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Witching Hour	By : kracken Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male > Heero/Duo Views: 649 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own gundam Wing and I don't make any money off of this.

Chapter List
- 1-Witching Hour
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 1
- 2
"Are you sure this will work?"

"You're asking that now? Don't be stupid."

"Months of conditioning, drug therapies, and a bio modulator inserted into his brain. We can control him almost completely."

"Almost?"

"Nothing is a hundred percent."

"He's right, nothing."

"Paranoia is a powerful control system."

"Maxwell thinks that the other Gundam pilots are responsible for all of this. I doubt those men will live out the week once we release him."

"And once they are out of the way, the Peacecrafts and Preventers will be next."

"The new world doesn't need leftovers from the war running things. We need people of peace to lead us. Let them destroy themselves and make way for new leaders."

"Our leaders."

"Of course."

"Are you ready?"

"Everyone is in place."

"Time to let our weapon 'escape', then."

Duo had been waiting his chance. Patient, obedient, and silent, he had given nothing to his tormentors but his cries of pain. Not that they had wanted information. Being forced to become a test subject for a new kind of soldier, one slated to be the Preventer's new weapon, had been an painfully acute betrayal. Finding out that Une and his fellow Gundam pilots had not only sanctioned it, but had developed all of the torturous modifications and training that he had gone through was shattering. It was only a small taste of revenge to finally escape just before their mental modifications had made him their slave.

A wire had been all that Duo had needed. One of the 'torture' machines had gone on the fritz and a technician had left it open to retrieve a tool. It had been just in reach of Duo's hand, close enough for him to grab a wire that the technician had already cut from the machines' inner workings. The man never noticed.

Later, left in his bare cell, Duo had used that small wire to advantage. The locking mechanism on his door never stood a chance and once free, his captors never did either. Duo was out on the streets and blending into the late evening crowds as easy as breathing, a bloodied scalpel tucked into a 'borrowed' coat and only one thing on his mind. None of the Gundam pilots had been there. He intended to find every one of them and show them that Shinigami paid back in full and then some.

He was in pain, a persistent throbbing at the back of his skull and a never ceasing feeling that his joints were stretched too far. He staggered, limped, and often used every available surface to rest against. When people expressed concern, leaned in close to ask if he was alright, Duo could only nod, bereft of speech, and lift their wallets without their suspecting a thing. Those credits allowed him to finally go to ground, to hole up in a one room efficiency, and become one of a thousand other tenants under the name of Kris Stillwell. The landlord hadn't even noticed that the ID didn't look a thing like him.

Sleeping on bare floor had become habit in his cell. In his unfurnished room, Duo curled up in a corner, tucked into his jacket, and let sleep take him away from his pain mental and physical.

---------------------------------

Morning sunlight through a bare window made Duo twitch awake with alarm. He opened gummy eyes and stared at it as the sun rose and that sunlight made a slow progress along wooden flooring. When was the last time that he had seen the sun? Weeks? Months? Years? It was all a blur of pain, shouted orders, and forced physical activity on machines meant to take a man to his limits. Duo found that he didn't want to think about that, didn't want to try and piece together exactly how long he had been subjected to that kind of torture. Let it blur, he thought. Let it fuel his hatred, his desire for revenge, but not play itself out in sharp detail. He didn't want those memories. He didn't think that he could live with them.

Fast on that was the 'why' of it all. Why him? Why turn from everything that they had stood for, to pursue control over people again? What had happened that they would toss away their humanity and try to take away his as well? There was no answer to that. The men who had worked on Duo had refused to answer any of his questions. He wasn't meant to talk, wasn't meant to question. That had been part of his training.

Duo frowned and tried simply saying one word, 'free'. He choked on it and nothing but a sound came out, twisted and unwieldy. He tried again with the same result, as if his mind had forgotten how to use his vocal chords for anything except cursing and screaming. He would work on it, he promised. They weren't going to succeed in anything that they had tried to do to him. He swore it.

His stomach screamed for food, his body wanted to be clean, his mind wanted revenge. Impulses battled and tried to sort themselves out by priority, the constant throb of his headache making that far more difficult than it should have been. Revenge couldn't be attained if his body was suffering, he concluded, and forced aching joints to get him off of the floor.

Without soap, Duo took a shower. Without towels, he leaned against a wall until he was dry, wet braid making a puddle on old wood floors. He touched it, unwound it, and then re-braided it mechanically as he stared down at a line of stark ribs, bruises. and a myriad of marks from his ordeal that had become permanent. His thumb lightly brushed over the wound that he had stitched himself, once he had killed the medical personnel and dug out the shock plate that they had surgically implanted near his groin. A high voltage jolt had used to incapacitate him, hitting him in the genitals and the hip joint, to take him down whenever he had tried to rebel. A body could get used to anything, though. There had been very little time for them to be surprised that it hadn't worked, before Duo had killed them all.

