A/N: This is a piece written for Endless Reflection. This explores possible future implications on a decision made during the series (Episode 19) between 1x2. It has always been a decision I have wondered on for years, though am happy to have had it play out as it did. It is written as a m/m pairing, but not definitively explained, so interpret how you would like. Reviews are always appreciated!

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is a product of Sunrise & Bandai Entertainment, I do not claim ownership to these characters, only to my own words.

Losing Sleep

The gun was heavy in his hands; Glock 19, a solid weapon, fifteen bullets in the fresh clip, dual recoil spring assembly, high-capacity, accurate to a fault. He'd cut his teeth on SMG's, this was nothing, this was child's play.

An imaginary force played at the brunette tendrils hanging down the back of his neck. His eyes narrowed, steady on his target. There was a smirk, a familiar man behind it somewhere, lips pulling up at one side, then the next in a wicked manner. This was his job, this was his assignment, this was his mission.

He adjusted his grip, the firearm's skin rough against his own. The sensation reminded him of something he hadn't felt in a long time: contact. Bruising, fiery, irresistible contact.

All negative factors from now on must be eliminated.

A slow ache of slicing pain assaulted the back of his skull. His target had to be eliminated, things had gone too far, the lines between black and white had been dangerously crossed. That smile, that smirk, he couldn't rid himself of the shivers it sent through his body. He had to complete his mission.

His finger squeezed against the trigger. His brain commanded the appendage mercilessly to fire. Eliminate the target. Now.

Those indigo eyes cut through the darkness, opening to find his own, glistening with laughter and malevolence.

Hey, you're really gonna shoot me, aren't ya?

The memory knifed through his body, the smirk wrapping around those words as they floated to the forefront of his mind. But his finger did not stop its slow descend inward, pulling back, to let the bullet fly.

If that's what you want me to do.

Blood, that's all he could remember, blood and warmth and terror and shaking. He watched the body fall to the floor, his own knees hitting the concrete in time with the other's.

His partner was there now, running, shouting orders. Words echoed into the room, the click of metal on metal, the sound of safeties being pulled, footsteps pounding around him.

But all Heero could do was watch the blood pouring from Duo's body.

"Yuy?"

He could hear someone calling out to him, but it was far away and he wasn't even sure that that was his name to begin with. Yuy. It sounded foreign against the cotton that was his tongue. Who was he? Where was he? Why couldn't he move his body?

Florescent, burning light cracked through the darkness as he managed to peel his eyelids apart. He blinked, so many times he couldn't even begin to take in his surroundings.

"Yuy, can you hear me?"

He could hear. He could hear the beeping of a heart monitor, whether it was his own he could not be sure. He could hear meager footfalls next to him, the scrape of a chair against tile, a sigh of- was that relief or annoyance?

His eyes were open now, but he could feel the intensity of his pupils trying desperately to constrict under the new sensation of light. Suddenly the numbness over his body was lifting, leaving a dull ache of muscles and the reflexive desire to move, to escape.

"Calm down. You're alright, you're in a hospital. Preventer's orders- a precaution."

Apparently he'd begun to struggle, perhaps panic according to the soothing edge in the voice's words. He himself couldn't quite figure out what his body was doing as his mind continued to float along in some sort of comatose state.

He blinked a few more times. There was a cool hand against his shoulder and suddenly he felt his body ease, a natural reaction he had to remind himself to trust. His eyes cleared and adjusted enough to study the presence at his side.

Chang Wufei stared down at his Preventer partner with a mixture of calm and concern flittering across his face, the lines of stress and age prominent under the glaring lamp above. He held a styrofoam cup in his hands and upon receiving the bedridden man's attention gestured towards his mouth.

Heero nodded, evaluating his current state and whereabouts as the cool water poured gently down the back of his scathing throat. Hospital gown, sterile sheets, IV drip, restraints. How easily he reverted back into old ways, assessing the situation like the soldier he was.

After he'd finished with nearly the entire cup of water, the first word out of Heero's mouth was, "Duo?"

There was a smile in response, something that proved to soften Wufei's usual stone features. "He's in recovery. Needed surgery to remove the bullet."

The answer was clean and simple as was the next word out of Heero's mouth.

"Why?"

After a hesitant second he added to the query by tugging at the wrist and ankle restraints holding him to the rails of his hospital bed.

Wufei's smile twitched back into a line. "After we apprehended Stoche, after the ambulance arrived, you were a bit- difficult."

