A/N - I used to write fanfics a lot during my teenage years, took a break during college, and got back into writing them just a bit before I graduated. I have been surprised at the seemingly new trend to stop writing reviews to writing that we feel is good, or bad, or means something. I apologize if I have been a part of that trend, and will work harder to let authors know I appreciate and have an opinion about their work. Some of the best inspiration I have received in writing has been from thoughtful reviews of my readers. Sorry about my little rant.

Chapter 11

Heero woke to the sun setting through his window. He stretched and yawned, still feeling the effects of Sally's drug clawing at his eye lids. Hiding in his room and sleeping forever sounded like a much better alternative than facing the others after what had happened. He thrummed with a need to undo that vulnerability, to make the others not know so much that was once his own private pain.

If Dr. Jay could see me now Heero thought wryly. He would encourage me to end this pathetic existence before I endangered anyone else. Since I keep proving incapable of fulfilling the mission, I should at least stop endangering it. Heero would be lying if suicide didn't seem like a viable and appealing option. Still, a small part of him remembered Duo's words when Heero had hinted at the idea. 'No, you idiot. No, never. Don't you go anywhere on me.'

Heero was circling and spinning in these thoughts when there was a knock on his door, a pause, and then Duo entered. Heero tried to feign sleep, but he slipped into sleep breathing a moment too late, there was a moment of normal breathing that Duo would not miss.

"Hey, Pal. Welcome back to the land of the living. You've been out for two days. How do you feel."

Heero just blinked at Duo, too overwhelmed and trapped in his thoughts to respond. How does my amount of sleep matter right now when being alive is the issue? Duo, can't you see that I don't give a fuck about any of it?!

"I see, so not so good then. Sally left some soup for you to eat when you got up. You shouldn't dive into solid food just yet, since you haven't eaten for two days. Sally said it will make you sick."

"It's fine, I'm not hungry" Heero answered his head turned away from Duo's profile, glowing in the setting sun.

"Yea, I figured you would say that, but I have to have you eat something for me anyway. I will tell Trowa to start heating the soup, it won't take long."

Heero remained staring away from Duo. Duo sighed, and then sat down on the bed next to Heero. Heero flinched, but didn't give into his desire to scoot away from Duo.

"Look man, I know you are going through some serious shit, and it is going to be hard to get out of it. You said some things the other night that got me a bit worried, me and the others too. Do we need to put you on some kind of suicide watch while you are getting sober?"

The color drained from Heero's face, answering Duo's question. "Oh 'Ro. You saved the fucking world, how can you think you are not important?" Duo felt a pleading note come into his voice, and swallowed it down. He told the others he could handle this conversation, and handle it he would. They had all expected Heero's suicidal desperation had not just been an after effect of his nightmare.

"Well, I'm sorry, man, I really am. I guess I figure I have some understanding of what it feels like to be worthless. Maybe you don't think I do. I, we, me and the others, feel that given time and help your feelings will pass and ending your life isn't really what you want. Because of that, we have accepted the mission to keep you alive."

Heero groaned inside. Why did they have to go and make it a fucking mission? He almost longed for the nightmares of his sleep as opposed to this waking one. Without realizing it, Heero slid back into his covers, and curled up around his pillow.

"Come on 'Ro, I need a response, and what you are giving me so far doesn't look good. You are actually kind of scaring me a bit."

Shame, guilt, and fear bubbled and festered inside Heero's chest. His suicide before had always been justified by putting the mission as his highest priority. What was his justification now? How fucked up was he?!

"I don't have any words of comfort for you, Duo. I am not good with words. I leave the speeches to Relena and Quatre. I guess it is a bit late to convince you all that I am not all kinds of fucked up" Heero said, more of a statement than a question.

"Yea, that one we sort of figured out."

"I don't know what to do, Duo. I am worn out and I am done. The price of peace was always supposed to be my life. I'm not sure I have the will or desire to sort out this mess. I've fucked things up pretty bad. I guess I didn't know until when we talked how much I wanted to die, but I suppose that is what I have been trying to accomplish for the last several months now."

Heero paused, feeling both ill and relieved that he was finding some words at last. Though he didn't want to say them out loud, somehow words for these feelings found him around Duo and Enson. Words didn't fix things, but it helped the feelings be bearable for another moment.

