I don't know what else to say. Shark week is on TV and it makes me think really weirdly every time I watch something on the Discovery Kids channel...

So, here's my weirdprank that I came up with for Heero and Wufei to play on the others. However, you ought to know that Heero isn't perfect despite his perfect attitude.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Orbs of Emerald

Chapter 7: "SHARK!"

***

"I still don't trust them," I muttered as Quatre pulled us out of the house. "There's something up here."
"Why would Wufei and Heero pull any kind of stunt?" Quatre asked. "Neither are very skilled in pulling pranks, and they have no reason to."
"Unless..." my eyes widened as it dawned on me the possibility. There was no way. We'd hidden them so well...how would Perfect Soldier and Wufei be able to find them?

"Unless what?" Duo turned around and stopped me with a hand, staring me in the eye. The intimidation of that simple act was enough to make me speechless.

"Jem?" Quatre waved a hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my reverie.
"Unless what, Jem?" Duo repeated.
"Unless they found the tapes," I whispered, staring at Wufei up ahead over Duo's shoulder. "What if they found them?"

"What?!" Duo screeched, his voice almost as high as mine when I'd played the aunt. "How could they have, we-"
He was cut off by two quick hands.
"Duo, if they haven't, do you want to release the fact that we did it?" I hissed frantically. He shook his head against my hand and we both released him with a sigh.

"Sorry, but we hid them so well, how could they possibly have found them?" Duo asked, this time his voice was hushed.

"I don't know, but things don't add up unless they did," I iterated. "It may also be a ploy about the little threats with Ranma and Akane."

"But they wouldn't be sore about something that trivial, would they?" Quatre said, worried.
"I wouldn't put it past them now," Duo growled, his hands on his hips.

"Neither would I. We'll just be cautious from now on," I said, still staring at Wufei, who looked like he was about to run over and crash our little party. "Come on, I think Wufei's getting annoyed." We continued as though the stop had never happened.

"What kept you?" Wufei asked. "Get in." Well, so much for names. Duo and Quatre waded out till they were about waist deep, leaving me on the shore, looking around. I was scared, what did they expect me to do, just jump right in and hope I could dogpaddle back? I knew how deep that water was about ten yards out and I did not want to be that deep in water unless I could swim and swim really good.

"Come on, Jem, it's not that bad!" Duo called from his place five yards out.

"Easy for you to say!" I shot back. "You know how!" I didn't want to let on that I was frightened. The deep, dark areas of the world had always scared me, for one, simple reason. In the depths of darkness lay secrets. Wonderful, marvelous, dangerous secrets. Secrets I didn't like any more than I did lies and crimes.

"Get in, cadet," Wufei ordered. "Unless you are frightened of a little water." His voice sounded even more malicious than ever, but it was probably my imagination. Yeah, just my imagination.
"Fine," I growled. "I'm not scared." If I didn't like lies, then why was I lying to my instructor? I may not like him, but I sure as anything trusted him.

Didn't I?

My body gave a full tremor up and down my legs and spine as I stepped timidly into the tiny, lapping waves. It was freezing! How did they expect me to swim in such cold water? It had to be down in the negative Fahrenheit!

But, not wanting to make Wufei any more angry than he already was, I continued out, ever so slowly. The waves continued to lap at my feet, but as I got farther and deeper out, my body got used to the cold, embraced it, and let it go. The cold water now wasn't any more cold to me than perhaps fifty degrees. A major improvement.

"I wonder where P-Perfect Soldier is," I muttered, stuttering a little as the water hit me a little higher than I'd anticipated, sending a frigid wave down my spine.

"I don't know," Duo said, putting an arm on my shoulder. "Don't worry about him, he's probably off somewhere cleaning his gun. He does that a lot." I smiled and shrugged it off.

"Yeah, you're probably right," I said. "Okay, to business. How do I swim?"

