A/N: For those people who have followed this fic for the nearly year its been on here and for those people who continue to read/follow, I am glad to finally say, the end is very close with this one. I have two more chapters after this one fully written and then only three more to go with an epilogue that I am working on as we speak. This fic has always suffered most with a lack of updates which I do regret but I plan to update on a two week schedule from now on until we are done. Thanks for your patience - we're almost there!

Chapter Ten

Back Up

Watching the slow rise and fall of Heero's chest as he lay on the hotel bed seemed vaguely reminiscent of a time when Heero had been strapped to a table, his breathing regulated as he tried to trick the Alliance's doctors into thinking he was unconscious. Duo knew that was a long time ago but as he lay injured, sleeping, his body healing after Trowa's rudimentary care, there was something young looking about Heero. That he did look a little like that fifteen year old boy that he'd so admired and not the twenty six year old man he'd become. Not that he didn't admire him still, his self-sacrifice for Eli, that unthinking reaction that was both stupid and brave, but things were complicated. Far too fucking complicated and Duo had done what he shouldn't have done. Made them more complicated.

He was on watch. Trowa had gone to dump the car and find a new one. Catherine and Eli had gone with him to secure breakfast. Heero had come through the worse, it seemed, his body beginning to heal as it always did but Duo was sitting on the bed opposite, the covers made by Catherine in a fit of over-zealous cleaning and he had his head held up by his hands, watching Heero breathe.

There were plenty of times in Duo's life where he'd done the wrong thing – stolen a mobile suit to try and appease Alliance troops and causing the death of every person in the church, stowing aboard a ship that would lead him inevitably to a life of fighting for the colonies, and then what had happened between him and Heero. They'd been far too young for the intensity between them. And he regretted his actions – he was the more confident one, the more knowing one and really it all fell on his shoulders.

Now there was Trowa. Shit. Last night should not have happened as they'd been too high on adrenalin, too high on being alive and them getting the fuck out of there without any one of them dying that something had happened that shouldn't have. He thought he'd grown out of that shit, that he'd stopped making stupid decisions but there had been another one. He really shouldn't have had fucked around with Trowa.

It had been awkward this morning, taking a shower and avoiding each other's eyes, getting dressed in yesterday's damn clothes as they had nothing else. They'd need to stop somewhere to get something that wasn't blood stained for him. Though the hoodie was black, the crusted, dried blood clung to the fabric and he wanted to throw the thing out immediately but the whole escape had not given them opportunity to collect belongings. Duo's backpack remained at the apartment – his clothes and his tablet gone.

Heero's chest started to indicate a change in breathing and a few moments later he was awake – maybe it was not as instantaneous as Duo remembered. He remembered waking up next to him and finding him go from asleep to fully alert within moments but there was a fluttering of eyelashes before he came around to full consciousness.

"Hey," Duo said gently, announcing his presence.

Heero was probably ever so slightly disorientated, the loss of blood affecting his body and mind so Duo didn't want him to react like he would've in the past. React first. Think later. There would always be something dangerous about Heero Yuy and Duo was all too aware of that. That if Heero felt threatened in his confusion, he still had the potential to lash out and Duo was not dumb enough to allow that to happen. He spoke to make sure it gave Heero some grounding in the situation, allow Heero's brain to catch up, to remember.

He stood to walk the small distance over to the edge of the bed and though Heero looked considerably less alert than Duo would've expected, he blinked up at him as though clearing his brain of fog.

"How you feeling?"

It was a dumb question but really, it was the only one he could think of asking. Duo had lost plenty of blood at plenty of points in his life and so could figure out how Heero was feeling – groggy, lethargic, and pretty damn weak. And Heero had always hated being weak.

"Hey, buddy, stop, you gotta be careful of the stitches…" Duo said, reaching out to touch his bare chest and make him stop moving, but Heero lashed his hand out at the attempt to initiate physical contact.

Heero rose to a sitting position, pushing aside covers and Duo could tell there was a slight hint of pain in the movement or some disorientation or something. If any of them had been shot, they would be dead, he supposed, sure as hell he would be dead, but if Heero was only suffering a little bit of pain and dizziness then that was that. Duo stepped back, sensing that he wasn't damn wanted and really, he didn't want to be this close to Heero. Not after last night. He still felt like he had the traces of Trowa's touch on his skin and it was fucked up but it was always that thing. Heero could see right through him. Always had. Always will. And he was so fucking Catholic sometimes – the only thing he really remembered from his time at the church was the stories about the ark and how to feel guilt. It seemed to have been embedded into him.

"I'm fine, Duo," Heero gritted out as he swung his legs to the side of the bed, dressed only in bloodied boxer shorts and a bandage.

"No, you were shot asshole and you were bleeding out for fuck knows how long and shit, Tro' ain't a doctor…"

"He put me back together once."

The statement was harsh and Duo conceded a little. It had certainly been worse after his damn attempted self-destruction.

"True but fuck knows what J had been pumping into you then."

