By Darkwood

    He’s at it again.

    I can’t believe this. He said last time was the last time he would do anything like this ever again. He said…

    I don’t understand him. I suppose that’s what this all comes down to. I just don’t understand him. I don’t think I ever have, and… I don’t honestly think I ever will.

    I don’t know what it was that gave me this allusion… what part of my life deluded me into thinking that maybe I could understand and comfort him. I’m not the one that he’s in love with… I never really have been, I suppose.

    I’m sorry, Duo…

    It seems I’ve failed you as well.

    The last in a long line of disappointments for your heart, I suppose.

    Every paper I see has her in it, and always near her side is Him… I hope you’re happy, Heero Yuy, you’ve managed to destroy two lives in one this time, and you didn’t even have to pull a trigger.

    News reached us first that they had been married.

    It seemed that the entire world… even the colonies, was talking about it.

    First the news said Relena was being avidly pursued by the former Gundam Pilot of 01, Heero Yuy. Then there was the brief engagement, and finally the wedding photographs. The trumped up accusations that she was pregnant and that was why there was such a short engagement…

    I saw Duo die a little in that instant.

    He locked himself in the bedroom for two days and when he finally came out I hardly recognized him. His eyes were read, bloodshot, and he didn’t speak a word to me.

    That night he came to me and put his arms around me. I was thrilled beyond belief that he was actually showing interest in me… so thrilled, in fact, that I ignored his state and reveled in the fact that he was touching me, and making love to me.

    What a fool I was.

    I mean, he really loved Heero…

    He still does, despite the best of my efforts to the contrary.

    There isn’t a damn thing I can do about the simple fact that Duo will always love Heero, always will.

    He carried on quite well, and I’m sure he would’ve continued if I had. It was as though he was grasping at straws the whole time.

    “Duo, are you in there?”

    The question falls on deaf ears. Without a reply, she takes a careful step into the room. “Duo? What’s wrong?”

    A muffled voice replies, “Everything.”

    ‘Obviously, if you’ve come back here after three years’ absence,’ she thinks. “What can I do, Duo?” her voice is slightly anxious.

    “Hide me,” he says. She rounds the corner to stand at the foot of the couch he is on. His body is tightly wrapped in on itself, his knees brought to his chin and his arms wrapped securely around his shins, holding them so tightly it appears he will bruise himself. “I don’t want… him… anyone to find me.”

    “Are you sure, Duo?” she asks, heavy heart not daring to hope. “Don’t you… lo-”

    “I can’t love someone that can’t love me back!” his voice is thick with emotion, anger and hurt and betrayal. “I won’t allow me to ensnare myself on someone I can’t be sure of,” finally remorse, guilt, sadness are obvious.

    Slowly, with much caution, she sits down next to him and puts one hand to his shoulder, comfortingly, reassuringly. “All right, Duo, if that’s what you want.”

    “It…” he hesitates, a moment of silence, “it is what I must want. It is… how it has to be.”]

    “Well I didn’t come about anything from my past or…”

    “Well why did you come?” the man asks tenderly.

    “It’s about Duo.”

    “Duo?”

    “Yes, Doctor…”

    “Alright, well then why don’t you tell me a little about yourself, Miss Schbeiker?”

    “Well first off, my full name is Hilda Georgia Schbeiker. I don’t know my last name since I was put up for adoption right after I was born. My biological parents gave me my first and middle name but the social services didn’t believe that having their last name would do me any good.”

    “Do you feel it would have?”

    “No.” She folds her hands in her lap.

    “Would you like to lie down on the couch?”

    “Sure, why not?” she asks in a light tone. “Why-?”

    “It oftentimes helps to relax the body before the mind.”

    “Oh.” She gets comfortable. “I think I’m glad that I didn’t ever meet them because they did abandon me. I was either a mistake or not worth the price to their lives, so… why should I care about people who found something about me or my birth so misfortunate.”

    “I see…”

    “Please don’t patronize me.”

    “I’m not attempting to patronize you, Hilde, but oftentimes people put up uncaring fronts to disguise their inner feelings.”

    “Well you just summed up my problem with Duo.”

    “Who is Duo?”

    “An infuriating and exhilarating ball of energy and jokes that always tells the truth but never speaks of his heart!”

    “So he’s a machine?”

    “No. Duo’s a person. He was an orphan because for whatever stupid reason he grew up in an orphanage.” Hilde lets out a sigh and stares up at the white stucco of the ceiling, “You know you should decorate the ceiling some if so many people lie here. It’s driving me crazy.”

    “Miss Schbeiker, please.”]