"You were supposed to escape!" one of the doctors had shouted and Duo had laughed at him. Why would he escape without destroying them and all of their work, the work that he had paid blood and sanity for?

Duo choked on sob, but then throttled that emotion. Betrayal was worse than any pain that he had suffered. It cut more wickedly than any blade, knowing that the organization that he had respected and worked for, gladly, had perpetrated such a crime against him. The knowledge that his friends, and the one man that he had harbored deep feelings for, had signed the orders, had agreed to such a heinous plan as if he had been nothing to them, had shattered his world. Treated worse than a lab rat, he thought in anguish and anger, as if they had never cared for him, as if that one man had pretended friendship, had pretended maybe something more than that, just to take him off his guard, to make him trust when he had been given orders and told to report to that torture facility for 'training'.

What had Heero said? 'Two weeks of training? Make sure you call. It will be too quiet here, without your voice.' Duo had grinned and leaned in close to look the man in the eye. He remembered replying, 'Sounds like you might have actual feelings for me, buddy.' Heero had smiled softly and said, 'Maybe I do. Maybe we're finally old enough to think of each other more seriously? Let's talk about it when you get back.'

Duo closed his eyes and made his head slam back against the plaster wall. The pain of the headache went up a notch, but it helped him to forget Heero's eyes with their phony emotions, promising him hope of more than just friendship, of more than just being partners.

Food, Duo thought, and he pulled on clothes, remembering forcing the previous owner to get out of them before he had killed him. He could almost feel that man's foot on his neck, still, pushing him down hard onto a cold floor, grinding down until jawbone and spine protested and threatened to break, to punish him. That man had enjoyed his job, had enjoyed taking Duo from one torment to another. Killing him had held a keen satisfaction for Duo.

Duo tucked his braid down the back of his thin jacket and pulled up the collar. The shoes were a little too large and he had to shuffle as he limped out of the efficiency. The landlord was by the front door of the building, glaring at the new day, sourly, as if he were blaming the sun for coming up.

"Place okay for you?" he asked in a tone that said that he really didn't care about the answer.

Duo nodded.

"You look like shit," the man observed. "You better not keep your place like you keep yourself. It's in the lease, got that? You get trashy, I toss you out on your ass."

Duo nodded silently again.

"Don't you ever talk?" the man growled.

Duo shook his head and went past the man and out into the street. He heard the landlord say something about his sanity, but Duo didn't care what the man thought. It was possible that he wouldn't be going back there.

A few 'accidental' bumps into pedestrians, gave Duo some more credits from lifted wallets, enough to buy a few things for the efficiency, if he decided to stay, and some food. Duo bought a cap, first thing, and pulled it down low over his face, before finding a public internet connection and catching up on the news. While he ate his breakfast and savored a hot cup of coffee, he discovered that five months had passed and that his picture was prominent every where as a famous missing person.

Duo grunted and pulled his cap down lower. Pretending that he was missing had been their cover for his disappearance, he surmised, and felt boiling anger as he read several articles expressing Quatre Winner's distress, his offer of a reward, and other supporting entreaties from Une and even Relena Peacecraft. Seeing Trowa, Wu Fei, and especially Heero standing behind Relena added fuel to his need for revenge.

Duo tried to say the word 'revenge' softly, but nothing came out, his vocal chords seemingly disconnected from his mind. He didn't need to talk, he thought bitterly. Their guilt, his reason for killing them all, didn't need words of explanation.

Duo tapped the computer screen with one finger, over the image of Heero Yuy. You first, he thought. Heero was the best. He couldn't be forewarned by the deaths of the others, even though Duo was certain that they had all discovered his escape. They would be guessing his next plan of action, not sure whether he would flee or stay Earth side to attack them. Heero might be prepared, but there was always the advantage of uncertainty.

"Come on, give up the seat, man!" a businessman urged impatiently. "My palm computer is on the fritz and I need to connect. You've been warming the plastic for over an hour."

Duo gave a quick look around at the crowded place and the lines of people waiting to use the computers. He didn't have the luxury of flipping the man off. He couldn't draw any more attention to himself than the man was already creating by simply making loud demands. He shrugged and slid out of his chair, giving an awkward hop to keep his balance as his wound screamed protest at him. The man grunted without thanking him and slid into the chair, his attention wholly on the computer and his business.