He took a second, looking around the room and remembering the other people who should be present. "Trowa?"

"Gone to dump the car and get us another. Cathy and the kid went with – get some breakfast and stuff. We all need to eat something."

Heero took in the information as he always did, with a curt nod as confirmation, and then evaluated it in his own head. Some things would never change. He made a motion to get up and Duo once again made an attempt to support and help but he received a particularly harsh glare and retreated. He let Heero rise to his feet on his own and he readied himself to catch but he was going to let Heero do what he thought he could do – he always had been the world's suckiest patient. He often wondered how Trowa had not killed him in the time during his rehabilitation after Siberia. Maybe the guy had more patience – or, sure as fuck, Duo knew he did. But then as he understood he was unconscious for pretty much all of it. Duo was hardly the greatest nurse and was a terrible patient himself. Really, he couldn't say anything about Heero's attitude.

He walked towards the bathroom, Duo watching each step, his arms folded across his chest.

"You want help?"

"I don't need you to hold it for me, thanks," Heero retorted and despite the tension and the whole situation, Duo couldn't help the snort.

"Yeah, yeah."

He wanted to add something about being on the other side of the door if he was needed but it was redundant and he knew Heero didn't need him. He'd needed him once, that he knew, in the aftermath of Rio when he'd been too wrapped up in himself to help Heero who was obviously hurting more than him. And it was Trowa Heero'd gone to then. Just as it had been during the war. Even now it was Trowa who could heal him, who could do the stiches with steady hands, whose nephew helped him work through his shit by saving him – Duo was just the ex with a whole lot of baggage.

Duo sat back down on the edge of the bed that Catherine had made and looked around the room. They needed to move on as soon as they could, use the fake ID's to get across the border and figure out how to keep Catherine and Eli safe. But now with Heero injured, even if an injured Heero was worth a damn sight more than ten normal dudes, meant really they should call in more back-up. And he needed to contact someone else but he suddenly felt devious, like a complete asshole and it was not something he intended on doing. Not to Trowa. Not to any of them, really, as they had all become so fractured in their relationships after the war.

"Hey, 'Ro," he said through the door.

He heard a grunt in response.

"You get a laptop or tablet out?"

It was a damn stupid question as he heard the toilet flush and Heero emerged, his hair wet and his eyes a little less hazy. "Yeah."

"I think we need to discuss something, you and me."

Heero walked over to the duffle bag he'd had on the roof with him, the large sniper rifle and ammunition dominating it but then there was a laptop which he carried with him to the bed opposite and booted up, the moment of the machine coming to life, the soft whirling noise of it working, the fans cooling it and Duo found himself assaulted my memories of school dorms and then of the apartment they'd just run from before… before Rio. Before the kids and civilians.

Their eyes met like they so rarely did anymore and shit, it made him feel worse as he felt his stomach tighten and he knew there would always be this connection between them. And it just made him feel especially guilty for last night. He looked away to his hands in his lap and knew that was about as big a giveaway as he could give Heero but he could only sense his expression, not see it, and he didn't know whether it was disapproval or not or if he figured out why he was being so evasive.

He listened to the key strokes of a password and whatever other security measures Heero had on the machine and then he looked back up, putting away any of the personal feelings, not looking down to see his chest, to see the bandaging and wounds. Shit, he really was a bad person. Fucking someone else when his not-quite-ex was lying injured next door.

"Can I, ya know," Duo asked with a shrug, knowing how possessive Heero could be about his machines but he handed it over. "I think we need to get Cathy and Eli outta the way so the three of us can take down the asshole."

His eyes flickered up at Heero as he shook his head. "Trowa won't leave them somewhere."

"I'm not saying we leave them somewhere, jeez. I know he ain't gonna just abandon them. They are his family an' all," Duo said, frustration in his voice. He remembered one of the reasons Rio had ended up being a fuck up. They'd got too damn pissy at each other. "I'm saying we get someone to take 'em somewhere safe."

Heero made a noise under his breath and Duo glared up at him and was tempted to throw his damn laptop at him as he was not helping. He supposed, so far, nowhere had been safe and that had been the damn problem. He connected to his own heavily encrypted email programme that Cypher had set up and then placed the laptop down on the bed as he retrieved his wallet from his jeans.

Yeah, after the war, things had gone to shit between the five of them. Wufei had decided to leave them all behind, them being memories of everything bad he'd done and Duo couldn't blame him. He and Heero at that point had been Preventers and he'd wanted a life of peace. And they didn't fit that. Maybe Wufei had done the smart thing. If Duo had cut off all ties to Heero they wouldn't be sitting in some hotel room in Sanc but then he'd never quite been able to leave him behind.

And Wufei had stopped seeing them all before the breakdown of Trowa and Quatre's relationship. Before they were forced to take sides and it became even more complicated. Duo had taken Trowa's at the time as some kind of solidarity thing with Heero but he never really knew how he felt about it as really, him and Quat had been closer during the war. It just ended up that way. But then he still had a stupid slip of paper in his wallet.

