Adaptation

By: Kiamirei

~ I don't own anything, as usual.

            They had abandoned the mobile home in the woods where it had been found, instead opting to rent a small apartment that was in the city five miles over. Life was fairly calm; after making the report for their last mission and the current status and location of each pilot, Heero had received no new orders, for which both boys were grateful. In the midst of a peaceful morning, just before dawn, Trowa Barton was lying face down on the floor. He had been that way for a half hour. Heero was in the kitchen making breakfast, and had no doubt heard the thump as he fell out of the bed, but there was no way that he was going to call for help. He was just thankful that he had landed on his stomach, rather than the stumps of his legs; if he had, it would have hurt like hell, and could have started bleeding.

                After arguing countless times over his ability to pilot a mobile suit, the emerald eyed warrior had realized something: his friend was not worried about his safety in the least; there was no doubt about Trowa's ability to keep himself alive. The conflict was something far different from that. When he thought about it, it made a lot of sense, and he wondered why he had been so slow on the uptake. Heero "Perfect Soldier" Yuy could not accept the idea that even legless, he could be just as skilled and just as deadly as he had been before. The Japanese boy was almost obsessive in his perfectionism –the fault of his training, no doubt- and now that he had an imperfection the pilot just could not accept him as being as proficient as he was before. Never mind the fact that legs had absolutely nothing to do with piloting. Never mind the fact that through what could have been described as a miracle his brain was completely unaffected. Never mind the fact that his arm strength had been greater than Heero's, because he left the controlling mechanism to Heavyarms unbalanced, making it much harder to lift the left arm.

                Had been stronger. As a result of being a soldier from birth, and as a result of years of training as a gymnast, his arms had been the strongest part of his entire body. But then he had blown himself up. Now the limbs he had cultivated so much were of extremely little use to him. They felt like wet noodles, and hurt, as did the rest of his body, whenever he tried to use them. For this reason, instead of being up and back on the bed in less than three seconds, he was nearly helpless. Apparently, his body did not appreciate being self-detonated inside of a Gundam, and not for the first time, he found himself wishing he had legs again.

                Trowa could not deny that the psychological affect of his injuries could be staggering. He felt useless, incomplete. Sometimes he would wake to feel his calf muscles hurting, only to remember that he no longer had calves. Occasionally he would lose his balance and fall out of chairs –or beds- and have to rely on the Japanese pilot to pick him up again. It pained him to have his sense of balance thrown off; it was one of the two things he had allowed himself to take pride in, while walking along the top of a fence, or leaning precariously off of his Gundam or the roof of a three-story building. The other thing had been the fact that he could speak seven different languages; it made up for not having a name. ("Hi, I'm nameless, so just call me Nanashi, but hey, I speak seven different languages!") But it did not end there. He couldn't eat unless Heero carried him to the table. He couldn't bathe unless Heero carried him to the tub and helped undress him; he was still too weak to do it on his own. He couldn't go to a different room unless Heero took him there. He couldn't cook unless Heero put him on a chair because he could no longer see above the counter top. He couldn't even take a shit unless Heero put him on the toilet. It was degrading, and he felt more and more of his pride wash away with each incident.

                As soon as I'm strong again, I swear I'm getting myself prosthetic legs, he thought. 

                Wallowing in self-pity was something that he did not allow himself to do, however, and so he tried his hardest to just make do with the situation, to just put the past behind him. After all, he had forced himself to stop caring about the fact that he was nameless and had to take the title of a corpse, had he not? But it was hard, and he knew he was not as mentally strong as Wufei was. Even Quatre, the most sensitive of them all, had an uncanny ability to simply look towards the future.

                Damn this, he thought. I will be strong. I will. And I'm going to get up, so Heero doesn't see me and become even more stubborn in his opinions. I don't want to be humiliated again. Even now, I want my dignity. So come on, Nanashi, get up.

