It's a short chapter, but it covers a lot of ground (I apologize for the pun). A good moment to point out to you that chapters don't necessarily happen consecutively, but can take place at the same time. So next chapter you'll read what Heero has been up to in the meantime.

GROUNDED

Part XIV – Duo's POV

He blinked his eyes open and squinted at the bright light. He groaned in pain as his headache was aggravated. His sweaty, bare back was plastered against the leather of the couch and when he rolled onto his side his skin peeled away from the leather uncomfortably. He forced his eyes open. The windows were black, it was dark outside, but someone had turned on all the lights in the living room. He tensed up at the sound of footsteps moving around him. He was in no state to defend himself. The blurry sight of a platinum blonde head of hair put him at ease. "Quatre…"

"He lives."

He cleared his dry throat and tried sitting up without much success, so he let himself fall back down and draped his arm over his eyes to shield them from the light. "How did you even get in here?"

"Oh, Duo. Sometimes I suspect you and the other guys forget that I was a Gundam pilot too. And H didn't recruit me because I'm pretty."

"You are pretty though," Duo retorted with a lopsided grin.

Quatre just hummed.

Duo listened to him clean up some of the mess that he had made. Gathering empty bottles into a trash bag and lumping together the dirty clothes that were strewn around the space. "I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to clean up… You aren't wearing your French maid's uniform."

"Someone has to look after you from time to time," he groused, sounding a little out of breath from the chore. He cleared a spot on the coffee table to sit down and he helped Duo into an upright position before pressing a glass of cold water into his palm and curling his fingers around it. "And take these with it." He dropped two pills into Duo's other hand.

Trusting his blonde friend, Duo swallowed the pills without question and gulped down all of the water. "Thanks," he croaked.

"You stink."

"So I've been told."

"When did you last take a shower?"

He shrugged. He didn't even remember. The days all blurred together.

Quatre sighed and took the glass from him, putting it aside. His expression was one of concern. "You have to stop punishing yourself, Duo."

"Why? Did Heero grow his legs back?"

"Honestly, Heero is doing better than you are right now."

Duo nodded. That made him feel a little better. "How is he?" A couple of weeks ago, the nightly ringing of his phone had stopped.

"He's fine."

"Is he still training with the Runt-Pack?" He inquired. During Quatre's last visit, he had brought him up-to-speed on Heero's recovery. Duo wasn't surprised that he was training to try and pass The Twelve again, although it did break his heart knowing that the old Heero would have no trouble passing those tests with flying colors, whereas now the odds were against him even making it far enough in the training to be allowed to partake in the tests themselves.

"No. He's not on L1 anymore."

"What?" He turned sideways, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch. He stared at his friend with questioning eyes. "What do you mean? Where is he?"

"On Earth."

"Earth? Wha- Why-… Where on Earth?"

"I don't know," Quatre answered simply, unconcerned. "It seems he went down to Earth only to drop off the face of it." He grinned at his own pun.

"How can you be so relaxed about this?" Duo challenged and he shot up from his seat, regretting it instantly as he went lightheaded. When his vision returned to him, he looked down into aquamarine eyes. "He's all alone!"

"I think that's what he needs right now."

"Aren't you worried?"

"He can take care of himself, Duo. He's even stronger than we've ever known."

Duo paced back and forth, shaking his head. "We have to find him."

"I'm sure we could," Quatre consented. "But I don't believe we should. I don't think he wants to be found."

Duo snorted.

"What would you even do if you tracked him down, Duo? Would you go see him? You've been avoiding him all this time."

Duo's shoulders slumped as all the power left his body at the confrontational question. "I'm no good for him, Quat," he disclosed miserably.

"You're not," the other agreed. "Not as long as you truly believe that. You're in a destructive mode right now, so I agree that you have nothing to offer him at the moment."

"I'm always in a destructive mode," he argued darkly. "It's my default setting. I am the God of Death, after all."

Quatre shook his head. "The most important thing I've learned since the war, is that we were never that powerful. We never had any true power over life, nor death. We just did what we could, whatever was most right at the time; given the circumstances, given the available information. Our success and failures were subject to happenstance. We never decided who lived and who died, greater powers than us did."

