A/N: Yay reviews. I'm always so happy to get them, especially when I'm writing in a brand new fandom. I decided to switch back to Heero for this chapter and I may continue doing that. We'll see how the story goes. Enjoy!
After plenty of rest, proper good, and time to sleep, Quatre got better. Duo didn't. He got worse no matter what we did. Trowa put it down to a childhood spent on L2, where a lack of proper vitamins and nutrition during the most important years had probably wrecked havoc on his immune system. I didn't care what it was. I just knew that I wanted Duo to get better, and he wasn't. I had been on missions without him, and the silence always got to me before too much time had passed. Sitting beside his bed, I tried to imagine a lifetime of silence. It would... It would be... Well, it would definitely impede my ability to work. For that alone, Duo had to get better.
Ironically enough, even though I was dreading a lifetime of silence if the unthinkable happened, I would have given a lot to have been sitting at his bedside in complete silence. Listening to his voice cry out endlessly was not enjoyable. Father Maxwell, Sister Helen, Solo… He repeated those names constantly amidst a stream of apologies and pleading that would have broken anyone. I figured they were people from his past, people that he felt he had failed in some way. It was bad enough listening to him cry out to them, but worse yet was hearing my name and that of the other pilots.
The first time he cried out for me, I tried to let him know I was there. Not even I could sit by and listen to that without speaking to him. But he couldn't hear me. My words failed to permeate the feverish haze he was lost in. He remained trapped in a world where Oz had won, from the sound of it, and the rest of us were dead. It was agonizing to hear him apologize for and cry over our deaths. Only when he had screamed himself hoarse did he finally fall silent, though whimpers and the occasional moan of pain continued to slip from his cracked, dry lips.
I didn't know what to do for him. It was one of the few times in my life that my training was of no help. He threw up everything we managed to get into him, including water and medicine. There was no way for us to get him to the hospital; the doctors had alerted us to the fact that several Oz soldiers were in the area, and warned us not to leave the hotel where we staying for anything. I would've disregarded their instructions entirely, but I wasn't sure Duo would survive the trip to the hospital, much less a battle if we were caught on the way there.
On the third day, his temperature began to rise to dangerous levels and he became badly dehydrated. Quatre could no longer bear to be in the same room because he knew Duo was dying, and it upset him to the point where he became hysterical. Trowa spent most of his time trying to comfort Quatre. Wufei distanced himself from all of us. That left me to sit beside his bed and take his hand. It was smaller than mine, but I could feel the strength behind the deceptively fragile digits. Not that it mattered: even his hand was hot to the touch. I looked down at his face. He'd fallen into a more restful sleep only because he was so exhausted that his body couldn't help it. I hadn't seen his eyes for days, and suddenly, I wished that he would open them.
To my surprise, he did.
"Duo?" I leapt to my feet, hope surging wildly inside of me. His lips moved, but only a dry, harsh cough escaped. I picked up a glass of lukewarm water and held it to his mouth, helping him to take slow, careful sips. I wanted to call for the others, but his hand on my arm stopped me. When I glanced up at him again, I knew why.
Duo's eyes are actually violet, though in certain lights they can look pale blue, and they almost always glow with mischief, even when he's innocent. It's a very beautiful color, actually, and rare. I've yet to see another person with eyes quite like his. The eyes staring back at me were vacant, dark purple discs, looking almost black in the dim light. And the strength in his hand, which was gripping my wrist hard enough to bruise, was more than I would have suspected someone who had been so ill would be capable of. It hit me for the first time, then, that I was dealing with someone who was… not Duo.
"Who are you?" The question slipped out before I could stop myself. My free hand moved instinctively to my gun, though I'm not sure what that would have accomplished. Would I have shot Duo if he turned out to be… what, crazy? Possessed?
"You don't recognize me, my love?" It was Duo's voice, but there was a harsher, rougher undercurrent that I'd never heard before. And my love? Was he delusional? I just stared at him and he smiled. "Oh, I see. You still don't remember anything. What a pity. Such fun we could have…" He trailed off and his grip grew gentler as his hand travelled further up my arm, the tip of his fingers just barely ghosting over my skin. I shivered and his grin grew wider, pleased by my reaction.
"Duo, what's wrong with you?" I said. I wanted to pull away, but I stood my ground.
"This mortal body is dying, for one thing." 'Duo' gestured lazily to himself. "I could go on now, if I wanted to. Would you like me to watch over you from above? Or below, I suppose, as the case may be. You'd be able to experience life as a real human. Well, not entirely normal, but you know, we have to take what we can get…"
His questions were making my head hurt. My legs bent and I fell into the chair behind me, never taking my eyes off of him. "I don't understand."
"Do you want me to die?" he said simply.
My throat seized as unfamiliar, raw fear pooled inside of me. Without thinking, I twisted my hand and grabbed his, holding on tightly. "No," I whispered. "Please." I couldn't say anything else, but that seemed to be enough. He brought our intertwined hands to his mouth and brushed his lips over the back of mine.
