Warning: GRAPHIC (you know what's going to happen)

GROUNDED

Part X – Duo's POV

"Hey," Duo called, before Heero and Beck could run off in the opposite direction. His partner stopped and turned to face him with an expression of surprise that only Duo's trained eye was able to recognize. Not caring about what the other three pairs of watchful eyes would think, Duo placed his hand on Heero's shoulder and the Japanese agent looked at it with apparent alarm; still mostly concerned with their keeping their relationship a secret.

Duo didn't let Heero distance himself from him and instead the taller man leaned in closer and said softly, yet urgently: "Be safe. Don't be a hero."

A little frown appeared between Heero's eyebrows. "Too late."

He smiled at him. He wanted to hug him and kiss him, but he didn't, because it was neither the time nor the place, but as soon as he let go of his partner and took a step back, he had a sinking feeling that he would come to regret not letting their lips meet for one more time in that moment.

Since there was no use for regrets or all the other emotions that were troubling him while on an important mission – Heero would be the first to agree – he shook away those thoughts and feelings and proclaimed with a smirk: "Let's gut this bitch."

Heero nodded and gestured for Beck to follow him to the left, as Duo, Grace and Viver headed right.

The American jogged down the corridor, on the trail of his team members, but before they rounded the corner Duo, twisted his neck to look over his shoulder and he caught Heero looking back at him as well. He held his gaze until he disappeared from sight.

An uneasy feeling grew in his belly; a feeling he was too familiar with. He had felt the exact same way on every mission he had ever been on with Heero, since the time they spent hiding out on earth, pretending to be regular high school students. That feeling of knowing that – however skilled they were, however well-prepared they were and however many successes they had had in the past at beating the odds – this could be the one mission where everything could go wrong and that look he had shared with his partner could be their last.

He focused on the task ahead, because he had no other choice.

The three of them went through a door marked MISSILE LAUNCH and ended up in the hollow core of the satellite, where a skeleton of metal walkways and staircases were built around the three towering missiles at the center. They were all the way at the top of a twenty-three floor tall hollow and would have to work their way down, systematically placing the charges.

"You two start up here and place charges A through E. I'll rush down and start midway with F and work my down to the main charge at the ground floor." At that point, he had no choice but to trust them to be able to fulfil their part in the mission.

Viver and Grace both nodded and rushed off to get to work. Duo watched them leave with furrowed brows and prayed that he hadn't made a huge mistake by assigning the inexperienced agents such an important task. He steeled his nerves and started making his way down the flights of stairs. The construction of the walkways was haphazard and inefficient; every few floors he had to run to the far end of the space to reach the next set of stairs going down. He listened in on Heero and Beck breaching the control room and taking over the computer system.

As he studied the beams that connected the metal structure to the walls of the inner core of the satellite, he asked the two for up-to-date blueprints on the construction, worried that some of the beams could be loadbearing, which case their calculations would be off. Fortunately, his self-doubt proved unfounded and he realized his mistake as he got a closer look at the shoddy junctions.

"Duo, won't the explosions trigger the nuclear warheads?" Beck asked over the radio.

Duo ducked down and held still, hiding under a staircase and watching a man with heavy, military boots come down to his level. "Hold that thought," he whispered as softly as he could. "I've got company."

With predatory eyes he watched the man casually walk away from him, letting his hand glide along the metal railing. His gun was in the holster at his hip, with the safety snap unbuckled. He had broad shoulders and thighs like the trunks of trees. In spite of his size, Duo didn't doubt that he could overpower the man, but he had to be quick if he wanted to keep him from firing off a shot that would alert the others.

His footfalls were inaudible as he snuck up behind him. His style wasn't as sophisticated as Heero – the Japanese agent could probably incapacitate a man like that with a single, well-placed blow to the neck – but he'd get the job done. With his right hand he landed a powerful punch into the man's kidney, while he expertly fished the gun out of the holster with his left.

The man let out a mighty groan. While he turned around, he reached for his belt, only to find the holster empty. He snarled when he saw Duo twirling the gun on his finger, mocking him. Duo hit him again, against his midriff, intending to knock the breath out of him, but the man took punches better than anticipated and managed to get in a shot of his own; hitting Duo square in the jaw. Honestly, that just pissed the agent off. He jammed the heel of his hand up against his nose, hearing it crack and feeling the blood spew out into his palm. Disoriented, the man could do nothing but clutch his face and Duo grabbed him by the neck and shoulders and pulled his torso down so he could knee him in the abdomen again and again until the big body went limp and slumped to the floor unconscious.