"But I decided to let Viver, Grace and Beck come on that mission with us. And it was my decision that killed three people and ruined Heero's life." He dropped back down on the couch in defeat and shied away from Quatre's touch when his friend meant to lay a comforting hand on his knee.

"You made that decision just like we made any decision when we were at war: under duress and without all of the information. Those three put you in an impossible position. There was a risk of those extremists firing those nuclear missiles at any moment; the mission couldn't wait. You and Heero were the best and Viver, Grace and Beck were skilled agents; you couldn't have known about all the things that ended up going wrong." He touched his hand to Duo's unshaven chin to make the man meet his gaze. "The universe decided to let that mission go wrong: to kill those agents and to pin Heero down with no hope for escape. You made the decision to give him a new chance."

Duo swallowed the lump in his throat and confessed pathetically: "He begged me to just let him die there and I ignored him."

Quatre offered him a smile. "And all of us are grateful."

"All except Heero."

"Heero will either prove the whole world wrong and get reinstated as an agent and be able to continue to follow his sense of duty, or he will fail but will eventually find a new purpose for himself. Either way, at some point, Heero will come to value this chance you have given him and he will be grateful too. You didn't ruin his life, you saved it."

"You can't possibly know all this."

"Yes. I can," Quatre asserted and his gaze turned stern. "After Dorothy stabbed me, I've never been the same. They've had to replace so many organs, I'm a lot weaker since then, which is why I didn't join the Preventers, like you guys did."

Duo stared in shock, he had no idea Quatre's injury had been so severe. It appeared the blonde was stronger than he had always given him credit for, being able to hide it as well as he had and suffering without their support.

"I barely made it through the incident with Mariemaia…" He continued with a bitter chuckle. "After everything I've done, I've experienced the same survivor's guilt as the rest of you and the only way to cope with that is to find a way to somehow give back to the world. I wanted to continue 'saving the world', like you and Heero and WuFei – and Trowa, for a while. But I couldn't; my body wasn't up for it. I had to find a different way to feel like I had the right to still be in this world, to feel like I still had something to offer that made my life worthwhile. That's why I stepped into my father's shoes and now I work hard every day to boost the economy of the colonies and give back to the people as much as I can."

Duo listened, completely rendered speechless by Quatre's emotional account: his own experience of the struggle all five of them had gone through.

"I found a different way to make peace with myself and with the world. My body may have been weakened, but I was still strong enough to do that. Heero is…" A smile splayed across his lips. "Heero is immeasurably stronger than me. Both physically and mentally. I wouldn't be surprised if he fights his way back into the field, but even if he doesn't, he will find peace of mind some other way. The world is always a better place with him in it – it doesn't matter if a part of him his missing, it's his heart that matters. He will discover this for himself," Quatre concluded poignantly.

"And he will forgive me for cutting off his legs?"

"He's never blamed you, Duo. He knows that it wasn't fair of him to ask you to leave him there."

Duo bowed his head. "Even if that's true, he'll hate me for lying to him and tricking him into letting Viver, Grace and Beck come with us."

Quatre sighed. "I'll admit, he might not forgive you for the betrayal of his trust. But he will know the call you made in that moment isn't a direct cause of him losing his legs. However-" He stopped himself but Duo urged him to speak up, so he did. "I'm not sure if he'll understand why you have been ignoring him all these months."

His face twisted into a pained expression.

Quatre scooted forward and pulled the man into a hug. He muttered into his shoulder: "The most important thing for you to know is that he will be fine. He is fighting and he will be okay. So now you have to start fighting."

Duo shook his head and buried his nose further into the collar of Quatre's shirt. "I'm not strong like him, or like you."

"No, you're not." The blonde detached himself and pulled back to look Duo in his eyes. "I think you're stronger than all of us."

Duo blinked in disbelief.

"I know how much you love him and how hard loving him has been for you, because he hasn't been able to give back what you put in. He's a difficult person to love, but you never gave up on him. You believed in his humanity and in his heart before anyone else did and you've nurtured both at the cost of yourself."

