Frozen

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. They belong to Bandai, Sunrise, and affiliates.

Duo watched the play of light on shadow that penetrated the darkness of the room, emiting from the glow of the monitor, as Heero sat, forever typing at his laptop. The planes of his face were drastically sharpened by the contrast, giving his chiseled features an almost spectral air.

"So Heero," he said finally, affecting a playful tone,"Watcha doin'?"

"Typing," said Heero pointedly, his eyes never shifting from the glow of the screen.

Duo rolled his eyes and stood. He trotted over to where Heero sat and leaned against the back of his chair.

Instantly Heero hit the escape button.

The screen went blank.

"I think I'll go to bed now," said Heero needlessly.

Duo stood, stunned. He hadn't witnessed the "perfect soldier" finally hit the sack in about a month now. Then a sly grin crept across his face.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that wasn't exactly mission data you were recording there, buddy. What is it, a secret diary or somethin'?"

Heero was spared his curt reply by a sudden tickling sensation in his left eye. Irritably, he rubbed at it.

"You okay?" questioned Duo, concerned.

"Don't be stupid," Heero snapped. "I'm fine. Like I said, I'm going to bed now." Turning, he made his way to his cot.

Duo fumed at Heero's back for a few momments, then returned to his own bed, to resume staring at the ceiling.

"Nine hundred ninety-nine, one thousand..." Duo paused. Deep, even breathing from the adjacent cot.

Sitting up, the Shinigami pilot made his way to Heero's laptop, were it rested on the small desk at the foot of his bed.

Duo bit the inside of his cheek. Just a peek, and then he could get to sleep. And if it was a diary, he amended himself, he wouldn't read it.

Flipping up the top, Duo booted the computer. He delved into the history and pulled up the latest file.
It was a graphics document.

Duo stared.

In 3D, with stunning clarity, was a single perfect snowflake. It's fine patterns of ice crystals were stunningly detailed, and its silver cast lent it an etheral shine.

"Wow," said Duo softly. "Heero can really..."

The mound of blankets stirred.

Like a flash Duo flipped down the top, pulled the plug, and dove under the covers. Heart pounding, he waited.

Silence.

Duo let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding.

He snuggled deeper within the covers, and fell asleep instantly.

Duo looked around. He was at the orphanage, where he had spent the happiest days of his childhood. It looked just as he remembered it, down to his smaller point of view.

He was in Sister Helen's room, and there was Sister Helen, fast asleep.

Duo wiped away tears threatening at the corners of his eyes. He kissed Sister Helen on the cheek, but couldn't stay, for some urgency threatened at the edge of his tranquility.

Duo left the orphanage.

Am I dreaming, Duo wondered as he slowly walked away from the cathedral. It was summertime, and the sun seemed to radiate warmth and calm, though his anxiety somehow still threatened.

At length, he came to a small river that hadn't been there before.

Duo stood for a minute, and looked into its depths.

Then he started. In the rivlets and currents of its depths he suddenly saw...Heero. Heero's thick, dark hair, Heero's chiseled features, and Heero's gun-metal blue eyes. Heero...

"Heero?" said Duo tenatively. But the image vanished.

Duo stood uncertainly on the bank of the river. He felt stupid, but...

"I'll give you my crucifix if you tell me where he is."

The waves seemed to nod in agreement, and so he threw it in.

The current simply carried it back to land.

Must not of thrown it hard enough, He thought as he scooped up the crucifix. He noticed a boat in the nearby reeds, and so climbed in, intending to through the pendant from the far end.

"K'so," Duo swore as his movement sent the boat sailing from the shore. He hurried to reach the end, but it was too late, he was yards from the bank.

His little crucifix, surprisingly enough, bobbed after the boat as the current swiftened, but still, he couldn't reach it.

And so he sat, and watched, as the bank and Sister Helen grew farther and farther away.

At length Duo's boat ran aground, and he got out. He looked to retrieve his crucifix, but it was gone.

