What Really Matters In Life

Four years. It had been four years since the end of the Eve War. Four years since the Gundams were permanently destroyed. Four years since he had seen any of the other pilots. Four years since he walked away and never looked back.

This was what ran through Duo Maxwell\'s mind as he stared at the fancy invitation which had found its way into his mailbox. The floral print and neat calligraphy reflected the typical style of Relena Peacecraft/Darlain that he had come to know so well from the love letters she sent Heero all those years ago during the wars. The pink envelope gave away her involvement before you even had to look at who sent it.

It didn\'t surprise him any that Relena would invite him to a memorial gathering honoring all the surviving war veterans. He was a former Gundam pilot after all. She would never pass up the chance as the new Vice Foreign Minister to make herself look good. It didn\'t much matter that she detested those she had to be friendly with to do so either.

However, Relena\'s dislike of him was the last thing weighing on his mind as he looked over the bright pink invitation in his hand. Duo sighed in contempt. He really didn\'t want to go, to say the least. He never did favor black tie affairs. He always felt as if he stuck out like a sore thumb. Unlike most, he didn\'t grow up learning the proper ettequite for such events. The mental image of himself in a suit was bad enough.

But there was one other thing which tugged at the back of his mind, if he had recd and an invite, then the others surely must have as well. That\'s what really got to Duo. He hadn\'t been intentionally avoiding the other pilots for these past few years, it just seemed that way.

After the Eve War, Duo had just left. He didn\'t say good-bye or anything to the others. Waiting til Heero and the others had gone to sleep, he slipped of of their current safe house and never looked back.

Duo promptly returned to L2 then, opening a small repair shop with the help of Hilde. He hadn\'t hidden what he did; if they wanted to track him down thay could have easily done so. It was just that leaving without saying anything sounded better then enduring one of Quatres speeches about being able to go to him if any help was needed. He had heard that enough times since the end of the wars. It was nice and all that Quatre seemed willing to help them out, but Duo felt that this needed to be done on his own.

Now over four years have passed and not one had bothered to keep in touch with him. Well, that\'s not exactly true. About six months ago, Quatre had sent him an e-mail asking how things were, and updating him on the status of everyone else. At the time, Duo had been too busy trying to keep his business from going under to give an appropriate response, and he received nothing more afterwards.

From the sound of it, they were all too busy with their own lives to bother with him anyways. Trowa and Quatre had apparently finally revealed to each other their feelings some time after he left. They were now currently co-running Winner Corperation, the family business Quatre inherited from his father. It was about time too. Duo could remember wanting to lock them in a room together and not let them out until they confessed. It\'s a wonder they never felt each other staring down the other\'s back for as much as Duo had caught then doing it.

Wufei had returned to his studies and had opened a dojo on the side, located on the Earth Sphere. It had been reported by Quatre that his stay with Preventers ended up brief and not too enjoyable. Duo couldn\'t blame him. If he had Noin, Sally, and Lady Une as bosses, he suspected that he wouldn\'t last two weeks let alone the one year Wufei had been there.

Heero\'s where-a-bouts had surprised Duo the most, however. He had been willing to put money on Relena coaxing Heero into being her bodyguard, or something else equally as close to her. To read that he had actually gone to college was something he had never considered for Heero. Yet, there it was in ten point arial font. He gained a Masters in Psychology in record time, and his alumni had asked him to author a book on the after-affects of the wars, which he was currently doing research on.

They all seemed to have made something out of their lives. He briefly wondered if they would consider him a failure. Unlike them , he didn\'t have a fancy degree or a multi-million dollar corperation. A small part of him felt that he wouldn\'t meet the others expectations. Living day to day in the heat of battle was much different then living in an every-day society dominated by class.

Duo placed the invitation back into its pink envelope and threw it on top of the pile of junk mail which he hadn\'t gotten around to throwing away yet. He wasn\'t going. It would be for the best that way. He figured it would be better to not know then to have his fears confirmed. Besides, he didn\'t like Relena as much as Relena didn\'t like him.

Deciding he had prolonged his daily duties for long enough, Duo pulled out his laptop to check his e-mail. He hadn\'t done so in a couple of days and probably needed to clean it out. He loved his laptop. It was the only thing of the wars which he had any desire to salvage. He had custom made himself the screensaver he had of Deathscythe popping up and slashing through the screen.

