******************************************
                         Security Blanket (4)
                                or
            About 10 Lines of Significant Conversation
            ******************************************

	"...So the teacher was passing by Umi's desk when he saw that 
she was writing a note and so he confiscated it of course and read it 
aloud to the class and that was when everyone found out that she had a 
secret crush on Mike only I guess it's not so secret now...."

	My chatter continues, my mouth set on auto-pilot, weaving its 
blanket of words with well-worn practice.  The empty babble comforts me 
in its own way, wraps around me and protects me, from both the inside 
and the out.  It's a familiar routine, one that I've indulged in for 
years now.  It's almost like an alter-ego, when the words take on a life 
of their own.  It's happened that, in the midst of conversation, I've 
realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about at the 
time, and no conception of how I got there.

	"...And then Nathaniel told Jenni that way funny joke we heard 
yesterday in phys ed only of course you didn't laugh but Jenni was like 
totally grossed out and threw her lit book at him, you know that small 
one that's basically about that goatherd and the shepherdess who can't 
figure out how to have sex only that's really an entire allegory on the 
strictness of social class distinctions...." (3)

	I could, should find it disturbing, I suppose.  But I don't.  
Because they shelter me, and fill the icy silence in my soul.  My heart 
used to be filled with joy.  Back in the good old days, before my hands 
became stained with blood, my soul was filled by the love of two of 
God's servants, who took in orphans like me and gave them a place to 
call home.  My childhood, meager as it was, contained happiness and 
companionship, and when I'm feeling depressed and nostalgic, I can still 
hear the sound of Sister Helen singing us lullabies in the night, of 
Billy whining that Annie tried to kiss him, of Jason and Micah and Fred 
playing ball with a beat up sphere of leaves and twine, of Father 
Maxwell telling me to go to school and never mind the bullies.

	And then all of their voices were silenced, suddenly and 
terribly, and I took it upon myself to try to replicate it all, to keep 
alive the jubilant voices of the past, to tune out the lonely silence 
that their passing had left behind inside me.

	I think that's why his silence annoys me so.  He often just sits 
there, as he is doing now, the victim of my attentions, the only sound 
from him the keyclack and a mouse click.  His stillness reminds me of 
the void that remains within me, that void I try so desperately to fill 
with my words.  There are times when I can forget the emptiness, times 
when the grins are real and the laughter unforced, but always, I return 
to my isolation, the sole survivor of a tragedy years past, always 
alone.

	I envy his stillness, and this is also a reason his silence 
annoys me.  I wish I could speak as he does, only when I feel the need 
to, only when I have something of interest to express.  It would mean 
that I had been able to put the past behind me, to lay to rest the 
disturbing ghosts of my childhood.  But I suppose I can't really envy 
him his stillness, because, like my words, which protect me, his silence 
is every bit as much as a security blanket.

	The image brings a slight smile to my lips as they spill forth 
yet more meaningless background noise.  A chibi-Heero, clinging with one 
hand to a nappy old blanket, a faded blue that once was the brilliant 
color of his eyes, the thumb of his other stuck in his mouth, as kawaii 
as he could be.  I know he's changed, but not *that* much.  
Nevertheless, he has changed.  A lot.  It's not obvious, I suppose, but 
then, I've been in a position to observe him for some time now.  He 
doesn't talk much more than he used to, and he isn't much more friendly 
than he used to be, so I wonder just why I know with such certainty he's 
changed.  He still speaks concisely, without excess.  If he says 
something, you know it's worth listening to.  I've been able to talk to 
him more, have decent conversations, now that talking isn't likely to 
distract him from a mission or something.  It's given me some important 
insights into the inner workings of his mind, so I know he'll always be 
one for "comfortable silences".  But what I've found to be really 
disturbing lately is, I think he's actually listening to me.

	I think I'll test him.

                              ************

	He smiled.  Some private joke, no doubt.  I wonder if I will 
ever regain that ability, to be able to smile, laugh, have thoughts that 
have nothing to do with anything.  I think I must have had it, at some 
time.  At one point in my life, I must have been just a normal youth, 
some time before an assassin and a mad scientist got their hands on me.  
I've known that I've been lost for a long time now, but I remain firmly 
in the mindset that this is so -- that I am merely lost, having strayed 
from the proper path, but that one day I shall be able to find my way 
back.  This is what I must think, if I am ever to succeed in putting the 
war behind me.

