Adaptation

By: Kiamirei

~I claim nothing. Feel free to send me your comments.

            Heero sat inside a stolen mobile home, watching the huddled figure on the only bed as he drank a cup of strong coffee. He was worried. The boy underneath the piles of blankets was shivering profusely, and tried to move often, only to cry out in pain as his broken limbs were jarred, and had not yet woken up, even once, even just for a few seconds. Would he ever wake? Briefly, the Japanese boy contemplated strapping the injured person down to restrict the erratic movements, but decided not to; even now, the invalid deserved his dignity.

                "Damn it," he said softly, "you better live. You just better."

                Wing Zero's pilot had shocked himself when he found himself carrying the figure's shattered body away from the battlefield, and even more when he stayed up late into the night and woke up early each morning to tend the wounds of someone who might never open their eyes again. But Heero had found that he liked the other boy, had wanted his companionship. Wufei did, too, he knew, but the Chinese pilot had no debt to pay the wounded boy, unlike himself, and would be of better use fighting. Now that there was a chance that those emerald eyes would never open again, he found himself feeling empty.

                Sighing, he placed his head in his hands and continued gazing at the tormented boy.

* * * *

Duo looked down bitterly at the OZ application forms he was filling out inside the apartment. Who was he kidding? There was no way he was going to succeed at convincing OZ he was just another recruit. Infiltration was not his gig; Trowa was the one who should be doing what he was at that moment. Should be. But pilot 03 had finally gotten his chance to self-destruct, and had taken the opportunity with open arms. Duo was surprised by how much he missed the other, considering they did not know each other well at all.

                "Oi. Wufei," he said to the boy sitting beside him, filling out the same forms.

                "What?" The Chinese pilot didn't like the deadness in the normally cheery pilot's voice.

                "Why the hell are we doing this?"

                "You know why."

                "Why can't Heero do it, or Quatre? Plus, you know that when we do get close enough to Lady Une or Treize to kill them, or by the time we get any valuable information, they'll most likely know our identities already."

                "Stop complaining, Maxwell. Quatre could never pull this off on his own; he disapproves of these types of methods too much to convince someone that he isn't infiltrating."

                "And Heero?"

                "You know that his mobile suit was completely totaled."

                "Yeah…but still. Why would he need a mobile suit for this mission?"

"He'd never go anywhere without knowing it was available in case he got desperate."

"Why can't we do something different? I mean, we used to fight alone before, surely we can fight with just the four of us."

                "Three, until Heero fixes his mobile suit. You keep forgetting that. Also, when we tried fighting openly alone, or in just pairs, we quickly figured out that we didn't make much of a difference at all. Until the other two come back, we're going to do things this way, whether you like it or not. So stop being weak."

                "That's assuming that they will come back. We know that Trowa is dead, and with a mobile suit that badly damaged Heero isn't going to get very far. He didn't even tell us where he was going. And where the hell is Quatre?" Duo was getting frustrated.

                "He's traveling to the circus first, to inform Catherine of Trowa's injury. Then he'll go to protect Relena until we give him further notice. There's been a lot of Oz activity near her location lately, and there's already been at least one attempt on her life. He'll tell her, also, of Trowa's condition. Not that she really needs to know."

                "You keep speaking as if Trowa's alive."

                "He probably is."

                "That's bullshit. Wake up to reality," Duo spat. He had seen far too many people he cared about die, and was not going to allow himself to keep any false hopes. Optimism was overrated.

                "Heero didn't die," Wufei reasoned, "even though we all thought that he did."

                "Trowa isn't Heero, and unlike Heero, he self-destructed inside of his gundam, with the cockpit closed, not standing just outside of it."

                "That shouldn't make much of a difference."

                "You know better. Face it, Wufei, Trowa's dead and we're just infiltrating because that's what he used to do, or in a desperate attempt to compensate for his death, or reconcile ourselves to that fact, or who knows what. He's dead, and he's not coming back."

                Wufei looked away, coal orbs focusing out the window and on the moon, which was just rising over the sky.

                "Fill out those forms, Maxwell. I'm sending both of ours tomorrow, and if you haven't finished yours I'm going to finish them for you." 

                He walked out of the room

* * *

~:~:~:~:~

                The mission was shot to hell. Wufei had known this only five minutes after the battle had begun. They were supposed to be destroying an OZ base because it had large quantities of Gundanium, but mobile dolls greeted them before the base was even in range. In fighting the mobile dolls –they had no other choice, of course, but to defend themselves- their cover had been blown, and more troops were coming at them.