As expected, there wasn\'t much in the way of e-mail to read. Only the usual bout of Spam mail he always received and the daily letters from Hilde. They had parted ways a couple of years earlier in mutual agreement. No matter how they tried, they couldn\'t make their relationship advance above friend level and chose to quit trying. It had never been revealed exactly why it didn\'t work, but it hadn\'t. Now Hilde lived on the other side of the colony and had gained herself a fiance.

Today\'s message was short. You really didn\'t find much to talk about when you e-mail someone everyday. It seemed a waste, spending time reading the e-mails from the days before. He was almost sure they all said the same thing. \'Hello. How are you? I\'m fine. Gary says hello as well. I know you\'re busy and I\'m running late, so I\'ll e-mail tomorrow. Bye.\' That\'s all they ever said lately. It was great for her keep in touch, but really, it would be much better if she\'d just stick to e-mailing when something big happened.

He started to delete the fifty or so messages which had accumulated. Sometimes he wondered why he even kept an internet address anyway. He never had the time to make friends online. His business had a separate address, so he ran no risk of loosing potential clients, and the only other e-mail he received was Spam mail. He had almost finished cleaning out his box when he spotted a very peculiar message towards the bottom. The message gave no subject, yet the address of the sender drew his attention, and curiosity. \"What is this?\"

zeroaddict01

Always one to entertain his curiosity, Duo clicked on the strange e-mail and read:


It\'s been a long time, Duo. I know I
haven\'t done much in the way of keeping
in touch, but I\'ve been a bit busy. I
assume you have been too. Quatre
became quite upset when you never
answered his letter. I had to assure him
that it wasn\'t anything personal, with a
little help from Trowa, of course. If you
lost his address, here it is:

keeper_of_the_violin@winner.com

You are probably wondering why I took
the time to e-mail you. Duo, I need to
ask a favor of you. Would you mind
letting me stay at your place for about
a couple of weeks? I\'d greatly appreciate
it. I\'m receiving monthly checks from
my alumni to help support me while I
work on my book, however, it just isn\'t
enough with all the travelling I\'m having
to do for research.

Please let me know as I am flying in
three days from now. I\'m scheduled to
land at two in the afternoon. If I do not
receive an answer, I\'ll pop by right after
I land, so if I\'m wrong and you ARE trying
to avoid us, it won\'t be that easy.

Don\'t worry about supporting me food wise.
I only need a place to rest. Other then that,
I promise you will not see me that much at
all.

Thank in advance,
Heero


\"Well I\'ll be damned.\" Duo blinked twice in disbelief and read the message again. Heero Yuy was asking to stay with him? Well of course he wouldn\'t mind Heero staying at his appartment. Avoid them? Hell, he wasn\'t trying to avoid them, his business just sucked. In all honesty, Duo felt the tiniest bit relieved, but for the darndest reason, he couldn\'t figure out why. All he knew was that this message from Heero lifted a semi-sized weight off his overworked shoulders and he suddenly felt happier then he had in weeks.

Knowing he should find out just exactly when \'three days from now\' ended up being, Duo scrolled up to check the send date and gasped. \"Shit!\" The e-mail had been sent on Thursday. It was now Sunday. Heero would be flying in today. Looking around his appartment, Duo began to panic. Parts to about twenty-five different things were strewn all over the place admidst discarded clothing and towels. Every room needed to at least be spruced up if not full blown cleaned, and he felt the need to buy groceries even though Heero had said to wto worry about food.

Duo glanced up at the wall clock and noted that it was just before nine in the morning. He had five hours to finish everything; four if he wanted to meet Heero at the terminal. He estimated about one hour on each room except the bathroom, that would only take thirty minutes, which would give him enough time to take a quick shower before he left for the spaceport. The groceries would have to wait til later.

Looking around, Duo groaned and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. With hard determination, the violet-eyed ex-pilot set to work on what Hilde had once dubbed the \'disaster zone\', the rest of his daily duties forgotten.

First he chose to start with the livingroom, seeing as how that would be where Heero would sleep while he stayed. Pulling boxes, which he had broken down and saved, out of the closet, Duo started gathering up all of his unfinished projects. Once they were all full, he shoved them all back into the closet, having nothing else to do with them. Then he went around and collected all his laundry and threw them into his bedroom to be delt with once he finished. The junk mail which sat in a corner next to the shredder Duo decided to leave, because it wasn\'t really in the way to begin with. Retrieving his hardly used vaccuum, he finally brought the livingroom to standard \'livable\' status.

Next he turned his attention to the kitchen. The kitchen, surprisingly, didn\'t need cleaning much. He usually settled for take out, so there were hardly any dishes to be washed. After putting what little he had into the dishwasher and setting it, Duo made a trash run and swept the floor.