Duo mouthed, asshole, and carried the rest of his breakfast back out onto the street. He needed weapons, first, he thought, his mind sifting through possible contacts and favors owed. He rejected them all, finally, as too chancy. He needed minimal contact. Minimal interaction. Renting the efficiency left a big enough footprint, showing his well known face around the city as well, as he bought things and made contacts, would be as bad as painting a bulls eye on himself and shouting, 'I'm here, come get me!'

Duo made the purchases that he needed to live for several weeks and then returned to his efficiency. He needed darkness to get his weapons, he thought, darkness and people who deserved to have Shinigami take those weapons away from them.

________________________________

He thought he was a big man. He was cock sure in that belief, because of the gun tucked into his waist band. He pushed his gang around for a few hours, harassed people trying to get by them on the sidewalk, and took liberties with a 'girlfriend' who looked as if she didn't want that title at all, but couldn't protest for fear of her life. When he finally broke it up for the night, and sauntered back for home, as if he owned the city, Duo was waiting.

"What the fuck you want?" the man snarled when Duo came out of a darkened ally and confronted him.

Duo's eyes gleamed from under the brim of his hat and he smiled wickedly. His silence made the man glare and twitch aside his shirt to show his gun. "Don't know what crazy assed thing you're thinking, man, but mess with me and you'll be full of holes, got that?"

Duo took a step closer, hands held out as if he didn't want any trouble.

"Expensive coat," the man noticed with a sudden interest. "You got some cash on you, crazy shit?"

Duo shrugged and started to turn, as if to walk away.

"Don't move, fuck head!" the man snarled. "This ain't no toy! Give me whatever you got and I'll let you go... maybe."

Duo froze and then turned back, his coat swirling outward, covering up the motion of one leg. His foot caught the man in the head with a roundhouse kick that dropped him instantly. Sprawled face down on the pavement, blood started seeping out in a growing pool that looked black in the street lights.

Bad day for you, Duo thought grimly as he pried the gun out of the man's fingers and slipped it into an inside pocket of his jacket. He hadn't meant to kill the man, but sometimes fate had other ideas. Duo couldn't dredge up any guilt, though, especially when he contemplated on just how the man could have gotten hold of a top of the line police revolver with a laser sight.

"Go halves and I won't say nothin." a voice said.

Duo started, gun coming out and pointing at an old man's head. He was old enough not to be afraid. He scowled sourly at Duo and amended, "A few bucks, then, for charity? Nobody liked that asshole."

Duo's eyes took in the empty side street, and the backs of abandoned warehouses, mind giving him options. The man sighed.

"At least put my old body where they can find it, after you kill me. I want a proper burial," the man requested.

Duo couldn't help a smile. He lifted the thug's wallet, took out a gold chain and some credits, and handed the old man a few. He made a waving motion with the barrel of the gun, wanting the old man to go away before he remembered what a bad idea witnesses were.

"Thank you, kindly," the old man told him. "Didn't mean to interrupt, but it's dark and I didn't see you until I knew I wasn't gettin' away. You should come to the church. That's where i was goin'. They can give you a hot meal and a place to sleep that's safe."

Duo felt a chill crawl up his spine. He blinked as the old man seemed to turn into someone else, someone from the past. He was tall now, and wearing a priests collar. He bent down towards Duo as if Duo was a child.

"Bring your little friends, too," the voice from his past said. "I can keep them all safe and fed."

Duo remembered his derisive reply, his flippant, crude sign, and running away, only to be brought back to the man, later, by the force occupying his town.

"What's matter, boy?" the old man wondered, the image from the past gone in a few rapid blinks of Duo's eyes. "You look bad off, suddenly.I'm tellin' you, a good solid meal, and a safe night's sleep, will feel good."

Duo shook his head and walked away as he tucked his gun back into his coat.

"Thanks for gettin' rid of that garbage," the man called after him. "You done good for the neighborhood."

Don't lose focus, Duo told himself as the pain in his hip ate at him with every step. That image from the past reminded him of how things used to be, before they had 'civilized' him after the war. He needed to be that person again and forget all the things that had made him soft, had dulled his edge, and had made him depend on others. maybe the old Maxwell wouldn't have shot that old man, either, but killing that thug would have been instant and without the qualms that had made him confront the man first. He needed not to hesitate when he killed Heero. He couldn't think about might have beens and emotions that should be dead and buried now. He was an executioner, Heero's executioner.

Duo caressed the gun under his coat. Soon, now. they were all going to pay.

______________________________

"You look like you're waiting for a root canal," Trowa sighed.