"Until we meet again, then, my love," he told me. Then he closed his eyes and his body went limp, falling back against the bed, still clutching our hands against his chest. I just sat there and stared at him, completely speechless, for a good fifteen minutes. My mind was whirling, trying to absorb what had just happened. Had that been the illness talking? Or…
Before my mental ramblings could go too far, the door cracked open and Quatre poked his head in. His eyes darted over the room in a way that said he'd felt the pulse of fear and panic. "Any change, Heero?" he asked once he'd ascertained that everything appeared to be normal.
I opened my mouth… then closed it. Had there been a change? "Not that I can see." Belatedly, I realized that Duo was still clinging to my hand. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened the second he felt mine become slack, and I gave up.
If Quatre thought that my less than straightforward answer was unusual, he didn't mention it as he pushed the door open and ventured into the room for the first time in days. He'd cried the first time he heard Duo calling his name in that frantic, desperate voice, and he hadn't been back since. I took the opportunity to survey him as he stood by the bed gazing down at Duo, hoping he wouldn't read into our joined hands. His face was pale and he looked tired, but overall, I guessed that he was mostly healed from his brief bout with sickness. One of his hands was rubbing idly at his chest, which was something he often did when his 'space heart' was bothering him.
"I felt… something…" he said slowly.
"What was it?" I looked at him sharply.
"I don't know. It felt similar to how Duo feels when we're in the middle of battle, but it was different at the same time. It was… darker." He seemed to be confused by his own words. "Now I don't feel anything."
"Nothing?" The memory of his voice asking that question hit me all over again. I knew I'd never forget the image of Duo smiling at me and asking me if he should die. For a moment, I wondered if maybe he had ignored what I'd said and Duo had died while I sat there staring blankly off into space. In a near panic, I turned to him. The steady rise and fall of his chest, combined with the fierce grip on my hand, was only slightly comforting.
"He's not dead," Quatre said quickly, and I realized that he must have felt the burst of panic. He'd become even more in tune with the four of us during the past few days. "It's more like… he's slipped so far beneath the surface that it's hard for me to feel him. I think he's finally fallen into a real sleep. Maybe it will help him get better."
Quatre was wrong. Duo got worse over the next twenty-four hours. His temperature shot up to an impossible degree. It would have killed anyone else, even me; I couldn't understand how he had survived so long. The others seemed to believe it was a matter of hours until his body gave out, though no one had the nerve to say as much to me. I didn't need them to. I expected every rise and fall of his chest to be the last one, and it was a special kind of agony to sit there waiting patiently for the end to come. It was too reminiscent of my childhood, but I couldn't make myself leave him alone. I had to be there when he died.
Surprisingly, it never happened. After almost a full night and day, his temperature began to fall. By sunset that night, it was just slightly above normal at roughly 100 degrees. His breathing became easier, not so labored, and his skin cooled and became clammy to the touch. I crushed two pills into water and got Trowa to help me make him drink it. Amazingly, he didn't throw it up two minutes later. New hope began to rise inside of me, though I was careful not to let it show too much. We didn't know what would happen to him when he woke up. For all we knew, the temperature had cooked his brain inside of his head and he would never wake up. It was one of the few times in my life when my nightmares weren't about the war and the people I'd killed.
It was somewhere around three in the morning. I had been awake for almost forty-eight hours straight, though that wasn't entirely from wanting to sit by his side. It was hard to want to sleep when every dream becomes a nightmare. Instead, I had my laptop open on my lap and I was typing up some data when I noticed that I was being watched. I stiffened and peered down at him, searching for his eyes. The room was in semi-darkness, but I was pretty sure that I was looking at Duo, not whoever I had spoken to before.
"Duo?" I asked cautiously, just to be sure.
He blinked at me. "Heero?"
His voice was rough and harsh from disuse, but that didn't matter. It was definitely Duo, and never had my name sounded so good. I closed my laptop and set it down on the nightstand, then stood up and leaned over him. I put my hand on his forehead, something that had become second nature to me over the past few days. The feel of the slightly hot, clammy skin was a relief – he was still warm, but it was nothing like what he had been. Before he could say anything, I reached down, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled his body up against me in a hug.
It was a foreign thing for me, to hug someone. Anyone. I wasn't used to physical contact that didn't end in harm. That's one of the reasons why Duo used to annoy me so much. I'd gotten more used to it over the year or so that we'd been friends, mostly because I hadn't been given a choice, but it was one of the first times that I can remember initiating the contact. I felt awkward, but the gentle sensation of his breath against my neck was worth it.
For his part, Duo froze, tensing up for a moment. I was going to let go, but all of a sudden he relaxed and sighed, and then his arms crept up around my neck. He pressed his face into my shoulder and said, "I was really sick, wasn't I?"
"Ah."
"You didn't have to worry, Heero. Shinigami can't die."
The words gave me pause. For a split second, I remembered what that person had said about his mortal body and shivered. "Baka. Why would I be worried about you?"
