Chapter Forty-five: Day for the Dead
"Are you sure I'm not going to do damage doing this?" Anna asked as she clung to the IV stand, afraid to attempt the walk that Meg was suggesting.
Meg sighed patiently. "You're a doctor. You tell me."
Anna mumbled something in a language that Meg didn't understand and stood carefully. "I'll live. Why is this so important?"
"You'll see. We don't have long. I called Chase this morning to tell her you were awake. They'll be here in fifteen minutes or so."
The more than slightly confused ex-Star pilot followed in Meg's wake, down the hall to the elevator, and to the ICU unit. The coroner led her down to the private ICU rooms and stopped in front of the door that was marked '102'. Meg leaned against it and faced Anna.
"I broke one of our rules from college."
Anna blinked. "Rules? Oh, yes. Let's see if I remember.one, never get involved with a patient. Two, never second guess yourself, and three was never play God." She said.
Meg nodded. "I broke number three."
Anna's suspicions from the night before resurfaced. "How?"
Meg opened the door and stepped inside. Anna followed slowly, afraid of what she was going to find there. The only noise she made was the squeaking of the wheels on her IV bar.
At first, she didn't understand what Meg had done. She stared at the figure on the bed, uncomprehending. Then she gasped as her memory kicked in.
/"Trowa, promise me, promise me you'll tell them," "You have to. Promise me, please."/
"Jack Avis." Anna breathed. "How in the name of love."
Meg shifted her stance a little as she stared at her patient. "When Heero and I went to Germany, we had to stop at Dr. J's old lab to pick up some medication for a prisoner who needed a stimulant. I found the drug that he used to bring back Heero and Duo."
"Meg," Anna whispered, drawing closer to the boy on the bed, "Meg he'd been dead for almost two days."
"Bodies keep for up to twelve days, you know that. He'll be fine, given adequate time to heal. It was a well-aimed bullet. He won't be able to be as athletic as he was before, but it shouldn't impede him too much."
"Would he be able to pilot a gundam?" Anna asked absently.
"I don't know. I don't know how much of a physical toll that would take. Why?"
/Because we'll need someone else, now./ Anna thought. "I was just curious." She said softly.
"I thought they were all destroyed, anyway."
"They'll have to be rebuilt. They don't fight wars without Gundams anymore." Anna said.
Meg nodded. "There's something else I have to show you."
Anna touched Jack's cheek lightly. "You'll have to tell us now, Jack." She whispered.
She followed Meg out of the room and further down the hall.
"Meg, this is the wing for people who are inevitably dying." Anna said.
"I know." The coroner stopped in front of another door. Anna's heart dropped to her stomach as she read the number. Meg took a deep breath and opened the door. Anna stepped in, inhaled shakily, and paled considerably.
"My God." She choked out. "Meg how could you? You should have left him dead, for pity's sake."
"I know. But I had to get rid of the formula, Anna. It was too dangerous to keep."
"That's why you flush it down the toilet!" Anna hissed. "Did you even consider the irreparable amount of damage he'll have?"
"Understand, it was something I had to do. You don't know what it's like to take dead flesh and make it live again. It's something unexplainable."
"And better left for God." Anna said. It was hard for even to look at the mutilated form of Trowa Barton, hooked to multiple machinery, and hard to listen to the raspy sound of the respirator as it pumped air in and out of his lungs. "Does he have brain activity?"
"Yes."
Anna ran a hand through her unruly curls. "Damn."
"He may or may not survive. Like you said, there's extensive damage." Meg met Anna's gaze. Anna nodded at the unspoken request there.
"We tell no one until we're sure one way or the other." Anna said. "I just don't know what you're going to do when they want to bury him."
Anna and Meg left the semi-silent room of Trowa Barton and made their way back to Anna's room.
"I'm not sorry I did it." Meg said quietly.
"I hope so. I hope so." Anna replied.
They were about to enter her room when Chase and company got off the elevator.
"Chase!" Anna called, grinning.
"Anna!"
The two girls embraced, grinning and laughing.
"Anna no baka.next you want to go undercover tell me, ne?"
Anna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, next time."
They released each other and Anna hugged Quatre, who was standing behind the smaller American girl. Anna kissed the side of his head.