Heero Yuy grunted sourly and drank his tea with both hands. The little cafe was bustling with business, but they acted as if they were alone, as if the people passing by were on a different plane of existence. They were war heroes, Preventer agents, protectors of the peace. Someone who didn't know them might categorize their attitude as sheep dogs guarding the sheep, but they didn't think of themselves as better than the citizens they had sworn to protect. Calling them guard dogs was far more apt. They were loyal, committed, and on the personal leash of everyone passing around them. They would give their lives and think the exchange was worth it, that any of those citizens deserved to stay safe and live their lives peacefully, than either of them. It wasn't a self esteem failing, though, but a total commitment, a knowledge that they possessed abilities that most lacked, and that those abilities made them responsible for those who did not. It set them apart and kept them from mingling and becoming one of the citizenry.

"I thought getting out would be good for you," Trowa continued after a sip of his mug of coffee. "You need to do more than go to work and go home."

"I did agree to come out with you," Heero complained. "What else did you expect?"

Trowa played with his mug and then shrugged, "I don't know, really. Maybe just to see if you're still thinking clearly."

Heero scowled down at his tea. "If you doubt my mental stability, you can send your suspicions to Sally Po."

"Don't be stupid," Trowa retorted and then took a calming breath and tried again. "Obsession can blind a man to what's in front of him. It can exhaust him, make him doubt, second guess, over look facts... I'm trying to say that you might need to step back, Heero, just for a little while. You've been investigating this nonstop since it happened, almost twenty four seven. A man can only keep that up so long."

Heero's frown deepened. He didn't say anything for a long moment and then he confessed, haltingly, "My world was sterile, black and white, ...cold, before I met him. He gave it color, purpose, excitement. It's all black and white again, without him, and it's damned cold, Trowa. I don't have a life without him."

Trowa gripped his mug hard, until his fingers turned white. "Are you saying... You sound... "

"Suicidal?" Heero snorted. "Not yet, Trowa, not when he needs me to find him. Alive... or dead... I intend to do just that. He won't be M.I.A. He won't be a file that someone dusts off every few years and wonders about."

"You only have one clue," Trowa replied despondently. "That hasn't led anywhere."

"The note that he left read, Meet at Carpenter Point for training, building C, two p.m.," Heero intoned as if he had said it to himself thousands of times. "He told me about it, but he never said where. He expected the training to take two weeks."

"Carpenter Point is an empty office building with no links to anything or anyone that we could discover," Trowa pointed out.

"But it is probably where they kidnapped him," Heero countered. "There is another clue somewhere and I won't stop until I find it."

Duo watched them from the corner of a building, hands sunk into his coat and collar pulled up. He could read lips, but not that far away. He saw Trowa reach across the small table and give Heero's hand a squeeze as if to make a point, but Heero was getting up and leaving, looking angry. Duo's hand closed on the gun in his pocket, dismissing any attempt to take out the man from that distance. There was too much of a chance of someone stepping in the way.

"Here, buy some hot cocoa, boy. You look like you're freezing!" A credit was pushed into Duo's hand by a well dressed man passing by. Duo twitched reflexively, but the man hardly gave him more attention than that as he strode down the sidewalk towards some unknown destination.

Duo looked down at the credit in his hand and felt a bemused smile try to form. It hurt his chapped lips. The man had thought that he was a bum, watching the cafe with the intense longing of the penniless. The truth soured the moment and Duo's smile turned grim and hard.. He was an assassin, a man bent on murdering justice. The man had unknowingly met Shinigami and would never know it.

Duo pocketed the credit and hurried after Heero and Trowa. Trowa's touch on Heero's hand had added to Duo's betrayal. They were obviously together, obviously comfortable with touches like that one. Duo's anger melded with jealousy. He had been played completely by Heero.

"Do as I say!" The order was shouted in Duo's ear and he recoiled as his world turned into his ten by ten cell again, his 'trainer' bending over him with a stun stick held ready to jab the small of his back at the first sign of physical rebellion.

The man had been awhile leading up to this, had been hinting and sneaking touches. Finally coming into Duo's cell, alone, had signaled trouble to Duo, even in his traumatized physical and mental condition. Everything that they had made him do, up until then, had been dehumanizing, agonizing, and nearly more than a man could stand, but they hadn't gone that far yet.

"Heero said you liked dick," the man crooned. "Nothing wrong with mine. It's been awhile for you and me. Come on. Let's do it or I'll fry your ass instead of ride it."

Stupid to try it alone. They hadn't trained him completely, yet. The mess that he had made out of the man had made orderlies throw up when the body was discovered. The two hour session in the shock harness afterward had been worth it. It had helped desensitize him. Their mistake.

Duo came out of the hallucination huddled in a stinking ally, a stray cat blinking at him curiously from the top of a dumpster. it took awhile for Duo to reorient himself, to convince himself that he really had escaped. By then it was too late to follow Heero, too late to do more than stagger home, and fall on the foam mat that he had bought for a bed, and try to pull himself back together.

