My December

THIS STORY SWITCHES BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN DUO AND HEERO. IT STARTS OUT WITH DUO AND AFTER EACH BIT OF *^*^*^*^* THE CHARACTER CHANGES. THE SONG IS IN //song// AND IT IS \'MY DECEMBER\' BY LINKIN PARK.
It\'s dark and there is rape so be warned.

My December

Heero is like winter. He is cold and calculated in how he responds to the rest of humanity and in how he handles himself and how he handled his Gundam in battles. Sometimes I thought he had no heart, that he enjoyed the cold and pain. You can get pain from the cold and if you get it often enough you enjoy it. You enjoy the way it nips at your flesh and how it stings and bites in your throat and eyes. You like how it seems to be freezing you slowly and you stiffen and your joints and limbs scream in protest when you try to move them. Heero enjoyed that kind of pain.

I call mf thf the God of Death, Shinigami and I am. Rightly so because I had no real cause to be fighting in those battles. Sure I can kid others and say that I gave a damn about humanity but really why should I? Rarely has humankind helped me. I fought to kill because I’m good at it and because of the ones who died. No I’m not like Wufei who fought for his dead wife; I’m in my own category. I was seeking revenge on anyone who happened to be on the other side and that’s the way it should be. I didn’t mind the sound of their screams that came piercingly and tormenting to my ears over my com-link nor do I mind seeing decapitated people in their cockpits. I did care. I seriously did but just about the people on my side and there weren’t very many of those. How much I cared, I don’t know but enough to rescue them if there was any hope for it and I might die for some of them but not all.

Death has no cold or heat to it. It’s nothing and I am nothing. Heero is winter though. No one can be any colder than he can be. I know that for a fact. Heero is one cold sadist and you wouldn’t think him to be because being a sadist takes time and you’d be right, it does. Heero loves to take his time. I was willing to oblige him because like I said Death has no cold or heat but for perhaps a little while I might enjoy some of his cold.

Why choose the cold you ask? Cold has pain and Death brings pain. The cold nips at your flesh and Death rots it away. Cold stings and bites and Death’s sting and bite are the hardest to bare. The cold is beautiful and Death holds its own version of beauty. That’s why I chose the cold. I could have chosen spring, summer or fall I suppose. But Quatre is too fresh and kind and happy, Wufei gets too heated about all the little jokes, and Trowa reminds me too much of bright colors that are missing something vital.

There were other things too that played into my decision. Heero and I were used to each other, which is why after the wars I went with him. We traveled from one colony to another, occasionally stopping on Earth. Moving from one apartment to another, something we had gotten used to during the war. That had something to do with why we moved around so frequently, that and the fact that we were also hiding from Relena. The war was over and Heero was sick of her chasing after him and I was just plain of sick of her. So we both decided to take a break from her and everyone else.

Heero, with the help of his trusty laptop, which rarely leaves his table unless it’s in his sight or on his person, found a house for sale in Europe. We bought it but we weren’t planning to move into it. We used it as an address to give to people and we were smart about not living there because Relena eventually tracked it down. Heero of course had a few very secret accounts set aside, some for him and some I’d asked him to set aside for myself during the war, that no one knew about, not even the other Pilots. We delved into them and bought a cabin up in the mountains.

It was a cute little thing. It stood partway up a hill in a clearing that was perhaps the size of three football fields. However, there was a little wooded area that surrounded the cabin making it invisible from the air so we knew we’d be safe from prying eyes. We didn’t go to it though, not right away. We continued moving around, traveling like vagabonds.

Most people we came across snubbed us, thought we were actually poor and they treated us little better than ruffians. Here we had saved the world and colonies countless times only to be treated like a thieves or scoundrels. Of course Heero and I wanted no recognition from anyone, having a camera in my face everyday of the week didn’t sound too appealing, we just wanted to be treated like we had been during the war by our fellow Pilots.

I was used to being snubbed, from before the war so it was nothing new to me but Heero didn’t like what he got and so the Death Glare returned and people generally didn’t look at us twice and if they did they never stayed near us for long. That was the nice thing about going around with Heero, with the cold.

//This is my December
This is my time of the year//

We were sitting in a bar on one of the colonies; somewhere in L4 I think when we finally felt compelled to escape the rest of humanity. We were living in yet another shabby apartment with two bags to each of us.

\"Well Heero,\" I said taking a drink. \"It’s getting late. We might as well head home now, this place is losing its appeal if you know what I mean.\"

Of course he knew it had happened before. There were ferocious people and ravishers teeming in that seedy little bar. Heero didn’t even acknowledge my remark with his usual response of, \"Hn\". The men were looking at us like we were fresh pieces of meat that had been carved off the rack especially for their personal consumption and the women were no better but we didn’t really bother about them because we could overpower them. We paid the bill and exited quickly, moving as briskly as possible to make us seem a little tougher. We took a short cut through the alley because it would save us about a mile in the long run and we would have had to pass through even nastier areas just to get home so to us it seemed the safest choice. Unfortunately there was a group of thugs waiting for us and not a small group either. There were at least ten blocking our path and anothive ive came up from behind. Things were not looking good for us but there was still hope since none of our assailants seemed to have any guns.

\"Hello,\" A voice spoke out from behind the men. \"So glad you came this way. I’ve been dying to have a go at you.\"
I knew instantly that he wasn’t speaking to me, I don’t know how to explain it. It was just this feeling I got from the tone of his voice. I looked over at Heero. I wasn’t sure he could handhat hat might come to pass, I know I could have only because it had happened before and I knew I could get over it. But Heero, he was innocent in the sense that he’d never engaged in that type of sexual activity. I vowed that if anything happened to him the bastards would die, slow and painful.

\"Take the short haired one,\" The voice said stepping forward a few steps but still in the darkness.

\"Wait,\" I heard myself say. \"What are you expecting to get out of this? I know what you intend but what do you want to get out of it?\"

The question seemed to surprise the voice. Apparently he had never been asked it before. Heero looked at me questioningly and I could only flash him a quick grin before turning in the direction the voice had last come from. I could see the confusion in Heero’s eyes and I knew he didn’t understand what I was about to do for him. He didn’t understand why and to tell you the truth, since Duo Maxwell never lies, I wasn’t sure why either. I knew that I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. I knew the horrors that could stem from it, the pain, and the emotional and mental, as well as physical scares that might form from it. I was prepared to take them though, if Heero would be spared, only under that condition would I yield.