	My mentor once said to me to follow my feelings.  I stopped 
doing that after a enemy base bombing that went awry.  I stopped wanting 
to feel after that.  With emotion came pain, and so I exiled my emotions 
to a far off corner of my mind, there to wait out this war in constant 
rebellion against the soldier in me, its jailor.

	"...Did you know that Latin and Japanese are like really 
similar?  Which is really weird because one's a dead language and one's 
like one even you speak.  You ever hear that poem 'Latin is a dead 
language....'"

	He is fascinating to observe.  I know he has as many shadows 
haunting him as I do, I've heard him in the night, rustling restlessly 
in his sleep, been there for him as he struggled to free himself from 
the grip of a dark nightmare, just as he has done for me.  Despite it 
all, though, he still manages to find some joy in life, he who once 
called himself Shinigami, the god of death.  I know that most of his 
manic attitude, the grins and the jokes, don't really reflect who he is 
inside, for there is no way that he could have participated in so bloody 
a war with such as his true self.  But sometimes the true Duo Maxwell 
shines through, mostly in his quiet moments, and I know that he can 
still take pleasure from seeing another sunset, enjoy the renewal that 
comes after a fresh, clean rain, lay claim to some happiness in helping 
those around him share in his laughter.  He can experience all of this 
and more, and yet we are so similar, only hiding behind different masks.

	There is irony in the fact that I look to him as a model of 
behavior, and that I rely upon him as a guide as I slowly try to put my 
life back on track.  The sheer extrovertive force of his personality may 
be only a facade, and yet it still managed to touch me as nothing else 
did, and when I saw beyond the joker's mask, saw that he could still 
smile and laugh truly despite the pain, I knew then that he would be the 
one to help me find my way.  I am like a child clinging to his mother's 
skirts, keeping my faith that he shall not betray me.

	When Dr. J determined that I had displayed an excess of emotion 
after killing my first innocents, he had me retrained, and the purpose 
of that was for me to cease to feel anything that could get in the way 
of my mission.  I didn't stop myself from feeling altogether, but rather 
locked away the feelings to a place where they wouldn't bother me, but 
where they seethed against my detachment.

	Just because my emotions were held prisoner in my heart, that 
doesn't mean they were silenced.  I hear them all of the time, clamoring 
to escape, urging me to follow the last words of Odin Lowe, and be true 
to myself.  I was very good at ignoring their call in the beginning, but 
after I awoke from my month long coma, it seems as if, without my 
constant supervision, my feelings had decided to revolt.  Sometimes the 
emotions threatened to drown me in their noise, to crash me upon the 
rocks disastrously with their siren's call, but I couldn't give in 
during the war, and so I crafted my barrier of silence as a weapon 
against the restive murmurs, to wage my own inner war against a part of 
me that even now I am only beginning to negotiate with.  The me that I 
have displayed to the world is just a proxy, for the real me has also 
been held inside with those same emotions that I have locked away.  The 
compromise process between the two is a long one, both sides making too 
many demands too soon, but I never expected to be able to reconstruct a 
new identity for these peaceful times at all, let alone quickly.

	This may be peace time, but I am engaged in a new war.  The war 
to be free.  This time, I am the battlefield, both the rebel and the 
oppressor.  The cause is my own, the goal is peace of mind, it is my 
past versus my future, but it is still a mission that I am determined to 
succeed in.  With emotions may still come pain, but I am well used to 
pain by now.  I'm surprised I ever let it stop me in the first place.

	"Hey, if bread evolved into a sentient creature, do you think 
it'd be a vegetarian or a carnivore?"

	He doesn't think that I'm listening.  I'm always listening.  At 
first, his words irritated me.  I felt they resonated with and 
compounded the turmoil of my feelings, tried in conjunction to seduce me 
back into a painful state of life.  But now, his words are almost as 
comforting as my silence, for both serve to smother the restless 
whispers of my soul.

	I think I'll surprise him today.