It had been a peace offering, he guessed, but Duo had never responded to the attempt to reach out. Howard had looked at him wearily, one of those times when he was borrowing a shuttle off the old geezer and paying him an obscene amount of money to shut the fuck up to anyone. Not that Howard would give him up… it was just that Duo was careful. And the paper had been enclosed in a wedding invitation, an invitation that he wondered whether Heero had received or whether it was a specific attempt to reach out to him specifically. It was old now – he knew enough about Quatre's life since the last time they'd spoken that he'd married and had kids but not much more than that and he sure as hell didn't know if the private contact details would be active still.

He guessed they would, that would be the Quatre he remembered, wanting them all to fight together, be friends together and it was a nice idea that didn't go too well when you had five individuals who were varying degrees of fucked up.

The private contact details were there and for a second he hesitated and looked up at Heero who was watching with impassivity.

"I think we need to call Quatre."

He was surprised to see Heero's eyes widen slightly. "Trowa wouldn't want that."

"Yeah, well, at this point he ain't got an opinion. We need to get them outta the way and how many friendly blond billionaires do you know? He can get 'em off into some colony or satellite and there would be no goddamn trace and we can take out Nabokov without distraction. We can't keep running."

He felt the twisting in his gut as he looked at the contact details – what had it been? Eight years since they'd spoken? And a lot had changed. He looked back up at Heero. Duo was a hit man, hardly the sort of person that Quatre should associate with and as he'd said to Trowa, he wasn't quite sure what the fuck Heero did.

"He might not come, ya know," Duo said, shrugging, "we just need to work out how to get a message to him."

He saw a slight look of conflict on Heero's face, a brief moment where he saw him weigh up the options and try to decide what the best one was. Quatre might not come – he might not feel any loyalty towards any of them but then the small note came with a wedding invite. To a wedding that in a different life he may have attended. He may have been the best man in the fantasy versions of their lives where they'd all got along and things hadn't become what they became. The silence was finally broken by Heero's soft words.

"Make contact."

Duo typed a message, feeling like a damn idiot – it had been so long since they'd spoken that he hardly knew what to say and despite Cypher's encryption, despite it being Heero Yuy's laptop, his paranoia at Nabokov's abilities meant it had to be brief and pretty meaningless. Their old OZ given call signs were hardly that damn clever but they still had some use as he typed.

/04

Request back up.

02/

"Man, Trowa's gonna hate us," he said, as he closed down his secure messages and passed the laptop back over.

One eyebrow rose imperceptibly on Heero's face, an expression that Duo could pick up after all the years that had passed between them. "That bothers you?"

Duo met his eye, the hint of something more knowing behind the deep blue and he just chuckled in a defensive gesture. "Naw, just always thought he wasn't the best guy to piss off as he has all those circus moves. And ninja skills. And he damn hurt when he punched me in the gut… not as much as you but I value all my body parts functioning, ya know."

It wasn't a lie, he realised as he babbled needlessly, he just diverted it away knowing that yeah, Trowa was going to hate them but really there was no other way around it. They needed to focus on getting to Nabokov's home and taking him out and they couldn't do that while protecting the kid and Cathy as hard as they damn tried. And maybe he did care a little what Trowa thought after last night. Fuck. 'Just sex.' He'd never had much success with that concept.

There was no time for anymore probing stares or whatever the hell Heero was trying to do as the door to the room rattled and for a second, both he and Heero looked towards finding weapons in some fit of paranoia. However, there were three hard knocks that indicated an ally and the door opened with the swish of a card key, Eli pushed forward a little to make him move by his mother and Duo met Trowa's eye as they brought with them a selection of supplies – food, clothes and the news of a new vehicle.

Duo grabbed a t-shirt and a sweater that really didn't feel like his style and went back to the room he shared with Trowa the night before while food was shared out and fuss was made of Heero by Catherine. He could see he hated every damn second of it. Duo wondered how she'd survived during the war when Heero was even less personable, less damn friendly, and more likely to put a gun in her face.

He removed the hoodie, looking at all the blood crusted on it and grabbed the tee – a couple of sizes too big – and was sliding it on when the door opened and Trowa was there.

"I thought I'd bring you coffee before it went cold," he said, holding a bag and a paper cup.

If the first part of the morning had been awkward then this damn eclipsed it. Obliterated it. A fuck ton more difficult. Their hands briefly touched as Duo took the cup and he lowered his gaze.

"You know it was just sex, right? You don't have to think about giving me breakfast or nothin'."

Duo hated himself for saying it as he lifted his eyes to Trowa whose expression was pretty unreadable. It wasn't that he necessarily regretted it but it was what he'd just done in his absence – what he and Heero had decided on his behalf – that made him feel worse.

"I know," he responded.

He was going to say something about being friends, about forgetting it happened but then he really didn't want to as it had been… good? It had felt like more than just fucking around but Trowa didn't even give him a chance as he walked back to the room next door leaving him with muffins and coffee and feeling like complete shit.