Chapter 2

'Duo is awake.' Quatre Raberba Winner stood outside the hospital room that contained his long lost friend. He never thought that this day would come. He had considered the two pilots to be dead and one of those deaths was on his conscience. When Duo had been in a coma for five months a scientist approached them about putting Duo in a freezing chamber. The method seemed like the perfect solution. To trap the body in time until the mind could catch up.

But that was only until Heero investigated their work. The method apparently had no hard evidence and no one had ever attempted see if it was feasible.

To make matters worse, they were rushing the result because they were running out of money and needed a contributor and who better than the grieving Winner heir. To have Duo as a guinea pig in the experiment would be risky, even reckless and quite obscene... and very much in Duo's daredevil style. So they agreed.

Late that night Wufei came to him with a wish. He wanted to be frozen next to his lover. At first Quatre had refused, it was far to dangerous to be put into a coma deliberately. But in the end Wufei had the winning argument.

'Either you can have me put in a coma supervised or you can find me out cold lying on a bathroom floor.'

Quatre snorted. 'And knowing Chang, he would have done it. Stubborn bastard. Not that Duo was... is any better. How on earth the two most pig-headed people in the galaxy could ever have a working relationship is a mystery.' Quatre hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. It felt wrong to go in alone but Heero had been called to a emergency meeting and Trowa was with Wufei. Pushing the door open, he walked in.

And there he was, after all this time.

Duo was sleeping, but it was in a calm natural kind of sleep. There where none of that silent, almost dead feeling you got from looking at him like before. Looking at his old friend, Quatre realized just how much time had past. So many things had happened since then. At the end of the war, he had fallen into a depression and almost lost control over his fathers company, but his salvation had come in the form of one Dr. Jessica Thomson. She was a history professor that was gathering information about the gundam pilots' part in the war. It had been love in first sight, or love at the first, first-degree burn. You know that you've spent too much time with Duo when someone that's pouring coffee down you shirt with a 'oops' and a smile is cute and not infuriating. They got married two years later and had two children. There would be no forty children for Quatre Winner. Two was more then enough. ´My god' he thought to himself. 'Duo is sixteen. My daughter is six years older than Duo... I feel old.' A movement from the bed turned his focus back to the now awakening boy. Blurry purple eyes blinked open and turned towards the blond.

"Hey Q... man... you need some... sleep. Because y' looook...like...like all wrinkly and puffy...or maybe you should drink less or...hey, did we win or what?"

The blond swallowed thickly. "Yeah, Duo. We won the war."

"Cool." With that he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

"How is he?" Was the first thing out of Heero's mouth as he stepped out of the elevator.

Quatre smiled slightly. "Good. They have him pretty drugged up but he did recognize me. Other than that he's so healthy it's unjust."

Heero nodded. "Speaking of justice, how is Wufei doing?"

"He's stable. They're bringing him out of the ice right now. They won't let us in, but Trowa is in there."

The king of the world frowned. "Why won't they let us in?"

"According to the doctors, we took up too much space during Duo's de-freezing."

"Hn, I'm going in to Duo's room. Are you coming?" He started walking towards his friends room.

"In a minute. I'm going to give Jessica a call and get some coffee, do you want...?" But the question was left unfinished and unanswered as Heero disappeared into the hospital room.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The Deathscythe's pilot was indeed drugged up, Heero concluded as brown eyes meet dilated purple ones.

"Ro... when did you grow a beard? Looks kind of cool. I wouldn't look cool in a beard. And Wu would look like...like, where is Wu-bear? Did he get a beard too? Beard, beard bear beer, man I want a beer. I like beer. You think I can get a beer in this place? Wu don't like beer. He said that beer was like the...anti... anti something, don't remembe', but it was bad, like... wher's Wu?" Duo asked with a slurred voice.

"He's in another room."

"Why can't he be in here with me?... Is he ok? Did he get hurt in th' battle?" The braided boy asked in a worried voice.

"Chang got out with a split lip and a sore throat from all the swearing he does in his gundam." Heero gave his friend a stained smile.

Duo chuckled and relaxed back into his pillow. "That's my dragon... Did anyone else get hurt?"

'God, thirty five years. Thirty five years of trying to forget everything about the war and that day.'

Smoke and screams. Blood running down Trowa's face like tears from his empty eye socket. Duo caught in the junk that once were his bellowed Deathscythe. And pain, so much pain. But still so happy that this was the end. Then came the guilt for being happy when so much had been lost.

The king of the earth cleared his throat. "Trowa lost his left eye from some flying sharpnel. Quatre got his back cut up pretty bad when his gundam exploded, ehm, my knee was hit. It's fine now, but I wont be taking part in any marathons. I think that's the worst of it. We're all recovered now-a-days."

