I didn't hear from Duo for nearly two weeks after that day. It might not have been all that bad if the separation had stopped me from seeing him all the time. The longer we were apart, the more I thought about him, and the worse the hallucinations became. Reality and memory were starting to blur together in my head.

It was 2:26 am when he called me. His voice was soft and scratchy when he said my name, not the usual excitement I had grown used to hearing.

"Sorry for calling so late. Were you asleep?"

"Yeah, but it's fine. Is something wrong?"

"No... well, yeah, kinda." He cleared his throat and I leaned back against the headboard, rubbing the stiffness out of my neck. "Can you explain it to me?"

"Explain what?" I asked.

"How we can have memories that haven't happened yet. Your grandmother said you could explain it to me."

I sighed, making static as the exhale hit the receiver. "It has to do with something called the Red Shift. Have you ever heard of it?"

"Just that it's got something to do with the Big Bang."

"Yeah." I leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling and watching the fan slowly turn over my bed. "When the Big Bang happened, everything in the Universe exploded outward from a single point and ever since then its been expanding. That expansion is called the Red Shift. Someday the Universe will reach its maximum size and start collapsing in on itself again, and eventually everything will be crushed back into that single point. There will be another Big Bang, and the Universe will start all over again."

"So you're saying we lived in a previous Universe."

"Maybe. Nobody knows if the Universe unfolds the same way every time there's a Red Shift or if each one is different. It could be that our memories are from a completely different Universe, or are from a time that this Universe hasn't reached yet, but will someday."

There was silence on the line for a moment.

"This is... This is a lot to take in."

"I know."

The line was quiet again and I let Duo have some time to think. I amused myself watching the ceiling fan, trying to count how many times it went around in a minute.

"So, if this is all from the last Red Shift, how can we remember it? I mean, we would've been crushed up with everything else when the Universe collapsed, right?"

"Our bodies would have. The Universe is made up of matter and energy. Souls are something different. So even though our physical existence is destroyed, our souls remain untouched, waiting for their chance to be reborn."

"And that's what you and I are -- reborn souls that happened to bump into each other."

"Pretty much."

Duo sighed into the receiver. "Are you still... Do you still have memories of me?"

"Yeah. They've been getting worse lately."

"Worse like bad?"

"More intense, I mean. More often."

"My dreams are all nightmares. It's all war and death when I close my eyes."

I nodded, but didn't say anything. I'd seen some of what he was talking about myself.

"Can you come over?" Duo asked. "I haven't been able to sleep. If you don't want to, it's --"

"I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."

I hung up and pulled some clothes on. It was still very dark outside, and cold. I lit up on the highway, letting the brisk wind tussle my hair as I kept one hand out the window with the cigarette, the other holding onto the steering wheel.

Was I crazy for running back to him? Or was I just going crazy? Duo was curious about my name at Obaasan's apartment. If he started asking around Southtown, he might learn things. More importantly, he might say something that would lead people back to me. I'd been so careful until I met him. I had to decide whether or not he could be trusted, a decision that needed to be made before Duo said the wrong things to the wrong people.

It started raining just before I pulled up to his apartment. I huddled into my jacket as best I could, able to stay mostly dry as I ran to the front door of the building. Three flights of stairs up and four doors down the hallway -- I'd never been inside Duo's apartment before, but the directions were easy enough to remember.

He looked terrible when he opened the door, but he forced a small smile on his face to try and hide the weariness. Really, it just pushed his cheeks up and made the discolored pillows of loose skin under his eyes more obvious. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, hanging lower than it usually did when he had it braided. I wanted to kiss him -- in fact, I nearly did -- but I wasn't sure if he would welcome that.

"Thanks for coming over," he said as I hung my jacket over the back of a chair to dry. "I know it's really late and all."

Duo's apartment was an open-plan studio. One room served as kitchen, bedroom and living area, with a closet and bathroom being the only separate spaces. He didn't own a bed, just a full-size futon with an extra thick pad.

"I told you it was fine. Now what was it you --" I paused when he hugged me suddenly, though the way he held onto me made it feel like his legs had given out from under him. I caught myself sniffing his hair out of habit, relieved when he pressed his nose into my chest and did the same.

"I missed you," he sighed out. "I don't know if that's the truth or just the lack of sleep or your reincarnated lover making me say it, but what ever the reason is, it's how I feel." His feet found themselves again and he straightened up, looking me in the eyes. There was a light blush on his cheeks from the abrupt confession and he held his face close to mine, my nose tickling from the proximity to his. "I haven't been able to sleep through the night since the last time you were sleeping next to me. So I thought..." He shrugged, his grin shy but genuine this time.

I nodded, getting what he meant. "Okay." My hand touched his warm cheek, and his eyes slipped shut, head tilting to press against my palm. Thin lips parted slightly to let out an almost silent breath. When I kissed him, he didn't pull away. The response was weak, but definitely approving, definitely needing of the contact.