Heero heard Duo make a choking noise and looked up to see Duo's face wet with tears. The choking noise had been Duo's sob. Heero fought his surprise at Duo's tears.

"Duo, why are you crying?"

"Do you really have no idea how important you are to me, to all of us? I don't know how we failed you so badly as friends, and I am fucking pissed that we did. I can't believe we were so wrapped up in our own shit that we couldn't see how much you needed us. Damnit Heero, I am just so fucking sorry."

Heero felt his stomach surged. he felt so much shame and guilt. Didn't Duo understand that this is why Heero had to go? To stop hurting Duo and the others? If Heero could love anyone it would be his fellow brothers-in-arms. Hurting them was inexcusable.

"Duo -"

"No! I don't want to hear you say that stuff again right now. I need you to listen to me, not hear, listen. Heero, you mean so much to me. I understand you don't think you should or whatever, but you do. You don't have the power to change how much you mean to me, and I know the others feel the same way. If we lose you before your time, I think we all would lose a part of ourselves, a part of us that is and will always be gundam."

Heero was sure he was going to be ill now. The pressure was built too strong. He tried to wriggle out of the covers, but just succeeded in tangling himself up in the more.

Duo seemed to understand something was amiss, "Hold on, buddy, let me help." Heero stopped struggling, and Duo untangled him from the covers. Heero slide out of the bed as his stomach surged demandingly. He shut the door of the bathroom, but the slam of wood was not enough to deafen Heero's heaving. When it sounded like Heero was done, Duo opened the door to find him leaning against the wall by the toilet, his face grey and sweaty.

Duo wet a cloth laying on the bathroom counter and mopped Heero's face. Heero accidentally met Duo's eyes, and to his surprise he didn't see pity or disgust, but sadness and. . . something else he didn't know.

"You can't get yourself worked up like this, or you are going to waste away to nothing." Realizing that Heero wouldn't object to that alternative, Duo smiled grimly. "I'm the God of Death, 'Ro, and I won't let death take you yet."

Heero breathed deeply and slowing, going into himself to relax the muscles in his body and calm the raging sea of his stomach; Heero loathed dry heaves. He looked up at Duo through his bangs, robbed of words.

Duo sat down next to Heero on the bathroom tile and pulled Heero's head on his shoulder, stoking his hair again. Heero fought for a moment under Duo's tender touch, but gave in as some semblance of peace swam into the chaos of his mind.

"Sally said your getting sick like that is a physical reaction to anxiety, and other strong emotion."

"I can't control it, Duo. I don't exactly enjoying being sick all the time. It is very inconvenient. If I was on a mission right now, I'd be a liability. Nothing pisses me off more than being unfit for duty right now."

"No. shoot. I am not saying this right. I don't mean you are doing this on purpose - I am not accusing you of seeking attention - your problem is very much the opposite. You would melt into the shadows if we let you. Sally said it has to do with your nightmares, and PTSD, and anxiety, and OCD,and a whole bunch of other psychological stuff I don't really get. She said that when people go through things, sometimes it is too much to handle in the moment, and people don't always understand they were going through too much until afterward, sometimes long after. I am guessing she thinks that is what is happening with you."

"Sally says a lot of things, and it sounds like a lot of words that end of meaning I am 'fucked up'."

"I'm with you, man. They put some kind of psychological label thing on me awhile ago when I. . . sought help. I don't even remember it all, but fucked up is more or less what it amounted too. We all are, all of us gundam pilots. How couldn't we? The world asked us, particularly you, to be more than human and somehow we were. Now we are paying the cost of that loss of humanity. You have to fight this, Heero. I need you to win." Duo chided himself for letting the last part slip out of his mouth. He didn't want to put any more pressure on Heero.

Heero felt anxiety flood through him again, and he fought to calm his muscles and keep steady. How had the situation reversed? Heero was always the one calming a freaking-out Duo. Is this what Duo's freak outs had felt like?

"How do you bear it?" Heero asked quietly, trying to relax more into Duo's shoulder.

"I don't know if my way is the best way, or even if it is a good way, but I bear the pain of the war by my work with the preventers. It helps me feel like I am doing things to keep that from ever happening again. I am fighting so there won't be a new god of death in the future."

