( Chapter 11 )
TO: <
quatre_r_winner@wei.com >
FROM: < shi-chan@xxxx.com >
SENT: AC197
JUL 07 2023hrs
SUBJECT: Hi guys!
---message begins---
Hey Q-man,
hey Tro,
How are you guys? I've tried calling, but you move around so
much I keep just missing you. Did you like the postcards? I thought they were
cool. Right now I'm in Germany. The cars are so awesome. I spent the day
cruising the Autobahn. Gotta love no speed limits!
I was wondering... is
the offer of a place to stay and go to school still open? I think I'm ready to
come home.
I miss you guys.
-Duo
Oh! Do you have Heero's
new contact details? I've tried getting a hold of him, but everything's changed.
My e-mail's going to change soon, too; Dr. G says he's shutting down his wartime
communications network. I'll miss the 'xxxx'! I'll let you know my new addy when
I get it, 'kay?
---message ends---
----------
TO: <
quatre_r_winner@wei.com >
FROM: < duomax@webmail.com >
SENT:
AC197 AUG 18 1437hrs
SUBJECT: Hi
---message begins---
Hi Quat, hi
Tro,
I still haven't heard from you guys. Didn't you get the e-mail with
my new address? I've tried calling, and your secretaries keep taking messages,
but I guess you're really busy and all. I still can't reach Heero, either. And
tell Relena she needs a new secretary.
Well, it's been an interesting
day. Good ol' Shinigami thought his ticket was punched this time for sure. The
shuttle I was on almost went down in a blaze of glory. Some heavy cargo shifted,
punctured the hull and severed a fuel line, not to mention smashing my laptop
flat! It's not like it was a normal one, and easily replaceable. Lucky
thing I had my disks and player in the cabin with me. If I'd lost them too... I
would really have been pissed.
I should go; other people want to
use this terminal. Can you believe it? Shinigami, reduced to using an internet
cafe... the world must be ending.
Email back and let me know how you are.
I really miss you guys.
-Duo
P.S. Where are you guys now? Do you
have a spare room I can borrow for a bit?
---message
ends---
----------
TO: < quatre_r_winner@wei.com >
FROM:
< duomax@webmail.com >
SENT: AC197 SEP 12
0238hrs
SUBJECT:
---message begins---
Quatre,
Well,
still no word from any of you. No calls, no e-mails... heh, I may get a
complex.
Please call or e-mail? And tell Heero, too. I want to come home,
but I need a place to stay until I get back on my feet. Not long.
I've
checked into the Blake's Port Motel on L1 for a week so I'll have a steady
number for you to call me at. Call me? Don't worry about what time. I haven't
been sleeping much lately.
-Duo Maxwell
P.S. How's
Wufei?
---message ends---
----------
"There's a few more,"
Quatre said shakily. "Just little ones, dated between the first two... one's an
electronic postcard. These three are the... the ones that..." He choked, and
stopped.
Trowa pushed away from the desk and started to pace, quivering
with tension. "Shit. Shit!" he hissed between clenched teeth. "No wonder
it affected him so badly... He just wanted to come home. He came right
out and said it in the e-mails! It would have been bad enough being cut
off by friends. Being cut off by the people he saw as home... He
wanted to find out if he was welcome back, and when nobody replied, it sure as
hell looked like he wasn't."
"His nightmares must have been really
bad for him to mention that he wasn't sleeping," Quatre whispered. "That was
three months ago. If he hasn't been sleeping properly since
then--"
"Or even longer," Trowa interrupted, still pacing. "If he got
depressed and sleep-deprived, he'd stop eating properly; Heero had to remind him
to eat a few times during the war. The combination would lower his immune
system, so he got sick... and that would make everything else worse.
Shit! If we'd just received one message... That fucking
shithead Taarnby!"
Quatre nodded decisively, attempting to regain
his composure. "One thing is certain. I am going to ruin Taarnby," he
said, his voice hardening. "Just for what he's been doing to WEI and for taking
advantage of my father's death and Serena's gullibility, I would cripple his
company. But his greed and stupidity hurt Duo. I don't care that he had
no idea what he was doing. When I am through with him, he is going to have
nothing left."
Trowa bared his teeth in a humourless grin. "Sounds
good to me." He stopped pacing, coming to a halt in front of the vidphone
and punched in a code. A few seconds later, Ninke's face flashed onto the
screen.
< < WEI, Ninke Assink-- Mr Barton, hello again. How can I
help you this time? > >
"Have you found anything yet?"
