Life Goes On Part 25
Solo paced around the cell anxiously, his tail twitching behind him as he walked back and forth. Sitting on one of the benches, Carson snorted bitterly, "I just don't understand why you're so worried about that little prince. We wanted him knocked from his perch for a long time."
"Don't call him that!" the blonde neko snapped as he turned a heated glare on his friend. "You have no idea what he's like! We only hated him because we were jealous of the fact that he was out living his life, but we never even knew him!"
Closing the distance between him and the stunned, grey-furred teenager, Solo pointed to his own chest and growled deeply, "I got a real good look at him for over a week and saw first hand the kind of person he is. Duo's a good, caring person that takes everyone in and treats them as equals. Even after everything that I did to make his life hell before I acted like I wanted to become friends to get closer to him to strike, he gave me a chance because I told him I needed his help."
Small tears filled Solo's brown eyes as he shook his head and whimpered, "And for your sake, I ruined his life. A good person is going to die because I gave J what he wanted... the same thing that I thought I wanted."
The realization of it all crashing down on him was too great and his knees felt weak. Carefully sitting on the floor, Solo dried his eyes and whispered, "Now, I'd give anything to take it back. Even at our expense, Duo never deserved what J has planned for him."
Across the room, Cassie and Jena shared a bench with Andrew and Danny occupying the seat beside them. The calico-spotted neko muttered with her green eyes shimmering, "Duo said we were like another family to him. He doesn't even know us, and he was already treating us like his own." Already afraid of the answer, she looked up at her boyfriend and asked, "J has no intentions of actually curing him, does he?"
Shuddering, Solo shook his head and frowned sadly, "No, Cas. And I'm convinced that once he's had his fun with Duo and killed him, we're next. He doesn't mean to keep us as his lab rats forever when he could always make more." He ran a hand through his blonde hair and sighed deeply, "I've been nothing more than a puppet in seeing it happen."
Through the thick walls, Duo's voice screamed out in a long, shrill cry of agony. Gasping sharply, Danny's eyes widened and Andrew swallowed roughly while wrapping a sheltering arm around the trembling little boy. Every neko in the cell held their breaths until the sound finally faded away. The silence only lasted a moment before the scream returned much louder the second time around.
Panting heavily, Jenna gripped her black and white stripped tail and shrieked, "My God! What are they doing to him!" Even Carson seemed stricken to hear such a chilling sound from the braided teenager. His hands were already covering his gray cat ears as he looked to his friend with terror-filled eyes for the answer.
Solo lowered his head and answered in little more than a breath that the other had to strain to hear past the tortured cry, "Prolonging his end."
* * * * * *
Leaning his back against the elevator wall, Howard sighed deeply and pressed the button for his lab's floor. As the doors closed, so did his eyes in weariness. It'd been a long evening at Heero's apartment as he and his friends tried to comfort the lad while laying out every plan they could to somehow find Duo.
By the time he returned to Treize's residence, the scientist's mind was running wild on him and sleep eluded him. Now, he was suffering greatly for it as he struggled to fight off the urge to drift off while standing in that elevator.
All too soon, the cart came to a stop and the bell rang to announce its arrival to the requested destination. Grunting as he opened his eyes to the assaulting light, Howard pushed himself off the wall and stepped out into the hallway with another long sigh.
It was going to be a terribly long day.
When he swiped his card for access to his 'office' and entered, the old man was not at all surprised to find Liz already at her station in her white coat. Looking up from the large beaker that was boiling before her, the young woman grinned from ear-to-ear, "Howard!" Her excitement faded a bit when her head tilted with a frowned, "You look like hell. Is everything all right?"
Unable to help but laugh at the comment, Howard waved his hand nonchalantly and replied, "I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night, so I am a bit rough around the edges today, my dear. Just need some time to get my bearings, but I'll be all right."
Sluggishly, he moved to the small snack table where a pot of coffee was waiting. Pouring the steaming liquid into the mug that he brought with him, the scientist smirked, "Speaking of sleep, how much did you get last night? You were still working like mad on that problem I had given you by the time I stepped out."
