Chance Encounter	Home - Previous- Next
I saw him in the psychiatry ward of the local hospital. I was a visiting psychiatry student…he was a patient. How was I to know that morning my life would forever be changed? It all started innocently enough. Shortly after the war I did something that really meant something to me, something that I had never thought I would have a chance to do—I enrolled in college and put my life together, made myself something special. And after fumbling a bit with one subject after another I went into psychology and found my passion; and found my redemption. After general college I had moved onto a private school, and there I was placed in a class of seven students whose interest lay mainly in the war and the aftereffects of it. With my addition there were 4 males in the class: Tommy, Rich, and Howie, and 3 females: Trish, Angela, and May. Of them I was the youngest, so of course when discussions came about concerning the war and the psychological effects for soldiers, other little things that they figure someone my age wouldn’t really have understood, I’m written off for the major discussion. Sometimes I reflected on if they only knew how little they themselves truly understood… ah, but I didn’t feel like becoming the curiosity of the class just to take part in a discussion. So far I’ve kept my silence. But that is how I found myself, outfitted in hospital scrubs, a visitor tag on the light blue top, walking down an impersonal, harsh white hallway of a hospital. Someone slammed into the thick plastic window to an observation room that we were just passing, screaming soundlessly from within the room, face contorted with anguish, and the three girls along with Rich jumped back startled, while Tommy, Howie, and the instructor took a step back. Old reactions kicked in and I simply blinked and continued to follow the guide, who hadn’t even batted an eye so used to this she must be. The instructor followed behind us again after everyone had settled down, as if to protect us from some escaped lunatic. I refused to giggle, only smile indulgently. “Some of these people are here until they can be moved permanently to an institute,” the guide began, glancing back, dark green eyes meeting mine. We shared an amused moment about what had happened just now. She continued, “Others are here temporarily, awaiting some sort of decision from a judge or a doctor or a family member. The rest, the ones here for just a short time, from perhaps grief of a loved one having died or depression or something, tend to be in and out. Legally they are sane, so we can’t move them anywhere without a court order, and that’s usually not a problem because for the most part they just snap every so often, and nothing major comes from it. The truly dangerous ones are behind those double doors ahead, top level security, and we will not be going down there for this small tour.” We walked a little longer, occasionally stopping to speak with a nurse or a patient, sometimes glancing in on activities taking place, and by the reactions these little tours weren’t a regular thing but they happened enough not to cause more than curiosity and interest. As we passed through a section of the ward devoted to people who have their own private rooms, be it money or necessity, I heard, and I imagine the others must have as well, a sound that tugged painfully at my heart if for no other reason than I recognized it for what it was from my days earlier, some of that pain my own, my guilt, my sorrow. It was a long anguished moan, sluggish sounding as if the person slept while it came from them, so that they were unawares, then a soft murmuring of someone desperately trying to escape a nightmare. The group was drawn toward it, or perhaps the guide led us, and among the students I saw curiosity, fear, uncertainty, etched onto pale faces, faces of people who had never really known the extent of the human’s capacity to feel pain and torture. “Don’t worry, he’s not dangerous, it’s only these nightmares he has from the war time. How appropriate I should say, for I understand it this small group in some way or another will be specializing in the aftereffects of the war. Well, I hate to say this, but this person is the embodiment of the war experience.” We stopped outside a door like all the others and she turned the knob a bit, pushed. Moving out of the way we saw from where we had crowded into the doorway the slight figure in the bed, asleep, panting heavily, sheets twisted. He moved and I recognized him, 8 years as it was after the war he had not changed all that much. Heero Yuy; I must have whispered his name. The guide smiled slightly, looking with pity and kindness at the figure. “I see you recognize him from the coverage he had after the war, and yes, this is Heero Yuy. We think it had something to do with the training he had been put under, combined with the stress from the war he had to fight at such a tender age, his inability to adjust to life without the war, and something he won’t speak of concerning a system that enabled him to fight by affecting him psychologically. He’s such a sad case...” she went on to explain some of his past, what had been gathered. She spoke of scars, physical, mental, emotional—I know of these things, I have my own, perhaps more, certainly no less. Long sleeves, jeans, and a goofy smile don’t hide his like mine though. My heart