Deja Vu

by Icicle Raindream

The Gundam pilots find themselves in over their heads on a mission they can't seem to handle.

"Déjà Vu"

By: Icicle Raindream

WARNING: Do yourself a favor and read my notes below. There is stuff in there I want you guys to know first!!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the Gundam Wing Universe, therefore I make no profit off writing this story.

Notes: Okay, this story has a story! It was an ordinary night and I had gone to bed at a rather ordinary hour. Unfortunately, I woke myself up early in the morning for no apparent reason, and I had been thinking about the military show called Soldier of Fortune, Inc (it was taken off the air a while ago). Goodness knows why my thoughts turned to Gundam just then, but they did, and suddenly I found my brain incorporating an episode of SOF into a fic for Gundam. Poor Hayla…I woke her up laughing maniacally at 5:32 a.m. because of my new idea. She thought I was totally off my rocker when I explained what my idea was, and after that I couldn't go back to sleep. Imagine this: I only get about five to six hours of sleep a night at school, and here I am at home on a Saturday morning, getting up at seven o' clock!! Sick, isn't it? But anyway, just to let you know, the more confused you get during this fic, the better off you are, and I know it's really long, but I promise you it'll be worth the ride!! (The episode of SOF was sooooo good…Hayla and I sat there going, "What? What's happening? Huh? Eh?" So…I know this is weird, but it's SOF influenced.) Enjoy!! Oh, yeah…please please please make sure you read the whole thing before getting angry!!

(Hey, Hayla…do Chinese fathers really beat their sons? "^-~" Matlock!!)

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"You're finished, you bastards," I growled under my breath. I clicked the button again, and the green light began to beep, pin-pointing the location I had been searching for. I studied my computer screen and committed the location to memory, then shut down the computer and got up from the desk I had been sitting at.

This was one mission they'd never forget. Oz wasn't as smart as they'd like to think themselves to be.

* * *

"Miss Relena?"

Relena turned from her window towards the sound of the voice, her arms still folded tightly in front of her. Quatre noted how her eyebrows were drawn together in anxiety, a deeply thoughtful look on her face as she turned to him. He approached her in his usual polite meekness and then took the seat she offered him, Trowa sitting next to him in the opposite chair. Wufei and Duo stood behind them quietly. All were waiting for Relena to speak.

She sighed and took a breath, her arms holding tighter around herself, knowing that no matter how much she hated this, it had to be said. She looked at Quatre and nodded slowly. "It's been confirmed," she reported softly. "I need your help."

Quatre nodded back to her, his bright eyes large and round. He didn't like this news, but what had to be done had to be done and he knew it.

"Are you all willing to do this?" Relena asked.

Duo spoke for the whole group. "Of course!"

Relena looked them all over in turn, blinking sadly, knowing she needed to hear it from all of them separately. She needed reassurance to calm herself inside. "Quatre?"

"Yes," he affirmed.

"Trowa?"

He nodded solemnly, his hair in his face.

"Wufei?"

"Naturally."

"And Duo?"
"Well, we can't just leave him there!"

"All right then."

Quatre got up from his chair as the other three Gundam pilots headed for the door, making their way out of Relena's study, the plan agreed on and the discussion completed. As he reached her, he placed a gentle hand on Relena's shoulder and gave it a compassionate squeeze.

"Don't you worry, Miss Relena." He tried to instill some hope in her. "We aren't Gundam pilots for nothing."

Relena smiled politely and nodded, then turned away, back to her window. "They know you're coming."

Quatre nodded to himself and began to walk to the door, where Trowa was waiting for him. As he passed by Trowa, he felt a hand on his shoulder. This time it was Trowa trying to instill some hope in Quatre as they left the room and headed outside together.

* * *

"An old warehouse?" Duo snorted. He climbed out of the front seat of the van and jumped to the ground, the equipment that was strapped to his body thunking against his thick flight suit.

"Hey, we didn't think of it," Wufei told him, jabbing a finger into his chest as he joined Duo outside the van. "So obviously nobody else would, either."

"But…it's right out in the open!" Duo exclaimed, waving his hand around, indicating the vacated clearing the building was set upon. "Anybody could sneak up on them!"

"Sometimes," Trowa broke in from behind them, "the best place to hide is right out in the open."

Duo snorted again. "I don't believe in that cat-crap," he responded. "I think they're just stupid."

He didn't hear Quatre's muttering behind him. "And so are we, for taking this sort of thing on."

Trowa put a hand on his shoulder and Quatre let out a huge sigh. "I'm sorry, Trowa," he apologized lowly. "I just don't like this at all."

Trowa nodded in agreement. "I don't either. But it has to be done."

"I know."

"Let's move out, Quatre."

Quatre glanced down at his flight suit warily. All of the pilots' clothes had been converted into military suits for the time being, equipped with various machinery such as guns and daggers, if needed, and most of all, they were wired with com-links to communicate. Quatre didn't want to lose touch with anyone on the mission, and he looked up to find everyone's eyes on him. Quatre's sight fell to Duo's hand, in which he clutched a large black box. The detonator switch. He swallowed and found his voice, bringing his head back up to look at his comrades' faces.

"All right," he announced. "Move out everyone. Don't forget the prime objective of this mission, and keep your communicators on at all times. Trowa, you're with me. Duo and Wufei, you know what to do. Let's go."

All four nodded to each other and split up into their prospective groups. Duo and Wufei headed to the front of the building while Trowa and Quatre headed to the back.

* * *

Frantically, I grabbed at the door handle and yanked on it, pulling with all my might to unhinge the stubborn door to the van. It finally gave way and I jumped into the driver's seat and jammed the keys into the ignition. My heart was pounding so hard in my ears I could barely tell whether or not the van had actually started up. I just called a warning to everyone in the back of the van and then put the pedal to the metal, stomping down on the gas without a second thought of whiplash or secondary injury to the passengers. The dust clouded behind the van as it picked up and tore through the dying meadow.

I could hear all sorts of noises coming from the back of the van as I sped down the open road. There was hideous moaning and outright sobbing and dead quiet and screaming lungs and a whole orchestra of voices and thoughts filling the backseat area. The anguished groans of pain next to me kept my foot on the pedal as the blood seeped through the seat and onto my pants. I glanced over next to me and tried to speak, my voice coming out as a foggy croak, and then took a big gulp of air and looked back to the street. The building was coming into view.

I cleared my throat and pushed the button on the van's newly installed radio-com. "Mayday, mayday," I said, trying to appear calm though I was shaken up inside. "I've got five patients coming in. We need doctors, and we need them fast. Does anybody read me?"

I couldn't hear what the reply was, but it didn't matter. I slammed on the brakes outside the hospital doors and yanked on the keys, stuffing them hastily into my pocket. I pushed the driver's door open and jumped to the ground, running around to the other side of the van to open the sliding and passenger-side doors. Soon, I found myself shoved aside as the doctors and nurses appeared next to me, reaching into the van while wheeling stretchers and gurneys beside them. I stood by the front of the van and watched as one doctor pulled her from the front seat.

"Oh, lord," he cried, assessing her appearance. It took three other doctors to place her on the stretcher, her blood seeping through the crystalline white sheets onto the cement ground beneath. Her hands shook as she reached up to one doctor, the tears falling freely from her face in a cascading waterfall of agony, and she yelled out, a bloodcurdling, screeching cry as the doctor ripped open the front of her bloody shirt. Her honey brown hair was nothing but dark strands streaked with crimson gel, plastered to the sheets beneath her.

"Multiple gunshot wounds," he said to another doctor. They began to wheel her away, writhing in pain on the stretcher, and my attention was diverted to the sobbing as it grew increasingly louder from inside the van. I stepped closer and watched as two nurses reached inside to someone, beckoning for him to take their hands and climb out.