                Slowly, agonizingly slowly, an arm crawled closer to his side. Bit by bit, the other arm followed, and he rested for a few seconds. Then he pushed with both arms, actually succeeding in rising a few inches before heavily dropping back to the floor. He tried again. And again. And again and again and again, all in vain. He was preparing to make another attempt when there was a short knock on the door just before it opened. It was Heero, with a cup of coffee for him.

                Wordlessly, pilot 01 put the cup on the bedside table and walked over to the other boy. With no effort at all, he picked him up.

                "Where do you want to go?" he asked, in the monotone voice the two were so characterized by.

                "Nowhere," Trowa whispered, for once letting his tone show a bit of the enormous amount of unhappiness he felt. "Nowhere at all."

* * * *

                "The question," Wufei said contemplatively, "is not how many bases there are. The question we should be asking is where the hell they're getting the damn Gundanium Alloy."

                "True. So how do we find out?"

                "How do we find out anything around here?"

                "Oh. Yeah," Duo said, with just a hint of bitterness. "We'll fawn and obey, and keep normal profiles, and sweet-talk our superiors in the off-chance that they might let slip some information."

                "And then we'll come back here and hack into their files," Wufei finished for him. There was silence for a few moments while the American paced the room, but it did not last long.

                "Arrgghh! I hate this, Wufei! I'm not a goddamn soldier!"

                "Obviously not. You're also acting like a child."

                "I never had a childhood."

                "None of us have."

                "Surprise, surprise. When we find out where they're getting the metal, then can we leave?"

Violet eyes pleaded with the Chinese boy, and he found himself wanting to give in. A war needed to be fought, however, and personal feelings could not be allowed to get in the way of it.

"No."

"What? Why not?"

"Because then we need to see who discovered it, and if they've discovered it in more places, and what more they plan to do."

"I hate this. It scares the shit outta me."

"Deal with it. You think I'm not nervous? All it takes is one slip-up, and we're screwed. I'm not enjoying this any more than you are. But get used to it. We have to be strong."

"I'm not a soldier. I run. I hide. I strike from the shadows so that our numbers don't get any smaller. It's always been my style."

"I'm no soldier either. I hate taking orders from people who I can't respect. I hate the weak people here. I fight openly and with as little deception as possible. But since when has anyone cared about what ways I prefer to go about trying to win a war? Deal with it, Maxwell. That's all I have to say."

"You piss me off, Wufei. But it's mainly because you're right."

Duo sat down on the bed, smoothing out some wrinkles in his uniform. He felt disturbed seeing himself in it, feeling somehow that wearing the clothing was somehow a betrayal to his beliefs. There was quiet again for a few minutes as the self-proclaimed Shinigami thought to himself. However, silence unnerved him, and before long, he was chattering away; the constant, meaningless prattle kept him from thinking too much.   

* * * *

                Late at night, when Duo had finally stopped his inane talking long enough to fall asleep, Wufei got out of his bed as quietly as possible, and proceeded to tiptoe across the floor to sit in the chair in front of the laptop on the table. He turned it on, and began the weekly search he had been making since the night Heero had taken off. If he could just prove that Trowa was still alive and that pilot 01 was safe then perhaps he and his voluble companion would be that much less stressed out. It would help to not have the question hanging over their heads.

                Then again, he had to keep in mind that Duo was of the opinion that there was no question. Trowa Barton had died, Heero Yuy had taken the corpse to be burned or buried, and that was that. Perhaps it was easier for the American to think that way because he had never really been a friend with the boy who worked at a circus in his free time. And he had to admit, it was not very logical to disagree. Wishful thinking, maybe. On top of that, this search, like all his other searches, was completely fruitless so far; there was absolutely nothing that he could go off of. Even assuming that they had stayed on that one colony, looking for the two pilots was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