"Duo!" A familiar voice exclaimed.

"Hilde?" Duo answered in surprise.

Duo watched as Hilde exited from an iron gate, what seemed to be the only entrance to a tall, walled area.

"Well don't just stand there!" She said. "Come in!"

Duo walked the long, dark corridors of his friend's fortress. The air was clamy but not stale, and the chambers were surprisingly barren. He was sure he had been staying there for a couple of days at least, and worried about imposing, though Hilde assured him he was more than welcome there. He couldn't help but feel restless as well, though he didn't know why.

When Duo had asked why Hilde was living in such a place, she had looked at him strangely and replied,
"But this is where I always am." Duo hadn't asked again.

Duo sighed. This had to be a dream. A very real dream, but a dream.

Duo paused. He had come to a branch in the corridor, and turned down a passageway that was very different from the one he had come down.

Lining the walls were painting after painting, all landscape scenes, and all worlds at the height of summer, spring, or fall.

Something tickled at the back of Duo's mind, but he couldn't quite place what it was.

He found himself speeding up as he strolled down the dim corridor, searching for something, though didn't know what.

With a gasp Duo stopped and stared. He looked upon a summer scene, in which a young man stood, his back turned, his eyes on an unseen distance. And in his dark locks, resting like solid light against the darkness, was a single, spun-silver snowflake.

Duo didn't know how long he had been running, or when he'd first realized he had entered a wood.

He blinked.

It was early autumn, the leaves were already turning colors and littering the forest floor.

But...

Suddenly, with a thump and flurry of leaves, a large raven landed right in front of Duo, and ruffling its feathers, coughed in its wounded dignity.

It stared at Duo, and Duo stared at it.

Duo started.

It looked like... looked like...

Duo burst out laughing. The raven sweat-dropped as it watched Duo roll about in the leaves, howling in glee.

"Wu..Wu...Wu-man....you're a crow!"

"I am a raven," the raven said, beak high, "and my name is Wufei."

"Whatever man, this is just too good!"

Wufei waited with no small amount of impatience as Duo got over his hysterics once more. Sitting up, he regarded the cr...er, raven with a sudden revelation.

"Hey, Wu-man, you know where Heero is?"

"Don't call me that, and yes, I happen to know where Yuy is. He is at the palace of Prince Quatre. My tame sweetheart, Nataku, saw him there herself." Wufei paused. "I suppose I'll take you there."

"Thanks Wu-man!" Duo called out to the raven as he took off, and he followed.

As they went, they talked.

Or at least, Duo talked.

"...And so I'm in this boat, and my crucifix is floatin' after me, and I'm like..." The last of the thinning brush was surpassed, and Duo and Wufei abruptly came to...desert.

Duo blinked.

About 100 yards of desert to be exact, an entirely different habitat contained in a single clearing, and in the middle a palace, like in a fairytale, unlike Hilde's fortress, more for comfort than for defense.

"Well, here we are," Wufei announced. He alighted on one of the last bushes before than end of the forest. "You stay here. I'll get us in." And with that, he took off.

Duo stood and idley played with his braid. He noticed how the temperature had changed drasticly once they had left the forest, and he fanned himself.

After awhile, Wufei returned. For some reason he had a chagrined expression on his face.

"Okay, come on."

"So you see," said Wufei from his perch on the arm of the throne. "It was merely an error on my part." Wufei paused sheepishly.

"Wufei must have mistaken Trowa's description for Heero's, and that's where the mix up is," clarified Quatre, his blue eyes sympathetic.

Trowa merely nodded.

Duo couldn't keep the disappointed expression from his face.

"We can help you find Heero though," said Quatre after a moment.

"Come on."

They came to the courtyard of the palace, an extravegant open-air afair with a fountain, of all things in the desert. But the fountain wasn't what made Duo's eyes light up.

Duo whooped, "Oh man, Shinigami!"

Duo's gundam lay conspiciously in the center of the marble courtyard.