goes out to my fellow ex-pilot. She had stopped to let us ingest this, then said in a soft voice, “We try so hard to comfort him, but he can’t accept the touches in his sleep, throwing them off, as if they’re not what he wanted, and when he’s awake he’s stony, cold, hiding...” she trailed off. I could have supplied the rest, ‘the perfect soldier’, but I didn’t. Instead I allowed myself to remember the strong silent boy I once known, and after that remembrance I decide to leave him be, save him from being ogled by strangers. And if only the world worked in such a way... My decision set in mind I began to turn and he began to whimper again, clawing at the bed sheets. I almost heard them tear. He’s whispering, some words too low, others just loud enough I catch them. Nightmares. I know them well. I know these well. “No, not him, leave him be. Stupid...oh, stop please, no, leave him, he doesn’t know, the blood, the hair, he’s dying...” If I left him to those demons I would be no worse than the monsters that haunt him. I moved with the swiftness of a comrade moving to the aide of another, past the nurse, dodging her hand as she tried to stop me. I heard, and then tuned out, the gasps from those left standing in the doorway. Let them gawk all they wished, I knew these nightmares, I knew this pain, and I knew how to ease it all. I knew I was the specter that haunted this nightmare; there was no other who it could have been. It must have been God, or fate, or just plain dumb luck that enabled me to be here for my friend as he had been there for me so long ago, just after the end of the war. I didn’t intend to ignore the summoning. I settled at the edge of the bed and with the practice of a thousand nights before I pulled the young Japanese man, no longer a boy, toward me, touching in all the right spots to convey to his instincts that I was a trusted friend, and I settled his head in my lap, fingers running through hair that was still as disheveled as it had always been. As I had known he would he calmed immediately and a small smile touched his lips, one that only I could see because I knew him so well. My eyes lifted a fraction. The nurse left stunned with her hand holding the radio halfway to her mouth, I imagine calling a doctor or security. Despite the fact I had made more progress in helping him then than they probably had in the entire time he had been there, and I knew this to be true for the evidence laid in her expression, she still sought to stop what she saw as inappropriate all the same. “While you may have the heart young man, you are not qualified to handle this, and I do think he would feel rather offended if he knew what had just happened.” That’s where you’re wrong, I thought, but I didn’t say that. Instead I ran a hand lightly down the bare arm, pretending not to have heard her words, and whispered to Heero softly, for his ears alone, though the others could hear most certainly. “Wake up, sleepy-head, you were having a nightmare.” Everyone held his or her breath and the nurse lifted her radio again from where it had slowly begun to lower, most definitely to call security by now, whether for Heero who I’m sure they knew reacted violently to things he doesn’t like, or for me, I can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter; I wouldn’t have abandoned him at that moment. They would have had to drag me away kicking and screaming. “Come on, open your eyes,” I murmured, watching the eyelashes flutter open, glazed Prussian blue looked up at me, then slowly cleared. Recognition flickered through them but wasn’t complete, yet was complete enough for him to allow me to draw him closer and continue to smooth back his hair as he regarded me with calm eyes. “Duo,” my teacher hissed, having recovered enough from his shock to manage a reaction by now. He said my name as if I were in grade school, as if my name were enough to chastise me, to remind me the power he held over me. Not likely I thought, though I was willing to bet every penny I then possessed that I could have make him shudder, show him a true power differential, by doing nothing more than say his name. I didn’t of course, wouldn’t have… but I was more than capable. “Duo?” Heero asked, tasting the name as he said it. I nodded and took his hand, examining the nails and fingers, and then looked back at his face, hand clasped warmly in my own. “Duo.” It was said that time, not asked, but it was more puzzled than the first, like he was trying to place it in his mind. “Yeah, Duo Maxwell, and you’re Heero Yuy,” I teased lightly. There was something in his eyes; I smiled tenderly, tried something else, “I run...I hide...” He cut me off with a small smirk, “...But you never lie. Am I dreaming, was it a dream, the war, everything...” “No Heero, there was a war, but it’s finished and there’s peace now, and nothing has been a dream. Everything happened, you fought, you won, and you’re still alive.” He nodded and reached up to hesitantly touch my nametag with his fingers, looked up at me as his fingertips traced my name, “Duo Maxwell,” he murmured. “Why?” I pulled the nametag from the shirt and put it in his hands. He let it stick there as he studied it, moving his fingers and making the adhesive on the back snap softly. He smiled as he read the name again, the title beneath it. “Duo Maxwell. Visitor. Why?” “I’m a psychiatric student. After I finished my last year of