"This Beautiful Life"

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters

Rating: R

Warnings: Romance & Friendship

Pairings: 2x5, others will be present but subtle.

Summary: 3 years after cutting ties with everyone from the war, WuFei Chang gets into a car accident in his way home from a company Christmas party and wakes up to another life.

"This Beautiful Life"

Chapter 20:

Leaving the orphanage felt hard. The children begged them to stay. Nina pitched a fit that she hadn't gotten to show 'Master Fei' her kata, and that he hadn't taught her the next one.

WuFei bent to her level and told her, "Xiao ma, a warrior must be patient. Great skill comes with time, you cannot rush it. I have made you a promise, I will return here again to fulfill it."

Nine grinned, throwing her skinny arms around WuFei's shoulders, exclaiming, "You promised, so you have to come back now! You can't break a promise!"

They finished their good-byes, exchanging more hugs with the children and nuns. They drove home in a tranquil quiet. Duo set some tea to boil and started work on dinner.

"We should eat something before we go," he said.

WuFei sat at the kitchen table, reading a book as Duo stir-fried some chicken and vegetables. Duo served the food with some rice and tea. He took the seat across from WuFei.

"You still impress me after all these years," Duo said.

"How so?" WuFei replied.

"With Nina. How quickly you figured her out," Duo leaned his cheek on his hand, pushing the food around his plate with his fork but not really eating, "A lot of orphans end up with abandonment issues, it's worse the younger you are when you're orphaned. You grow up without anyone to belong to, or rely on. People might come around a few times, if it's their job or their volunteers looking to get karma points in the universe, but they always stop coming eventually – job is done, they move somewhere else, or get bored. As an orphan, you just get used to the idea that when someone leaves, they aren't coming back."

"It means a lot to those children, that we continue to return there," WuFei said.

"Let's them know they're not just a charity case or something to pass the time," Duo confirmed, "Some of them are still skeptical though. They still have a hard time believing we'll be back again, no matter how many times we come back."

"Our jobs are dangerous. If something were to happen to us," WuFei started and Duo shook his head.

"I don't even want to think about it," he tapped his plate with the fork, "All we can do is show them that people can be reliable. That as long as their breathing, they'll show up when they say they will."

WuFei cleared their plates when they were done. He frowned at Duo's, untouched save for a few bites.

"Are you not hungry? You didn't eat much at the party, either," he noted.

"Naw, my stomach's just been on the fritz lately with all the stress you've been putting me through this past week," Duo stood and stretched his arms over his head lazily, winking at WuFei, "I'm going to get changed. I want to look nice for our date tonight."

"Date?" WuFei flustered, "Is it…a date?"

"It is," Duo said with a delighted laugh, "And you're the one that asked me out."

WuFei watched Duo bounce from the room, before shaking away his embarrassment and chuckling at the other boy's antics. He picked out a change of clothes as well. Duo wore a black long-sleeved shirt and dark blue jeans and WuFei had pulled on a red button down and black slacks.

"We do clean up nice, I must say," Duo decided.

They left just as it began to snow lightly again. The moon waned in the sky and several stars and a colony or two were visible. WuFei allowed Duo to help him up in the truck and they talked about nonsense things: their plans for the weekend, WuFei's bike, the party tomorrow, and so on, on the way there.

WuFei hadn't been to the downtown area of Danover often when he last remembered living there. He went a couple times for food or to buy necessary items at one of the shops, but he never spent time there or really looked around. The light display set up was breathtaking to say the least. A menagerie of animals and elfin figures lined the streets, hidden in alleys and rooftops, prancing across storefronts. In the central plaza was a giant decorated tree comprised only of lights. Lit snowflakes and stars twinkled off of streetlamps. A carousal and ferris wheel were running in the central plaza, and there was a stage with a band performing seasonal songs, a skating rink, street performers, and artists and artisans with pop-up shops.

Duo, with his child like nature, danced around, pointing out all of it in excited exclamations. He dragged WuFei through the crowds, looking in the shops at their decorations, and perusing the artists' galleries with wide-eyed wonder as he asked the artists technical questions about their work, "how did you get this stroke effect?" and "what colors did you use for this scene?"