I watched as he fumbled for the steps, one handing holding tightly onto one of the nurse's scrubs, the other plastered to his face, over his eyes. His sobbing continued to rip from his lungs as he fell against the nurse, a conglomerated lump of talking and crying bubbling from his mouth.

"It burns…it burns…I can't see anything! Make it stop!" The screeching continued. "Oh, god…is he all right? He's gonna be okay, isn't he? Tell me! I can't see anything…please!"

The nurses did their best to calm him as they escorted him inside, patting his platinum blonde hair, and I looked back to the van as three doctors reached in and pulled another body out. I almost looked away, a lump of nausea caught in my throat.

"Third degree burns," one doctor shouted to the others. "We've got to get him inside now!" I watched as they expertly strapped him onto the stretcher, his moans tearing from him as he blinked wildly around, trying to speak but not doing any better than me. The flesh on the right side of his face was curled up, looking like dried-out ashes from an extinguished fire, the blood stuck to the flakes of skin. The burn continued all the way down the side of his neck and disappeared somewhere under his black suit, which still smoldered.

"It looks like it's covering nearly half of his body. He needs treatment now."

The doctors quickly but smoothly wheeled him away, his long braid trailing against the ground through a recent puddle of blood that had collected just moments before. Four more doctors spontaneously showed up then, and they pushed their way into the back of the van, cramming themselves inside. From where I stood I could hear their frantic shouts.

"Careful with this guy, it looks like he may have some bones broken!"

A nurse wheeled a gurney to the open backseat door. "Ready!" she shouted.

I watched as the four doctors carried him outside to the bed of wheels, one doctor with his hands wrapped firmly around the small, pale neck, holding his head steadfastly in place. The dark hair had since been ripped from its usual tight ponytail and bruises and cuts covered his face, littering it with blood smears and marring his usually porcelain-colored features. His dark suit was ripped in several areas and his eyes were closed tight, the sign of a true warrior embracing his fated pain as the doctors pulled the restraints over him. "We need a backboard!" one shouted.

"It's too late," another answered him. "Just go now!"

He was pulled away, and another team of doctors appeared with another stretcher.

"Last one!"

I watched as they reached inside the van and deposited the lanky body on the stretcher.

"Get some pressure on this wound!" one doctor ordered. "He's losing blood fast! Let's go!"

The unconscious figure was wheeled away from me, half of his dark hair covering his face like a mask, and I stood by the van, forcing myself to breathe. In all my fights in battle, nothing had struck home like this had. I was literally shaking, and I didn't know why.

"Are you okay?"

I looked over my shoulder at the nurse who was tugging gently on my suit. I blinked at her.

"Are you okay?" she asked again, her eyes wide with concern. She retracted her hand and examined it, gasping. My blood covered her sterile-gloved fingers.

"Can you walk?" she asked quickly, putting her arms around me. I felt like slumping into them and curling up, leaving this all behind.

She didn't wait for my answer. She just began guiding me in through the hospital doors, her hand clamped tightly around my bleeding wound. I blinked dizzily as we walked in together and mumbled to her, "Just a scratch."

"It needs to be bandaged anyway," she told me, her sneakers squeaking against the tile floor. It sounded like a command.

The words rolled from my tongue in a mantra. "Just a scratch…just a scratch…just a scratch…just a scratch…"

* * *

Duo searched through his suit and pulled out a brick-sized box. He carefully flipped the lid open and pulled out the greenish-gray block of seemingly harmless C4. He discarded the box, flopped onto his belly, and started to work.

"This is way too easy, man," he complained as he snaked along the ground. "What the hell is this? Some kind of sick joke?" He pressed the C4 onto the rough, dry soil as he continued to slither around the corner of the warehouse.

"Keep quiet," Wufei hissed, standing behind him. "Do you want to get us caught?"

"Come on, Wufei," Duo said. "Doesn't this seem a little too much like a walk in the park to you?"

"Keep that mouth of yours shut," Wufei ordered. "Concentrate on what you're doing so you don't screw it up!"

Duo took offense to that. "You sound as if I screw everything up!" he snapped, shaping some more C4 from his other hand onto the ground. "You're standing back there like a lazy-ass while I'm doing all the work!"

"Dammit, Maxwell, if you don't shut up I'm going to make you be quiet!"

"Shakin' in my booties," Duo muttered to the ground, rolling his eyes. It was silent for a while as Duo continued the process of pushing his clay onto the dirt, outlining the front half of the building with explosive weaponry. Wufei kept his watch behind him.

* * *

I walked down the hall, feeling surrounded by a cold, white, surreal world, unfeeling as my boots scraped dirt and blood on the shiny surface of the hospital floor. I turned a corner and began to approach a room, a room I seemed drawn to by some force of internal will. I stepped into the doorway and found two hands pushing against my chest.

"You can't be in here," a nurse told me quietly.

I just stared at her, feeling as if my eyes were unnaturally large, filling my whole face. She sighed softly and looked away at the floor, dropping her hands and clasping them together in defeat.

"There's nothing more we can do for him," she informed me. "Seventy-five percent of his body is covered in third degree burns. The only thing we can do is keep him comfortable for the time being."

Time being…? I blinked at her and she stepped out of my way. I listened as her footsteps retreated down the hall, then managed to walk over to him with leaden legs. I swallowed as my eyes took in the sight of the huge contraption they had strapped him in, suspending him above the floor in a vertical bed, held up by thick steel poles bolted to the floor. He was wrapped in white linen, a bandage around his right arm, and the flesh on his face was still oozing blood slightly around the edges of dead skin. I stopped at his side as he blinked in recognition at me. I could see him trying to smile.

"Everybody…made it…out…right, Heero?" he gasped, shutting his eyes for a second.

I nodded numbly at him, shifting my weight.

"Heh…hurts like hell…" he mumbled.

"Your burns?" I asked dumbly.

He tried to shake his head but gave up quickly. "Naw, the…damn bandage 'round my arm…I can't feel nothin' on my face."

I swallowed. "Don't talk anymore, Duo," I warned him.

He forced a tiny laugh, proving that his personality could not be bested by injury. "That's…typical Heero Yuy…for ya," he said, and I turned my head away. I wasn't nauseous at the sight of him. I was nauseous because of something else.

* * *

Duo molded the last half of the explosive in his hand and planted it firmly onto the ground.

"Finished," he said proudly. He craned his neck around to look at Wufei and rub in the fact that he hadn't screwed anything up.

But he was alone.

"Wufei?"

There was a low cackle that came from the side of the building Duo had already wired with C4. "That's right," he heard the sinister voice say. "You are finished, Duo Maxwell."

"What the hell--" Duo leapt to his feet and grabbed for the gun clipped to his hip, stuffing the rest of the C4 into his chest pocket. "Either you hit puberty pretty damn fast or you disguise your voice really well, Wufei," he quipped. "Quit playin' around."

"Oh, there's no playing here," the voice continued, growing louder in volume. "Well, not for you, anyway." The cackle sounded again, and a tall body stepped around the corner, facing Duo. "The only fun here will be for me," he said mockingly. "You will die a horrible, aching death, Gundam pilot."

"Spare me the details," Duo said, cocking his gun. "Let's just get it on."

The soldier stood with an enormous rifle in his hands, his beret hanging off his head, covering sandy blonde hair. The blue uniform shone brightly in the daylight, the white letters of Oz glittering in Duo's eyes. The soldier spat charmingly onto the dirt in front of him. "That's all you are worth," he snapped, gesturing to the puddle of saliva.

"Yeah, I think you're a great guy, too," Duo answered. "Now cut the chit-chat, all right? I've got a lot of things to do."

The soldier sneered at him, the edges of his lips curling into an evil smile. "I'm sure you do."

"What'd you do with Wufei?" Duo demanded, keeping his gun trained on the man in front of him.

The soldier didn't have time to answer nor react. The sound of sharp footsteps coming from above and a strong voice yelling distracted them both. They looked up at the rooftop of the warehouse in unison, confused at the moment.