Duo straightened up and worked on quieting his heavy breathing. "Jesus, that was a big mother fucker." He grabbed said 'big mother fucker' by his ankles and dragged him out of sight. The facility would get blown up long before he would regain consciousness, so Duo wasn't going to put himself through the horror of personally executing him.

He routinely explained to Beck why there was no risk of the charges setting off the nuclear warheads on the three missiles while he raced down the staircases, until Heero scolded the chatter over the com-line and demanded radio silence so he could concentrate. Duo smirked at the tone Heero put up. Heero was much more expressive than the man was aware of.

On the eleventh floor he stopped and used the schematic to find the exact location where the explosive would have the greatest effect according to their calculations. He kneeled down and placed his backpack next to him to retrieve the first charge. As Heero showed off his hacking skills by giving them all a play-by-play of his plan of attack, Duo mock-chastized: "Do you mind? I'm handling explosives here. I'm trying to focus." He hoped that would make Heero smile. In all honesty, he could arm Semtex in his sleep; it wasn't exactly a delicate process, not with all the preparations they had taken in advance. It was a simple matter of applying the moldable, plastic explosive to the beam in front of him and inserting the wires of the electronic detonator, that he pressed into the front of the charge.

With the first charge done, he headed further down, to the next location. He had left himself with most of the charges, knowing he would get the job done faster than Grace and Viver. He worked quickly and he felt relaxed; he was in his element and he felt calmed knowing that Heero was in his element too.

"One more to go," he declared as he shouldered the backpack and went down to the ground floor.

Grace replied: "I just finished the third. Two more to go."

Duo chewed on the inside of his cheek. He had hoped they'd be done already and on their way down. "When I'm done down here I'll come back up to help you."

Viver groused: "We got it, Duo."

Her tone irked him. Regardless of what she might think, she was in no position to deny his authority. "I'm coming back up when I'm done," he restated firmly and he was put at ease a little when she didn't continue to argue with him.

Duo was in the process of setting the final charge at the bottom of the chasm, on a large support beam at the edge of the space, when suddenly everything went black and in the darkness his heart skipped a beat. Instinctually, he exclaimed: "What the fuck just happened?" But before he could even finish that sentence, red emergency lights started flashing all over, bathing the area in an ominous glow. His heart was racing and his hands weren't quite as steady as he was used to them being as he put the detonator down before he could apply it to the main charge.

Something had gone very wrong.

He listened to Beck meekly apologizing to his superior and Heero berating him, even though it was clear neither knew exactly what had happened. He could pinpoint an alarming note of panic in Heero's voice as the agent spoke.

"I'm locked out. We might have just lost everything."

Failure was definitely something Heero wasn't used to and Duo could tell he was unraveling and that he would take unacceptable risks to try and fix the mistake that had been made. "Forget about that!" Duo ordered, knowing that as soon as the emergency lights had come on, the crew would be converging on the control room, having been made aware that there was an intruder. "The entire crew has just been alerted someone is meddling with the controls. They're coming right for you as we speak!"

"I need to get back into the system, to see if the link with HQ is still open," Heero argued. "If not, I can download as much data as possible onto my portable."

He straightened up and moved to the center of the open space to look up at the windows of the control room at the very top. His body started to vibrate with a fear he had only felt once before: when he saw Heero standing on the open hatch of his Gundam, holding the self-detonator in his hands. If he couldn't talk any sense into him, he was going to do something stupid again and end up sacrificing himself for the sake of the mission. He could feel it in his bones. Duo knew Heero had little regard for his own life and wellbeing, so instead, he forced him to focus on the fact that this time around, he wouldn't be the only one to face the life-threatening consequences of his determination. He forced him to focus on Beck. "Heero, you and Beck need to get out of there! Now!" He insisted.

He waited for a reply, but it was quiet. He called out desperately: "Now, Heero!" He nearly wept with relief when he heard his partner say to Beck: "Let's go."

He stood there at the bottom, staring up, feeling useless. He tried to pinpoint his team and he spotted Grace and Viver coming down the stairs a few floors above him. He heard gunfire over the com and demanded to know what was going on and Heero reassured him that they were fine.

Grace was panting harshly, but managed to speak. "We could still activate the timers and set off the charges as planned."

"There's no point," Duo was quick to squash that brash idea. "They'll find most of the charges long before they go off and even an imbecile can diffuse Semtex."