"Quatre…"

"I think you've shown the most impressive strength of all: selflessness. To love and uphold someone without ever knowing if they love you back."

His lower lip trembled and he felt tears streaming down his face.

Quatre tilted his head and smiled at him sweetly. He reached up his hand to wipe at Duo's wet cheeks. "But he does love you back, Duo," he promised reverently. "He does love you back. Whether or not things can be made right between the two of you, you deserve to know he has loved you all along."

A loud sob escaped him and he leaned forward into his friend's embrace again. Quatre soothed him, petting his hair without caring that it was unwashed.

"I'm sorry for what I said before," Quatre continued. "When Tro and I first heard from WuFei about why you let those three agents come along with you."

Duo swallowed. He remembered Quatre showing up at his door, completely distraught. He didn't say much, all he said, with a broken voice, was that he was disappointed in him and then he had walked away. Disappointed. The word had struck Duo like lightening.

"I hadn't given myself time to think yet. At the time, I couldn't think. I was feeling so many things. I was sure that if I – or any of us – had been in that position, we would have found a better solution and everything would have been different. But then I remember Heero destroying that shuttle with those pacifist leaders. And WuFei fighting Heero during the Mariemaia incident out of misguided beliefs. Trowa abusing the trust of the people at the circus and staging an attack there. And letting myself get so corrupted by the ZERO system that I nearly killed Trowa." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "We all do the best we can and we all make mistakes in spite of it."

"… Thank you," he whimpered into Quatre's shirt.

Quatre squeezed him tighter still before releasing him and getting up from the table. "I brought you clean clothes," he announced and he walked to a duffel bag by the front door and brought it over to Duo. "Go take a shower and put these on. They're Trowa's, so they'll fit."

He accepted the bag, noting it was mostly empty aside from a change of clothing and a new pair of underwear and socks, still in the packaging. "And then what?"

"Then you are going to pack whatever you need in that bag and you're coming with us." He threw a thumb over his shoulder, at the front of the house. "Trowa is waiting in the car."

He slowly rose to his feet, hugging the bag to his chest. "Where are we going?" He asked meekly.

"To L4. I've arranged a spot for you at the best rehab center on the colonies."

The thought of having to fight his addiction frightened him. He was apprehensive to go with him, to say the least. As hard as living the way he had had been, it still seemed easier than facing his demons while sober.

But Quatre left no room for argument and no time for hesitation. He ushered him upstairs, to the bathroom. When he was all cleaned up and was done packing a few belongings – one of which being a framed photograph of him and Heero in their Preventer uniforms, with Heero looking serious as ever and Duo sporting a crooked grin – Quatre took him by his hand and guided him out the front door. Trowa hugged Duo and took the bag from him to put in the trunk of the car. The three climbed into the vehicle and headed for the spaceport.

Duo craned his neck, watching the house until they rounded the corner and it disappeared from sight.

"Don't worry, Duo. You'll be back home soon enough," Trowa assured him, making eye-contact with him in the rear-view-mirror.

"Will Heero be?" He questioned.

"You'll find out when the time comes," he said simply.

The flight to L4 was short, since they happened to be close together at that point; both circling the Earth at a different altitude and speed. He spent one night at his friends' household, long enough to grow envious of the relationship they had built together. They both appeared so free from and unburdened by their past, even though Duo knew there was still heartache below the surface as was true for all of them. In the morning he was brought to the rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol addiction. It was a sprawling landscape that was reminiscent in style of the Mediterranean area on Earth. After checking in and hugging Quatre goodbye, Duo was taken on a tour of the premises and then escorted to his own room.

He sat on the single bed in the modest room and watched the thin curtain billow in the wind – which was actually just the exhaust from the air-conditioning system on the colony. The landscape outside his window was luscious and well-maintained. If not for the metal paneled hull of the colony, visible in the distance and overhead, the place felt a lot like Earth, in the sense that it felt natural and open. L4 was different in that regard from L1 anyway. L1 was mostly one large metropolis, whereas L4 was less densely populated, making it less crowded and packed.