\"I want strength and beauty,\" The voice said after that brief pause. \"Someone who can take discomfort and someone who knows what to do when told.\"

\"Then he’s not the one you want,\" I gestured with my head at where Heero was standing. \"I am.\"

\"Why should I relinquish the other?\" The voice asked, clearly basing my answer on what his decision would be.

\"Because I can give you what you want,\" I returned instantly. \"My friend here is not used to such things but I am and I’ll be better than he could ever be.\"

\"Very well,\" The voice said after a few minutes. \"You’ve intrigued me. Bring them both!\"

We were ushered into an empty building a little ways down the alley. The first room was devoid of any thing excepd bod boxes stacked here and there. In the next few rooms there were cots and an odd assortment of tables, chairs, couches and the like. Then there was one other room, which was clearly used for one thing only. There was old blood on one wall. When the voice, which neither of us had seen, mentioned it someone went and got some things to immediately clean it.

\"I sense there’s somng yng you wish to ask,\" The voice spoke to me.

\"Yes there is,\" I said looking at the shadow of the voice’s body. \"You let no one, and I mean no one touch my friend in any way or make him do anything pertaining to disrobing of himself. After we’re through here we’re leaving. Is that clear?\"

\"Crystal,\" The voice said. \"You would have been let go any way but I’ll adhere to what you request. Now unbind your hair.\"


I pulled my braid around front and gingerly took off my hair tie. It was black, one from a set that Heero had bought me when we had arrived on that colony. Then I separated the partitions and unwound them. I could tell that many pairs of eyes were on me as I was unwinding my hair from its braid. When I was finished I let it cascade down. People have often told me it’s beautiful and most of the time I tend to agree except for right then. It felt like an ugly demon clinging to my head.

\"Good,\" The voice said. \"Very good.\"

The voice stepped forward to reveal a man. He must have been twenty-five, twenty-eight at the most. The years and wars had been kind to him for he hadn’t aged prematurely and he wasn’t sickly looking. He looked strong and healthy. I knew that I couldn’t get any STDs either because G and injected me with every known one, including AIDS, and they had little to no affect on me other then make me get the sniffles. His hair was brown with a red undertone and his golden eyes; they had a haunting look to them like he was searching you for something.

I walked to Heero who was standing a few feet from me and I was allowed to speak to him.

\"Heero,\" I whispered urgently. \"No matter what you see or hear you can’t interfere. Please, promise me? And if you can’t promise than it’s also an order. Do you hear me Heero Yuy?\"

\"Hai,\" Heero responded standing a little more erect. \"I will not interfere.\"

I was satisfied. Heero rarely disobeyed orders.

\"Now what?\" I asked.

\"All of you out,\" The man said. \"But first you,\" He pointed at me. \"Chain your friend to the wall over there. He gets to watch.\"

He looked at my face and could tell that I wasn’t keen on the notion.

\"Don’t worry,\" The man reassured me. \"You have my promise that no one, including myself or you, will touch him or disrobe him in any way.\"

I walked Heero over the wall and chained him. Looking back on it the man was being smart. Looking out for his own safety.

\"Get undressed,\" The man said. \"Then go lean against that table.\"

That table as he called it was made out of stone and the top of it was rough, while the sides and legs were smooth. The sides were sharp, made to dig into the skin and leave bruises if you get shoved into it too many times. Still I did as I was told and waited. The man came up behind me and proceeded to thrust into me, grunting sometimes, but otherwise silent and I said nothing and made no noises.

While I said nothing I’m sure my expression spoke volumes. My head was turned so that I could see Heero chained to the wall. I knew that he couldn’t come to my rescue and kill the bastard who was currently fucking me. His muscles were flexed but he knew that he couldn’t do anything that could help me. The side of my face and my chest and upper arms began to feel like the skin was getting grated off. I could feel areas on my chest where the skin had broken and I knew that there would be blood when the animal got off of me. My face hurt and my lower ribcage would be badly bruised from the sharp edge of the table.

A few minutes later he was done but I still stayed, bent on the table, awaiting my next set of orders. I knew that a person like him wouldn’t be satisfied with just that. There would be more, much more. I wondered briefly if perhaps I could handle it and then I looked at Heero’s face and I knew that I would have to, even if it broke me.

I knew that it would only take the man another couple of minutes until he was recovered. So I lay there, waiting patiently like a good little whore. It’s what I had been before and now I was right back to where I had started out. I didn’t really care, my mind could handle this better than Heero’s because I knew how to think in this mode. I could still function, somewhat.

\"Go over to that podium,\" The man commanded.

I stood up straight and walked to the center of the room where a slightly elevated hunk of concrete stood and stepped on top of it. I knew what was coming, a good thrashing. He wouldn’t leave scares; at least he would try not too. I was hopeful of that.

I knew I was right when he pulled a black leather whip out a bag and walked over to me. Heero stood and watched. I don’t know if he was trying to shame me because he was still dressed and I was the only one without clothes but it would take more than that. I didn’t flinch the first eight times the whip landed on my back. But then my eyes cringed, just a little, as each blow fell. I could feel blood dripping down my back and then down my legs. My hair was now a bloody mess but still I was not ashamed.

\"Now look at you,\" The man smirked. \"You’re all dirty. We must clean you off. Come over here and stand against this wall.\"

I stood against the wall across the room from Heero’s wall. A large hose was running into the wall with a valve and I knew that the spray from it would most likely knock me into the wall and I’d get more bruises and scrape. I was flung against the rough wall and the cold water shocked my system. It stung and bit at my eyes and throat. When it was gone I laughed. It started out as quiet; almost none existent chuckle and built into a full-blown laugh. The man stared at me in surprise obviously not expecting this reaction. He knew it wasn’t hysteria.

\"Liked that did you?\" The man smiled. \"You’ll like this even more then.\"

My laughter died and I was lead over to a different type of table, one that wouldn’t cause as much pain while I was bent over it. My wrists were chained down and my ankles were chained to the legs so that I couldn’t go anywhere. A small group of ten processed into the room. They looked at me, chained to the table and bent over.

One by one I took them. I bit down on my lower and upper lips hard to try not to cry out. They were bleeding badly. My ribs were cracked now. Still even after that they kept coming harder and faster. I had more cuts on my arms and back from fingernails biting into my flesh.
My left ankle was broken from being kicked at by the various men and still they kept coming. I had only serviced four of them with six to go. I had to finish otherwise they’d use Heero and I couldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t like me. After the seventh was finished with me I was in much worse shape. There were welts across the back of my thighs from belts whipping at me. The chains at my wrists had started rubbing them raw and my face, which was facing Heero, was getting scraped even more. After the last one I couldn’t stand. I was broken.