Heero remembered Stoche, the drug lord, the bastard that had used Duo against him. He'd known for how long that Duo was a Preventer operative, and yet let it all play out. But the man was also ignorant to think so little of their abilities. He remembered that. But the rest was a bit- fuzzy.

"Difficult?" he muttered, his muscles tensing against the restraints once again. He could probably break them easily, if not for whatever sedative they were pumping into his veins from the bag dangling above his head.

"Well-" He watched as Wufei struggled to find the appropriate words. "You wouldn't let the paramedics tend to him. He was bleeding a lot and I'm pretty sure- I think you thought he was dead."

There was an imaginary feeling at the nape of his neck again. The memories were black in his mind, so dark that he could barely make out the bodies in front of him. Stoche, his target, the root of their mission, and...Duo.

He thought for a moment that he might be sick as the sensation of Duo's blood bubbling against the palms of his hands filtered its way back into his mind.

Wufei looked uncomfortable the next time their vision met. Heero wondered vaguely what had actually happened; it had to be more than what his partner was explaining, or else there wouldn't have been need for such a strong sedative or the addition of hospital issue cuffs.

"I'll go find a nurse. I'm sure we can remove them by now, but just to be on the safe side-" Wufei had barely finished his thought before he'd exited behind a curtain obscuring half the room's entryway.

Heero took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. He counted along an edge, then along the adjoining one. By mathematical standards there were forty-eight square tiles resting above him.

He smelled copper in his nose and tasted a bitterness on his tongue that he could not identify. He was about to attempt ripping the restraints from his limbs himself when a soft grating sound assaulted his ears.

"Duo." His voice was nothing more than a gasp.

The man rolled towards him in a wheelchair, hospital gown to match his own, eyes half-lidded, smirk lining his lips. He was older than in the nightmares Heero had recently been made to reenact. But still cocksure, still reckless, still infuriating even after all these years.

"Hey, Heero. Glad to see you're not threatening the lives of the entire hospital staff anymore."

It was meant to be a joke, meant to clear the tension that had so suddenly filtered into the room, trailing behind Duo's wheels, but Heero couldn't bring himself to see the humor.

"Here, let me help." As he made his way to the bedside, Duo's hands went to hover over Heero's restraints.

"Chang went-"

"Yeah, he's too much of a rule follower." Duo's mouth was lopsided. "I'm not really supposed to be in here right now, so what difference does it make if I break a few more doctor's orders?"

When the man's fingers touched against his skin Heero felt the heat he recalled from earlier, but this time it was less slick and red. Duo had him freed in under a minute, but even so he sat back after the task, breathing with exertion.

Heero's brows furrowed as he rubbed fingers over one wrist then the other. "You should be in bed."

Duo shrugged weakly. "Do you really want me to leave you that badly?"

Heero did not, he never wanted the man to leave his sight ever again. He didn't respond and that only seemed to add to the amusement shining in the braided man's eyes. There was a bandage peaking from beneath his gown, covering part of his shoulder and Heero couldn't help but study it, every fiber of it.

He thought of Duo's arm around his shoulders, his body that of just a boy's, so thin and wiry then, though it hadn't grown by much even now. It was a mission gone sour, a favor returned for no foreseeable reason or gain. And even as the incessant bout of jokes and sarcasm couldn't stop themselves from winding into his ear, Heero had not pulled the trigger that day.

"What happened?" he asked finally, even as realization of the recent events seemed to be slowly washing over him.

Duo's brow quirked. "Well we got Stoche. All thanks to you, buddy."

"Thanks to you. You're injured. You could have died."

"Yeah well, the guy should've known better than to use me as a human shield," Duo laughed darkly. "But he also didn't realize his mistake in assuming I'd be content in being a piece of bait for you."

"But you didn't fight back."

"Had to stay in character like the good little undercover op I am, Heero," Duo responded. He looked pale, paler than he'd been moments before when he'd first rolled in; an apparition at his bedside.

"Besides, I had a plan." Duo's eyes flicked to the steadily beeping heart monitor. "Some semblance of a plan at least. But hey, it worked didn't it? And there was only just a tiny bit of bloodshed."

Heero's teeth ground. "Yes. Your own blood."

He watched the other man's eyes roll to the ceiling. If he'd had the strength, and Duo didn't have that bandage wrapping a bullet wound, Heero might have entertained the compulsion to punch him across the jaw for being so blasé.

"I wasn't going to let that asshole off so easily. Bullet to the head? Nah, after spending six months in his employ- you and Prev don't even know the half of it yet, Yuy."

"You let the bullet hit you."

