Disclaimer: Man, I *still* don't own Gundam Wing

Disclaimer: Man, I *still* don't own Gundam Wing?!

AN: Wow… this is turning into an epic… I swear I didn't mean for it to be this long! I think I can see an end, it's the *getting* there…. Anyways, to make up for the two gazillion chapters and total lack of posting on my part, here's a longer part. ;)

Walking The Dividing Line

Part 14

It was Quatre who came in later. And it was Quatre who came in the next day, and the day after that. He had this worried look about him, almost as if I was going to break whenever he looked at me, and I couldn't tell why. He gave no indication that he knew about what had happened earlier, and I didn't mention it to him.

All I felt was this burning need inside of me to prove – to whom, I did not know, or if I did, then I wasn't about to admit it, even to myself – that I was not worthless. That I was not weak. No matter how much it hurt, I wanted to prove that I was not an invalid. Because all I could see was Wufei standing beside the door, holding the bowl and spoon, eyes daring me to get up and go over there and take them from him, prove that I didn't need him or anyone else to put my used dishes – or anything, for that matter – away for me.

Daring me to prove that I wasn't weak, that he should care whether I lived or died. Because *I* had to care whether I lived or died.

I blinked.

That was it.

It was a sunny afternoon, not quite a week after Wufei's silent dare and my complete failure to rise to it. I had seen no one but Quatre and Sally since; I had been mostly left to myself. And my thoughts.

And my thoughts led me to realize now that I had to care whether I lived or died, or nothing was ever going to change.

I set down the tech manual I had been idly leafing through. Three days ago I had asked Quatre to bring me all the technical information he could find. If I was going to be confined to bed, I had wanted something to do. And I had wanted something that would make a difference.

Maybe I could redeem myself yet. He had brought me a huge stack of manuals – I wasn't sure where he had actually gotten them, or even if the other pilots knew or approved of this – and I had been studying them furiously ever since.

But today my mind was elsewhere.

"Quatre?"

He started and looked over at me – I had barely spoken with him all this time, yet he had insisted on remaining here, sitting with me for most of the day.

"Alison? What is it?"

"I want to get up."

He blinked at me, momentarily confused by my request. "You want to… oh, Alison, you really should wait. It takes time to heal, you know that."

"I've had time," I replied, pulling the covers off, wincing at the still-shooting pain that danced across my limbs at such an action. But I wasn't going to let it bother me. I couldn't let it bother me or I would be stuck here forever and I would fall again and I was sure that if that happened, I might never find my way out.

"Alison…" Quatre trailed off, watching me with wide eyes as I once more pulled my legs to the side of the bed and draped them over the edge. I gripped the bedrail in my bandaged right hand, the metal cold and shocking beneath my fingers.

"Are you… going to help me… or not?" I asked him from between clenched teeth. This hurt just as much as it had before, and this time I didn't mind asking for help.

He immediately stood and leaned over, placing his hands beneath my arms, fingers gingerly brushing my skin as if he was trying to keep his touch as light as possible.

"This isn't a good idea…" he muttered, but then I'd slid off the bed, my feet meeting the cold floor again and I was standing in front of him, staring at his chest but I was standing, and that was all that mattered.

But I'd stood before. I'd walked before. So I was most certainly going to do it now.

I took a step forward and nearly bumped into his chest. I stopped, looking up at him as he peered down at me through his golden bangs. He shook his head slightly.

"No, I don't think you should – "

"I can walk," I told him shortly, and raised my hands, placing them on his chest and shoving him away, causing even more pain to run rampant up my arms at the pressure.

He moved, miraculously, and I took another step, headed for the window. Quatre immediately positioned himself beside me, hands always floating just above my arm, ready to catch me if I were to fall.

I wasn't going to fall.

It took a good minute, but I eventually made it to the window without falling once. I grabbed the windowsill for support, pretending that even that motion didn't hurt as much as it did. In reality the cold metal stung my skin even through my bandages, even with the warm sunlight spilling over me. I peered through the glass, hearing Quatre move behind me, intently studying the blue of the sky and the golden brown of the sand below it.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked softly; I turned around slowly, still clutching the sill for support.

"No," I said simply. "I want to get better."

His eyes continued gazing at me with that steady aqua-green softness. "You will."

I nodded, only barely wincing. "Yes, I will."

"But not if you push yourself," he insisted, pointing back to my bed. "You need rest."

"I'm sick of resting!" I cried, letting go of the sill with one hand holding it out for emphasis. "I've done nothing but rest and drown in my own mind for three weeks – "

"One of which you spent in a coma," he put in softly.

"All right, two weeks! But… but I'm sick of it! I don't want to be like this! I don't want to be so… "

"So weak?"

I looked up at him, startled. He smiled, a small, knowing smile.

"…Yeah." My hand dropped to my side and I stared at the floor. "Is that too much to ask?"
"No," Quatre said simply, coming over and leaning down to wrap one arm beneath mine and around my back, helping me back over to the bed. I let him.

"Listen, I know what you're trying to do," he said softly, once I was sitting in bed again and he'd taken his seat beside me.