Then came the bedroom. The clothing and towels he threw in earlier needed to be separated and sorted so they could be taken down to the community laundry room. Since he had decided to do a full scale cleaning, Duo switched out the sheets on his bed for the red and black set Hilde had given him last Christmas. Grabbing the vaccuum again, he gave his bedroom the once over and then took his laundry down to wash.

Only the bathroom remained. Looking at the clock to see how much time he had left, Duo was estatic to find that only two and a half hours had passed. He knew his bathroom didn\'t need much cleaning so he would have the chance to take a longer shower then he had originally figured.

*****

Duo got out of the shower to the sound of someone repeatedly ringing his doorbell. He quickly dried himself and threw on a pair of jeans, grabbing a towel for his hair as he made a dash for the door. He hadn\'t bothered to put on a shirt. Only Hilde showed up at his appartment unanounced and it didn\'t bother her any. Reaching for the knob, he opened the door and blurted his greeting at the same time. \"Hello, H-\"

____________________

Heero Yuy stared out the window at the rapidly passing buildings as his taxi made it\'s way to Duo\'s apartment complex. He had estimated that Relena\'s invitiation had already arrived, so he only had two weeks to complete his mission. Quatre had worked so hard to pull this off and it wouldn\'t due if the guest of honor didn\'t show.

He hated to lie to Duo like he did, but he needed a valid excuse for just appearing out of nowhere after four years. Truthfully, his book had been done for about a month now; he just waited on the OK for the publisher that everything was a go. He didn\'t know what he would do during the day when he supposedly left to do his research.

He sighed to himself. It\'s all worth it though. It was necessary if the plan was to go off without a hitch. He briefly wondered what the other three would do in his situation. If he hadn\'t stepped in and willingly volunteered, he had no doubt that it would be one of them right now instead of him that headed to Duo\'s.

Wufei wanted to literally draw straws to determine who would go, but Heero would have nothing of it. He then proceeded to explain why it would be the most logical for him to go. It would be an understatement to say the others where utterly astonished that he insisted on being the \'messenger\'. Of course, he was also pretty sure they had no clue of the other reason he wanted to come here. He had a personal errand to run on L2 as well.

There was something he needed to know for sure, and it wasn\'t something he could find out with the others present. He hoped that two weeks would be enough time to eliminate any doubt, and being in close quarters with the baka should definitely give him the answer that he seeked. The big question, however, which had no answer, was that once he knew, what then?

The sound of his phone ringing pulled him out of his thoughts and he reached down to answer it. \"Yuy.\"

\"Heero, it\'s Trowa. Have you landed on L2 yet?\"

He qwirked a smile. He was almost sure Quatre had put him up to this, not wanting to seem a nuiscense by calling himself. \"Aa, tell Quatre I\'m on my way to the apartment now. As far as I can tell, Duo doesn\'t know I\'m here yet.\"

\"Heh, I told Quat it wouldn\'t work. He\'s just going to have to face the fact that he worries too much. But, Heero, are you sure you are okay with doing this for us?\"

Heero rolled his eyes. He lost track of how many times he had this conversation with them before he left. \"Yes, Trowa, I\'m perfectly fine. I already explained that he could get suspicious if it were anyone but me. He may be an idiot, but he isn\'t stupid.\"

He heard Trowa sigh on the other end. \"I suppose you\'re right. Just make sure to call us once everything is in place okay? You know how Quatre can get.\"

\"I\'ll be sure to remember. Tell the others I said hi. Oh and Trowa, make sure to get that boyfriend of yours out of the house a couple times between now and then. It wouldn\'t do for him to make himself sick with stress.\"

Trowa laughed. \"I\'ll be sure to do that. Take care, Heero. And good luck on both your missions.\" Click.

Two missions? Oh yeah, Heero almost forgot about that part. However, that required him to actually pay a visit at Duo\'s business, and would be a little harder to complete. Heero leaned his head back and stared at the cab ceiling, placing his phone back in his pocket. So what, that made three things on the list to accomplish while he was here. He vaguely wondered if there would be anything more added to that list before the two weeks were up.

Heero tipped the cab driver after arriving at Duo\'s complex and then entered the lobby. He chose to take the stairs up to the third floor apartments instead of the elevator. He only had one bag and his laptop with him, so it wouldn\'t be much of a hassle. He mentally approved the architecture of the building and thanked whoever that the builders had enough since to number the doors in order. He finally found apartment 314 and stopped, staring at the solid wood door.