high school I found myself obsessing over the war, all the effects that it had on people, and I wanted to make a difference like others had done, were doing. Besides, I needed a career, and working with scrap metal will only last as long as the machines that have to be taken apart.” I realized after a moment the others were still there, and that the looks I were receiving still ranged from shock to outrage. It dawned on me that not one thing had been said from either of us that hinted that I was more than an over eager psychiatric student who wanted to be known for helping someone others thought unreachable. It made me smile inwardly. “Hn.” “Don’t you ‘hn’ me, Yuy. I’ll kick your ass into the middle of next week and back again.” That small amused smirk settled against his lips and he murmured only for my ears, “Duo no baka.” I smiled and breathed back to him, “Hai, Duo no baka.” “Uh...Duo, this really isn’t appropriate...” the nurse tried again desperately, this probably being the first time she ever had to deal with this sort of thing, and I took pity on her as Heero sat up fully to glare. Yep, still the patented Heero Yuy glare-o-death. With a smile I pulled Heero back against me and noted with some amusement his reflexes had slowed, slowed enough for me, even after 8 years, to grip his arms to his sides tightly before he could flip me over his shoulder or perhaps fling me across the room. He relaxed though, settled back again. And just as I thought it safe and freed him I found myself pinned to the bed, him leaning over me, still smirking. I looked up into the familiar cobalt eyes and felt the tight steel grip of his hands pressing my wrists down into the mattress beneath me. My eyes narrowed and I felt the faint patter of my heart as it sped up in an old familiar pattern often associated with the rush of adrenaline, fear...excitement. I flexed my arms slightly, just to see, squirmed a bit in general, then in a quick blur of action threw my hands up, tossed his hold off my arms, causing his unexpected tumble forward with a soundless cry of astonishment. Pushing him off I rolled over and clamped my hands around his wrists, gripping as tight as I dared. He was panting, but it was even and controlled, too even and too controlled to be anything but his own choosing, and that was all the warning I was given, more than anyone else I realize. I found myself straddling his knees, arms twisted around my back, and cool blue eyes twinkling with barely concealed merriment. This is familiar dance between us. Counting on flexibility I hadn’t tested in at least 5 years I pushed my body back against my arms, ignored the protest of long since used muscles, one leg snapped out and the toe of my boot stopped inches from Heero’s throat, stilled with such unnerving ease it was impossible to believe I wanted a different outcome. Then it happened, so quickly all that I knew was one moment I was in control of the situation, the room began to spin, then I found myself crushed by a powerful grip, cheek against the rough yet so soft sheets, the creases pressing haphazard patterns into the skin of my face. Arms behind my back again, wrenched up and twisted in a pillowcase (so that’s what that sneak had been doing with his hands moments ago), one knee digging almost painfully into the small of my back, the rest of Heero’s weight holding my legs. I could have gotten out of it, but it would have involved dislocating a shoulder and causing a few unnecessary bruises. Was I the idiot who said he was sluggish? “So?” Heero asked conversationally, ignoring the panic he was about to induce in the nurse and the rest of our little troupe as only Heero can. “What happened to Deathscythe?” “The same that happened to Wing I suppose, except I’m such a sentimental fool I had a coffee table made from some of the metal before it became scrap. Parting is such sweet sorrow, eh Hee-chan? Mind letting me up before they call security. Getting myself kicked out of a hospital is something I gave up years ago.” Heero pulled back, letting me sit up fully and straighten my clothes. “I have a puppy named Shinigami, but that’s about all for me. And you,” I looked about me with a small frown and I knew he grasped every nuance of my expression, and had to have read the disdain for his current situation. “This is only temporary,” Heero offered, looking to the nurse to have this confirmed. She was flustered, but she nodded a bit dazed, and answered almost mechanically, having given up on trying to make sense of the situation long ago it seemed. “Yes, that’s right. He’ll be released in two days if he doesn’t check himself in, which he won’t.” Heero nodded, proud of this, and that struck me as somewhat pitiful, pathetic, for someone who used to take such pride in being able to hack into the most complex computer systems and leave without a trace of ever having been. He looked at me with his head cocked to one side. “And the others?” I looked down a moment, shrugging slightly. “Uh, Quatre’s doing just fine, and Trowa has settled himself, part time circus part time Quatre’s house, although he’s currently thinking of taking a position of head security for Quatre, personal body guard. Not that Quatre really needs that, eh. Wufei...is Wufei, still with Preventers, and he spends a good deal of time with Sally. Of all of us I think parting with his Nataku was the hardest.” Heero fell silent