"Kiiiiiaaaaa!"

The noise sliced through the day breeze like a double-edged sword, and suddenly Duo spotted Wufei as he flung himself off the warehouse roof, legs projected in front of him, and slammed into the soldier with all his might, driving his feet into the soldier's side. The rifle clattered loudly onto the overused soil and the soldier yelled as Wufei landed on top of him and swiftly rolled over his body, bounding to his feet. The soldier looked up at him with a look that would have sent Attila the Hun into hiding, and then promptly passed out in pain.

"All right, Wufei!" Duo cheered, replacing his gun back on his hip. "Way to go!"

"It's not over yet," Wufei warned breathlessly. "There are more coming!"

"Aw…no way…"

But even as he said it, Duo could hear the pounding of several footsteps coming from the other side of the building. They were coming for the Gundam pilots, and both Duo and Wufei knew it. They just didn't know what they were getting into.

Wufei single-handedly took down three of the soldiers without a mere glance at their faces. He took a couple hits to the face and managed to avoid any renegade bullets that had been fired, but he noticed that his braided companion wasn't doing so well. There hadn't been much room on Duo's suit to arm him as heavily as the others since he'd been strapped with all the heavy explosive artillery, and so as soon as Duo had lost his gun Wufei knew he was in for it. Duo wasn't skilled in hand-to-hand combat as efficiently as Wufei was.

"Hey, c'mon fellas, can't we talk it out?" Duo asked, panting. He raised a hand and swiped at his face, clearing it of blood and sweat as he flung his braid back over his shoulder. "I'll give ya a present!"

The soldiers who had been advancing on him faltered for a brief moment and Duo seized the opportunity. He reached down into a bulging pocket and retrieved the detonator switch, pulling it from where he'd stashed it earlier for safekeeping. He held it up for his assailants to gaze at.

"You want me to blow the whole place?" Duo asked them, waving it in the air.

The soldiers said nothing, their faces still twisted in anger, still standing a few feet in front of him.

"You know I will," Duo taunted. "I am a Gundam pilot, after all."

"Duo! Watch out behind you!"

Wufei's voice cut through the air for the second time in ten minutes and Duo looked over his shoulder quickly, trying to deduce what Wufei was yelling about. He was too late in his actions, though, and as swiftly as could be, an unseen opponent knocked the detonator switch out of his hands. It went sailing somewhere over to his right, away from the warehouse.

"No!" Duo shouted in disbelief. The soldiers in front of him sprung into action and he was attacked, hands and feet punching and kicking anywhere they could reach on his body. He felt two strong hands take hold of his front and lift his feet off the ground, and suddenly he was flying through the air. As he slammed into the building wall he realized he'd been thrown, and something jabbed into his chest as he hit the ground on his stomach. The small block of C4 he'd stuck there earlier.

"Duo!"

He could hear Wufei calling for him, but at the moment he was too stunned to move, trying to remember how to breathe and locate his brain at the same time. His hands came up against the crusty ground and he blinked in front of him as a pair of black shoes stepped up to his nose.

"Say good-bye, Gundam pilot."

The words were spat at him as the shoes moved away; stepped back a good distance from his hunched body. Duo looked up into the sunlight to see an Oz soldier waving the detonator switch at him like a flag. Duo gasped and looked down at the ground, his eyes trailing over the thin line of highly explosive C4 that he himself had just laid down and hooked to the switch, running directly underneath his body. He jerked his head up just in time to see the soldier push the button on the black box.

"Aw, shi-"

His words were cut off as the innocent clay exploded with incredible force, burning through Duo's body like hot lava. He felt himself flying again, and then there was nothing left to feel but dead soil underneath his limp body. His head slumped onto the ground, body dripping blood from falling particles of skin, head swirling with mixed messages and unintelligible thoughts, vision unfocused and blurry.

"Duo!"

Wufei called for his companion in vain. Duo's body lay slumped on the ground in a miserable, unresponsive heap, and after ducking from a sudden attack, Wufei hit the ground and noticed that Duo's body had begun to tremble terribly. He was probably in shock, Wufei figured, as he flipped himself onto his back and swiped his attacker's legs out from under him. The soldier fell next to him and Wufei delivered a left heel directly onto his chest, knocking him out cold. Wufei didn't see the two soldiers over his head that reached down and yanked him up by his clothes, holding his arms so that he couldn't reach any weapons. Wufei's stomach was then repeatedly pummeled with rock-solid fists from the one soldier who had come around in front of him, and the hot-blooded martial artist was not about to give up so easily.

"No!" he shouted angrily. "This is not an honorable fight!" He struggled against the iron grips on his arms, trying desperately to pull free. "This is injustice!" he choked out, his stomach starting to burn. "You Oz soldiers are nothing but cowards!" He let go with a round of coughs as the fists seemed to slow slightly, and he heard laughing in his ears. It infuriated him even more.

"Damn cowards!" he yelled. On impulse, driven by his raging anger, Wufei bent his arms in towards him, reeling the soldiers in, and then violently flung his arms out, throwing the soldiers off balance as they tripped over themselves trying to gain footing on the dirt. They slammed into the ground and rolled away as Wufei landed his flat foot against the soldier's nose in front of him. He was sent sprawling onto his back, the blood pouring down his face.

Unfortunately, Wufei hadn't known about the reinforcements. He couldn't make up or down of anything as he was jerked off his feet by his hair and driven onto the dry sand beneath him, held by hands unseen that appeared out of nowhere behind him. Several pairs of legs used his body as a punching bag, substituting hands with feet, a literal kicking match with his body as the target. Wufei felt as a few ribs cracked, his own dagger stabbed him in the side, and then the pain was overwhelming. He slouched onto the ground, fingers gouging into the dirt as he was flipped onto his stomach, and then a sharp heel came down directly on the center of his back.

The crunch of his own bones was the last thing Wufei heard before he blacked out. The blood oozed from his face and pooled onto the dead ground beneath him.

* * *

"Come on, now, he needs his rest."

The voice startled me and I turned sharply towards the entrance to Duo's room. Cell was more like it, and the nurse stepped inside and gently pushed me away from Duo, who closed his eyes.

"Hey…Heero?"

I turned back to him. "What, Duo?" I asked lowly.

"How's Wufei doin', huh? The guy…tried to save…my life…"

Duo's voice trailed away as the nurse covered him with another blanket, clipping it into place over and around him. I swallowed hard and walked out of the room. I didn't know how Wufei was doing, I hadn't heard anything on his condition, and now I owed it to Duo to find out. He was forcing me to face it all.

I turned the corner and walked for a bit, then came across a room that slightly resembled Duo's, only this time it was furnished with an actual bed, set on the floor in the middle of the room. On the bed I could make out Wufei's form, spread across the mattress with a light sheet thrown over him. His hair had been pulled back again into its customary ponytail, and for the most part he looked as if he was just resting. I decided it might be the best time to visit, and so I walked into his room and gradually gained enough courage to make it to his bedside.

"Wufei?"

His eyes shifted from the ceiling to my face as his head rolled limply to the side. He blinked a few times, and I noticed that his eyes seemed to have been larger than what they usually were.

"Heero…"

His voice had an odd tonality to it as he said my name, and I had the urge to take a step back away from his bed. He sounded truly sad and hopeless, something I never expected from him. Wufei had the toughest backbone out of all of us pilots.

"This can't be right," he whispered then, breaking into my thoughts. "This is injustice, Heero, brought forth by cowards."

"Us?" I asked softly.

"We aren't the only ones at fault," he replied.

I kept quiet, but so did he then. It was silent for a while as Wufei looked away from me and fixed his attention back on the ceiling.

"The price we pay…" he murmured.

I didn't want to ask him if he thought it was too high. Right now, I seemed like the lucky one, the one who hadn't paid any sort of price. All I had was a simple scratch on my arm. But Wufei, he had…he was…

I realized right then that I didn't know what was the matter with him. He looked a little beat up and bruised, no doubt sore, but other than that he was just lying there in bed, staring half-heartedly at the ceiling.

