*******************
American Dream
by Ashura Nagisa
Songfic: 2xH
Usual
disclaimers,
Lyrics by Jen
Cass
Warnings: None
*******************
~I won't forget the day I met you honey
you left your number in my coffee cup
I never met another guy so funny
you took me driving in your pickup truck
the sun was shining when we hit
we rolled the windows down to feel the
wind
you bought me flowers at the Texaco
I swear to God I loved you then~
It was a Tuesday
morning--grey and overcast, but not raining, not melancholy enough to be
inspiring or bright enough to be exhilarating.
The citizens of the world, whether the earth or the colonies, went about
their dull and ordinary lives in careless monotony, accompanied by the toneless
hum of the city going on around them.
Hilde leaned over
the counter of the frustratingly trendy coffee-shoppe to reach for the tray and
tip a hurried businessman had left her.
It was amusing, really--the same girl who had risked her life,
infiltrated the Libra battleship, stolen data, and fought off mobile dolls had
been reduced to mixing espresso for hordes of ungrateful people who had no idea
what they really owed her.
It wasn't a
bitter thought, really--more like an amused one. The poetic irony of the universe. Who said God didn't have a sense of
humour? He--or She--did, and it was
pretty twisted.
"Hey, babe,
can I get a cappuccino?"
"Two-fifty,"
she answered, without looking up, stifling the immediate urge to take a swing
at people who insisted on calling her 'babe'.
Money changed hands, as did a coffee cup, and then a small crowd of
computer programmers from the monolith up the street came in and commanded her
attention. They, at least, were
polite--and for the most part, so lonely for any female attention that even a
smile got her an impressive tip.
It wasn't until
later, when the buzz of customers had calmed, that she thought she saw--
No, it couldn't
be.
Was it?
The telltale
swing of a long chestnut braid, disappearing out the door and around the side
of the building?
"Just a
minute--" she called hastily to her co-worker Angela, vaulting the counter
and racing out the door.
But there was
no-one there. "What the
hell--Hilde? What're you /doing/?"
Angela called after her, spitting laughter.
Hilde grinned
sheepishly. "Nothing, I guess. Thought I saw somebody I knew, but I was
wrong."
Angela coughed
delicately. "You might not be. Guy in black, long hair, baseball cap?"
Hilde resisted
the impulse to shove her friend against the wall and wring the information out
of her.
"YES! That's the
one--where'd you see him?"
Angela rolled her
eyes. "You served him his coffee,
you idiot. Are you really that out of
it? He sat in the corner staring at you
for twenty minutes. Here. I get the feeling this is for you."
She handed Hilde
a cup, the same innocent sort of cup they used for all their customers. Inside it was a folded-up piece of paper,
scribbled in very bad handwriting in black pen.
//Hilde--call
me? Duo.// And his number. That was all.
Of course, it was all that would fit on the back of a cigarette-paper.
Angela was
already pushing her toward the
phone. "Call. Right now.
Then you tell me all about it," she commanded.
Hilde grinned
inanely. "I think I will."
The number was a
portable, which only made sense, and Duo was squinting in attempt to see her on
the little screen wrapped around his wrist.
"Hey babe!" he said cheerfully. "Glad you called! I was a afraid you were ignoring me!"
"I just
didn't see you," Hilde reassured him, a goofy grin on her face.
Duo sighed in
obvious--no, melodramatic--relief.
"That's good to hear! So
when do you get done? Come out for a
while and catch up on old times with me later?"
Hilde nodded,
trying not to laugh at the faces Angela was making at her just out of the
vidphone's view. "Pick me up here
at three?" She realised immediately
after she said it that she probably should have planned to go home first, get a
shower, change into non-work clothes...but that would all take time, and when
it came down to it, she'd rather just see Duo.
He grinned--that
bright, unfathomably gorgeous smile that made her knees go weak. "Sure thing, ba--Hilde. I'll see you then."
The phone clicked
off. Hilde let out her breath. Angela burst into laughter. "Not graceful," she chided. "Not graceful at all. But hey, with a face like that, I can't blame
you...he doesn't have a brother or anything, does he?"
Hilde was too
busy staring dreamily at the doorway to answer her. Angela snorted in mock disgust and started
washing mugs.
Never since
elementary school had the clock taken so long to reach
Duo was
prompt--no sooner had the clock tower across the street begun to chime three
than the door swung open and there he was, still dressed like a priest on
holiday, a black cap obscuring part of the hair that hung rebelliously in his
face, the rest caught in a long braid that swung behind him with a life of its
own. Hilde maintained just enough
control /not/ to go sailing into his arms as soon as he wandered in the door,
but the silly smile that had been pasted on her face all afternoon never dimmed.