and I glanced up, saw the nurse still standing there, unsure, but willing not to interfere as long as Heero didn’t seem aggravated by the ‘meddling kid. Her face clearly read that she didn’t think I was much more than that, someone who’s obsessed with the war, who’s done quite a bit of research, and who is now hoping to break my way into the field by showing what good I can do for this poor lost soul. I wanted to snicker. I found no reason to correct any of the misconceptions as Heero pulled my attention back. “And how are you? The war, everything, how have you noticed it affecting you?” “I’m adjusting to my life now, but I can see you’re not. The Perfect Soldier hadn’t been equipped to deal with living without fighting, you don’t know how to survive, am I right?” “Always to the heart of the matter.” “Always to the heart,” I told him, touching his chest lightly with my fingers. He smiled, his version of the smile, and then looked away slowly shaking his head. “Of all places to run into you, I never would have imagined…” he let it drop, I knew what he meant to say. I turned his face to look at me. “You don’t deserve this, you were just a kid, all of you were just a kids,” I said softly. “And you-.” I cut him off, “What about me? I think everyone in the war has nightmares, whether or not they fought or they were spectators. I visited Quatre nearly a year ago, stayed less than a week with him. It was the place on the east coast, I know you’ve been there before, he remarked on it once. I was given the room halfway, halfway, across the mansion and you know what, his screams woke me up every night. The first night, and the only night I did so, I got up and found his room, went in to wake him up. I couldn’t bear the sound. I touched his shoulder and I felt the cool barrel of a gun against my temple. It had been under his pillow. That scared me. What scared me even more was that I had to stop myself at the last second before I broke his wrist to take the gun and turn it on him. “His anguish is reflected in his soulful eyes, in the weary manner that he breathes. He has tried so hard to atone for the guilt that is shared by every one of the people who fought in the war.” I began to count them off on my fingers as I named them. “He has the Winner Industries, which is desperately working to stimulate the economy of both earth and the colonies, there’s the charities he donates to, the charities he has begun, he has put into effect programs to provide jobs, programs to provide homes, to provide relief, dear god I can’t even begin to name them all. It doesn’t help. He told me that he will know he has paid for his actions when he dies a thousand deaths over.” Heero was silent, but my eyes asked if he wanted to know the rest, if he wanted me to continue, to let him know how the others were. His eyes told me he had to know, he owed that to them if nothing else. “I tracked down the other pilots as well, to see how they were fairing, and you were the only one that had disappeared. Trowa, he wasn’t too hard to find, he’s part of the circus still. Why? Because he has nothing else to do. He drinks too much and has let his life fall apart around him; he has nightmares as well, but their silent sufferings. He has taken to sleeping pills just to get a full night sleep. Only when he’s around Quatre does he seem to have any will to continue, and the only thing that keeps him from disappearing completely is Catherine, who has no problem telling him to pull his act together. He’s withdrawn, but not enough that I don’t see the fear in his eyes. Not the fear of dying, the fear of having to live. “Wufei mourns for the injustice of everything that has happened, for the deaths that have not been avenged, for the wrongs not made right. The losses weigh heavy on his heart, his wife, his family, his colony, and his home. All of it sacrifices made in pain, sacrifices that were cheapened by the result of the war.” I slammed my fist into the mattress, caught up in the telling, finally getting out my frustrations with the effects the war’s end has had. “And damn-it, he’s right, it did. The loss, the pain, the suffering, the fear, the destruction, none of it matters. The soldiers were nothing but whores to the system, the deaths—thousands, millions—forgotten for petty differences.” “We all have scars Heero.” I pulled up one of the sleeves to show him something he knew would be there, small scars that dotted the skin left and right, haphazardly, from various missions, fights, and from living on the streets. “Every single one of us, and some of us have new ones.” I took his arm and traced a line that I had never seen before with my eyes, one that stretched from his wrist to about a third along the arm. “So this is what happens when you take the self-destruct button away from Heero.” He shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed right at the time,” he muttered. “It’s a sin to kill yourself.” “It’s a sin to kill.” Regret then, in his eyes, at seeing the stricken expression on my face. “I mean...I didn’t...” I took his hands. “It’s alright,” I comforted, squeezing the hands in mine, and then fixing my eyes on those hands, studying them, noticing the differences. They were bigger than mine, always have been, but they were still callused, still Heero’s hands. Hands I know as well as my own, that had lifted me up when I was too weak to walk, that had bandaged