"Well, first you gotta learn to float," Quatre said, joining us in his pale blue trunks. His usually-neat blond hair was plastered to his head and was looking quite unruly. It made me laugh just to look at him, but I didn't have time as I suddenly found myself without ground beneath my feet. Duo had swept my feet out from under me!

I choked on the salty water for a few minutes before glaring at Duo, who was hanging onto Quatre not to fall in himself.

"All right, that's it," I roared loudly. "That does it, buddy-boy, you're goin' down!" With that, I leapt from the water and slammed against him, knocking him into the water as well. He came up coughing on the water and laughing at the same time.

"I guess-" he was cut off by a loud shout from Wufei.

"SHARK!"

"Shark?"

"Shark?"

"Shark?"

I looked at the other two quizzically, back to Wufei, whose eyes were maniacally wide and his mouth hanging open like a beached fish. He looked like one too, as he splashed like a madman to get out of the water. What the hell was a shark?

"Wufei, what are you talking about?" Quatre called to the Chinese boy. "There aren't any sharks in this water, it's a man-"
"Shark!" Duo's eyes went wide in horror and suddenly he was off like a shot had been fired again. He dove into the water and didn't resurface until he reached the shore, panting as he looked out over the small "ocean" at something. "Jem, Quatre, get outta there!"

"Duo, what are you talking about?" Quatre asked, following the braided one's train of sight until he, too, saw whatever it was that was scaring the other two so badly. "Come on, Jem!" He grabbed my arm and gave two firm yanks toward the shore before taking off himself.

"Jem!" Duo and Quatre both called from shore. Neither were chancing coming back out there. Like the stupid fool I was, I stood there, trying to see whatever it was that had scared the former Gundam pilots so badly.
"What the hell's a shark?!" I shouted at them, absolutely confused and not as terrified as I should have been, as I found out much later.

Before they could answer, however, I found out precisely what a shark was. It was gray and white, almost completely made of triangles. I'd never seen so much geometry in one creature. It had a triangular snout, triangular fins, even its eyes were angled. What was worse than all of that, however, was its teeth. Razor-sharp, skin-ripping teeth.

I found out what a shark was only too late.

"Help!" I shouted to the others, my eyes wide as I caught my sights at my first and probably last shark as the mouth opened and the teeth embedded themselves into my skin. The shark swam with me in its jaws, toward the back of the "ocean", its teeth tearing even deeper from the momentum of its jaws.

A plum of crimson water fell around me as I was dragged far below the surface. I held my breath for as long as I could, but finally could hold it no more. Water rushed into my lungs, where only air was supposed to go. The entire thing made me drowsy.

I began to slip away into sleep. The darkness was so comforting, so much more than the pain that I felt in the light. Tears slipped through my eyes, but was immediately washed away by the water that shrouded me in its blanket of soon-to-be soothing darkness.

The blackness of the depths held serenity and peace and tranquility, more than the light ever would. So this was what it was like to die. It wasn't as bad as most made it out to be. I chose the black night over the white day and it swallowed me in it's grasp before I could think it fully through.

***

Heero frantically pressed buttons and pulled levers. He had to get out, get to Jem before she died of blood loss or drowned! The cramped cockpit finally was filled with suddenly great amounts of water, even as he took his deepest breath. Stupid machine, how could it have malfunctioned like that? This wasn't supposed to happen!

The water outside the organic-mechanized monster Wufei and himself had created was a giant cloud of deep red. Heero searched through the salty depths for the source of it, knowing if he didn't save her soon, she would perish in the sea that hadn't meant to be.

Finally, he found her. He grimaced in the water upon seeing her legs, both of which were caught in the knives of the shark. He forced the jaws to open, using all of his remaining strength to free her from the pressure. Then he slid the knives from her legs, each releasing a new plum of blood into the water as it slid sickeningly out of her.

He would hardly expect Jem to forgive him after this one. She had barely done so after he had shot her. But wait...why did he care if she forgave him or not? She was just a girl, wasn't she? She was just someone he was helping to train so the six of them could save Earth and the colonies from themselves again.

