Disclaimer: I do not own the Gundam Wing characters only the plot I put them through.

Author Note: Hey Readers! So I know it's been a very long wait since I've last posted and I really hope that you're still reading and that this satisfies most of what you want to hear. I think this chapter contains some of my best and worst writing. I know the plot doesn't seem may have been more boring without the action scenes and such but I can promise that the ending will bring a little of that back.

Enjoy!

Chapter 8

The mid-morning sun shone brightly into the room and after yet another passionately tiring make-out session, Duo and Quatre snuggled under the covers sighing to themselves. The night before they had officially told their friends about being a couple to which Wufei exclaimed, "Finally!" Duo also quickly apologized for being so snippy with them before ushering Quatre back to bed to snuggle more.

Quatre smiled to himself and glanced over at his new boyfriend lovingly. It had not even been one day since they were official but he supposed that all of the emotion and secret feelings over the years had built it up exactly. For the first time in a while, things were right in their world.

Suddenly, Quatre furrowed his brow and began to sit up. Duo, noticing the warmth of his lover gone, looked up to his worried face.

"What's wrong Q? Are you alright?" Quatre's hand gently rubbed his chest as he began to feel different sensations with his empathy. "You sense something?"

"Yeah…it's not a bad emotion but it's very overpowering…worried…" Duo sat up as quickly as he could as Quatre's eyes grew wide. Before Duo could ask what was going on, his question was answered for him.

"Where is he? I need to see my son!" Duo's eyes followed suit as he heard Mr. Winner's voice bellowing throughout the hallways on the mansion. Looking down, Duo remembered that, in the heat of making out, he had thrown off his shirt and if possible, his eyes grew more. Footsteps were heard coming towards the room. Quatre turned to Duo frantically and looked him up and down before speaking hastily.

"Duo?" The brunette looked up to the very serious face of his lover as he took a deep breath. "I think you and I both agree that it would probably be bad for my father to walk in on his son in bed with a shirtless guy friend of his and the obvious intention of relations beyond mere friendship so what the hell are you waiting for? HIDE!" Duo had no time to comprehend as Quatre forcefully shoved the braided pilot off the bed. Duo landed with a thud and, after a quick look around at his options, rolled under the bed immediately while listening quietly to the conversation happening outside the room and nursing his throbbing side.

"Mr. Winner he might be asleep, at least let me go in and check first." Heero had his arms spread across the doorway and a hesitant look on his face as he tried to stall.

"Mr. Yuy, I think that my son will miss some sleep to see me and you will let me by to see him." Mr. Winner shoved Heero out of the way and tugged open the door to Quatre's room just as Quatre had finished tidying up the bed.

"Son? Quatre? Are you awake?" Double checking the surrounding area for any evidence of his previous activity, Quatre managed to choke out a response.

"Oh…Father! I had no idea you were coming today…How are you doing?" Mr. Winner almost jogged over to the bed where Quatre was lying when he heard him speak.

"Quatre! Thank goodness, you're all right. I've been worried sick for days" Mr. Winner paused, "Are you alright?" Mr. Winner stared at Quatre with a worried look as he sat down on the edge of the bed. The blonde quickly glanced around as his father's expression dropped.

"What is it?"

"Quatre, your face is completely flushed. Do you have a fever? You haven't been moving around a lot yet have you?" Quatre's eyes widened as his face grew even redder with his blush and he tuned back in as he realized that his father had continued speaking.

"…you're sure that you're okay here, it wouldn't be a problem to move you to the medical wing in my mansion or even a hospital; Quatre, you need to be taken care of…"

"Father! Please."

Below the bed, Duo had been struggling to hold in a sneeze; after rolling around in dusty under-the-bed-muck, it would hard to imagine anyone not having to sneeze. He had tried holding his nose and his breath but it became too much. Duo pushed up on the mattress to try to warn his love. Taken aback by the sudden jerk of his mattress, Quatre blinked a few times before realizing what that probably meant. Mr. Winner, feeling the mattress move as well, stood from his spot on the bed and looked around for a moment. The blonde tried his best to think of something but before he could set up a distraction, Duo couldn't take anymore and let loose a loud sneeze.

