AN: I do not own Gundam Wing. Ideas for any original or passing characters mostly come from other works (either literary or otherwise).

I am revising the first few chapters that I had written, since I felt that they could have been better. I would appreciate commentaries and critiques. Thank you.

"Careful! Watch it now."

  The medics rolled the gurney from the van and down the hall. Having already administered some painkillers on the way, along with a good amount of shock from the initial pain, their patient was in no condition to protest even if they had been anything but careful. One of the nurses was actually rather disturbed by the patient's extreme stillness. Eyeing the spread of blood on his chest, she was pessimistic about his condition. As she thought this, a pair of drugged, green eyes looked up at her from where the head they belonged to was being restrained on the gurney. The eyes closed again before she could react to them. Nurse Hancock turned to one of the other orderlies walking in the opposite direction and had him take her place. She had seen all sorts of injuries working where she did but she knew she felt that she would be helpless while witnessing the possible death of one so young and beautiful. The doctors would do their best, though. Instead, she hailed the two young men who were following right behind the gurney. Someone would have to start up a chart on the patient, and she had decided to perform the task. One that would have a better chance of success, she thought.

 "Excuse me, sirs. Would you mind following me and answering some questions?" Though stated in the form of a request, Nurse Hancock turned toward the medical area's nurses' station before either of them had a chance to respond. After moving behind the high counter that was her domain, she looked up into their faces and suddenly wished she had stuck with the gurney instead. Even after her many years of experience, those hard stares had the ability of making her wish she could hide behind the counter. Instead, she settled for merely wilting.

 "Y-your names?"

 "Heero Yuy."

 "Chang Wu-fei"

Wu-fei let out an annoyed sigh as he and Heero left the nurses' station, leaving behind a flustered Nurse Hancock. "If that's the sort of person the Preventors hire for the med team, Barton doesn't have a chance."

"You trust Sally. She's on the med team."

"She's had a lot of field experience in the war."

Heero's eyes, though a stormy shade of blue, were as calm as the eye of a hurricane. His face was expressionless, but the close observer would note that his eyebrows were ever so slightly stitched together. Inside his head, thoughts and images were whirling at a chaotic pace. So much had happened since that morning, and a brief glance at the clock on a nearby wall showed that it was not yet noon. During the war in which they had all met, his thoughts had always been clear and his calculations, cold. But things had changed, including himself, and now the simplest path was at times obstructed by feelings and emotions he had finally allowed himself to feel. Heero accepted that everyone dies. It was a fact of life he was well familiar with. But he didn't like the idea of losing one of his first real friends ever, even if he would never admit to it aloud. 

They had been making their way to the part of the med area where they knew the critically injured were always taken and paused. Doctors and nurses in scrubs where walking in and out of swinging doors, some carrying equipment or charts. Since this was not a public facility, there was no way to view what was happening to the patients inside. Though neither would admit it to the other, the former gundam pilots felt like lost boys.

"Heero! Wu-fei! I was told I could find you two in here."

The said Preventors looked up as Sally Po walked into the conference room they had commandeered to wait in while Trowa was being attended. Realizing that they were going to be of no use to the med team, they had decided against returning to their room in the dormitory area of the Preventor's HQ and had informed the head nurse to give them whatever updates as they came in. They were also waiting for Lady Une to come and debrief them on how the mission had gone.

"Well?"

Sally would normally have had a pert reply to Heero's terseness, but under the circumstances, she remained somber.

"He's not doing too well at the moment. He lost a lot of blood before he got here," she glanced at their blood stained clothes before continuing. "I'll spare you the details, but he has a broken arm, multiple broken ribs which led to internal wounding, a broken leg, and the bullet wounds that the two of you would know of. Oh, and he seems to have a fever?" She looked questionably at the boys on that point.

Wu-fei filled her in, "He was coming down with something, we think."

Moving to take a seat at the table, she continued to look at them as she asked why he had gone on the mission if he had been sick.

"He said he felt fine."

"You know better than that, Heero." Sally knew these young men to be hard, but also knew that they would not pull stupid stunts. Then again, they were known to take extreme measures.

"He agreed to the mission during the briefing this morning. He said he was fine and was rather firm about not staying behind," Heero filled in.

"If he insisted he was fine, why do you say that he was coming down with something?"

"He didn't go through his morning workout routine." The way Heero said it, Sally felt as though this should be the biggest tip off in the world that something was wrong. She was one of the strongest believers in the abilities of these boys, but sometimes they were beyond even her own understanding. She shook her head to herself but composed herself as Wu-fei asked a question.

"How long before he's better?"

"The doctors are currently working to stabilize him now, but from there we'll just have to wait and see."

That didn't sound too hopeful coming from the woman who had worked against tight odds with the greatest of confidence. Sally sighed.

"We were wondering if we should inform his- sister, I believe it is. In case. You two have met her, correct? What do you think?"

At the mention of Catherine Bloom, Wu-fei's eyes darted to Heero. He had personally only spent a short amount of time at the circus with Trowa, but Heero had spent longer recovering under their care after he had self-destructed Wing. The woman was rather formidable, especially when it came to Trowa's safety. Heero's face darkened slightly before he raised his eyes to meet Wu-fei's.

"Well?" Wu-fei asked as Heero met his look.

"There's no need to worry her unnecessarily."

"Unnecessarily? Heero, this isn't like he'll be out of here any time soon." Sally did not understand what the young man was thinking. A sister would want to know if her brother was in danger, wouldn't she?

"She's easily excited, and doesn't really care much for the fact that he works for the Preventors as it is. She'd take the news better from someone she knew she could trust."

"Like?"

"Quatre."