Wasn't she?

As he broke out of the barrier between water and air, he gulped in the life-giving oxygen and held Jem above the water as well. She would need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he realized grimly as he swam for the island in the middle of the small "ocean". She would not be happy when she found out.

The small island that was in the center of the tiny ocean of Quatre's estate was actually built for Heero. It had been a small plot of land, eroding away from lack of plants. Quatre had built a small cottage there, however, along with several trees and grasses that were planted everywhere. Quatre had made it just for him, when he needed to be alone.

Reaching the island, Heero laid Jem flat on her back and began heaving a small amount of his weight to her chest, producing a large amount of water to come out of her mouth. He flipped her to her side to allow the water to drain before making sure she was breathing and her heart was beating.

She wasn't breathing.

"Breath, darn you!" Heero growled to himself. He knelt down and breathed carefully into her mouth with his own. She coughed as he righted himself.

She was breathing on her own. Heero breathed a silent sigh of relief and scooped her up into his arms. He cradled her carefully and walked into the cottage, setting her on the old sofa there on top of a blanket. He gathered some clean water, soap, and other things and began to tedious task of cleaning the wounds, thirteen total, the worst of which being in her thighs.

He finished cleaning her wounds and bandaging them. Then he carefully moved her lower legs around, finding the right one broken. He found a bamboo stick from outside and used what remained of his Ace wrap to set her broken leg.

When this was done, he dried her off as best he could and tucked a blanket warmly around her chin. He stared at her, lost in his thoughts.

Jem was so small and frail. He hated seeing her like this. Without the shines in her green eyes and the sparkle of pink in her cheeks. Her attempts in making herself have a bad attitude were failing and she seemed to know it, for she was being like that less and less.

But somehow he knew she was still angry with him. Angry over the loss of her brother and father. She seemed so happy-go-lucky on the outside, but he knew that inside was a world of turmoil, uncertainty, and fear. He didn't know how he knew all this. He just did.

This realization brought back the painful memory on the night of Mariemeia Khushrenada's "death". He had known that Releena was ready to give up her life for the sake of peace and had risked it by shooting the place where she, Mariemeia, and Dekim were located.

When he failed to complete that task, he had used what little strength he'd had left and shot Mariemeia. He hadn't really, he had spared her. He had destroyed the demon within her, the demon that craved power, but had left the innocent child there.

Remembering Releena brought back painful memories. The day he had failed to kill her, as he had failed to kill Jem. The days she was with him, knew him, even though they had never really spoken. She had known and understood him while all others did not.

And now she was gone. Releena Peacecraft was no more. He had indirectly killed her too. Even though he had vowed never to kill again, with the assassination of Releena, he would again. He knew he had gone through more than any sixteen-year-old should, but he would have to endure more if Releena's wishes were to be found again.
Remembering this, he was once again haunted by the little girl and her dog. But a new ghost to Heero's past reared its ugly head, a shared memory between himself and Jem. The day another innocent child had been nearly murdered had it not been for a sister's helping hand, and then was still in vain to his death only years delayed.

"Why must I be pained by shadows?" Heero asked himself, his monotone haunting the child that still yearned to come out of himself.

***

I had heard Heero's plea, even though I still feigned sleep. He had saved me. Why? It was his fault I had nearly died and it was his fault I'd nearly drowned. Now he'd saved my life. Why did he care whether I lived or died? Was it because they needed me? No, that wasn't it. He'd already made it quite clear that they didn't need me any more than they needed anybody else. Then why did he do it?

I decided to make my consciousness known. Eavesdropping without meaning to was one of the small crimes that I had learned that I felt most guilty of.
"We all are, Perfect Soldier," I managed to croak out. Was that my voice? It was so weak and strained, it didn't sound like me at all. My eyes creaked open, the lids heavy with weariness. I began to sit up but couldn't make it and fell back in agony to the pillow he had laid there for me.