I led Duo back to the futon and stripped to my boxers while he lay down. I pulled the blanket over both of us, putting my arms around him and keeping his warm body close to me. "Get some sleep, Duo," I murmured, resting my lips against his forehead. "I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

Rain tapped against the window as I pulled the lamp chain, clicking the room to darkness. Duo moved closer to me, making the softest of noises I couldn't even identify as a whimper or a word or a contented purr. And then he was still, his warmth and weight lying against my chest, tangled in my legs. It was in that moment that I saw another human being completely and totally vulnerable for the first time, and the epiphany of this struck me like one of the thunderbolts dancing outside. Even when we were both naked and screwing like wolves in the springtime, there was never this feeling of trust or connection in me before. It went farther than intimacy, and as I pressed my lips to his hair I felt something in the deepest core of my chest throb and ache from the weight.

I woke up at 7:30 exactly. My alarm clock was probably buzzing away at home because I forgot to turn it off before I left, but steady sleeping habits made it hardly necessary anymore. Duo's breath was gentle and even against my bare chest, his whole body as limp and as peaceful as when I'd dozed off next to it. I slipped off the futon as silently as I could, tugging my clothes back on and slipping out the apartment door without waking him up. As exhausted as he looked last night, it probably would've taken a canon firing to get him out of bed.

The air was still chilly when I stepped outside, and it knocked me out of my morning stupor. The rain had stopped, though trees and buildings still dripped the remnants. I lit up a cigarette, taking a couple deep drags before pulling out my cell and dialing work.

"Winner Enterprises, Quatre Winner's office."

"Hey, Catherine. Can you leave Mr. Winner a message for me?"

"Actually, he's in his office right now, let me put you through to him."

The phone clicked me to hold and I looked up the building side to Duo's window, hoping he'd stay asleep for a few more minutes at least.

"Hey, Heero!" a smooth tenor voice called in my ear. "I've got you on speaker, is that okay?"

"Sure. I just wanted to say I think I'm going to be late coming in today."

A cabinet drawer scraped along its track in the background, just obscuring a hushed conversation. "Yeah, that should be fine, Heero. How late do you think you'll be?"

I chewed on the inside of my lip, knocking ash off the tip of my smoldering cigarette. "Not sure. I'm taking care of a sick friend." I leaned back against a brick wall, thinking about how tired and weak Duo had been when I arrived. "Probably by the afternoon. You got my budget for the next board meeting, right?"

"Yes. I haven't had a chance to look at it though." There was a short, exasperated sigh and the sound of a body hitting the leather cushions of an executive office chair. "The China trade agreement is taking up every minute I've got right now. I'm supposed to be having brunch with the ambassador in..."

A dog barked, and I turned my head to the right to follow the sound. Ocean shoreline stretched out as far as I could see, waves crashing into the sand to erase the footprints of two dogs running through the surf. Quatre ran between them, blonde hair tossed by the salt-laden breeze, a laughing smile across his face in a moment of carefree boyhood.

"Heero? Did I lose you?"

I snapped back to the inner city, buildings and asphalt and nothing as wild or unpredictable as an ocean in sight. The woman walking her two retrievers across the street looked at me, probably wondering why I was staring at her, and I quickly turned my gaze toward my shoes. "No, I'm still here." I cleared my throat, glancing back up to see the woman walk passed.

"Are you feeling okay? You've been spacing out a lot recently whenever I see you."

"I'm fine, Quatre. Just... I've just got a lot on my mind recently." Most of which he probably wouldn't believe, but I kept that detail to myself.

"All right," he said after a moment, not sounding convinced, but thankfully letting the issue drop. "Go ahead and take today off. Enjoy the weekend and I'll see you Monday, okay?" There was an executive tone to his voice that said the question wasn't really a question at all.

Hell, a few days off would probably do me good. "Okay," I agreed, biting the inside of my lip again.

"Bye, Heero."

The connection cut and I slipped my phone back into my pocket. One last puff and I ground the cigarette into the concrete, heading back up to Duo's apartment. He was still sound asleep, which wasn't surprising, cocooned in the blanket with just his head sticking out.

I checked his kitchen, looking for something that might make a decent breakfast. The closest I came was a lonely banana in the fridge, sort of slipped in between a pizza box and a carton of Capri Sun juice pouches as an afterthought. Deciding it wasn't worth worrying over, I put the banana back where I found it and snuck into the bathroom to rinse the cigarette smell off my breath with some mouthwash.

Duo stirred when I slipped back onto the futon, tugging the blanket out of his grip so I could cover myself. Blue-violet eyes parted just a bit, a sleepy mumble of curiosity parting his lips until I covered them with a kiss. He instantly calmed back down, pressing his heat against me again and clinging to my side as a substitute for the blanket edge I'd pried away from him. I ran my fingertips up his arm and over his spine gently, soothing him back into a deep, dreamful sleep. Then I ran my fingers through the long ponytail, enjoying the softness of his chestnut brown hair now that I finally got to see it loose. I drifted off to sleep again, my fingers tangled in Duo's hair as I dreamt about our bodies entwining on a soft mattress with clean white sheets, each of us waking to a gentle dawn, only to pull one another closer and savor those precious moments that only we could keep for ourselves.