Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Aftermath ( Chapter 43 )

A/N: I'm leaving for Quebec on Sunday. For a month. Yay.

 

Disclaimer: Insert disclaimer similar to the previous forty-two instances here.

 

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 43

 

by danse

 

~*~

 

“You killed his wife?” Wufei said for the third time, apparently still not believing that Heero could have screwed up so royally.

 

Heero was stubbornly silent, hunched over in his chair and brooding at the floor.

 

Duo scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, and then discovered yet another bobby pin still stuck in his hair. He pulled it out and glared at it. “Yeah. We did. It was a miscalculation.”

 

“Fucking right it was!” Wufei snarled. “And you saw Treize there; you could have gone after him instead if Barton was that hard to get to!”

 

Duo had had enough. He chucked the bobby pin at Wufei, who swiped it aside angrily before it could hit him in the eye. “Cool your jets, `Fei, accidents happen,” he said.

 

The argument that Wufei was just about to start about Duo's tendency to use nicknames was cut short as Heero suddenly shot out of his chair and stalked out of the room. As the red curtain in the doorway swung violently in his wake, the remaining four boys were shocked into silence. After recovering his colour, Duo shot Wufei a glare that should have burst his skull open. “Fucking bastard,” he muttered, getting up to follow Heero.

 

Wufei was left with Trowa and Quatre staring at him with disapproving and slightly disgusted looks on their faces.

 

“What?” he said defensively.

 

Quatre rolled his eyes.

 

***

 

“Heero! Heero! You asshole, slow down and talk to me!” Duo shouted, jogging to catch up to the tempest roaring through the hallways. One look at his face was all it seemed to take to make Maganacs clear the way.

 

Duo caught up and grabbed Heero by the arm, dragging him to a stop as he panted. Heero tensed under his grip and then turned around, giving Duo a clear view of his face.

 

It was beyond angry.

 

It was so far beyond angry that it was breaking down, and Duo could see the other feelings bleeding through it: anguish; embarrassment; shame. He let go of Heero's arm slowly. Heero didn't run away.

 

They stood and stared at each other, and as the look in the Japanese teen's eyes slowly diminished, Duo remembered his theory of ice so cold it burned. Heero's eyes were burning in that same way now. It didn't scare him at all, though, because he knew Heero's secret: for all of his efforts to act like an adult and take charge, he was actually just a scared, sixteen-year-old kid who probably never had a real childhood.

 

“We fucked up. It happens. Wufei probably would have made the same mistake, or tried something stupider and gotten caught. Build a bridge and get over it.” He crossed his arms and glared back at Heero, knowing it was like trying to stare down a Medusa.

 

“You didn't fuck up,” Heero said quietly. “I did. It was my fault, not yours.”

 

Duo shook his head, thoroughly sick of Heero's self-abusive attitude. “Nuh-uh, that shit won't fly with me. I was your partner, I get half the blame.” He smiled. “That means there will be no self-punishment either. Got it?” He couldn't adequately explain to himself why he gave a damn, but that didn't seem to be stopping his mouth from moving apparently of its own accord.

 

Duo's sworn enemy looked down at his feet, and when he looked back up, his gaze wasn't any more hostile than it usually was. Maybe even a little less. “Okay,” he said.

 

Duo walked away. His hands shook a little. He needed to find Hilde; he didn't really know why, but he did.

 

***

 

Hilde was just starting to pack her clothes when someone started hammering on her bedroom door. She went and opened it to find Duo standing there, looking frazzled. She raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I need to talk to you,” he blurted out. He was wringing his hands.

 

Hilde immediately thought she didn't like where this was going, but she couldn't say no. She opened the door wider and sat down in the chair, looking at him expectantly.

 

Duo shut the door and started to pace, his hands never stopping their fidgeting. He was worrying the end of his braid as he started to talk.

 

“You know, when I was little, before I ended up on the streets, I spent some time in an orphanage at a Catholic church. I've always thought that if I was religious at all, I was Catholic, you know? Because that was the only religion that ever factored into my life at all. I know I kill people now, but that's beside the point,” Duo said.

 

“And, when I was little, I was taught that love exists between a man and a woman, and that kind of stuck. I've always loved the ladies, and I never thought anything could ever change that.” He stopped and looked at her.

 

Hilde was clutching the arms of the chair, holding her breath as she listened. Duo had used the word `love' while talking to her. Her imagination was in overdrive, but she was still feeling a little, cold ball of dread in her stomach. Call it women's intuition, she thought.