//This is my December
This is all so clear//

The man made everyone leave the room after the last one was finished with me. He unchained Heero from his wall where he had been forced to watch. But I knew that although he had witnessed a thing that I had never wanted him to ever see I had saved him from a far worse fate. He could have been in my place and while Heero is strong he could not have handled what it would entail in the aftermath.

Heero picked up my clothes and the black hair tie he had bought me. He grabbed the key up from the floor from where the man had tossed it so carelessly. Only the chains that were around my wrists were holding me up. My legs had no strength left in them and my body was weakened. Heero unchained my ankles first propping me up with his own body. He unchained each of my wrists one by one, being almost gentle with the abused flesh that lay underneath. He lay me on the table and dressed me. Then he re-braided my hair as best he could. He had never braided it for me and I was surprised to learn then that he even knew how. It stuck out in my mind because right then I couldn’t think about what had just happened to me. I didn’t want to so I focused on Heero instead.

The man told Heero how to get back to the alleyway through a different exist so that we could avoid the men in the other rooms. He wasn’t sorry about what had happened but he was surprised that I had withstood do much. In fact he said I was the first to have done so. Most were begging for the pain to stop but not me. No I never uttered a word, toward the end it was obvious that I was in a great degree of pain but I never spoke about it and I never cried out. I’m sure that irritated many of the men but I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction, I never had before.

Heero lifted me into his arms. My head was on his shoulder up against his neck. One arm was under my upper back where there weren’t as many cuts and bruises and the other was behind my knees. It wasn’t the easiest way to hold someone while you were carrying him or her but it was the best way and Heero knew that I was in pain. I was so very tired. I began dozing, not the restful sleep.

The images behind my eyelids weren’t pleasant. I forced myself to stay awake, to keep the old demons and nightmares at bay for a little longer. We passed street can fires and people’s eyes followed up as we moved along but no one dared to approach us. Heero walked standing as ramrod straight, his head held high and his Omae o korosu look was now on his face. There were no catcalls or shouted questions for once.

The little groups grew silent as we approached and stayed that way until we were out of earshot. I\'m sure that they knew what had happened, at the very least they had an idea of what had happened. Heero walked slowly trying not to move me around much in case I was injured further. What normally was just a ten-minute walk turned into nearly forty minutes. Heero climbed the stairs one at a time, moving at a snails pace and secretly I wished he would have moved faster so that we wouldn’t be out in the open any longer but my brain wouldn’t send the signal and no words came.

Those stairs were agonizing, a real bitch. My ribs felt like they would shatter into a thousand pieces sending the fragments into my internal organs and respiratory organs and causing a slow and agonizing death in which I would probably either bleed to death or drown in my own bodily fluids. That prospect didn’t appeal to me very much but then I’d never expected to survive the war, I think out of all the Pilots Quatre was probably the only one who could imagine a real life after the war.

Every breath of air I took was torture. Hundreds of needles had to be stabbing me, I was sure of it. My ankle felt like it had been stepped on by an elephant and it throbbed and felt like it was as big as a cantaloupe. The welts on the back of my legs and back burned almost like an acid might as it slowly eats away at your skin and the cuts from the whip burned like they were on fire. The fingernail scratches and cuts stung as if salt had been poured on them and where my skin had been rubbed raw it felt like I had sand paper still being rubbed on me. Overall I was in bad shape. I would have passed out into sleep but I couldn’t because I was in so much pain that my body wouldn’t let me.

Heero had a hard time opening the door but he finally got it. Then again he was the Perfect Soldier during the war so his being able to get the door open shouldn’t have really made that much of an impression on me but strangely it did. He locked it and carried me into our shared bedroom. He placed me on top of my bed.

\"Duo,\" I heard him say. \"Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?\"

\"Yes,\" I responded, forcing my brain to work again. \"I damn well know where I am.\"

Heero was satisfied with that and he proceeded to undress me to take care of my wounds. He carried me into the bathroom and laid me on a pile of blankets so I wouldn’t have a cold floor underneath me. He poured an antiseptic all over my back and the back of my legs. I moaned from the pain. As lightly as possible he began swabbing at my back to clean all the excess blood away to see how bad the cut really were. I tried not to squirm and when he could tell that the pain was getting to be too much for me to handle he would stop for a few moments and try to sooth me a little.

After that he applied a salve and the pain began to numb. On the other side he repeated the same steps and used the same salve. Carefully he put me up into a sitting position and wrapped me with large cotton strips and then he carried me back into the bedroom. While I was lying on my bed he reset my ankle and I remember distinctly calling our loudly his name. I couldn’t tell what had possessed me to say his name, not at the time and I didn’t see his reaction to it either. After that he tucked me into my bed and I fell asleep.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

I am Heero Yuy and many call me the Perfect Soldier. I didn’t ask Duo to come with me after the war was over. In fact I didn’t expect him to because I had nothing to offer him. I was, for the most part, an empty shell. He reminded me of life. He teemed with it. Always smiling and making jokes and projecting emotions.

I could never be like that. No matter how hard I tried I could never be that open on my own. He was always ready to do something strange or go somewhere new. People looked at him because they admired him for his openness and because he was just one of those people who seemed to shine.

Once I was certain that Duo meant to go with me we left the others, quickly. We never left them forwarding addresses; we just kept in contact through e-mail and sometimes com-links. Either one was a danger because she might trace us, but she also knew of some of our accounts.
She of course didn’t tell the public about the money that we had siphoned off from OZ during the war for our own personal gain because she didn’t want any of to get our reputations tarnished. I think in a way she understood that it was of little payment to what we should receive for our involvement in the wars. She let it go, which was foolish of her if she really wanted me that badly.

Relena and everyone else didn’t know all of my accounts, except for possibly Duo. We had more than half our money in those accounts, enough so that even if we chose the wealthy life our grandchildren would never have to even worry about working. We moved from colony to colony, occasionally staying on Earth to avoid detection. At least that is why I chose to move us around so much. I think for Duo though it was also a slight comfort, he was used to moving around and not having much of a place to call home. While I never had a place to call home I did have permanent residencies, if you could call them that, with Odin Lowe and Dr. J.