Ninke
blinked. < < Ah... with all due respect, sir, it's been less than an hour.
At the moment, I have people locating and collecting the files. >
>
"...Fine. Sorry." Trowa rubbed at his forehead. "It's just gone up
in priority; poach staff from other areas if you have to. In fact, use Elite's
personnel wherever possible. They put the stuff on the files, they
can get it off again."
< < Certainly, Mr Barton. >
>
"Also, you're no doubt aware by now that parts of Elite's current
operating procedures are utter crap--"
Ninke nodded emphatically.
< < They could be termed that, sir. > >
"--so I want
you to get hold of copies of their old SOPs, the ones from eighteen
months ago. I want them reinstated as of this afternoon."
< < Yes,
sir. > > Ninke made a quick note, then looked up again. < < I should
point out that we're likely to encounter arguments; my understanding is that
according to the terms of their contract, Elite's management determine the
SOPs-- > >
"And now we come to the main reason I called you." Trowa
grinned nastily. "The contract with Elite will be severed very soon. Set
up a team to interview all the staff they currently supply to us. Find the ones
that can actually think for themselves without referring to a list of procedures
every five minutes, and offer to hire them." He glanced over his shoulder.
"Quatre? Did I miss anything?"
Absorbed by his computer screen once more,
Quatre waved a hand vaguely in Trowa's direction. "No, no, that's perfect.
Exactly what I want. Do it."
Scribbling another note to himself, the
Dutch man nodded sharply. < < Begrepen. *> >
Trowa blinked;
then one corner of his mouth slowly turned up in an amused smirk. "You know,
Ninke, I've been waiting for you to say that for months."
<
< Uh... really, sir? Why? > >
"I must introduce you to Heero Yui
some time. Keep us informed." *click!*
Trowa slowly walked back
towards his chair, rubbing his forehead and smiling slightly; he paused as he
realised that Ninke's little 'Heero comment' had bounced him partway out of his
uncharacteristic black mood, then spoke. "You know, Quatre, Ninke Assink is a
gem. He's wasted in clerical admin; I think you should promote him and
have him work directly for you. Call him your Executive Officer or Special
Assistant."
Quatre blinked, looking up. "But... I've never had an
assistant."
"Exactly. You need one."
"Father never had one
either..."
"Your father spent all his time at WEI. You, on the other
hand, also have responsibilities to the Preventers, and all the other political
things you help Relena with. You don't even have a personal assistant to handle
your calls and appointments!"
"But I never stay at any one branch for
more than a week or two!" Quatre protested. "I'd hardly ever be in the same
place as the assistant!"
"So hire one who's willing to follow you
around," Trowa suggested, sitting down. "Your father did a fair amout of
branch-hopping himself. How did he handle it?"
"...His personal
secretary followed him everywhere," Quatre admitted with a wry smile. "She had
an assistant at each branch to forward messages and take care of things that
came up when she wasn't there."
"You see? It's not such a bad
idea."
"All right, all right, I'll think about it." Quatre settled back
into his seat and sighed, rubbing at sore eyes, then changed the subject. "That
ex-secretary of Relena's probably deleted any e-mails he sent her. I wonder if
they're recoverable?"
Trowa snorted. "Heero set up her security
and fiddled with her office's computer setup. I'd say everything
is recoverable until he wants it gone."
* * * * *
A few
hours later, Trowa was proven right.
Heero had added a few of his
own... refinements... to the computer systems in Relena's office. One of them,
similar to a program he'd written for the computers at Preventers' HQ,
automatically recorded all the vidphone calls to or from the office; another
archived a copy of every e-mail.
'Just in case,' Heero had told Relena
when she asked why. 'You never know when you might need something, and it turns
out someone's deleted it.' At the time, she'd dismissed that as mild paranoia, a
hangover from the war; she'd agreed because he wanted it, not because she
thought the archives would ever be needed.
*If Heero says he wants a
stuffed penguin in every room, because 'we might need one', I'm going to
say 'How big?'* Relena thought, watching the third recording Georg had
pulled up out of the archive. *And then I'll place a bulk order at Toys'R'Us.
I can't believe I was stupid enough to hire that... that bitch! I knew
she was a snob, but I thought she wasn't letting it affect her work. Her
own personal feelings should have had nothing to do with how she treated
people I chose to deal with!*
"Georg," she said abruptly as
the recording finished, "please assign some people to go through this whole
archive, call by call. I realise it's going to be an enormous job, but I want to
find out who else she froze out like this."