me when I had been hurt, brushed my hair to relax me after missions, held me back when I lost control, held me close when I screamed with my own nightmares. I shook my head slightly, to clear it, and he seemed to notice the braid, or lack thereof. “Your hair…” he trailed off and I smiled a bit. “Is still there, I just have it pulled back and twisted up and tucked and folded and pinned and everything else imaginable. I saw that flash of worry and that, right there, is life. And right now that’s all I can do for you until you decide you want to live. I want you to remember that you’re not perfect, that you’re not a machine, you’re just human and you’re allowed to be human.” “Duo, but I feel like a machine, I don’t feel human,” he whispered. I studied him a moment, knowing that Heero needed me more than he would ever admit, perhaps than he would ever know. I lifted his unresisting hand up and pressed it against my cheek, turned the arm and pressed a light kiss to the soft flesh of the wrist, felt the upturned, still healing skin of where he had slit them. It reminded me of a time I had contemplated the very same act in the very same way but had chosen to seek help and save myself instead. A sound grabbed my attention and I turned, saw my instructor pushing the rest of the students on. I think he’d realized this needed no audience. That was good, I’d forgotten the audience was there. The nurse walked away as well, speaking quietly into her radio set, but looking relaxed enough I was not worried. Privacy then. I raised a finger to my lips, “Shh.” With that I reached into my boot and pulled out a small pocketknife and held out my hand to Heero, asking for his. He looked between me and the pocketknife, which I had flicked open, then slowly he held his hand out to me. Taking his hand I pressed the tip of the knife into the skin and he winced as blood began to trickle along the lines of his palm. “Can a machine bleed?” I asked him, eyes focused intently on his. He watched the blood a moment, transfixed, then shook his head, taking the knife from my hands. I wasn’t worried, though I was very aware of my teacher’s new tension. It wasn’t hard to look relaxed, I was, and trusting, because I was that too. Heero took my hand and with a look I granted him permission. He cut into my palm, looked up at me. “Don’t give up on me?” “I won’t, if you don’t give up on yourself.” He pressed his hand to mine, palm to palm, blood to blood, held them there a moment, then pulled back and nodded slightly. “Prove to me,” I whispered, reaching up and unclasping my crucifix, putting it around his neck. “Prove to me you can make it. I want this back once you get on your feet, so when you’re ready to return it, come visit; I’m in the book. If, once you get out of here you need a place to stay, don’t hesitate, but don’t give that back until you’re ready to live, do you understand?” He was silent, then whispered two words I knew mean more to him than any promise he could have ever made: “Mission accepted.” I leaned in and kiss his mouth lightly, pulled back, ruffled his hair one last time, then walked away without a second glance, feeling the lingering heat of his hand in mine, of his uncut hand settling on my lower back as I moved away. I passed my instructor and he fell in step silently next to me, held out a handkerchief, and when I looked at him I saw a deep sincere respect in his eyes. I knew I had a lot of questions to answer, but just then I was content with the way things were. I accepted his handkerchief with a grateful smile, pushed down my sleeve, hiding the scars. Hiding, but never forgetting they are what has made me the person that I am. * *** ~The Next Day In Class~ *** * With a sigh I pushed open the door to the classroom, to our regular meeting, and I wasn’t the least surprised to see six pairs of eyes lock onto me, while the teacher refrained from doing exactly that. I eased into the chair in the small semi-circle the group always arranged. I settled my arms on the desk, notebook under my folded arms, studied the cuff of my jacket. Slowly the six people looked away from me and the teacher cleared his throat. “I almost hesitate to ask if there are any questions from yesterday,” he began. Silence, curious yet heavy, and no one dared to look at me, although I was what was undoubtedly on their minds. I shrugged my jacket off and for once I wore something other than a long-sleeved shirt. A tank top that day, perhaps in memory of what Heero used to be, perhaps just because it showed the scars off perfectly. That was what I really wanted, to bare that to them. I lifted my hand slowly, just enough to gain my instructors attention. “Yes, Duo?” “I would actually like to tell you my story, if you’re interested.” The hush that followed was fleeting, then several people murmured their desire to know, and I began to explain how I came to be who I am, voice soft, eyes fixed down, but my gaze and my voice began to lift with the telling of what I decided they should know. I told them about my childhood, about the plague, about Solo, about Maxwell church, the war, the braid, everything up to the last bit of the fighting and the parts that I played, the four friends I had made during the tragedy. That day my braid was not tucked up in the cap it usually was but was down, and would have been trailing onto the floor had I not drawn it up into my lap naturally