"What if we set the timers early?" Viver unhelpfully meddled.

Before Grace could get any arrogant ideas, spurred on by the female agent, Duo warned him: "Don't you even dare with my timers, Grace."

Him standing in the open space and shouting into his mic wasn't the best example of his stealthy capabilities and he cursed under his breath when he noticed two men approaching him, right before he was ambushed. One of them wrapped his big arms around Duo's neck, while the other came around and started punching him. They were both armed, but apparently wanted to capture him alive for information.

Duo grabbed onto the forearms of the man behind him and used his frame as support as he kicked his other assailant with both feet, sending him flying backwards. Then he suppressed his natural urge to fight the chokehold the man had on him and he shifted his own hips so he could punch the man in the groin. As expected, that made his hold on him go weak and when Duo threw his head back, the back of his head connected with the man's forehead and weak hands grabbed at Duo's shoulders as the blow caused him to sink to his knees. The other man had scrambled to his feet and was charging towards him, so Duo reactively palmed his handgun and fired twice, watching him fall face-first and lifeless to the floor. When a hand grabbed his ankle, he fired a third bullet at the other man's face and kicked his limp hand away.

He squeezed his eyes shut. It had been a long time since he had been forced to take lethal action.

"Duo, where are you?" Heero asked.

"I'm all the way below." He looked up and saw two figures racing along the top floor, assuming them to be Heero and Beck. He didn't see Grace and Viver anymore, but they should nearly be downstairs.

"You need to head to the dock to clear a path and find us a shuttle," Heero strategized.

"I don't-"

"There's no point in you wasting time waiting for us," Heero interrupted him. "We need to get out as quickly as possible."

"Heero, there is plenty of time, we aren't going to set off the charges."

"It's not about what we set off! Duo, unless the power-down erased the changes I made in the system, the launch hatch isn't going to open. If they decide to fire those missiles, the rocket exhausts are going to burn up this place."

Duo's wide-eyed gaze traveled up the length of the three enormous missiles. "Jesus fuck…"

"It seemed like a good safety precaution at the time..."

"Haywire, Viv, where are you guys?"

"We're also on our way down."

He stared up and spotted them on the fourth floor. "Okay, hurry up. I'm gonna head for the dock and find us a ride out of here."

"Copy that," Heero and Grace replied in unison.

Duo took a deep breath and then willed his feet to move. He sprinted to the far side of the space, to the mouth of a corridor that would lead to the lower dock. With his gun drawn, he rushed down the hallway. The dim, red lighting that flashed on and off made it difficult to discern harmless shadows from unfriendlies and he had to tread with care. Along the way, he emptied the magazine of his gun shooting the control panels of every door he encountered, rendering them disabled, to prevent the crew from catching his teammates by surprise once they would follow the path he had had cleared for them.

He reached the docking bay and aside from two sentries guarding the access – whom he quickly subdued – he found it to be otherwise empty of personnel. He checked the log, looking for the fastest shuttle docked at the spaceport and settled on an old P13, which were always reliably speedy. All the shuttles were connected to the pressurized satellite by way of a trunk. Rather than head for the shuttle of choice directly, he released the airlocks on all the other trunks, making them a time-consuming hassle to board, should anyone get the idea to chase after them. Then he headed into the P13, somewhat disappointed by the state of the ship that the smugglers had left her in, but she would have to make do.

He passed through the small cargo hull and took a seat in the cockpit. His hands worked automatically to enable the start-up procedure, skipping through security checks to make haste. On the screen a warning flashed that the rocket exhausts were not supposed to be fired up while the ship was still attached to the dock, but he ignored the warning and started the engines anyway, making sure that all the break-valves were shut and the reserve flaps were open so the ship would stay in its stationary position. Aside from a small shudder, it didn't move and the airlock wasn't compromised.

The escape seemed to be going smoothly, but Viver was set on making things more dangerous than it already was. "I think we can still pull this off," she announced, overconfident after her and Grace had successfully fended off an attack. He could hear the waver of adrenaline in her voice. "Most of the charges have been set and so far everyone is too busy chasing us to even notice the explosives. We're on the ground floor at the main detonator. Haywire can reprogram the timer and synchronize remotely with the other timers, right?"

After a pause, hinting at hesitation, Grace agreed.

Duo burst: "I told you not to touch my fucking timers, Haywire! You better not! Heero and Beck are still up there!"

