(cloneness) chapter 13, last scene
Duo stayed with the little ones that night. They were excited and nervous and he spent most of his night soothing nightmares. The rest of the time he spent having visions of all the many, many problems they might encounter in his head, and tormenting himself for being unable to imagine everything. The way his luck went, it was an unforeseen problem that would do them in. When Heero came back from the sentinel spot to wake him up, he was already wide awake.
"Time to go?" he whispered; the clone nodded. "Alright, I'll wake up the babies. Go wake up the big kids."
His whispering had Alex and Hilde stirring already. He concentrated on waking up the twins first, watching Heero from the corner of his eye. The Soldier tapped Mueller and Otto's shoulders; when he loomed over Alex, the blond teen jumped into a sitting position. Shaking his head, Duo went back to his kids.
"We go today?" Meiran demanded as she rubbed at her eyes with both hands. When he nodded, she put both hands on her brother's chest and started shaking him. "Fei, Fei, wake up, wake up! We're going to the FARM today!"
"Hey! 'm awake!" And he shoved her back. Duo sighed; the day was starting well.
Meiran's excitation was contagious -- that or she was simply noisy. In a few minutes, everyone was on their feet and getting dressed. The blankets got folded up as tightly as possible and attached to Duo, Heero and the teenagers' packs. Cathy cooked up twice as much meat as she usually did; it was that or leaving it there and besides they would need their strength anyway.
Breakfast came and went in a curious atmosphere, a mix of sleepiness, wariness and exhilaration. The last preparations were surprisingly few, and Duo tried to soothe his nerves by checking everyone's pack, how well it held and if it would cause painful rubbing or soreness later in the day. It was only when Otto gave him an amused look that he realized he was manhandling even the older kids and wasting time. Sheepish, he let go of the boy's backpack straps and straightened up.
"Well then. Everyone ready?"
"Yeah!" Hildie and Mei exclaimed together. Heh, his little firecrackers. They wouldn't be as enthusiastic tonight, or the day after, or for as long as it took them to arrive.
"You're missing one," Heero remarked quietly, and everyone froze.
"What -- who -- Sylvia!"
The kids exploded through the shelter, looking all over for the little girl. Duo checked his partitioned corner first; nothing. Milly and Alex had galloped upstairs and were looking through the ruined rooms.
"Oh damn, what if she went outside?" Duo ran to the exit; Heero stopped him.
"I would have seen her. Unless she went through a window, she's inside."
"Why can't your dog find her?!" Duo exclaimed as he tore through the ground floor. "Dogs do that, don't they--"
"I'll teach it. Check the staircase."
... The staircase, the one he had used to stash weapons. It was blocked by so many planks that even Heero's dog would have a hard time wriggling through... except that one of the planks was pushed a little aside. Heero crouched, peeked through, and nodded.
"She's in here. I'll call off the search, you get her out."
Duo closed his eyes briefly, shoulders sagging in relief, and went to work on the barricade. Sylvia was wedged on the highest possible step, watching him with terrified eyes. She was curled around her backpack, a dirty pink thing that must have been sparkly at some point in its past.
"Well, what are you doing here, baby? Don't you want to come to the farm with everyone?" he said soothingly as he stepped up toward her. She started shaking. It was dark in here, and al the light came from behind him; she probably couldn't see his face. Duo sat down against one of the walls and tried not to think about how unstable the rubble over their heads probably was. "It's going to be great, you'll see. With fields to play in, and no one around to bug us, and -- and fruit. Just like there was in the can, you remember? There will be trees with tons of fruit, and lots of yummy food, and a good roof over our heads. And animals everywhere -- but not like the rats, kinda like -- birds, lots of birds. And a river -- you remember what I said? It's kind of like a big open sewer, but all clean, and you can play in it, and there's fish. It will be awesome, you'll see."
Sylvia was giving him a look that said she didn't know if she could trust him and that half of what he was saying went over her head, but when he reached out, she didn't try to avoid him. Not that there was enough space left for that, but it was still progress.
"Come on, let's go."
He started to climb down, hand still held up for her; when he was halfway there, he felt her take it.
After that, things went more smoothly. A few kids muttered about Sylvia, but he glared them into silence. Heero went forward to scout; Duo gave his oldest kids a gun safety talk again, and set them to guard the little troupe. He had explained to them that they should be as quiet as possible, and to only shoot if there was no other solution; still, Alex and Mueller looked all too happy with their shiny new guns. It worried him a bit.
They sneaked past a few smaller groups' territories. Duo kept expecting to be caught, and the children, feeling his tension, walked without a word. A few times, Heero signaled them to change paths, and they had to cross a field of broken glass and rusted nails, and squirm through several narrow alleys, but apart from a few scrapes, no one got hurt or made too much noise.
Heero was silent as he guided them through the suburbs; Duo was so relieved that they hadn't been attacked that he decided to ignore the damp red spot on Heero's shirt. He was pretty sure it wasn't Heero's blood and that was all he wanted to know.
+
And I think I'm about halfway done with the fic iself. XD It's only page 132 after all.
*dies discreetly*