    He is just infectious like that. He gets into your system and there’s something about him that stays there. I didn’t hear word one from his slight self for three years and I welcomed him into the house when I found him on the couch that evening, tired and sobbing.

    I would do it again.

    I did do it again.

    I let him into my bed just as easily.

[   “Sorry, he rubbed off on me.”]

    I even agreed not to tell the others he was staying with me. I promised him I wouldn’t tell, as a matter of fact and because I promised him I’ve been lying to them every time they called.

    He doesn’t want to be found, not by them, not by anyone, and so I won’t force him back into their company. He came to me for a reason, damnit.

    And even though I can never be Heero for him…

    I must be helping in some way, mustn’t I?

    Even if they care for him, they can’t be what’s best for him if he ran away from them, can they?

    He never talks about them, or Him. I know, but it’s really disturbing. Like now…

    We’ve just gotten home from a little grocery shopping and he’s seated in the corner of the kitchen on a stool, staring off into space. He isn’t always like this…

    Today must be a really bad day if he’s not talking at all… I glance at the calendar on the wall and… The carton of milk clatters to the floor.

    No wonder…

    The press of bodies grew too much and the boy was pushed backwards as rain began to pour from the sky as the colony’s electronic warning systems reacted to the stimuli and pelted the people trying to help. The little boy with a long braid, stared in shock at the blaze, violet eyes wide as he watched the rain extinguish the fire, leaving only blackened stone in its wake.

    The officials arrived at the scene, and they missed the little boy slip through them into the smoking building. Within, the little boy headed straight to the area the orphans and the nun and pastor had slept and only looked in one room before he ran out and into the night.

    “I’m sorry, Sister Helen…” was all he said to her as she closed her eyes in death’s sleep and before he left he took the proffered cross from her still hand and said a silent prayer. He was finishing up the list of children’s names when the noises of the officials came to his ears and something urged him to run away from them. He did.]

    I wonder if Heero even knows about today. I wonder if he and Heero ever talked about it… or what Heero would do to comfort Duo when today happened…

    I wish I knew… or I wish I could try to help, but I just… don’t know what to do. Oh, God… if you’re out there, why are you doing this to him? What did he ever do to deserve it?

    Silently he gets to his feet, picking up the milk carton and putting it in the refrigerator. “Duo…” I begin.

    He does not even look up, returning to his chair and settling himself down with a long-suffering sigh. I don’t even think he realizes why he’s so depressed and dejected today. I suppose he only thinks that it’s another day in an ex-fantasy land…

    Why must he hurt so much?

[    “Duo?”

    “Yeah Hilde?”

    “What was your favorite thing about living with Heero?”

    He sat up quickly, pulling from her embrace in the moonlit room. “What the hell kind of question is that to ask?”

    With a hurt expression on her face she glanced back at him. “An honest one,” she replied truthfully. Which is more than I can say for you lately.

    “Can we not talk about this now?”

    “Duo…” she opened her arms and he leaned back down, a guilty look on his face. “I know you’re in love with him, Duo, will you tell me why?”

    For a long moment there was silence and then he leaned back against the pillows. She settled herself against his side and propped her chin up on his chest to watch his face as he began to speak in a soft, quiet voice.

    “I don’t really know why… I suppose it’s because he needs me.”

    Her brow furrowed.

    “I know it seems funny, Hilde, but it’s true. I don’t even think he realized it, but he needed me. It wasn’t like you, Hilde… Heero, he… really needed me. He,” Duo paused, lifting one hand to her back and the other to brush the bangs from his face, “he didn’t know anything about living, Hilde. Do you know I had to teach him how to sit still and watch the sunset?”]

    “Hilde, I’m tired, I’m… I’m going to turn in early tonight, is that ok, Hilde?”

    He always uses my name when he’s forgetting who I am. When he feels like it doesn’t matter what’s going on around him, that’s when he uses my name. He doesn’t do it very often… I’m not saying that he’s deliriously happy or anything, but normally he’s in so neutral a mood that he can forget who he’s with and just exist.

    I don’t think I can settle for that… but…

    It’s so nice to have him.

    Even if it is a lie.

    I nod and he trails back into the bedroom.

[    “He came to me and I was so happy, Quatre.”

    The blond young man takes a sip of his tea and looks out over the ocean as the afternoon sun sizzles the skin of those lounging on the beach below their deck seats. “What changed, Hilde?” his voice is reserved.

    “He’s just killing himself by staying away from Heero, he isn’t living anymore.”

    “You understand how they were involved, don’t you?” I nod. “Give him the support he needs then, I mean, it is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” his voice is dark, heavy as he instructs me how to proceed.

    “But… Quatre isn’t it wrong for me to do that… when he’s like this?”

