A/N: Well, after that last chapter I couldn't very well leave you all hanging, so here's another bit to our story. Don't worry; the story is marked 1xR, I ship 1xR, and it will end up 1xR. However, again, that doesn't mean I'm going to make this easy for them!

I've had a few requests to consider writing a 4xR alternate version; if a few more people are interested, I could definitely justify doing that (I've always wanted to write 4xR but my muse always comes up 1xR...) so drop me a message or let me know in your review if you would or wouldn't like to see that!

Thanks for reading, enjoy!
-picimadar

Broken
Chapter 7

"What?" Heero asked, and Sally moved herself between the two men.

"What are you thinking?" she asked Quatre, rolling her eyes as he shrugged.

"He deserved to know," he answered. He turned back to Heero as Sally lowered her arms warily. "I'm not going to justify anything to you. I shouldn't have said anything, but the fact is that baby could be mine."

"There's no way," Heero scoffed.

"I don't care what you want to believe. I've been pretty tolerant of your attitude thus far. You're staying in my house, aren't you? I'm not telling you this to hurt you."

"Then why?" Heero said, his voice betraying his anger.

"Because I felt guilty. If this all came out when she wakes up… what if that's weeks from now? You could be driving yourself nuts for nothing." Quatre nodded to Sally and she stepped away slowly, crossing her arms.

"She loves me."

"No doubt," Quatre said, looking away down the street. "Do you want a ride anywhere?"

"What?" Sally and Heero both asked, staring at him incredulously.

"I'm not just going to sit at home all day. I have to go into the city anyways, so I was just asking if either of you need a ride."

Sally looked around, rubbing her arms slowly. "I should go in to work. My second-in-lines have been on duty all night and I hate leaving Relena with them." She paused, considering. "You two cannot make scenes about this in the hospital. Whatever you have to get out of your systems, do it now."

The two men stared at each other, Heero still glaring at Quatre, Quatre staring back with a look of mild disinterest. "I don't have anything to say. This isn't between us," Quatre said dismissively. "Relena can make her own choices, and she can answer for them later. Right now, though, I have better things to do than wait around for those answers." Turning, Quatre steeled himself and walked over to his car quickly, stepping inside and throwing on his seatbelt. Sally climbed in the passenger seat and they both sat, staring ahead, as Heero climbed in the back.

Quatre drove quickly to the highway, finally breaking the silence. "Dorothy doesn't know," he said meaningfully. "I don't think anyone really knows."

Heero gritted his teeth in the back but remained silent.

"Dorothy will likely murder Relena herself when she finds out," Sally sighed, pressing a palm to her forehead. Her eyes suddenly widened and she sat up, staring at Quatre. "You don't think-"

"I don't know," Quatre said. "I never said anything about it to her. As far as I'm concerned, we're acquaintances and nothing else, but you know how she is." Sally nodded sympathetically. "Dorothy can be a loose canon. She thinks she's in love with me and she's the one who tried to murder me. If she knows about Relena and I, I wouldn't put it past her."

"Why haven't you told the others, then?" Heero asked, and Quatre narrowed his eyes.

"I didn't want to make any accusations until we had more information, and if she really is behind this, I doubt her prints are on it, so to speak."

"I meant about you and Relena," Heero said darkly, watching Quatre's profile in the rear-view mirror.

"It wasn't necessary. She asked me not to, and so I didn't." Quatre maneuvered the car into the parking lot slowly. "Too much of our lives is already public; I could understand why she wanted the secrecy. It wasn't serious," he added.

Heero had already left the vehicle, slamming the door behind him, leaving Sally staring at her hands inside.

"If it wasn't serious, what was it?" Sally asked.

"I don't know." Quatre sighed. "It doesn't matter right now. Say hello to her for me, let me know if anything changes."

Sally nodded. "Quatre… you saw him last night. Do you really think telling him was a good idea?"

"He deserved to know, either way. I didn't know they were together until she ended up here, either."

"I know," Sally said. "I hope you're not hurting too much... Why don't you just tell the others? They're all being so hard on Heero because they think he's the father."

"No," Quatre said, looking at her with determination in his eyes. "They are being hard on him because she almost died on his watch, and he's done nothing but act like he's blameless this whole time."

"He feels guilt, Quatre. You know how he is. He's just holding it all in; last night he couldn't."

"Please just go, Sally," Quatre said, and she woman stepped out of the car and watched as Quatre quickly drove off. She pulled her coat tighter around her waist and headed into the tall brick building.

"Sally!" a voice called to her and she whirled, smiling slightly to one of her coworkers. "Did you find out anything about the intrusion last night?"

"Yes," Sally said quickly, walking up to the elevator. "It was nothing, just a friend of the family who thought visiting hours didn't apply. I took him home."

"Oh, good," the woman said. "What a weird guy."

"He's a little different, yeah. He won't be a problem anymore though, I don't think. Anyways, let me scrub up and I'll meet you?"

"Honestly Dr. Chang, I don't know what she needs. We've been tapering off the sedative like you suggested, and she's adjusting really well. I think we could wake her as early as tomorrow."

"Alright then," Sally said. "I'll have a look at her charts, but I trust your judgment. I'll supervise the exchange tomorrow. There's a change she my need more surgery, but I want her conscious at least temporarily before we attempt anything else."

"Right." The second nodded and passed off a thick file folder before continuing away once the elevator doors opened. Sally sighed and headed to her office, collected a few more papers and quickly headed to Relena's room.