"I can't." Heero said defeatedly. "I tried. I can't work for the preventers. I try and every mission it is like I am back in the war, but I can't be calm and calculating anymore. There is nothing to protect me from the raw rage and agony of war, this continual pattern of humanity. I fucking saved the world, and right after I have to do it again. War is never going to fucking end!"

"I can see how that would make it hard to ever feel free from the burden of saving this world. I didn't realize you still carried that burden with you - that title of Savior that was pinned to you. Instead of a badge of honor, it has been a badge of guilt and anger and fear?"

Heero felt drained and exposed. He didn't know what he felt just then, but Duo's explanation made as much sense as any other explanation. Heero's head felt heavy and his body weak. His eye lids flickered, a movement that Duo did not miss.

"Time to get you back to bed, Heero."

"Why am I so tired?" Heero mumbled sleepily.

"Because you have to start taking better care of yourself. Not eating and sleeping as well as all that alcohol, you should be dead."

"Tell. . . tell me about. . . about it."

"I guess it wasn't for lack of trying then."

Heero didn't answer, sleep was cradling the young man, his deep blue eyes covered by heavy lids. "Well Heero, I appreciate your honesty, but when you wake up you are probably going to hate yourself for it, because suicide watch it is. We can't have you die on us before we even have a chance to help you. I'm sorry - I can't just let you go."

The next time Heero awoke it was to the smiling face of morning person Wufei dressed smartly for work in his pressed suit. "Come on, Heero, Enson is expecting you at work today, and I'm your driver. I have to be to work in an hour, so it's time to rise and shine. Enson said if you don't show up at work today his customers who have driven all the way here for your services might sue."

Heero wiped his sleep from his eyes, feeling like child being roused from an over-long nap. He looked out of his window to see the beginnings of false dawn coloring the sky. As sleep left his mind, he remembered more and more of his most recent conversation with Duo, and realized that he, Heero Yuy, was on suicide watch.

Heero groaned, and turned towards the wall away from Wufei. If they wanted to treat him like a child then he would act like one, Heero thought bitterly.

Suddenly Heero's covers were ripped off him and he felt himself tumble to the floor. Wufei was still there, looking down at him with a smile. "Rise and shine, sleepy. Breakfast is waiting, and I think, no offense, you could very much use a shower."

Drink, Heero thought spitefully. I could very much use a drink.

Wordlessly Heero got up off the floor, grabbed clothes from his drawer, and walked towards the bathroom ajoint to his room. Looking back angrily he said to Wufei, "Permission to cross to the bathroom, SIR?"

"You don't have to ask," Wufei said sadly, all bravado aside, "But you do have to ask to have this" Wufei said, holding up Heero's razor. "After you get out of the shower you can come get it from me and I or one of the others will watch you shave with it and then return it to us in one piece."

Heero raged, but contented himself to stare passively at Wufei, relishing in the control over his emotion.

"We have also received permission from Commander Une to relieve you of your duty weapons for the present time. I. . . I am sorry, Heero. I'll be waiting down stairs when you are ready" Wufei said, his eyes shining as he left the room.

Heero boiled over inside, and slammed his fist into the wall, before walking into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him. He had never been doubted before, he had never been babysat like this, never had his freedom limited, and he hated it. Rebellion festered in his heart as he prepared for the day.

Heero was downstairs in fifteen minutes. When he entered the dining room for breakfast tension hummed in every movement. Food was the last thing Heero was interested in. When he felt everyone's eyes on him, he turned around and left the room. He had been accommodating and trying hard to participate in meals, and in their fucking movie, but not anymore.

Wufei stood up too follow Heero, since he was Heero's appointed guard for the day. "Heero?" Wufei called as he walked through the living room. His chest tightened as he heard distant rumble of a motor, and knew it was Heero's motorcycle. Wufei ran to the window in enough time to see Heero riding away. "Damnit!"

"We anticipated this as one of his reactions. Heero isn't a docile bird when caged" Quatre said with a sigh, as he came up behind Wufei.

"What else could we have done?" said Duo, sliding into an arm chair.

"I'm not sure even Heero knows what the right thing to do is right now. Maybe that is the problem" Trowa said softly, crossing into the living room and taking Quatre's hand discretely.

"Right now all we can do is go about our day and pray he will come home. I'll call Enson and let him know the situation" Wufei sighed, and took his his cell.