We stayed in the shadier parts of town since wealthy and extravagant spending would be easier to trace. Almost every time we contacted Quatre and the others they tried to convince us to move in with Quatre for a while but we couldn’t. Duo didn’t hate Relena for the same reasons I did, but he did hate her all the same. He found her extremely annoying and after a few months he could take no more. As for myself I wanted to be left alone. She didn’t understand that and kept trying to talk me into marrying her. If I had done that I would probably be in jail for murdering the Queen of the World, within a few years. I wouldn’t have snapped I would have done it for my own peace of mind.

So we traveled. I was used to being treated with disrespect but I had always been able to kill those people or threaten them. Then Duo pointed out to me that if I made an impression on people’s minds they would be sure to remember us and that would put Relena back on our trails and so I was forced to remain silent. Duo and I traveled light, not taking too much luggage with us.

Duo never complained about not being able to take many things with us, he survived and he was used to it. I was used to never having much of anything so it didn’t make much of a difference to me. Things we didn’t take with us we bought on the colonies or on Earth and if we could we sold them to make some of our money back. We spent very little, which was good since it made our paper trail harder to follow. I knew that our accounts weren’t being watched and if they were my computer would warn me and the account would be terminated and the money would go to several fake locations and then disappear into another account. During wars you set things up like that because you can’t trust many people and it’s safer not to trust and rely on others in case they fail you.

I trust Duo. He’s one of the few people I completely trust. Just because I trust him though doesn’t mean I won’t prepare for something myself. It just means that if something does go wrong I know he’ll fix it if I can’t. He’s the one I trust the most out of the other Pilots, which is why I’m glad he came with me after the wars. We lived for the wars; I fought because I was trained to. I don’t know any other life and Duo knows how to live when he wants to or when he feels he has to. Duo is more human than I am even though I’m sure that at times he doesn’t think so. Why he thinks that way I don’t know for sure. He hasn’t told me much about his past. I know that there are things he has hidden things that no one, save perhaps G knows about. G of course won’t tell me because he looks upon Duo as almost a friend or kindred spirit in some odd way. He sees Duo as someone who has the strength to carry out his ideas, ones he can’t carry out. And Duo, in his own way, has a soft spot for G. No one knows where Dr. J, Master O, and Doktor S are. Instructor H we know is with G.

I found a house for sale in Europe and bought it using an account Relena knew about but I back walled the location of the house so that it would take her at least a month to find it. Instead Duo and I purchased a good-sized cabin in the mountains. It was hidden from air view and there was a large grassland. The cabin was a combined purchase of ours and both of our names were on the deed, which I made sure to take with us.

Hopefully we would be able to live in that cabin once we had made sure that we had thrown Relena completely off our tracks. But things didn’t work out that way. We ended up going there much sooner than I anticipated we would have to.

//This is my December
This is my snow-covered home//

At the time we were on the L4 colony cluster staying in the run-down part of the colony. Our apartment had the kitchen/living room as one room, one bedroom which we shared, and a bathroom. That was all, it was sparse and we were ready to leave any time we needed to. On the particular night in question we were in a seedy bar that Duo had wanted to go into to have a drink. I went in with him drinking water, which I bought in a bottle. I didn’t trust tap in places like that. Duo ordered a beer of some kind.

We had been there no more than ten minutes when I noticed that Duo was getting edgy. I could tell that he didn’t like the atmosphere or the people that were in the bar. I didn’t really like them either but so long as they left me alone I would continue to do the same for them.

\"Well Heero,\" Duo said taking a drink. \"It’s getting late. We might as well head home now, this place is losing its appeal if you know what I mean.\"

I knew what he meant and he paid the bill quickly. He didn’t even finish his beer and I left my half-empty water bottle on the table beside it. We walked out the exit and headed down the alleyway to cut down the distance. We had gone perhaps no more than a hundred feet from the bar when a group of ten men stepped in front of our path. I knew that they meant to try and injure us and I prepared myself. I was aware of the others that came up from behind but I figured that since they seemed to posses no guns Duo and I still had a chance of winning the fight. There were sure to be some casualties on our side but I reasoned that after we had killed some of them the rest would flee or at least be hesitant, giving us the advantage we would need to finish them off.

\"Hello,\" A voice spoke out from behind the men. \"So glad you came this way. I’ve been dying to have a go at you.\"

I didn’t like the tone of that voice or what it was implying. Duo looked over at me and seemed to decide something in an instant. I’m not completely naive but at the same time I wasn’t looking forward to having anything like rape happen to me but soldiers are supposed to be unfeeling and so I decided to ignore what I wanted and concentrate on what was feasible for the situation at hand.

\"Take the short haired one,\" The voice said stepping forward a few steps but still in the darkness.

I was going to speak up on my behalf but Duo beat me to it.

\"Wait,\" I heard Duo say. \"What are you expecting to get out of this? I know what you intend but what do you want to get out of it?\"

The question surprised the one in the shadows because he hesitated and waited a few moments before issuing a response. I could tell that he was the one with absolute power in the group, at least the highest ranking one present. None of the others seemed to be ready to do anything without explicit orders and I began to wonder what kind of gang or group we were dealing with. It wasn’t a political group, they weren’t going to take over the world and use us, for Gundam Pilots, as hostages. Finally the voice answered.

\"I want strength and beauty,\" The voice said after that brief pause. \"Someone who can take discomfort and someone who knows what to do when told.\"

\"Then he’s not the one you want,\" Duo gestured with his head at where I was standing. \"I am.\"

\"Why should I relinquish the other?\" The voice asked clearly basing Duo’s answer on what his decision would be.

\"Because I can give you what you want,\" He returned instantly. \"My friend here is not used to such things but I am and I’ll be better than he could ever be.\"

\"Very well,\" The voice said after a few minutes. \"You’ve intrigued me. Bring them both!\"

I knew what Duo was trying to do for me. I would have protested normally but there was something about the way Duo was handling this that made me hold back. I didn’t completely understand what he was doing, if he even fully realized what he was doing. The little I know about Duo’s past is bad. He didn’t have an easy time and if you’re around him long enough and pay attention to the little things it shows through no matter what look he wears on his face. Despite smiles and laughter I could see the pain, it was old and heavy, bearing down on him and slowly trying to defeat him but Duo was born a fighter. He fought back against it and wouldn’t bow down his head and accept what the past was trying to turn him into. It takes courage to do that and I believed in Duo. I believed that he would come to terms with the struggles that lay within and that he would come out on top. There had never been any doubt in my mind. Looking at him I could see the old tenseness return, just as it had been in the beginning of the war. Perhaps that is what stopped me from speaking out, knowing that this was something Duo needed to deal with because he not only knew what he was doing but he had to see that he could come out of it.

