Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone! I really appreciate it. ^___^
Virus
Continued
13. Fine China
Quatre was at
the window immediately. Almost insane with fear he searched frantically for any
signs of the escaped boy. As he spotted him on the ledge of the building he
started to scramble out the window but was held back so a rope could be tied
around his waist. Dr. J stopped him once again for a brief word of advice.
"Remember all that he has been
through and try not to mention any of it. And don't forget that he is still on
the medication so he probably has no idea what he's doing. Don't say anything
to upset him." Quatre nodded then, feeling a bit calmer than before, climbed
out onto the ledge and edged toward Wufei. Wufei didn't even glance over at the
blonde trying to keep him from ending his life. His loose hair waved silkily in
the wind as he stared at the empty street four floors below.
"Wufei, give me your hand." Quatre said. He reached for the boy but received no response. "Listen to me Wufei; you don't want to do this. It's not worth it. You don't have to do this." Hesitantly he moved still closer, trying to be within reach should Wufei actually jump. Much to his surprise Wufei spoke for the first time in weeks.
"Where I come from, they tell a story." Quatre stopped to listen. "It tells how life is a climb up a tall mountain. Your life ends when you reach the peak. If you haven't learned anything or gained any experience during your climb you must jump back down to the bottom, which represents death, and you must climb it again. But if you have gained both wisdom and experience, when you jump you won't die, you'll be carried away on the Spirit Winds." Wufei turned his head slowly to glance at Quatre. As always there was no emotion on his face, no light in his eyes. "I have reached the peak of my mountain." Quatre shook his head.
"Wufei, this isn't some legend! If you jump off of this ledge, you will die!" Unfazed by the words Wufei turned to look out over the colony. His eyes closed as he whispered,
"I am coming for you, Nataku." Quatre's mind froze as he watched Wufei push off.
"Wufei, no!!" He dove after the Chinese boy, determined to save him. The plain gray sweats they had dressed Wufei in fluttered in the wind as he fell. Sound all but disappeared. Quatre could hear only the sweats fluttering from Wufei's momentum. It sounded almost like the flapping of a hundred wings, perhaps the wings of doves. He cried out once more as a myriad of the snow-white birds flew up at him from under the falling Wufei. His voice was swallowed into nothingness. Everything around him dissolved. The ground was rushing up impossibly fast, ready to kill them both. He reached, stretched, not ready to give up, not willing to let go, determined, afraid…so many emotions all in a single second, more than his brain could handle. And yet through the flurry of motion and emotion he could see it all clearly. He winced and pulled back, shrank back as the blood hit him. It was ice cold. It hit him again and again, staining his face, his shirt and his hands. The dark liquid covered his hands and he was only able to see it for a brief moment before it was in his eyes, blinding him. The white feathers seemed to slice at his flesh as the birds passed. Their wings beat him mercilessly. He couldn't see they swarmed around him so thickly but he couldn't push them away; he had to catch him. He had to catch Wufei. But each time he missed. Each and every time no matter what he did Wufei always escaped his grasp. There was never any sound as Wufei hit, only a heavy spray of deep crimson, blood, blood on his hands. Wufei's blood was on his hands. He was responsible. He had let Wufei die. He saw it, he watched it, he witnessed it. The now stained feathers fell and stuck to his hands, his bloody hands, the hands that had let Wufei slip by, the hands that – The rope yanked back on him sharply, bringing him back to his senses. Shaking violently he ventured a glance downward. He held an unconscious Wufei in his arms. The two of them swung back and forth in the air for a moment, suspended by the rope. Quatre's nerves released themselves so quickly when he let out a strained laugh that he almost let go of Wufei. He had succeeded. Wufei would live. It was almost unbelievable how his death had played over and over in his mind…it had been so vivid, so real…but at the same time it hadn't been real. He wondered if for a brief moment he had lost his mind. Below Wufei Quatre's knuckles were turning white from the way his hands were clutching each other, clinging to each other like a person clinging to life. And he was clinging to life. He was clinging to Wufei's life.
Quatre had to be put to bed after that incident. His body had been so drained from the experience that he couldn't even stand. Laying there, staring up at the painfully white ceiling, he reminisced on his own recovery time, during which he had still been oddly connected to Wufei. He had been so delirious. Constantly he had hallucinated, believing that everything he was seeing was real, was truly happening. His sisters and his father had come to visit him, Wufei had gotten up and yelled at him…he had even gotten up himself a few times. Of course, this had all happened in his mind. But more interesting to him was that he also saw things from Wufei's memory. More than anything else he was haunted by a vision of a young girl surrounded in a white light. No, it was more like the light was coming from inside her. In a void filled with darkness, the darkness of death, she had been a guiding light, a rock to cling to when depression and hate threatened to consume him. Quatre shook his head unconsciously. He had placed himself where Wufei was once again. At first it had been nearly impossible to distinguish what was in his mind and what came from Wufei's. Continuously he had confused the other boy's experiences and feelings with his own. He wondered if that would ever go away. Shuffling to his right brought him back from his thoughts. He turned to look at Wufei who had rolled over.