_______________________________________________

It was hard to find the will to move. The headache was a grinding, ever present pain, the paranoia and hate beating in his brain in time with it. Every noise made Duo start awake, every dream contained a list of relived horrors. Sleep. He needed sleep or he wasn't going to be worth shit, he thought.

The sun rose, finally, stinging in Duo's open eyes and making them water. Blood shot, and dark ringed, one twitched as he sat up on his mat, pulled out his gun, for the hundredth time, and checked it. A very small part of his brain waved hands and questioned. Duo frowned as the pain of the headache rose as he tried to focus on that confusion. What was he doing? It seemed wrong. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with him.

Torture does that to a man, Duo thought, clamping down on that doubt viciously as he checked the gun's sight. Torture makes a man twitchy, unstable, afraid. He had to keep control of himself. If he lost it, he lost his chance for revenge. What happened afterward didn't matter.He could fall apart, then, and let who ever wanted to bother clean up the pieces. Something in his mind giggled insanely at that last thought. It doubted that there would be anything left to clean up or anyone who would bother. Hadn't they all betrayed him?.

Bug. Duo's hand smashed down next to his knee and then lifted to find nothing. He had been so sure... Duo frowned and clenched his hand, digging his nails into his palm until it stung. Keep it together, he told himself. Hallucinations were part of being sleep deprived. It had been one of his lessons back in the day. Warnings to a dedicated young terrorist who might not understand that taking care of himself was as important as loading his gun and taking care of his Gundam. All parts, including the human one, needed to work properly.

"We're alike, you and I," Dr. G said as the man suddenly appeared next to him, hands sunk in his lab coat pockets, and keen eyes appraising him. "That's why I see right through you. So, cut the act and show me how intelligent you really are. I know you can do everything I give you, and more. I see it in your eyes. Your mouth grins like an idiot but your eyes are full of calculations. You'll survive, boy, using that brain of yours, and having lived the life you have before now. You've never known it better, so you won't be one of those curling up in a fetal position wanting their innocence back. Like a rat you'll bite the hand that feeds you and laugh at the world when you finally go back to your alley full of garbage."

L2 wasn't that bad, Duo thought and then clamped down on that. He willed the hallucination to go away but Dr. G walked to the window and looked out, the sun shinning through him. You're dead, Duo thought as strongly as he could. The hallucination only looked back at him speculatively and suddenly seemed far too real.

"Did you fight the war for revenge?" Dr. G asked suddenly.

Duo blinked in surprise and felt his headache go up a notch. I thought so, at first, he realized, but then.... He stopped himself. Don't acknowledge hallucinations, he warned himself, but he was thinking as well, that there had been a point, early on, when it had been about people, about the colonies, and not about revenge at all. He hadn't been able to sustain hate about something that he was used to. People he cared about died. War was the heartbeat of his entire life, always beating in the background and threatening ugly destruction. It had taught Duo to be self contained, to develop a core of strength that allowed him to shed the ache of loss and hurt and make it to the next day mentally intact.

Duo stared at his gun, a thought trying to develop about what G was saying.

Dr. G looked annoyed. "You never let me control you, or anyone for that matter. Why start now?"

Duo looked up, confused, but the hallucination was gone, the sunlight from the window hitting dirty floor boards undisturbed.

Duo's hand rubbed at the scar next to his groin. Maybe it was more about justice? Maybe he was fighting for more than just himself? They might experiment on other people. They might make an army of tortured individuals. Wasn't it noble to give his life to stop that from happening? Dr. G was right. Revenge had never ruled his life.

The increase in the headache made Duo bend over, clutching at it, heedless of the gun still in one hand. The paranoia filled him again, the feeling of betrayal, and the hatred of those who had used him. Flashbacks of torture made him cringe and tremble, panting hoarsely. He forgot about logic and about noble deeds. His entire being, once again, centered on a need for revenge, his overwhelming hatred washing through him like fire and making him imagine Heero in front of him, helpless and ready for the bullet from his gun. Duo aimed the gun, point blank, at that imaginary forehead, and felt an almost orgasmic feeling as he pulled the trigger. The bullet took out the window.

Duo was up and out of the apartment as fast as he could limp. He disappeared into the crowds and didn't stop until he was halfway across the city and certain that no one had followed or tagged him. The loss of the apartment was minimal.The chance that the landlord would report the incident and that people would ask questions about the odd tenant, was a greater concern. He had to move before anyone went looking for him. He had to take out Heero, now, even if it meant that he would lose his chance at any of the others.

