Chapter 11

I wanted to cry. To scream. To throw things and break things. It was incredible…freakin' unbelievable. I think the gods were conspiring to keep me away from Heero.

I hadn't seen him for three weeks.

Every single time I got back from a mission, I'd find out that Heero had just been called away, and every time just before he came back, I was notified of another one for me.

And if the gods weren't conspiring against us, then I wondered if the scientists were doing it, and then I wanted to kill them.

My nightmares had come back, and come back with a vengeance, now that I didn't have Heero to ward them off.

I'd begun losing weight again.

The other pilots told me Heero was looking pretty bad, and tired to the bone, and I couldn't do anything. It was killing me.

Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei were worried about both of us, and it was taking its toll on them as well.

Wufei had broken his leg, and Quatre got knifed.

That meant I had even less of a chance for meeting Heero, since their missions got passed onto us. I hated myself for being angry at them for getting injured.

So here I was, on another damn mission.

I swore. How they hell did I end up here? Somehow they'd chased me to the edge of a cliff.

So I had two choices now: face down ten hulking guys carrying guns that could drill holes through three people at a time, or the water a thousand feet below. With rocks. Sharp rocks.

Joy.

A bullet whizzed by my air and I made a split second decision, and dove off the cliff.

I hit the water with a clean dive, missing a nasty looking rock by inches, before a powerful wave smashed me right into it.

I gasped as I felt several ribs bend, and gulped down some wonderful seawater.

Then I saw a bullet hurtle through the water a few feet away, and thought, What the hell? They're shooting into the damn water!

Damn, I needed some air. I stuck my head out for just a bare mouthful of air, before sticking it back into the safety of the water.

I swam to the left, imagining their vicious little bullets thudding into my back, and dove down a little lower.

Reluctantly, I went back up for some air, and cocked my head, listening for the distinctive sounds of bullets impacting water. There were none.

I could've cheered.

Unfortunately, I was back up where the waves were, and again, I was smashed into a rock. This time I think I felt a couple ribs crack. Ow. Then it unwrapped me from the rock, and wham! Smashed me right back. Really, really ow.

Somehow I managed to swim the last few meters without any more unarranged encounters with the forbidding exterior of a rock, staggered out of the water, and collapsed on the beach, panting.

Damn. The way this day was going, I'd be lucky if I didn't get hypothermia.

Okay, now I needed to get back up the cliff. Well…hell. I should've taken my chances with those goons.

I scanned the unwelcoming rock face, and noticed a trail. A trail with people climbing down it.

"Shit!"

They hadn't seen me yet, which was strange, but hey, count your blessings and all that crap, remember?

I scrambled back into the water, and splashed around frantically for a moment, before a current grabbed hold of me and carried me past a nice large boulder.

My mind shrieked shelter! Not willing to let an opportunity pass me by, I grabbed onto a ledge, and hung on for dear life.

Dimly, over the roar of the water, I heard shouting, and just hoped they wouldn't think that anyone was idiotic enough to hide in the water like this. Or that they were too lazy to swim out here and check. Or that they did check, and got impaled on a rock.

That last scenario was actually the most pleasing, and for a moment, grinning, I forgot about my ribs, and the rock and the water.

I don't know how long I stayed there, hearing fractured moments of yelling, before they were overwhelmed by the roaring, waiting for the time when I couldn't hear a single voice, even above the waves.

I finally felt safe enough after I think what must've been two hours, and I was absolutely frozen. I was a Duopopsicle.

My hands were literally stuck to the rock, and it took every ounce of strength I had to make myself let go. My joints were glued together, I think, and even afterward, my hands were like claws. The palms were almost torn to ribbons, from the edge of the rock cutting into them every single time my body surged or rushed up with the water.

That's when I remembered the current. Oops. I was dragged backwards again, and when my hands hit the water, I think I screamed.

Ouch. Salt. You know, I really hate this day.

I want Heero.

At that thought, I began to struggle against the current, and somehow, using superhuman strength that I had no idea I had, I forced myself out of its path.

Then I saw the shore. It seemed billions of miles away. I forced back a moan. C'mon, I can do this. I'm not going to die here, drowning in the water, and never see the others again. I just want to see Heero one last time. Please.

My hands had gone beyond pain now, and swimming was really, really agonizing. Ever tried to gasp air into burning lungs with broken ribs? How do I put this? Don't. It hurts. Like hell.