He wondered where Heero was and what he was doing – and how he was doing. He hadn't stopped thinking about his former partner in all that time. It was torturous, but not even in his drunken stupor could he forget about him, nor did he want to. He cherished his memories with Heero, even though they were mostly mundane and the significance would be lost on any outsider looking in. They never shared any great happiness or romance, but there had been a quiet comfort and trust between them that Duo treasured over anything else. They had something special. He hoped Heero remembered it that way too, because the memories of it were all that was left of it now.

On his first day at the center, he met with his Personal Guidance Counselor, who would help him through his rehabilitation during his stay at the center. The man was kind but spoke with a firm tone as he provided Duo with information on the two-week detoxification regime he would go through and the following treatment program. Core components of the recovery were individual and group therapy, but there were also group activities, stress management classes and relaxation sessions. His PGC would give him weekly personal assignments and he would be in charge of his relapse prevention course.

After a medical examination and a grueling psychological evaluation during which every sensitive nerve was exposed and prodded for a reaction to gain understanding of the root of his triggers up front, Duo was given medication and a diet plan to help with the withdrawal symptoms he would soon experience. For the next two weeks, his schedule would consist mostly of plenty of rest as he went through detox.

At the end of the day, Duo was exhausted and numb. He was back in his room but he couldn't remember how he had ended up back there. He was seated on the edge of the bed again, watching the curtains. They were still now. The window was closed. It was dark outside.

Sweat gathered at his temples and his unsteady fingers already caused the information pamphlet he was holding to tremble in the air. His mouth was dry and it hurt to swallow. His body was already reacting to absence of alcohol intake.

He had gone through withdrawal before, when he had only been a kid, I preparation of his training. Nothing G did to him – no matter how creative the deranged professor would get in his training methods – was worse than what his own body put him through. Two weeks had felt like two months.

Sweating, Shivering. Aching. Vomiting. Convulsing. Hallucinating. Starving.

It happened all over again.

But every time he considered elbowing his way past the counsellor and nurses and leaving the center to go get a drink at the nearest bar to put an end to his misery, he stopped and thought of Heero. None of the pain Duo was going through, compared to what Heero had to suffer. Because of that, he couldn't quit.

When the two weeks of detoxification were over and his body was used to functioning without alcohol in its system again, Duo thought the worst of it had been over, but he was wrong.

The therapy sessions were much more painful as they laid bare every old hurt he had ever suffered and he had to come clean about every mistake he had ever made. There were many. Things he thought he had successfully left in the past, hadn't been in the past at all. Everything was addressed and dealt with. There was no forgiveness to be earned; he had to make peace without forgiveness – acceptance without amends, because there was no opportunity to apologize for his wrongdoings.

They worked their way through his past until they reached the present and that was when Heero's name was first mentioned again, since his intake evaluation weeks earlier. It took many sessions for him to be able to speak of his relationship with the man and how everything fell apart because of that mission, without getting nauseous.

Quatre visited twice every week and talked to him about mundane and insignificant things that were a blessed relief from all the big thoughts and feelings that swarmed him. He enjoyed listening to his friend rambling on about things that didn't matter as it brought a levity to his life that it had been lacking. Trowa tagged along once in a while and would never say much, but the parting hug he would give Duo meant a lot to him.

Their visits were a welcome break from the daily therapy sessions.

"What is the first thing you would say to Heero, if you were to see him again?" His therapist asked, during their latest session.

"I would tell him I love him."

"You wouldn't apologize first?"

"No. Because apologizing to him would be for me," he answered. "… 'Sorry' won't help him. But knowing that I still love him – that I've never thought less of him and that I didn't avoid him because I stopped caring – that might help him. That might mean something to him."

She smiled. "Do you think he still loves you?"

He thought for a moment and said wryly: "Yes, I think he does. But not because he should. Not because I deserve it. But because he's-…" He stopped as his voice cracked with emotion. He made a dismissive gesture, not wanting to say any more, but the therapist gently urged him on. "Because he's the most impressive, most loyal person there is. Once he lets you in, he doesn't even know how to get you back out." He chuckled breathlessly. "I don't think that means he'll still want to be with me though. I don't even think he wants to see me at all. He disappeared and doesn't want to be found."