Mr. Winner turned back to Quatre who quickly put his hands up to his face. "Excuse me?" The older man, not buying the story, began to kneel down to the ground but before he could make another move, Quatre had latched himself around his father's shoulders.

"I've missed you Father." Mr. Winner smiled and gently wrapped his own arms around his son giving him a light pat on the back. Quatre and Duo both sighed silently in relief.

As they parted, Mr. Winner looked at his son's eyes for the first time throughout the conversation and couldn't help but feel tears well up behind his own eyes.

"I'm sorry Quatre…" Mr. Winner paused, "I'm just glad you're okay."

The two smiled at one another before sharing another warm embrace until suddenly Quatre remembered something and pulled away disheartened.

"What's wrong Quatre?" Mr. Winner, taking a seat on the bed again, placed a hand on Quatre's as the blonde looked down with a look of despair on his face.

"I killed all those people…how can you call me son?"

"Quatre, the war's over…" Mr. Winner looked at his son confused.

"No…I mean all those people in the warehouse while I was under ZERO's influence during the war."

"What are you talking about son?" Quatre looked up at his father with a look of urgency.

"The warehouse that you built for all those employees and then… I killed them…? Is any of this ringing a bell? You must've heard about it." Mr. Winner raised an eyebrow and chuckled at this.

"Quatre who told you a lie like this? The warehouse I built for my former employees is still up and running like the day I built it and, despite the fact that many people have found jobs and left since then, some are still there and happy as can be." Quatre stared at his father with wide eyes as tears streamed down his face.

"But Axel said….it was just some dirty trick…" Quatre shook his head and wiped his face as he was struck with the realization. After a moment, he smiled back at his father to show that he was all right. "I'm glad it's not true." Mr. Winner smiled fondly at his son before standing again and planting a short kiss on Quatre's forehead.

"Are you okay now?"

"Yes father, I'll be alright…" Quatre looked up at his father as he put a firm hand on his good shoulder.

"You will never be anything less than perfect in my eyes son. Now, sadly, I have to go. You know, I missed a lot of work worrying about you all this time so I've got a lot to catch up on." Mr. Winner smiled at Quatre before giving him another hug and turning to leave. Quatre watched as his father walked away and didn't turn away until the door was completely shut; however, Quatre's eyes were soon torn away as another voice reentered the scene.

"You're lucky I love you so much…coz I'm gonna be bruised for weeks…" Quatre chuckled at his lover's rumpled shirtless appearance and immediately yanked the braided boy back under the covers with him.

As Quatre cuddled with Duo, he couldn't help but feel a sense of uneasiness in the back of his mind. It was then that he realized that before that conversation with his father, he hadn't really thought about what he and Duo had actually been through; just thinking about Axel and Kale sent shivers down Quatre's spine and he began not to feel well at all. Duo had noticed Quatre's shivers and began to ask him if he was all right but before he could even get the sentence out, Quatre had bolted to the bathroom.

As his brain was flooding with memories and emotions, Quatre began vomiting violently into the toilet. Throwing off the covers, Duo followed his lover into the bathroom and started rubbing his back again feeling the shivers running through Quatre's frail body.

"Quatre?" Duo spoke with a worried tone as the blonde continued to vomit despite the fact that he hadn't eaten for days. After a few more minutes, Quatre coughed a final time and leaned back into Duo's arms quivering and breathing short and panicked breaths. Duo leaned back against the wall and held the blonde close feeling the sweat covering his body and wiping the tears from his cheeks. Before either of them could get comfortable, Quatre leaned over the toilet once again and started coughing more. Growing more anxious by the second, Duo eventually stood again.

"Quatre, I'll be right back. I'm getting the others don't move." After receiving a nod from his lover, Duo ran as fast as he could to and out the bedroom door, through the hallway and towards the kitchen where he could smell someone cooking. When he finally reached the doorway, he was out of breath; Wufei turned in shock.