Everything following after that was kind of a 'somehow.' Somehow I got back to shore. Somehow I finished the climb up the cliff on the trail. Somehow I managed to hotwire a car and drive it without crashing into anyone. Personally, I'm really quite proud of that fact. And then somehow I ditched the car miles away from our safehouse and tottered all the way there without collapsing once. I think it took me a few days to get through all that. I only stopped to sleep when I was about to drop from exhaustion, and I was still kind of afraid that I wouldn't be able to wake up. But the nightmares took care of that problem.

Oh yeah…and remember that part about hypothermia? My hopes were dashed most unpleasantly. Pneumonia seemed rather likely now, and I was sure I had some kind of congestion in my lungs.

I'd discovered, with a sort of numb horror, that I was coughing blood.

The mantra that kept me moving those nightmarish few days was, I want see Heero, I want to see Heero.

Yeah, I know I'm pathetic.

And here I was, finally at the safehouse…for a moment I was sure I was hallucinating, and tried to step through the house, only to bang my ankle most painfully.

I yelped quietly, and stared at my ankle with amazement.

After a few really, really slow minutes, I figured out that if my ankle hurt, that meant that whatever it hit, had been real. If the stairs were real, then logically, the rest of the house was real as well.

I reeled up the steps drunkenly, trying to go as fast as possible, and only succeeded on almost falling flat on my face.

The door took me what seemed an eternity to open, since my hand kept missing the doorknob, and I was just glad it wasn't locked.

Okay, this was a one story building…that made me really happy. Now…if I could just find the others.

I navigated my way unstably past looming walls and pieces of furniture.

The whole place seemed empty, and I was starting to wonder if I'd come to the wrong place, or that I really was just hallucinating the whole thing.

I realized I probably was imagining things when the walls started whirling around me, and the floor seemed to be tilting forward, backward, to the side, like I was on a rocking boat.

My room. Our room. There it was, ahead of me.

Well, even if this was a product of my delirium, maybe if I opened the door, I could imagine Heero into being, smiling at me. Wouldn't be a bad way to die, I suppose.

So I did. My hand was strangely steady as I turned the doorknob, and as I stared into the room, my vision narrowed down to Heero, sitting in the room, in front of his lab top.

He didn't look up at me, though, and I tried to grin. Even my imaginary Heero gets absorbed into his computer.

"Yes Quatre?" he asked, and I turned to see if Quatre was behind me. He wasn't.

"I'm not hungry," he said, and his voice sounded…wooden, worse than when I first met him. I wondered what sort of loops my psyche was going through to produce this kind of hallucination.

I just looked at him, drinking up the sight of Heero, albeit a haggard, defeated-looking one. I hoped the real Heero didn't look like that.

I examined this one critically. He'd lost weight, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn't washed in a while, and his hair was messier than usual.

"Quatre," he said, annoyance adding a small spark to that too-dead voice, "I said I'm not hungry."

Well, I thought defiantly, it's my hallucination. I can go with the flow if I want.

"Well you should be," I grated. Damn. My voice was a hell of a lot worse than hoarse.

He raised his head slowly, and finally, finally gave me a look at his blue eyes. Oh gods, they looked so real, so Heero.

He stared at me, motionless as a statue.

"Duo?" Ah, finally some life in his voice.

"Hey Heero," I grinned tiredly, "I finally get to see you again. Even if it's in my imagination."

He looked a bit bewildered by my choice of words, but kept staring at me.

Then, all of a sudden, he wasn't sitting anymore, he was standing, and then he was across the room in front of me.

I swayed a little, adjusting my sight to the sudden shift, and he reached out a hand to steady me.

Everything seemed to be dropping away, my pain, my cough, my tiredness, and I murmured, "Heero? Give me a hug before you leave?"

There was a split-second pause, and then he jerked me into his arms, and again, the whole thing seemed so believable; I wondered at my imagination…it seemed it could remember things so much better than my own mind.

Heero's muscled arms, chest, hands, the feel of his heart beating and how his breath stirred the hairs on top of my head, the crook of his shoulder.

I sank into his warmth, and just…drifted away.

After that, instead of meeting up with God (if there was one) and being condemned to hell, as I had expected, things were really vague and confusing.

There were bright lights, and I was lying on my back, and Wufei was urging me to just hold on.

Quatre pleading, Don't die, big brother, with Trowa standing behind him, a worried frown on his face.

Heero. Heero sitting next to me, holding my hand, Heero moving something moist over my face, Heero telling me to live. Heero waking me up from a nightmare in which he exploded in front of me, the current carrying me away from his pleading face. Heero with tears on his face. Okay, the rest might've been real, but that one had to be a figment of my imagination.

Sometime, during all those befuddling flashes of the other guys, I realized that I wasn't dead, and that I was in a hospital.

