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Something I Can Never Have Coming back from a long day at work, Duo unlocked the door and plopped his bag on the floor next to the entrance to his little apartment. The silence greeted him as it had every day for the past two years. He was getting used to it, although if you had asked him 2 years ago if he could stand any kind of silence, he would have laughed in your face and asked you what you were on and where could you get HIM some of that? At first, the silence had completely driven him crazy. He’d had housewarming parties, invited the neighbors, the landlord, people from down the block – just in order to fill the silence and quiet that was driving him up the wall. But he couldn’t keep up the constant partying AND keep his apartment. So when that had slowed down, he’d invested in a big screen TV and a state-of-the-art stereo system in order to fill the silence. But since he couldn’t leave either of them on all day while he was at work, he still came home to silence. And emptiness. He got a cat for company, but it somehow made things worse – emphasized the loneliness of the place. He hadn’t been able to bear it for long and had ended up giving the cat away. Duo was sure the cat was much happier in its new home. “After all,” Duo said without even a trace of bitterness, “Trowa is a natural with animals.” And with the Perfect Soldier treating it like a mission, that cat was probably getting the best care a cat could ever have. Especially compared to a single guy who was away most of the day, who forgot to put out the CatNip, who forgot to change the cat litter until the smell made it advisable if not obvious, and who routinely drowned his sorrows (and he had plenty) in a few beers after coming home from work at the Preventers. Given, his job with the Preventers was very satisfying, if a bit boring at times. The adrenaline rushes were few and far between these days. For a while, just after the war, Duo had worked with the other pilots in the Preventers Headquarters on earth. They’d been doing a lot of trouble-shooting and had been the only anti-terrorist group working for a while. The work hadn’t slowed down for at least a year. Then Preventers had finally gotten more of a handle on things; other trouble-shooters and anti-terrorist groups were being formed and trained. And best of all, they were actually working well and quite efficiently together. The pressure on the pilots had decreased dramatically and had finally allowed the pilots some time for the kind of lives for which they’d been fighting so long. Wufei and Sally, who had been in an on-again, off-again, unofficial relationship, finally tied the knot. Quatre had quit the Preventers and turned his attention to his business and family. He stayed in touch with all of them, of course, by constantly having little “reunions” and “get-togethers” for the wartime companions. Quatre would usually hold the get-togethers at one of his houses closest to wherever most of the pilots were. Since most of them had decided to stay at Preventers Headquarters on earth, few of them were out of range to attend one of Quatre’s parties. And even though Quatre had indeed left Preventers to pursue his own business, he was in constant contact with them and had several side ventures and investments which brought him into direct dealings with the Preventers on a weekly basis. The long-overdue vacation from the Preventers work had allowed Heero and Trowa to acknowledge feelings that they’d apparently had for each other all along, but had been dancing around, each of them unable to justify their feelings for each other within the war-time and then the peace-keeping situations. Go figure. Duo had waited too long to make a move. He’d put his feelings for both Heero and Trowa aside during the war, hoping that the day would come when he’d be able to reveal his love for the other pilots. It was obvious to all the pilots, if to no one else, that their dedication to achieving peace was real and true. It sounded a bit silly, but they only had each other to admire and to look up to. For the fighting part of things, anyway. So how could he help but admire the other pilots? And with Duo’s soft spot for the strong, silent type, how could he have done anything but have his feelings of admiration and friendship for Heero and Trowa turn into something more? He had fallen head over heels for them both. His feelings of attraction and admiration toward them were only the tip of the iceberg, though. Duo didn’t know where the feelings had come from, but he wasn’t going to question them. For a while, Trowa and Quatre had seemed to have something going. And Trowa had seemed so content that Duo couldn’t bear to shatter his happiness in any way. So he had quietly put those feelings away, deep inside were they couldn’t be exposed to the light of day. And he concentrated more on his feelings toward Heero, thinking that he at least had a chance with the Wing pilot, if only after the war was over. That hope had kept him alive at times when he thought he’d have given up otherwise. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t depended on that hope so much. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d focused on that and excluded everything else. Apparently, he’d never even *had* a chance. Not a sliver of a chance, because it turned out that Heero and Trowa had been hiding their feelings – their love – for *each other.* It was like a nightmare, but it hurt too much to be anything but true. And after the amount of HIMSELF he’d put into that hope, that dream – and then to realize that there would NEVER be a chance of it coming true – he left. What else could he have done? It would have killed him to stay there, with their obvious love for each other – drowning him slowly but surely. So Duo had switched from the Preventers HQ to the L2 branch. Heero and Trowa had been surprised; they naturally thought they’d all work together at Preventers HQ. But they hadn’t questioned him when Duo said he wanted to transfer to the L2 branch. It was certainly true he wanted to make a difference there, where they needed help the most. But that hadn’t been the real reason for his transfer. He would have been happy making a difference at Preventers HQ… if he could have been with Heero or Trowa. But instead he was back home, on the colony that had spawned him, running and hiding from what he couldn’t bear to see. Duo had slipped into a depression for a short time and had been unable to bring himself to go on missions in the field, a bit worried that he’d get himself killed, but more worried he’d get his partner or backup team killed. The field is no place for an agent with a death wish. So he’d pleaded that he was burnt out and had requested a position in Mission Planning, where he could be in on part of the action, but not the danger. Duo had gradually worked out of the debilitating depression, and had found that he had a knack for mission planning. He found he was just as content not being in the field. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself. So he kept his nine-to-five desk job and put a smile on his face and came home to an empty apartment every night. And it was killing him. The pain was a constant in the background, so much so that he’d hardly noticed anymore. It was just something he lived with. Until something happened to trigger the painful memories. Like today. Quatre had called him to say that all the pilots were having another reunion. They had one at least every six months, but since he was on L2 with lots to do and they were all back on earth, he’d been able to avoid them. But this time, Quatre had told him that they were all coming to L2. Apparently they’d all worked out their vacation time so it coincided with his, so that they could drop in on the only pilot they hadn’t seen in person in two years. And there had been nothing Duo could do about it. He’d already arranged for vacation time, and he wouldn’t be able to change it on such short notice. Someone – he suspected Heero – had found out when Duo’s vacation was scheduled for so that they could work it all out. It’s not like Duo could prevent them from taking the trip to L2. And if he’d have preferred to avoid Heero and Trowa, he couldn’t turn them away or ignore them. He didn’t hate them. In fact, he’d like to kill whoever had come up with the saying, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” because it was sure as hell TRUE! Duo loved them even more now than he had during the war. He wanted so badly to see them, his friends, the ones he loved. Even besides Heero and Trowa, he wanted to see how Wufei and Sally were doing; he wanted to know how Quatre’s businesses were coming along, if he had found anyone to share his life with yet… Duo wanted to catch up on all the things you miss out on when you go out of your way to avoid keeping in touch. But most of all, Duo wanted to see Heero and Trowa, to have them look at him and suddenly realize that they had feelings for him too and to include him their relationship. But that was something Duo could never have. It seemed to be Duo’s fate to be alone, always so close to the center of the warmth, but still standing on the outside, chilled to the bone. The last two years had been like a prison sentence in isolation to the people-oriented pilot. Plain and simple, he missed his friends. And they were all coming to see him. So Duo would have to put up a good front for them. He didn’t want them to suspect anything. Not if it killed him. Which he suspected it would. +end part one+ -------------------------
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