"You are weak," he intoned. "You should rest."

"I don't want to," I growled, scowling up at him. My expression softened as I saw that his eyes held a pain that was much, much worse than my own physical pain. "You didn't have to."

"Didn't have to do what?" he asked, one eyebrow raised about a millimeter. It was more than a nanometer, the boy must be in real shock if his face held that much expression.

"I know you saved me," I grunted as I lifted myself up a little higher on the pillow, pain racking my chest with every labored breath. "From that thing. Whatever it was. The others called it a shark, but the only way-" I winced as another fire lit itself in my legs as I had attempted to use them to sit up. I forgot they had been in the thing's "mouth".

"The only way..." he prompted, the words not really having much meaning without their proper tones, but I knew what he was getting at.

"The only way you could have saved me in time was if you were controlling it somehow," I said, smirking. "You guys found the tapes, didn't you?"

"Yes," he answered. "We did not intend to injure any of you. The machine malfunctioned."
"You were only getting revenge," I said, chuckling. "You were only being human. You made a human mistake with a human-made machine."

"Human?" I sensed the slightest amount of surprise in his voice.

"Yeah," I nodded my head as I attempted to sit up again. I gave a small cry of pain, the least expression I could hold in as the pain rocketed down my thighs again. Through my watering eyes that held every expression of agony, I smiled. "You were being human, Perfect Soldier." I gave another attempt at sitting up, but finally gave up with an exasperated sigh.

"If you wanted to sit up, you could have asked," Heero said, amusement clear in his blue eyes. They lit up like something I hadn't seen in him since...No. I hadn't seen that look of pure laughter in his eyes since he had enjoyed teasing me about going back to sleep with the wound he'd given me in my side.

"Sure. Why not," I threw up my arms. "Can you help me sit up, Heero?"

He gave a small start.

"That's the first time you've called me by my name," he said quietly. I cocked my head at him, thinking...

"That's weird," I said, shaking my head. I just gestured around me, letting him know without words that I still wanted to sit up. "Please?"

"Sure."

With that, he took my upper arms in his warm, calloused, strong hands and pulled me firmly yet gently into a sitting position. I felt tinges of warmth spread from his hands through my arms and shivers that went down my spine. I didn't know whether it was from the fact that it was cold or if it was from him.

Was I falling in love with the Perfect Soldier? Why? He was so mean to me at every given point in time, he never smiled in his life, he had destroyed what little remained of my life, and he was teaching me to be like him: Perfect.

"You are cold," he said, pointing out the obvious. He pulled the blanket up around my shoulders more carefully, his hands brushing against my skin as he did so. His arms were so warm and powerful and his voice was so low and soothing...

NO! Snap out of it, Jeminie Kinde, this is the man that nearly killed you and your brother, has killed millions of others, piloted one of the Gundams, and kept a war going for more years than I could count! He'd almost succeeded in smashing the Earth into tiny bits, almost destroyed several colonies, don't let your mind wander!

"What did you mean?" he asked, sitting down where my legs had been.

"Huh?"
"When you said that. 'We all are'."

"Oh. Because we all are plagued by shadows," I answered as though it were common sense. Obviously he lacked it, for he cocked his head lightly in confusion. I shook my head with a knowing chuckle and continued. "Everyone has their own shadows of the past that chase them down and haunt them until they are finally defeated."
"What do you mean, defeated?" he asked. This was a new experience in his eyes, I saw. He'd never really thought of this. He was confused and lost and sought the aid of myself like a lost little boy trying to find his way home.

"Some shadows...you can destroy them by overcoming your fears," I answered with a smile. "I've defeated one of my shadows before."
"Which one?" he asked.
"My fear of heights," I answered. "I used to be so scared to be even only three or four feet off the ground. So my brother took me hang-gliding. I've never been afraid of heights again. But..." I looked around to make sure his ears would only hear this. "Everyone has a shadow that follows them, even now. No one ever defeats all of their shadows. The bravest person in the world is said to face their fears head-on, without backing down. It's okay to be afraid. It's not okay to give up because of it."