"Hey,
Hilde! You look great," Duo said
cheerily, as if it hadn't been three years since they'd seen each other
last. "Imagine runnin' into you out
here, huh? What a stroke of luck. Fate, whatever." He talked as much as ever, too, a constant
stream of chatter that eased him into any awkward situation.
Angela cleared
her throat pointedly, and Hilde blushed.
"Oh. Right. Angie, this is Duo Maxwell. An old friend of mine from...well, less happy
times. Duo, this is my friend Angela
Reilly."
Duo shook her
hand and gave her a smile that /must/
have made Angela a bit goopy as well.
"Nice to meet ya. I run, I
hide, but I never tell a lie, that's me in a nutshell. So.
Hilde, you ready to take off?"
She nodded,
brushing her hands on her short black skirt.
"Where do you want to go?"
Duo grinned. "Who cares? C'mon!"
He grabbed her hand and hauled her outside after him, shouting a
cheerful "See you later!" to Angela and a few bemused coffee-shoppe
patrons.
~I said I...
hold on to the American dream...but I
keep waking up without the things that I
need, baby
and here and now with you I'm finally free
you know we're gone together, please
baby, please~
They wandered
aimlessly through the day, content to catch up on three years of life without a
destination in mind. Duo explained he
was between jobs, and a bout of homesickness had brought him back to L2.
"I thought
you'd joined the Preventers with the rest of them," Hilde said curiously.
Duo
shrugged. "I did. I quit.
It's like...I dunno, Hilde, I'm /tired/ of being a soldier. I'm eighteen, and that's all I've ever
been. Came to the conclusion I'd rather
be poor and plain and not have to kill anybody ever again."
Hilde
chuckled. "I can identify. How are you at pouring coffee?"
Duo laughed. "I'll leave it to you for now. I wouldn't look as good in the skirt. Actually I know a guy who restores
motorcycles, he has a shoppe kinda near here.
I thought I might hook up with him, for a while at least."
Hilde tried not
to let her excitement show /too/ obviously.
He'd be staying here? Near
her? "That'd be nice, getting to
see a bit more of you!"
Duo grinned
easily, lacing his fingers through hers and squeezing her hand. "Aw, c'mon...you didn't think you were
gonna get rid of me now, did you?"
Hilde blushed,
but couldn't help but smile. "At
least I hoped not," she admitted.
Duo leaned close,
cupping her chin in his other hand and tilting her face up. "I know I just ran into you again,"
he began, apologetically, "and that I ought to wait til we've hung out for
more than an afternoon before trying this, and everything, but I just feel like
the chemistry is really intense and I mean, I missed you, and--"
Hilde rolled her
eyes. "Duo, do you /ever/ shut
up?" she teased, and kissed him.
~My mother cried when we moved in together
found a place above the local pub
the ceiling leaked when there was rainy
weather
the floorboards creaked when we were
making love
but it was ours and that was all that
mattered
we didn't really need a bedroom door
and when the wind blew
and the whole house clattered
we danced around the kitchen floor~
Duo stood with
his hands on his hips in the centre of the bare, battered living room,
surrounded by a pathetic collection of boxes and belongings. "Not much, is it?" he said,
apologetic, shooting Hilde a glance as she leaned against the doorframe. "Wish I could do more for ya, kid--I
do. It feels wrong, somehow, that we
should end up stuck in a place like this."
Hilde abandoned
her post at the door to slide her arms around him and kiss the underside of his
chin--it was about all she could reach without standing on tiptoe. "It's a choice we both made,
remember?" she admonished him lightly.
"And I seem to remember that I made it before you did." It was the decision they'd made to leave the
war behind, and everything that went with it, and live in quiet anonymity in
the busy city's heart.
"Yeah,
you're right." Duo folded her into
his arms, his fingers stroking through her short black hair. "Don't pay attention to me, I'm being
stupid anyway. Shit, when I was little
this place woulda been a castle."
Hilde nestled
against his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Silly.
It still is."
"Hey! That's enough of that, you two!" Sharp, cheerful, Angela Reilly's voice sailed
up the stairs ahead of her--as did the short but bulky stack of boxes the
brunette was balancing in her arms.
"Brought you some things from my mom's house, Hilde, she was gonna
have a garage sale but we thought you could look through it first." Hilde disengaged from Duo to relieve her
friend of the boxes, but somewhere in the handoff they both lost their balance
and collapsed, giggling, onto the floor.
