Notes: Thanks to everyone for feedback, and to Arith for being my most wonderful muse, and helping me with all my chapters, and Sol for basically dragging me kicking and screaming to the page. I'm a very reluctant writer. (Also, most of the chaotic plotlines that will ensue are her responsibility.)

"Angels we have heard on high,
Singing sweetly through the night,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their brave delight."

      --- Angels We Have Heard On High
"The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces."
      --- Jim Morrison
"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it."
      --- Alexander Dumas

Requiem for the Sinners Part 12
Angels we Have Heard on High

When he finally landed in the hangar of L2, pulling the shuttle to a convulsive stop, Duo opened his eyes, unstrapping his harness. Heero slept deeply next to him, breathing in deep shudders. He was quiet and still.

It seemed that temporarily, the nightmares had passed. Duo put his hand over the Wing pilot's forehead. It felt like the metal hood of a car that had been sitting in the beating sun all day.

Unable to resist, Duo ran his fingers gently through the dark, soft hair of Heero's bangs, pushing them carefully back from where they had fallen into his face again. His eyes shone in the darkness of the cockpit.

"I'll be right back, buddy."

The unconscious pilot didn't answer him.

Moving carefully so he didn't rip the stitches out in his shoulder, Duo opened the hatch and climbed down. Three figures were approaching him at a trot. Harper. Howard. And Gabriel. Scratch that. The last was coming at him in a full-out sprint.

"Daddy!"

The boy ran through the hangar towards him, weaving in and out between the techs that were working the graveyard shift like a quarterback. He moved with the dexterity of a sneak-thief. Most of the mechanics looked up from where they were working on the ships, glancing in amusement at the boy as he ran past.

Duo was a little abashed at the kid's fervor, but he felt a goofy smile spreading across his face anyway.

He was finally home.

Duo had barely had time to hit the floor before sweeping the young Hispanic boy into his arms, laughing. "Gabe-man! How are you doin', kiddo? Isn't it a little past your bedtime? Like, four hours past?"

Gabriel's arms were like fierce steel bands around his neck. The boy covered his face with kisses. Duo laughed at the onslaught, squeezing him hard before pulling back a little, supporting him in one arm, even though the strain of it hurt his back like a bitch. "You okay? Drive your uncle Harper crazy yet?"

The boy hugged him tighter, burying his face against Duo's neck, whispering only loud enough for Duo to hear. Duo could feel the boy's heart thrumming hard through his shirt.

"You went away... you said you'd never go away..."

Duo's smile faded a little, and he pulled back from the boy. "I meant it. I'm back, aren't I? I just had a business trip to make. And now I'm back, right? Right."

"I had nightmares," Gabriel whispered, looking up at him with those soulful dark eyes that could seem so soft and sharp at the same time, reflective of a rabid, almost preternatural intelligence. "I dreamed you got shot."

His face was childlike and solemn as he reached up and touched the side of Duo's head reverently. "There was blood in your hair."

Duo shivered, but managed a grin at the kid anyway. "Well, I'm not shot, am I? Nope. Dreams are funny, aren't they?"

"Not mine..." the boy replied softly, leaning forward to hug Duo tightly again.

Duo hugged him back, planting a kiss on the boy's cheek. "It's fine, Gabe. Everything is fine. No worries, right?"

The boy smiled at him. "Right."Gabriel hugged him once more, a fleeting gesture, as if just reassuring himself that Duo was not dead, really was warm and breathing and alive.

He suddenly thought of something and let out an excited yelp in Duo's ear that left his head ringing. "Uncle Harper let me fly the ship, Daddy! He let me fly the Moloch!!"

Duo glared at Harper over the boy's shoulder. "Oh he did, did he?"

A sheepish grin spread across his lieutenant general's face, but Harper shook his head in a weak denial, teasing. "He made me, General. He's a persuasive brat."

"Hmph." But Duo smiled a little back at him, eyes sparkling with good humor. So Harper relaxed and knew it was okay, although he'd probably hear about it later. Duo was in too good of a mood to be bothered with it right now, anyway.