And then I woke up. Ugh. Did I mention I hate bright lights?

Reorienting myself, I looked to where I thought Heero usually was, and voila! There he was, asleep.

Or at least I thought he was asleep until he moved.

"Heero?" I said, and found to my great surprise, that my voice wasn't all that bad after all.

He lifted his head, and this most relieved look, along with a few other emotions I couldn't read, flashed across his face. "Duo, you're awake."

"Yeah," I agreed, "…how long has it been?"

"Four days."

"Four days?" I gasped. Why is it every time I decide to take a nosedive onto the floor, it takes four damn days?

"Yes."

"Christ, what happened to me?"

"Exhaustion, pneumonia, a punctured lung, lacerations across your palms, and four broken ribs." He rattled them off like he'd memorized them.

"Oh. Yeah."

He made as if to stand up, and I said, remembering, "You…you don't have a mission to go to…do you?"

He sat back down with this most horrible look of self-loathing in his eyes, and said, "No. No missions."

"Can I have a hug?" I asked almost timidly.

"Of course," he breathed, "just make sure I don't hurt you."

"Don't worry," I said, "my ribs are fine. They don't hurt at all."

He was still holding me when a nurse walked in with a tray. She stopped, stared at us, took another step, stopped again, and stared at us some more.

I suddenly realized what we probably looked like, and blushing, I started to pull away, but Heero merely tightened his hold.

He glared at the nurse, and she just…wilted.

"Put the tray on the table," Heero growled, and she did, automatically responding to the tone of command in his voice.

Then she walked out, visibly cowed.

"Heero," I reproached him, but he merely said righteously,

"She interrupted our hug."

I laughed at him.

We eventually got around to feeding me…the part I dreaded.

I really hated not being able to feed myself, and I was quite capable of moving my arm around, thank you very much, even if I did have huge, bulky bandages on my hands. But Heero insisted, you know, in that tone of voice that sends armies packing, and I gave in. Not graciously, but I did.

Just as I was finishing the last portion of whatever that hospital food was, everybody else walked in.

There were several exclamations of, "Duo! You're awake!"

"Hey guys," I said, their obvious happiness at seeing me up instantly bringing a smile to my face.

Quatre rushed at me, but checked himself at the last second, reaching for my hand, and held himself back again at Heero's warning growl. His hands fluttered above me uncertainly, and he glanced wistfully at the chokehold Heero had my braid in, but settled for wrapping himself around my arm. Looking at me with those soulful blue eyes of his, he said solemnly, "We thought we'd lost you, big brother."

Heero grunted, and his hands twitched, as if he wanted to tug me back into the protective circle of his arms; a sort of cloud cloaked the room as the others remembered those days I'd disappeared.

"Hey," I joked, trying to lighten the mood, "two bullets and an army of Ozzies couldn't keep me away, what makes you think a bad cold and some cracked ribs could do the job?"

They didn't seem to appreciate my attempt at levity.

"A hell of a lot more than a bad cold and cracked ribs," Wufei said soberly. The rest nodded their agreement.

I sighed. "It was a bit close," I admitted.

"You vanished for three days and the last reports we got of you were that you'd drowned in the ocean," Trowa informed me pretty steadily.

"Oh," I said, taken aback, and added lamely, "Well, um, I didn't." Nearly did, though, Other Duo reminded me.

I fiddled with my bangs since my braid was temporarily…inaccessible, chewing on a strand thoughtfully: a habit I really needed to break.

I tasted salt, and spat it back out.

"Ugh," I said, disgusted, and scrutinized my braid closely, discovering that the whole thing was crusted with salt.

"We tried to rinse some of the salt out," Quatre said, "but we didn't want to take out your braid." He looked at me for my…approval, I guess.

I instantly forgave them the mess my hair was in, as if it was their fault, I chided myself, and beamed at them brightly.

Quatre seemed to perk up almost immediately, and I wondered that so little could make him so happy. Being an older brother does have its responsibilities.

I reached out to ruffle his hair, only to have my hand immediately grabbed by Heero, who cautioned, "Duo, your hands!"

Oh yeah. I scowled. Hand wounds are such a pain.

"What happened to them?" he asked abruptly, and I had to actually think for a moment.

"I cut them on a rock," I evaded.

"What the hell did you do?" Wufei asked almost angrily. "Take the rock and slice your palms to the bone?"

"No, I was just holding onto a damn boulder in the middle of a damn riptide flow," I snapped back, reacting to his angry tone.

They stared at me for a moment.

"Riptide?" That came from Trowa.