    “The end result will be the same. If you can make him happy…” he sips his tea again, and then his eyes, clear, chilled, turn to me. “Heero hurt him, Hilde. I can’t tell you why, but Duo needed something he couldn’t understand how he is. I hate to say it, I hate the thought of saying it, but maybe the two of them just weren’t meant to be.

    “It’s like Duo once told me during the war,” it seems so far off now. I’m not the strong independent soldier I was; now I’m the desperate girl pining after forbidden fruit.]

[    “It seems odd how even though I am the more balanced one in this relationship, the more responsible, the more mature… that I’m the one who’s got the nasty habit. He goes to bed every night and I light up.”

    “Light up?”

    “Cigarettes?”

    The therapist seemed to relax in his chair.

    “I go through a pack a day… it seems… sometimes two if I find I really can’t take it.”

    “Have you tried talking to anyone? His friends, you’ve mentioned before…”

    “I promised him I wouldn’t talk to anyone, but I broke down and spoke to Quatre about it. He swore to me that he wouldn’t let on that he knew where Duo was, and… it being Quatre, I can trust him.”

    “Well if you trusted him once… can’t you trust this Quatre person again?”

    “You just don’t get it, do you, doctor?”

    “Apparently not.”

    “I promised him… after that once… that I’d never do it again. They can’t help caring about him, but because of Him, he thinks they just want to bring him back because He wants them to…”

    “So you’ve taken up smoking.”

    “Yes.”

    “Does he know?”

    “No.”

    “…”

    “I can’t… do this by myself anymore, I really can’t…” She draws in a deep breath. “And I can’t do a damn thing about it.”]

[   I like to take long walks to clear my head… break time, if I’m not smoking I’m usually walking somewhere. It doesn’t matter where, I just have to get out of that damn garage because it’s too stuffy with him in there.

    And when I get back he’s always there with a smile and a wave and a wrench hanging out of his mouth and sliding himself under the hood or the engine or whatever. I’ve never understood how he could do that, just smile it away like he does.]

    And the question keeps coming to me…

    Whose life are we really living here?

[   “I told him when I spoke to Quatre, and he said he didn’t mind. He has said that about everything I’ve said to him about myself…” She rubs her hands together as though they are cold. “Every reason I’ve ever given him to find fault with me, he has responded to me with ‘I don’t mind, Hilde.’ I just don’t get it… I’ve asked him so many times.”

    “It seems to me that he does mind, at least a little.”

    “But that’s the point… if he does mind, why the hell doesn’t he say anything about it?” Slowly she leans her head on her knees and rubs her eyes. “Why doesn’t he react? Something ought to make him react, shouldn’t it?”

    Slowly, the doctor rises from his chair and moves to stand by the window.

    “Miss Schbeiker, you’re going to have to…”

    “Let me guess… I’m going to have to talk to him? Talk to someone? Isn’t that what I’m paying you for?” With a disgusted and angry snort she grabs her jacket and stands, stalking out the door.]

    Christmas is the hardest. I want so much for him to be happy and enjoy the festivities… I look around and people are celebrating so much… it hurts to see him so dead inside. The peace we all enjoy now, he should be enjoying…

    I remember what it was like right after the war ended.

    That first holiday…

[   I answered the door as groggily as I had ever answered any door in my entire life.

    I was hung over.

    I was unshowered, unkempt, and I was sleepy.

    I was totally unprepared for the ball of energy that was Duo Maxwell on an eggnog rush to bound in the door with his arms full of belated Christmas presents and tugging behind him a less than cheerful Perfect Soldier.

    As a matter of fact I was down right frightened of that last part. Duo on a sugar rush was bad, Heero being forced to participate…

    One did not get in his way when he was unhappy, and for all the world he looked like he wanted nothing more than to pull a gun and blow something away.

    It was inevitable, though, that he fall into the holiday spirit with Duo attached to him. Hell, I couldn’t even stay completely timid and gloomy as he began to deck my apartment with spruce and pine and red bows.

    It was amazing at how soon we had hot chocolate and were singing Christmas carols. What was even more amazing was how afterwards we went out into the evening and chased snowflakes like they were butterflies or… lightning bugs in a summer evening…

    Heero caught just as many as the two of us did, and it seemed… that evening, that he played with us, just another teenager in the snow. Falling on his face, grumbling about the cold, sure, but he also laughed in a benign way and smiled a lot.

    I stared wistfully after them as they trudged to their car after walking me back upstairs and saw the quick kiss that Duo stole from him. It made me jealous to think of the two of them together while I had to spend the holiday alone, a charity case for their affection.]