"Okay, kiddo. You gotta get down before I rip the stitches in my shoulder. You're too big to be carried."

Duo sat the kid on his feet, wincing a little as he straightened back up.

A wave of worry passed through the boy's dark eyes-eyes the color of fresh wet coffee grounds-before he smiled again. Gabriel had the sunniest, most unaffected smile Duo had ever seen in his life, coming from L2. And he had seen a lot in twenty years.

"You're a spaz, Daddy," the boy said. But not unkindly.

Duo ruffled the kid's black hair affectionately, smiling. "Yeah, yeah, Dad's a spaz. Be right back. I gotta help somebody out of the Watcher. You stay back now, okay? Don't get any closer, kiddo. Right there is just fine."

Gabriel didn't argue with him.

Harper spoke up from behind them. "By the way, Duo, we've been keeping on top of the Council. You didn't take care of that guy from L1... that Yuy... they said on the Telnet that he's still in action... got taken up by the Preventers as a traitor."

The euphemism that they used around Gabriel was not lost on Duo. He glanced at Harper, his voice serious and a little cold. "I know that. Why do you think I went back to Earth?"

Harper nodded, satisfied. So Heero Yuy was dead, then. Duo had taken care of him. After the way Duo had acted back in the conference center and at the party, he was surprised that Duo could do it at all. But Duo Maxwell was nothing if not unpredictable.

It was certainly a relief, anyway. Harper hadn't liked Heero Yuy. He was dangerous.

Duo climbed back up into the cockpit. Heero was sitting where Duo had left him, sleeping with his head lolled to the side of the seat like a person forced to travel in a public bus for an extended period of time, his face flushed.

"Okay pal, time to get out."

He threw Heero's arm over his shoulder, half-dragging him towards the hatch. "Jesus, Heero, you sure have gotten heavier in the last four years... sheesh..." he muttered, grimacing as he felt the muscles in his back wrench. He pulled the unconscious Wing pilot over his shoulder, backing slowly out of the cockpit.

"Nnn..." Heero's eyelids fluttered, but he didn't wake up. To Duo, it felt like carrying a sack of hot coals.

"First to the sick bay with you, hero," Duo whispered, a concerned look on his face. Heero's fever was worse than when they had left Earth.

With his back turned, Duo missed emotions crossing Harper's face as the two of them got out of the ship, confusion melting into incredulity melting into anger, before the older pilot's face shifted back into a more impassive expression.

Howard saw the look on Harper's face, and noted it. He would have to talk to Duo later...

Gabriel gazed up at them as they disengaged, dark eyes wide. His voice was awed. "Who is that, Daddy!? That's not one of our guys!"

It is now...

"Shhh, kiddo, don't wake him up..."

Duo reached out with one foot and moved carefully to the oil-stained cement of the hangar floor, Heero thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Gabriel's eyes were wide and serious. "Is he hurt?"

Duo grinned at him over Heero's shoulder. "Just a little. He'll be all better in no time. Never fear, Gabe. He'll be right as rain."

"Can we keep him?"

Duo laughed, not because it was such a good joke, but because Gabriel made them so rarely. "I'll think about it."

The boy smiled back at him tentatively.

Duo gave Howard a meaningful look. "You go run on with Gramps and make sure everybody is doing their jobs, all right? Me and your uncle Harp have got to get this guy down to sick bay at headquarters."

Gabriel scowled, and he didn't look older than his years now. He looked like a petulant child. "But you just got home."

Duo laughed. "I got stuff to do, kiddo. I promise I'll come see you in a little bit. Just let me unpack and get him settled in, okay? It's been a rough couple of days."

Gabriel's eyes sparkled. "You get me a present from Earth? A Christmas present?"

Duo grinned back, raising one eyebrow teasingly. "Maybe..."

Gabriel smiled back. "Okay... okay... c'mon, Howie..." The little boy held his hand up to the old tech, who took it, walking the boy away.