WuFei found himself staring, as usual, at the mesmerizing young man. Were he with anyone else in that downtown scene or if he'd come alone, he would've been miserable, he would've found the crowd overwhelming, the individual people obnoxious, the music too loud and light display gaudy. But Duo had a way of changing everything, casting the world in a different light. All at once, the crowd was comforting, the people charming, the music merry, and the light display whimsical and full of hope. The entire world was one beautiful wonderland and at its center stood a single angel: Duo Maxwell.

"I want to show you something," Duo said in a conspiratorial tone.

He grabbed WuFei's hand and pulled him through the mess of people and various structures, ducking under tarp flaps out of the crowd into an area WuFei felt certain was off limits and weaving through a labyrinth of steel beam frames and electrical wires, they came into a place that was near pitch black save the spiraling twinkle of lights all around pointing up to the star filled sky above. They were inside of the tree WuFei realized.

"This," WuFei leaned his head back to look up and breath it in, Duo's hand still clutching his own, "Sometimes, when I feel the world closing in, the stress and chaos, anger and sadness, I close my eyes and think of being in space at Nataku's controls."

"It's Deathscythe for me, but same," Duo said, squeezing WuFei's hand, "We found this place last year together. Spent most of the night laying under this tree, staring at the stars and talking about what we miss of the war and our Gundams."

"It's funny to think we miss anything. It was war," WuFei replied.

"But it was also our life. The only life we knew, and those Gundams, they were the first time we were given a chance to have control of our lives," Duo took a step towards WuFei, "Destroying Nataku was so much harder for you than destroying our own Gundams was for the rest of us. It represented a whole lot more to you."

WuFei startled at that, flustering, "I told you about…"

Duo gave him a sad, solemn smile, "You plant flowers around that dragon statue in honor of her and the rest of your clan. Out of respect, it's the one place I don't go."

WuFei had wondered about that statue, and the plot around it that seemed separate from the rest of the garden. He let himself live in that distant memory a moment, to conjure her face, to sit again in that field of flowers holding her to him as she took her last breath. They never appreciated one another in that short life they had together, but she left her mark in his heart, a scar that would never heal.

"Nataku," WuFei murmured and Duo gave his hand a squeeze, "I never imagined I would tell anyone those things about myself."

"When we first started living together, we made a promise that our pasts would stay in the past. Who we were, what we went through before coming to earth and piloting the Gundams…I wouldn't ask about you, you wouldn't ask about me. Over time, though, the walls came down until we'd practically told each other everything there was to know," Duo said.

WuFei met the other boy's eyes, realizing there was more to Duo than he had yet to see, depths to his soul that he'd revealed over the course of their relationship and were now just out of WuFei's grasp.

"I wish I could remember," WuFei confessed.

The brightest of smiles lit Duo's face, tears shining in the corners of his eyes, startling WuFei.

"What's that look for?"

"Nothing, it's just," Duo ran a hand across his face, grinning through his fingers, he looked as though he'd dropped a thousand pounds from his shoulders, "Since you woke up in that hospital you've been acting like this…waking up here to this life with me was the worst thing that could ever happen to you. To hear you say that you want to remember it now, it's not your memories back, but it's pretty damn near close enough and I'll take it."

"I'm sorry for what I've put you through. It was never the life, it was never you," WuFei frowned. He didn't know what it had been. Looking back, he couldn't fathom why he believed this could've been hell. Hell was the other life, living alone and apart from this person.

"Come on, let's go get some hot cocoa."

Moments later, WuFei sat on a bench watching people ice skate and waiting as Duo bought their drinks. He leaned heavy back against the bench, reveling in the memories of those past few days. He thought of lunch with Trowa, the circus, seeing Relena and Heero, Catherine, Sally, watching Duo paint or cook, listening to him bustle around the house – the comforting sounds of his presence, the orphanage, and there was still more to come. This was his life, he decided, this beautiful life belonged to him. He closed his eyes and prayed: if this is the false reality, a dream, please don't ever let me wake up.

~ * ~

Chapter 21

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