I opened my mouth to say something to him, but he beat me to the punch.

"Heero, will you do something for me?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked back at me with pain written on his face. I nodded, still not accustomed to Wufei acting dependent on others. I didn't understand it, but was willing to help him anyway. I owed it to him.

"Lift the covers and tell me whether or not they bandaged me up."

I raised an eyebrow at his strange request, seeing as his arms looked perfectly functional, but I did as he asked anyway. I reached forward and drew the sheet down to his waist, revealing a series of gauze patterns across his bare stomach.

"They punched me so much that the weapons in my pockets cut me up," he explained my unasked question, glancing at me. "I only felt the bleeding for a second."

"They cleaned you up," I told him.

"I can't feel anything," Wufei told me as I returned the sheet to its original position, draped over him. "It's numb."

I tried to go easy on him. "You were in a pretty intense fistfight," I said lightly. "The feeling will come back soon."

Wufei shook his head. "No, Heero, it won't."

I looked sharply down at him. "What do you mean?" I demanded.

"It's not coming back, ever," he went on, avoiding my face. "They told me I was completely paralyzed from the chest down; quadriplegic for life."

I frowned at him.

"It's true," he whispered. "I know that it's true."

"It can't be," I told him, shaking my head. "There must be some mistake."

He shook his head back at me, his voice soft and sad. "No mistake. I'll never set foot in Nataku again." He looked back up to the ceiling again and sighed, clenching his eyes closed. His only regret—Nataku.

I gulped and stepped back from his bed. I was wrong. I was one hundred and fifty percent wrong. Wufei clearly didn't have the toughest backbone out of all of us.

I backed completely out of his room and turned myself around, facing the hallway, noticing for the first time that it was pretty busy. Nurses and doctors and family members of the sick bustled by while the intercom system buzzed every other minute, paging neurologists and oncology workers and residents and med students, calling all sorts of colored codes while gurneys and stretchers and mops and carts were pushed along the hallway floor, the voices of all the people meeting in the center of the intersection and mixing together in a ball of concern and crazed frenzy and family bonds that hung in the air for me to stare at. It was hard to swallow at the moment and I felt like the ball had wedged itself inside my throat. I commanded my legs to walk and forced myself down to the end of the hallway. I stopped at the corner as a huge group of medical workers rushed by me, shouting all sorts of different medical terms to another, and overhead I suddenly heard them paging several doctors on account of a code blue, the most serious code color. I listened to the sneakers as they screeched past me and went into an open room at the end of the hall to my left. I turned and followed the mass herd, stepping into the room, my eyes widening at the scene. What was that saying again? Curiosity killed the cat?

I felt like I had swallowed an anvil as I watched the scene unfold in front of me. The stretcher had been placed in the middle of the room, and tubes and wires hung from various machinery off to the sides and ran up into the arms of the patient on the bed. I blinked as a tall doctor climbed on top of the bed, straddling the patient, and began to almost violently compress his chest while shouting at the other workers in the room. The blood dripped off the edge of the stretcher and plopped onto the floor in sad, lonely drops, making the tech workers and doctors slip on their own patient's life fluid as it soaked his dark clothes and bruised body, the plastic mask covering his face, supplying oxygen. I should have been okay. I shouldn't have felt like a deadweight had settled in my stomach.

And normally I would have been. I could look at just about anything and barely be affected by it--blame it on the war. Nothing seemed to faze me anymore, except now I found it very difficult to breathe. Especially as the oxygen mask was replaced by a bag-valve mask, half of it hidden underneath the wave of dark bangs that hung over his forehead.

I snagged a nearby nurse as she passed me, catching onto the cloth sleeve of her scrubs and yanking down on it to get her attention. She gave me a dirty look, but stopped anyway as I stared straight into her eyes.

"What's going on?" I asked her. I already had a pretty good idea as to what was taking place inside the room.

"You're the one who brought him in, aren't you?" she snapped.

I nodded.

"You should watch out for your friends more carefully," she scolded, sounding disgusted. "He's losing too much blood too fast and he went into shock about a minute ago when his heart stopped. If he doesn't start to breathe within four minutes he'll be brain dead. A vegetable. Excuse me." She pulled her arm away and walked into the room. I watched as she began to help out with the other nurses and doctors, frantically trying to restart the patient's heart and get it to pump blood on its own. I couldn't speak anymore after that, and I turned away and leaned heavily against the white-painted wall.

Underneath the mask, the clown can be crying.

* * *

"Move out everyone. Don't forget the prime objective of this mission, and keep your communicators on at all times. Trowa, you're with me. Duo and Wufei, you know what to do. Let's go."

All four nodded to each other and split up into their prospective groups. Duo and Wufei headed to the front of the building while Trowa and Quatre headed to the back.

They paused outside the wooden door, their backs pressed against the concrete of the side of the building. Quatre looked at Trowa for a second, asking him with his eyes.

Trowa stared intently back, reading the reluctance in Quatre's expression. Even though they knew they had to go in, Quatre still hated it all the way. He needed some support, a little push to jumpstart himself into action. Trowa nodded curtly, his hands tightly clutched around the metal gun.

Quatre grabbed for his gun and gave the door a swift kick, knowing that either his actions would alert the soldiers inside to their sudden break-in or they were already waiting behind the door, no doubt heavily armed with a major case of trigger-happiness. He charged into the building, not caring which of the options were true, knowing that he needed to get in, get out, and leave this all behind. For Relena's sake.

"Quatre, down!" Trowa's yell came from behind him and he ducked with lightning reflexes, momentarily forgetting that he himself had a gun in his hands. He felt the bullets as they grazed the air above his head and heartlessly took down three soldiers in front of them. Quatre stood back up and stared, his eyesight fixed on the three heaps in front of him, lying in their own pools of blood as it slid down their uniforms onto the cement floor. He was secretly glad Trowa had taken care of them--at the moment, Quatre wasn't sure he could have done it himself.

Trowa tugged gently on his dark sleeve. "Come on, Quatre," he urged, coming up next to him, his gun at his side. "Don't forget the prime objective of this mission."

Quatre didn't take offense to his friend's using his own words against him. It was actually quite the opposite. They were the words he needed to hear to get his head back on straight. He nodded to Trowa.

"Let's go."

They began to walk down the dark corridor in front of them, eyes peeled for any sort of surprise attack launched by Oz soldiers waiting in the shadows. They made it to the end of the hallway unscathed, uninterrupted, and stopped. Without a word, they scanned the intersection of the hallway. Empty.

That's when Trowa noticed something. "My com-link is gone," he whispered, glancing down at his suit. He looked back up at Quatre, who looked over his shoulder at him in wonderment.

"Are you sure you had it to begin with?" Quatre asked.

Trowa nodded. "Pretty sure." He remembered that as team leader, Quatre had handed every one of the pilots their own communicator.

"Well, it doesn't matter." Quatre unhooked his wires and pulled his com-link off. "Take mine. I probably won't need it. Besides, we're all meeting back in ten minutes anyway."

Trowa nodded again and accepted Quatre's communicator, attaching it to his own suit. Then he looked back to the deserted hall.

"We should split up," Quatre suggested then.

Trowa looked at him in alarm. "We can't. You don't have anything to communicate with."

Quatre shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he repeated his earlier words. "We'll be out of here in a matter of minutes."

"How can you be so sure?" Trowa asked him, slightly amused at Quatre's heroic acting job.

Quatre looked at him and actually smiled a bit. "I trust in you, Trowa. You've got great instincts."

"So you're saying I'll find him then?"

Quatre nodded, grateful that his friend had caught his meaning so quickly. "I know you will."

"What about you, Quatre? I don't want to leave you."