At that, Liz shrugged with that impish smile of hers, "Oh, I managed to get a few winks in after I solved your assignment."
Howard nearly dropped the mug that he was bringing to his mouth at the statement and his eyes widened in disbelief. He must have heard wrong, he convinced himself. The exhaustion forgotten, he snapped his slack mouth closed. Quickly getting a good hold on his coffee just before it spilled, he sputtered, "W-what did you just say?"
With her smile widening, the young woman chuckled deeply, "I solved the puzzle. It was amazing how simple the solution turned out to be. When you think of the whole picture, you would expect the answer to be this long, involved thing when it's just the opposite. I almost couldn't believe it when I drew the final theory."
Liz opened up her binder to the images that had been given to her as Howard woodenly moved to her station. Shakily lowering his mug onto the table, he took up the notes that his pupil had jotted down as she explained, "Just a few core chemicals together would tighten the bond of the original strand that is still part of the complex structure that it had become.
"By keeping the original intact and allowing nature to run its course and eliminate all of the additional particles, the only thing remaining would be what you started with. So long as the core is still in tact, as it was in the image of the complex strand, the transition is a safe one."
While Liz was giving her commentary of her findings, Howard was also looking over her scribbled notes and found her conclusion to be, beyond the shadow of a doubt, "Absolute." Blinking in shock, he laughed and repeated, "It's absolute! Liz, you're a brilliant young woman! You solved the problem without a single flaw that could be questioned!"
He could have smacked himself for how truly simple the answer was. As Liz had started out, Howard had been looking at the whole picture for a detailed and complicated solution. But, in looking at the heart of the matter, the conclusion was as plain as day. The whole thing was almost comical to him that he hadn't seen it sooner.
All it would take was a few provisions that he already knew were waiting in that lab and he would have what he needed to save Duo.
Beaming in seeing how truly impressed her mentor was, Liz removed the small vile that she had been carrying around in her lab coat pocket. Slowly raising it up, she grinned, "And, just for the fin of it, I created the serum that it would take to solidify the original strand. So, you have my written answer and the actual concoction."
His breath hitching in his throat, Howard straightened stiffly as he started in wonder at the vile. Reaching out for it as though it might vanish, he gingerly wrapped his fingers around it. Somewhere, Liz's voice was listing off the solvents and chemicals that she had used to create the serum. As much as he was vibrating from emotion inside, he was amazed his hand was as steady as it was.
Gazing into the clear glass to the translucent, light green fluid, he chuckled deeply. That chuckle grew into a full fit of laughter as tears of mirth filled his eyes. Liz blinked in surprise at the old man's reaction, but soon felt herself smiling proudly that she'd been successful in her little test. Putting the extra hours in had been more than worth it.
Just as he was wiping his eyes, Howard gasped in realization and his laughter died out. Raising the vile once more to examine it closely, he frowned deeply. "Just one day sooner," he muttered. "If we just had you a day sooner..."
Only a day's difference and Duo would have been cured. The elusive serum that he and his friends had worked so hard on was finally grasp, only now the braided neko was the one out of reach. At that thought, a new batch of tears filled the scientist's eyes for a completely different reason.
Life was indeed cruel at times.
Biting her lip in concern, Liz asked gently, "Howard? What's wrong?"
Not wanting to upset his pupil's joy in solving his problem, the balding man quickly wiped the tears from his eyes and reassured her with a grin, "Nothing, my dear. Just the tiredness creeping back in." To emphasis his excuse, he gathered up his mug and took a long sip.
When he finished, he smiled widely and raised the vile with a proud, "You've done very well, Liz. I know some very talented people, including myself, that had been stomped by this particular puzzle. You should be very happy with your efforts."
As the young woman's brilliant smile returned, Howard wiggled the vile before her and requested, "Would you mind at all if I held onto this for a time? I have some colleagues that simply will not believe that they were outwitted by a student of mine and they will want to see the proof."
"Oh!" Liz exclaimed, her eyes widening. "No, not at all, Howard!" she cheered excitedly. "I certainly don't have a use for it. Besides, even if I did, I could always make more where that came from."