                But Wufei refused to believe that the boy had not survived. He admitted that Trowa had meant business when he pressed the self-destruct button: Heero had stood on the open hatch of his Gundam when he decided to die, Quatre had gotten out of Sandrock, he himself had never been forced to blow his mobile suit up, and Duo's self-destruct mechanism had completely failed. Pilot 03 had chosen to self-detonate inside Heavyarms with the door locked shut. But somehow, he had a feeling in his gut that giving up on the boy would be a mistake. And it was an advantage that the only weapon that the Gundam had been left with was its army knife; blowing up a mobile suit when it was packed full with missiles, bombs, and machine guns would not even leave a corpse behind. A few ashes would be the only thing left of the unfortunate soul caught in the explosion. He also admitted that it would be highly out of character for Heero to even attempt to save someone; if not dead, Trowa was obviously going to be a big liability. Maybe the Japanese pilot had just dumped the body in a ditch somewhere. But again, he could not force himself to accept that.

                God I miss Nataku, he thought. Both the real one and the mobile suit.

                He missed his wife more than the weapon, which was a relief, and felt the familiar ache welling up inside of him. As stubborn, single-minded, opinionated, and judgmental as she had been, the girl had also been strong, just, understanding, helpful, and infinitely caring. She would have had some good advice to give him, or maybe just a hug and a peck on the cheek. Either one would do right now. He tried not to let himself go one in this fashion, but his wife was something that his morals were always more lenient on. As for the mobile suit…. Sally had jokingly asked him once whether he and the other four pilots knew any stress relievers that didn't involve blowing up military bases. They had both laughed, but knew that the answer to the question was most likely one that neither wanted to know. And military bases were much easier to destroy when he was piloting his Gundam.

                Just before dawn, an hour before he and Duo would have to get dressed, he gave up, turned off the computer, and went to bed, as he had done for each of these long nights. Next week might prove to yield different results, but at the moment, he was tired and wanted rest.

* * * *

                Yawning, Quatre groggily got out of bed, rubbing his eyes, and looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was ten o'clock in the morning. He smiled ruefully; the inactivity was making him weak. Normally he would have been wide awake at sunrise, but the lack of missions had given him the time it took to realize just how malnourished and sleep-deprived his body had been. He felt sorry for the other four –three, he reminded himself, there were only three others now- pilots. While he got to relax as he played bodyguard for Relena, Duo and Wufei were hard at work getting info from Oz, and Heero was…well, wherever the boy was, there was no doubt he was being useful. The blonde almost felt guilty, but Oz was being fairly quiet, and there had not been a single mission sent to him, so he figured it would be okay to lay low for a while, and if the others needed his help, they knew where to look. With an exasperated sigh, the boy smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand.

                I'm getting so lazy, he thought. That's it. I'm going running. She can deal with going a single day without me, and my physical health is starting to go downhill. How can I expect to be able to pilot Sandrock for hours at a time if I can't even get up at a reasonable hour?

                He picked up the clock, found the alarm setting, and set it for six o'clock in the morning. Then he found his clothes, and went to get in the shower.

* * * *

                There was an element to being covered in sweat that appealed to him. After explaining that he was taking the day off and that he was going running, the girl had offered him running clothes, which he gladly accepted. Quatre had memorized his way around the city her estate was at before even setting foot in it, and had no worries while he spent four hours straight running around the streets. Now, just after getting back, he was panting for breath and feeling absolutely filthy. But in a way, he liked it, as strange as it sounded even to his own ears.

                That sensation of being completely exhausted, like he was completely drained of all energy, somehow felt good. It was as if he could use his fatigue to prove that he was not being completely idle, like he could use himself as an example to say, "Hey, look, I did something constructive!" Not that anyone cared what he did. Relena's bodyguards scorned him for his youth, and she herself ignored him also. Perhaps she felt that his presence implied that he was not good enough to fight his enemies.

                That's not true, he adamantly told himself. I'm good enough. But everyone needs rest, and it's been so short a time since Trowa died, and even Oz seems to want a time-out….