"We ll start the count down when they are down here and leave just enough time to get to the hangar. You've got a shuttle ready, right?"

Duo cursed under his breath at Viver's hubris. "I'm firing her up right now. Get-away-car is waiting, just fucking get your asses down here and forget about it. It's over. We've failed." He knew that would be hard for the team to hear – Heero especially – but he needed to get that through their thick skulls. None of them should be risking their lives for something that wouldn't work anyway.

Viver maintained: "No, we haven't! Beck screwed up, but we can still fix this! Grace?"

His hesitation was gone. Wanting to impress his female teammate, Grace became arrogant himself and overestimated his abilities. "I can do it."

"Don't, it won't even work." Duo calmed his voice and tried to convince them that setting off the charges they had placed wouldn't be sufficient to let the satellite implode in on itself, as planned.

Viver kept arguing with him, not listening to his reason. She just wanted to prove herself and that selfish ambition blinded her and it rubbed off on Grace as well. After some more back and forth, the two decided: "We're doing it."

Duo punched a side-panel in frustration, cutting his hand on a sharp edge. "No! Grace! Fuck!" He exclaimed helplessly. He continued yelling at them, hoping to frighten them into submission. When that obviously wasn't working, he tried to help Grace by walking him through the process of reprogramming the detonator, hoping to prevent him from making a catastrophic mistake. Grace and Viver were skilled agents, but neither had field experience and they misjudged how the stress and adrenaline of being on a mission affected a person's capabilities. Duo knew that, in spite of the extensive training, Grace's hands would be unsteady and his cognitive abilities hampered. Moreover, Duo had programmed the detonators himself and his style deviated from standard Preventer protocol and Grace wouldn't know how to handle the shortcuts and loopholes in Duo's self-learned programming.

It worried him that both Viver and Grace had stopped responding to him. He hadn't heard an explosion, gunfire, or a struggle, so he had to assume that they were either ignoring him or had taken out their earpieces.

"Heero, where are you two?" He asked, giving up on trying to help the other two.

Heero's answer was cut off by a loud, rumbling noise – an explosion. Duo froze in his seat and listened to the two men groan as they seemed to have gotten injured in the blast. He had one hand on the joystick but it was trembling and the palm became sweaty. Heero and Beck didn't say anything, all Duo heard was the sound of metal warping with a sickening screech.

"Status report!" He demanded desperately. Still no answer. He shot up from his seat and climbed out of the cramped cockpit, stating: "I'm coming, Heero! I'm coming for you!" There was no reply. He heard loud pops, which sounded like gunfire and his stomach churned. There was more groaning and screeching of metal buckling under its own weight and then he heard a grunt before everything went quiet.

His heart was racing as he sped down the corridor. He had his gun drawn but he was running too fast to be mindful of his surroundings. It was pure luck that he didn't encounter anyone; the crew on the ship had probably been close to the explosions and they had gotten killed or incapacitated in the blast. As he got closer to the hollow core, he smelled the fire and he ran into a wall of heat. At the end of the hallway, he came to a halt and stared at the massive destruction before him.

The entire skeleton of metal had collapsed in on itself, having peeled itself away from the crumbling and distorted walls. The beams and grates lay in a macabre pile at the bottom of the chasm. The three missiles had fallen to one side and rested against the wall, with their shells badly damaged. They were leaking rocket fuel. Flaming debris falling down from the ceiling landed in the puddles and the fire spread. Smoke was quickly filling up the space. It would only be a matter of time until the fire would reach the fuel tanks of the missiles, sparking more explosions.

"Heero…" He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Heero!" The only thing he heard was his own voice calling back to him.

He walked around the rubble, keeping his head low and bending forward to look between the beams. There was a clear path along the entire right side, where the wall on the ground floor came back a little further than the floors above it and the walkways had come straight down. Duo followed along that edge, hoping Heero had managed to get out of the way of the crumbling structure.

He kept repeating his name, his voice getting hoarse from smoke inhalation. He shone his flashlight along the contorted shapes of metal. He found a man, one of the crew – dead, his shirt on fire. He didn't give up his search even though protocol dictated that given the circumstances he should get himself to safety, seeing as it was highly improbable anyone could have survived the collapse.

"Grace? Viver?" He vainly spoke into the mic of his headset. Rationally, he knew the explosion they had triggered would have instantly wiped them out and he shouldn't even expect for there being bodies left to find, much less to find them alive. Being so close to the blast, they would have been evaporated.