"You okay?" she murmured.
"Yeah." The blonde Arabian whispered. "You?"
"Yeah."
They parted and Anna lifted her gaze and froze. She stared past Heero, Wufei, and Mirek to the man behind them. Everyone looked that way and Meg raised an eyebrow.
"I forgot to mention him."
Ocean blue eyes locked with violet ones and the world came to a screeching halt for Anna. /Oh, God, don't do this to me again. I can't do this again./ was all she could think before she collapsed.
In a room down the hall, Ryuujin's eyes snapped open. A pained expression filled them, before becoming dispassionate. He had failed. There would be no compensation for that. When they came to look for him next, he would be gone.
Because in the end, he would triumph.
Ocean blue eyes fluttered open and were instantly met by dark brown ones. Anna smiled up at her friend.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING COLLAPSING LIKE THAT?! YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH!!!"
Anna backed away as best as she could in the bed. "Go. Gomen ne, Chase- chan," she managed, attempting not to laugh at her fuming friend's face. Her face then turned serious as Duo stepped up behind Chase's small form. "Duo."
Chase glanced back over her shoulder, smiled, and winked at her friend. "I'll give you two some time, ne?"
Anna wanted to protest as Chase Yuy left the room, leaving her and Duo alone. Violet eyes connected with blue ones. "Duo." Why was that all she could say? Why couldn't she force her mouth to obey her commands. He was dead, wasn't he? Didn't Cavel, Heero, and Ryuujin all see the sight of him being shot down. Didn't Meg do an autopsy? How could he be standing there, very much alive?
Apparently the Shinagami was fumbling for words as well. Anna motioned for him to move closer, and he knelt by her bed. She reached out a shaky hand to his face. "You're alive. Again."
"You can't kill death."
Anna laughed out loud, then stopped. "Naze?"
"They have some very good technology in the field of disguise now," Duo responded, lopsided grin appearing on his face. "I'm glad to have you back, tenshi."
Chase was leaning on the wall in the lobby. Waiting had never been something she enjoyed. Patience had never been something that came easy. She rubbed her hands together, the quick movements stealing the cold from them and warming them. Her dark eyes scanned the lobby. Quatre was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest in one of the chairs. Wufei and Cavel were on the opposite side of the small waiting room. Wufei was tapping his foot impatiently on the carpet. Mirek was stretched out on a bench chair, sleeping. Heero was leaning on the opposite wall.
His dark eyes opened to meet hers. He was across the distance between them before she could blink, and took her in his arms. She smiled into his green colored shirt and wrapped her arms around his torso. "Ai shiteru," she whispered.
"Come on," he responded as he let her go and started for the elevator.
She followed him down to the entrance of the hospital and they stepped outside. He leaned up against the wall and looked up at the artificial lights. They were clouded over slightly, just like outside. The cold was not completely artificial though, and it bit into his thin shirt. "This is far from over," he muttered.
Chase pulled her jean jacket closer around her slim shoulders, hoping for warmth to come with it. "Victor's dead."
"And whoever was over him and his operations is alive."
Chase nodded, her dark eyes looking up to her husband's. There was a determination in them that Heero recognized from the old days. The days when she had been an assassin first and everything else next. The days that were not as far behind him as he had once though. On the contrary, they were still ahead of them.
"Then I will kill whoever that person is," the American woman said simply. "I will make them pay for what they've done to us." She clenched her bare hands into fists. "They will pay for what they've cost us." She smiled a smirk that Heero recognized. Something that many of the OZ soldiers had feared during the war. "They will pay for their multiple evils."
(A/N: Aku.Zoku.San. *giggles uncontrollably in the most evil giggle she can muster * Gomen!! I had to say that!! Some of the readers might not even get it. Lol. Oh well. ^_^ I'm very sorry for the wait ya'll have had on this chapter and the next. _ I'm very lazy during the summer and I'm working on rewriting The Three Beats of War, Peace, and Revolution, Gundam Girls, AND working on my mangas. @_@ I will go to Japan and sell them yet! Confound it!! Btw, this is Chase-chan if you hadn't figured that out by now with the ranting style. Lol. Enjoy! ^_-)
"Are you sure I'm not going to do damage doing this?" Anna asked as she clung to the IV stand, afraid to attempt the walk that Meg was suggesting.
