WARNING: This story features main character deaths.

Apoptosis

SALLY

The clip-clopping of my shoes seemed to echo eerily down the cold sterile corridor as I made my way to Iria Winner. As a doctor, I immediately noticed her pale complexion and wringing hands, tell-tale signs of anxiety. Her eyes were huge on her haunted face as she met my gaze. I knew very well the pain of losing a patient, but I had no idea what it was like to lose a brother.

'Thank you for coming.' She took my outstretched hand in both of hers.

'Thank you for calling me.' I nodded in earnest gratitude. 'I'm sure we'll find something that'll help us establish the cause and ensure the others' safety.'

'If anyone has any chance of succeeding, it's you, doctor. My brother spoke very highly of you.'

'I thought very highly of your brother myself, Dr Winner.'

She managed to give me a grateful – however strained – smile before the door we'd been flanking opened between us and a black-haired full-bearded doctor stepped out. He must have been in his early thirties, and looked as unaffected by the heavy atmosphere surrounding us as only someone thoroughly accustomed to death could. His eyes fell on Iria first.

'We're ready to start the autopsy, Dr Winner.'

'Very well.' She motioned towards me with her head. 'This here's Dr Sally Po, a military surgeon and close friend of the family. She'll be stepping in for me if you don't mind, Dr Nichols.'

'Of course not.' The man turned fully to me, smiling politely. 'Dr Albert Nichols, pathologist.' He introduced himself and I shook his hand.

'Pleased to meet you, Dr Nichols.'

'Shall we begin then?'

I was ready to follow him through the door when Iria's hand perched lightly on my shoulder. There was something desperate about the way she met my eyes. 'Dr Po… Please, don't let my brother's death be in vain.'

XXX

As I waited by the cashier for my coffee, I wondered what I'd tell the tortured woman, sitting at one of the canteen tables only a few metres behind me. She'd laid all and her last hopes on me and I had failed her. In the space of a couple hours, both Iria's confidence and mine had been completely and irreversibly crushed and – as usual – I was left to meet a patient's next-of-kin with bad news. It wouldn't have been so hard had there not possibly been four other lives in line… Lives I had personal reason to fight for and preserve, lives that were now a step closer to what might be their inevitable end.

I paid hastily for the coffee, too absorbed by my self-condemning thoughts to thank the attendant, and wandered like a lost soul back to where Iria sat, turning her already empty cup in her hands and waiting. Waiting for whatever information she believed I was withholding from her, waiting for me to turn her lost brother into a posthumous hero.

From up close she looked almost hopeful.

'Cardiorespiratory arrest.' She said once I'd taken my seat. 'Did you confirm it?'

Staring at my cup, I nodded. My neck felt stiff, nearly refusing to obey. 'We found no evidence of anything else.' Somehow I managed to shake my head and then raise it to meet her eyes. She could sense the ominous news already or maybe it was the painfully twisted line of my lips that gave it away. 'All organs looked perfect. He was an extremely healthy person.'

'He was.' Iria agreed dejectedly, but then quickly rallied. 'Even the heart and lungs? Because it was those two that brought us here in the first place.'

I nodded. 'I read the file. Shortness of breath and erratic heartbeat… Surely you thought—'

'A panic attack. It could be nothing else. Quatre was young and healthy, but he had lived through a war. Not just that but he had been in the very middle of it.'

'I know.'

'He died a couple days later… Every test, every exam… It was all inconclusive. Even the medication I prescribed him could only do so much.'

'Didn't you consider an exploratory thoracotomy? Or maybe a laparotomy as well?'

'It was next on our list… Seems time was shorter than we anticipated.' She appeared to run out of energy then, deflating right in front of me.

'We've collected a few samples.' I resumed, unable to let her be overcome by defeat as I had almost been myself, minutes earlier. 'Heart tissue, lung tissue… We're hoping a microscopic examination might show us something we may have missed.'

Iria nodded dismissively, but I held on to my words, allowing them to restore my faith in medicine and myself. There was still a lot of work to be done.

XXX

'Dr Po?'

I shifted in my seat at Dr Nichols' voice, but could not take my eyes off the ocular lens. 'It looks… But it cannot be!'

'Unless this is some new sort of autoimmune disease.'