Quatre waved his hand, still holding his gun. "Don't you worry about me, just check down that hall." Quatre jerked a thumb to his left. "I'm going to check this one." He pointed to his right, then dropped his hand. "If I don't see you back here in five minutes, I'll be outside in ten."

Trowa nodded and they split up.

As he walked down the darkly lit hall, Trowa internally shook his head. This was way too easy. Here they were, breaking into a secret Oz intelligence base, with the soldiers who ran the base knowing they were coming, and he was just casually taking a stroll down a barely lit hallway with no distractions. He felt like he was being set up. The gun was clenched tighter in his hands, ready to be used again if need be.

Finally, he approached several different prison cells, located on his right as he walked. Three of them were empty as he passed them. The fourth one held the prize as he glanced in. Chained to the wall.

Trowa shot off the lock and opened the cell door, making it creak as he stepped inside and walked to the back wall. The shackles were undone and he pulled my form to my feet.

"Heero," he whispered hoarsely. "Heero, can you hear me?"

I mumbled something that sounded like some sort of fairy tale, completely made-up, jumbled mess of a language and he slapped my cheek, bringing me out of my haze as I slumped against him. I hadn't been on my feet for four days and my legs ached. My hearing, however, had been finely tuned, and so when Trowa's com-link emitted a low, fuzzy noise I stopped him in his tracks and told him to listen. We strained to hear the tinny voice on the other end of the communicator.

*

Duo's head slumped onto the ground, body dripping blood from falling particles of skin, head swirling with mixed messages and unintelligible thoughts, vision unfocused and blurry. His body lay slumped on the ground in a miserable, unresponsive heap, but inside him, he could feel the urge. The urge to try anything to get out of the situation he had literally fallen into. Pilot instincts.

His hand shook with tremendous force as he wiggled it underneath his own body, searching for the button to press to open the com-link's connection to the other members of the team. He tried to push and hold the button down, but the task proved to be too difficult. He gasped for breath as the dirt caked onto his dead skin, glued by the syrupy blood falling from his injury, and began rapidly pressing the button while struggling for words.

*

"Quatre," I stated, my ear honed onto Trowa's ear-microphone. "It's Duo calling for Quatre."

Trowa looked at me, his eyes slightly wider than normal, still half-hidden by his bangs. "Quatre can't hear him," he explained to me. "This is Quatre's com-link." He pointed to the wires connected to his clothes.

The link buzzed again, a desperate voice mixed with technical interference. "Mayday," the voice wheezed. "-eed…some help…out-ere…" There was a pause. "-nybody read?"

"Let's go," I commanded, pushing away from Trowa and standing upright on my own two feet. "Sounds like there's a battle going on out there and he needs help fast."

Trowa nodded to me and we began to make our way out of the cell block. Trowa tried several times to contact Duo, gave up, and then tried Wufei.

No answer. We ran faster towards the outside front of the building.

* * *

I struggled to bring my hands up against the wall, then shoved myself away and found my footing. I began to walk, turning left at the corner and continuing blindly down the hall until I reached another open doorway. I stopped and looked inside, feeling as if my legs weighed two tons each.

"There now," the nurse soothed. "You're going to heal nicely."

The voice that answered her was shaking. "But I'll never be able to see again?"

The nurse sighed sadly. "No, I'm afraid not," she replied gently. "The acid was just too strong."

The figure on the bed nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

The nurse patted his hands, where they were clenched in his lap as his legs dangled over the side of the hospital bed. She moved towards the doorway and glanced at me as she left, but didn't say anything.

I stepped in the doorway, my eyes fixed on the two white bandages taped to his face, directly over those crystal blue eyes he'd once had. I walked quietly over to the bed and stood silently for a few seconds. I knew he could tell I was standing in front of him.

"Quatre."

His hand reached out from his lap and attached itself to my arm, the fingers trembling closed around the black material of my fully intact suit. He sniffed.

"It doesn't burn so much any more, Heero," he said softly.

I didn't respond, just held still. His fingers gouged into my arm as he asked, "Have you heard anything on Trowa?"

* * *

Trowa and I skidded to a halt just outside the front of the building. There was a pack of soldiers over to our right, standing over something, laughing and kicking at it. There were a few more to our left, leaning down and dragging something that had the appearance of a body to it away from us, talking loudly to each other, shouting commands and wisecracks into the air. Trowa and I went unnoticed for a full minute and a half.

"Stupid idiots," I murmured, as they all began to turn and face us. "Took them that long?"

I jabbed Trowa in the side as the pack began to advance on us, and he knew my meaning as he leapt over the lot of them and landed behind. He raced off in the direction of the other group of soldiers, and I began pegging the soldiers in front of me, first taking them down with bullets and then with fists. Trowa took similar action with his groupies, and then he called to me.

"Duo!" he shouted, confirming the body's identity. "Looks like he got…" There was a pause and Trowa's voice dropped to dead serious. "Blown up."

I met up with Trowa and helped him load the still conscious but moaning Duo into the back of the van, sitting him up straight against the back cushions of the seat. I couldn't bandage Duo up at the moment, seeing as his skin was barely hanging on, and so I left him and jumped out of the back of the van, looking for Trowa. He was already bending over the form of Wufei, who was on his stomach a few feet away from me.

"We've got to get Duo to the hospital," I told Trowa, coming up to his side and glancing down at Wufei.

Trowa pointed a long index finger. "I think his back is broken," he told me lowly. "We've got to roll him over while trying to keep his bones in line."

My first reaction was to blink semi-confusedly at Wufei, but then I crouched down to the ground and helped Trowa gingerly roll him over. Carefully, we lifted Wufei's slim body into our arms and started to head for the open van doors.

*

Quatre glanced at his watch. Two minutes and counting.

In his search of the hallway to his right, Quatre hadn't found anything. Not a single blessed thing. No soldiers, no doorways, no windows, no trapdoors, no surprise attacks, nothing. It was absolutely empty. And he had a minute and a half now to get outside and meet up with the others.

Quatre turned swiftly on his heel, bringing his gun down to his side but keeping his eyes alert. He began to walk back to the direction he'd just come from, and as he turned the corner he and Trowa had stood at just minutes before, he felt a freezing cold liquid splash onto his face, startling him as it began to seep into his wide eyes. The gun was flung out of his hands as he raised them to cover his face, feeling as if his eyes were peeling up inside their sockets, burning with a horrendous tenacity. It was like he'd stuck a branding iron on his face, directly over his eyes.

Two strong arms slid around his waist then, trying to squeeze the life out of his small-structured frame. Quatre would be damned if he was the only one who didn't get out of this mission alive, and so quickly, he jabbed both elbows backwards, into the ribcage of his assailant, apologizing only in his mind. The man coughed violently, letting go, and Quatre swung around and sent his fist blindly into the air. Fortunately, Quatre nailed his target and heard the body flop onto the cement floor in front of him. He stood for a few more seconds, his face smoldering, then high-tailed it out of the building, moving as fast as he could with his hands as his guides.

The toughest part was trying to stay calm.

* * *

"Excuse me, are you Quatre Raberba Winner?"

I looked over my shoulder to the form that belonged to the timid voice standing in the doorway. A nurse clad in a pristine white uniform held a chart of papers in her hand, and she quickly ruffled through them as she glanced up at us.

"Yes." Quatre's voice was calm and soft.

"You asked us to keep you informed on the condition of Trowa Barton?"

Quatre's hand dug harder into my arm as his back stiffened at the name. He nodded vigorously, holding tightly still to me.

The nurse looked away as she walked in towards us and stopped next to me, giving me the once-over. "Are you his friend also?"

"Are you going to tell us something or not?" I demanded, looking fiercely into her eyes. Quatre was going to explode if she didn't tell us why she had come.

Her face hardened a bit at my tone, but her eyes remained soft and slightly pained. "I'm sorry," she apologized, glancing between us. "Mr. Barton didn't make it through CPR and the doctors weren't able to restart his heart after that. They did everything they could." She paused. "He's resting peacefully now behind curtain three if you'd like to visit him."

