They'd been in Europe just in time for one of the region's largest snowstorms in thirty years. The night sky there had been completely overcast. Then, those few weeks in Japan, and too much light and air pollution to get a good look at more than just a hazy, yellow moon that hung low over the city like the vaguely watchful eye of a lazy deity.

And now they were holed up in a dingy bungalow somewhere in America's Midwest, and the forecast had predicted unseasonably mild weather. No blizzards, no sleet: no clouds. Yet the moon, it seemed, still felt it necessary to block his view.

Damn. He thought he'd be able to see it here.

"Duo?"

Duo shifted his feet and cocked his head toward the porch door, where Heero stood, one hand on the doorknob, regarding him with subdued confusion.

"What are you doing out here?" He asked, in a tone of voice that conveyed: come the hell inside, moron.

Duo gave him a lopsided grin before his gaze slid back upwards, checking to see if the moon had, perhaps, flung itself to another corner of the sky while he had been looking away, but it was still there, right in his goddamn way, a fucking personal eclipse.

And hiding somewhere beyond its dark side was the dully gleaming gray metal orb of L-2 and, bar that brief, passing fling in his fifteenth year, all he knew and had ever known.

The porch door groaned shut with a rusty squeal. A shadow at his side under the bare bulb of the porch light indicated Heero had come to stand beside him. He glanced sideways and noticed Heero look at him, then upwards to the dark sky, thick brows drawing together, trying to glean some comprehension from the scene.

He gave him a while to hash it out. When he looked over again a few minutes later and saw that frown still creasing Heero's forehead, he decided to speak.

"Do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

Duo shrugged. "Space. The colonies."

"Hn."

Was that a yes? Was it a no? Or maybe it was a, "that's why you're freezing your ass off out here?"

"I didn't see much of the colony I was raised on," he eventually elaborated. "I spent most of my childhood in a training facility."

He glanced sideways in Duo's direction. "I can't say I miss it."

Duo barked a short laugh that turned to white vapor in the cold air.

"Yeah, I don't blame you."

"Do you?"

"Miss it?"

Heero nodded.

"Of course."

Duo stared out at the black, glimmering sky and the white, frosty moon floating proudly in it. He could feel Heero's stone blue gaze on him, and he turned.

"I've been meaning to ask you this for a while, I guess," he said, "but why did you want to come to Earth?"

Heero crossed his arms to match Duo's stance and shrugged.

"I thought I could learn something here."

"Did you?"

A brief smile turned at the corners of Heero's lips.

"Yeah," he replied, "but... I think the location wasn't that important after all."

"What do you mean?"

Heero turned fully toward him and took a step in his direction.

"Why did you agree to come with me?" He asked instead.

Duo was sixteen years old when Heero had asked him to help him save Relena and, possibly, the world, and he had easily said yes.

He was not yet seventeen when Heero had found him again and asked him to come with him to Earth, and he had said yes again, without a moment's hesitation. He would follow Heero to the far corners of the galaxy if he asked.

And when, barely a month into their trip across the world, Heero had reached for him, and he had found himself melting easily with his touch, unfolding a deeply protected part of himself and spreading it bare and open in Heero's arms, he had finally understood why he could never refuse him. He had finally understood why he had left his home and his colony and space itself for the sake of one boy.

He was a child of space, eternally its citizen, but Heero had asked him to come with him, and even without an explanation, Duo had followed. He would always follow.

And now he was past eighteen, and they had been on Earth for a year and change, and it was a wonder that they were only getting around to saying any of this now.

He turned, caught Heero's gaze with his own, while the night hung breathlessly around them, all icy vapor and frost, pouring over the horizon like ink spilled from the well of the sky, painting the bare distant trees black and cold as the universe.

"I've never been able to say no to you, Heero."

Heero took another step closer, another, and reached out to slide smooth fingers along the line of Duo's jaw, curl at the nape of his neck, and caught Duo's mouth with his, so warm despite the freezing bite of the winter air.

"I knew that when I asked you to come with me," he said softly.

Duo laughed, purely in surprise, and Heero pulled him against him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Duo burned in his embrace. It felt like a hundred degrees outside on that god-forsaken porch, in that god-forsaken nowhere town on Earth. Heero kissed him again and if the ice wasn't melting away beneath them, it could have fooled him.

"You asked me if I learned anything on Earth," Heero said.

"Well?"

He pulled slightly away, his dark blue gaze tracing the contours of Duo's mouth, trailing upward to his nose, his brow, the cast of his bangs on his forehead, then over his head to take in the knotted, splintered contours of the wooden awning overhead, the wispy strands of spiderwebs threaded haphazardly around the single, bare gleaming light bulb.

"It doesn't matter where I am, as long as I'm with you."

Duo slid his arms up and around that narrow waist, pulling him close, as Heero kissed his temple, the corner of one eye, then, softly against his mouth, and the night melted away around them.

Tomorrow night might find him standing out here again hoping for a glimpse of the colony he'd left behind, but tonight it was forgotten for the boy he'd left it for.

Home was a collection of senses, a series of images caught somewhere between his head and his heart. The curve of L-2's streets over the colony's horizon. The ozone smell of the artificial atmosphere. The whine of a space shuttle's jet engine. The chill of space around the edges of a flight suit. It was the twist in his heart when he thought about the places he'd left behind, some he could never return to.

But home was also the soft press of lips against his. It was a quiet sigh breathed in his ear. It was the shift of shoulder blades under his hands, dusky skin burning beneath his fingers. It was an arm wrapped carelessly around his shoulder, a head tucked against his collarbone in sleep. A stern pair of eyes bluer and deeper than any ocean on Earth. A heartbeat synced to his. He had left space for Heero because more than any one place, any colony or planet or country, home was wherever they were together.

Eventually, Heero pulled back, a little breathless, and glanced upward at the sky to where the moon still hung, pale and serene, round and perfect like a sea stone. Stars lay scattered above and around them, frozen in place, twinkling chips of ice in a sweeping veil of black crystal. In the thin chill of the night's atmosphere, they seemed nearly close enough to touch.

"Do you want to go home?" Heero asked.

"Don't mind if I do," Duo replied, and pulled Heero inside.