Disclaimer: The characters belong to Sotsu, Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment, I neither claim them nor certainly make any money off them!
Pairing: 6x2
Rating: Lemony in places
Time Setting: Post-series, three years later (minus events in Ground Zero, Blind Target, Endless Waltz as when I started this, I hadn't seen or read about these yet)
Summary: A chance meeting leads to the recovery of a wounded heart.
Zechs went first to Cherry to explain what they were hoping to do. To his surprise, the woman heartily endorsed Duo's plan. "That girl is nine going on about forty," she responded with a grin. "She could just about run this place herself! And she'd love to help. I know you wouldn't put her in a dangerous situation."
Duo grinned while Zechs just nodded, thinking. "Call her here, please."
In less than a minute, Zechs was at his desk, Duo was perched on the corner of the desk, and Deener was standing before them both, looking at the older man with a strange intensity. "I'll do it," she muttered before either could speak.
Duo just chuckled while Zechs looked at her peculiarly. "You'll do what?" he asked, stunned.
She shrugged expansively. "I have no idea! But I can tell you two are still going after bad guys and I want to go with you and help. Please, Papa Peace?"
Duo laughed out loud, slapping his knee.
"How the hell does she do that?" Zechs asked him, bewildered.
"Who cares?" Duo chortled, then bounced off the desk and scooped up the girl, sailing around with her in a circle. "Honey, you're the best!" he exclaimed as she giggled.
Deener hugged Duo when he set her back down, then went and hugged Zechs, pressing her little cheek against his. "Love you, Papa Peace. I want to help you."
Zechs folded his arms around her slim frame for a moment, his heart full. "You do already, Deener, sweetie. But we do need your help. A boy has been kidnapped and a bad man who might know where he is won't tell us... but if he talks to another war orphan, we think he might give in."
She pulled away to look him in the eye. "You'll be with me?"
"Neither of us will leave your side for a second," Zechs promised fervently.
Deener broke out into a huge grin. "I am SO there! Let's go!"
Zechs stood with her hand in his, and looked toward his still-grinning lover. "I owe you for this, Duo..."
Duo, his braid bouncing, sketched a silly little bow that got Deener giggling again. "You're very welcome, and I intend to collect." With that last, he gave Zechs a sly, suggestive wink and pivoted to leave the office, braid a-swaying.
Zechs sucked his breath in as they departed. [If Deener wasn't with us...]
The shuttle made record time traversing to the other colony, and in less than two hours the two men and the little girl were entering the C-125 detention facility. Trowa was there to meet them. "Hello, Zechs, Duo... long time no see, eh?"
"Trowa," Duo breathed, glad to see yet another of his former colleagues. He shook hands with the taller man - Trowa was just an inch shy of six feet now, three years later. "Good to see you!"
Zechs shook his hand as well. "I'm glad we can meet again under better circumstances, Trowa," he murmured, and turned to the wide-eyed Deener at his side. "This is Deener."
"Hello, Deener," Trowa greeted the child kindly, smiling.
She stared hard at him. "You're like they are... you were in the war, too."
Trowa's eyes widened. "Uh, yeah. I see someone has told you about me."
"Not a word," Duo said, shrugging with a grin.
"I... see." Trowa tilted his head, regarding the little girl. "Well, we've cleared the way with the authorities here to allow her to see Danzer. They're not happy, but Heero's got enough pull to force this. Come this way, please."
Zechs and Duo, each holding one of Deener's hands, exchanged a glance as they proceeded.
Outside the conference room where Danzer Quinze was held in waiting, Heero met them. "Hello, Deener, it's nice to see you again."
"You," she murmured, tilting her freckled face to look up at the dark-haired man. "They call you Maxwell, too, huh?"
"Yes," Heero replied, nodding. "You can think of me as Duo's brother, if you like." He turned to Zechs, not waiting for an answer. "I'm not sure you should go in there with her."
"I promised her I wouldn't leave her side," Zechs replied tightly. His tone said there was no room for argument.
"Very well. But I don't want too many in there. Trowa and Duo should stay out here."
Duo shifted his weight uncomfortably, but nodded. Heero was the expert here, it seemed. [We were never taught interrogation; he's picked that up working for that Justice Department. Huh, it *has* been a long three years...]
"I'll be fine, Papa Duo," Deener said, giving him a quick hug.
"Sure you will," Duo replied, giving her a smile and a squeeze. Then she and Zechs went in with Heero.
Trowa looked sidelong at Duo. "Papa Duo, she called you?"
"Yeah," Duo muttered, embarrassed. "Nice to see you, too, Tro."
Zechs didn't so much as glance at Danzer; he gave Deener a little kiss on the cheek and whispered into her ear, bending down to her, "I'll be right back here, honey, every minute. You can trust Heero."
"Yep, I know that, Papa," Deener replied in a small but brave voice. "I'll be fine." She squeezed his hand then let it go. While Zechs fell back to go sit by the door, she approached the table with Heero, slipping into a chair in front of it.
Heero sat down right beside her, close. He ignored Danzer for a moment; the man had been staring at them in horror from the moment they'd walked in, especially at the child. "Deener," Heero began, speaking in a calm, reassuring voice, "this is Danzer Quinze. He's being held here because he was stealing money from the orphanages to build mobile suits."
Deener, from the moment she'd sat down, was already staring at the man. "Why did you do that, Mister Quinze?" she asked sharply.
He jerked at the child's sudden vehemence. "I'm not doing this!" he growled at Heero, but only moved restlessly in his chair. The two burly guards to either side of him already had shown him how much they wanted him to stay in the chair. "Please, not a kid!! Damn, you, Maxwell, this is dirty tricks!"