She turned away, tucking the charts under her arm, and left us alone. I could feel my arm becoming numb where Quatre was squeezing it in a death grip. I forced air into my lungs.

You should watch out for your friends more carefully. He's losing too much blood too fast and he went into shock about a minute ago when his heart stopped. If he doesn't start to breathe within four minutes he'll be brain dead. A vegetable.

Quatre bit his lip as it began to quiver. His other hand fell to the bed and supported him as he slumped to the side, unable to speak. I wasn't doing any better, just standing there with his hand on my arm, hearing the nurse's snappy words reverberate through my mind, forcing myself to breathe. I still couldn't understand why all this was affecting me so much.

* * *

I settled Wufei across from Duo in the van on the long couch-like seat, being extra-precise in my movements so as not to move his head. I pulled out some cloth from an overhead compartment and strapped him down so he wouldn't get jolted off the cushion, then faced the back entrance of the van again and jumped out to find what was taking Trowa so long.

"Down!" he shouted, shoving me out of the way. I heard a bullet as it panged against the open metal door and immediately reached for my gun.

"Here." Trowa shoved his gun in my face and I fumbled to catch it as he left my side and began to run.

What is he, crazy? The front doors of the base were thrown open and about six soldiers were streaming out of them, aiming their machine guns and rifles in my direction, shooting for anything they could hit. I armed myself with my two guns and rapidly pressed the triggers, sending my own bullets back to them with immeasurable accuracy. Four out of the six were down in thirty seconds.

I glanced over to the side of the building where Trowa had run to and caught a glance of him supporting a small figure, draping an arm over his shoulder. I blinked in the bright daylight, still firing my gun, and then realized that Trowa was pulling Quatre to safety as I kept the remaining soldiers distracted with their new gunshot wounds.

Quatre's voice was a jumble of noise and crying and desperation as Trowa led him to the back of the van, trying to calm him down a bit but half-failing miserably. I thought I heard Quatre mention something about burning liquid as he scrubbed viciously at his eyes. Trowa pushed him inside the back of the van and prepared to climb in himself when we heard a yell.

Another soldier was emerging from the building, holding a small handgun and training it on us. I looked at Trowa, who still stood next to me in front of a hysterical Quatre in the back of the van.

"Let's go," he ordered. "Now. We have to get to the hospital."

I nodded curtly and rid my hands of my guns, then turned on my heel and started for the driver's seat. Before my hand had even touched the doorknob, a shot rang out and pierced the air. As I raced back to the open doors of the van to see what had happened, I learned that the bullet had pierced not only the air, but something else, too.

"Trowa!" Quatre cried, shaking him although he couldn't see. Quatre's hands were latched onto the front of Trowa's flight suit, his fingers digging into his clothes as blood ran over them. "Trowa!" he called again. "Trowa, answer me!" Quatre's right hand was covered in Trowa's blood as it poured from his puncture wound.

"Heero!" Quatre yelled, blinking blindly at me as he switched gears. "Trowa's gonna die! We have to get him to the hospital! Hurry!"

I swallowed at the sight of Trowa's tall form hanging limply in Quatre's grip, his head rolled to the side, resting lifelessly on his own shoulder. Quatre had been leaning out the back doors holding him up, and I helped him back into the van with Trowa bleeding into his lap as more shots continued to ring about us, mostly banging into the metal side of the van. Then I turned, my teeth clenched, and grabbed for the guns I'd used earlier. My gun. I cocked it and discovered it was empty.

I switched the gun in my left hand to my right and cocked it, then pulled the trigger and mercilessly took the soldier down in front of me. I stuffed the gun into my pocket and slammed the van doors closed, then took off for the driver's side.

Trowa's gun had rid us of the last soldier who had threatened us, the soldier who had sent a bullet through his heart.

* * *

I sat down next to the bed and slowly reached for the white sheet. I pulled it back from his face and folded it neatly across his chest, where his hands had been placed. He looked like a sleeping child, though I knew better. There was no rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, although he had been cleaned up and washed free of blood, his suit replaced by hospital linens.

I didn't know what to say. I sat next to him with that lump from the hallway growing increasingly larger in my throat. I clasped my own hands together and held them in my lap, just looking at him. I couldn't see anything but Quatre.

Quatre, as he slowly let go of my arm and made himself sit up straight. Quatre, as he raised his open hand, his white teeth bared, and swiftly slapped my face where I stood in front of him. Quatre as he slid off the bed and advanced on me, Quatre as his hands balled into fists, Quatre as the words streamed from his mouth, Quatre as he tried to shake me to death. Quatre's hands clenched onto the front of my flight suit as they had been on Trowa's.

He saved you and yet you couldn't give him the courtesy of doing the same for him! He died for you, Heero! After he saved you, he died for you! Don't you have anything to say?

How could I speak with that lump wedged in my throat?

Why did you get us all into this? Why did you make Trowa pay your price? This war, all this fighting…everything makes me sick!

Didn't he know that I felt nauseous, too?

If you want to fight, fine! But don't drag the rest of us into your battles with you! No good shall come out of all this evil!

I hadn't been able to retaliate. I couldn't figure out if it was because I believed what Quatre was saying or I couldn't believe what Quatre was doing. Quatre, the calm-hearted soldier, the peaceful pilot…rattling my brains with things I couldn't deal with at the moment. All I could do was hang my head. He had been right, about everything.

Trowa paid the ultimate price, for me. I let him die.

* * *

Frantically, I grabbed at the door handle and yanked on it, pulling with all my might to unhinge the stubborn door to the van. It finally gave way and I jumped into the driver's seat and jammed the keys into the ignition. My heart was pounding so hard in my ears I could barely tell whether or not the van had actually started up.

I could hear all sorts of noises coming from the back of the van. There was hideous moaning and outright sobbing and dead quiet and screaming lungs and a whole orchestra of voices and thoughts filling the backseat area. Not to mention the anguished groans of pain next to me as the blood seeped through the seat and onto my pants.

"Heero…"

I glanced over next to me and received the shock of my life.

"Relena?" I gasped out. When had she gotten here?

She reached a bloody hand out to me and attempted to grab my arm, but recoiled in pain and dropped her hand to the seat, where the blood puddled around her, dripping off her stained clothes.

I tried to speak again, my voice coming out as a foggy croak, and then took a big gulp of air and looked away from her, giving up. My voice wouldn't work as of right now, and I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I needed to get this van into motion, now. I drove the gas pedal through the floor.

My head was filled with an image, an image I hadn't rightly remembered seeing as of today. But as I steered the van, I couldn't shake the pictures out of my mind. I saw a soldier leaping onto the hood, looking like he'd been one of the guys in the fistfight with Wufei. His head was bleeding and his hand was hastily wrapped, but he easily hefted his gun to waist level and released a round of bullets through the windshield. My heart sunk into my stomach as Relena's scream tore through my ears and the soldier was heaved off the hood of the van as it tore away, my foot with of mind of its own, pressing the gas. I made sure to run the bastard over.

I couldn't tell if it was only in my head if it that had been real.

*

I stood up quickly, trying to swallow the rock in my throat, and pulled Trowa's sheet back over his head. If Relena had been in the car, then that meant that she was here somewhere. I needed to find out, fast.

I turned back and stared at Trowa's covered form for a minute, my eyes still unable to persuade my brain to realize the truth. I couldn't assess that Trowa Barton was dead, so I just left. It would hit me soon, I knew it would. Call it the curse of the soldier. Truth will knock you over sometime in your life, you just had to wait for it.

I walked down the hall and passed Quatre's room, not daring to look inside for fear of…I didn't know, just kept on walking. Suddenly I found myself being frontally attacked by a nurse, who held her hands up pleadingly and stopped me from walking any further.

"Are you Heero Yuy?" she asked. She looked like she was at the end of her rope; had been searching for me for hours.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Who wants to know?" I demanded. You can never be too careful.