    Looking back on it I don’t mind so much. The day was happy and long and we all loosened up and forgot the war for a little while. Annoyingly enough, however, it seems that it was never quite enough, because as soon as the doors to the car closed it all set in again, like the time was being shut off like a moment in history that can no longer be touched by mortal hands.

    Heero had smiled though. Duo had kissed him and he had responded…

    But the time had to end, apparently…

    Crushing both images with age and weight and a blatant lack of verbal communication.

    I cornered him about it, and we quarreled.

    We’d been doing that since the news of the wedding, so it wasn’t anything new.

[   “Duo, you’re doing it again!”

    “Doing what?” he asked in a low voice of warning. “What am I doing, Hilde?”

    “You’re pulling away again!”]

[   “Look, Hilde, I’m not doing anything other than living my life. I thought I was living it with you… but apparently I was wrong.”

    “Duo you aren’t doing any such thing! You aren’t living your life, you’re torturing yourself.” He turned away to head for the kitchen. “You know you’re still in love with him.”

    He stopped, frozen in his tracks, door pressed open forward with an incredulous stare into space.

    “That’s right, Duo, you heard me. I know it’s true… I know who you’re thinking about when we’re together… when you get that distant look in your eye you think I don’t know?”

    “Hilde… I…”]

[   “How long have you known?”

    “Since the beginning, Duo…”]

    I think I’d always known. It wasn’t something that I was ever truly able to put out of my mind, even though I couldn’t… wouldn’t do anything about it. I needed Duo, the way he claimed that Heero had always needed him, but no… I really had needed Duo for a long time. I really needed him because I was afraid not to need him, afraid to be myself without some sort of a support.

    In the end it was always about him, and I slowly came to realize that it made me that much worse of a person, and that much less of an adult than he was.

    At least he knew what he was getting us into, right?

[   “I can’t.”

    “Why can’t you?”

    “I just can’t, all right?” Duo turned, shouting it in her face. “Accept the fact that I can’t and let it go!”

    “I can’t just accept it, Duo, I love you!”

    “I can’t go back to him.”

    “Why not?”

    “Because I can’t, all right? I can’t go back to him because it’s my fault! I failed him, don’t you see?”]

[   “I said that to him, Hilde, I did! I swore to him that I would show him… well I failed him, Hilde, and I can’t face that. I can’t face him because of it. I lied to him, don’t you see? I haven’t lied to anyone in a long, long time…”

    “That is a damn lie in itself.”

    He stopped short and looked at her startled.

    “What do you mean by that?”

    “You’re lying by saying that, and you’ve been lying to me for an entire year!” She threw her hands into the air. “And even if you did lie to him that doesn’t mean the whole problem is your fault, some things… some things just can’t be taught, Duo, sometimes you’ve just got to know them, and it’s obvious that you and He share a lot more than you think you do.”]

    I pulled out a pack of cigarettes and stormed out of the house, going straight into the alley behind us to smoke them.

[  “What do you have to say for yourself now?” the doctor asks quietly.

    “I’m sorry I stormed out last week.”

    “That isn’t what I meant, and I am quite sure that you know it, Miss Schbeiker.”

    “I’m really sick of you calling me ‘Miss Schbeiker’ all the time.”

    “It’s a personal and a professional courtesy, Miss…” noting the angry and volatile look in her eye, he cut himself off and said, “Hilde.”

    “Much better.”

    “I’d like to know what you regret so much that you keep coming.”

    “I…”]

[  “I think what I regret most is that I blew up at him. I lied to him, in a way… he hadn’t been lying to me when he was with me, but he hadn’t been speaking either. So yes, he did mislead me, but it wasn’t a lie.

    “I simply expected more of him than he had to give me.”

    “So you regret wanting that of him?”

    “No.” She replies evenly.]

    And that’s the truth. I don’t regret wanting all he had to give anyone. I regret that I wasn’t the one he wanted to give it to. I regret that I wasn’t the person that was right for him. I regret that he left Heero in the first place…

    I regret what happened after I stormed out of the house with my cigarettes…

    I regret that I haven’t seen him since.

    I even regret the pain Relena must be in now that the two of them are on their way to becoming a couple again…

    Maybe I regret being so passive about not pushing Duo earlier.

    I certainly regret the fight itself.

    I know he’s blaming himself for this too, and I regret that.

    Because really it’s never truly his fault…

    And I regret the dead parts of him that I caused.

    Looking back… I watched a lot more than I did.

    We were together and yet, we weren’t… so maybe I regret that I didn’t do more than just watch him fall apart in on himself, and I most certainly regret that it was a show I only watched and couldn’t affect, but…

    I don’t regret knowing you, Duo.

    I don’t regret…

    … much of anything, really.