                              ************

	"Carnivore.  Otherwise, it'd be a cannibal."

	Eh?  What's this?  He answered.  Sounds like he was listening 
after all.... Ch'.  Looks like he got me this time.  Can't let it show, 
though.  Wouldn't do to give him an opportunity to ply that charming 
smirk of his at me.

	"Yeah, really?  Ya think it's because of all that sandwich meat 
it's always in contact with?  Like, one day it decides that it wants to 
try some for itself?  The bread's gonna figure eventually that there 
must be something to that sandwich meat...."

	I hate that smirk.  I love that smirk.  If he smirks, it means 
that something managed to get a reaction from him, and it makes me all 
warm and fuzzy inside knowing that it was me, knowing that none of the 
others can manage to get him to react as often as I can.  Every day I 
spend with him is like a constant discovery, an adventure to see what 
new and previously unseen treasures will surface.  A real smile, not a 
smirk.  A real chuckle, not the maniacal laughter that accompanies the 
adrenaline rush which comes with a mission well done.  An inaudible 
inhalation of surprise, a widening of the eyes, not just a raised 
eyebrow.  I feel privileged to be able to see this minor miracle in 
action, like watching a rose bloom in a desert.  Every time I see 
another honest reaction from him counts as a victory in my book.  A 
victory against what, I do not know.  Maybe a small victory against the 
war which interrupted and ruined our lives.

	I remember that time, right after the war, when we were all 
returning from MO-II.  I had just left Quatre and Trowa behind, in the 
room where Quatre was recovering from the injury that Dorothy gave him.  
I hadn't been able to find any champagne, alcoholic or otherwise, but I 
had found cups, and having shared with Quatre and Trowa, I figured I'd 
hunt for Heero, or perhaps Wufei, and spread some more joy.  Those two 
needed it, I think, more than we three.

	I found Heero first, seated on a window sill, staring intently 
out at the Earth that we had all struggled so hard to save, as if 
somehow, by his will alone, he could reform the continents into words 
which spoke the answer to an unvoiced question.  I found my own gaze 
drawn to the blue orb, marveling once more in the beauty which so many 
failed to appreciate.  Staring at it made me recall again how 
insignificant I was, compared to the whole Earth, but still, I was glad 
that I hadn't needed to sacrifice myself for it, for then I wouldn't 
have had the opportunity that I do now to finally enjoy the beauty of 
Earth firsthand and personally.

	Heero didn't notice me until I was only a few feet from him.  He 
tore his gaze away from the planet and turned the same smoldering 
scrutiny upon me, and what I saw there ran tremors through my world.  
His own dark blue orbs showed more emotion than I had ever seen them 
express.  Before he blinked his expression away and asked me what I 
wanted, hiding once more behind that stoic mask, I clearly saw there 
pain and confusion.  It was the look of someone who had looked inside of 
himself and found nothing of his own to cling to.  It was in that moment 
that suddenly the enormity of what we had done finally came crashing 
down on top of me.

	It was funny that during the war it would be me who would come 
up with the wild dreams of the future that I'd share with the others in 
an attempt to draw our minds away from the depressing present, while 
Heero never seemed to concentrate on anything besides the mission that 
was directly before him.  Now, though, it was me who had been thinking 
only about the present, the fact that the war was over, and I had 
forgotten to look towards the future.  It was obvious that Heero, 
without any more missions to expect, was lost, wondering what he would 
do now that it was over.  I think we had finally cured him of his death 
wish and sparked some desire in him to try living in this peace that he 
had done so much to gain, but he had no idea where or how to start.  
Neither did I.

	The look in his eyes was one I'll never forget, and it's the 
same look I saw in the mirror this morning, when I realized that once 
again, we would have to find a new path for ourselves.  I suddenly 
sober, put the empty words back into storage once more and speak to 
Heero in an uncharacteristically normal tone of voice, which ironically 
enough is probably more "me" than that other which is heard so much more 
often.

                              ************

	"Na, Heero.  What are you planning on doing after we graduate?"