'I know, but… I don't think I've ever even heard of anything like this.'

When I finally pulled away from the microscope, I found the pathologist watching me closely as if he feared for my sanity or pitied me for seemingly denying what would have otherwise been an exciting discover. 'Perhaps you should consult a specialist?'

'That might be a good idea.'

'I've got someone —.'

'I'm sorry, Dr Nichols, but I'll have to find someone back home. I must return to my patients… Maybe the answers to our remaining questions lie within their still beating hearts?'

'Yes…' he conceded somewhat reluctantly. 'You should not waste time lest you lose another patient.'

Despite the fact that I knew his interest in the case was much more academic than humanitarian, I suddenly felt sorry for the man. Working with the dead wasn't always as exciting as it might seem. 'Why don't you join my team, Dr Nichols? Only temporarily. I don't expect to need another necropsy related to this case, but we can always use a good pathologist.'

'I'd love to join you, Dr Po. Thank you for the opportunity.'

'Good. Would you mind if I took a look at your slide?'

XXX

'Apoptosis.'

'A-pop-what?' Duo Maxwell asked alarmed as he sat in front of my desk in his hospital gown.

'Apoptosis.' I repeated looking instead at Wufei, who still stood by the door looking permanently uncomfortable. The interminable tests and boring routine had started to wear on their nerves. It was not surprising that stagnation should bother former gundam pilots more than possible death looming over their still young shoulders. 'Programmed cellular death.'

'Yeah, that surely clarifies things a lot, doc.'

'Let her explain, Maxwell.'

'It means something within Quatre's organism sent a signal for his heart and lung cells to self-destruct…and they obliged. It's not an unnatural process, you see. Apoptosis happens in healthy living beings as well. It's a renovation process. A way for old cells to give way to new ones.'

'So our cells are committing suicide. That it?'

'Indiscriminately.' Wufei added, and I nodded.

'I guess you could say that. Yes. Though we still have to confirm your cells are acting that way too or if Quatre's was an isolated case, an abomination.'

For a long moment they were silent. I wondered what they were thinking… Had Duo understood what I had said? Had they grasped the implications? All the tests we had run up until that moment had been for naught. At most, they had dismissed the existence of any underlying or concomitant conditions and confirmed the former pilots' perfect health, but that meant nothing if we took Quatre's case into consideration and now new tests would be run.

'So…' Duo had to be the one to brave the silence. 'What happens now?'

'Now that we know what we're looking for, we must redo your tests in order to establish whether you do have the same condition as Quatre and – if you don't – whether you have any chances of developing it.'

'And if we do have it?' Wufei seemed to be looking at a worst case scenario.

'Then we must find a way to stop it.'

'And if you can't find a cure then—.'

'Let's not go there yet.' I pleaded. For now I wanted to stay positive, confident. I wanted to move forward, not to examine the what-ifs. We'd already lost Quatre… I couldn't bear the thought of losing anyone else. 'Have you heard from Heero? Trowa maybe?'

'For all we know, they may already be dead.'

XXX

A knock on my office door awoke me. I was nothing short of horrified to realise I'd fallen asleep on top of my desk with a strewn pile of paper for a pillow. My computer's screensaver was on, but I could clearly recall I'd been reading a research on autoimmune diseases when exhaustion got the better of me.

'Dr Po?' the knocking returned, followed closely by the voice of Dr Karen Winston, my team's youngest member and our only clinical pathology expert.

'Come in.' I croaked, searching for the water bottle I usually kept in hand, but that too I had managed to misplace.

'Are you alright, doctor?'

'Yes, fine.'

She took a seat, suddenly sheepish, and I fought the urge to apologise for my tone. It wasn't simply the tiredness and the pressure, but the fact that I could not deal with her concern at that particular moment. In front of me, Dr Winston shifted uncertainly and I could sense she would remain silent unless I urged her to speak. 'So? Any new leads?'

'That's what I've come to talk to you about.' She confided, looking positively dejected. I was too tired to register it though. 'We found no indicators in either the blood or urine samples…'

'What about the CSF?'

'Clean.'