"Hey Quatre, thanks man! This'll help alot!"

"I'm glad," said. "I hope you find Heero."

Duo smiled. "I hope so too."

Duo looked down on the forest stretching out below him, and thought about his goal. Dream or no, the quest for Heero had become a point of much determination, and he'd be damned if he he was going to just quit.

Suddenly Duo felt a jolt throughout Shinigami, rocking him in his seat and causing him to clutch at his control panel. He looked out, a "Nani?" forming on his lips.

It looked like...wha...a couple of dozen strings where being flung from below, and looped around Shinigami to tug it to the ground.

Duo sat and watched as this ridiculous feat was accomplished, and Shinigami was brought to terra firma.

The hatch opened, and Duo's eyes widened. It was his gang, from back when he lived on the streets, older versions of them, as they might look today. And there was...there was Solo, who alone had not aged a day.

"Solo..." he breathed, choked up.

"Kid?" Solo blinked. "What're you doing in here?"

His old gang had taken him to, apparently, a little back alley in the middle of the woods. Duo just couldn't be surprised anymore.

Solo sat and listened, after the others had all wandered off, to Duo's narrative, and finally responded, "I could show you to another way, the only way to get to the place where Heero is." He paused. "It may hurt you though."

Duo didn't inquire as to why he couldn't take his gundam where he was going. Instead he asked, "How could it hurt me?"

Solo motioned with his head toward the deeper reaches of the alley, and Duo followed.

Duo froze, his eyes widening to their natural limits. At the sight of the vehicle, his bribe to the soldiers, he was taken back to that fateful night, the night when his world had died.

"Can you take it?"

Duo looked back a Solo, so much smaller now, though he was just the same as always, and thought about a certain pair of peircing cobalt eyes. A gaze that somehow held the nightmares at bay.

Duo nodded.

Duo sat at the wheel, and drove the truck over icy terrain. The biting cold seeped through the tightly closed windows, and Duo tried to stop shivering.

Duo glimpsed something through the fogged windows, and he abruptly leaned forward, eyes widening.

A palace, not unlike Quatre's, yet made entirely of ice. It's crystalline towers winked at him blindingly, and its sharp spires tapered to deadly points.

Duo lept from the car, and raced for the entrance.

Hallway after hallway he raced, the same urgency seizing him here as had in Hilde's fortress, driving him relentlessly toward a certain pair of cobalt eyes. Room after room of dazzling, blemishless, impecable, fake windows, meals, rugs, tapestries, nothing was warm, nothing sustaining, nothing was there until...

Duo screeched to a halt, breathing hard, his breath fogging before him.

He stood at one end of a corridor, identical to all the rest, save one thing at the opposite end.

Relena, glaring up a storm.

"Okay ojasan," Duo said wearily, "let me..."

"No," Relena answered, not waiting for him to finish. "I know you're trying to get to Heero. I won't let you. Heero knows what he wants, now."

"...As I was saying..." Duo halted mid-sentence.

"Nani?"

Relena smiled triumphantly, "Why would my Heero want you, when he could have me?"

Duo thought he would agree with her, inside. He thought he's turn around, and leave heavy-hearted.

But instead he smiled.

Relena started in surprise at the expression. She was even more surprised, when Duo walked right through her. The insubstantial queen fumed silently, and then vanished.

Duo stood in a large chamber, on an ice floor that stretched on 'til the shadowy recessess of tall ice walls. In the center of the room was a lone figure assembling and disassembling a shattered snowflake. In the center of the room was a bowed head, a shock of dark hair, and eyes the color of tempered gunmetal.

In the center of the room, was Heero.

Duo awoke to the play of sunlight on his eyelids, and groaned. That was the weirdest dream...

"Glad you finally decided to get up," an annoyed voice cut through his reverie.

Duo sat up and regarded Heero, who was packing for their next move. He came to a realization within himself, and sighed as his complicated life just became more so. Then he forced a smile pounced on a nearby hairbrush.

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