	Hn.  The manic edge has gone from his voice.  To the casual 
listener, he still sounds normal, but compared to his usual animation, 
the difference is astounding, and it screams to me that he's in one of 
his more introspective moods.  The fact that he's stopped fidgeting, has 
even stopped toying with the end of his braid, gives me the degree of 
his somberness.  The sudden shift in topic easily indicates to me that 
this is a question that's been preying on his mind for some time.  The 
silence that follows his question lets me know that he's serious, that 
he's going to wait for an answer from me, that he isn't just musing idly 
to himself aloud.  The way he doesn't look at me says he's still trying 
to find his own answer.

	It frightens me, a little, how well I must know him in order to 
be able to read him like this.  But it's a fear that I will embrace, 
because it means that I'm alive and making some progress in my effort to 
rejoin humanity.  I think he's my best friend, after all.  It takes more 
effort for me to read the others, but it seems like I've always been 
able to understand Duo, even back when I first met him, when I didn't 
want to.  I know he shot me twice when first we met, but I can't even 
begrudge him that.  I probably would have done the exact same thing had 
our positions been reversed, only I wouldn't have been so nice about it.

	His question lingers in the air for a while.  After we graduate.  
That's a question that I've been pondering for some time now as well, 
and I think maybe I've found my answer.

	The time of our leaving this school is soon, a few weeks from 
now.  It was Quatre who first suggested that after the war we all try to 
finally finish high school.  As if we all didn't already know enough 
calculus and physics to win ourselves a college degree or two.  But we 
all agreed with the idea anyways.  It was something of a desperate 
stalling technique, I think, something to give us a little time to 
adjust to the "real world" before deciding on the roads that would be 
the beginning of our new lives.  We would have something to do, but 
nothing strenuous.  We would have to interact with each other and with 
"normal" people, our "peer group", people who had nothing to do with war 
and blood and death.  And no matter what we did, earning a high school 
diploma would no doubt be useful for our futures.  All in all, it was a 
very satisfactory plan for an efficient use of our time. (2)

                              ************

	"After we graduate.... I think I've found something that I want 
to do."

	For some reason, it irks me that Heero may have figured it all 
out before I have.  But it figures.  He probably ran all the 
possibilities through some search algorithm in his brain or his laptop 
and came up with the optimal solution.

	"Well?", I demand.  "Don't just leave me hanging here, buddy.  
What didja find?"

	He stays silent for a moment.  This silence is hesitation, a 
silence I don't hear from him very often.  Usually it's the silence of 
someone who doesn't have anything he feels he needs to share.  I wait 
him out, knowing that he will eventually answer.  Heero Yuy is not one 
to let a little hesitation get in his way, nor is he the only one who 
can stay silent for long periods of time.  But I wonder what it is that 
he's found....

	The silence stretches a bit.  It almost seems as if he's 
forgotten my question, as he keeps his beautiful eyes glued to his 
laptop screen.  I give up.  I get up off my bed and walk up behind him 
to finally find out what it is on that cold screen that has held his 
attention for so long.  I put my right hand on his shoulder and rest my 
left elbow on his ever-tousled head, hoping that maybe I can irritate an 
answer out of him, but what I see surprises me once again.

	"...What is that?" I ask quietly.  I can see well enough what it 
is.  Pictures of destroyed buildings.  Homes that we and others like us 
destroyed in the war that swallowed all humanity.  Seeing them brings 
back memories, of the time when I was left staring at the ruins of the 
only real home I had ever known, and the corpses of two people who cared 
enough to take in a street brat like me and try to give him something 
better.

	He knows me well enough not to answer with the obvious.  I know 
him well enough not to expect him to answer with words.  He clicks a few 
things with his mouse and I see information about the location of the 
disaster areas pop up, plus statistics and current status reports.  My 
eyes fix upon the image of a run down church, the name of a missionary 
group, a group of tired-looking yet content people standing in front of 
it, a request for volunteers to help re-construct.

	This time I answer him with silence, and so he responds with 
words.

	"What do you think?"

                              ************

	His response is to remove his elbow from my head.  I look up at 
him and see that he has reached up to clutch at his cross.  That gesture 
and the distant look in his eyes tells me that he's thinking of Maxwell 
Church, the tragedy which still haunts him.  He murmurs absently, 
something vague about how he thinks it's a great idea.  I reach my own 
hand up and place it on top of the one resting upon my shoulder and 
speak his name.  He looks down at me, startled out of his reverie, but 
makes no move to response.

