By: Jupiter
Chapter Three: Fehler (Shortcomings)
Quatre placed a soothing hand on his shoulders as the rain drenched the pair.
Devastation surrounded the two on all sides. Piles of rubble and dead bodies were strewn about in a wicked fashion. Here and there paramedics worke trielessly, digging through the crubpled building, searching heroically for the living.
The impact of the explosion had hit a building to the east of the auditorium, blowing out windows and causeing half of it's roof to cave in.
Dust still settled betweein the rain drops in the area Duo eyed half-heartedly.
He gritted his teeth angrily.
"Calm down Duo, I'm sure everything is going to be alright," Quatre said, trying to sound convincing.
"Does this ook alright to you?!" Duo bellowed, spreding his arms to encompass the massacre.
"There was nothing ou could do Duo," Quatre tried to comfort the upset pilot, but to no avail.
"Yes there was!" Duo's voice grew louder with every word, echoing through the valley. He set of cunning carefully over and between the messes of stone and wood, screaming forHilde and Relena.
-------
Wufei leaned against a delapitated wall, pale and shaken. Slowly, he slid down so he was sitting in mud and debris. The rain was falling so hard and fast that the droplets felt like tiny daggers piercing his flesh, tearing it as his cold blood seaped down him in minute, mourning streams.
Sirens sounded from every direction. Fire trucks roared past, while ambulances teemed forth. Law enforcement officers were questioning an one they could get a hold of. Nobody, it seemed, knew anything.
Why hadn't Lady Une questioned the invitation more? She should have known. Why hadn't he figured it out before this unfortunate incident had to occur. If Meiran had not come, he very well might have. She was distracting him.
"THat's no excuse!" He growled to himself. "You cannot blame your short-comings on that woman!"
"What woman?" Sally asked, stooping beside him, reluctant to site in the brown, goopy mud.
Wufei paled further.
-------
Relena sat in the hotel with the television on, watching the disaster coverage.
Lady had gone to rerally her preventors. Heero loomingly blocked the open doorway.
"I would like to at least help," she voiced when the repression of doing nothing became to overwhelming.
"There's no use," Heero said sternly, but gently. "They already have enough people working. You'd only be in the way Princess."
Relena shot him a cold glare, he looked back, slightly amused. He'd insulted her, he knew, but it was as if she was mimicking him--glaring like that.
"Why are you here Heero?" Relena demanded, switching off the television.
"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not Heero?"
"Well, who are you then?" She demanded even more fiercly. Becoming frustrated, she marched up to him. Less than a foot away she narrowed her eyes and stared intently into his cold, hard, ice blue eyes, searching for even a reluctant hint of the Heero she knew.
'Heero, I know it's you,' she thought. 'I know those eyes, but why do you keep hiding?'
"Heero..." Relena said.
"My name," Heero said a bit shakely, "Is not Heero Yuy anymore. My name is Odin Lowe."
Relena stepped back, stdying him even mire intently.
'What are you running from Heero?' She thought, offering her hand to the stranger before her.
"My name is Relena Dorilan. It's been a pleasure meetin you Mr. Lowe, but now, if you'll excuse me, I must get down to the University to--"
Relena attempted maneuvering past the tall, muscular frame blocking the doorway to her suite. He grabbed the back of her arm and pulled her back aggressivley, closing the door.
"I can't let you do that Relena," he said, perhaps gripping her more firmly than necessary. She looked up at him with her soulful violet eyes. She was confused and surprised, but the boy held who held her could not find the slightest hint of fear hiding in her expression.
-------
Quatre tried relentlessly to keep up with the rampaging Duo. Instead of following Duo's mad path through the wreckage, he took to asking the rescuers if they had perhaps spied their quarry.
Eventually, the pair worked their way to the street where the ambulances and firetrucks were assembled. Duo was aobut to explode and suggested he pillage the ambulances since he hadn't found anything else.