We were taken further down the alley and into an abandoned looking building but there were small signs that clearly showed it was inhabited. The rooms that we went through looked fairly standard for the neighborhood we were in but the room we were pushed into looked like it had come out of a movie. There was normal looking objects and some that raised many questions in my mind. There was a pungent odor and old blood was visible. I knew that what took place in this room wasn’t pleasant and I didn’t want Duo to go through anything like it. But apparently he had other ideas, ones different from trying to force our way out of the situation.

\"I sense there’s something you wish to ask,\" The voice spoke to me.

\"Yes there is,\" He said looking at the shadow of the voice’s body. \"You let no one, and I mean no one touch my friend in any way or make him do anything pertaining to disrobing of himself. After we’re through
here we’re leaving. Is that clear?\"

\"Crystal,\" The voice said. \"You would have been let go any way but I’ll adhere to what you request. Now unbind your hair.\"

Duo had lovely hair no matter what he often thought. Its color was rich and full, ranging from copper to gold depending on the lighting. It was long too and cascaded like a curtain around him, a protective curtain. He held his head high and I knew he wanted to do what he was about to do, he wanted to spare me. I’m not selfish. Normally I wouldn’t let him or anyone spare me any pain because I enjoy it but I knew that Duo would never forgive me completely for stopping him and that made me think hard.

\"Good,\" The voice said. \"Very good.\"

I knew that Duo couldn’t catch anything from any of the men either. I’d seen the test results from the various viruses and STDs that G had given to Duo and he had beaten every one of them. The only thing he ever got was the sniffles. His genes were virtually indestructible when it came to illnesses, which may have also added to his reasons for going through with this. The man had stepped forward from the light. He wasn’t bad looking but he wasn’t extremely good looking either. His hair was brown with a red undertone and his golden eyes; they had a haunting look to them like he was searching you for something. But his gaze wasn’t hard to look into and read.

Duo walked over to me, I could tell that he was going to say something to me. I stood hoping that maybe he would try to suggest that we beat our way out of the situation but I knew that my hopes were probably in vain.

\"Heero,\" Duo whispered urgently to me. \"No matter what you see or hear you can’t interfere. Please, promise me? And if you can’t promise than it’s also an order. Do you hear me Heero Yuy?\"

\"Hai,\" I responded standing a little more erect to give him strength. \"I will not interfere.\"

I knew that I would have to obey too. The tone of his voice told me that and more. He would never forgive me for any interference and I vowed to keep my word and say or do nothing. I wouldn’t risk the one friend I had. Yes, it was selfish of me but I knew that Duo knew what he was doing. You can’t tell Death what to do because he’ll always go and do what he wants with or without your consent. Duo was always telling me that and he was right too. Interfering would only lead to losing a friend who would just go ahead and go through with this plan anyway so it was best to make it easier on him rather than harder.

\"Now what?\" Duo asked turning back to the man.

\"All of you out,\" The man said to his cronies. \"But first you,\" He pointed at Duo. \"Chain your friend to the wall over there. He gets to watch.\"

I wasn’t pleased about that. If things got out of hand I wanted to be able to stop it. But the man was smart, he could tell that I might pose a possible danger to him and having me locked up was really the safest option. Still I didn’t want to do it.

\"Don’t worry,\" The man reassured Duo, not me. \"You have my promise that no one, including myself or you, will touch him or disrobe him in any way.\"

Duo came back to me and lead me over to the wall and chained me to it. The steal was cold but it didn’t bite much into my flesh. The discomfort it caused was minimal and I would be able to withstand it for weeks.

\"Get undressed,\" The man said, eyeing Duo. \"Then go lean against that table.\"

That table as he called it was made out of stone and the top of it was rough, while the sides and legs were smooth. The sides were sharp, made to dig into the skin and leave bruises if you get shoved into it too many times. I watched as Duo went up and complied with the man’s orders. My mind screamed against what was happening but I remained silent not wanting to jeopardize Duo in any way. The man came up behind him undoing the front of his pants but leaving the rest of his clothes on.

Duo’s head was turned toward me on the table, looking into my eyes. I could see the emptiness in them and his violet pools held a deep pain. At the same time I could see the resolve and strength in them. I tested my bonds but there was no way I could get out of them, there was nothing I could do. I stood there, chained to a wall, watching my friend being raped. I could tell that it was painful, that he would have bruises on his ribs from that table and that he was going to have abrasions on his skin from the surface of the table.

After a few minutes, which to me seemed an eternity, the man was finished. I looked into Duo’s eyes and could tell that a small piece of him was gone but that he was still willing to fight. I saw him, still lying patiently against the table waiting for what would be next asked of him. He looked at me not really seeing me and then when he refocused on me his eyes seemed to glisten faintly, not with tears but with some other emotion.

\"Go over to that podium,\" The man commanded him.

In the center of the room there was a raised platform. There was dried blood on the side of it that was facing me but they couldn’t see it. I knew by looking around that Duo was going to experience pain and I wondered if he really thought I was worth it. The man pulled a black whip out of a box and he walked up behind Duo who was once again facing me. The whip danced on his back and he didn’t flinch, only deep in his eyes was there any withdrawal. He only really flinched after the eighth crack of the whip on his back. I could see some blood pouring down. I knew that his back would be bloody with cuts and that his hair would be matted with blood.

\"Now look at you,\" The man smirked at Duo. \"You’re all dirty. We must clean you off. Come over here and stand against this wall.\"

Duo stood patiently at the wall. With a hose that had water pressure that was equal to a fire hose he began to spray and clean Duo off. He had him turn around and the man went over his back with the hose. I saw the pain in his form; I could sense it more than anything else. The blood washed down his back and became all watery. Then the water was shut off abruptly. The blood on Duo’s back spread quickly once again. I looked and didn’t want to believe that this was really happening to him but I knew that it was. Reality was a cruel master but one that I had learned to live with.

When the water was gone Duo began to laugh, not hysterically but just laughter. It was dead laughter, the kind that he used when he didn’t care and when he was slowly wilting away and would soon be no more. I’d heard it once or twice before when he had been imprisoned during the war and when I had followed him to a church and he’d being talking quietly to Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. I could tell that he didn’t have much fight left in him and that he was close to the edge. I didn’t know what would happen if he went over the edge but it was too late for me to do anything.