'Dammit.' I swore quietly, unable to stop myself, then quickly apologised. The X-rays, ECG, CT scans, MRI, Doppler and echocardiography had revealed nothing either, but rather than a sign of health I could only take that as a warning. Quatre had been healthy too and then suddenly… 'Perhaps it's time we considered more invasive tests.'

Dr Winston looked surprised. 'Dr Po, I… I know this is probably none of my business, but… Don't you think this is going a bit too far? These young men are clinically healthy and all tests we've run so far only confirm it.'

'I cannot take any chances. If you want out, Dr Winston, you're free to go. I'd prefer you stayed though, if you're still willing. We're still going to need your help and expertise.'

She sighed. 'Any word from the immunologists?'

'None so far, but I reckon that cannot bode well…' I shook my head, hoping the despair, brewing amidst the clouds of tiredness that seemed to have permanently settled there, would dissipate. 'Angioscopy, bronchoscopy… Maybe a lung biopsy while we're at it. I need to make sure—.'

I stopped when the door flung open, banging loudly against the wall, and raised my weary eyes. Trowa Barton stood at the threshold, one hand supporting him against the doorframe, the other fastened on his shirt right above his heart. 'Your message said accelerated heartbeat and…difficulty breathing.' He panted, meeting my shocked gaze. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.

He was out before I left my seat.

XXX

'So you wish to open my chest and cut out a piece of my heart.' Trowa made it sound a lot more dramatic than it actually was. Or maybe he was just being straight-forward and I was the one horrified by how fragile he looked, sitting pale and haggard on the hospital bed.

'It's a very small sample, nearly microscopic but I wish to take a good look at your heart and lungs. I'm convinced there must be a sign, something that cannot be observed post-mortem or in any of the tests we've run so far.'

He sighed. We both knew there weren't many options. Quatre had died so quickly after the first signs we could already count ourselves lucky he was still alive at all. 'Fine.' He said. 'But if I die you have to tell Catherine.'

'Why don't you call her now and let her know what's happening?'

'No.'

And it was that.

'Very well… I'll send a nurse to prep you up for surgery right away. We shouldn't waste another second.'

I left before he could protest or before the lost look on his face might make me change my mind. Wufei was waiting for me in the corridor, his arms crossed in a pose reminiscent of Heero. Now our only missing former pilot.

'You really think he will survive this operation?'

'His symptoms have subsided and we have one of the best anaesthesiologists of the ESUN on our team.' I was confident we could do it. 'He'll make it, Wufei, and we might be able to add another piece to the puzzle. Maybe even get close to ending this nightmare.'

He stared at me neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but completely motionless and expressionless. For some reason, it always failed to bother me when it was one of those young men who did it. When he pushed away from the wall and set off down the corridor towards his own room, he added over his shoulder. 'I'll call Maxwell so he can say his goodbyes anyways. After the surgery, you should go home, Sally. Get some rest.'

I stood there for a long moment after he was gone, fighting back tears.

Glossary of Medical Terms:

Autopsy/Necropsy - examination of the corpse to determine the cause of death.

Cardiorespiratory arrest - when both heart and lungs stop working.

Exploratory thoracotomy - a surgery in which the thorax is cut open so doctors can search for possible problems.

Laparotomy - a surgery in which the abdomen is cut open. Aka celiotomy.

Autoimmune disease - a disease which causes the body's immune system to attack the body itself.

Anatomical pathology - the branch of pathology that studies organs and tissues.

Clinical pathology - the branch of pathology that studies body fluids (blood, urine, CSF, etc).

CSF - cerebrospinal fluid.

ECG - Eletrocardiogram, also EKG. You can see an example of a normal ECG on this story's cover.

CT-scan - Computerized Tomography. A type of diagnostic imaging test.

MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Also a type of imaging test.

Doppler - A type of ultrasound test that evaluates blood flow.

Echocardiography - Also echocardiogram. An ultrasound of the heart which often includes the above mentioned Doppler scan as well.

Angioscopy - an endoscopy or a video of the inside of the blood vessels.

Bronchoscopy - an endoscopy of the airways from nose to lungs.

Post-mortem - after death.

A.N.: In case you, readers, are wondering... This story won't really have any pairings. There'll be some implications here and there, but whether you read them as friendship or something more it's entirely up to you. :) Thanks for reading!