Duo's heart clenched at the way the orphan reached for the nearest person possible, always touching others in a way that had nothing to do with an orphan's unwillingness to be alone and everything to do with that bizarre something that was special about him.

Something he could sense that no one else could.

At least, no one Duo knew...but Quatre.

::"You went away... you said you'd never go away..."::

::"I dreamed you got shot."::

::"There was blood in your hair."::

::"Dreams are funny, aren't they?"::

::"Not mine..."::

Duo shivered again, feeling something like ice water trickle down his back at the words echoing in his mind, even though the blowtorches being used and the thermonuclear engines being tested in the hangar made it feel like a furnace.

The fact that he loved the kid dearer than life itself had snuck up on him over the last few years.

But that didn't change the fact that it was true.

Duo looked up and saw Harper gazing at him. The look in the man's eyes was inscrutable. Duo narrowed his eyes slightly back at him. "What?"

"I thought you said you took care of him, Duo. Yuy."

Duo gazed back at him steadily. "I am taking care of him, Isaac. That's why he's here about to get fixed up at our sick bay instead of down there on that ball of dust rotting in a cell."

Harper's eyes narrowed, cold and gray as a winter wind. "He belongs to Relena, Duo. He's one of them."

"Wrong," Duo hissed, violet eyes flashing, and Harper flinched back slightly. The look in those eyes was like hard amethysts, sharp and lethal. "He doesn't belong to Relena. He belongs to me, and he always has."

Harper was silent a moment, then spoke again. "I don't trust him, Duo," he pressed, his voice soft and apologetic.

"But you trust me?"

Harper's eyes widened. "Of course."

Duo cocked his head at the older pilot, seeming to change subjects like a race car changing gears. "You let my kid pilot that ship, Harp? In interstellar space? Where you guys could have been overtaken by Preventer forces at any time?"

Harper just gazed back at him seriously. "I just let him pilot a little while we were in stealth mode. It was perfectly safe. The kid is a natural, Duo. It's like he's meant to do it. You really should let the other pilots work with him. I mean... the Preventers begin using kids at twelve..."

Duo thought of the kid recruits he had seen in their little olive green uniforms, childhood driven from their eyes when they should be at the age of riding bikes and playing flashlight tag, not learning how to use a gun.

Teach 'em while they're young! he thought disgustedly. Although he knew he didn't have much room to talk. There were many child soldiers in his own rank, fighting for colonial freedom. Of course, most of these fought because it gave them a way to lash out at their oppressors and a way to obtain food and board all in the same stroke.

Harper saw the anger and disgust in Duo's expression, and spoke again. "I just let him pretend, Duo. He lives with pilots. It's what he wants to do."

Duo looked at Harper hard, using the same look he had seen Solo use to get what he wanted, the "do as I say, give me what I want, or I'll gut you and take it myself" look. Violence roiled through those dark indigo depths.

Shinigami.

"Pretend, huh? Then let's just pretend for a minute that I am the general of L2 and you are my second-in-command. And that as a show of your trust, you are going to help me carry my partner to sick bay so I can take care of him. Is that understood, Harper?"

Harper looked back at him silently for a moment, those gray eyes as expressionless as dull dimes, then he took a deep sigh and answered. "Yes sir."

Duo smiled blindingly at him. Shinigami sank beneath the surface of his gaze like a leviathan diving beneath murky waters. He clapped Harper on the shoulder with a free hand as he laughed, his voice low.

"Trust me, Harp. You two will get along great. You're both the biggest singled-minded assholes I know. Now take him under one arm, he's as heavy as hell and my shoulder is killing me..."

Reluctantly, with one last glance at Duo, Harper took one of the ex-captain's arms and threw it over his own shoulders, helping to hold up Heero's weight. Together, they half-dragged, half-carried Heero from the spacedocks to the nearby center of the rebel forces. The heart of L2's Underground.

Paradise Lost.

TBC...

 

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