Chapter Forty-three: Foolish Games

*Authors Note: This little section is pure angst between Heero*Chase and Ryuujin*Chase! I don't own the song "Foolish Games" that I use in here. It is sung/own by the talented Jewel. I highly recommend you go out now and buy the CD (that is AFTER you read Anna's and my stories!) Domo arigatou.*

Chase raced down the sidewalk with Quatre in tow. His eyes were trained on the young assassin as she ran with speed she had forgotten she held within her small frame.

They rounded the corner and Chase was the first to lay eyes on the scene before them. Blood was everywhere. It drenched the building, the ground, and the two men that lay lifelessly in the pooling crimson liquid.

Chase heard the young Arabian man reach her side and gasp, hands going to his mouth in fear, if not to hold back the nauseous feeling that the scene caused to well up inside of him.

"Trowa..."

The former pilot of the Gundam Galaxy came from the shocked silence first. "TROWA! RYUUJIN!" her voice ran through the quiet night air, breath showing in the chill. She found herself kneeling next to them before her mind registered she was moving towards them.

No life remained in Trowa Barton, but a slight spark remained in the blue haired swordsman.

"Chase...?" Quatre's voice sounded in her ears, uncertain. It was never suppose to end like this. They were family...Family...

"Call Heero," Chase heard herself command, hearing the assassin's tone creeping back into her voice. "Tell him to come here. Trowa's dead and Ryuujin needs help." She paused, allowing emotion to seep back in. "Tell him to hurry, Quatre."

The blond nodded and rushed off to do as the former assassin had commanded.

Brown coloured eyes took in the scene in more detail. She found Ryuujin's hand and gripped it, praying for life to stay with him.

Reflective blue eyes cracked open and attempted to focus on the woman leaning over him. He coughed, tasting his own blood. "Chase-chan..."

"You got yourself into quite a predicament, ne, Ryu-chan?"

He smiled weakly and reached a bloodied hand up to touch her pale face. "I had my reasons, Chase-chan," he assured her.

"And don't for a moment think you are going to get out of telling me them." He opened his mouth to speak, but she placed a finger to his lips, hushing him. "When you have the strength to do so, that is. For now, you'll rest until Heero comes to help us."

"Did I win?" the young swordsman asked quietly.

"Trowa's dead." She hadn't meant to sound so cold, not really.

Ryuujin's eyes seemed to acknowledge his understanding. "I can't say I'm sorry."

"I never asked you to. I did ask for you to rest though. I refuse to loose both of you, do you hear me?"

He nodded, a movement barely visible.

Chase frowned and sat down, pulling the blue haired man's head into her lap, attempting to make him as comfortable as possible. She would not loose them both. A tear slipped down her cheek.

Ryuujin reached up and caught it before it fell to the ground. "It would have happened sooner or later."

"I know. We're only human after all."

"I may not regret what I did, but I regret that it hurts you."

"Thank you, Ryu."

"He's on his way!" Quatre's called as he made his way around the corner. He stopped and looked at Ryuujin, unsure quite what to say or do.

Chase nodded her gratitude. "I think I hear the squeal of the tires," she whispered distantly.

She had, and Heero came flying out of the car once it was parked. No fear showed in his stone cold face, but the mask of a soldier rested on his handsome features. He stood over Ryuujin and Chase.

"Help me." This was a command, yet more like the ones she gave long ago. The command that was not meant to offend, but get something done.

"Hn," was his response as he leaned down and helped support the taller man's weight. Quatre came along the other side and together they eased the swordsman into the car.

Heero returned for Chase and Trowa's body.

"We can't leave him," the woman whispered.

"He's dead."

"His body, I mean. The least we can do is take him to Meg. He'll have a soldier's funeral." Her tone was dead. No emotion in the young pilot's voice had always made Heero uncomfortable. The lack of emotion in her dark eyes, though, frightened him more than he would admit. It was never safe for Chase Yuy not to voice her pains and sufferings.

"Yes, he will," her husband, promised.

Heero drove. He drove until he reached the entrance to Underground Tokyo. Then he drove in. He only stopped to enter and once they reached the hospital inside. All the time he kept his mask carefully in place.

Mirek was irate. "Anna will have a fit when she finds Chase down here!" he hissed.

"One:" Heero said in shaky English - it had been far too long and he was out of practice - "slow down. Two: Chase would have found out sooner or later. Anna knows that."

Mirek grumbled some colourful words under his breath.

Chase found herself sitting by Ryuujin's bedside. She frowned. He had been heavily drugged and was now sleeping peacefully. Now was when she wanted - needed - to talk.