I looked up at him. "What?" What was I trying to do? This was news to me.

"You can't win him over just by getting better faster."

"What?"

His eyes gazed at me, as if trying to make me feel better with his look alone. "Wufei. You want him to trust you, don't you?"

Was that it? He hadn't even figured into the equation before – I'd never considered that I wanted any sort of approval from him, or from anyone, for that matter. That couldn't be what this was about –

"I trust you," Quatre said softly. "Trowa trusts you. Heero and Wufei will too, in their own time. All they can see right now is your actions – they don't understand the motivation behind them. They just don't tend to think like that."

I didn't really believe him, actually. Heero and Wufei…

There was a pause.

"And Duo?"

He looked down. "I don't know about Duo."

"Well, I do," I said softly. I'd been thinking about this, and feeling as if those piercing blue eyes were staring over my shoulder, watching my every action. Watching me fall as I tried to walk the first time, watching me read the manuals, *watching me*. And I couldn't take it.

"I know about him," I said. "And I don't want to see him. Ever." And I laid down, pulling the blanket stiffly over myself once more, rolling over so that I was facing the wall. I could see the outline of the bed, and of Quatre, in the patch of sunlight that fell across the floor.

This wasn't about approval. It was about living.

Right?

* * *

There was shouting outside my door. I rolled over, blinking in the darkness. What time was it? What was going on?

I pulled off the sheets, sitting up slowly and sliding stiffly off the bed and onto the hard floor, careful not to step on the pile of tech manuals there. I had been walking for a week now, still confined to my room, and although my body was still stiff and slow to respond I wasn't in as much pain as I had been before. A few of the bandages on my arms and legs had come off, but Sally was reluctant to let the ones on my face be removed, for fear the scarring would be worse then.

Scarring. Hmph. In the places where the bandages had already been removed my skin was new and pink, the slash marks still clearly visible as scars that would never go away. Duo really had left me torn, and now I could never forget that. Not with all the slashes still visible all over my body.

I padded over to the door and listened, one hand on the handle, ready to pull it open if need be. The voices were still out there, still shouting loudly at one another. I tried to make out what they were saying.

"I need to talk with her, *now*!"

"Heero, wait – she's sleeping, it's the middle of the night! What's so important that – "

"Giniko is not working for OZ," the first voice – Heero's voice – growled. "She went renegade."

"And she told you this?"

That was Trowa, his voice soft but firm. The voice of reason.

"Yes."

"You'd trust her over Alison?"

Quatre.

"Alison has shown nothing to gain my trust – or yours," Heero said coldly. I blinked into the darkness.

That was true, I thought, feeling my stomach drop. I hadn't. And yet –

"I trust Alison," Quatre insisted. "She had been manipulated so deeply that she didn't know *who* she trusted. But Giniko wiped that away. And right now I think the most important thing we can do for her is to trust her."

"I don't."

"I know that, Heero, but we also have no real reason to trust Giniko," Trowa reasoned. "I realize what she told you but I think that we need time to deal with this. Marching in there and interrogating Alison – after her memory has been wiped – is not going to help the situation any."

"How do we even know her mind has been wiped?" Heero demanded. "We don't. Giniko told us that as well. I can't believe that you would welcome her back so easily."

"Neither can I," I said, shoving the door open and stepping out into the brightly-lit hall, lights buzzing overhead and the three previously arguing Gundam pilots caught beneath them. One set of green eyes stared at me; the other regarded me with a calm interest as the sole pair of icy blue eyes shot daggers through my heart.

"I can't believe you took me in so easily," I said, addressing Quatre. "But you did, and I can't thank you enough for that. Heero," I said, turning to the Japanese pilot who was still staring death at me, "what did you want to ask me?"

"What were you doing with Giniko before Duo left?" he asked lowly, not skipping a beat and the tone in his voice made it clear, as if his previous words had not, that he did not trust me.

"She kidnapped me," I told him curtly. "After I ran away I checked into a motel, and she kidnapped me from there and brought me to an OZ base, or something like that."

"But she's not working – "

"She was at the time," I insisted, cutting him off. "She was very much working for OZ when she first captured me. She told me that Zechs or whoever it was had been sent here to deal with you. But soon after, she did take me and leave – that must have been when she left OZ." I paused. "Duo showed up after that. I can remember that. She didn't wipe any of that."

Heero just blinked, eyes still icy and manner still gruff, almost to the point of annoyance. But that was more Wufei's department, I thought.

Quatre had just been standing there; now he stood straighter and faced Heero. "She's our friend, Heero. We have to trust her."

"No we don't," Heero said forcefully. Trowa merely eyed him from his position against the wall, where he was leaning slightly with his arms crossed over his chest, regarding us all with a silent, discerning gaze.

"Listen, I know you don't trust me," I said slowly. "I know you never trusted me. I can remember that much, at least. I can remember this –"

And I held up my right wrist and ripped the bandage off of it, so that the old scar that Heero had left me, covered by the newly-laid scar that Duo had slashed over it, was visible in the white halogen light.

Heero stole a glance at my wrist, then looked back up at me.