 

Duo started pacing again. “I met these guys, and I really like Quatre and Trowa as friends, I guess like brothers--although I'm not sure what that feels like from personal experience. Wufei's just an asshole. And well, Heero and I got off to an extremely bad start with trying to kill each other.” He stopped suddenly, staring up at the ceiling as his voice took on a faraway quality. “We hated each other so much... and then we had to cooperate. And it turns out that he's really fucking smart. Like, I'm so glad he's on our side, because if he worked for OZ, we would never have had a chance. We work well together, when we can put aside the revenge thing.” He sat down on the bed.

 

All of a sudden, Hilde thought she could see where this rant was going. She pressed her lips together into a grim line, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping that they would stay dry until he'd managed to say it all.

 

Duo slouched forward, looking unintentionally much the same way Heero had earlier as he stared down at the floor between his feet. “I really don't know what's going on inside my head right now, Hilde,” he said. He sounded like a lost, little boy.

 

Taking a deep breath, Hilde raised herself from the chair and went to sit beside Duo on the bed. She leaned in and wrapped him in a big hug, which he returned eagerly, desperately clinging to her. “It's okay, Duo,” she said reassuringly, stroking his head as she let her chin rest on top of it. “It's okay and it's natural. Just do what feels right and don't fight it....”

 

After several minutes of clinging to each other, they separated. Duo smiled at her. “I'm... thanks, Hilde. You're a great friend.” He caressed her cheek lightly with a smile before leaving for destinations unknown.

 

When the door was shut and she was sure of being safe, Hilde pressed a hand to the cheek he'd touched and collapsed among her half-folded clothes, crying herself to sleep.

***

 

Treize looked up from the report he was skimming when his private line began to ring. Frowning, he answered it with a curt greeting. A familiar voice responded in French.

 

“Hello, Commander,” Philippe said. “Armand and I have followed the targets like you asked.”

 

“And...?” Treize prompted.

 

“We trailed them to Saudi Arabia, and it appears that they are sequestered in a secret compound. It is hidden and heavily fortified.”

 

Treize wasn't sure that he liked where this was going.

 

“We-we believe that it is the Maganac stronghold, Commander.”

 

Treize sighed forcefully. As I suspected, he thought. There was no messing with that group-at least not in his current position, and not without permission from his superiors. He thought for a minute. “Philippe, listen carefully. I want you to hang back until they leave the compound. Do not attack or force entry into the Maganac headquarters. Take a note of its location, but wait until the targets leave for some reason, and then you may deal with them.”

 

“Commander, do you want them dead or brought back alive?”

Treize smiled. “Please bring them both to me alive, if at all possible. Goodbye, Philippe, I await your return.” He hung up and leaned back in his chair, contemplating the ceiling.

 

He'd promised Dekim that he would investigate the death of Natalia Barton with all due haste. While Treize suspected that it had been a failed assassination attempt on Dekim himself, Dekim was convinced that he was being bullied, that someone had intentionally killed both his son and his wife in an effort to scare him so that he could be coerced later into something he wouldn't want to do. Considering that his daughter was long since dead, Treize didn't suppose that there were very many people who knew what else to threaten to get Dekim's cooperation. Certainly his own life wouldn't do the trick, not with Dekim. No, it had to have been an attempt on his life that was botched.

 

After looking into the guest register for the party, Treize had noticed that the only names that really struck a warning chord were those of the young couple whom he'd sat beside at the dinner. The Japanese man and his mute date. They'd seemed a little odd at the time, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on anything until after Natalia's unfortunate death, when they'd been standing together awkwardly and looking rather suspiciously cold about the whole thing for a pair of socialites.

 

Before the night had even ended, Treize had gone looking through the invitation list, and found that the invitation they'd presented had belonged, not to someone in International Relations as Midorikawa had claimed, but to the C.O. of the Argentina Leo compound that had been destroyed a little over a week previously. It had taken no more evidence to send Philippe and Armand to tail the two. Now he was finally going to get his hands on the group that was starting to become a real threat to OZ's objectives.

 

Assuming that it wasn't actually the Maganacs.

 

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A/N: Short setup chapter, long chapter of action. Short setup chapter, long chapter of action. Short setup chapter, long chapter of action. Short setup chapter. GUESS WHAT COMES NEXT.