"But what would you do if you did find him and he told you he doesn't want to see you again?"

"Cry. If I'm not already crying at that point anyway," he tried to joke.

She wouldn't let him get away the deflection and waited for him to elaborate.

It took him several moments to figure out what to say. He decided to give the honest answer, although he was convinced it was not the right answer. "It would wreck me… I can't lie and tell you what you want to hear: that I'd be resilient and be at peace with it."

"What makes you think that is what I want to hear?"

"That's the point of all of this, right? To be strong and get me to rise above?"

She let him stew for a minute before clarifying: "Our sessions are not about getting you to rise above your feelings. They are about getting you to face your feelings and cope with them without alcohol."

He fidgeted with a loose thread on the hem of his sweater.

"I think it's perfectly understandable that you would be 'wrecked'. You don't have to pretend that such a rejection wouldn't affect you. Strength doesn't mean being impervious to hurt; it means dealing with what hurts."

"But I don't know how I would deal with it," he admitted miserably.

"No one does. You can't prepare for something like that. You can't stipulate a battle-plan," she said with a little smile, "You figure these things out on the fly. You will find a solution as long as you trust that you have the right tools and the right skills."

"That sounds very scary."

"Yes, it does," she agreed.

"That sounds like war – like missions. Not knowing what kind of shit-storm you're going to end up in."

"Exactly. But you make it out anyway. You've been solving problems your entire life, Duo."

He leaned back in his chair and redirected his gaze out the window, taking a moment to sort through his thoughts.

"Do you think you've ever solved any of your problems with alcohol?"

"No," he said with a self-deprecating snort.

"Do you think you'll want to drink again if Heero rejects you?"

The answer was simple: "Yes. I will want to." He looked back at her and added solemnly: "But I won't."

She smiled and nodded. "That was the answer I wanted to hear." She closed her notebook, as if they were done, but she continued with one more question. "Why?"

"Why wouldn't I?" He verified.

"Yes."

He thought for a moment. It wasn't about a matter of punishing himself or not – it wasn't even about himself. "Because he told me to leave him there, on that satellite, because he wanted to save me. He told me to leave because he didn't want me to die trying to get him out. We've never had much regard for our own lives, but we value each other's lives. He thinks I deserve a life the way I think he does. Whether that's together or not, neither of us should waste it."

He was dismissed for the day and the next week he was discharged.

At Quatre's insistence, he stayed on L4 for a few more weeks, to get accustomed to life outside of the rehab center. It was a good call. It gave him time to slowly expose himself to temptations when he was ready, as well as gradually get back into the routine of taking care of himself. At the rehab center, everything was taken care of for him: his breakfast was ready first thing in the morning, he was provided with snacks throughout the day, reminded to drink plenty of water, lunch was served at noon precisely, his PGC managed his schedule, dinner was ready at seven and when he returned to his room at night his bed had been made and his laundry was done. Living with Quatre and Trowa allowed him time to ease back into independency.

Not until his friends agreed he was ready did they drop him off at the spaceport and let him fly back to L1.

He arrived back home and climbed out of the cab. He stood on the sidewalk with his single bag slung over his shoulder and he looked up at the four story house. In a dream, Heero had been there when he returned. It was only a dream. He adjusted the strap of the bag on his shoulder and headed inside.

Quatre had arranged for a cleaning crew to get the house tidied up again and keep it well-maintained during Duo's absence. The house smelled fresh and there wasn't a single speck of dust to be discerned on any surface. He looked at the couch, where he had spent so much of his time and made a note to have it replaced as soon as possible. Just the mere idea of the leather against his skin made him feel ill.

He carried his bag upstairs; his feet getting heavier with every step closer to the bedroom.

The bed was made with new, white sheets and it looked so terribly big and empty.