"Duo, you have to calm down. Panicking like this is not going to help matters," Quatre said gently.
"How can I saty calm at a time like this?"
"Look, Duo, let's be reasonable, how about you go sit down while I talk to the EMTs. I can see if they've found anything."
Duo sighed and looked around. "If you think it'll accomplish anything...." he said reluctantly and turned away from Quatre with two small worry lines between his brows.
-------
Wufei scowled at his knees while Salle dinteragated him. He was getting frustrated with her annoying questions. She had tired with his aggravating lack of adequate answers. He would only grunt and scowl or shake his head.
The rain had started to retreat, allowing the sun to peek through the tumultuous clouds, creating small rainbows over the oily, wet (and sometimes bloody) puddles of muck.
"You have so many secrets all of a sudden Wufei," Sally was exasperated.
"Now is not a t time to worry about oneself," he said coldly, standing suddenly. "especially not about one that is not wounded. As you can see, I am not wounded. There," Wufei pointed to the siren equipped vehicles, "are your casulties. Go the them Doctor." Wufei turned down the street, following the endless trail of ambulances.
Sally stood, watching after him with a hurt expression covering her face. She was only concerned for him, so why was he pushing her away now?
Wufei walked on, determined to follow the river of emergency response vehicles to the hospital where Meiran was.
"I knew I shouldn't have let her come..." he griped as he rounded a corner, his eyes on his feet. From the street, a horn honked. Starteled, Wufei looked up to see a long, purple limo pull up beside him.
Quatre rolled down his electronic window, smiling. Duo sat to his left, his head in his hands, cursing himself also.
"It looks like you're heading in the same direction we are," Quatre said. "Would you like a ride Wufei?"
Wufei looked at Quatre, then past him to Duo, who was brimming with remorse. His heart pulled at him and he nodded in response.
-------
Back in the preventor's van, PalLegion sat, monitering the activities outside over a small black and white screen.
A groan was heard from the man on the floor. Legion glanced over and smiled cruelly as Preventor Judas sat up, massaging his temples and groaning painfully.
"Good morning," Legion joked.
"What the hell happened in there?" Judas demanded.
"We got a bit of an aftershock from your blasts. You, my friend, recieved the gift of a nap, compliments of a gargantuin chunk of sheet rock."
The two sat, watching the monitor, as the people outside hurried about the clean up operation. They watched wufei walk in front of the camera.
Wonder what's wrong with him," Legion thought alound.
"There is always something bothering that one."
The duo's laughing was cut short when the sliding door to the van opened. Lady Une stood there menacingly, the delayed visions on the monitor reflecting in her round glasses.
-----
Siren
Stop
Move. Silence.
Siren.
Stop.
THe three gundam pilots rode on in silence, stopping and starting, allowing the ambulance to pass.
Duo glared at his hands, scowling out the window every few seconds.
At last, Wufei could take it no longer.
"She's alright." he said.
Duo looked up in surprise.
"She only suffered a broken arm and some other minor injuries."
Duo and Quatre looked confused. Duo glared through the window which connected the driver's compartment to the passenger's. He wanted to drill a hole through the driver's head as the car again pulled over.
"But how do you know Wufei? The paramedics didn't even remember her."
"I aided her and Me-her friend."
"Is that where the blood on your uniform came from?" Quatre asked. Wufei nodded.
Duo's ears perked further.
"Her friend was n much worse shape. I had to carry her out. I'm not surprised they did not pay Hilde as much mind."
' Duo looked at the floor of the car again. Wufei's news had not yet taken affect on his disposition.
"Well, are you not somewhat relieved?" Wufei asked.
"You don't know what it's like to think that you've lost someone you love," Suo said bitterly to Wufei.
Immediately Wufei's eyes hardened. He could no longer look at Duo. He watched the hospital grow before him and the limo stopped.
"Be careful Duo," the driver said, turning around and removing his hat. "Things aren't always as they seem.
The three pilots were stunned at the sight of the brunette man with funny bangs.