____________________________

Duo never expected Heero to make himself such an easy target. He left Preventers at noon and stepped onto a train as if he were in a hurry to get something done on his lunch hour. Duo boarded the train as well, far enough back where he could see where the man disembarked and still remain hidden. It was a shock when he realized that they were going back to the place where he had been tortured.

High rise office buildings were clean and sparkling in the afternoon sun. People thronged the sidewalks, grabbing lunch, or on their way to their destinations. It was easy to track Heero's every step without being noticed, but not so easy to quiet the rising anxiety that going back to that building was causing him.

Heero had a scarp of paper clutched in one hand and he was frowning as if he doubted that he was going to the right place. His crisp Preventer uniform bulged with several weapons. He was prepared for trouble but unsure enough not to have asked for any backup. Duo clutched at his own weapon, under his coat and waited his opportunity.

Doesn't make sense. Duo's mind was firm about that. Shouldn't Heero know where he was going? He had helped send Duo there. He shouldn't look as if he was in uncharted territory and attempting to find an address.

Duo rubbed at the sudden bloom of pain in his head. He knew the facts, he told himself as Heero approached the office building and tried the door.When it didn't budge he glared at a pad that needed a pass code. Duo had pulled the teeth from one man until that man had given up the code. Heero had to know them too. His uncertainty had to be an act. It was possible that he knew that he was being tracked and was waiting for Duo to make a move.

Duo hugged the shadows behind the concrete pillars of a building close by. He'd been careful. It was impossible that Heero had spotted him. It was more likely that he knew that Duo would target him after his escape, that he was trying to trick Duo into being careless.

Duo panted through the pain as it grew enough to make his vision blur. He leaned his forehead against the cool concrete and waited until it passed, running the facts through his mind again to quell his confusion. His 'trainers' had talked about the others, about Heero, especially knowing and approving of Duo's kidnapping. They had talked over him, careless, and so certain of their control over him. Laughing about how they had fooled Duo so completely.

Duo's hand tightened on his gun. He raised his head and blinked his vision back into focus in time to see Heero walk through the doors, the broken casing of the jumped security system hanging from the wall.

It was perfect. Heero was totally alone. Duo had only to go in and shoot him. Duo respected Heero's strength and his soldier reflexes, though. He wasn't about to blow his chance by rushing in, especially if Heero was trying to trick him into revealing himself.

Duo let his injuries set his pace. He slowly approached the door, made sure that Heero wasn't in the main lobby, and then slipped inside. The lights were still on and the guard was still sprawled behind his desk where Duo had taken him out with a flung scalpel. It had entered one eye and gone straight to the man's brain. The smell of decay was heavy in the air and Duo instinctively tried not to breathe it in as he cautiously tried to determine where Heero had gone.

"Dead body at the front doors," Heero was saying up ahead to someone on his cell phone, "Definite homicide. Smells like more bodies, somewhere. A tip. An electrician they hired. Kept him at the front offices, but he heard a few things that made him think that they might be doing something illegal."

Heero paused to listen to a response, but then grunted, "Their credit was cancelled. A man who doesn't get paid, suddenly has a lot more reason to report something out of the ordinary." He paused again and then replied, "It was just someone's suspicion. I didn't think it was worth alerting all of Preventers. Anything could lead me to Duo. I've been waiting for a clue, I thought that this might be it."

Heero was standing in an office and going through files on a computer, his gun out and in one hand, his cell cradled between shoulder and ear. He was facing the door, probably alert for danger but preoccupied with too many things, maybe to notice someone as skilled at stealth as himself.

Duo raised his gun as he made a solid stance in the doorway. He kept his motion smooth, and quick, but Heero saw it and ducked aside, his own gun going up, but taking that critical second to be sure that his target deserved to get shot before firing. His mistake. Duo turned the barrel to follow him and then froze, his finger beginning to tighten on the trigger.

"I will blow your brains out," Trowa Barton said firmly, the barrel of his gun against Duo's temple. "Is taking his life worth your own?"

Duo grinned as the pain in his head became blinding. "Yes, it is," he replied and fired.

_____________________________

"Duo?"

The voice seeped into consciousness, but it took several repeats for Duo to understand enough that it was his name that was being called. He blinked and tried to track his eyes to the owner of that voice, but he couldn't find the will. Everything was blurry and indistinct, patches of light and dark scattering across his vision.

Glass crunched underfoot. Sirens sounded in the distance along with the sounds of the city. A cold wind blew against his skin and ruffled his hair, making him blink again.

"He's not in there," the voice said.

"Good thing for you or you'd be dead. Duo's a crack shot, Yuy. He shouldn't have missed you."

"Maybe he wanted to miss."

"I don't think so. I think whatever has him, is screwing him up."