Duo stared at him, deer in the headlights for a single beep of the heart monitor, before replying with a toothy grin. "Yeah, it probably wasn't one of my smarter moves, huh?"

Heero shook his head, the movement causing his mind to become disoriented for a brief moment. "My bullet. You let me shoot you."

"Well it's not like you've never held a gun to my head before." Duo swiped at his bangs, perhaps not even aware of the gravitas in his statement.

Heero felt his entire body wracked with a burning shiver. He swallowed down the fear and panic that he'd experienced earlier. "Is that what you wanted me to do?"

Duo tilted his head quizzically. "Boy Heero, this guilt thing you've got going on is getting exhausting."

"Duo." The name came out in more of a plea than Heero had intended.

"Listen, Heero." Duo leaned forward as best he could without irritating his injury. "You did what I assumed you would do. You shot Stoche. So instead of letting the man I want to see rot in prison for decades succumb to the easy way out, I took matters into my own hands. End of story. Your mission was successful."

Heero sucked in a breath and let it fall from his mouth in a shaky manner. Duo was alive and he was going to do everything in his power to keep it that way from now on, even if that meant strapping him to a desk job for the rest of their stint as operatives. All negative factors must be eliminated.

"Undercover Operations have become a negative factor on our-" Heero swallowed. "On our relationship."

"Heero, you're going to have to let me in on whatever it is that goes on in that intricate mind of yours." Duo was babbling now and Heero wondered what kind of drugs had been mercilessly pumped into his own system. The braided man gave him a pointed look. "We're adults, we've been balancing work and play for quite a while now-"

"They're back."

Duo stopped mid-sentence, not even frustrated by the fact that he'd been blatantly interrupted. His lips tilted downwards and his eyes grew dark beneath unruly bangs. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Out of all the things Duo had been trying to joke on, this statement was the one that Heero actually found laughable. "You've been gone for the past six months."

A look of shame cast across Duo's sharp features, his age only showing when he frowned as deeply as he was now. It was unbecoming to see the soft lines of a thirty-year old crossing over a proverbial teenage face.

"I-I hadn't realized." Duo shook his head and found his eyes glued to the needle still stuck in the back of his hand. "So- back there- when you had to pull the trigger- and you thought- you thought I was dead. I'm such an idiot."

Heero found himself feeling some sort of welling sensation of tension in his gut. He hadn't meant for his sleep to become so dependent on Duo's presence, but the way the man soothed, understood, placated. It was the only drug that worked against the nightmares.

Duo sighed, a rough sound that only heightened the feeling of unease Heero was feeling. "Why didn't you shoot me- back then?"

The question required no other explanation other than the look of curiosity hidden within his indigo depths.

Heero felt his shoulders rise and fall. "I just- couldn't."

The smile Duo gave him was so soft it was nearly nonexistent. "And you still can't do it. You didn't shoot me, for all intents and purposes, I shot myself."

Duo's fingers crept across the bed to intertwine with his own. They'd been numbed by the sedative for so long that the sensation of contact almost made him flinch.

"Fifteen years with Preventer and you still haven't learned anything have you, Maxwell?" Wufei was standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, a reprimanding scowl shadowing his features.

Neither party was sure how long the man had been there, watching them. But they pulled away from each other and Duo managed to throw a smile back onto his features, trying to hide a grimace of pain at moving his injured shoulder too much for its own good.

"You can't yell at me today, 'Fei." Duo did his best impression of a pout. "I'm injured, remember?"

An imperceptible smirk found its way onto the Chinese man's features. "Yes you are. I wonder what Une will have to say about that. I heard there's an opening in IT that would be just perfect for you."

Heero watched as Duo's pale skin began to flame an almost attractive shade of pink. "Shut up with stuff like that, 'Fei. Preventer needs me, I'm the best damn undercover op you've got."

Wufei did not respond only stared, mirth glowing in his dark eyes. But that only seemed to agitate Duo more, as it was often wont to do.

Heero found himself busy imagining how well the two would sleep once they'd both been discharged from the hospital. It was no secret the night-terrors any ex-pilot suffered from, even if Duo was begrudging in admitting that fact outright. Never wanted to be anyone's burden.

"Wufei," Duo whined, his voice now soft and suspicious. "You're not serious, are you?"

Wufei's vision moved to his partner's and they both shared an invisible length of thought as Duo's eyes flicked back and forth between them madly. There was an undetectable nod of understanding.

"You guys are just messing with me," Duo growled, though after everything he'd been through it was rather more of a mewl.

Maybe they were. Or maybe not. Heero managed a smile. Mission: complete.