"Maxwell, what the hell is going on?"

"Quatre…he's…sick, really sick." Duo continued to pant between words as Wufei turned off the oven and through off his apron.

"Lead the way." Wufei followed suit as Duo began running back to the bathroom where Quatre was. Heero and Trowa quickly joined as they saw the two running for Quatre's room. Duo entered the bathroom first but stopped short as he saw Quatre passed out on the floor in front of them trembling even more intensely then before. The blonde coughed a few times before Duo gently picked him up off the floor and rocked him gently in his arms.

"What happened?" Trowa spoke softly as he observed the bathroom.

Duo shrugged and spoke as he wiped Quatre's face with a spare cloth. "I honestly do not know. His father left and we were just cuddling and all of the sudden he just made a dash for the bathroom and started puking."

"Well, we can see that part…" Heero made a face as he flushed the toilet for everyone's sake. "We should get him back to bed until we can figure out what's wrong with him." Duo complied willingly and tenderly carried his sick lover back to bed tucking him under the covers.

"Did he say anything about feeling badly?" Wufei touched his hand to Quatre's forehead and was shocked to feel not only that the blonde was extremely cold but also that he flinched away from the touch.

"No, he didn't say anything, the only thing that I noticed was that he was shivering and as I was about to ask him if he was warm enough, he jumped out of bed and flew into the bathroom."

"Well, he's freezing so we're definitely going to need more blankets." Trowa began pulling the blankets from the other bed and piling them on top of Quatre as Wufei continued. "But I'm afraid that's all that we can really do right now."

"What's wrong with him exactly?" Heero helped with the blankets and looked to Wufei for his answer.

"Well, if my assumptions are correct, I think he's suffering more from mental overload then physical illness but the only way we'll really know is to wait it out." With a pout, Duo climbed into the bed with Quatre and added some more warmth.

"I hate waiting…"

(---)

It was the dream again except this time Quatre was watching it all happen. The blonde pilot was standing off to the side watching himself in this persistent dream; he watched as the mirror shattered, as the light appeared and as the struggle between Duo and Kale happened again. With great intent, Quatre looked on and tried to figure why he was having this nightmare. Then the fateful moment began; Quatre watched the shadow of himself in his dream thrown to the ground by Kale.

Beginning to feel overwhelmed, Quatre looked away and his hand slipped subconsciously to his chest clutching his pink shirt tightly. After a few moments, Quatre turned his head to look back but the light switched off and the room was dark except for the spot that Quatre was standing in. Glancing around in confusion, Quatre wondered what was going on until suddenly he felt a hand around his left elbow. The hand tugged on Quatre's arm until he spun completely around. Within that split second, Quatre was looking down the barrel of a gun and into Axel's eyes; the trigger pulled.

Quatre shot up in bed his hand immediately flying to his forehead in utter shock. Not realizing it, Quatre was breathing sporadically and too heavily as tears and sweat ran down his face. He faintly heard Duo to his left and saw Wufei and Trowa standing in front of him through clouded eyes. Not knowing much of what was going on and beginning to feel very faint, Quatre tried his best to just calm himself and settled back down into his bed. He felt for a moment as Duo's warm hand squeezed his gently before it abruptly left and Quatre slipped back into nothingness.

(---)

Duo was just about to fall to sleep when his love unexpectedly sat up in bed shocking everyone in the room. Duo's eyes flew open and up to see what was going on but he did not like what he saw. Quatre was clutching his forehead and breathing like there was no tomorrow; he barely seemed conscious at all.

"Quatre?" Duo tried to speak to the blonde and put his hand in the blonde's to try to get his attention but nothing seemed to be working. Duo closed his eyes before briefly squeezing Quatre's hand and then running from the room.

Without a word or a moment's thought, Heero was following Duo's footsteps down the long hallway and into the sitting room. After seeing Duo on the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest, Heero slowed his run to a jog then to a casual walk. Approaching slowly, Heero moved to sit on the couch next to his braided friend. Before Heero could say anything, Duo propped his head up on his knees.