"Drugs?"

"No, something else."

"He was in pain and psychotic. Now... nothing. He shut down."

"Overload. Nervous breakdown."

"You're saying he's under some sort of mental control?"

"You tell me. He wanted to kill you. He was ready to die to do it. Have you done anything worthy of that kind of reaction from Duo?"

"No... in fact..."

"What?"

"I... we... I wanted... When he came back from training I was going to..."

"Yuy, finish a sentence."

"I care about him, all right? I know he cared about me too. I finally felt that we were old enough... ready. I wanted..."

"And now he's trying to kill you."

"You don't sound shocked. It's not as if I advertised my preferences."

"Yuy, everyone knows your preference. You and Duo have clearly been 'together' since the war. Waiting was your idea."

"We weren't ready. It doesn't matter now. He wants to kill me."

"Would have killed you, even if my next act would have been to blow off his head. Maybe the psych doctor can figure out what's going on."

Duo's gaze cleared enough to let him see a blown out window near where Heero had been standing when he had fired. His mind lazily calculated the margin of error and informed him that the pain in his head had overwhelmed him and his aim. That pain was gone now, leaving him as light as air and feeling reborn. It had been a constant presence since his kidnapping a ceaseless tormentor that had been the driving force behind his need for revenge.

"They're coming up, now."

"He can still be dangerous, Yuy. He looks like shit warmed over, but even without a weapon he can kill. We should take him down and cuff him."

Duo felt light touches and then more firm ones. The impulse to kill them was gone, blown away as if the wind had the ability to scour his mind clean. Now... he poked at the emptiness, at the gaping maw where the pain and the urge for revenge had been, and felt something like the empty socket of a pulled tooth. Raw but the emptiness welcome.He let them cuff his hands behind his back, felt his braid rearranged to keep it free and then a tentative squeeze on his upper arm.

"Why didn't you shoot?"

"I was bluffing, Heero. I didn't want two dead friends."

"I'm glad. I don't think that I could have forgiven you, if you had."

"I know. I understand. I have someone that I care about just as much."

The words were not meaningless, but they didn't sink in, didn't convince Duo of anything. Two men who had betrayed him. Two men he should have killed. A part of him wondered if he would be taken for retraining, if they had found other people to fill the gaps in their ranks that he had made in his escape. There wasn't alarm, though, as if a wall was between those thoughts and the part of his brain that dealt with reaction. There had been an inner battle, he felt, but the winner was yet unclear. Maybe he had just managed a draw, both sides resting until one recovered enough to take control, to act?

"Careful," Heero warned and then other hands were taking hold of Duo and making him walk.

Pain shot up his groin and down to his kneecap. It breached his numbness and he stumbled, gasping.

"He's injured!" Trowa warned.

Duo was sat down in a chair, then, bodies all around him blocking the cold wind. They waited for a stretcher.

Hands reached and brushed his sweaty bangs from his eyes, saved his braid from being sat on, and draped a heavier coat over his shoulders.

"The smell..." a strange voice complained.

"A lot of dead bodies," Heero informed that person.

"Lock up hospital?" another voice asked.

"No," Heero growled. "Preventer hospital. He's dangerous, though. Keep him secure."

"Yes, sir."

"Duo?" Heero called again. "You're safe. It's all right now."

Duo looked down into dark blue eyes. Heero was almost kneeling at his side, looking into his face. The man looked haggard, circles under his eyes, blood seeping from where broken glass had cut him.

"He's there," Trowa warned.

"Not really," Heero replied. "He's not going to do anything."

"I question your judgment," Trowa warned. "He tried to kill you. He probably killed all of these people. You need to step back."

"If he hadn't killed these people, I think I would have," Heero growled. "I don't consider that dangerous behavior."

"You don't know what they've done to him. Until we do, you will step back, Yuy."

Duo saw Heero scowl, but he reluctantly rose and stepped back. The stretcher came and Duo was strapped down tightly, his cuffs still locked in place. As they rolled him away, Duo stared at the ceiling splattered with blood from some of his victims. Wait, a small voice told him. Patience. He closed his eyes and let them take him away.

-----------------------------------------------------

They were trying to talk to him, trying to convince him that everything was all right. They had been very convincing before, Duo remembered bitterly. He would have staked his life on knowing them like brothers. One in particular, he had thought that he knew closer than a brother. All lies.

"We need to operate," Sally Po was telling Une. Heero was standing by them, looking at a scan of Duo's head and hip with a sick expression.

Secured to his bed, Duo glared at them and tried to think through the drugs that they had given him for what they kept calling 'anxiety attacks'.