Standing over the side of the bed, Sally leaned over and brushed some wayward locks from Relena's face. The woman was breathing slowly, multiple monitors chiming quietly all around her. An IV ran up her one very pale arm, wires and tubes appearing beneath sheets and clothes all around her.

"She's got some color back, at least," Sally said to herself, flipping open the file folder and looking through. The myriad of injuries and conditions listed themselves out to her, her practiced eye noting those that needed attention, the knot in her stomach loosening as she realized that against all odds, Relena was slowly mending.

"What do you think, Dr. Chang?" The accompanying doctor said, closing the door behind her. "She's doing well, isn't she?"

"Yes," Sally answered. "I just hope we're not making a mistake. The trauma of waking up after all this could really endanger the baby."

"I know," the other woman said, staring at Relena's face. "But we're hardly even supposed to know about the baby at all. Relena's our patient; not the baby. You can't try and save the baby and leave the mother the way she is."

"Right. Well, tomorrow then?"

Sally nodded in response and smiled slightly. "I hope so, anyways."

"She's strong, Dr. Chang, I have no doubts she'll pull through." The second took back the file folder slowly and smiled. "You have nothing to worry about."

"Thanks, Katrina. I've got a quick meeting in a while, could you take over here?"

"Sure thing!"

Sally left the room and checked in on a few other patients before heading down to the clinic. The Preventer Medical Arts doctors attended not only to the politicians and royals of Earth and space, but also to their own members and families; Sally spent as many hours saving the lives of Relena's coworkers as she did treating children for sniffles and fixing training sprains and pain.

Picking up her first file, Sally headed to clinic room number 4. Opening the door, she jumped slightly, startled, as Heero stood there staring out the window.

"Heero, I thought you had an appointment," she said breathlessly.

"I decided it was probably a bad idea," he answered quietly, turning to face her. "Sally-"

"Heero, I don't know anything."

"Don't lie to me." His voice was cold, however his expression was pained and he stared at her helplessly.

"Heero, I didn't know she was seeing Quatre. I barely even knew about you before everyone else did."

"You knew she was pregnant." Heero leaned against the paper-covered examination table.

"I guessed. She was secretive about it, about lots of things. You can only cover up something like that for so long. She was actually due for a physical two weeks from now."

"Who was it that performed her pregnancy test then?"

"I couldn't tell you, Heero. She could have simply done her own. I can look in her records but chances are she hasn't had bloodwork done."

Heero shook his head. "She's far enough along that she'd want to know how to make herself as healthy as possible. She's had blood-work done or at least some tests."

"I guess you're right… you think that it's related?"

"I think there are a lot of people who would be affected by Relena having a baby, let alone the pure news value." Stepping away from the bed, Heero walked over to the door. "Just find out who did the tests and let me know, would you?"

"Sure, Heero. I'll do my best."

Heero merely nodded in reply and headed back downstairs to Dr. Park's office, waiting outside quietly as the hour passed. He alternated between pacing and reading the photo captions that hung on the walls in the narrow hallway, the motion keeping his agitation from brewing beyond his control.

Finally, the doctor ushered out another patient and waved him in. "I'm surprised you're back again so soon."

"It's a time-dependent situation," Heero said. "It's important that anything pertinent is on paper."

"You can't really be worried you'll forget," the doctor said, sitting down behind her desk once again. "You've apparently got an eidetic memory." Heero stared back at her and she smiled. "I've had the pleasure of perusing your file. You're a very interesting case."

"I'm not what's important here," Heero gritted out in response.

"Whatever you say. Now, when we left off we were discussing certain… situations that may arise in your future. Any developments there?"

Heero stared back impassively.

"I heard you had a foray up to the Minister's floor the other night. You're lucky they didn't arrest you. Want to talk about that?"

"No," Heero answered honestly.

"Then what it is that's bothering you? The investigation hasn't turned up much, and the press release is in an hour. Why don't you go and see it?"

"She was seeing someone else," Heero said, and the doctor took off her glasses slowly and nodded.

"And that bothers you?"

"She never told me."

"I see. How does that make you feel?"

Heero closed his eyes, clenching his fists slightly. "I don't know."

"Well, do you feel angry about it?" Heero nodded. "Who are you angry at? Do you know who this other person was?"

"Yes. A friend of ours," he answered. "He told me this morning. He should have told me months ago."

"Do you think Relena has feelings for him? I mean, he wasn't any more aware of your relationship than you were of theirs, correct?"

"Right."

The doctor sighed, pursing her lips slightly. "Well, it seems she's far from blameless in that then, isn't she? It seems a bit unfair to both of you to keep that kind of secret." The doctor waited for Heero to react but he said nothing. "I assume there's a possibility that he's the father of her baby then." She looked up from her notepad but didn't wait for an answer she knew would not come. "I can understand how that would upset you, but you must also imagine how this makes him feel as well."

Heero nodded slowly. "I just can't understand…"

"Can't understand what?"

Heero sighed, putting his elbows to his knees and his head in his hands. "Anything, anymore."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I have safely ruled you out as a suspect," Dr. Park said, putting down her notepad. "There's no motivation here unless you had known about Relena's… other relationship beforehand, and clearly that's not the case. Your amount of distress suggests that you were just as taken by surprise as the rest of us."

"So we're done then," Heero said, standing up.

"Only if you want to be. I'm always here at your service if you should need anything."

Heero nodded, stretching. "I'll think about it," he said, leaving the office and closing the door behind him.

Waiting several moments, Dr. Park reached over quickly to her desk communicator and rapidly entered an access code.

"What?" a sharp female voice said on the other end.

"We have a problem, Dorothy," the doctor said, "and you're not going to like it one bit."