"I can't see him like that…it's too hard…" Tears made their way down Duo's cheeks as he furiously tried to stop them; Heero couldn't help but feel sympathy for him even though he chose not to show it.

"Duo, it's hard for all of us…" Duo shook his head as more tears fell.

"No it's not, not like it's hard for me; you have no idea." Heero looked at his friend perplexed by his comment.

"But…don't you love him?" Duo's eyes flew open at this.

"Of COURSE I do!" Heero sat unmoved by Duo's quite loud reaction and listened intently for Duo to go on. After a long sigh, Duo complied with Heero's silently powerful request.

"I just…I don't know what's wrong and obviously he can't tell me. I clearly need some time…we both need some time."

Heero nodded to this and raised his arm to Duo's shoulder, giving it a compassionate squeeze before getting up and walking out of the room.

(---)

Hours passed as Quatre lay asleep in his bed until he began to toss and turn.

The dream was progressing just as it had the last time he had had it. Quatre stood watching the happenings of his nightmare unable to escape. He looked on; the mirror shattered, the fight between Kale and Duo, the fight between Kale and Quatre, the lights shutting off just as that emotional moment hit and Quatre knew what would happen next. He stood still awaiting his dream fate but no one approached. Quatre looked about the dark room in doubt not knowing how to get out of his nightmare. The blonde couldn't help but jump as he heard his name whispered throughout the room. Before he could even ponder the subject, a hand was grasping his arm and Quatre braced himself for what would happen as his body spun around. There was no gun, no Axel; Wufei stood before Quatre with a white glow around him and a smile on his face. Quatre opened his mouth to speak but before he knew it, his eyes were gazing upon the real world.

The drapes had been shut to keep the sunlight out but there was one source of illumination to Quatre's right. Wufei sat cross-legged in a big arm chair next to his bed with his reading glasses and a book huddling close to a dim lamp as to not disturb his resting friend. Quatre couldn't help but smile at his friend's kind efforts and even more so at his very modest reading glasses. Quatre slowly began to sit up causing Wufei to notice his presence and immediately walk to his aid.

"Quatre…are you alright?" Wufei spoke softly as he checked Quatre's pulse and temperature.

"Yeah…I'm okay…" Quatre paused as his thoughts wandered back to his dream, "It didn't end the same way…" Shooting the blonde a strange look, Wufei put a hand back to his forehead.

"What are you talking about? Are you feeling sick?" Completely perplexed and exhausted, Quatre shook his head before looking up to Wufei.

"You saved me…"

"Quatre," Wufei sat on the edge of the bed as he spoke. "I still don't know what you're talking about." Shaking his head in remembrance that Wufei really did not have any idea what was going on, Quatre shared a little more detail.

"I just keep having the same dream…but it changes each time."

"Okay, first of all, what is the dream about?"

"Well…it's about…what happened in the cell…when Kale attacked us…" Quatre fidgeted with his sheets as he spoke so Wufei didn't press for many more details.

"And how do I fit into this?"

"Well I've had the dream three different times. The first time I had the dream, I was reliving it." Quatre paused as a shiver crawled up his spine, "The second time that I had it, I was watching what happened in the first dream, like, I could see myself."

"So it was a dream within a dream?"

"Kind of…I don't know really how to explain it…"

"I think I get the drift…did anything else change?"

"Well towards the end of watching the first dream (in the second dream), all the lights went out around me and I was just standing there until I was turned around and there was Axel pointing a gun to my forehead; he shot me and then I woke up."

"That's why you were grabbing at your forehead before…" Wufei seemed intrigued by the situation and urged Quatre to go on. "So the third time?"

"This past time, it started out exactly like the second one except that when I was jerked around, you were standing there instead of Axel but you didn't have a gun and you obviously didn't try to shoot me, and then I woke up." Wufei raised an eyebrow at this.

"I was kind of hoping that you were going to say that I kicked Axel's ass…but do you have any idea why it was me?" Quatre furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side as he figured one conclusion.