"The…woman-the-the-girl!" the nurse sputtered. "The girl you brought in! Quickly!" She reached down and before I could stop her, she seized my hand and dragged me down another corridor, turning the corner. I could hear a machine's loud beeping wafting into the hall, and the realization formed in my stomach like a chunk of brick. I hadn't been making things up.

The nurse dropped my hand and pointed to an open door on my right. "She's been calling for you," she informed me. I stepped forward, but the nurse held me back for another second. "She doesn't have much time."

I simply stared at her grave face for a minute, then stepped inside the room as her hand retracted and walked to her bedside. Someone had washed Relena's hair and cleaned her up, and she lay looking comfortable on her bed with the sheets up to her chin, eyes closed. I stood by the edge of her bed and just gazed down on her for a few minutes.

The voice was small and hopeful. "Heero…?"

I watched as one hand wiggled itself out from underneath the overly starched white sheet, searching for something to grasp onto. I reached my own hand out and down, allowing hers to crawl into it, careful not to lean into the long tube that was attached from her arm to a machine next to me. Her delicate fingers barely squeezed around mine, and she opened her eyes then and shifted them to my face.

I swallowed, trying to rid my throat of the unexplainable mass, but in my attempt to shrink it, the lump only increased in size. Relena blinked innocently at me, as if she were trying to focus.

"I'm glad you're all right," she whispered then, her voice sounding strained and raspy. I tightened my grip on her hand.

She tugged gently, motioning for me to lean down close to her. I did as she requested, sliding one arm over her head while still holding steadfastly to her shaking hand, still avoiding the tube. The machine monitoring her heart beeped at me from the other side of the bed as my fingers brushed through the top of her silky hair.

"Heero, do you remember…"

I turned my head and looked down into her eyes, where the sparkle had dimmed but was still slightly visible to the trained eye. I listened as she tried to continue her sentence, but lost the strength.

"Shh…" I released her hand and placed three fingers over her lips. I knew what she had been trying to tell me.

Of course I remembered. As a soldier, I had an excellent memory. And there are things that happen in your lifetime that you know you'll never forget, no matter what the circumstances were. What Relena had been trying to say was embedded into my mind for all time.

It had just been a plain, regularly structured, run-of-the-mill rescue operation. Relena had been kidnapped and locked away. I'd done my usual hacking into the computer system, located her, and then fought my way to her cell. Only at the time I didn't know the extent of terror she'd been put through. I didn't know that she'd been mentally tortured by her captors. I didn't know that they'd tried to bury her under a heap of dead, mutilated bodies, as payback for being a pacifist. All I had known was that she needed to be rescued before they attempted to physically kill her.

When I'd showed up outside her cell door, she was on the floor, shaking, her arms wrapped around herself, her face buried into her knees. She jumped when I'd opened the door and cowered when I'd walked up to her small hunched form. She began to bawl uncontrollably as I'd kneeled down, but then as she managed to look into my eyes, they cleared somewhat and I found myself being attacked. She literally entwined her body with mine, her fingers digging into the back of my shirt, clawing madly as if she were afraid of slipping away, her face buried into my neck, the tears streaming down her face. She trembled in my arms as I picked her up and carried her away from that awful place. The only thing I had been able think at that moment was that it wasn't fair for her to be put through this. Someone like Relena didn't deserve this kind of treatment. Me, yes. Relena, no.

And after I'd put her to bed that night, the only thing she'd asked of me was, "Heero, will you hold me until morning?"

I looked down at her in the hospital bed now, tracing my hand over her mouth and onto her cheek, trying to keep my face neutral although the block in my throat was starting to suffocate me, seeing her lying here limply on a hospital bed with bags and machines and tubes and wires surrounding her, her skin with no more color than a dove's broken wing.

"Been through…so much…together," Relena whispered. She coughed delicately.

I nodded, my fingers on her head smoothing back her golden brown bangs.

"I was scared then, Heero…but--"

"Hush, Relena, don't talk," I told her, rubbing my left thumb over her smooth cheek.

"I'm not afraid of dying anymore," she finished.

"Don't talk like that," I said, shaking my head.

She took a small breath in and sighed. "It's okay, Heero…I understand now. It's okay." Her arm reached up and clenched onto mine, the left one that was stretched across her body, my hand still on her face. "You're strong," she told me. "Thank you…for everything you've ever done for me."

"Relena…"

Her eyes fluttered closed and she let out another tiny sigh. "Okay, Heero," she assured. "I understand now."

"Relena…" I cupped her cheek with my hand, seemingly unable to say anything but her name, forcing the words around the lump in my throat.

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said softly. "You taught me acceptance. There are things in life you accept instead of fight, and…I can't…anymore…"

I rested my forehead gently against hers. "You have to," I ordered in a begging tone. "You have to hang on."

"…strong…" Relena reminded me. "Be strong…for me…"

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her that she couldn't accept this. There are exceptions to the rule; things you absolutely have to fight for. I never believed it before, but her life was something she needed to save. And I needed to tell her, but I was too late.

"Heero…promise me you won't let it end this way. You're strong…find a way to bring peace to the people, please…for me…?" Her voice faded away on the last notes of her consciousness.

I clenched my eyes shut against the high-pitched noise coming from the other side of the bed. It was several minutes before I gathered up enough courage to open them again, but I just found myself staring. A blank stare as the mass in my throat threatened to explode.

I watched as the green line on the monitor crept steadily across the screen, signifying the death of Relena Darlian-Peacecraft.

If it hadn't been for my mission, she never would have been here. She had come to rescue me, but she unknowingly shared the same fate Trowa had. It was all because of me.

She didn't die by my own hands and yet I managed to kill her anyway.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trowa pulled the van to a screeching halt and jumped out the driver's side door. He slammed it behind him and ran over to the other side, pulling on the knob to the sliding back door. It opened and he turned around behind him, facing the hospital. He waved the crowd of doctors and nurses over with a swoop of gestures, then turned back inside the van.

"We stopped most of the bleeding," Quatre informed Trowa as he glanced in. "But I'm afraid he's already lost too much blood as it is. He stopped responding to his name a while ago."

Just then a doctor and two nurses wheeling a stretcher shoved Trowa aside and peered into the back of the van, where the other three Gundam pilots hovered over the body on the cushion.

"We need you to help us load him onto the stretcher," the doctor told them.

Duo, Quatre, and Wufei nodded simultaneously, then began to slip their fingers underneath my small form, where I lay unconscious, gently shifting me from the couch inside the van to the gurney outside the van. They stood and watched as the doctors strapped my body to the bed, my blood already staining the white sheets beneath my legs. All four of my comrades stood next to each other and stared as the medical staff wheeled the stretcher away, calling procedures of care and assessments of my injuries to one another. They watched as the sliding glass door shut behind the medical team.

It was Duo who snapped everyone back to life. He shut the sliding door behind him, startling everybody else, and then barreled into the hospital in search of the medical staff that had taken me away, Quatre, Wufei, and Trowa following closely behind him. They all wanted to know.

It wasn't hard finding the room with all the hubbub inside. Duo skidded sharply to his right and pushed through the doors, his friends trailing behind, and stopped at the foot of the stretcher where I lay. All four pilots found themselves staring again as the doctors and nurses rushed around me carrying various medical supplies and shouting orders.

"Get these people out of here," one doctor ordered, after a mere glance at them.

One nurse bustled over to show the pilots their way out of the room when Duo halted her with, "We're not going anywhere."

"How is he?" Quatre spoke up timidly. "How's Heero?"

"He's in a coma right now but we're doing the best we can," the nurse answered him gently. "Now please…" She moved her arm, indicating the doors behind the four.

Duo crossed his arms and planted his feet, giving her a glare he must have picked up from me.

The doctor who was in the midst of cutting the legs of my flight suit off glanced up and sighed, exasperated. "You want him to live?" he asked curtly. "I need this room clear now." He gave Duo a menacing look and then turned back to me.