Angela propped herself up on her elbows, straightened her tortoise-shell
glasses, and grinned. "So? Let's start unpacking, huh? Figuring out where stuff goes, that's the fun
part."
Duo rolled his
eyes as he flopped onto the floor next to them.
"Women. Sheesh."
Angela leveled a
glare at him, and Hilde burst out laughing again. The love of her life and her best friend, and
all three of them got along fabulously.
Life couldn't get better, even if they could have afforded an apartment
with insulation, and windows that weren't cracked in places, and plumbing that
worked every day without fail.
"You," Angie was saying, fumbling around her for something to
throw at Duo, "can make yourself useful and go get us some
pizza." Duo, grumbled, laughing,
but snapped a sharp salute to both of them and trotted off down the stairs.
"Yeah, yeah,
I know when I'm not wanted--and in my own place, no less! You know what Wufei would say if he were
here, and it's be INJUSTIIIIICE...!"
His rather ridiculous impression of the Chinese pilot was the last the
girls could make out as Duo and his tirade vanished down the stairs.
Angie stifled
another giggle and started opening Hilde's boxes, peering inside as if trying
to decide what she should get into first.
"You're /sure/ that boy doesn't have a brother?" she asked
plaintively. "Yeah, yeah, I
know...so all the good ones are taken, gay, or Gundam pilots." It was an old joke, and not that funny out of
context, but the memories it evoked made Hilde laugh anyway. "So let's get to it, girl, stop wastin'
time! First thing you're gonna need in
here is curtains, unless you want the
whole world to see the way you two carry on...."
Hilde snickered,
crawling to one of the boxes and poking her head inside. "Is that a bad thing?"
Angie pulled a
towel from the box she was unpacking and snapped it at her. "Pervert. Get to work."
"Yes,
ma'am!" Laughing, they set about
turning secondhand scraps and a beaten-down building into what could be called
a real home.
Duo did
eventually arrive with the pizza, and they christened the apartment with its
first shared meal. They laughed as loud
as they wanted to and stayed up late, because the patrons of the bar beneath
them would hardly be bothered by something so trivial as noisy teenagers. It was nearing two when Angie donned her Docs
and bid them goodnight--"Remember, Hilde--curtains!" and disappeared
into the windy autumn night.
"Curtains?"
Duo repeated, curious.
Hilde grinned and
tickled him. "Nothin', don't worry
about it."
"Me
worry?" Duo laughed, fending off
her fingers and pinning her arms over her head.
"Just because you two are constantly plotting against me, why
should I worry?" Hilde stuck out
her tongue at him. "Tease," he
chided, rolling half-atop her and kissing her hungrily.
Hilde was still
giggling. "You taste--ew,
Duo!!--pepperoni--oh...." It didn't
really matter. They both tasted like
pizza, and she had to get up for work in four hours, and some of the drunks
downstairs had just burst into an out of tune chorus of "Piece of My
Heart." The wind was blowing tree branches against the creaking windows,
and the smooth hardwood floor was cold and squeaked more than a bed ever would
have--but none of it mattered once she was drowning in the kiss and caress of
the man she loved.
~You said I...
hold on to the American dream
keep waking up
without the things that I need, baby
and you're the only thing on earth
that sets me free
It's not much to ask for, baby, please~
Hilde awoke to
the anguished whine of a diseased alarm clock and the hiss of rain against her
window. She mumbled something incoherent
and probably impolite, reaching across Duo to slap the clock until it stopped
shrieking.
Strong arms
wrapped around her as she settled back into the bed. "Gotta go?" her lover asked
wistfully, nibbling at the lobe of her ear.
"Fraid
so," she answered reluctantly, kissing him soundly before she slipped out
of the blankets into the chill air of the bedroom. "If at least one of us doesn't go to
work, love, then we don't eat."
"Nnngh...I
know. I'm tryin', Hilde, I swear. Not even the Sweepers are taking people
lately, though." Duo's dejected
look provoked another understanding kiss before she tugged on her clothes. The motorcycle shoppe his acquaintance had
run had been a grand idea with little practicality--the man wasn't an adept
enough businessman to keep the place running, and when it closed its doors, Duo
had been left unemployed.
She wasn't
upset. He /was/ trying. She understood. She told him that every day. Unfortunately, she still had to get up at
five in the morning and go to work herself.
"Don't worry about it.
You'll find something. I'll see
you later. Love you."
"Love you,
Hilde," Duo returned, snuggling back into the blankets.
"Hilde? You coming?" called Angela from the
living room. "C'mon, it's too early
in the morning for this sappy stuff. I
need the rich acrid smell of caffeine in my nose before I kill somebody for
having to be up this early."