"My empathy…it probably just subconsciously picked up on your presence in the room and placed you in the dream." Wufei nodded and put his hand on Quatre's knee as he thought of another conclusion to which Quatre was listening intently.

"Quatre…I think I know what this is really about and why it's making you so sick." Wufei paused as he formed the correct words before looking straight into Quatre's eyes. "You're never going to get over killing Kale unless you talk to someone about it and until you do, you're going to just keep making yourself even sicker." Quatre put a hand to his forehead, as he knew that Wufei was correct. It didn't take a genius to figure that the reason Quatre was having these dreams was because of his guilt over killing someone as well as his internal stress of keeping it to himself.

"No offense Fei…but if I'm going to talk to anyone about this, it has to be Duo." Wufei sighed somewhat to himself at the thought of trying to find Duo but nodded his compliance to Quatre's request.

(---)

So Wufei went on the search for their braided friend. He first looked in the pilot's disaster area room but found no sign of Duo there. He then moved to the gym just in case he was working out his stress but when he didn't find him there, Wufei was struck with an epiphany. 'Why didn't I think of that in the first place?' Wufei mumbled to himself as he made his way to the kitchen. There he finally found Duo sitting with his head laying on the kitchen table and looking out the window sullenly. Wufei noticed that Duo had made a sandwich for himself but had surprisingly only taken one bite out of it before pushing it away from him. Wufei strode over to the table and sat down across from his friend.

"Maxwell." Duo pitifully looked up at the Chinese pilot but did not receive any sympathy. "Quatre's awake; he wants to talk to you."

At this, Duo put his head back down and spoke, his voice muffled by his sleeve, "Tell him that I can't talk right now."

"No." Duo furrowed his brow and dared a glance back at Wufei who only spoke back with the intensity of his dark eyes.

"What do you want me to do Fei? I just can't bear to watch him like this…"

"Well, your feelings aren't exactly important right now so get over them." Duo glared at this.

"How dare…" Wufei interrupted immediately after Duo even took a breath to respond.

"How dare I? How dare you! Yes, I know, you both just went through a horrible situation and in no way does anyone want to downplay your role in that at all but Quatre, the man you love, is going through something big right now." Wufei took a deep breath and lowered his voice as he realized that he had actually been shouting. "Not only did Quatre have to watch and feel you suffering but he also suffered and then killed a man. And if he can't talk to someone about it then he will only get worse but now he's ready to talk…to you."

Duo raised a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. Slowly tears streamed down his cheeks as the pilot broke down. Sighing, Wufei reached an arm across the table and clutched one of Duo's hands.

"Look at yourself Duo," Duo looked up at Wufei as he unexpectedly called him by his first name. "You can't stand being without him. You're sitting in the kitchen all by yourself and you're not eating; is that even possible? I know that you think that you need space but he needs you right now. He's finally ready to talk and if you don't get in there, he might not want to later."

Wiping his face clean, Duo took a deep breath and nodded to Wufei before getting up from his seat and turning to walk away. He paused for a moment and turned back to his friend. Wufei looked up to Duo's kind face and watched Duo's smile grow as his hand secretly slipped over to grab the sandwich that was still on the table.

"What can I say…I'm starving." Wufei rolled his eyes before using his foot to shove Duo in the right direction.

"Eat on your way!"

(---)

Not too far away, a figure stumbled into a dark alleyway as the rain poured down soaking their entire person. There they ran seeking any shelter but finding nothing more than a dumpster and a pay phone. Glancing towards the pay phone, only one detail caught their eye; the phone book attached. In a mad rush, the figure ran to the phone and grabbed the phone book flipping through its numerous pages furiously. They searched and searched until they found one solitary name.

Winner.

End.

(---)

Well? I know I know, another cliffhanger AND you still don't know how Quatre opened up a can of whoop-ass on Kale but don't worry, I'll get there soon enough.

Please Review!!!! I love all you readers that do review and I hope more of you feel inspired to as well!!! Thank you for reading!