ICU = Intensive Care Unit

Chapter Six

"Mmm…yargh!"

"What?"

"My phone's vibrating."

"Turn it off."

"I'm doing that."

"Who was it?"

"Quatre. He was probably bored or something."

"Right." Pause. "Where were we?"

"Right here." Duo pulled Heero back into a deep open mouthed kiss, pushing him up against the wall where Heero had pinned him before. Neither of them took any notice of the now unmoving and silent phone that lay on the sink nearby, nor the person on the other end trying to frantically get a hold of the phone's owner.

"Shit! What the hell could he be doing?" The nurse shushed Trowa with a glare. "Sorry," he muttered. Trowa sighed and looked down at the unconscious boy lying beside him. /Gods, poor Quat. I can't believe that something like this has happened. I hope Iria gets here soon./

Mr. Weaver had sent another student out to find Trowa and Quatre after they didn't come back. Trowa had told her that he was taking Quatre to the nurse's office and then told her to tell Mr. Weaver and what had happened and to find Iria and tell her. Then he had tried to call Duo, remembering that he had a free period too, but he had turned his phone off.

Iria rushed into the room as the bell rang. Catherine was only moments behind with her schoolbooks. "Quatre!" She rushed to her brother's side. "What happened?" she demanded of Trowa with a sharp, yet pain-filled glare.

"He fainted," Trowa explained. "Wufei called him and told him that Dorothy was in Intensive Care."

"Oh no." Iria grasped her brother's hand. "Poor Quat, he must be so distraught." She looked up at Catherine. "Could you tell sensei what happened?" Catherine nodded and squeezed her friend's shoulder before heading out of the infirmary. Iria looked at the worried boy beside her brother. "Thank you Trowa. Could you maybe find Duo and the others and tell them for me? I would do it myself, but I want to be here for Quat."

"Sure … oh, and here's Quatre's phone. I tried calling Duo earlier, but couldn't reach him." Iria smiled and took it, then returned to staring worriedly at her brother's still form, not noticing Trowa's silent departure.

/Where could that loudmouth be?/ Trowa thought, not realising that he had P.E now and would see Duo there. He also had to find Relena and Hilde. Luckily for him, he spotted the two of them as they were walking toward the science labs.

"Relena, Hilde." The two girls stopped as he called their names and turned around, surprised at who was addressing them. "Quatre's in the infirmary and Wufei rang to say that Dorothy is in Intensive Care," he said bluntly, his thoughts still jumbled by all that had happened.

Relena whimpered and she started to cry silently, Hilde was shocked by the revelation. "What … how … Trowa, what happened?"

"I don't really know, Wufei said that she was in an accident and when he told Quatre, he fainted. Iria's with him now, but I have to find Duo." Trowa suddenly realised the state that Relena was in. "Relena? Are you all right?" he asked gently, knowing that his sister was very fragile when she looked like this.

She flung herself at him and buried her face him his chest sobbing violently. Trowa stared at her in horror, or as close to horror as his composed features could get. He looked at Hilde for help only to see she was close to tears also. "Maybe we should go to the infirmary." Hilde nodded, noticing that they had drawn a crowd.

With a swift explanation to the teacher, Hilde came close to running through the halls to the infirmary. Trowa walked at a slower pace, hindered as he was by the distraught Relena. Hilde stood behind Iria, gripping her shoulder in comfort while Relena threw herself into Iria's arms. The older girl took all of this in her stride and stroked Relena's hair in a comforting manner.

Trowa slipped out again, bent on finding Duo, however, he was halted in his quest by Midii running down the hall towards him. "Trowa! Where have you been! Mr. Daniels had to send me to find you!" Midii latched onto his arm. "Come on, let's get going."

"Midii, I have to find Duo."

"Oh, he'll show up to class eventually. Last I saw, he was playing b-ball with Heero." Midii whirled around as Trowa broke out of her grip. "Trowa where are you going? We have to get to class."

Trowa didn't answer, he just ran down the hall in the opposite direction. /With Heero? That's unexpected. Although, with the way he's been acting today the usual can't really be expected from him./ Trowa decided to check the bathrooms seeing as all the courts and hang-out areas around the school were empty or occupied by others.

Entering one bathroom, he heard noises and saw Heero's bag dumped by the entrance, along with another's. /Finally./ "Hey, Heero, have you seen—whuah!" Trowa stopped and stared wide-eyed at the sight that greeted him as he took a further step into the room. "Fuck! What is it with today? Are the gods trying to piss me off or torture me in some way?!"

