Cross My Heart (formerly "untitled Duo Ficcie")

-----part 1-----

"Wake up, baka."

Duo sighed and climbed out of bed. "Heero, I was having a nice dream."

"You can have a new dream tonight." Heero complained. "You promised you'd help 
me repaint the living room."

"Tell me why we're doing this again." Duo asked.

"For a friend of mine who's getting married." Heero replied. "it's a wedding 
present."

"He's lucky." Duo muttered. "I wish I were getting married."

"What?" Heero asked, sharply.

"Nothing." Duo sighed.

"What a mess." Duo remarked as they walked into the living room of the house in 
question. 

"Never mind that. Just help me out, okay?" Heero sighed.

"Okay." Duo replied.

Duo started to work on the baseboards on one side of the living room, while 
Heero started to work on the molding near the ceiling on the other side. They 
had to strip the paint away first, which meant using solvents that would burn if 
any got on one of them, which was why they were working opposite sides of the 
room.

At one point, however, Duo ran out of solvent and had to get more. As he was 
approaching the ladder, the drop cloth tripped him up and he struck the ladder 
hard enough to dislodge to open container of solvent that was lying atop it.

Heero, who'd left the room a moment earlier to deal with a door-to-door salesman, 
heard Duo's scream of pain and rushed back into the room.

Duo was staggering around the room, holding his face, shrieking. Heero saw the 
overturned ladder and quickly rushed over to Duo.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, when he saw the burns already adorning Duo's beautiful 
face. He hurried Duo into the bathroom and began to rinse the solvent from the 
other boy's skin.

"It hurts!" Duo was wailing. He caught a glimpse of himself and was horrified at 
the burns he could see. "Oh, gods! My face! My face!"

"It'll heal." Heero hoped more than promised. "We'll get you to a doctor." This 
he did promise. After he'd rinsed Duo off as much as he could, he had Duo lie 
down and called for an ambulance."

-----part 2-----

The ambulance arrived several minutes later and whisked both Duo and Heero off 
to the nearest hospital.

Duo's was still screaming when they arrived and had to be restrained. Heero 
helped the paramedics do this and was rewarded with a look of utter hurt and 
betrayal.

"I'm sorry, Duo-chan." Heero said, wishing he could give Duo a comforting kiss, 
but not daring to do so, fearing that he would only cause further pain. "it's so 
you won't hurt yourself."

The ride was short, the hospital close by, and soon the two of them were in the 
burn unit. Or to be more precise, Heero was in the waiting room while Duo was in 
the surgery, being treated for his injuries.

The burns had been in long striped patterns down his face, fortunately, rather 
than blotches, so they had merely cut away the damaged skin and then stitched 
the remaining skin together, much in the same way they'd perform a simple face-lift. 
He'd bear scars for the rest of his life, but there would be no ugly red patches 
at
least.

"Doesn't look too bad." Heero told Duo when he was finally allowed to see him 
again. 

Duo shook his head. "I'm ugly." he sobbed. "I look hideous."

"No, you don't." Heero replied.

-----part 3-----

Heero held Duo in his arms and kissed him, tenderly.

"You'll always be beautiful to me, Duo." he reassured the braided pilot. "I 
promise."

"Shouldn't you be working on that house?" Duo asked.

Heero shook his head. "Quatre and Wufei are working on it."

"Oi! I hope they don't get hurt!" Duo yelped.

"Relax, they'll be fine." Heero replied.

"Your friend is very lucky." Duo told him. "I hope he appreciates the present 
you got for him."

Heero nodded. "I hope you do, too, Duo." he whispered in his ear.

Duo pulled back and stared at him. "Heero..." he blinked. "But you said it was 
for a friend who was getting married. I'm not even engaged."

"You will be soon." Heero said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small 
golden ring. "Duo, will you marry me?"

Duo was overjoyed. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Heero... I can't believe it... It's 
so... so... no one's been this nice to me since Sister Helen. People have been 
nice, but not this nice. Oh, Heero, thank you." He buried his face in Heero's 
chest and wept, but they were tears of joy and relief. 

After a while, Heero noticed Duo had fallen silent and pulled back to look at 
him. The other boy was deep in thought, as if pondering some important decision. 
He'd already said "yes", Heero told himself, so what was he thinking?

"Duo?" Heero asked.

"Heero, do you want children?" Duo asked.

"You're thinking about that new male womb implant, aren't you?" Heero asked.

Duo nodded. "Part of me wants to have children, Heero. I want it more than 
anything. But I'm afraid, too. What if I have a child and then I die like my 
parents did and I leave him or her all alone. I could never forgive myself if I 
put another human being through what I experienced."

"You won't die." Heero said. "I won't let you. Not until you're old and grey and 
hobbling on a cane and... and squinting like a pirate."

"Promise?" Duo asked.

"Yup. Cross my heart and hope to die." Heero made the familiar x-sign over his 
chest with his finger.

Duo remembered the saying and smiled. "Stick a needle in your eye?" he grinned.

"Ugh. Whoever came up with that part?" Heero wondered, with a disgusted voice.

"So, I guess I'll have the surgery." Duo shrugged. "Might as well do it while I'm 
here and not have to pay for a second hospital visit."