"Ya' make it sound like it happened ages ago." Duo said with a tired laugh. "Poor Tro... he's gonna hav' ta get a new haircut... mmm, that hair prob'ly saved," he gave a wide yawn "other...eye. Fringe' so thick ya couldn't be sure if he had a right one underneath it ."

"Oh, he has one, and he still have the same haircut. He just moved it from one side to the other." Heero couldn't help but laugh. It felt good to see the world in Duo-perspective again. Where nothing was so bad that you couldn't see something funny in it. Looking down at his dozing old friend a feeling of nostalgia hit him hard. 'By the stars, it's good to have him back. If only Wufei would wake up. It's going to break Duo if he doesn't.'

"Get some sleep Duo."

"Mm'ky," the teen mumbled as he did just that.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

"Five bucks on that the first thing he's going to complain about is the state of his hair." Quatre said with a grin as he leaned back on the worn out couch in the waiting room.

"You're on. My money is on the food he can't eat yet." Trowa said while skimming through a newspaper.

Heero did not take part in the betting. 'The first thing he's going to complain about is that he doesn't have his Wu-bear, but saying that will only damage the mood. And won't the baka be pleased that the perfect soldier learned some tact.' He thought with a mental snort.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

A few hours later Heero's guess was proven right when Duo came out of his drugged state and started asking the personnel for his lover.

"We have to tell him the truth." Quatre ran a frustrated hand trow his hair.

Trowa answered with a sigh. "Yes, but how? 'Hey Duo, you've been asleep for thirty five years and you can't see your boyfriend right now because we helped Wufei pump himself full of drugs so that he ended up in a coma because he wanted to be thrown in the deep freeze next to you,' isn't going work."

"To hell with this. I'm going to tell him. Being blunt always worked on Duo before, and it'll work now." Quatre steeled himself and went for the door.

"He's going to be pissed at you for agreeing with Wufei's idea."

"So be it." He said as he steeped back into the hospital room.

One minute passed, not a sound was heard. Three minutes, not a sound. Three and a half minutes- "WHAT!!" followed by the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh was heard through the door.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

"Of all the stupid things. I'm going to kick his tight little ass so hard his beloved ancestors are going to feel it." The teen mumbled as they waited for the doctor.

Duo did feel a bit guilty for hitting Quatre, but for gods sake, who agrees to something so...so... STUPID?! And maybe waking up thirty five years into the future would be kind of cool if he stopped to think about it and maybe having your lover risk his life to be with you was kind of romantic if you were less pissed at said lover. Unfortunately, Duo did not take the time to think about it and he was planning on being pissed for a long time. Long enough to wrap his hands around that throat of that careless, half-witted, fucking id-

"Dr. Howen. How is he?" Quatre's voice pulled him back to his surrounding.

Duo looked over at the tall blond doctor who was speaking to them with a serious look on her face."Mr. Chang has been taken out of the heat-up now. He is stable, but are unfortunately not showing any sign of waking up. The examination are-"

The doctor, who by now was pretty accustomed to never getting to finish a sentence among these people, showed no sign of irritation as Duo cut her of with a angry, "Where the hell is he?" She just told him and got out of his way.

Duo did not fully understand how this whole freezing thing worked but he was grateful that it had preserved his muscles as he was marching towards his idiot lover. Arriving at the hospital room with the name 'Wufei Chang' the pissed of pilot riped the door open.

"You!" He screamed as he laid eye on the Chinese boy. He slammed the door shut. "You idiot! Of all the stupid, careless things you have done this takes the prize! Wake up so I can beat you unconscious again!" He screamed and kicked the bed with his slipper clad foot. "How did I ever ended up with someone so goddamn heedless! Wake up and defend yourself! I will not waste my time one a coward, that would rather sleep than justify his actions!"

By the time the rest of the gundam pilots got to them, the heart-lung machine was peeping like mad while the braided teen called the bedridden boy every name in the book.

"And then you pull Winner into this!"

"Mnh," was heard as a protest from the bed.

"I don't care! You do not guilt your friends into these situations!"

"Mmmh..."

"Don't deny it!"

"-uuuo."

"Don't Duo me you asshole! I want to know what went through your head that made putting yourself in a coma sound like a good idea!"

"Lov' ju," was the mumbled defense.

'Never let it be said that Wufei doesn't know which buttons to push,' Heero thought to himself as he watched Duo throw himself over his lover. The rest of the conversation was made in whispers between kisses. This was taken as a sign to leave by the rest of the ex-pilots. As the door closed behind them Quatre turned to his friends.

"...Did Duo just yell Wufei out of a coma?"

"I think so," Heero answered slowly. Trowa just gave a nod.

"Right, so long as I'm not the only one seeing things."