deep breath, going over this problem in his mind. At last he came to a decision, or at least a compromise. "It doesn't matter how she did it. All that matters is that we know who stole Aurora. I think it's time to make an arrest, don't you?" Sally nodded.
"Isn't she living on Earth now?"
"Hn," he replied, picking up on an old Hiiro habit. "I wonder if she could have anything to do with . . ." He stopped, biting his lip as his eyes darted to Sally's face. She gazed at him a moment before turning back to the computer and typing in a search command.
"There's her address. We should get going if you want to be the one to arrest her."
"Sally," he took her hand and turned her around to face him, "Relena was murdered two days ago. Milliardo contacted Hiiro to ask for help. Yui and Quatre are on Earth investigating, and Barton is on L9 looking for possible assassins."
He saw her pull in a breath as her eyes widened. She said nothing for several moments, letting the silence mask her inner thoughts. Her face was tight and there were tears lurking behind the surfaces of her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. At last she nodded.
"I see why you didn't tell me before." She sighed and placed a hand to her forehead as if to fight off a sudden headache. "But why did you tell me now?"
"We're as close as two people can be," he explained, surprised at the gentleness in his own voice, "I didn't think it right for there to be secrets between us after that." He felt her fingers tighten around his and knew that she agreed, even if she didn't say it aloud. Sally smiled then and pulled her hand from his.
"We should get dressed."
"We should," Wufei stood, reluctant to put on his uniform even though Dorothy needed to be arrested as soon as he knew about her involvement. He was so tempted to wait a couple of hours. "I'll get dressed in the bathroom."


~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~


Quatre flopped onto the bed, exhaustion spilling from his pores, almost visibly oozing over the fluffy white comforter. He'd stayed with Doctor Galer all night to observe the entire autopsy. Only when the doctor, who seemed never to need sleep, had begun the embalming process had he insisted Quatre leave to get some rest. They both knew he simply didn't want an amateur around trying to assist only to muck up. Quatre knew nothing about embalming, nor did he have a license to practice. And it probably would not have been the best thing for him to fall asleep on the morgue floor.
So Galer had pushed him out of the metal double doors and told him to go to sleep. That's how he came to be face down on one of Sanch Palace's glorious canopy beds. He wasn't even sure if this was his assigned room or not. It was just a comfy place to lie down and slip off into dreamland . . .
His dreams involved a hammer and a ring of rusty nails pounded into his head. He couldn't believe anyone would do such a thing, especially because he was still alive he wasn't dead yet and oh by Allah it hurt it hurt so much and his sides were bleeding and raw and now the nails were all in place but the Evil One wasn't finished because now he was being lifted and lifted and lifted and placed against a hard surface big nails were being hammered into his wrists OH ALLAH IT HURT HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME HOW COULD YOU I THOUGHT-
"QUATRE!"
Breath finally made its way into his starved lungs as he sat up into the strong hands that held his shoulders. His vision blurred, whether from sleep or tears he wasn't sure.
"Trowa, I had a nightmare. It was . . . oh Allah, it was horrible. I was being nailed to something-"
"Quatre, I'm not Trowa."
He blinked and looked up at the person above him. Hiiro, not Trowa looked back down at him. The boy released his shoulders and moved back, apparently satisfied that Quatre was safe without support. Hiiro picked up the laptop that lay on a nearby chair.
"I found something." His voice was strong, yet hesitant. The blonde Arabian sensed behind those words so carefully crafted a deep distress, verging on the edge of sorrow. He watched Hiiro tap away at the keyboard, bringing up whatever information he had to share. His face was set into the familiar Hiiro expression, but there was a tightness to it that betrayed the inner feelings Quatre so easily picked up.
"What is it, Hiiro?" he whispered, knowing that if the stoic one were so upset, the news truly was disturbing. The boy didn't reply, merely turned the laptop around so Quatre could see the screen. It took him a moment to figure out what he was looking at: the test results from the DNA scan. The screen showed one strand of DNA, that taken from beneath Relena's fingernails, and another strand, the match of the killer. His eyes searched over the screen, looking for the name of the person to whom this DNA belonged. At last, on the very bottom of the table that showed the two strands, was the name. "No . . . Hiiro, this can't be right!"
"I ran the scan five times."
"I'm sure he has an alibi-"
"I talked to him. He didn't truly deny it. He basically told me it was true."
"Allah . . ." Quatre leaned backwards, resting against the thick wooden headrest, placing his hands over his eyes. His head still throbbed from the dream nails; nails that he knew, now, were pounded into Relena's head by one of his best friends. "Why would he . . . it's just not him! He's not a murderer!"
"Apparently some things changed since he's been gone."
Gone. Quatre thought back to a year before, to after the destruction of Deathscythe and the other Gundams. Wufei had the Preventers. Quatre himself had not only the Winner Corp. but Trowa as well. No one knew what Hiiro planned, but he seemed satisfied with the death of Wing Zero and the end of battle. Only Duo seemed unsatisfied to go back to a normal life, a life in which he would take up Hilde's offer to co-own an L2 scrapyard. So instead he'd worked there a while, saving up money, and when he had enough he'd disappeared. A note left to Hilde told her that he was taking a luxury cruise around the Earthsphere and he'd be back whenever. Every so often, either on his own or at the request of Quatre, Hiiro would track down their friend and be certain he was alright. During none of those random checkups had there been any indication of any change in Duo or his mental state. Obviously they hadn't checked enough.
"We have to find him." Quatre finally rasped, "Have you tracked him down?"
"When I called an hour ago he was at a hotel on L3. When I checked again right before coming here, he and his guest had already checked out."
"Guest?"
"A woman. She checked in with him under the name Delilah Corinthians."
"Biblical names." Quatre sighed, "Obviously not her real name and Duo's idea of a joke. Do you have any idea who it could be?"
"I've got a hunch," Hiiro replied slowly, hesitation written on his face, "but it's very unlikely. I'd rather research it a little before saying anything."
"I understand."


~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~


Trowa checked his saved email again for the third time on his way to Earth. He hadn't been on L9 long when Hiiro had sent the update, and Trowa still couldn't believe the news it had brought. But at least he was no longer on L9, in the midst of so much anger and away from his beloved Quatre.
Everything was fine, and now the world is insane, he thought, unknowingly echoing the thoughts of his stoic friend from two days before. If we can help Duo, we have to. He would never kill anyone if he were in his right mind. Trowa lifted an emerald eye to the shuttle window, towards the far away globe that was Earth. Its blue and green surface, sprinkled with sparse litterings of desert brown, called to him. Like the rest of the pilots, he'd never been to Earth before the war two years ago. But once there, he'd felt like a wayward son coming home. Humanity ventured out from their planet, and made their houses on colonies, but there would always be some deep part of them that knew the Earth was their true home. He was glad to be going back after so long.
He leaned his lean frame back in the uncomfortable shuttle chair and closed his eyes. Yes, earth was nice. But soon enough he would be back in the arms of his koi. Earth, L4, the place didn't matter. To Trowa, wherever Quatre was, was home.


End Chapter Three