                "I hadn't anticipated this many," Trowa said.

                "Neither did I," Duo replied, "But they're all going to fall to Shinigami anyway!"

                They continued fighting, but Heero's face popped up on Shenlong's screen.

                "The other's can't hear me," Heero said. "Listen carefully. You know Trowa doesn't complain unless he's running out of ammo. I can't believe he'd make such a miscalculation, but we haven't been in a place for him to get more bullets and missiles for a long time. Try to keep some of the mobile dolls out of his way. Don't protect him obviously, though."

                Wufei had nodded, and Heero disconnected the line. A grim feeling took over. If Heero was asking him to help Trowa, the pilot must be in real trouble. How like Trowa not to say anything. Inch by inch they made their way closer to the base, determined to succeed, even though by now it was not only Trowa having trouble. The problem was made much worse when both of Quatre's sickles snapped, which had not been thought possible, and the pilot was now nearly weaponless.

                "Retreat, Quatre!" Duo said. "We'll take it from here!"

                "No! I can't just leave you guys!"

                "Go, you idiot! We're going to be fine."

                "Leave," came Heero's curt order.

                After a moment's hesitation, the pilot of Sandrock complied, not wanting to be a burden, and they fought on.

                When they were nearly at the base, another throng of mobile dolls surrounded them, and they once again had to use up precious time destroying them. Trowa's missiles cleared the way up quickly, though, along with Heero's beam cannon, and they finally arrived at the base. Immediately they started to destroy everything in sight while fending off the seemingly endless supply of enemies.

                "I'm out of bullets," Trowa informed them, and Wufei felt his heart sink.

                "That's alright," Duo said. "Retreat."

                "No. I'll be fine, and I'm not asking for protection."

What he really meant was, "don't trust me to be able to be of any protection or use to you, and don't try to help me or save me. I made a mistake, and I refuse to compromise anyone else's safety because of it." Wufei knew this, as did Heero, but Duo was not very adept at reading into the subtle nuances in the boy's speech. Neither was Quatre, surprisingly enough.

                Another wave of enemies came, and Heero had gone in his already badly damaged mobile suit unbidden, and unwanted, the Chinese boy knew, to aid Trowa, who was fighting only with the knife he had. Wufei was surprised at this altruistic move, and also surprised that Heavyarms' pilot was allowing Wing Zero's help –both of the two stoic pilots preferred as much solitude as they could safely have- but that emotion was replaced quickly by concern as he saw both Heero and Trowa's Gundams getting destroyed. Duo was having trouble also, and he himself was not fairing too well.

                The situation was hopeless. Their enemies seemed to never stop coming, and they couldn't keep themselves alive for much longer, much less succeed at the mission. Suddenly Trowa's voice came over the screen again.

                "I've just run a short scan on the base's hangars. More enemies will be coming. Leave me here."

                "What?" Duo asked. "What the hell do you mean?"

 

                But Wufei and Heero had known instantly, and, respecting the pilot, turned around and retreated at the highest speed they could muster. When they were a safe distance away, they turned around to watch, not wanting to see the emerald eyed boy die, but feeling obligated to witness his passing. He would have done the same for them –indeed, he had done even more than simply watch when the Japanese pilot had opted to self-destruct.

                "Maxwell!" Shenlong's pilot shouted, suddenly angry. "Leave him alone!" Finally, Duo understood. 

                "Wha-no way! You can't expect me to just let him-"

                "Shut up, Maxwell!" Wufei flew back and dragged the unwilling Deathscythe to safety, too.

                "The building I'm standing at contains the gundanium," Trowa said, as the weapons of the newly arrived mobile dolls that he had predicted struck his mobile suit. "So don't worry about it. I guess I get to be useful after all. Lucky me. Tell Catherine…I'm sorry."

                Time had seemed to stand still.

                "Mission Accepted." These, Trowa felt, were worthy last words. 

                Heavyarms glowed red, then exploded, engulfing the entire base, the mobile dolls –and most importantly the gundanium- in its blast. Flames encompassed everything.

                "Mission… Completed," Heero said softly. Duo and Wufei watched, stunned, as the heavily damaged Wing Zero went into those flames, emerged with Trowa's mutilated body in its grip, and flew away. It didn't take pilots 05 and 02 long to destroy the mobile dolls that had escaped and the last bits of the base. Quatre had heard the whole thing inside Sandrock, and later he came to claim the destroyed Heavyarms; OZ could not be permitted to obtain it.