\"Liked that did you?\" The man smiled maliciously at him. \"You’ll like this even more then.\"

His laughter died soon after the man had said those words. They were words of doom. He was lead over to a slightly different type of table and chained to it. His ankles were chained to the legs of the table and his wrists were chained to the sides of the table so that his movement was almost completely gone. The group of ten men, who had stood in front of us, stopping us in the alley processed into the room. They looked at Duo who was chained to the table, bent over. They were looking him over like a piece of meat that they all wanted to have a taste of and that’s exactly what they did too.

One by one they proceeded to take him. He was biting on his lips to keep from crying out so that the men wouldn’t be given any satisfaction of having caused him any pain. From where I was I could see them bleeding. I knew his ribs had to be cracked from how many times he had been hardly slammed into the edge of the table and while the table wasn’t as sharp as the other it was sharp enough. Then men kept coming at him, fucking him harder and faster in a frenzied pace. Some went back for a second round. I could see almost each cut start to form on his flesh from the clawing fingernails biting into his slightly bronzed skin.

His left ankle was obviously broken due to all the swelling and how he was hardly putting any weight on it. That didn’t matter to the men fucking him because they kept right on coming. After the seventh man his physical condition was far worse. There were welts across the back of his thighs from belts whipping at me. I could tell that the chains binding his wrists and ankles had to be rubbing away at the flesh around and underneath them. The side of his face and bare skin on the table couldn’t fare much better. After they were finished with him he couldn’t stand on his own. Only the chains kept him up and I could see his eyes. There was nothing there. He was broken and I had had to watch it happen.

//This is my December
This is me alone//

When the ten men were finished with Duo the man made them leave the room. The man came over to unchain me and once I was free he quickly stepped back and out of harm’s way. I went around the room and picked up Duo’s clothes and the black hair tie that I had given to him. He remained chained; his body limp and battered. The man tossed the key to Duo’s chains casually on the floor and I quickly snatched it up. I unchained Duo’s ankle’s first and then propped him up with my own body while I unchained his wrists carefully one at a time. I delicately laid him on the table so that he wasn’t dangling off it and dressed him. I tried to re-braid his hair as best I could. I knew how it was done from watching him countless times but his hair was so knotted and wet and caked with blood that the braid didn’t look very good.

The man told me how to get out of the building without having to go through any of the rooms the men were in. I could tell that the man was impressed at how much Duo had withstood. I would have threatened him but I decided that at the time there wasn’t much point because my main focus had to be on Duo. Gingerly I picked him up and went out of the building. Once outside I took off my jacket and put it on him to keep him warm. Then I picked him back up and started off down the alleyway.

We passed by groups standing at fire bins warming themselves and providing some light in the darkness. Their eyes followed us but there were no shouts or catcalls or challenges. I knew that they probably could guess what had happened to Duo and who had done it. I moved slowly trying to avoid bouncing Duo around as little as I possibly could to prevent further injury and discomfort. Duo I could tell, even though he didn’t speak and most of the time his face couldn’t be seen clearly, was in substantial pain.

Going up the stairs to get to our apartment proved to be the most challenging. My hold on Duo was a difficult one to manage especially because I was trying to avoid moving him. I had to strain my muscles to go up the stairs, moving at a snails pace. We were safer than we had been when we had been coming back to the apartment and were still out on the streets but I would feel much better once we were inside. Most of the weaponry was in there and we had access to communication if we really needed it.

I went over the supplies that we had in case of injury. There wasn’t much just some peroxide, cotton swabs, some butterflies, materials for stitching, and for wrapping. I tried to figure out what Duo would require and decided that I would probably need most of the supplies. It was a good thing that I always made sure to keep things like that in every place we lived in. It was just one of the many traits that remained with me after the wars.

\"Duo,\" I said to him, getting close to his ear. \"Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?\"

\"Yes,\" Duo responded in clipped tones. \"I damn well know where I am.\"

His answer satisfied me. It sounded like the Duo that I knew and it made me feel surer of him. I undressed him, leaving him clad only in his black boxers, and grabbed the blankets off my bed and spread them on the floor of the bathroom so that Duo wouldn’t have to feel the cold and hard surface underneath him. Then I carried him into the bathroom and carefully set him down on his makeshift bed. I grabbed the peroxide and poured it onto his back. His breath hissed into his mouth and he squirmed a little.

\"Shhhh,\" I said attempting to soothe him.

I gently petted the top of his head. I took the cotton swabs and tried to brush away the extra blood on his back to get a good look at how bad that cuts really were. None of the fingernails cuts needed stitching but a few of the cuts made by the whip did. They could wait until later; he was in enough pain already. Next I put on a few butterfly band-aids and then put some salve on his cuts to numb the pain and then wrapped his wounds in gauze strips. The gauze would also help to keep his cracked ribs in place. I poured more peroxide onto the welts on his legs. I had to stop to soothe him against because the pain was getting to be too much for him. I rubbed the same salve onto his welts.

I felt that he would be fine for a while. Duo needed sleep badly; his body was worn down. I carried him carefully into our bedroom and laid him on my bed. I walked over to his a pulled the covers back. Then I came back over to him and checked out his ankle. Quickly, without telling him what I was going to do, I set the break. He cried out my name loudly and then I tucked him into his bead. He fell instantly asleep.

I sat on my bed for a time with two of the blankets from the couch and wondered why he had called my name. It had surprised me a little. I finally came to the conclusion that it was a cry of protest against me setting his ankle and that he wasn’t happy that I hadn’t told him that I was going to do it. It was the most logical explanation. I stayed up for another hour but Duo slept on peacefully so I allowed myself to fall into a light slumber. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

The artificial sun rose and I rose with it. I looked at my sleeping friend, his long hair was still a mess but there was nothing I could do about that. He was still asleep and I didn’t feel like preparing breakfast for just myself so I allowed myself to just doze and wait for Duo to wake up and tell me what he needed or wanted. There really wasn’t anything else to do but wait.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

I drifted in and out of sleep once Heero had tucked me into bed. For a while it was a cozy darkness, something that I took comfort in. Shinigami was trying to shield me from the storm within my mind but it wouldn’t hold that storm off forever. The darkness was too perfect, too serene, for it to remain that way. Old memories resurfaced.