"How awful for you," Heero muttered, unsympathetic. "To have to talk to a child."
"I just want to know why," Deener murmured. "Do you hate children, Mister Quinze?"
"No, I... shut up!" Danzer snarled at the girl, who did not move a muscle, to Heero's amazement. "I'm not talking to you! Go back to your 'Papa', kid!"
"He's not my real father," Deener replied soberly. "My parents were killed because they were White Fang and OZ was afraid of them. But you know what? Everything is okay now. OZ is gone. So there doesn't have to be a White Fang now."
Danzer narrowed his eyes at her. "What would you know, you're just a little squirt?"
Even from the door, Zechs could see the fear in the man's eyes, in the nervousness in his hands. [This could work... he's so afraid! But of what, I wonder? What's going on here?]
Deener's composure was complete. She narrowed her eyes back at him, but not to mimic, but to concentrate. To Heero's wonder, the girl brought a hand up and touched her heart, then nodded as if understanding something. "He didn't mean to, sir. All those years... you were so alone. He didn't mean to..."
Heero glanced behind him, but Zechs looked just as bewildered, shaking his head. Heero recalled strange things he'd heard Quatre say... and touch himself like that... and Trowa telling him once that Quatre had nearly had a heart attack when he, Heero, had self-detonated his Gundam. [She *is* like Quatre... but what is she talking about?]
"What?" Danzer demanded, glaring at her. "What do you know about him? How could you know?"
"Fathers often have to leave their children," Deener went on, nodding, a look of sorrow on her face. "He didn't know she would die and leave you alone. He thought..."
"Shut up," Danzer snapped, but his eyes were glistening.
"He thought," Deener continued as if she hadn't heard him, "that he had a just cause that was worth any personal sacrifice. That can be a good thing. But it hurt you, didn't it, sir?"
"What's she talking about, Danzer," Heero broke in, sensing a breakthrough.
Zechs, his mind whirling, thought about Danzer's father, the man known simply as Quinze who had recruited the one-time OZ ace pilot and suddenly Gundam pilot to be the leader of the White Fang. Quinze had been focused and determined, bent on their goals. Remembering that initial fateful meeting, Zechs recalled that Quinze had never once looked at Danzer who had accompanied him along with Denis Unter. [Oh, my God, what if he wanted to hurt the children because he'd been abandoned for many years by *his* father... and then once he'd found him again, Quinze had already given his heart over to the cause completely... Danzer *resents* that the Peacegarden orphans have a home and the love he'd missed...]
Suddenly three things happened simultaneously. Danzer Quinze lurched forward to grab Deener in a wild hope of making her a hostage and Heero Yuy and Milliardo Peacecraft abruptly both were standing on either side of the girl, guns trained on the man's heart. Then the guards hauled Danzer back, throwing him roughly back into the chair. The guns, however, did not waver.
At the sound of the sudden scraping of chairs from inside the room, Duo rushed to enter, Trowa at his heels. The door slammed behind them and Duo, feeling faint, gaped at the sight, especially of his lover in profile, eyes dark and dangerous, training a gun on the prisoner. He sagged against Trowa but didn't say anything, memories from the war and of the White Fang Commander and Epyon flooding back.
Deener whimpered once, shut her eyes tight, and began to speak. "The soldiers had guns! They came into the diner with guns pointed at everyone, even sweet Mrs. Frank who would never hurt a soul, they pointed guns at her!"
Everyone in the room stared at the girl except for the two holding guns. Duo, shocked, remembered that Deener wasn't supposed to have recalled what happened the day her parents were killed. Evidently something - whatever Danzer had said or done to get guns pointed at him - had been a trigger.
"Daddy said to get under the table," Deener hurried on, her voice starting to break. "I did but I could still see. The soldiers were rough with Daddy and Mommy. There was a lot of screaming and then there was fire and gunshots! I saw Daddy and Mommy on the floor..." She paused to gulp air, then rushed on, "So much blood! It was all over my hands. Then a man with white hair came - it was so hot! - he said a lot of bad words and his face was wet but then he saw me and picked me up. I heard him mention OZ and then he carried me out of the fire..."
She started sobbing all of a sudden. In two steps Duo had her in his arms, picking her up and holding her close to comfort her. Zechs lowered the gun, then dropped it on the floor as he went to put his arms around both of them.
Heero's eyes never left Danzer's face. The man was shaking. "What is it?" Heero asked him quietly.
Danzer swallowed convulsively. "M... my father told me about the diner just before we went to the Earth to look for Peacecraft. Her... her parents were Enzo and Delia Valarta, two true patriots according to him. He couldn't take care of the girl - Dee- Deanna I think he said her name was -so she was left with a woman named Phylinda. I don't know anything after that. The girl couldn't have been more than six years old."
"Anything else?" Heero asked dryly, and waved the gun in the man's face a little for emphasis.
The man sighed, soul-weary. "N...not about her..."
Suddenly Deener pulled away from her guardians. To their shock, she slammed her little fists on the table right in front of Danzer, making him jump. "Your father did what he had to do! He was a good man! My parents did what they had to do! Mama Phyla did what she had to do even when she left me to go to war with the others! It was WAR!!" Duo tried to pull her back, but she pulled away from him roughly, insistent on making her point. "You have to get over it, Mister, and STOP HURTING CHILDREN!! Tell them where the boy is!"
"Deener, that's enough," Zechs murmured, his voice breaking as he strode in and picked her up bodily. "We need to go home now, little one." He turned without a backwards glance and left the room with the sobbing girl in his arms, Duo hard on his heels.
Trowa picked up the fallen gun and stood shoulder to shoulder with Heero. Danzer, shaking, looked up at the two solemn ex-Gundam pilots, knowing he was a beaten man.
He told.