He went out for groceries, avoiding the aisle with alcohol and spirits, and cooked himself dinner at home. He resisted the urge to turn on the television and endured the silence instead. He realized the absence of murmurs in the background actually reminded him pleasantly of Heero. Heero was always a quiet presence at his side. His tacit aura filled the space. Duo could almost feel him sitting in the chair next to him.

At night he laid down in the bed, on the side that used to be his – even though there were no "sides" to it anymore, other than left or right. There was no his side, without there being Heero's side. He wept but managed to get some sleep anyway.

In the morning, when he was only halfway through his breakfast of cereal with milk and a side of fresh fruit – as opposed to a stale beer – he was surprised by a knock on the front door. He looked down at himself sheepishly. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and the T-shirt he slept in. When he had been drunk, his attire didn't bother him much, but he felt self-conscious now. He went to the front door and opened it slightly, hiding himself behind the door as much as possible until his recognized his visitor.

"Sally."

The kind-faced woman smiled at him and when he opened the door further for her, she enveloped him in a tight hug.

"What brings you up to L1?" He questioned as he invited her in with a welcoming gesture of his arm.

"WuFei," she replied simply.

"Oh, really? Is that, uh-… Are you guys-…?" He couldn't find the right words. He didn't want to be indelicate. The two of them had been through a pretty bad break-up, which Duo happened to be a reluctant witness to seeing as it was during his two-week stay at the Academy last year. He had seen her at one of her worst moments, just like she had seen him at his worst moment – keeping vigil at Heero's bedside during his coma – and as a result, they had become oddly close, even without having seen much of each other lately, or at all, rather. There was a connection between them. They felt comfortable around each other, probably also because their personalities were a good match.

"We're working on it," she said with a hopeful smile. "It's better now that we aren't working together anymore. We're having some long-distance fun, at the moment."

He chuckled at her sassy wink.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I interrupted your breakfast," she exclaimed when she spotted the bowls and cup of coffee on the breakfast bar.

"It's fine. In fact: do you want some?"

"A cup of coffee would be nice." She followed him into the kitchen and while staring at the fresh fruit, she added: "And if you happen to have more of those strawberries…"

"Sure thing." He made her coffee and washed and prepared the rest of the strawberries for her. They seated themselves side by side at the breakfast bar.

"Mmm, these are great," she said after popping the first of the fruits in her mouth.

"Can't imagine them being better than what you get on Earth." They didn't grow them on L1, L1 was too overpopulated to have room left for agriculture. Most fruits and vegetables were grown on L3 and L5, or on one of the farming satellites. Stuff from Earth was way too expensive.

"These are a little less sweet, but I actually like them that way."

He nodded and sipped his coffee. "How are things at the Academy?" Aside from her medical research, Sally also taught field-medicine classes to the new recruits.

"Great," she replied with a mouthful. Once she had swallowed, she added offhandedly: "Heero is there."

Duo sat up straight in his seat and stared at her wide-eyed. "What?"

"Hmhm."

"… I knew he was on Earth but-… He's at the Academy?"

Sally's eyes sparkled with mirth at his dumbfounded reaction. "Sure is."

"Why? What is he doing there?"

"Training for The Twelve."

Duo didn't know how to process it. He thought Heero had left L1 to pursue a different direction in his life – like Quatre had mentioned: finding a new purpose. "But he could have done that here," he countered.

"He could have. But he needed a change of scenery. A fresh start." She casually continued to eat her strawberries.

Duo let out a sigh and then sat in silence for a few minutes as he came to terms with the news. "How is he doing?"

"… Better," she answered after a thoughtful pause.

That vague answer didn't make him feel any better.

"You should come down sometime, when you're ready, and ask him yourself," Sally suggested.

The former pilot shook his head. "I'm sure he doesn't want that. He went to Earth to get away and erased his tracks so he couldn't be traced. He doesn't want me to come find him."

The woman smirked, knowing something he didn't. "He wants you to find him, Duo."

"If he wanted to be found, why drop his identity and make it hard to be found?" He challenged.

"Because he doesn't want just anybody to find him. He wants you to find him."

He frowned at her. "What makes you so sure?"