People calling me ‘pretty’ or other such nicknames that always used to send shivers down my back. There were hands touching and hitting and feet that were kicking. I could see the disgust on people’s faces when I tried to play with their kids. There was no one there for me; they always ended up dying. First Solo, then others followed.

I didn’t want to think or remember all the times I had had to whore myself on the streets of L2, before and after the Maxwell Massacre as the newspapers called it. No one knows that I am the sole survivor except for a select few, namely my fellow Pilots. I was forced, or rather coerced into telling them about it because Wufei had convinced them that I was deranged because he had caught me talking to myself on multiple occasions. He thought I was going to go on a killing rampage or kill myself. Heero knew before the others, he had to have. He had probably looked into it on that damn laptop of his, but that’s all back history.

I was beginning to feel exceedingly warm. My eyes didn’t want to open and my body didn’t want to respond. I tried to cry out, to come back to reality. I had to get away from the groping hands and all the slurs of drunken voices. Somehow I knew that I was safe but the hands were getting closer. I could feel them on me. My body ached and hurt, parts of it burned like they were on fire. I couldn’t remember why. I didn’t want to remember.

And then I did. I recalled taking Heero’s place, being tortured and laughing. Then all the others raping me, doing what they wanted. My mind screamed in protest. I remembered the man who first raped me when I had been a child, the one who had first stolen my innocence. I was lying in that alley, crying and alone and lost.

The darkness remained and fragments of the past kept coming back to haunt me until I couldn’t take it anymore. My mind was no longer able to put up with the memories, the barriers collapsed. I tried to command my body but my mind wouldn’t let me. It took over and created another world for me. An empty and devoid world of almost everything and when I finally did wake up I was locked inside that little world. Heero sprang up when he heard or perhaps even saw me sit bolt upright in my bed. My eyes were blank and I felt empty, devoid of everything.

\"Duo,\" His voice was questioning. \"Are you hungry? Are you feeling all right?\"

I nodded. I couldn’t face him; I just couldn’t look at him. Vaguely I was aware of him for a brief moment and then I was whisked once again into my own little world. I had blocked out the real world because I couldn’t handle all the memories and my mind had shut itself down until I was in almost a perpetual state of fog. I recognized very little. Heero left the room and I began to scream loudly.

Heero rushed back into our room and instantly I stopped screaming. For whatever reason I was afraid when he left me alone. He hadn’t told me that he would be leaving me to go into the other room and I needed him. My mind screamed these things and foolishly I thought that he could hear them. He stared at me as if not quite comprehending what was wrong. Then it seemed like he realized what was wrong and he unwaveringly faced it head-on.

\"Duo?\" Heero said. \"Can you hear me? Duo, what’s my name? Do you know where you are?\"

\"Unhhhh,\" I said.

It was all I could manage. My brain wouldn’t function all the way any longer. My voice seemed to be almost dead and I didn\'t know why and I was afraid for no reason that I could come up with. Heero could tell that there was something very wrong with me at this point. He knew that I wasn’t all there that my mind was gone. He could also tell that part of me was holed up in my mind, trapped without much of a way to get out but that I could.

\"Come on Duo,\" Heero said, acting like there was nothing wrong with me whatsoever. \"It’s time to get up. If you want to eat you have to tell me what my name is or I’ll leave you here all alone.\"

Vaguely, those words penetrated my fogged mind. They sounded so far away like Heero was calling to me from a great distance. I knew though that Heero, being the cold bastard that he could be, would probably leave me just like he had threatened. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t. I needed the winter, the cold that only he could provide. I fought against the fog, knowing that I had to win this battle because if I didn’t he would leave and I would be alone again with no one to help keep me safe. Only the coldness could do that, had a chance of helping me win.

\"Heero?\" My voice was a whisper; it was tainted in fear and anguish.

Saying that one word took so much effort. I was pleased with myself for accomplishing what had seemed impossible. My mind was outraged at me, trying to tell me that it was trying to keep me safe and knew what was best for me. But I kept trying to fight it. It seemed to understand that both of us needed Heero and it let me have a small amount of control.

For this I was grateful because without it I would fail. I would fail what Heero was asking of me and he would leave and I would be defenseless once again and Death would be broken away from me. I couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t about self-preservation, I knew that I would live. I just needed Heero, that was the only thing I was sure of and I didn’t even know why.

\"Duo,\" Heero said reverting back to the same cold tone that he had used during the wars when we had been Gundam Pilots. \"I’m going to set you on my bed and then I’m going to look at your injuries and I might have to stitch a few of the cuts up on your back.\"

Then he picked me up and gently carried me over to his bed and placed me lightly down. His scent was there. I lay back down on my stomach and curled up holding one of his pillows, staring across the room. Heero cut away the blood tainted cotton wrappings on my back and examined my cuts. He poured more peroxide onto them and swabbed them clean. He applied more salve and thankfully only used butterflies instead of stitching me up. He looked at my ankle and wrapped it after applying some ointment that he had gotten from Wufei. Heero prudently picked me up and took me into the other room and started making breakfast. I couldn’t make my hands work.

\"Duo,\" Heero’s glanced over at me. \"Need help? You have to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.\"

\"Yes.\"

All my words were barely audible but they were nonetheless words. Heero was trying to make me speak, trying to keep me from completely going away into my fog bank. He cut up my omelet into precise bit size portions and began the process of feeding me. He wiped my mouth clean and then did the dishes.

\"You’ll have to tell me when you need to use the bathroom Duo,\" Heero stated as he was drying the dishes. \"And when you’re finished. You can use the bathroom can’t you?\"

\"Think ‘o.\"

Heero nodded. That night he put me to bed and started packing up our things. I wasn’t completely sure what was going on but I knew that we wouldn’t be staying at our current location for long.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Duo sat up in his bed. I knew instantly that he was coming out of some sort of dream by the expression on his face. At the same time there was something gnawing at me and I jumped out of bed.

//And I........
Just wish that I didn’t feel like there was something I missed//

\"Duo?\" I said to him. \"Can you hear me? Duo, what’s my name? Do you know where you are?\"

\"Unhhhh,\" Duo responded.

I had shrugged off the strange feeling that was eating away at me, nagging at me that something was wrong. I tried to convince myself that Duo was just fine and that he was just to tired to respond normally but there was something wrong. I walked out of the bedroom to go start breakfast without another word. That was my mistake. Duo began screaming and I rushed back into our bedroom to see what was wrong. He had sounded like he was in severe pain.