Meg sighed patiently. "You're a doctor. You tell me."
Anna mumbled something in a language that Meg didn't understand and stood carefully. "I'll live. Why is this so important?"
"You'll see. We don't have long. I called Chase this morning to tell her you were awake. They'll be here in fifteen minutes or so."
The more than slightly confused ex-Star pilot followed in Meg's wake, down the hall to the elevator, and to the ICU unit. The coroner led her down to the private ICU rooms and stopped in front of the door that was marked '102'. Meg leaned against it and faced Anna.
"I broke one of our rules from college."
Anna blinked. "Rules? Oh, yes. Let's see if I remember.one, never get involved with a patient. Two, never second guess yourself, and three was never play God." She said.
Meg nodded. "I broke number three."
Anna's suspicions from the night before resurfaced. "How?"
Meg opened the door and stepped inside. Anna followed slowly, afraid of what she was going to find there. The only noise she made was the squeaking of the wheels on her IV bar.
At first, she didn't understand what Meg had done. She stared at the figure on the bed, uncomprehending. Then she gasped as her memory kicked in.
/"Trowa, promise me, promise me you'll tell them," "You have to. Promise me, please."/
"Jack Avis." Anna breathed. "How in the name of love."
Meg shifted her stance a little as she stared at her patient. "When Heero and I went to Germany, we had to stop at Dr. J's old lab to pick up some medication for a prisoner who needed a stimulant. I found the drug that he used to bring back Heero and Duo."
"Meg," Anna whispered, drawing closer to the boy on the bed, "Meg he'd been dead for almost two days."
"Bodies keep for up to twelve days, you know that. He'll be fine, given adequate time to heal. It was a well-aimed bullet. He won't be able to be as athletic as he was before, but it shouldn't impede him too much."
"Would he be able to pilot a gundam?" Anna asked absently.
"I don't know. I don't know how much of a physical toll that would take. Why?"
/Because we'll need someone else, now./ Anna thought. "I was just curious." She said softly.
"I thought they were all destroyed, anyway."
"They'll have to be rebuilt. They don't fight wars without Gundams anymore." Anna said.
Meg nodded. "There's something else I have to show you."
Anna touched Jack's cheek lightly. "You'll have to tell us now, Jack." She whispered.
She followed Meg out of the room and further down the hall.
"Meg, this is the wing for people who are inevitably dying." Anna said.
"I know." The coroner stopped in front of another door. Anna's heart dropped to her stomach as she read the number. Meg took a deep breath and opened the door. Anna stepped in, inhaled shakily, and paled considerably.
"My God." She choked out. "Meg how could you? You should have left him dead, for pity's sake."
"I know. But I had to get rid of the formula, Anna. It was too dangerous to keep."
"That's why you flush it down the toilet!" Anna hissed. "Did you even consider the irreparable amount of damage he'll have?"
"Understand, it was something I had to do. You don't know what it's like to take dead flesh and make it live again. It's something unexplainable."
"And better left for God." Anna said. It was hard for even to look at the mutilated form of Trowa Barton, hooked to multiple machinery, and hard to listen to the raspy sound of the respirator as it pumped air in and out of his lungs. "Does he have brain activity?"
"Yes."
Anna ran a hand through her unruly curls. "Damn."
"He may or may not survive. Like you said, there's extensive damage." Meg met Anna's gaze. Anna nodded at the unspoken request there.
"We tell no one until we're sure one way or the other." Anna said. "I just don't know what you're going to do when they want to bury him."
Anna and Meg left the semi-silent room of Trowa Barton and made their way back to Anna's room.
"I'm not sorry I did it." Meg said quietly.
"I hope so. I hope so." Anna replied.
They were about to enter her room when Chase and company got off the elevator.
"Chase!" Anna called, grinning.
"Anna!"
The two girls embraced, grinning and laughing.
"Anna no baka.next you want to go undercover tell me, ne?"
Anna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, next time."
They released each other and Anna hugged Quatre, who was standing behind the smaller American girl. Anna kissed the side of his head.