Upon hearing his friend yell (the first few words being drowned out by his passionate actions), Heero pulled away from Duo and his oh-so-tempting lips and turned to face his frustrated friend with a shocked expression. "Trowa, look, I … uh … I can—"

"Don't bother." Trowa held a hand to his forehead. "I'm going to ignore this for now because there is something more important than the shock you two have just given me on my mind right now."

"What could that possibly be?" Duo was the only one who appeared less flustered, after all, he knew he was gay and his friends knew it and accepted it, he had no reason to be as nervous as the two friends were.

Trowa calmed himself at the sound of a rational voice. "I came to find you Duo. Quatre's in the infirmary, he's fainted from shock."

"What happened?" The tension in the atmosphere changed emotions, fear and worry now overcame the former air of nerves and lust.

"Wufei called him, Dorothy's in ICU."

Duo's eyes widened. "Shit. Gods, no, how could this happen?" He paced restlessly back and forth in the bathroom and stopped all of a sudden the whirled around quickly to face Trowa. "Hilde … Relena! Does Relena know?"

"Duo calm down," Heero placed his hands on Duo's shoulders in an effort to pacify him.

"Don't worry," Trowa told him, "I informed Relena and Hilde, they're with Iria in the infirmary."

"I've got to go see him." Duo dashed out of the bathroom before either boy could say a word.

"Is he going to be all right?" Heero grabbed his own bag and hoisted it onto his shoulders.

"Quatre? I hope so, I think everyone's just so worried about Dorothy and Quatre's reaction to it all. You can take your boyfriend's stuff with you to class." Heero glared at the smirking Trowa as he walked out of the bathroom to the gym. Heero followed

"I suppose you want to know all about it?"

"Later, I don't think P.E is the best place to be discussing bathroom antics." Heero glared at Trowa again, who had to try and suppress yet another smirk.

Mr. Daniels barely said a word to them when the finally showed up, twenty minutes late. Heero and Trowa got away with practically anything in P.E because of their athletic skills, but when they got on the soccer field and started playing one of the worst games Mr. Daniels had ever seen he yelled and sent them off immediately to run laps. Although both of them primarily played basketball, their skills in other sports were still fairly amazing. The other kids in the class started at them in shock as they passed by repeatedly, astonished that the two biggest jocks in the school had gotten in trouble in P.E for not playing well. When the bell finally went, they trudged back to the change room in a silence that was oppressive even for them.

"So, what's wrong with the amazing duo today?" Odin sneered at his friends as they entered. Heero looked up at the word 'duo' and glared at Odin. "Geez," he held up his hands innocence, "I didn't mean anything by it. So you two weren't perfect today, you should lighten up Heero."

"Odin, shut up." Trowa glared at his friend and turned away, not realising that the change room had gone completely silent at these unexpected words.

"You too Trowa? I know Heero gets moody all the time, so what's up your ass?"

"Just don't piss me off anymore today Odin." Trowa finished changing and walked out, oblivious to the shocked silence of everyone else. Heero finished off quickly and followed him. No one else moved an inch until they both left, then whispers broke out everywhere and stares were directed at Odin, who glared at his two retreating 'friends'.

They, of course, had no idea, but suspected something like that might happen.

To say Trowa was royally pissed would be the biggest understatement of the year. Nothing was normal today and things seemed to be going so wrong for him. First there was Odin and his attitude, then Heero was acting weird too, there was Quatre's incident, then one of the biggest shocks he had ever experienced in the bathroom, laps on the oval and still Odin seemed to be enjoying being a sadistic prick. Clearly someone up above was enjoying screwing up his day. At least, he hoped it was just today.

"Uh, Tro, you okay?" Even Heero, his least social and emotionally deficient friend had noticed his trauma.

"Peachy." Trowa watched people stream past him and Heero on their way to homeroom.

"Fuck, Tro, I know you're shocked—"

Trowa stopped walking and faced him, forcing a few people to walk around them as they were now standing in the middle of a hallway. "Heero, shocked is the mildest word I would use. Gods, I try to find Duo to tell him his friend is in the hospital and another in unconscious and find his tongue down your throat and you just as enthusiastic."

"You said you didn't have a problem with anything like that! I was about to tell you this morning, hell, I meant to ask your advice before it happened so you wouldn't be so shocked, but I didn't expect it to happen this fast. I don't even know what's happening. This day is just fucked." Heero ran his hand through his hair.