	I'm getting worried.  I know there's something, something he's 
holding back from me, so I tease him lightly to try to get him to open 
himself to me.

	"What?  No words?"

	His words are all empty, I know this, but it doesn't matter, 
doesn't get in the way, for all of the important things that have passed 
between us have been unsaid, encompassed by a touch of support, a look 
of the eyes.  I latch onto them, though, as something familiar to draw 
him out with.

	The light fades from his eyes as he moves away to seat himself 
on my bed.  There's a morose look in those violet pools, a swirling 
disturbance of lingering sorrow that makes me want to, no, need to reach 
out to him and soothe the pain away, and in so doing, perhaps take a 
little of my own pain away.

	"Duo.... daijoubu ka?"

                              ************

	He never ceases to amaze me.  The depth of emotion that he can 
manage to convey with so few words.  Every gesture, every word, all 
executed with such economy, to produce the maximum effect with the least 
amount of expression.  Unlike me.

	"I'm tired, Heero.  That's all.  Just tired."

	I try to muster up my usual grin and pray that he just lets it 
go at that, but neither works.  He doesn't seem to accept that as an 
answer as he gets up from his laptop and seats himself beside me.  I 
heave a sigh as I fall back on his covers with a creak of old school-bed 
mattress springs, staring searchingly up at the off-white ceiling as if 
there were a message contained in the bumpy surface of the stuccoed 
blankness.  

	Seeing no answers in the uncaring ceiling, I bring my hands up 
behind my head and return my gaze to my friend.  There is a question in 
his pose, an invitation in his posture.  His eyes offer his tacit 
support, and I know that he will listen to whatever I have to say, with 
gentle patience and an earnest attempt at understanding, and suddenly 
everything that I thought I didn't want to say comes bubbling to the 
surface in a flood of truth which I can not stop.  I am powerless to 
resist the way his prussian eyes seem to look into my soul and touch me.  
There is a flame that burns within them, and I gravitate towards the 
searing heat of his gaze like a ship that has seen too long a journey 
and finally spots the lighthouse's radiance piercing through the fog, 
come to save it from the unforgiving shoals.  I decide to let it all go, 
call his bluff, and fling my spirit into his care, to allow him to bring 
his fire into my darkness and chase the shadows away.

	"Take my words," I declare suddenly.  "Just take them away.  I 
don't want them anymore."  He's startled at the vehemence of my quiet 
outburst, but I in turn am taken slightly aback by the intensity of his 
steady look, and I can not deny his silent request that I explain.  I 
will try my best to do so, although my words have suddenly deserted me 
beneath the demand in his eyes, and I don't really understand what 
prompted it myself.

	"I.... It's just that.... Well...."  Great.  I'm already 
faltering.  I close my eyes and take a moment to gather my thoughts, and 
then begin again.

	"I don't want them anymore," I repeat slowly in a subdued tone.  
"I used to take pride in my credo, 'I run, I hide, but I never lie'.... 
But it's all been a lie, just one big lie, my whole life.... The words, 
they aren't real.  They aren't me.  And I'm tired of keeping it up.  
Why?" I whisper, squeezing my eyelids shut, trying to keep the tears 
from forming.  "Why can't I just put them away?"  Security blankets are 
great and all, keeping you warm and protected at first, but after a 
while, they can begin to stifle you, and I was now finding that the 
words which had prevented the silence from engulfing me were now 
consuming me as well.  I wish sometimes for his silence to reach out and 
embrace me, to seize my words and relieve me of my burden.

	I feel him shift on the bed, lean his weight back on one hand, 
but never do I feel a lessening of his gaze upon me.  I stubbornly 
continue, oddly trying to find the words to explain why I didn't want my 
words, hoping he'd miss the faintly desperate edge to my voice that I 
fail to remove completely.

                              ************

	"I mean, what are they for, really?  Just for filling up the 
holes in my heart, something to chase away the solitude.... But they're 
not working anymore.  I want something else, something more.  Something 
to fill me, something permanent, not just a patch job...."