"Yes, ma'am," Georg said,
nervously eyeing the screen as he brought up the fourth call he'd found. "Your
friend's pretty brave, ma'am. I would've stopped calling after the first
try."
"She does do coldly polite, 'why are you wasting my time,
you worthless bug?' very well, doesn't she?" Relena said
dryly.
Georg nodded. "Oh, definitely, ma'am. She never said a
single rude word, but she might as well have been yelling 'GO AWAY! I don't want
to help YOU!' at the top of her lungs."
"Duo wasn't looking particularly
disreputable," Relena muttered to herself as Georg clicked 'play', "and he
was polite. He even had polite slogans on his T-shirts..."
<
< Good afternoon, Foreign Minister Peacecraft's off-- oh, it's you
again. I told you, if Miss Peacecraft wishes to speak to you,
she'll return your call! > >
Relena's eyes widened. *We have now
crossed the line into actively rude... Ha. That line alone, combined with the
fact that she never passed any messages to me, is justification for dismissal.
So much for her court case. Everything from here on is just going to increase
the size of the damage settlement I'm going to get for
Duo.*
----------
Heero listened to the calls Relena and Georg
were playing with half an ear as he ran searches through the e-mail archive.
He'd only found one e-mail from Duo's old address; unaccountably reluctant to
read it, he'd tried keyword searches to find more. Searching by 'Shinigami' and
'Death' found him another e-mail address Duo had used. (It also brought up a
message from somebody who insisted they'd seen Death hovering over the Empire
State Building, and 'i tell you BECAUSE you is QUEEN and is YOUR job FIX things
liKe this. tell him Go aWay. why you called MInister? YOU QUEEN. FIX this so i
go up to OBservation level not get scared', but Heero thought he could safely
ignore that.)
He sat staring at the half-dozen messages he'd found for a
moment, then took a deep breath and clicked on the first
one.
----------
TO: < rpeacecraft@ministry.com >
FROM:
< shi-chan@xxxx.com >
SENT: AC197 JUL 08 1926hrs
SUBJECT: Hey
Gorgeous!
---message begins---
Hey Queenie!
How are you and
your Prince UnCharming? *grin* Did you manage to get a formal proposal from him
yet? Just present it as a mission. You know him, he can't refuse.
I hope
you got the postcards. I wasn't sure where to send them, so they went to your
office. Did Heero like his?
I should be coming home soon. Just waiting to
hear from Quatre and make sure his offer of a place to stay is still open. See
you soon!
Hugs & Kisses
-D
OH! Tell Heero to send me
his new contact details. I have to get a new e-mail address too; I'll let you
know when I do.
---message ends---
----------
"He loved
that four-x address," Heero muttered. "It's the name of a beer in Australia, I
think..."
"Heero? Do you want to see these? They're getting worse,"
Relena said grimly.
"No," he said, glancing up briefly at her. "I can
hear. Duo sent us postcards, by the way."
Relena winced. "He sent them
here?"
Nod.
"All the mail sent to me at the Ministry goes through
my secretary," she said tiredly, waving her hands in a throw-away gesture. "I
think we can guess what happened to them."
Heero nodded again, clicking
on the next mail. "Ah. He sent us an electronic postcard, too; a photo of Uluru.
'Here's a picture of that big red rock in the middle of Australia. I had to test
my new e-mail addy anyway, and this is one of the big tourist things Down Under,
so... I'm down here toasting the end of xxxx.com with XXXX beer! Mail me,
'kay?'"
Relena smiled sadly, then nodded to Georg. As the next call
played, Heero clicked his way through the next few messages -- brief updates on
where Duo was and what he was doing -- then stopped as he came to a longer
one.
----------
TO: < rpeacecraft@ministry.com >
FROM:
< duomax@webmail.com >
SENT: AC197 AUG 20 1714hrs
SUBJECT:
Helloooooooo?
---message begins---
Hi Relena, Heero,
How are
you? I haven't heard from you. Is everything OK? I suppose you're both real
busy.
Did Quatre tell you about the close call? Next time, I pilot
the shuttle. If I'd been flying, I'd still have my laptop, instead of a
bunch of pieces. It's a bad day when Shinigami has to use an internet
cafe.
Well, gotta go. Do you have room for me to
visit?
-Duo
P.S. You REALLY need to get a new secretary, Relena.