"Well, that pretty much sums up my thoughts." Trowa sighed and tried to gather his thoughts and calm down a bit. "Look, Heero, I don't have problem with … anything you do, I'm just really shaken up today. Can you just leave me alone for now?"

Heero nodded and walked off to his homeroom for roll call. Trowa walked in another direction to his own room.

True to his word, Heero didn't go near Trowa all recess. The silent boy sat away from the court wearing his usual mask of indifference, but Heero knew that Trowa was trying as hard as he could to work out, or at least suppress his frustration and confusion, not to mention all his other emotions that had surfaced suddenly. Heero had played with his other friends but stopped when he realised he wasn't playing his best. It was a combination of things that put him off, Trowa's absence from the game, his own lack of enthusiasm and his confusion at his own predicament.

He hadn't seen Duo either.

So he sat under a tree and watched the golden red leaves fall until the bell went. The he went off to a double period of maths.

Trowa was already in the classroom by the time he arrived. They were the first two there, to the obvious amazement of their teacher. Slowly, everyone else drifted in, Odin, Midii and Sally among them. The five 'friends' didn't say a word to each other, with the exception of Odin and Midii. Odin shot glares at both Heero and Trowa and whispered to Midii, who refused to look at the other two. Sally just sat in her seat, refusing to look at any of them. Truthfully, she liked Trowa and Heero more than Odin and Midii, but she still wasn't willing to risk her friendship with them while they were fighting with the two.

Everyone else in the classroom seemed to notice this too. Even those who weren't in the locker room for the disagreement between the friends knew something was up. The tension in the air quickly grew and there was an uncomfortable silence. Even Ms. Haruno noticed, after all, it was very unusual to have a silence in a maths class that wasn't interrupted by soft snores and the sounds of spitballs hitting various objects.

The fourth period bell went and shocked everyone in the room by breaking the strained quiet. There was a soft outbreak of whispers that Ms. Haruno didn't stop as she was also still unnerved by the quiet. Things seemed to go back to normal for a bit and the tension degree lowered a bit.

Then there was a knock on the door.

"Trowa, could you get that please?" Ms. Haruno asked. Trowa got up and opened the door then gasped.

"Quatre? Are you all right?" Trowa stood aside as Quatre entered the room slowly.

The blond boy smiled weakly. "I'm fine Trowa." The lie was so blatant it needn't be pointed out. He was still pale and his eyes were red-rimmed. "Iria's been fussing since I woke and so have Duo and Hilde. Relena hugged me so tight I think a few ribs are broken."

Quatre smiled again and walked past Trowa and handed Ms. Haruno a slip of paper. "Gomen sensei, I was in the infirmary."

"That's fine Quatre, take your seat and open your textbook to page 194."

"Hai. Oh, sensei? Ms. Pierce asked for you at the office."

"Thank you Quatre. Class, I'll return in five minutes, finish up to question three and when I return, we'll go over the answers." She left the room and more whispers broke out, the former tension in the room forgotten by the interruptions.

"Are you really okay?" Trowa searched Quatre's eyes for a lie as he sat down.

"I'll live," Quatre replied. "I've had that question thrown at me so many times since I've woken that I'm quite sick of it."

"Sorry," Trowa looked away and was about to return to his seat but was stopped by Quatre's words.

"Don't be. And thank you for your help, I appreciate it." Trowa turned and smiled at him, then walked towards his own seat again.

"Hey Winner, I heard your girlfriend's in hospital. Did someone finally get sick of her snotty attitude and take her out?" Everyone went silent at Midii's words.

"Midii, don't be a bitch." Sally had had enough of Midii and Odin's attitude all lesson.

"Who asked for your opinion Sally?" Odin threw in viciously. He looked over at Quatre and sneered. "So, I was right after all. You're such a pansy you need girls to stick up for you."

Both Trowa and Heero made angry moves towards Odin, more like ferocious, but Trowa got there first and connected a fierce right hook with Odin's jaw. "Fucking prick," he spat.

"What are you, his knight in shining armour?" By this time, Heero had reached the two and swung at Odin, missing his nose by a fraction and grazing his cheek.

"Watch it Odin," Heero warned. "Your mouth and attitude are gonna get you in trouble some day."

"It'll be worth it seeing you squirm, fag." Odin smirked as Heero's eyes widened in shock, but it was soon wiped away by Trowa's fist.

Trowa was about to strike him again when Ms. Haruno's furious voice interrupted. "What the hell is going on here?!"