	He trails off, leaving only silence in his wake.  He sounds so 
lost, as lost as I ever was, and it pains me to see my best friend this 
way, to see him as I was.  I need to do something, anything to bring 
back the Duo I'm used to, the one I need, my best friend, the only one 
who can help me, the one who first brought me away from that same 
spiritual desert into which he seems to have strayed.  He and I are the 
only ones without a place to return to; Quatre must return to L4 to 
manage his family holdings, Trowa can reunite with the circus and 
Catherine, and Wufei will likely go back to the Preventers, but we, Duo 
and I, we have nowhere, and nothing.

	The answer strikes me, ambushes me from out of the blue.  It 
seems so obvious that I wonder if my consciousness had gone about 
planning it from the very beginning without bothering to notify me of 
its intentions.

	I take a breath before plunging forward.  "...If you haven't 
found anything to do yet..."  My voice seems to be filled with a nervous 
anticipation, yet I can not despise it for its presence.  "...maybe 
you'd like to join me?  Help rebuild what we helped destroy?"

	His violet eyes flicker open suddenly, a little wild around the 
edges, and he fixes me with a vision of anguished emptiness.  I think 
it's about time he made some new memories, to fill those holes in his 
heart and replace the image of the desecrated ruins of his home with 
something clean and blessed.  I draw a breath to argue my case.

	Before I can continue, he seems to snap back to reality and cuts 
me off.

	"Yes.  I... I think I'd like that."

	The breath that I'd gather to speak leaves me in a relieved 
exhalation.  I was fairly certain that this was the right path for me, 
but somehow, it seemed wrong, terribly wrong, to be doing it without Duo 
by my side.  I suppose I'd gotten used to him.  We've been rooming 
together since the end of the war.  No one knows me better than he does, 
and I think no one knows him as well as I do.  I could easily see past 
his facade, now, just as he could see beyond mine, as each of us clung 
desperately to the faces that we were so accustomed to wearing, almost 
afraid to find out who we really were beneath them, but finding out 
nevertheless.  And now, it seems like it's finally time to let them go, 
to drop the masks, leave them behind in favor of a new face, one filled 
with hope for the future.

	I give his hand a gentle squeeze.  "Thank you," I reply softly.  
I know that nothing more needs to be spoken, that even that expression 
of gratitude seems superfluous, so instead I find myself flashing him 
what may be the most genuine smile I've ever fell victim to, knowing 
that he'll take in everything I might have said with a single look.  
It's more a upward quirking of my lips, a softening of the eyes.  
Nothing particularly obvious, but I know he'll catch it.  It's not much, 
but it seems right for me.  There is no need for me to be other than me 
when I'm with him.  I haven't worn a real smile for so long, I imagine 
it'll take a little practice, but I think if I ever put on one of Duo's 
grins, people would run fleeing in terror.

	He blinks a few times before briefly squeezing my hand in 
response and giving me his own smile in return.  It's nothing near his 
usual wide grin, but it's dazzling nevertheless, filled as it is with 
warmth and gratitude with just a dash of his usual cockiness.  I feel my 
heart contract painfully at the thought of what might have happened if 
he had refused my offer, but with the promise of his company, I feel 
more confident than I've ever felt that maybe I -- we -- could recover 
from the war and find a little peace for ourselves.

                              ************

(2) Endless Waltz is relatively inconvenient here.  You can get rid of
    it if you like.
(3) The book here referenced is "Daphnis and Chloe" by Longus.  Good
    book.  ^_^
(4) Working title.  Seems to be a recurring theme, even though it
    doesn't have much to do with anything.
(7) This one's for Thumper, who got me stuck on the idea of a fic. =P
(8) Standard disclaimers apply.
(9) I rooted the rest of the 'moments' timeline on this one, but the 
    characterizations represented here and the ones given later are just
    a little bit different.  Not significantly enough to cause any issues,
    but just enough for me to want to apologize for it.  When I wrote this,
    I really didn't have any plans to keep going.
(10)Time : AC 196 May


_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
property of the little turnip that could.  
The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 10/11/2001 14:19:30 PST