He was nearly at the end of the open space when he spotted another body on the floor; lying face down, with arms outstretched, the lower body covered with debris. With a lump in his throat he aimed the beam of his flashlight and he felt sick as he recognized the messy mop of hair, blackened by soot.

"Heero," he released the name in a breath and rushed up to the unresponsive form. He paused a moment to compose himself before kneeling down next to him and putting two fingers against the side of his neck. "Jesus Christ, oh thank God," he muttered as he detected a faint pulse. He took the small flashlight between his teeth to free up both his hands and grabbed the first of the pieces of metal that covered Heero's lower body. He cleared away two grates and four smaller pieces of I-beams, only to reveal that a long beam had fallen across his lower legs, which were both crushed under the weight of it. He grabbed it and pulled with all his might, but it wouldn't budge. Panic made him jittery.

He started coughing, making him aware of the smoke building up in the air and that time was running out. Using another beam, he tried to create leverage to lift the big piece off his partner's legs, but without success.

"Dammit! Fucking- Fuck!" He knelt by Heero's torso and checked his pulse and breathing again; he was holding on, but barely. "Heero, what do I do? What do I do?" He asked hopelessly. He had gotten too used to relying on Heero when shit hit the fan. He was on his own now.

He paced back and forth and punched the wall so hard that the metal sheet dented and he might have broken a bone or two, but he couldn't feel the pain. With his rage amped up, he tries lifting the debris off his partner again, but not even the Perfect Soldier could have lifted that steel if their roles were reversed.

A groan drew his attention and he knelt down again and leaned over the body that seemed smaller than it ever had. Heero was shorter than him, but, somehow, the young man had never seemed smaller than him. He held himself with a pride and strength that was imposing and filled a room, but he was just a crumpled body lying on the floor now.

"Heero?" He whispered. His heart was racing.

"… Uhnnn…"

He squeaked his name again and dropped his head down on top of Heero's, nuzzling his nose in his hair. He smelled the smoke and fire in the thick tresses.

Heero's moans grew louder as he started to wake up and the pain was registering. His arms moved restlessly and eventually he clawed at the floor as he tried to crawl away but couldn't. He raised his head up from the floor, but didn't look at Duo. His eyes were dark and distant and squinted and they search his surroundings. "Duo?"

"I'm here." He grabbed one of his hands and cradled it in his palms. Finally, Heero focused his gaze on him.

"You have to leave," Heero said. His voice was strained.

"I can't. I don't know how to get you out." His voice cracked and he became aware that he was crying.

"You have to go," Heero ordered and he swats his hands away. "You have to go now!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Yes, you are! Go! Go!" Heero screamed at him at the top of his lungs and pushed Duo away until he was out of reach. "Go!" He sounded raw but determined to get Duo to do his bidding.

Duo scrambled to his feet and ran away, but he had no intention of leaving his partner behind. Rather than following the hallway back to the space dock, he took a door to the left and started an aimless search; not even knowing what he was looking for. He ended up in a corridor connecting several offices to a workspace in the back. He walked down the hallway to the door at the end but found it to be locked. He pressed his face against the window to peer into the space and on the far wall opposite of the door he spotted something that sparked the solution.

A fire axe.

He recoiled as it hit him what he would have to do, but he had no other choice – he was not leaving without Heero. He took a few steps back to give himself a running start to shoulder the door open, but it didn't work. He slammed into the door again and again, but the lock held. In desperation, he punched the window, but it didn't break.

"God – fucking – dammit!" He yelled and kicked the door in spite before stalking into the nearest office to find anything solid enough to held him break the glass. The metal coat-rack would do. He grabbed the long bar with heavy foot on one end and hooks on the other and walked it back to the locked door. He jabbed the foot at the window and it easily shattered the glass. He reached in, cutting himself on the jagged edges and he unlocked the door. The agent headed straight for the axe, punching the protective glass in front of it to get his hands on it. After a brief search he found a rubber hose that he would need as well, to keep Heero from bleeding out. With the hose in one hand and the axe in the other, resting the long handle on his shoulder, he stormed back to the hollow core of the satellite. It was fortunate that there didn't seem to be any other survivors to hamper his progress.

He heard Heero's pained groans even before he rounded the corner and they made his step falter. He would only be hurting him more – even if it was to save his life. He shook his head and steeled his nerves and hurried back over to his friend.

The other agent noticed his return and he cried out: "No! What are you doing here?" Then he must have seen what Duo was holding and his eyes widen with panic. "No. No! Duo! Don't! You have to leave!"