"Yeah, why would you be?" He snorted and his arms dropped. I reluctantly released him, and only realized after I had let go that I didn't want to. I wanted to pull him back into my arms and keep him there forever. That confused me, and I stood up quickly. Duo frowned a little at my abrupt move. I wondered if that was really disappointment in his eyes, or whether I was just seeing things.
"I have to let the others know that you've alive," I said as a way of explanation, just in case. "Quatre has been worrying himself sick over you."
Duo made a face. "Ah, Quat, he's too pure for his own good. Heero, can you help me shower first?"
I didn't know why the question unsettled me so much. I'd been looking after him for days by that point. I'd already given him several baths. But somehow, it felt different now that he was awake. "I don't think they're going to care what you look like." I knew they wouldn't. They'd be so relieved to have him alive that he could have done just about anything and no one would have cared.
He pouted.
I gave in.
The fever had taken a lot out of him. That was obvious from the moment that he rolled off of the bed and tried to stand up, and his legs gave out from the weight of his body. Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to wrap my arm around his waist, so he fell against me instead of to the floor. Duo laughed a little like it didn't bother him, but I was getting better at seeing past his mask, and I could tell that it did. Of course it would. None of us would have enjoyed feeling weak or like we couldn't do things on our own. Mindful of that, I helped him into the bathroom and turned the shower on to a reasonable temperature, but left when he asked me to. I could have hovered, but I didn't think it would do either of us any good.
While he was bathing, I changed the sheets on the bed and then sat down to wait. Twenty minutes passed with no sign from him, and although I wasn't worried, I was wondering what was keeping him. Feeling restless, I stood up and moved over to the door, listening. When I didn't hear anything coming from inside, I opened the door. Duo looked over at me and smiled sheepishly. It was obvious that he'd been trying to get out by himself, as he was propped up on the side of the tub, but his strength had failed him, leaving him precariously balanced on the edge.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to him. Briskly, not giving either of us time to be embarrassed, I grabbed his shoulders and lifted him, giving him the extra support he needed to climb out. I handed him a towel and turned away while he dried himself, then gave him a fresh pair of boxers and a t-shirt to put on. The t-shirt was one of mine and he was swimming in it; the fever had stolen weight that Duo couldn't really afford to lose. With half the hair from his normally neat braid hanging around his face, it crossed my mind that he looked adorable, but I fought that notion back and concentrated on getting him into bed.
"Pass me a brush," he requested quietly once he was sitting propped up on some pillows.
I did as he'd asked and watched as he hesitated briefly before un-tying his braid. In all the times we'd shared a room, I'd never seen his hair down. He always made sure that it was back in a neat braid before seeing any of us in the morning, so it surprised me how fascinating the gleaming locks of chestnut were to watch. Duo's face looked younger and softer when he wore his hair freely, and for the first time, I realized that there were strands of blond and red mixed in with the chestnut. My hand reached out of its own violation and stroked a portion that had ended up near my knee. It was softer than silk.
Duo had paused in brushing his hair to watch my hand. His violet eyes flicked up to mine and I read the wariness in them. His hair was special and private, shared by no one. Until he took a deep breath and held the brush out to me. His hand was shaking slightly, and I knew he was one second away from snatching the offer back. Without saying a word, I swiftly took the brush and moved to sit behind him, so that he was leaning more against me than he was the pillows.
I took my time, starting out near the bottom to get rid of the worst of the tangles before I took the brush anywhere near the crown of his head. He was quiet, the only sign he was still awake the way he occasionally tilted his head to help me get at another section. Every once in a while, he'd shiver, but I suspected it was from pleasure, not cold. I didn't enjoy many things in life, but to my surprise, this was one of them. It was very peaceful, and knowing that I had finally found a way to make Duo feel better was… I didn't know to describe it, but it was a good feeling.
I must have sat there for a good twenty minutes before I set the brush down and began patiently braiding his hair, loving the feel of the strands between my fingers. I didn't have experience with hair, but I'd braided rope before, and it was the same principle once I remembered that I couldn't make it quite so tight. I tied it off with his little hair tie and waited for him to move, but he didn't. His head rolled towards me when I touched him and I saw that he'd fallen asleep. Part of me wanted to let him sleep, but I knew that the others, especially Quatre, were still worried, and it would be cruel to make them wait. Regretfully, I nudged him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder to shake him awake. His eyes opened slowly, and I had to look away quickly before I did something that would only cause trouble.
"Wake up, Baka," I said lightly, knowing that my voice would reveal none of those thoughts. "I thought all this was so you could see the others?"
"Right." Duo rubbed one of his eyes. "I'm ready. You can call them."
I didn't need to call them. Quatre had never been more in tune with us than he was now. Not bothering to move, I closed my eyes and, for the first time sent Duo had woken up, really let myself feel the relief that had been pounding away in my heart from the second he called my name. It spread over me in a solid wave of warmth. Moments later, we heard footsteps thundering up the stairs. I smirked to myself as Duo sighed and shifted his weight. Much to my surprise, he leaned against me, placing his head on my shoulder just as the door swung open.
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