"You okay?" she murmured.
"Yeah." The blonde Arabian whispered. "You?"
"Yeah."
They parted and Anna lifted her gaze and froze. She stared past Heero, Wufei, and Mirek to the man behind them. Everyone looked that way and Meg raised an eyebrow.
"I forgot to mention him."
Ocean blue eyes locked with violet ones and the world came to a screeching halt for Anna. /Oh, God, don't do this to me again. I can't do this again./ was all she could think before she collapsed.
In a room down the hall, Ryuujin's eyes snapped open. A pained expression filled them, before becoming dispassionate. He had failed. There would be no compensation for that. When they came to look for him next, he would be gone.
Because in the end, he would triumph.
Ocean blue eyes fluttered open and were instantly met by dark brown ones. Anna smiled up at her friend.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING COLLAPSING LIKE THAT?! YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH!!!"
Anna backed away as best as she could in the bed. "Go. Gomen ne, Chase- chan," she managed, attempting not to laugh at her fuming friend's face. Her face then turned serious as Duo stepped up behind Chase's small form. "Duo."
Chase glanced back over her shoulder, smiled, and winked at her friend. "I'll give you two some time, ne?"
Anna wanted to protest as Chase Yuy left the room, leaving her and Duo alone. Violet eyes connected with blue ones. "Duo." Why was that all she could say? Why couldn't she force her mouth to obey her commands. He was dead, wasn't he? Didn't Cavel, Heero, and Ryuujin all see the sight of him being shot down. Didn't Meg do an autopsy? How could he be standing there, very much alive?
Apparently the Shinagami was fumbling for words as well. Anna motioned for him to move closer, and he knelt by her bed. She reached out a shaky hand to his face. "You're alive. Again."
"You can't kill death."
Anna laughed out loud, then stopped. "Naze?"
"They have some very good technology in the field of disguise now," Duo responded, lopsided grin appearing on his face. "I'm glad to have you back, tenshi."
Chase was leaning on the wall in the lobby. Waiting had never been something she enjoyed. Patience had never been something that came easy. She rubbed her hands together, the quick movements stealing the cold from them and warming them. Her dark eyes scanned the lobby. Quatre was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest in one of the chairs. Wufei and Cavel were on the opposite side of the small waiting room. Wufei was tapping his foot impatiently on the carpet. Mirek was stretched out on a bench chair, sleeping. Heero was leaning on the opposite wall.
His dark eyes opened to meet hers. He was across the distance between them before she could blink, and took her in his arms. She smiled into his green colored shirt and wrapped her arms around his torso. "Ai shiteru," she whispered.
"Come on," he responded as he let her go and started for the elevator.
She followed him down to the entrance of the hospital and they stepped outside. He leaned up against the wall and looked up at the artificial lights. They were clouded over slightly, just like outside. The cold was not completely artificial though, and it bit into his thin shirt. "This is far from over," he muttered.
Chase pulled her jean jacket closer around her slim shoulders, hoping for warmth to come with it. "Victor's dead."
"And whoever was over him and his operations is alive."
Chase nodded, her dark eyes looking up to her husband's. There was a determination in them that Heero recognized from the old days. The days when she had been an assassin first and everything else next. The days that were not as far behind him as he had once though. On the contrary, they were still ahead of them.
"Then I will kill whoever that person is," the American woman said simply. "I will make them pay for what they've done to us." She clenched her bare hands into fists. "They will pay for what they've cost us." She smiled a smirk that Heero recognized. Something that many of the OZ soldiers had feared during the war. "They will pay for their multiple evils."
(A/N: Aku.Zoku.San. *giggles uncontrollably in the most evil giggle she can muster * Gomen!! I had to say that!! Some of the readers might not even get it. Lol. Oh well. ^_^ I'm very sorry for the wait ya'll have had on this chapter and the next. _ I'm very lazy during the summer and I'm working on rewriting The Three Beats of War, Peace, and Revolution, Gundam Girls, AND working on my mangas. @_@ I will go to Japan and sell them yet! Confound it!! Btw, this is Chase-chan if you hadn't figured that out by now with the ranting style. Lol. Enjoy! ^_-)