Duo didn't listen to him. He cut the rubber hose in two pieces with the sharp axe and started the task of tying the rubber around each of Heero's thighs, just above the joints of his knees. Heero was weekly slapping at Duo, still begging for him to stop and leave, but Duo ignored him and focused on making sure that the rubber bands were tied tightly enough to cut off circulation to the lower legs. Duo's entire body trembled and he felt sick to his stomach, but he knew it was the only way to get his partner off the satellite before the whole thing would either collapse on them, or depressurize.

He got up on his feet and took hold of the axe, wringing the handle in his hands. He looked down at the pale hand that grabbed his ankle.

"Don't! Please don't!" Heero wailed. "Just leave me here!" He was crying hysterically; he didn't look or sound like himself at all. "Please just let me die here!"

Duo adjusted his grip on the handle and raised the fire-engine red axe over his head. Heero was screaming at him, but he dismissed him. He valued Heero's life more than his partner did himself and any sacrifice would be worth saving him. He gritted his teeth and swung the axe down. As the blade cut into Heero's leg, right below the hollow of his knee and above where the beam was crushing his lower leg, Heero's cry of agony cut through Duo's chest. Duo paused to wipe away his own tears to clear his vision and then swung the axe down again, but there was hesitation in his swing and it took a third attempt to separate the right lower leg from the rest of the body. There was a lot of blood, in spite of the make-shift tourniquet. It dripped off the blade of the axe as he raised it over his head again and he steadied himself to take aim at the left leg.

Heero was shrieking and mindlessly clawing at the ground. Duo had hoped he would pass out from the pain, but he didn't and he became so unnerved by how wrecked the Perfect Soldier had become that he missed on the first swing and the axe bounces off the steel beam with a clang and he felt the vibrations come up the handle and pass through his arms.

He took a deep breath through his nose, but coughed as all he managed to do was inhale more of the smoke that was thickening around them. The heat was rising as the rocket fuel burned and around them the satellite was groaning as the intense heat of the flames was compromising the few support beams that were still upright and keeping the structure for falling in on itself. Panic kicked in and Duo hacked at the second leg in hurry. With each blow he felt his strength and resolve weaken and he didn't raise the axe as high as he should have; it was becoming too heavy for him. It took four strikes to cut through the leg, down to the floor, where the axe got jammed into the metal sheeting. Duo let go of the handle and staggered backwards, horrified at what he had done.

Realizing it had been done, Heero finally went quiet. Red eyes stared up ahead. His fingers and his bottom lip were trembling. Tears were streaming down his face, cleaning away the soot on his cheeks, leaving two streaks of paper-white skin on an ashy-gray complexion. His entire body went stiff as he slipped into shock.

Duo forced himself to snap out of his daze. They had come this far, they had to hurry if they wanted to make it. The thick smoke was becoming suffocating. He turned Heero over and bundled him up in his arms and lifted him up from the floor. He walked away and never looked back at the red stumps that were sticking out from under the fallen support beam.

Along the way back to the space shuttle, he had to adjust his grip on his partner several times, to prevent him from falling. The blood made his legs slick and they nearly slipped off Duo's arm a few times without the weight of the lower legs keeping his knees hooked over his forearm. Heero was awake, but completely absent. His eyes were dead. His breaths were quick and shallow. His hands were stiff claws held awkwardly in front of his chest.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay," Duo kept telling him, feeling like more and more of a liar every time. Did he really save him, or did he just let the man he loved die in a different way?

Finally, he reached the shuttle and climbed on board. He buckled Heero into the co-pilot seat and covered him with a canvas tarp that he had found in the back, knowing he had to try to keep his body temperature from dropping lower. He checked the tourniquets on the leg to confirm they were still wound tightly around the legs, but he was losing blood and Duo had no idea how long he had left to get Heero to a medical facility.

He strapped himself in and hurried through the undocking procedure. He was gripping the controls too tightly and it wasn't his best performance as a pilot, but he was doing the best he could in the distraught state he was in.

The mouth of the space dock was deformed as the hangar was starting to cave in since the entire satellite was losing its structural integrity. The side of the shuttle scraped by the left wall as he steered them out into outer space with jittering hands.

When he looked at Heero again, he was relieved to see he was out cold. He sobbed helplessly as he flew them to the nearest colony, as fast as the shuttle was capable of. He couldn't shake the feeling that the part of Heero that they had left behind was something more important than just his legs.