"Uh…yeah. I was hiding."

"And why were you hiding in the water?" Wufei this time.

What was with the damn interrogation?

"Because," I said sullenly, "I'd just jumped off a bloody cliff."

Nobody seemed to know what to say, and they had those goddamn scared looks again.

"You jumped off a cliff," Quatre said faintly.

"Look," I said, totally exasperated now, "it's not like I had any choice. It was either that, or get blown to pieces."

I winced at the way Heero was literally strangling my braid.

Oops. Well…this was definitely not reassuring them, and if I didn't want everyone in full 'protect Duo from the deadly ant gasp' mode, I'd better do something. Fast.

"It's all right, guys," I soothed desperately, "We've all been in pretty dangerous situations before, and we've all survived. Just because I had a close call recently doesn't mean I'm one foot past death's door."

"No," Trowa agreed; I perked up, "you were past that."

Damn. It hadn't worked.

"Guys…" I looked at them warily, "You're going to insist on babying me and acting like a little paper cut will kill me no matter what I say, aren't you?"

They looked a little bit sheepish, but more determined than ever.

I sighed.

And for the entire stay at the hospital, five days, I was fussed over like there was no tomorrow.

It was…oddly infuriating. I wanted to wallop them and hug them at the same time, but couldn't fix on either, so there was nothing for me to do but meekly accept their ministrations.

Okay, maybe not meekly, exactly, but I didn't threaten to disembowel anyone.

And, well, every single time I thought that Quatre had worried about my eating habits just a little too agitatedly, or Wufei asked me if I was comfortable one too many, my outburst would die in my throat before it even had time to fester.

See, every single time I felt myself reach my breaking point, I would see Trowa giving me this tender little look, or feel the way Heero would lay me back down so considerately, caringly, and even if they had the words 'Kick me here' painted on their ass, I don't think I could have booted them one if my life depended on it.

That sort of kindness just kind of makes a guy's resentment wither and die.

I admit, I had been kind of unreasonably mad at Heero for just up and disappearing for three weeks, which brought back too many bad memories from the time he'd almost died, but you know what? The moment I saw Heero, he was forgiven. Just like that. How freakin' pathetic is that?

Pretty freakin' pathetic.

I think that, during my…er, rehabilitation, while I was still stuck in la-la-land, I'd rambled a lot about him. I vaguely recall talking about wanting to see Heero just once again before I died, and asking, begging, really, for the times I realized he was there, not to leave me.

How very…humiliating. I really hope that that was a false memory. I'm afraid that it probably wasn't, though.

Nope, from the pains Heero obviously took not to leave me, I'd probably really scared him with my pleading. He practically left notes when he left for the bathroom, and I think scheduled times for the others to come so he could take a five minute shower.

And, well, I guess I fully justified his fears.

We were back to sleeping together again, but this time, the mere presence of Heero couldn't keep all my nightmares away. It wasn't a dream I remembered having before.

Yeah. Another one to add to my already pretty impressive collection of nightmares.

It was a simple dream, not one of those dreadfully complicated ones that just confuse the hell out of me. To summarize, I just could not find Heero. It was like he'd fallen from the face of the earth. And, sadly enough, it was placed into the category of 'Dreams that Make Me a Panicked Wreck.'

There are five categories in all: 'Dreams that Make me Angry,' 'Dreams that Make Me Want to Cry,' 'Dreams that Have Me Shivering for Hours,' 'Dreams that Wake Me up Screaming,' and lastly, 'Dreams that Make Me a Panicked Wreck.' From least frightening to most, in that order.

Gods.

Heero woke me up from it with a rather panicked look himself, and I clutched him so hard I think I heard some bones creak.

Heero's hold on me was just as frantic, though, and I could hear him making whispered reassurances.

Slowly, after what seemed like an eternity, I calmed down enough to loosen my frenzied grip a fraction, and force my rattling breaths to slow.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, though I'm not really sure why. Maybe for waking him up, or scaring him so badly.

Again, there was that feeling of self-loathing so strong, it was practically tangible, emanating from Heero's suddenly still form, and again, I was so surprised by it, that I couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Don't be. I'm the one who should be sorry."

Huh?

"I have no intention," he squeezed harder, "of ever leaving you again."

In those words, I could hear the sound of a vow being made.

"Heero…" I said, and was just totally drained of energy in the next moment, and I just kind of let go.

My body sort of collapsed into Heero's, both of us on our sides, facing each other, legs entwined and my face in his shoulder.

I slipped away with the sound of his promise echoing in my ears, and the feeling of a feathery-light brush of something soft against my forehead.