Heero nodded. "Guess so." he placed a soft kiss upon Duo's lips, then went to 
find a doctor.

"The surgery is a little pricey," the doctor told them, "and male childbirth is 
very dangerous. Especially in the last trimester. Delivery is Caesarean, and 
that carries its own risks."

"I understand all the risks." Duo replied. "I still want the surgery."

"You are aware that you can adopt." the doctor suggested.

Duo frowned inwardly at that. With his background he couldn't even *get* adopted, 
never mind adopting a child of his own. "No." he shook his head. "I want to 
carry it. I want it to be mine and Heero's."

"Very well." the doctor decided. "We can take care of that right now if you'd 
like." 

"Yes, that would be fine." Duo agreed.

The doctor went out to the nurse's station and paged the anesthesiologist. A 
middle aged woman dressed in a standard doctor's uniform arrived a few minutes 
later. The doctor told her what he needed and led her into the room where Duo 
and Heero were.

"This is Duo." he introduced the handsome patient. "Duo, this is Ms. Harper, our 
anesthesiologist."

"Pleased ta meetcha." Duo grinned.

"Any allergies?" Ms. Harper asked.

"Not that I'm aware of." Duo replied.

"He's allergic to silence." Heero offered.

"So, you're having the implant done?" Ms. Harper asked as she gave Duo an 
injection..

Duo nodded. "Yeah. I want to have a kid with Heero-kun, here." he looked over at 
Heero, smiling tenderly.

"Omae o korosu." Heero growled affectionately, unable to suppress a grin.

"Love you, too." Duo smiled, weakly, the drug beginning to take effect.

The doctor turned to Heero. "He'll be in surgery for about six hours, so you 
might as well go home. It'll be past the end of visiting hours before he's out 
and then he'll probably sleep through the night."

"I'll see you in the morning, Duo." Heero promised.

"You, too." Duo smiled, softly, then drifted off to sleep. 

-----part 4-----

Heero woke at six the next morning. It was far too early to go to see Duo, so he 
spent most of the morning working on the home he'd bought for himself and the 
braided baka.

At lunchtime, he headed off to the hospital to see how Duo was getting along.

Duo was lying in bed, eyes closed, breathing peacefully.

"Not awake yet?" Heero asked.

"He's been in and out all morning." the nurse replied. "We just finished surgery 
around seven a.m."

"Why so late?" Heero asked.

"We had to perform additional surgery." the nurse explained. "He was very lucky 
he had asked for surgery. I must admit, though, I've never seen anyone develop 
cancer of the appendix before. Appendicitis, yes. But this was a first. It was 
remove with no problems, but it had started to spread. Fortunately, we were able 
to remove it completely so there won't be any further difficulties."

Heero fell into a chair. His mind reeled at the idea that he'd come so close to 
losing Duo.

"Are you sure it's gone?" he asked.

The nurse nodded. 

Duo opened his eyes. "Heero?"

"Hi, Duo." Heero smiled. "Feeling okay?"

"Fine." Duo smiled back at his fiancé. "Guess the surgery was a success."

"It sure was." Heero replied, kissing him softly.

"You hungry?" the nurse asked.

Duo pondered this. "For the stuff they serve in hospitals? Nope. For *food*... 
yeah!"

The nurse smiled. "Well, today's menu is chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes."

"Hmm... sounds like food. Okay, why not." Duo shrugged. He looked at Heero and 
winked. "And bring him a large pizza."

"Oh no." the nurse knew what Duo wanted all too well from her experience with 
other patients. "You just had abdominal surgery and you still got a little 
anesthesia in your system. It'll hurt like hell if you eat pizza today. You can 
have it tomorrow. Promise.

"Aw shucks." Duo pouted. 

-----part 5-----

Duo was released from the hospital the next day.

"There's no medical reason for you to remain here in the hospital." the doctor 
told him. "However, you may have residual traces of the anesthesia in your 
bloodstream so please do not use any machinery for the next week or so."

Duo looked a bit downcast for a moment, then remembered Shinigami's AI system. "Sure, 
doc." he agreed. 

"Good luck, to both of you." the doctor told Duo and Heero as they left.


Heero didn't think Duo should have pizza just yet, but he did take him to a nice 
fast food restaurant where Duo got a fish sandwich, a soda, and onion rings. 
Heero got a hamburger, a soda, and French fries.

The two of them sat talking about their wedding plans, eating their food, and 
just enjoying each other's company. 

"You have a little tartar sauce on the side of your mouth." Heero observed.

Duo wiped the wrong side.

"Here." Heero said leaning forward and kissing Duo where the tartar sauce was on 
his lip.

"Get your own!" Duo laughed.

Heero smiled. "I got my own." he replied. "He's sitting across from me."

Duo blushed. 

"So, when are we going to tell the others?" Duo asked. "Or do they already know?"

"They know." Heero replied. "It's easy to keep a secret from you. You talk so 
much we couldn't tell you if we wanted to."

Duo stuck his tongue out at Heero.

"So, what do we do now?"

"I think we should just head home for and let you rest." Heero replied. "Doctor's 
orders, remember."

Duo nodded. "Yeah." 

-----TBC-----