"You know I
love you, too, Angie," Duo called snidely, pulling the pillow over his
head. Hilde laughed, rubbed at her eyes,
dragged a comb through her hair, and slipped out the door.
~There's an old dirt road that we can take
that runs along the interstate
we can still make Iowa by nine
and we'll start ourselves a brand-new life
oh honey, say you'll be my wife
can't afford a ring, but we'll be
fine...together~
It wasn't much of
a ceremony. Actually it wasn't a
ceremony at all. It was Duo and Hilde,
with Angela and Neil, who was actually their landlord and ran the bar
downstairs, as witnesses. Four
signatures on a piece of paper, and a stamp from a judge, and that was all it
took.
Mr and Mrs
Maxwell.
The proposal
hadn't been any more elabourate than the wedding. It was Sunday, they both had the day off, and
without consultation had agreed to spend the better part of the day in bed,
making love and watching cartoons.
Somewhere in the middle of a Looney Toons marathon, which they'd missed
at least half of, Duo had blurted out, "So d'you think you wanna get
married?" And Hilde and grinned
and answered, "Of course," and that was that.
They'd considered
getting in touch with the other four pilots to tell them, but something had
held them back. Maybe it was the
exhilaration of independence that they felt, living quietly alone, or just
plain awkwardness at having been out of touch for so long. It didn't matter. All the former soldiers had found their own
new lives, and they couldn't bring themselves to break the isolation that was
almost wordlessly agreed on.
Just so everyone
was happy, did it make a difference?
So they left the
courthouse, and celebrated the wedding with diner acid-coffee and pancakes with
two much syrup that were left to cool just a little too long, and their wedding
presents were a month when they didn't have to pay Neil rent, and the latest
set of curtains discarded by Angela's mother.
"Here." Angie fished two quarters out of her purse
and slid them toward her friends.
"Check over by the cigarette machine, there's one of those little
prize thingies...." When they looked at her blankly, she just laughed at
them. "Come on, you need /some/
kind of ring. It's not diamonds, but
it's the best I can do for ya."
Duo laughed and
went to see, dragging Hilde after him.
He dropped the quarter into the machine, and the resulting prize was a
little blue plastic egg holding an adjustable metal ring with a crescent moon
attached to it. "It'll work,"
he said with a shrug, and scooted out of the way so she could try. Her egg was green, and the ring inside had a
top shaped vaguely like a peace sign.
Duo laughed. "That's irony if I ever saw," he
remarked, catching her hand, and for all the silliness of his smile, his eyes
were intense. "I love you, Hilde,"
he whispered as he slid the quarter-ring onto her finger.
"I love you,
Duo," she replied--she had to tug the ring open a bit to get it to fit on
his finger, and they giggled some more, and finally bent it into something that
would fit on his hand. It didn't help that
his fingers were sticky with maple syrup, or that hers were shaking, or that
Angela was sneaking up on them with a camera held to her eye.
*Click.* The wedding picture--the one that would
normally have been displayed proudly on a mantle or in a lace photo album, but
ended up spending several years stuck to the refrigerator by an Oreo
magnet--was of the bride and groom struggling over a cheap metal ring while
trying to get in a really good kiss, with a neon-lit cigarette machine in the
background.
~Called in sick and went to church on
Sunday
too many questions racing through my mind
I haven't seen you now since late last
Monday
your boss has got you working overtime
Heaven knows that we can use the money
The doctor says we're gonna have a son
If you work doubles for the next year,
honey
we can just afford this one~
"Hilde, sit
/down/. Relax. I'm making you lunch, understand? Now sit in that chair and don't get up til I
say you can!" Angela bustled around
the Maxwells' kitchen, pulling things out of bare cupboards and having a minor
disagreement with the stubborn gas stove.
Hilde sighed and obeyed, curling up in her chair and pulling a blanket
over her shoulders.
"Thanks,"
she mumbled. It should have been Duo
there, taking care of her during the unfamiliar pangs of a difficult first
pregnancy, but it was the same story she'd told him months before--one of them
had to work, or neither of them ate. So
the former God of Death was working overtime as a grease monkey, and Angela Reilly was coming by after work to
look after his pregnant wife. "I
hear it's supposed to get better after the first three months...."
Angie
shrugged. "That's what my mom
says. That and to make sure you tell her
if you need anything for the baby when it comes. She's already started knitting the little
rugrat a blanket."
Hilde
grinned. "What about before? I woke up with the strongest craving for
maple nut ice cream last night...."