Well, he was here. He had until he rang the bell to turn around and walk back out. Needless to say he was just a tad bit nervous. The last time they saw each other, they were still adjusting to the idea of the wars fin bei being over. Now they were living two completely different lives. None of that mattered, though. First and formost was the success of Quatre\'s efforts. Everything else could come later. With that resolve in mind, Heero reached up and pressed the door bell.

No one answered.

Well, that was odd. Surely Duo knew by now that Heero had been expected to arrive today. He couldn\'t possibly be asleep, could he? Heero\'s watched stated it was twelve thirty L2 time. He would have thought Duo would be awake by now. Heero pressed the bell again, and then for a third time. Did he not write down the right apartment number?

Heero was about to ring the bell for a fourth time when the door flew open and a low voice filled his ears. \"Hello, H-......Heero?\"

Heero watched as the towel Duo had been holding dropped to the floor. Judging from his tone of voice, it was easy to assume that Duo hadn\'t expected it to be him. He appearence also suggested as much.

He tried not to let the way Duo was dressed get to him. Oh, but he wanted to let it. Boy did he want to. Duo must have just come out of the shower. All he wore were a pair of baggy, black Jinkos, which rode low on his hips. His hair remained wet and loose. Heero\'s hand clinched his duffel bag in restraint. He wanted so much to wipe off that bead of water which had dripped from one of Duo\'s bangs and made it\'s way down his finely toned stomach. Instead, he looked at Duo with as much indifference as he could and said, \"Long time no see, Duo.\"

*****

Heero\'s voice broke Duo out of his state of shock and he quickly regained as much composure as one could when they stood half naked in front of one of their friends. Realizing that he should probably invite Heero inside, he opened the door wider and moved out of the way so that Heero would have room. \"Well, come on in, buddy.\"

He reached down and picked up the towel he dropped and closed the door behind him as he make his way to his bedroom. He remained careful not to look directly at Heero during his walk to the other side of the apartment. He didn\'t want him to see the blush which had made its way onto his face when he reached down for his towel. \"Make yourself comfortable, I\'ll be right back.\"

Heero watched Duo\'s back as he retreated into a small walkway that he assumed led to Duo\'s bedroom. He noted another door across from Dou\'s bedroom and figured that it must be the bathroom. Continuing his observation of Duo\'s apartment, Heero turned his head to the other side. The small archway there led into a small kitchen area that looked like it had enough room for two people to move around cautiously.

Turning his attention to the wall which Duo\'s couch faced, he saw the standard size television and video player which sat to the side of the door he came through. In the corner sat a small paper shredder and a pile of papers which had yet to be shredded. Relena\'s invitiation rested at the top of the pile. A wooden coffee table stood between him and the television setup. Lastly he turned his attention to the back wall. A pair sliding glass doors led out onto a small balcony that hung out over the public pool. Vertical blinds were pushed over to one side to let in the sunlight. In one corner there was a desk where Duo had placed his laptop. In the other, there sat a dining table with a pair of matching chairs. Heero also noted some of the lesser decorations as well, a poster here, a mirror there, a floor lamp which shone straight onto the desk. All in all the place had a really nice feel to it.

Hearing the bedroom door open, Heero glanced over to see Duo come back out into the livingroom. He had changed into a much better fitting pair of blue jeans and a black tank that he had tucked in, much to Heero\'s secret displeasure. His chestnut hair had been brushed and braided back. \"So, I thought you were supposed to be here for two.\"

Heero watched Duo walk over and take a seat on the other side of the couch. As he did, he got the chance to study Duo\'s face. The round heart-shaped features he had come to know had smoothed out and become more angular. He had gotten his right ear peirced and had a small gold cross currently hanging from it. His eyes, which he remembered to be a bluish-purple, were now a deep orchid. \"They moved us to an earlier flight to avoid the ion storm that changed directions a couple nights ago.\"

\"Oh.\" Well, what else could Duo say to that?

Two minutes passed where neither of them said a word. Duo fidgited with the end of his braid and Heero tried to burn two holes in the wall the size of a pair of eyes. Finally, Duo got tired of the silence and sighed. He never could stay quiet for long and it almost looked as if they were being childish, but for what reason he didn\'t know. \"Hungry? I know this small diner where the food is good and the price is cheap. My treat.\"

Heero looked over at Duo and realized that he really was hungry. \"Sounds great. Are you sure?\"

Duo grinned and jumped up off the couch. Retrieving his wallet and the keys, he opened the door and waited for Heero to get up. \, no, no problem man.\"