"I loved him, ya know," she whispered, knowing he couldn't hear. "And I still do. Just like I still love you."

/You took your coat off

and stood in the rain

You were always crazy like that./



"But I can't love either of you like I love him. He was my first true love. If things had been different, Ryu, I could have loved you just the same. You simply came along after he took my heart. I didn't have it to give. I'm sorry...."

She smiled humorlessly. "See you around, Ryuujin. Maybe in another time we'd have been happy. Maybe." That said, the young assassin left the room.

Two reflective blue eyes slid open and he sighed. He'd lost her.

/I watched you from my window.

Always felt like I was outside, looking in on you./

Chase wandered the streets of the underground city. The normal curiosity that should have filled her was smothered by the dark mood she found herself in.

The blond woman soon found herself inside an empty church. Ironic. That was the last place she wanted to be. Her firm beliefs in God Above seemed worthless now. There had to be a time that He became fed up with someone like herself. Worthless to anything but spreading death wherever she went.

Her boots made no sound as she walked up the isle. She fingered the gun inside her jacket and finally removed it from its hiding place once she reached the front.

Kneeling down she played with the idea to see where the bullets lay in the chamber. She'd always seen Russian roulette to be a morbid game, but it seemed perfectly entertaining now.

/You were always the mysterious one

with dark eyes and careless hair

You were fashionably sensitive

but too cool to care/

"Doshite?" she demanded quietly. She'd never found herself angry with God before now. "Doshite?! You throw people back into my life to steal them away again? Why for just once can't it go right?!"

She spun the chamber again and raised it. Her thin fingers wrapped around it as if it would break in her grasp. Perhaps she was the one fragile in the hands of others. She'd never felt so fragile in all her years.

/You stood in my doorway with nothing to say

Besides some comment on the weather./

Two bullets, she looked to find. One was all it would take to escape, but wasn't that cowardly?

/Well in case you failed to notice

In case you failed to see

This is my heart bleeding before you

This is me down on my knees/

"Why?!" she screamed. "Don't You care? Are You even listening to me? Answer me, confound it!"

Silence greeted her. Unnerving silence. The crash of her gun being hurled across the sanctuary was the only noise. Tears streamed down her pale face as she screamed again. "You never answer me! Are You even there?"

/These foolish games are tearing me apart.

Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart.

You're breaking my heart./

She collapsed to the floor sobbing into her hands. Her whole body shook from the choked cries.

She felt two strong arms encircle her and the familiar presence of Heero Yuy filled her senses. "He's forgotten me," she whispered.

"No, He never has."

She laughed coldly. "You're one to talk of God. You don't even believe in Him."

"Things change. People change." He wiped her tears away.

/You were always brilliant in the morning.

Smoking your cigarettes

and talking over coffee./

Chase smiled slightly, but it soon turned into a thoughtful frown. "Things change..." she repeated quietly. "Too many. How can you kill one of your own?"

Heero winced slightly. She didn't know about Jack Avis yet. She didn't know how he had...

The smaller pilot clung to him, sobbing softly.

"You wanted to take it, didn't you?"

She blinked and looked up through questioning, tear-filled eyes.

/Your philosophies on art

Baroque moved you

You loved Mozart, and you'd speak of your loved ones

as I clumsily strummed my guitar./

"Your life," Heero said simply, eyes locked on the gun several feet away.

"Death's always knocking on my door. Sometimes I wish it would just come in and claim me."

"No, Chase," the Japanese man said firmly. "No."

"Yes. I want to get away from it all, Heero. It's all gone downhill. It's all…"

"So you'll run?"



/You'd teach me of honest things.

Things that were daring,

Things that were clean,

Things that knew what an honest dollar did mean./

"I can't handle it, Heero."

He pulled her closer. "Then let me help you, Chase. Please?"

She nodded. "When this war is over…"

"Let's build that bridge when we get to it, ne?"

"No. I need something to look forward to. When this is over, will I be at your side?"



1.1.1.1 /So I hid my soiled hands behind my back.

1.1.1.2 Somewhere along the line

I must have gone off track with you./

"If that's what you want," he replied slowly.

"It is."

"Then that's how it'll be."

Chase smiled and brushed a lock of hair out of her love's face.

1.1.1.3 /Excuse me

Think I've mistaken you for somebody else.

Somebody who gave a damn.

Somebody more like myself./

She leaned in and kissed him, a silent jester of love as well as thanks. No words had ever truly been needed between them.

"He heard me," she whispered.

"I know."

/You took your coat off and stood in the rain.

You were always crazy like that./