Carefully placing the vile in the pocket of his slacks, Howard wrapped his arms around her tightly and chuckled deeply, "Thank you, darling. This means a great deal to me to have something that gave me such a hard time laid to rest." Pulling back, he winked, "Now, considering that we have time before the others show up, I say we celebrate properly with breakfast at the diner down the street on me."
The young woman giggled, "That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Howard." Removing her lab coat, she replaced it with her jacket as her mentor led the way out of the room.
For the remainder of the day, Howard would rub his fingers over the vile in his pocket for reassurance that it was still there as a means of being safe than sorry. The way that things had been going, he was not about to take any chances.
* * * * * *
After a morning of searching and working with the police, Heero and his family returned to his apartment. All but running inside, the Japanese teenager removed his coat and quickly moved to the answering machine. The red light was not flashing to announce any new messages and he felt his heart sinking further after a very disheartening look for his lover.
Noin assisted in removing the coats and setting them in one of the spare rooms as Danielle announced, "I'll get some lunch started. Better to head back out on a full stomach, and we could use a bit of time to rest."
"Good idea," Trent nodded. "I'll help you with the food." he offered and headed to the refrigerator as his wife moved to the cabinets to search for something to fix up. Gathering up some sandwich meat and cheese, the brunette peered from the corner of his eye to watch Zechs and Noin step into the living room with Heero.
Once they were finally alone, Trent moved close to the red-haired woman and asked quietly, "Have you noticed that there was little to no coverage on the incident that happened last night? I only saw a brief mention of a possible abduction, but nothing more. In a small town like this, you would think that such a thing would be all over the media."
A sudden thought crossed his mind and he smirked, "Did you have a few words with some reporters to keep them at bay without telling me? You know that I love fending those vultures off just as much as you do."
Danielle looked up from her placing some bread in the toaster and frowned, "Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing. I never had a chance to think about handling them. But, I did notice the lack of interest in the local reports. As large a crowd as there was outside of the apartment that Heero ran in to, you would think that there'd be a cameraman at the very least amongst them."
Humming to himself, Trent thought aloud, "I'll look into that when we get started up again. Something just doesn't seem right." He grinned when the glint of mischief filled his wife's eyes, "And you stay with Heero. You had plenty of fun with those reporters." Lightly kissing her forehead, he winked, "Now share."
With a sigh of mocked frustration, Danielle smirked, "All right. All right. You'll probably have a better chance getting into their offices, anyway. I'm sure that the guards of every news facility have a picture of me to see that I am nowhere near the facility by now." Trent chuckled deeply and removed a few cans of soup from the cabinets to prepare.
The doorbell rang and Heero called as he anxiously headed from the living room, "I've got it." Opening the door, he was hoping to find an officer, or one of the investigators bearing some insight on the search.
What he found made his cobalt eyes widen. "H-how? What are you-?" he stammered, unable to voice every question that entered his head.
Standing before him were Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, Relena and Dorothy. Smirking, the Chinese teenager answered, "Sally called and told us everything that's been going on so we had to come and help find Duo."
Beside him, Relena nodded, "Your mom and Trent called to convince our directors to let us finish our exams early so that we could be here." She chuckled deeply, "They seem to have quite a bit of pull when it comes to things like that."
In the kitchen, the said couple smiled and greeted Heero's friends as the stunned art student stepped aside for them to enter. As his coat was removed, Trowa rubbed his hands together and grinned, "You do realize that Wufei and I get first shot of this Solo guy, right? We promise to leave enough of him for you by the time we're done." Chuckling sinisterly, the raven-haired boy nodded his own anticipation of some vengeance.
Finally breaking from his shock, Heero smiled widely for the first time since Duo's disappearance. "One second, guys," he excused himself politely and moved to embrace his mother and Trent tightly. "Thank you so much," he whispered sincerely to them before returning to his friends.
Wrapping an arm around his wife's shoulders, Trent commented, "It's not the same as bringing Duo back to him, but at least it'll help fill the void for now."
"Exactly," Danielle nodded as they watched the warm reunion between their son and his life-long companions with smiles on their own faces.
At least, for the time being, there was a sense of peace breaking through the storm.
TBC...
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