"He doesn't have anyone to give or deny permission," Une said, as if the fact was irritating to her. "I've already given you the order to proceed as you see fit."

"But you haven't given any orders pertaining to his care afterward," Po rebuked her. "He can't stay here, strapped to his bed, and not have his mental issues addressed. He'll need therapy, psychologists, and expert security. I firmly believe that the control that's triggering his anxiety, his psychosis, is the only thing that is keeping him mentally motivated. Once it's gone, he'll come down from his forced emotional 'high', like a puppet with it's strings cut. We're already seeing some of that now. It's obviously malfunctioning, working at a limited capacity, just enough to keep him on edge, but not enough to motivate him to action."

"He wants to kill all of us," Heero finally spoke up, lowering the scans and looking at them both with dark rimmed eyes and a grim expression. "I need someone to tell me whether it's best for us to stay out of the picture or for us to prove to him that we didn't do this to him."

"Maybe we should start by showing him what was done to him?" Une suggested briskly, and motioned Po towards Duo. "He may not believe us, but I think keeping him ignorant of any findings and not allowing him to make decisions about his own care will only feed his paranoia and conviction that we ordered his ordeal."

"Can he understand?" Heero wondered.

"On some level he might," Po replied. She took the scans from Heero and cautiously approached Duo in his hospital bed.

They explained. It was logical. Duo could see the scans. Their proof. It explained the headaches, the anxiety that he hadn't felt even in the hands of Oz interrogators, and his inability to see through their complete subterfuge. It was like so many pebbles plunking in an ocean, though, ineffectual against the anxiety that triggered the images that danced behind his eyes of his time with his tormentors. That was reality. Who had signed the orders was the question that he couldn't find the mental capacity to answer.

Take it out? Yes, take out anything those bastards had put inside of him. After? Who cared? He would feel better? He was beginning to lose the memory of what being whole had felt like. It seemed intangible, not something that could happen again. It was like the war. He hadn't been able to see a future past fighting. Back then, dying was a sure thing, and a boy devoid of anything to live for, hadn't cared about that inevitability.

"Maybe, later?" Heero suggested. He was staying well back knowing how his presence escalated Duo's anxiety.

"If he doesn't improve after the operation," Une told them, "If he can't make decisions for his care that are reasonable, I'll have to put him under government care. He'll be forced to accept their decisions for his treatment."

"And then we'll make the lie a reality," Heero said angrily. "It will be another kind of prison. He won't understand the difference. We won't be able to show him that we didn't do this to him."

"There isn't anything that I can do about that," Une replied tightly.

Heero seemed to gather himself for a moment and then asked, "If his care was given over to me?"

"Don't be preposterous," Une replied instantly. "Duo never signed papers giving you that right. I won't falsify paper work either, Yuy."

"Once he goes into government care," Heero argued, "They won't allow anyone to see him. He doesn't have family. He's never signed papers giving anyone access to his care. They won't even allow you access, Commander. He will, in effect, disappear again."

"You are under the impression that Duo thinks of any of us as anything other than 'the enemy'," Une replied. "If the operation doesn't allow him to see the error in that belief, then he won't respond to any visits, or assistance from us. He'll want to kill again for revenge."

"If he signed a paper now...?" Heero insisted.

Po snorted, "In his state? I don't think that would be legal."

"Who would challenge it?" Heero wanted to know. "You?"

"I might, if I thought that government institutionalization would be the best care for him," Po replied. "Commander Une is right, if this operation doesn't allow him to see the truth, then your caring for him will be very dangerous and, I think, ill advised."

"Even though the best person to handle a dangerous man is one equally as dangerous?" Heero wondered. "What makes you think that he won't repeat the massacre of his kidnappers, but, this time, with the government workers assigned to his care?"

Po looked thoughtful and then asked, "What would you do if he did sign?"

Heero smiled and replied, "Make sure that his care doesn't become another prison for him. Make sure that decisions are made by... by someone who really cares about his welfare. Keep him safe. Keep the people caring for him safe."

"You care that much for him?" Po wondered with a lifted eyebrow.

"Yes, I do," Heero admitted sadly. "I only wish that I had said that to him before all of this happened."

When they gave the papers to Duo, he scrawled his name, his hand moving awkwardly in it's restraint. He refused to look at Heero, afraid that the man would see his plan in his eyes. Their conversations had washed over him, devoid of any real meaning except one, Heero was going to be within his reach again. The reasons had become muddled, but the voices were still telling him, inside, who had been responsible for his torment. They kept him from drifting, kept him from losing purpose completely. Kill Yuy, was an impulse as insistent as his heart beat. It promised a true peace, afterward, an escape from the pain and the anxiety. Reason had lost the battle.

TBC
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Witching Hour