The one you've got is very rude.
P.P.S. HEERO! Send me your contact
details!
---message ends---
----------<
*He sounds
worried in this one,* Heero thought, frowning. *Worried, and trying to
hide it from us... and what's this about a close call?!*
His train of
thought abruptly cut off as he heard Marie Reynard's raised voice from Relena's
terminal.
< < You might as well give up! I don't care what
sort of handout you're after, and I don't care what sob story you've got
to tell. Miss Relena doesn't associate with worthless bums like
you! > >
"Shit," Relena said conversationally. "That
bitch."
When Heero looked up, Relena was looking calmly at the
screen; the only outward sign of emotion was a whiteness around her lips as she
pressed them tightly together, holding back further comment. Georg, however, was
obviously furious.
"That sucks," he burst out angrily. "I'm amazed
she passed the security checks. There should have been something in there
to tell us she was such a bitch!"
"I don't think being a
bitch is normally considered a security risk, Georg," Relena said in a tightly
controlled voice. "It's not something the checks look for."
"You
know what I mean, ma'am," he grumbled.
Heero opened the last
message.
----------
TO: < rpeacecraft@ministry.com
>
FROM: < duomax@webmail.com >
SENT: AC197 SEP 15
0342hrs
SUBJECT:
---message begins---
I still haven't heard from
any of you. Did I do something wrong? I'd like to come home, but I'll need a
place to stay... just for a little while. Can you put me up? Just until I find
something else?
I'll be at the Blake's Port Motel on L1 for another four
days. Please call me if I can stay with you. Call any time. I don't sleep
much.
-Duo Maxwell
---message
ends---
----------
Heero stood up, turned around, and slammed his
fist through the wall panel behind his chair.
"Heero! What's
wrong?"
"Mr Yui, are you--"
"Read it," Heero spat out,
pulling his fist back for another punch.
"...Oh. Oh no," Relena moaned,
pressing her hand to her mouth as she read and Heero methodically demolished the
panel behind her.
"Mr Yui, you're bleeding!" Georg
protested.
"I know." *CRASH!*
"All he wanted was to come
home. All he wanted was to know if he was welcome... but because I was
stupid enough to hire that opinionated, stuck-up bitch, he thought
he didn't have a home to come back to..."
Heero curiously examined
his torn knuckles, turning his hand and watching as a trickle of blood ran down
to his wrist.
"What do we do now?" he asked quietly.
* * *
* *
It took hours for Duo to finish his story. He never really stopped
crying as he talked; his words were interrupted by sobs, and several times he
broke down completely and couldn't continue until Wufei soothed him. Towards the
end, his voice was so ravaged by coughing, crying and talking that it was
reduced to a raspy whisper, but Wufei never considered telling him to stop. Duo
needed to get it all out... and Wufei needed to hear it.
He started at
the very beginning, with Solo.
Wufei listened intently as Duo told him
everything, including things he'd never told Heero. He went on from
Solo's death to the destruction of Maxwell Church, and to all the things that
happened to him on the streets before and after those happier times. He talked
about what had happened to him during the war; some of it Wufei already knew,
but there was more -- things that Duo had hidden so well that even Quatre hadn't
realised anything was wrong.
"And then we won," Duo whispered, "and I
thought maybe... maybe things would be OK. We'd all made it through the war
alive, and it looked like we all had a chance to be happy. Trowa and Quatre had
each other. Heero and Relena were working it out. And... I..." He swallowed,
turning to press his face into Wufei's chest.
"I screwed up again," Duo
continued, voice muffled. "I screwed up, and I thought you hated me, and I ran
away like a coward. I just... I was only going to stay away for a little while.
I needed to spend some time alone, so I could get things sorted out, and... so
the others wouldn't find out. I didn't want them to know. Heero woulda got mad.
Quatre and Relena woulda been upset. Trowa... I dunno about Trowa. Something. I
didn't want them to fuss, and I didn't want them blaming you for
something that was my fault."
"It wasn't your fault," Wufei
murmured, blinking back tears of his own and tightening his arms around the boy
lying cradled against his chest.
Duo continued as if he hadn't spoken.
"And when I got myself to the point where I figured I could come back... I
couldn't. Nobody would talk to me. Nobody would return my calls or my e-mails...
I couldn't even leave messages for Heero; all his numbers had changed. And then
everything started going to shit.