"Good morning." he called. His friendly greeting was answered with a snort. A smile crossed his face; Wufei was becoming more and more like himself everyday.
***
More time passed and the battle between the Earth and the colonies waged on. After much therapy, both physical and mental Wufei was doing just fine. Dr. J's lab was repaired and cleaned up and back in service in no time. The old scientist himself was currently busy with chemical research. Holding a fresh test tube of some indiscernible liquid with his mechanical arm he filled a medicine dropper with the other. Behind him a woman sat at a computer recording every step of this delicate procedure. She pondered the story he had just finished telling her. Surely all of that couldn't be true. It just was not believable. Finally she could take it no longer. She just had to ask a question.
"So all it took was a little bit of alcohol?" she blurted. Dr. J nodded as he dropped a bit of the chemical in the medicine dropper into the test tube.
"Yes that was all it took to get it out." The words reverberated in the woman's mind.
"That's quite a story Dr. J, I don't see how you'll get anyone to believe it." Dr. J watched closely as bubbles began to form in the test tube.
"Frankly I don't care who believes it." There was silence for a moment. Then the woman spoke once more.
"How would you know about all the things that happened while you were…restrained?"
"That's very simple, I had Heero write a full report of the entire event." Feeling a bit defeated the woman turned her attention back to the monitor. She chuckled lightly.
"Knowing you, you probably checked his blood everyday to see if the alien DNA possibly integrated itself into his own DNA. Poor Dr. J, always searching for a way to make his soldiers even more perfect and never succeeding..." As she sat there laughing to herself she noticed that Dr. J had stopped moving altogether. Her smile vanished almost immediately.
"Dr. J, is everything alright?" she called. He remained silent. "Dr. J… you did check his DNA for that didn't you? Dr. J?" Glass and chemicals mixed on the floor as Dr. J's grip on the test tube relaxed.
"No…" His voice was barely above a whisper. "I didn't…"
Wufei stood solemnly on small ridge protruding from the weather carven landscape. Here there was a break in the trees that hid their gundams and the safe house so efficiently. He stared at the pale sky just tasting the first rays of the sun as he thought and meditated. It had been so long since he had been alone, since he had heard nothing but quiet… The other pilots insisted upon being at his side constantly, especially Quatre. He supposed they were just afraid he would try to kill himself again or try to hurt others. It was highly unlikely since he had not tried to do either since the last suicide attempt at Dr. J's laboratory. His lip pulled back unconsciously as he detected the presence of the fourth pilot. The young blonde was obviously not trying to sneak up on him but rather was trying not to disturb him. But either way it made little difference; his mere being there was enough to annoy the already aggravated Chinese boy. Quatre realized that Wufei knew he was there and stepped forward, his feet snapping the fragile plant life on the ground.
"The sunrise is going to be beautiful this morning…" he said. He turned to look at Wufei. Wufei only stared straight forward, never once moving from the position he had been in beforehand. "I didn't really expect to find you up here." Quatre continued. "You can get a great view of the land from here…"
"What do you want, Quatre?" The lack of bitterness or anger in Wufei's voice surprised him greatly. He floundered a moment, trying to decide on the proper comment. Finally his voice found words.
"I guess I just wanted to know if you'll be alright. You've gone through a very traumatizing experience…I want to know if you'll ever be able to get past it." An eerie silence followed. Then with a sigh Wufei said,
"I am not fully sure what happened to me. I had a good deal of hallucinations. Everything was confusing. I don't even remember trying to kill myself." Quatre's eyes widened. He was unaccustomed to this kind of openness from Wufei. "Of course," he continued. "I will never fully be able to get over that. But I will not let it stop me from reaching my goals in life. Life is not a straight, flat road. There will always be unexpected turns and obstacles. If I had stopped and given up at all the barriers life has given me I would never have moved an inch. That event, like many others, is now in the past. I will learn from it and let it make me stronger. And that is all I will do." During his brief monologue the sun had moved further into the sky. For reasons unknown to the other pilots Wufei had still been avoiding sunlight.
"The sun's almost up." Quatre noted. "Let's go back to the safe house." Wufei shook his head.
"Go ahead without me. I'll be there in a while." Quatre's aqua colored eyes widened once again. But brushing it off as nothing more than progress he agreed and turned to head back to the tiny wooden shack they were staying in for shelter. Wufei's eyes, now back to their original color, took in the sun's first rays. A small, mysterious smile crossed his face as a thick, dark substance ran down from his nostril…
It's going to be a bright
Bright
Sun-shiny day
*Cut and print! WOOT!! Another fic completed!! Yay for me. Yeah, I know it was short. I'm sorry. I did the best I could! Oh well. Be on the look out for my next Gundam Wing fic "Absolute Zero" and my Yu-Yu Hakusho fic, unnamed as of yet. ^___^*