Trowa turned and tugged Duo away firmly, following Wufei and Quatre who had already gone through the doors to the hall. There they gathered and stood in a small huddle, Quatre's face distorted with sorrow and regret.

"We waited too long," he said lowly, glancing around at the other members of the team. "We should have been there sooner for him."

Trowa placed a hand on his shoulder, mimicking the gesture he'd used earlier that day in Relena's office. "He's going to make it."

Quatre nodded.

"Someone has to call Relena," Duo reminded, leaning against the wall and folding his arms.

Quatre nodded again. "I'll do it."

* * *

I admit it.

It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing knowing that fifteen minutes after I'd gotten myself into the warehouse-turned-Oz base, I was overwhelmed and outnumbered, with nowhere to turn to and nowhere to hide. Everywhere I looked there was another barrel of another gun being stuck in my face. By the time I'd realized I was surrounded, it was too late. In all the battle plans and escape strategies I'd been exposed to, I couldn't think of anything at that particular moment to get myself out of this fix. I was utterly stuck.

I remember hearing my gun clatter to the floor. I remember trying to take down the soldiers who had me by the arms. I remember trying to get out of the thick black handcuffs they'd slapped on me. I remember trying to resist being thrown into the prison cell. I remember my hands being shackled above my head to the wall, still trapped within the metal handcuffs. I remember the soldiers spitting at me. I remember their cursing. I remember the sudden appearance of two Oz soldiers outside my cell door after four days of being left alone to starve. I remember watching one of the soldiers as he loaded his gun with delight and pointed it at me. I remember waiting for the bullet to shoot itself through my chest and claim my heart as its victim. I remember how at the last moment the soldier switched his aim and instead released eight bullets at my legs, four for each. I remember my voice as it bounced off the cell walls, I remember the blood as it pooled around me, I remember how the soldier pulled the trigger one last time, taking out my left shoulder for good measure. I remember their sinister laughs as they left me to die. I remember the numbing cold that settled over my body. I remember my world turning black.

What I didn't remember was a warm bed and a stack of sheets wrapped around me and beeping monitors and a white-walled room. I didn't remember ever getting here myself; I was disoriented as I opened my eyes. Something squeezed my hand and I blinked confusedly down at it. It was another hand. I didn't remember ever getting out of the Oz base and didn't understand what was going on.

"Heero." The voice was soft, tinged with pleasure, as I looked up into her face and blinked again. Her honey-brown hair shone in the daylight, which beamed through the half-open windows around me.

Her face brought the lump back again. I could feel it inside my throat, pulsating with the beat of my heart as I swallowed. It was over now. I was definitely going to suffocate myself to death.

Relena squeezed my hand again. "I'm glad that you're all right," she said softly. "I was worried for days."

I swallowed again and to my surprise, the ball began to melt. I could feel it sliding down my throat, dissipating and breaking up, falling into the depths of my being, never to be brought forth again. I realized that I'd stiffened up against my sheets and forced myself to relax, leaning back against my pillows.

"What…" I rasped, "…happened?"

Relena's other hand come to cover my mouth gently and she shushed me. "All in good time," she explained. "They all really want to see you." She pulled her hand away and ruffled my hair.

"Where…are they?" I whispered, my voice hoarse. I didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about.

"They're on their way," she answered, giving me an encouraging smile. "They just needed to get bandaged up first. I was told that the doctors wouldn't let them see you until now."

I closed my eyes for a second and nodded, not having enough strength to keep talking. At the moment I supposed it didn't matter how I had gotten here, as long as I was here now. I could finally rest, although I was sort of numb from the waist down.

Just then, I heard a door behind me creak open, and four pairs of footsteps walked into the room. I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by familiar faces.

"You guys…" I barely managed to get it out. I watched as all their grave faces broke into grins, even Wufei.

"We got 'em, Heero," Duo burst out. "We took those suckers down. Bit the dust, along with their cheap-ass base." He stabbed a proud thumb into his chest. "I blew 'em all to hell. Thought you'd want to know."

I turned my head and looked at him, my eyes trailing over the gauze that was wrapped around one side of his throat. He was smiling whole-heartedly at me, standing with his braid flung over one shoulder of his flight suit, and I couldn't ask. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know how he had been hurt. Instead,

"You guys…look like…you've been…through a desert," I told them. Their usually black colored flight suits were covered in dusty sand, Quatre's suit a little muddy on the front. Trowa had a bandage around his arm and Wufei had some cuts and bruises on his face. All four looked like they'd spilled a dirt lunch on themselves, especially Duo, who had sand running from his collarbone to his waistline.

I looked up at Quatre, my second-in-command, and gazed at his face, my eyes fixed on the white bandage over one of his crystal blue eyes.

He waved his hand sheepishly, blushing a bit at my staring. "It's nothing," he assured. "The doctor said my eyesight will return to normal in a couple days."

I looked over at Trowa, no doubt befuddling everyone a bit at my somewhat strange behavior, but I had to know. He glanced at his left shoulder and then looked back to me.

"Just a flesh wound," he said. "Not a big deal."

I turned to Wufei. "And you, Wufei?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I got a couple hits to the face, but nothing too serious. Mostly I was trying to keep the braided baka here out of trouble." He jerked a thumb towards Duo, who bristled at his words.

"Hey, I didn't screw anything up, did I?" Duo snapped. He fingered his throat lightly. "Besides, I paid for it, you old buzzard."

Relena squeezed my hand again, and it was clear to me now that I had been saved. My fellow pilots had risked their lives to come and dig me out of the hole I'd created when I'd gotten myself captured at that base.

I looked up into her eyes and asked simply, "My legs?" I could feel the tight bandages now, wrapped expertly from each of my hips down to my ankles. At the moment, they prevented me from moving anything but the top half of my body.

She tightened her grip on my fingers. "The doctor said that with intense physical therapy you can gain the usage of them both back." She paused. "I know you will. You're strong, Heero."

I nodded.

The pilots around me all shifted and Quatre spoke up.

"It's pretty late now," he announced. "We better head back and make sure everything is all right." He glanced down at me. "We'll be back tomorrow, okay, Heero?"

I nodded again, holding intently to Relena's hand. We both watched as the pilots exited my room and closed the door softly behind them.

It had been a wild ride, and I still felt exhausted. Relena proceeded to inform me that for the past few hours I had been in a coma and had needed a blood transfusion. She told me the other pilots felt responsible for me being in the hospital, but I knew they had done all they could. She recounted the story they had told her, about how they had broken into the base with the soldiers already knowing they were coming, and how they'd split up into groups and how Trowa found me sitting in my cell, chained to the wall, slowly bleeding myself dry. She told me how she'd cried the whole day after she'd sent them to retrieve me, and how she'd been here since my arrival, after Quatre had called her. I held tighter onto her hand, hearing her cries through my head on the day I'd carried her out of that other Oz base. I knew I would never, ever forget that day, or this one. Although I hadn't given them enough credit. Those damn Oz bastards were as smart as they thought they were. That was pretty embarrassing, too.

I tugged on Relena's hand then, and she leaned closer to me. I just stared at her, looking into the sparkle of her eyes, seeing now that they hadn't been dimmed, but shone brighter instead as they gazed back at me. I settled more comfortably into my pillows, and Relena knew. I didn't have to ask her.

She slid one arm over my head, rested her face next to mine, and continued to hold my hand while the other sifted through my bangs. Her breathing was slow and melodic and deep, and I found myself slipping under extreme fatigue feeling a little more clear-headed and not so seasick now that my throat wasn't constricted anymore and the nausea was gone. My deluded mind had conjured images up from the back of my coma-clouded consciousness and presented them to me, to see what I was truly made of. I guess my up and coming physical therapy would reveal that answer, and for now I just rested comfortably.

And Relena held me until morning.

The End