"I was starting to think maybe I should
hack into Relena's system, or Quatre's... bypass all the damn secretaries and
talk to them direct... and then there was a cargo accident on the shuttle I was
on, and I didn't have a laptop any more. I tried anyway, from a public terminal,
but without the stuff built into my laptop I couldn't get through. The security
was too good. I was so glad I still had my CDs at least, but half of them got
smashed when some idiot drove over my bag in a carpark, and then my hotel room
was broken into when I was out and they took the player and the rest of my
disks. I didn't even get reimbursed for them, 'cause the hotel said I musta left
the door unlocked. They threw me out when I argued.
"Then my money
started to run out--"
"Why?" Wufei asked, gently stroking Duo's back. He
was pretty sure he knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from Duo's mouth. "You
got so much money from OZ during the war. What happened to it?"
"I gave
it away," Duo said matter-of-factly. "They needed it more than I
did."
"'They'?"
"...Kids. Charities. Everyone, really. They
deserved it." There was a short pause, then Duo continued. "I started getting
sick, and I wasn't sleeping much. The last of my money just kinda disappeared.
And then Relena's secretary... I gave up. I thought that was it. I thought there
wasn't anything left that could make me feel worse..." He started to sob again.
"I s-started hiding. I mean, really hiding, not just messing up my trail
for fun or b-because it was a habit. I d-didn't really think anyone would l-look
for me, n-not after so long, but... I w-wasn't taking the chance. I didn't
w-want to see them any more, except sometimes when I wanted to t-tell them what
I thought of them. I n-never wanted it enough to try c-calling again, though.
And then... I...
"I finally went back to L2. I d-didn't want to,
but it was n-nearly the anniversary, and... I n-needed to pay my respects. And
I... I got mugged. They g-got me in an alley, and I tried to fight, really I
d-did, b-but I just wasn't strong enough any more... and..."
Duo started
to cry in earnest, clutching desperately at Wufei's T-shirt and his own
braid.
"They took my cross, 'Fei. The cross Father Maxwell gave
me. I thought nothing could hurt worse than what had already happened, and then
they t-took my c-cross... Everything goes, 'Fei! Everything I get, I lose
again eventually. Everyone I c-care about dies or leaves me. I don't know what I
did to deserve it, but I musta done something... otherwise why wouldn't I
get to keep just one thing? Just one? And now I'm so scared because I
don't know when you'll be taken away from me again..."
"I
won't, Duo," Wufei insisted fiercely, tears running down his face as he
held Duo even closer. "I won't. I promise. I'll stay with you as long as
you want me to."
"But... I can't... I can't even watch you walk out the
d-door without panicking!"
"I may leave to go shopping, or to go to
work... but I'll always come back. I promise,
Duo."
----------
Duo eventually cried himself to sleep, curled up
against Wufei's chest and cradled in his arms.
*There must be some way
to explain what happened so that Duo no longer thinks it was his fault,*
Wufei thought, slowly stroking the sleeping boy's hair. *The first thing to
do, obviously, is to find out exactly what did happen. I know what
happened to his messages to Relena... but what about the others? Why did
Heero change his contact details? I don't remember an explanation; he just
e-mailed me one day with his new numbers, from his new e-mail address,
and I never asked why.* He sighed, carefully shifting around in preparation
for standing up. *Even then, it won't explain why it took eight months for
them to think about looking for Duo. Even if they thought he was keeping in
touch with me, why didn't they ask me about him sooner? Why didn't they
wonder why I didn't mention him?* He carefully stood up with Duo in
his arms, wincing as various muscles protested the movement after sitting still
for so long. *How can I explain this to Duo when I don't understand it
myself? And can I really expect him to forgive the others, when I don't
want to?*
*We'll have to work something out,* Wufei
thought, carrying Duo towards the bedroom. *Duo's lost too many
families.*
He gently settled Duo onto the futon without waking him,
then hesitated. *Damn... the washing's still in the dryer downstairs. Can I
leave him for five minutes to go get it? I really don't want him to wake
up and find him alone in the apartment... and he's certain to have
nightmares tonight, after dragging up all those bad memories. If one starts
while I'm gone--*
Duo whimpered softly, pulling himself into a
tighter curl, one hand clutching at the neck of his T-shirt. The other hand
started patting over the blankets on the empty side of the bed.
*Screw
the laundry.* Wufei pulled the covers back and slid carefully into bed
beside Duo, holding him close.
------------------------
end
'Reunion' chapter 11
------------------------
Note:
*'begrepen'
= 'acknowledged'
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