"Trowa!" Quatre criedin delighted surprise.
-------
The clock ticked in the hotel room.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.... it ticked the seconds away.
Relena sat silently in a chair next to a table. Heero sat on the table's other side. The pair glared at each other, waiting for someone to change the orders.
Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven....
-----
The buzz of the hear monitor echoed along with the foot steps of the nurses in the hallway. Meiran's IV's dripped in unison, creating another disturbing, but necessary noise so that she may recover.
Wufei breather heavily, his warm breath pouring over his hands, which were clenched beneath his nose. He synchronized his breathing with the rising and falling of Meiran's chest.
He'd already read her charts, whcih were carelessly left behind by her doctors. One of her lungs had collapsed, cause her chest cavity to fill with air. It was doing so when he found her. She had broked a rib and cracked two otheres. Her left arm had been cut deeply, requiring twenty stitches. Meiran's right leg harbored a spiral break, circling from her ankle to just under her knee. There was a gash in her head, swen up by five stitches and six staples. On top of everything else, she had lost deadly amounts of blood.
THe docotrs had cleaned the blood from her face and arms, but her hair still held matted bits here and there. Wufei eyed his clothes and hands, looking over the dried blood that created somewhat of a seconde skin. Quickly he went to ccleanse himself of the red stains.
-----
"Duo!" Hilde screeched as they embraced. He looked her over, checking the cast and the stitches on her hairline.
"You're alright then?" she asked when he had finished.
"Not a scratch, just worried..... How's your friend?
"Meilun is being taken care of. I haven't sen her since we go seperated."
"Wufei said he helped you two."
SHe nodded. "Meilun might have died otherwise," Hilde looked to the floor, mourning her friend, even though Meiran was still very much alive. I just wish we know who's responsible."
Duo nodded in agreement, thinking back over the past few weeks. He searched for peculiar situation that might give clues to the perpatraitors.
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, trembling. Hilde laid a hand on him sympathectically. "What is it?"
"I think I have an idea of who it was," he said in a distand tone.
-------
Nothing about Meiran's condtion seem to change as Wufei stood watch over her bedside. The heart monitor still buzzed and chirped, the nurses still scurried about, and the IV's still dripped simultaneously.
"You just cam home Onna," Wufei whispered to Meiran, place a hand on her flushed cheeks. "You can't leave me yet Meiran, not yet--not again."
So yeah, it's a corny place to end the chapter. But isn't it fun? Yeah, that's what I thought. Not that great is it...
Wufei: Really, why did you have to go and bring her back for?
I'm sorry, it seemed to me that you needed to have a little bit of a stir up.
Wufei: At the same time as a large scale rebellion?! You are insane woman, no idea of how a man works.
I think I have a bit of an idea.
Wufei: You truly have no idea what you are doing.
Duo: Oh, Wufei you know you're just jealous because Jupiter and I have a decent relationship.
Duo!!
Duo: What?
Duo, you just made it sound as if we were dating. You know that's not true.
Duo: Sorry, forgot about Him... Jupiter, two years with the same guy....never woulda thought it...
Wufei: Baka...I am not jealous. I have a decent relationship.
Duo: Then why don't you show us how you feel about your bedridden lover?
Duo...
Duo: What?! Wufei: You have to be patient baka. Still, it's up to the Onna over there to make that happen.
I don't know whether I should feel insulted or honored.
Wufei: I should say neither...
Well, you called me Onna, which is a term I have you use for Meiran, only, you normally use it in a sentimental way. You say woman when you want to be insulting, but for me, you said onna in an insulting way... Interesting... You also just gave me the power to do whatever I wish...
Wufei: Women!
Duo: If you can do whatever you want than you could kill Meiran.
Wufei: Injustice!
Don't worry Wufei, if I did that, I wouldn't have a story anymore.
Duo: You could just write dialogs, there more fun anyway.
Wufei: Idiot...*shakes head*