"Who taught you that?"

I looked down at his words. He had struck a nerve, a very deep one.

"Jonathon."

Silence fell. The dull throb that raced through my legs kept me company as he got the courage to speak again. It amazed me how much Heero Yuy could easily kill a man, but could not have the face to speak to another about whom he killed, however indirectly.

"I apologize," he said at last. "I should not have delved so deep."

I glanced up and saw that his eyes were troubled now. He was so easily read if one knew where to look. The turmoil within him was easy to pick out. Heero was a good person, I now saw, a person tainted by war. War does that to people. That's what Duo said.

"No," I smiled. "You didn't. And Wufei was wrong. You have had the pleasure of having to apologize. At least now you have."

Heero closed his eyes softly and nodded, a quick breath escaping his mouth. I'm sorry, but was that a laugh? Did Heero Yuy, Perfect Soldier, just laugh? I did not dare to hope that my imagination had not run away with me. Silence fell again, but it was a comfortable silence, an understanding, of sorts. We had connected, become friends without speaking.

No, I realized. Heero had been my friend since day one. He'd teased me and was cold toward me, but that was just his way. Now I understood what Jonathon had meant when he'd told me to go and make a friend. A friend sticks closer than a brother. Now I fully understood the quote. Quatre, Duo, Heero, even Wufei, they'd all become my friends over this past month. I suppose that's what I got for trying to ignore fate, as my brother would say.

"What was he like?"

Heero's question surprised me so much I nearly fell off the sofa on which we sat. And would have had it not been for his quick-as-a-flash reaction. He replaced me in my sitting position carefully, as though I were an antique china doll. It made me a little mad that he treated me that way, but I brushed it off gently.

"You mean my brother, right?" I asked as I panted to catch my breath. His answer was a nod. I studied him with all the scrutiny I had within me. Slowly, I consented. "All right. I suppose it's all right. He won't mind." Heero's eyes flashed confusion, but I continued as though I hadn't noticed it. "He was a lot like Duo, in many ways."

Heero's expression seemed to darken, making me laugh.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing," I shook my head, tears of mirth in my eyes as I continued as though it hadn't happened, once again. "He had the same chocolate-brown hair, the same clear-blue eyes, the same mocking-death attitude. But he had a sense of justice and honor, like Wufei. And an aura of innocence, like Quatre. A quiet form, like Trowa. And a hidden love for the battlefield. Like you."
"He sounds more the Perfect Soldier than I," Heero said, a firefly light of humor in his eyes.

"But Jonathon also had a strict belief in fate, destiny, chance, and names," I shook my head as I ignored Heero, reminiscing my brother more than explaining him. "He said I should have been called Phoenix or Rose because he said I always knew how to grow up from my ashes of disaster and become a rose."
"But every rose has its thorns," Heero added, his monotone back.
"Are you mocking me?" I asked seriously.

"Yes."

"Then you will pay!" I shouted uproariously, and lunged at him, forgetting my legs completely.

To my surprise and Heero's, I did not suddenly collapse in absolute pain, but continued with my self-proclaimed mission of getting him. It was then I found out that Heero Yuy was ticklish! I knocked him to the floor, intending on pouncing his shoulders, but he suddenly shook completely over when I touched his sides.

I pressed my own fingers against his chest and, well, let him have it! Tickle, tickle, tickle! And it was then that I not only saw Heero's first actual-factual smile, but heard his true, honest-to-goodness laughter. The poor, dark-umber-haired, navy-blue-eyed Perfect Soldier didn't stand a chance against me. He was pinned in his own uncontrollable laughter.

Suddenly, with amazing strength and agility, I found myself in the same position as he started tickling me instead!

***
Don't ask me where the tickling part came from. It's an inside joke between me and Sarah.