~:~:~:~:~

                Wufei sighed, his head in his hands. He had not expected to miss his friend so much, and he had to forcefully keep himself from mourning a death that was only feared, and not confirmed.

* * *

                Quatre looked into the mirror, his face betraying how devastated he was. Trowa was gone. Gone. The word kept repeating itself in his head over and over again. Gone. He would not allow himself to think "dead," because it was too painful for the moment. Perhaps there was some logic in distancing oneself the way that Heero and Trowa did, after all; it did not hurt so much if you could not care less about the deceased. But it was not in the blonde's nature to be that way, and the idea was immediately passed off as foolish. Friendships were most definitely important, and he would go on mourning the emerald-eyed pilot until the grief was gone, and nothing was left but bittersweet memory.

                After Heavyarms' self-destruction, he had picked up the remnants of the Gundam, and at Duo's suggestion had dropped it off with Howard, who was on Earth somewhere. When that was done he had made the journey towards the circus where Trowa had stayed. Catherine knew better than to be overjoyed at the sight of a Gundam pilot; when her adopted brother's friends came calling, it invariably meant that something was wrong. Quatre thought at first that she would turn him away without listening to a word he said.

~:~:~:~:~

                "Um…Catherine?" he had asked tentatively as he knocked on the door of her trailer.

                The door opened to reveal the young woman, whose face fell at the sight of him.

                "Yes?" she had asked politely, trying not to show the fear in her eyes.

                "I don't know if you remember me, but-"

                "I remember you. You're one of Trowa's friends, right? Quatre, was it?"

                "Yes, that's right."

                "What is it, now? I'm sorry if I seem a little rude, but all the times that I've seen one of you Gundam pilots something bad has happened. Has Trowa gotten himself in trouble? Does he need our circus to go meet him somewhere?"

                "N-no…it isn't anything like that, really…"

                "Well, what is it?"

                "You may want to sit down, Miss Catherine…. we were on a mission…I mean to say that Trowa's always been very kind and dedicated…"

                "He got captured, didn't he," she said miserably.

                "N-no." hope flared briefly in the girl's eyes before he continued. "But it-it's something worse than that."

                "Please, Quatre, tell me," she said breathlessly.

                "We miscalculated on a mission –there were far more enemies than we anticipated- and well, Trowa hadn't been able to get a hold of any ammo –we'd been on the run for several months, and he was running lower on artillery than he had thought- and my scimitars snapped…"

                "Quatre, tell me!" she cried.

                He let out the rest in a rush, speaking as quickly as possible while trying not to let the tears that were building up behind his eyes to fall.

                "The mission was going all wrong, and we had little chance of victory, and it was getting hopeless, and there was nothing we could do about it, and he self-detonated to save us and complete the mission, and there's no way that he could be alive after that, because he was still inside Heayarms when it blew up, and I hate to bring such bad news, but you had to know, and he asked us to tell you that he was sorry!"

                She stood absolutely still for about five minutes, and Quatre began to think that something was seriously wrong with her. Then tears slowly started pouring out of her eyes, and she sank to the ground, beating a fist upon the earth as she screamed obscenities at him and demanded why her brother had to die, and why no one else had stopped him, or saved him like he saved Heero, and how could he have done such a thing, and in the end was reduced to sobbing as she cried over and over again that her brother was dead.

~:~:~:~:~

                Quatre felt extremely guilty, and she had asked him to leave soon after that. He had not the heart to ignore her and had gone from the place as quickly as possible, trying not to look back, because he knew that he would see her still crying. He was mildly surprised at the void that was quickly filling his life without Trowa there. It seemed almost strange that such an aloof and silent pilot should be missed so much. Certainly the boy himself would not approve. Relena, of course, had cared very little, and when she had failed to show an appropriate amount of grief he had found himself wishing to scream at her, or to slap her in the face before he had gotten a hold of his feelings and offered to be her guard.

                It was true that Trowa would not condone his sorrow, though. The boy would inform him in that soft, monotone voice that his sadness was getting in the way of his ability to make rational decisions, to operate safely and effectively in battles, and to carry out missions. Mission. The word brought him out of the state his mind had gone into. His friend might well be dead, but Quatre still had a war to fight.

                But why had it had to be his way? It all seemed so incredibly unfair.