Right when I crossed the doorway into our room Duo’s screaming subsided. Now I was sure that there was definitely something wrong, I just wasn’t sure what. There were so many possibilities streaming through my head that I couldn’t narrow it down to just a few single theories or ideas. I needed more evidence and symptoms before I could do that. I was determined to fight whatever it was though. It was my nature and I could still see, sense more than anything else and that the old Duo was in there somewhere, trapped within his mind. If he couldn’t fight then I’d fight for him.

\"Come on Duo,\" I said, hoping that I was acting like there was
nothing wrong with him whatsoever. \"It’s time to get up. If you want to eat you have to tell me what my name is or I’ll leave you here all alone.\"

I saw his eyes give off a small flicker of life, another sign that Duo was still in there somewhere. That small flicker gave me hope and strength at the same time. I knew that I wasn’t dealing with just a vegetable, that Duo could still perceive some things. I hoped that there was a way the he could go back to normal, or close to being normal.

\"Heero?\" His voice was a whisper; it was tainted in fear and anguish.

I was exhilarated when I heard him whisper my name. I knew that he was still in there. It confirmed what I had seen in his eyes and I gained new strength from it. I knew that I would have to keep forcing him to speak every once in a while to help make him fight. I wouldn’t mind taking care of him, even if I had to do it for the rest of my life. I would never have left him completely. I couldn’t, before he had come with me I would have been able to but now I found that I couldn’t. My threat didn’t hold any weight but he didn’t know that and that was what I would have to count on. I understood that I would have to resort to behaving how I had during the wars to make him think that I was cold and that I would leave if I didn’t get something in return.

\"Duo,\" I said reverting back to the same cold tone that I had used during the wars when we had both been Gundam Pilots. \"I’m going to set you on my bed and then I’m going to look at your injuries and I might have to stitch a few of the cuts up on your back.\"

The first thing I did after he laid down on my bed was cut away the cotton wrapping. I examined his back carefully but I found that I couldn’t see the extent of his wounds from all the dried blood. I took the bottle of peroxide and poured some on his back and let it soak in a little before swabbing up the blood and excess peroxide. It didn’t look as bad as it had last night. I picked up the large box of butterflies that I had been smart enough to purchase upon our first arrival on the colony and began applying them to certain areas on his back.

I looked down at his ankle and wished that I could go and buy some ice for it but knew that I couldn’t take him with me in the state that he was in. Not just mentally but physically. We could never out-maneuver any thugs who might try to get us. I thought frantically for something I could do for the ankle when I remembered the ointment that Wufei had given me when I was making up my mind about leaving Quatre’s. I took it out from under my bed and applied it to his ankle before wrapping it.

Almost as an afterthought I picked Duo up off my bed and carried him into the other room. I set him in a chair at the table and went about preparing breakfast for the two of us. Behind me he sat, hardly blinking. It was unnerving, Duo usually being to one to keep the silence at bay, and now he wasn’t.

I fixed us a simple egg and cheese omelet. It was one of Duo’s favorites when he was in a hurry or felt lazy and didn’t feel like preparing a big breakfast. If he was hungry afterwards he just snacked on some unhealthy food but he always ate a good breakfast first. I put his omelet on a plate and mine as well and carried them to the table. I put his plate and fork in front of him before sitting down. I finished most of my omelet in a short amount of time but Duo did nothing but sit there and look at his.

\"Duo,\" I glanced over at him again. \"Need help? You have to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.\"

\"Yes.\"

I cut his omelet into bite size pieces and fed him. I didn’t mind. Then I wiped his mouth and started cleg thg the dishes, washing them by hand. Suddenly I thought of his bathroom needs. He couldn’t really walk but maybe he could handle things if I got him into the bathroom. I was almost done drying the dishes when I was finally able to ask him.

\"You’ll have to tell me when you need to use the bathroom Duo,\" I stated as I was drying the dishes. \"And when you’re finished. You can use the bathroom can’t you?\"

\"Think ‘o.\"

I nodded. The rest of the day passed by uneventfully. When night fell again I put him to bed and started packing our things. The only thing I could really think of was getting us off L4. After we were safely on a shuttle, then I’d start to worry about what to do from there. One thing was for certain though. We were heading for Earth.

I woke up early the next morning and had the shuttle preparations all taken care of within the hour. I hired a private car to take us to the shuttle. We were flying first class, and I had made sure that no one else would be up there to disturb us. I was sure of one thing though. I would need the other Pilots help in trying to get Duo back to normal.

Just before the car was due to arrive I made sure to explain to Duo what we were doing and where we were going. When I mentioned Earth his eyes flickered again and I got him to say the word ‘yes’ inwer wer to wanting to go there. It was a small baby step. To me every word he spoke was a tiny miracle. The car took us to the shuttle station and we were the first to board the shuttle. One of attendants helped carry the bags while I carried Duo to his seat. I explained nothing to them because they deserved no explanation and when one of the bolder ones tried to ask what was wrong with my friend I glared him down.

We arrived on Earth and I was given a wheel chair to use to help get him out to a taxi. I directed the taxi to where I had an old truck of mine stowed away. I carried Duo and all our bags, no small feat, to the truck and set Duo on the tailgate of the truck. I flung all the bags onto the bed and put Duo in the passenger side. Before leaving the garage I sent a quick e-mail to Quatre telling him to get the others and to meet Duo and I at my ancestral home. This of course was a code, which would tell Quatre that there was an emergency and that he needed to meet us where G and Instructor H were. It was the safest place I could think of to take Duo. I was saving the cabin as a last resort.

I looked over at Duo before I started up the truck. I missed the old Duo, the way he had been before. In the beginning his endless flow of chatter had annoyed me but my training allowed me to ignore it, for the most part. As time went on my ignorance was no longer sufficient enough and I began to listen to what he was saying. In between the ceaseless flood of words I began to get to know who Duo Maxwell was and I began to understand more about him. Toward the end of the wars, when he would leave the room I’d begun to miss that incessant rush of his voice as it filled the silence around us. Slowly but surely he had wormed his way past my barriers and I had begun to open up when I was around him. I displayed small amounts of emotion and actually started talking a little more.

The silence that greeted me as we drove away was so profound that it seemed to deafen my ears. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I turned on the radio. I had set it to one of Duo’s favorite stations and the happy bright sound of American oldies flared to life. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Duo was softly humming along to them.

I drove on and on not bothering to stop for the night. I wanted to reac