Angie passed her
a bowl of thin tomato soup and made a face at her. "/That/ is definitely Duo's job. Much as I love you, Hilde-babe, if you ever
call me at three in the morning with strange food cravings, somebody might have
to die."
Hilde bent her
head over the soup bowl. "I
wouldn't do that! But he gets home so
late...I hate waking him up for stupid little things like that."
Angie sighed,
kneeling in front of Hilde's chair, brushing long brown hair back from her
face. "Listen. You've got a really good guy, hon. He's not gonna mind. He likes taking care of you, anybody can see
that. You have to let him be involved in
this."
"Yeah,
you're right." Hilde finished off
the soup and got up to put away the bowl, but Angela pushed her gently back
down.
"Didn't I
say sit? And don't give me that look. You're not being lazy, your body's being
difficult. Maybe if you weren't such a
tiny little thing...." She
shrugged. "But you are, and it
is. So we'll just take care of you the
best we can."
Hilde smiled,
resting her hand on her belly, and twisting the crescent-moon ring on her
finger.
~You know we...
hold on to the American dream
keep waking up
without the things that we need, baby
but this love's the best thing that we got
and that came free
maybe we're just too hard to please~
She lay awake,
stroking her fingers slowly through the long mane of chestnut hair that draped
Duo's shoulders as she slept peacefully next to her. She had trouble sleeping lately, it was a
distinct inability to find a position that was comfortable for both her and the
baby doing gymnastics inside her. She
could hear the usual sounds of drunks downstairs, but it had ceased to bother
her long ago--the noise was actually comforting now, since she and Duo were
regarded with almost proprietary protectiveness by most of the regulars, and a
number of them had taken up a collection to help support "them kids
upstairs, havin' a little one!" Duo
had noticed on his way home one night that there was even a "Name the baby" contest
going on, with a night of free drinks if one of the submitted names was
actually picked. They had spent that night
sitting on the bed, sorting through entries.
Some were too bizarre to use--they would never consider naming their
child "Talulah," for example, or "Crispin," but some had
come with scribbled notes explaining their meaning.
"Annabel,"
one had written, "cause it was my daughter's name, 'fore she died in the
war."
"Kelly,"
said another one. "That was my
mother." Another told of a lost son
named Nicholas, another of a favourite
uncle named Andrew. They were little
stories, scribbled hastily on the backs of coasters or matchbooks or wrinkled
napkins, but she took them for what they were--sincere wishes from people who
had little but wishes to give.
Duo rolled over,
violet eyes blinking into slow wakefulness, and he cradled her hand against his
chest. "Whatcha thinkin,
babe?" he asked quietly.
She smiled,
brushing her fingertips across his chin.
"All kinds of things.
Life. Baby names."
He laughed, a
little nervously it seemed, trying to catch her straying fingers with his
lips. "Hilde...do you ever think we
made the wrong choice? That we should've
opted for something a little less peaceful but a little more profitable?"
She shook her
head, catching his eyes. "Not at
all, Duo, not at all."
He smiled
sleepily. "Good. I'm glad.
I love you."
She smiled. "I love you too. And that's the important part."
~And that old dirt road we used to take
still runs along the interstate
we could still leave Iowa and drive
but the car hasn't been running well
we'd have to stay at cheap motels
and we don't need that now to feel alive~
The bed creaked,
wobbling the mattress, and Hilde stirred just enough to wrap her arms around
Duo as he settled back into bed and nestle her head against his chest. "Well?"
"Diaper,"
came the half-grumbled response as he cuddled her close. "All happy again, we can all go back to
sleep."
She giggled
sleepily into the hollow of his neck, long strands of hair tickling her
face. "Thank you, love."
He tilted her
face up and kissed her tenderly.
"Hey, you did all the hard stuff.
I just got the fun part, figure it's my job to get up in the middle of
the night and let you rest."
"Rest.
Hmph." She kissed him back, teasing
her fingers down his chest. "I'd
protest that idea, but I'm too tired."
"Tease,"
he accused, snuggling down into the blankets with her. They lay there for a long moment, silent,
content to rest in each other's arms.
Finally he whispered into her hair.
"No regrets, babe, right?"
"Of course
not." She lifted her face to look
up at him, her body comfortable in the curve of his arms, half-draped against
his side. "No regrets."
"I know I
keep asking you that," he fumbled, "but I really wish I could do
better by you, Hilde...I still feel guilty about it sometimes, I mean I know I
could--"
"Duo, shut
up," she teased, silencing him with a kiss. "I've got everything I /really/ want
right here."
~I won't forget the day I met you, honey
you left your number in my coffee cup
I never met another guy so funny
and I guess that I would call that love~