"I know you don't trust me. And I don't blame you. But… but I'm not your enemy here. I don't want to be your enemy. I don't want to go back to OZ, if I was ever with them in the first place. I want… I want to stay here," I added, my voice suddenly small and timid as I let my arm drop back to my side. "I want to help you – all of you. I've seen OZ, and I don't want to be a part of that. Not if they use people like this."

"Then you tell them that."

I looked up at Heero; Quatre was staring at him as well.

"Tell…?"

"OZ. You tell them that you don't want to have anything to do with them."

"How…?"

He reached behind his back and pulled out his gun, gripping it tightly in his hand as he looked up at me.

"Kill Giniko."

I blinked. "Kill… You want me to *kill* her?!"

"Heero!" Quatre protested.

"Yes. Kill her."

"I can't – I can't kill her!" I blurted out. I didn't want to *see* her ever again, let alone get close enough to her to kill her. And regardless of that, taking a life could never make this right. Not even hers.

"What – you can't kill her, even after she did all *that* to you?" Heero asked ardently, motioning with one hand up and down my body.

"She didn't do *this* to me," I said coldly. "*Duo* did this to me."

Suddenly I felt a lot colder, as if the air temperature in the hallway had dropped below freezing. I heard Quatre move beside me, but he said nothing. And so Heero and I just stared at each other through the thick curtain of silence.

"That won't accomplish anything," Trowa said, breaking the silence finally and pushing himself away from the wall to look down at Heero. "We don't need more bloodshed."

"We don't need *her*," Heero replied; whether he was referring to myself or to Giniko, I couldn't tell. Maybe both.

"OZ has already tried to turn us against each other – both times using Duo to try to undermine the trust that we need to operate effectively against them. They know that. We can't waste our energy like this. It's only playing us right into their hands," Trowa said.

"I know that," Heero said coldly, still staring straight at me, and the hand holding the gun twitched. "But I can't trust her."

I blinked. "I'm sorry."

"I don't care."

"Then what *do* you care about?!" I cried, startling Quatre beside me so that he turned to stare at me now instead. But I had had enough of this.

"Alison –"

"All I hear about is how you don't trust anyone, how you want to kill your enemies and how that's your sole purpose in life. Well, I just want to know – is that all you care about? Killing people? Being the one who's always *right* in the end? We all make mistakes, Heero. We're *human*. Or are you that much higher?"

"Alison –"

"That's enough," Trowa said firmly, yet quietly as ever as I continued to stare at Heero; but to my further annoyance I couldn't tell if my words had even reached the Japanese boy before me. He remained standing there, holding his gun, staring at me with that same icy blue vehemence, the same expressionless expression on his face.

"This isn't getting us anywhere. Heero, put the gun away – we won't need it tonight," Trowa said calmly, looking down at Heero but making no move.

Heero cast his glare up at Trowa, but nonetheless tucked his gun back into place.

"We'll need it soon enough," he said, then turned and walked away.

"I'm sorry," Quatre said softly, coming up beside me. "It'll take time, but –"

"He's never really going to trust me," I cut him off, voicing the truth and not what I knew Quatre was going to tell me to try to make me feel better. Because I knew, deep down, that Heero never *was* going to trust me. At least not fully. He didn't trust easily, and I might have had that tentative trust once, before I could remember, but I was never going to have so much of it again. And I knew that. The look in his eyes told me that.

Beside me, Quatre sighed.

"This is exactly what they want," Trowa said, his tone darker than before. "They're trying to divide us. And it's working. Damn it."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Quatre insisted.

"He's right," Trowa said, looking down at me. I looked up, startled to hear such a thing coming from him. Sure, Quatre had told me Trowa also trusted me, but it had still been a bit hard for me to believe.

"You've been used. And they're still using you, even though they've thrown you away. Heero is right about one thing: we need to take care of Giniko. And soon."

Trowa turned and began walking away; I turned to look at Quatre, the worry back in his gaze and he looked at me.

"And what about Duo?" I asked him softly.

"I don't know," Quatre replied. "He seems better – almost completely unlike how he was. Much more like his normal self. He…" Quatre trailed off, still looking at me, something almost calculating now about that green-eyed gaze.

"What?" I asked, feeling my stomach drop under that look. There was something he wasn't telling me. Something important.

"He wants to see you."

"I don't want to see him," I said, almost too quickly, the words spilling out of my mouth as the ghosts of memories returned to me – his pale frame in the moonlight, his hand on my cheek and my mouth –

And then what had happened before that, a few weeks ago, his slender hands holding up knife after knife after –

No. I didn't want to see him.

"Alison? Alison, you're… I'm sorry."

I was suddenly enveloped in a warm hug; Quatre held me to him as I stood there, suddenly aware of what he had been about to tell me.

I was shaking.

I didn't want to see Duo. Wherever he was, there was pain. Terrible, ripping, shredding, pain. He was the Shinigami, he had been taken by the Shinigami and there was nothing left, nothing in his eyes and his touch brought only coldness and pain. And I couldn't go through that again.

Because that really *would* break me.

And I didn't want to break any more.