upon sitting. I ended my story with my having sought help, of having found reasons to live, and of the new significance the braid held every year, on the date that the war and the pain officially ended, the ritual that I had started seven years ago of cutting five inches from my braid. Five inches, for the five of us Gundam pilots. To remember and to be grateful despite my personal sacrifice. The first inch for Heero, who was the first I’d met and who seems to hold the largest impact on me out of them all. The second inch for Quatre, the quiet Arabian whose innocence moved me in ways I could never imagine, and who is just as tainted as the rest of us, who reminded us by simply being who he is the reason we were fighting. The third inch I take for Trowa, who feels so much and shows so little, another someone with no name but who has taken a name and forced himself to survive, someone who could in many ways reflect a mirror image of parts of my soul. The fourth inch is claimed by Wufei, who’s stiff, rigid mask and his desire for justice come from his tortured soul, who is honorable and kind, although he would have you believe other concerning the latter, and who taught me that lying to oneself is the worst possible lie, which is why I take an inch for myself. I force myself to understand that it is not my fault that things happened the way they did, and that at some point I needed to learn to live for myself and not for others who are merely ghosts in my memory. After I finished my tale there was a soft, respectful silence, and I allowed it, for once not putting my mask in place, and I waited to see how they judged me. Although I don’t know it at the time within a month I will become a psychiatrist, within two months of that my own counselor urges me to write my story down, to get it out on paper, and to my surprise it is published, under anonymous, all the names changed, but a best-seller nonetheless within a week. Those who know me and read it know that it is my story, the one I told that day long ago in a classroom of curious college peers, but while that is my story there is a lot I leave out. I don’t put in the conflicts we sometimes had as a group, the fights and harsh words exchanged after the heat of battle when adrenaline and anger were so high and the pain was foremost. I touch on the everlasting bond we all share, more than friends, more than brothers or comrades, but something deeper and truer and beyond all normal comprehension. But I don’t go into the perimeters of that, of the intense moments we shared after one too many drinks, of the strained companionship of being thrown together and adjusting to living with another being that has to be considered in all things. I don’t touch on the stolen kisses in the dark of the night or the comfort in another’s arms, nor do I tell anyone else’s story, although it is sometimes in there only to show how it shapes my actions and how it continues to shape who I am. I am Shinigami, the God of Death. * *** ~Six Months Later~ *** * I stand slowly and put down my notes from the session earlier, a young girl who had lost her family in the war and had been orphaned before being taken into a foster home, to answer the doorbell. I had quickly risen in my profession a month after graduating, mostly because of two things, one I had only counted on fleetingly and the other I never would have guessed. The first, my own experiences, those I had opened up about, and the fact that I could relate and accept things that I dealt with personally. The second my reputation for pulling the great Heero Yuy back to himself. I hadn’t counted on that, but it had spread like wildfire in the hospital and reaching out until anyone who was anyone knew about it. Imagine that coming from that day so long ago. I never had. As for Heero, I haven’t heard from him since that day, but I think about him a lot. My hand bears an entirely new scar now, the one from our pact, and like the other scars I think of it as a battle wound, but this battle was my first, and probably only (physical one at least) that comes from my new calling in life. I hope I have changed his life for the better. Shinigami comes sliding down the tiled hall and smacks into the front door, rump first, as his nails provide no traction, and I laugh at the surprised blob of black that is my dog as he looks around puzzled. Hauling him back away from the door, sparing a moment to scratch behind his ears, I stand and pull the door open, flicking on the porch light. My eyes widen and I can’t help but grin as I see who’s standing there, in the rain, holding out a golden crucifix to me. Heero returns the smile and I take the chain from his cold, wet fingers, only to have him take it back and lean around me to return it to where it belongs, dripping on me as he secures the clasp. I don’t care. I pull him inside, into a hug. He hugs me back, running his fingers through my loose hair, and when I pull back I see his eyes shining with life. “Well?” I ask, tapping a foot impatiently on the tiled floor. “Mission accomplished.” I can’t help the giggle that escapes me. “Oi, that’s great Hee-chan. Tell you what, I’ll get you into some dry clothes, make some coffee if you want, get you something to eat, and you can tell me all about it.” “I’d really like that,” he says softly. “I would really, really like that.”
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